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Functional Medicine

Rapid City Healthcare -  - Urgent Care

Rapid City Healthcare

Urgent Care & COVID Testing Center located in Irving, TX

Functional medicine focuses on a patient-centered approach, where providers spend time with patients, listening to their stories, and looking for interactions among their genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that influence their long-term health. At Rapid City Healthcare in Irving, Texas, Russell Huq, MD, and the providers offer functional medicine as it provides the best framework for helping to restore health, vitality, and a love of life in each patient. Call the office or use the online booking tool to schedule an appointment.

Functional Medicine Q & A

What is functional medicine?

Functional medicine developed as a new way to approach today’s complex, chronic diseases. It’s grounded in advanced medical science and uses the most current research in genetics and cell biology. When put into practice, functional medicine focuses on identifying the complex web of interactions in each patient’s history, physiology, and lifestyle that can lead to illness.

The Rapid City Healthcare providers evaluate your genetic makeup, along with your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. They also assess social and environmental issues. Laboratory testing and other advanced diagnostics are also essential tools used in functional medicine.

Ultimately, your provider can recommend highly individualized treatments that restore balance at the cellular level and in your outside world because they have defined your health problem's root causes.

Why is finding the root cause essential for treating chronic disease?

Conventional medicine assesses symptoms, runs lab tests, and makes a diagnosis. Then treatment is initiated that follows the accepted protocol for that disease.

But chronic diseases seldom follow a single path; their causes and outcomes are numerous and different for each person. One condition may arise from many causes; one imbalance can lead to multiple health problems.

Here are two examples. One condition — obesity — can arise from one or all of many underlying problems such as genetics, hormone imbalances, diet, exercise, and mood disorders. One imbalance — inflammation — leads to many potential diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and cancer.

In reality, medical problems are even more complex because whether your inflammation leads to a certain disease is based on your genetic predisposition and the environmental influences that change how your genes respond.

The only way to effectively manage multifaceted chronic diseases is by making sure that every base is covered. One treatment protocol does not fit every patient. Instead, each treatment must be personalized based on your genetics and lifestyle influences. That’s why the providers take the time to understand all the internal and external factors affecting your body.

What types of treatments are used in functional medicine?

One of the best parts about functional medicine is that your treatment integrates traditional Western practices with alternative medicine, combining the therapies needed to help you achieve optimal health.

Rapid City Healthcare incorporates nutrition, diet, exercise, and supplements to prevent and help treat health problems. Your treatment may include prescription medications, botanical medicines, detoxification programs, and stress management techniques.

If you have questions about functional medicine or want to schedule an appointment, call Rapid City Healthcare or use the online booking tool.