Functional medicine is a way of working rather than a separate speciality. It means starting from the assumption that a symptom has a cause worth finding, taking a much longer history than a standard appointment allows, testing more broadly where there is a reason to, and building a plan that addresses what the testing shows.
In practice that means the first appointment is long. We go through your history, your medications, what you eat, how you sleep, what your stress looks like and when you last genuinely felt well. Then we test what is worth testing — and only what is worth testing — and we sit down with the results and explain them.
Tired for months, told everything is normal, still tired.
Change in energy, mood, sleep, libido or weight that fits a pattern.
Long-running gut symptoms that have not been explained.
Creeping weight, prediabetes and lipid numbers heading the wrong way.
Alongside your specialist, not instead of them.
Well on paper, not well in yourself, and wanting somebody to take it seriously.
Functional medicine is not an alternative to conventional medicine, and this is not a clinic that will tell you to stop your prescriptions. We use the same laboratories, the same diagnostic reasoning and the same medications as anybody else. What differs is the length of the appointment, the breadth of the history and the willingness to keep asking why a result is what it is.
It is also not a licence to test everything. Some panels sold under the functional medicine banner have little evidence behind them and produce results nobody can act on, and an abnormal number on a test that does not mean anything is a good way to worry a patient and empty their wallet. We order tests we can act on and we will tell you when we think a test is not worth doing.
Plans usually combine several things: a medication where one is indicated, targeted supplementation where testing shows a genuine deficiency, hormone support where levels justify it, and changes to food, movement and sleep that you can actually sustain. Then we re-test, because a plan nobody measures is guesswork.
We stay current with the research and the technology so that every patient is offered care we would want for our own families, with a plan built around your medical history and your goals.
When you become our patient you are treated like family. You are never a number, and you will always be told plainly what a treatment can and cannot do for you.
Modern, evidence-based methods and high-quality products.
We review your full history and build the plan around you.
It does not have to be. Some patients use us as their primary care provider; others keep their existing doctor and come to us for a specific problem. Either works, and we are happy to share findings with anyone else involved in your care.
No. If a medicine is doing its job you should stay on it. Where the plan makes a medication unnecessary over time, that is a conversation to have with evidence in front of us, not an article of faith.
Substantially longer than a standard visit, because the history is the most valuable part of it. Ask when you book and we will tell you exactly how long to allow.
It depends what is ordered and what your insurance covers. We will tell you what we are recommending and what it is likely to cost before anything is drawn.
Honestly, it varies. Some things — correcting a real deficiency, treating a thyroid problem — move within weeks. Others take months of consistent work. We re-test rather than rely on impressions.
Call the clinic and book the long appointment. That is where this starts.