Food is not just medicine, it’s our lives, it’s our fuel, our ability to survive and function. Consulting with a functional nutritionist -why to seek one out is for support and guidance that can offer numerous benefits when it comes to improving your health and well-being.
Without food (and water) we will perish, and if we don’t put real food into our bodies things change, our organs start to malfunction, get weak, and lose the ability to be themselves and find optimal function. Finding a functional nutritionist is crucial today as we are starting to be the era that we are now making “ways” for the things we do because of what we “have”. Stating “I have a thyroid disorder, IBS, Crohn’s disease, depression, anxiety, sugar cravings, not enough time, PMS, cramps, pain, chronic fatigue, many autoimmune challenges and so on. These things manifest because we aren’t giving our body what it needs, and today we are being “fixed with bandaids” and “treated for symptoms” and not actually uncovering why these problems happened in the first place. Seeking out a functional nutritionist to uncover the whats, whys, and hows, actually get to the root of the problem/s and finding and correcting function, the body will thrive on it’s own, while not being overdosed with drugs for the rest of your life.
On the other side of this, most of the time, no one is following up with you once on a medication, so more dysfunction arises and another medication comes on board to fix what happened from before, and the cycle continues. Below I write my experiences in the past few years from visiting different doctors offices, some for routine check-ups and some for wanting to see “what happens” if I go in for something I know I can heal on my own. Enjoy and would love to hear your experiences as well. **Don’t get me wrong, some things do need to be addressed if the body just can’t do it on their own and medication is needed with these experiences, my problem is when medication is the go-to, without working with the real issues to discover the true reason why things are “off” in the first place.
I will also say that now that I am working with different testing options, I am able to dive deeper into understanding why ones’ body is acting a certain way, why hormones are being thrown off, why fatigue is such a menace, and why the gut just can’t heal even when someone has done so many cleanses and given up certain foods.
I am loving how to heal the body as a whole being as functional nutritionist instead of just picking one area to focus on.
It was a little over 2 years ago, I went in for my annual exam with a new doctor as my insurance had just changed. I asked around to find who people recommended and googled for reviews, did my do-diligence. I made my appointment and headed out for my yearly female evaluation. The office was packed, so many people sitting in the waiting room, office personal moving about, faxing, photo-coping, making phone calls, there was a beeping sound that didn’t stop and I think that was everyone on hold. I thought, wow, busy place, this must be where everyone comes, I must me in the right place with so many people here. (We do that right, try to convince ourselves that we did a good job when others seem to be doing what we are doing.) It was time for my appointment, the Doctor was very nice, we talked about my future as I was hitting close to 44 and peri-menopause was seeking into my life and acting up with many different symptoms. (at this time couldn’t, and didn’t, have the means to run a hormone panel on myself, and didn’t know about hormone health as I do today.)
I, as you know, am always looking for the most natural approach to health, I don’t want to take any type of drug when the body can heal itself, but do want to know what are my best choices in healing. At the end of our conversation and telling the Doctor about my symptoms, I was offered 2 options. The first was the birth control pill. (Now I have never been on the pill in my lifetime and now she wants to put me on it at 44?) Second option was an anti-depressant. I literally was stunned, I think my mouth dropped open and I couldn’t say anything out-loud, what ran through my thoughts is…is this was they are giving to people now? I had zero symptoms of depression, yes I am an anxious person, more from my type A personality then from anything else, but seriously an anti-depressant? So, I collected myself and said, I’m sorry but both of those are not options for me in a reality calm voice. (More calmer than how I wanted to say it!) And the Doctor responded with and I quote,” Well I can’t give you some magic pill to help you” aggressively. I again, mouth dropping wide open, said, I never asked for a magic pill, I wanted to know options and ideas on what and how my body is going through. Help me understand what’s happening as I enter menopause and how I can move through this easily. She said she had already given me her options and if I want one she will write me a prescription for one or both. I politely said “no thanks” and my appointment was over.
I walked out and in my car, I just sat, and sat, and thought -is this what people have as their options. Every single women will go through menopause and this is what they have to look forward to. Hearing my teachers and mentors confirm that most Doctors will just prescribe antidepressants and/or birth control when I was learning about the different testing options for the different hormone panels, -whether you are a male, a cycling women, entering menopause or post menopausal women is astounding. I thought maybe, just maybe it was just this Doctor stating those things, but I stand corrected.
Most men won’t go in for hormone testing, they just want to say everything is ok, but case study after case study proves we all need support throughout our lifetime, as our food gets weaker with nutrients, and we consume more preservatives and/or restaurant foods, our bodies just can’t seem to keep-up with the “toxic” load we are putting into ourselves. We all need support, and now I can help with this. I am grateful.
A client of mine needed surgery in the middle of her protocol for addressing gut heal. We worked on healing from acid reflux, heartburn, and indigestion mainly and also worked on addressing what was causing it, they had been on a prescription PPI for 5 years, with no other option for healing from the Doctor. If they didn’t take the prescription the acid reflux came right back. They needed help as they were sick of taking the prescription and wanted to know why it was there in the first place. (A little tid-bit, when one is on any PPI, or acid reflux reducer, the body cannot digest food, as we need stomach acid to digest food, it’s why we produce it in the first place, so digestion becomes compromised leading to more dysfunction.) The surgery, not related, was a success and in the hospital my client was brought saltines, jello, and a choice of milk or soda. I got the call on what to do? They had been off gluten for some time now and jello is just sugar water, plus dairy was out of the question and a soda? I asked if they would bring some other options, and graham crackers were brought, along with mac and cheese, and a pudding in a package, all preservatives and chemicals. This is hard, a hospital, a place for healing. So the best thing to do was accept the “food” eat a small amount for energy and see if they could hold off till they left and got some real food, that was already stocked, ahead of time, at their home. The acid reflux did come back for just a day, but we got that sorted very fast. This is so hard, a hospital, giving out what they believe is healing food.
I hate to say that I have so more situations like this, even with myself. I was working on cleaning up my gut health myself and started to get an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. A member in my family has a funny pyloric valve that likes to do it own thing from now and again, so I thought that was what was happening to me. I really didn’t want to go through the whole Doctor route, but wanted to see for myself what happens when one goes to a Doctor? Talking with the Doctor we agreed on a barium sallow test to see if there was anything “wrong” with a valve or if a hiatal hernia was present. The Radiologist said, no problems with my valves, no hiatal hernia, she said she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. hmmm, ok. So, the next thing was to talk to a gastroenterologist. I said is that necessary, and said let’s just see what he says as he reads the results as well. This new Doctor looked at my results and said nothing was wrong, I described my symptoms and described what I was doing for myself (gut healing protocol) and said I also had a stool test done to see what pathogens were present. (I did have one pathogen, that I believe was giving me these symptoms) He asked who gave me the stool test, I replied, “I did”, he said no, who got it for you, I again said, “I did”, I am a functional nutritionist and can get stool testing done. He then asked me to get up on the table and pushed on my stomach, which I asked, “what are you trying to feel here?”, and he never answered. (Being a massage therapist the amount of pressure he did was the lightest touch…this was weird, what in the world and why would you do this?)
He then gave me 3 options after telling me I have something functionally wrong (Haha, yes I know thats why I am here) first option was a PPI (Prilosec, Pepcid) I’m now hysterically laughing on the inside, because we had just had a conversation on how these medications do more harm then good, obviously he wasn’t listening or caring. Second option, was an anti-spasmodic. Interesting…my third option, and wait for it….an anti-depressant! I couldn’t believe it, in 2 years from 2 completely different Doctors an anti-depressant had come up. I can’t make this up! These are being given out like candy!!! I said, interesting, so do I seem depressed to you, he said no, but that was what my options are. I asked, what about food changes, or lifestyle changes, or possibly a stress related problems he said he had given me his options and he would tell my Doctor to write me a prescription if I wanted. I again, said no thank you.
I am proud now to be functional nutritionist and be able to find answers to the questions that Doctors don’t seem to want to dive into. They seem to give out medications for symptoms and not want to address the root problem, at least this has been my experience. (And there are many more experiences that prove this for me) Do they seriously think an anti-depressant is the way to go here? BTW there was another time many many years ago (10 years ago) that a Doctor put me on an anti-depressant because I was having digestive challenges. I didn’t know any better and after 2 weeks of being on an anti-depressant, I took myself off and started doing the research. I then went back to that exact Doctor and said you prescribed me an anti-depressant, but my serotonin levels are so low, how is this medication suppose to help me, as it’s and SSRI and suppose to drag/space out the serotonin levels to be more balanced throughout the day. I literally had zero serotonin in my body, (blood test confirmed this) I asked him again, how would this have helped me, and he then agreed that it wouldn’t. He even apologized and said he needed to do more research. This was over 15 years ago, and still today I have had 2 Doctors prescribe me anti-depressants.
Please if these stories have helped you at all and want to learn more about working with a functional nutritionist please reach out to me for a consult or a free discovery call.
seeking out a functional nutritionist
