Functional Medicine and Nutrition To The Rescue
It’s not unusual for a patient to go to their medical doctor with complaints of fatigue, insomnia, chronic aching and stiffness, lack of appetite, lack of libido, depression, irritability and so forth. These types of complaints make up a large portion of patients visits to doctors.
Medical doctors in good conscience, do whatever medical tests they have available to try and identify the causes of these complaints. On occasion the underlying cause is a disease, which is bad news. But more often than not the doctor’s tests come back negative and the patient is told that there is nothing wrong with them. This is both good and bad news for the patient. At least they don’t have some terrible disease, but on the other hand they have no solution either.
There is a new area of medicine emerging called “functional medicine”. Functional medicine is an attempt to look at how well your body is functioning as opposed to whether or not you have a disease. In functional medicine we test your nutritional status with regard to cellular levesl of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, essential fatty acids and more. We also look at your level of toxicity. If your body full of toxins that are interfering with biochemical processes like energy production?
Nutritional deficiencies and high levels of toxins are being found to underlie many of the complaints that take patients to their doctors. Complaints like fatigue, depression, chronic aching and stiffness, rashes–the list goes on and on.
I have been doing nutritional and toxicity testing for 28 years. There is one toxicity test that I often use. Let me tell you the story of one of my patients to give you an idea of how this works.
The patient came in saying that he was suffering tremendous fatigue. By the time he got home from work he was exhausted and had to take a nap. Sometimes he slept through the evening, missing dinner. On a good day he slept about an hour when he got home from work and then got up, helped make dinner, and talked to his wife a little bit and then go to bed.
This person had worked (and continued to work) in a factory that made bullets. He didn’t work in the area where the bullets were made, but in the office that managed the operation.
Still, as a matter of course, because of the presence of lead in the factory, everyone’s blood was tested every six months for lead toxicity. He had had these tests every six months for eight years. They didn’t show any problem. Still over this eight year period he had experienced the onset of fatigue that continued to worsen and worsen and worsen.
When he came in for his appointment and told me his story, I knew that the problem was lead toxicity, in spite of the fact that his testing had shown otherwise.
Instead of testing blood, I did a urine test. First I gave him a supplement to take for three days. The supplement was designed to any heavy metals in his tissues into the blood where they would be excreted into his urine. I knew that the body tries to keep toxins (including heavy metals) out of the bloodstream. It does so because toxins in the bloodstream are carried to the brain, and the body does whatever it can to protect the brain.
When the results of his urinalysis came back, it showed a very high level of lead in his body’s tissues, just as I suspected. I put him on a detoxification program and within 3-4 months his fatigue levels had dropped 50%. After six months of treatment he described his energy level as being “normal”.
If you’re looking for ways to feel better, or just to maintain your health, your should check out my clinic in St. Louis Park. I am one of a few St. Louis Park chiropractors who does holistic treatments. If you’d like to ask me a question please call me at 952-934-0525.
In the video below Dr. Mittag talks about using natural remedies for relief of chronic pain.
https://youtu.be/cFms50bnSMQ