I Started Seeing a Functional Medicine Doctor - Here’s What Happened
DISCLAIMER: This post should not be used as medical advice and you should always consult your doctor before taking any supplements or making changes to your diet. I don’t say this only to protect myself, it’s also to protect you! This is simply a retelling of my own experience with functional medicine!
Same top, different people.
Left: April 2021, two months postpartum and with horrible hair breakage following a traumatic hair coloring experience.
Right: April 2022, 14 months postpartum with hair looking MUCH better. Just before starting my functional medicine journey.
SHOP THE POST
When I found out I was pregnant in June of 2020, one of the first things I did was find a new OB/GYN. Because I got pregnant during the height of the COVID pandemic and quarantine times, doctor’s offices were doing weird shit to expectant mothers like telling them they couldn’t have their partner join for ultrasound appointments (to say nothing of not allowing partners in the hospital during delivery, fuck!). Such was the case with my gynecologist at the time, so I had to make the rounds and find a different doctor who would allow my child’s father to be in the room during one of the more emotional milestones in a person’s life. Like…I know we were doing the best with what we knew, but jesus fucking christ, ya know?!?!? Tests were available by this point, masks were widely used. Idk - it’s not like I was super attached to my lady doctor or anything, but I ended up going to a place that allowed partners to join ultrasound appointments that was a 30-minute drive each way instead of around the block because of this dumb shit. And that shit gets real old by the time you hit the weekly visit cadence toward the end, let me tell you.
ANYWAY. I’ve been fortunate to be generally healthy throughout my life. My only experience with doctors up to my pregnancy was the occasional sick visit for strep throat or some other disgusting communicable disease children spread to one another, or my annual women’s exams. Suffice it to say, I didn’t have much of an opinion of the medical industry because I simply didn’t have any real exposure to it. Plus, like, doctors are smart, right? I mean they go to so much fucking school, they’ve gotta be doing a good job, surely?
Almost immediately, I realized my OB/GYN appointments weren’t so much about my health, but rather for finding the many fun ways I could be sick. Luckily, my pregnancy was uneventful and, by modern western medicine standards, healthy. My baby was doing all the normal shit and I didn’t have gestational diabetes (which like, wow, how?!), so in the doctor’s mind, there was nothing more to do with me, other than force me to come for these visits every week to get really good at peeing in a small cup while balancing a watermelon on my torso.
“Ummm…excuse me, hi. I have this really fucking weird cough that picks up a lot at night? Also, my sciatic nerve pain sucks!!! AND WHAT ABOUT THIS CRIPPLING CARPAL TUNNEL THAT’S TURNED INTO SOMETHING CALLED DE QUERVAIN’S TENOSYNOVITIS, WHICH I ONLY KNOW ABOUT FROM MY OWN RESEARCH BUT COULD REALLY USE SOME HELP WITH BECAUSE NONE OF MY FRIENDS HAVE EVER HAD THIS BULLSHIT SYMPTOM WHILE PREGNANT BECAUSE PREGNANCY IS BASICALLY A SHIT BAG FILLED WITH HORRIFIC THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOUR BODY COULD EVEN DO!?!?!”
Any issues I was experiencing while pregnant weren’t a matter of the doctor’s concerns if they didn’t come up in a blood or urine test. And while those kinds of tests are extraordinarily crucial to maintaining a healthy pregnancy, so is all the other shit that a woman experiences while pregnant!
One of the things you find out when you're pregnant is that there’s a whole Cheesecake-Factory-menu-sized assortment of weird symptoms caused by pregnancy. It’s like being a kid and opening a box of Cracker Jacks to see which prize you get and then comparing it to your friends’.
“COOL! I got constipation AND hemmorhoids…what did you get?!”
“Aw, that’s awesome!! I only got nausea and nosebleeds.”
These are real problems, and while every pregnant person may not experience all of them (I, for example, never had a moment of queasiness or food aversion), they will assuredly experience some of them, and you won’t know which one you’re gonna get until you get it. And though this is common knowledge among pregnant people and their medical providers, traditional medicine doesn’t give a fuck about taking care of those symptoms unless they can prescribe you a pill or tie it to a problem that isn’t merely “oh you’re pregnant, lol yeah, it sucks!”
TL;DR, I quickly realized I wasn’t going to get HEALTH care while I was pregnant. What I got was sick care, which was weird since like, I wasn’t sick? I was just pregnant. Which, admittedly, can feel like one-in-the-same, but that’s a different blog post.
What’s more, any interest in the delivering parent’s health ends pretty much once they leave the hospital. Most OB/GYN’s only offer a 6-week PP check up, at which they basically just look at you and say you can work out again. If you’re lucky, they’ll ask you about your mood and happiness level (hormones PLUMMET like nothing else you’ve ever experienced, so PPD and PPA are extremely common, and I, not a medical professional whatsoever, would argue everyone experiences a version of it to some degree), but unless you’re experiencing and admitting to something extreme, they don’t really do much with it. In other words, it’s back to how it was before you were pregnant - only going to the doctor to see just *how* and what kind of sick you are.
A Long Weight
Fast forward to February 2022. I’d been working on losing my pregnancy weight for about 5 months, and while I’d made some progress, I was frustrated that it was taking so goddamn long. I know I gained some weight while pregnant, but I decided to go for extra credit and KEEP gaining weight after I had my baby, sort of like skipping the Freshman 15 and going for the Sophomore 20, which I also did! (I’ll do a different post about sleep and the importance of it on weight loss another time, but considering I didn’t sleep for more than 3 hours at a time for about 6 months, it’s no surprise the weight kept coming.) I stopped weighing myself before I ever got pregnant with Goldie, and I didn’t allow my doctor to tell me what my weight was at my checkups, so I don’t know how many pounds I gained, but I do know that almost a year after having Goldie, I was still unable to fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes and was up 3-4 sizes. And this, after losing weight!
I decided early on I was going to give myself however long it took to lose the weight; I wasn’t working toward an arbitrary deadline; I wasn’t going to do a crash diet. I wanted to find a livable, sustainable approach to losing the weight so it wouldn’t come back on when I felt good. But even though I gave myself this latitude, I’m only human! After 5 months, I was irritated that I wasn't closer to my goal.
I pride myself on being something of an autodidact. I taught myself how to cook, how to do makeup, and how to build this blog. SPARE ME YOUR JOKES ON HOW BAD I AM AT THAT LAST ONE. I’ve also taken this approach to my health. For the unreasonables out there, no, that doesn’t mean I intend to do my own dental work or like, take out my own appendix. I am not a doctor, nor do I believe my cursory research is a substitute for real, individual medical advice. What I AM saying, however, is that there’s only so much your GP has time to do with you when they have other patients to see for the day, and when our traditional approach to medicine in the US is to solve for sickness rather than to cultivate healthfulness. Through my personal education journey about health, I discovered a different kind of medical practitioner: a functional medicine doctor. This, coupled with the knowledge that hormones are totally fucked after pregnancy, and having experienced some of the worst stress of my life in the prior two years, I decided it was time to see what was going on under the hood and booked my appointment with the functional medicine doctor, which I will henceforth refer to as the FMD cus your girl is too lazy to type it all out.
I live in a small community, so it wasn’t hard to find my FMD. I did a Google search and saw a couple, and chose the one with a 5 star rating. I poked around their website and set up the initial phone consultation, which was free. I’m sure all FMDs operate a little differently, so I can only speak to mine, but I purchased a package that came with two visits with the doctor, two goal setting discussions with their health coach, and a blood test (which I had to pay for separately). The package I purchased was around $1,000 and the blood test was around $200. So it’s NOT cheap. But I figured it would be worth it to find if there was anything impeding my weight loss efforts.
After my initial consult, the package started with a call with the health coach to discuss my goals and current state. Initially I thought this would be a little cheesy - talking to a stranger and vision-boarding?! I’m GOOPy, but not like that. However, I was surprised at the end of the 30-minute call to realize it actually did help my crystalize my goals. A few days after that meeting, I had my first appointment with the doctor.
To be clear, he is a REAL medical doctor. I think this is really important. Not all FMDs are necessarily MDs, so make sure to do your research. What struck me instantly was that this wasn’t a doctor’s office - it was more like a business office. There were no tables covered in that thin, disposable paper that makes crinkle sounds every time you take a breath. I sat at a conference table with my FMD and his…assistant? Apprentice? WIFE?!? Maybe all over the above? Idk for sure, but they definitely fucking. Which is fine!! She was super knowledgeable too, and I’m pretty sure is working on completing some kind of degree. Anyway, the three of us sat at this table while they took the occasional note on their laptop and we discussed everything I’ve shared here in greater detail. At the end of our hour-long meeting (really, it felt like a meeting more than an appointment), doc and lady-pal made a few dietary recommendation for me based on our discussion, which included eating a vegetable before a carbohydrate to keep glucose levels from spiking and to focus on my protein target of 100 grams before we worry about pulling any other levers. My blood draw was in a couple days, after which he would be able to make a more tailored plan for me.
Blood test results
My blood draw results came in a couple weeks later, at which point I went back for my second visit with the doctor. I don’t remember how many vials of blood were taken, but it was more than a few! The labs tested for, like, 100 markers of health, including thyroid markers, glucose, inflammation, and various vitamins and minerals. For comparison, I had a physical at my GPs office last summer, and they did a blood draw as well, but they only took two vials and the ONLY thing I heard about it was that my cholesterol might be a little high, and that was that on that. From this blood draw, I learned that there’s some really complex details about cholesterol but really, it’s not my cholesterol that’s the issue, but rather blood glucose shit! AND GUESS WHAT?!! My thyroid is fine. UGHHHHH.
I mean, it’s not like I *wanted* to have a dysfunctional thyroid (it’s not at all uncommon for women to have thyroid issues following pregnancy), but I was kinda hoping I would so I could just start popping a pill and lose 20 pounds in 3 weeks. DON’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!!!!
But it’s not as though I don’t have areas of improvement - like most Americans, my B-12 levels need improvement, as does my gut health, and my fasting insulin should come down a bit to help with my lipoprotein metabolism. What I found surprising, but also shouldn’t have at all, were my inflammatory markers. I have always had allergies, specifically to cats and dogs, but also some seasonal. I didn’t think to mention this at my first appointment, but I did bring it up at the second because I had recently been to a friend’s house who has a dog and within 10 minutes I was sneezing relentlessly and my eyes were so itchy and red that I had to leave - not at all uncommon when I’m in a pet home. And I’m just downright fucking sick of it. Also, the day of my blood draw, Goldie was sick with a 24-hour stomach bug, and if you think Kyle and I didn’t get it, think again. So needless to say, my white blood cell count was off the charts. So, he decided he wanted me to restest those markers a couple weeks later just to be sure it was related to that and not some other mystery ailment. This is why these labs are so incredible - that morning, I didn’t even feel bad and Goldie seemed 100%!! I had no clue what was coming, and yes, the results were like two weeks too late, but that’s because it was just an acute flare up. Imagine this shit going on in your body for YEARS only to find out when things are really bad, and potentially too late?!?!?! THIS is why I’m taking the FMD route. I don’t want to wait until I’m sick to be healthy!
Supplements and DIet
Following the review of my blood panel, my doctor recommended a variety of supplements to get after the areas he wants to see improvement in:
ADK Evail: my FMD calls this a “well-designed fat soluble nutrient complex.” I take one pill a day.
Saccharomyces Boulardii: a beneficial yeast probiotic for a targeted period of gut support (I’ve recently learned that you don’t want to take probiotics indefinitely - it’s more to help your gut rebuild its own microbiota and then eventually flourish on its own). I take two pills once a day.
Optimal GI Powder: a blend of nutrients and herbs to help with gut repair and also has hopefully will help stabilize my allergic/immune response. I take it once a day (although I don’t some days cus it does have a slightly yeasty taste I don’t love).
Quercetin 500: this contains a flavonoid from fruits that acts a natural antihistamine. I take 2 pills two times a day (for a total of 4).
PEA & Luteolin: another supplement recommended to help with my allergies. I take 1-2 pills two times a day.
He also recommended a paleo protein powder that looks really good, but we already have a lot of whey-based protein in the house that I want to get through first before I spend more money on it.
The road to a gooped and gagged body-ody-ody isn’t all paved with pills and powders though. Of course, my food diet is a big part of this. And while I’m not anemic, my FMD did recommend I increase my red meat intake for its nutrient density. We also discussed my interest in incorporating liver and some organ meats into my diet and when I tell you FMD and lady-pal were giddy…I don’t think they get a lot of food-curious people like me too often. They’re probably telling most people to “just TRY a salad one time.”
Why liver? Well, the liver basically acts as a filtration system for the body, so it’s packed with more nutrients than ANY other food product, and yes, that includes any vegetable you’re gonna try to name. Look. It. Up. Lady-pal referred me to a local butcher shop that does a ground beef/liver/heart blend, so I stocked up on it and made it into burgers over the weekend. It was totally fine! A bit mushier in texture to eat (more like salisbury steak) and much sticker to work with, but I truly don’t think I would have noticed a difference in flavor if I wasn’t aware of what I was eating. Highly recommend as a way to dip your toe into offal if you’re nervous. SO AM I! But I’m determined to reap the benefits, which, by the way, only really means about 6 ounces a week. Too much isn’t a better thing, in this case.
My approach to my food intake at this point is more about what I can add versus what I can remove, although everyone agrees my Venti Iced Chai habit needs to chill the fuck out - I’m trying!!! Instead, my main areas of focus currently are to consistently hit my protein target of 75-100g/day, along with more fermented foods to help naturally improve my gut health. These two elements should help support my glucose levels, which in turn should have a positive impact on my weight loss efforts, along with the rest of my health markers.
PROGRESS SO FAR
I’ve been taking my supplements for about three weeks now and I’m happy to report…I have no clue if it’s doing anything. I mean, I think the gut health products are working, but I’ve never really had toilet issues either, so who knows? What I DO know is that it will probably take time to feel the internal improvements, with the primary outcomes being my weight continues to improve and just maybe, so will my allergies.
We did a follow-up blood draw a couple weeks ago to check my immune markers to be sure that it was an acute response to the stomach bug, and they did indeed come down. They were still slightly elevated, but doc believes that was because I was suffering from really high oak pollen level, because I was!!!
So, what now?
Well, I keep doing all this shit and I have a follow-up appointment next week to discuss anecdotal feedback and next steps. I already have follow-up blood draws scheduled so we can see again what’s going on under the hood. Hopefully it will show that the supplements and changes to my diet are working. And while I haven’t focused as much on creating a caloric deficit this month, I feel ready to get back to it. My intention is to see continued weight loss month over month (week over week feels like a quick way to get defeated again).
I’m lucky to be generally healthy and have the luxury of just digging deep into my health markers to figure out how to be hot and toned, but it’s such bullshit that root causing what ails you should be so out-of-reach for so many. It shouldn’t cost thousands of dollars for someone to find out what their body is doing or get to the root cause of why they’re unwell (or to identify what’s working well and how to retain that health throughout their life). I don’t wanna make this a whole thing about the American health system (technically, it is still the best in the world, despite its flaws), but I do hope this helps someone realize that you can get more and better information if you just know where to look.
Anyone else out there pursuing functional medicine? What’s your experience been like? Did it help you identify something that traditional medicine missed? I’d love to know all about your experiences in the comments!
