Naperville Integrated Wellness

NAPERVILLE'S TOP RATED LOCAL® FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE FACILITY

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What Do You Expect? (From your doctor) – Dr. Clint Sexton

We get calls every day from people looking for help with their health issues. Many of them are upset and frustrated with their doctor, the healthcare system or their health insurance company. What are you expecting from your doctor? The current health care system? Your insurance company?

Frustrated?

Let’s start with your doctor. Your doctor is probably a very nice, intelligent and caring person who has been trained to provide “standard” medical care. Standard medical care consists of providing you with a diagnosis (if possible) and prescribe a drug or drugs for that diagnosis. That is it. Nothing more and nothing less and ideally in 10 minutes or less.

Are you frustrated that you are not getting more? I can understand why you might be frustrated with this method of health care. Would you like to have more in-depth conversations with your doctor about lifestyle? Would you like them to run food sensitivity or food allergy tests and discuss a better diet with you? Would you like to have more in-depth nutrition testing? Maybe you are concerned about your gut health, adrenal glands, neurological health, hormone balance…. etc.

Maybe you would like your doctor to be well versed in health conditions such as leaky gut, SIBO, adrenal fatigue, gut microbiome, autoimmune disease, low inflammatory and autoimmune diet plans. You might want them to be educated in methylation problems like MTHFR or gluten sensitivity, not just celiac disease.

Maybe you want your doctor or your health insurance to understand and appreciate the importance of a healthy gut or how the major systems of your body are interrelated and not separate systems…that your body only works well when the various systems are working well. Or maybe you would like more thorough testing and investigation of your thyroid problem and not just prescribe based on your TSH level that day.

Maybe you would like to be offered a solution other than a drug?

Yeah, and while we are at it, lets look at the health insurance industry. They say they are interested in health and disease prevention; but are they? Do they gladly pay for the kind of testing and treatment that would prevent chronic disease? No, but they will pay for testing to see if already have a disease and then pay for the drugs related to that disease… early detection of disease and early drug use is the definition of prevention in the health insurance industry.

Your doctor or doctors, health insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry…THEY ARE THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM. You are getting exactly what this system is willing and prepared to offer. Disease-testing, surgery and drugs.

Do You Expect More?

If you want more, then you must get out of the existing system. Functional medicine is not part of THE SYSTEM.  Functional medicine doctors cannot be in this system and provide functional medicine. You also can’t expect your doctor to know anything about functional medicine because they are not trained in it; they don’t understand it…so how can they provide it for you?  The “functional medicine system” does take the time to discuss with you what you want. This system does the kind of testing you are looking for. It does address true prevention and health restoration. If will help you with diet, nutrition and lifestyle. It will look for root causes and provide different solutions. It does not depend on drugs to help people. It is not under the thumb of the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

Expecting functional medicine to be like the existing health system is like going to your dermatologist for a root canal and expecting your health insurance to pay for it.

Is all of this frustrating? Yes, but it does not change the fact that this is how the system is set up today. If you want more for yourself, if you want the kind of services and benefits that functional medicine doctors can provide, then you will need to move outside the existing system. Is it frustrating that your health insurance may not and probably won’t pay for this care? Yes, but again, your health insurance is for the existing healthcare system. Some people even go so far as to be upset with the existing system and the functional medicine system. They don’t want the existing but want functional medicine and they think it costs too much. Compared to what exactly? Have you seen how much the existing system bills your insurance for a visit to the emergency room, a colonoscopy, a cardiovascular stress test or even a minor out-patient surgery? Functional medicine doctors charge only fraction for their services compared to the existing system charges for their time and services. The existing system is what causes your premiums to go higher every year…higher premiums and less coverage is the current trend.

So again, what are expecting? If you want something different, something that is not available in the existing health care landscape, then you need to seek help outside of that system.

Functional medicine is outside the existing system. You can’t compare it to the existing; it is like apples to oranges; they have almost nothing in common.

The purpose of functional medicine is: 

Understanding how the body works, knowing how and where to investigate health issues, knowing what to look for, understanding the significance of what is found and creating a plan of action to reverse and correct the root cause the health problems.

My wish for you…health, happiness and a better quality of life! 

If you would like more information about functional medicine and integrative medicine or Dr. Sexton go to napervilleintegratedwellness.com

Do your own research, inform yourself and ask lots of questions. When collecting information, you MUST consider the source. There is no shortage of false, misleading, outdated, profit-driven and utterly biased information in healthcare today; even from the most respected sources and organizations. 

This approach to healthcare is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, mitigate, or prevent any disease. This article is for information purposes and is not a substitute professional healthcare services. Contact our office for more information.

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