Heartlight Family Clinic
Now offers Functional Medicine
Katrina De Romana, FNP, is transitioning to a Functional Medicine practice after training with the Institute for Functional Medicine for the past year. What is the difference between Conventional Medicine and Functional Medicine, you might be asking? Great question! This image might begin to answer that.
Functional medicine is an evolution in the practice of medicine. Functional medicine asks how and why illness occurs and restores health by addressing each individual’s root disease causes. Chronic disease is preceded by a period of declining function in one or more of the body’s systems.
Restoration of health requires improving the specific dysfunctions that have contributed to the disease state, such as past infections, gut microbiome changes, etc. This approach is evidence-based and involves removing the things making you sick or feel bad, adding in good nutrition, managing stress that can be inflammatory, getting restorative sleep, moving the body, and rebalancing the entire system. We have a multi-disciplinary team, including a health coach and mental health therapists that may assist as needed.
Our society is experiencing a sharp increase in the number of people who suffer from complex, chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, mental illness, chronic pains, headaches, dementia. autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis.
Conventional medicine is great at treating infections, needed surgeries, saving lives in an emergency, and prescribing medications that may improve an illness. Functional medicine works with this treatment philosophy and takes it to the next level by performing a root cause analysis of your symptoms to identify when and how your illness started.
A personalized treatment plan can then be created to address the root causes of your illness.
1St Visit
- Complete the pre-visit forms and fax or email those in before booking your first appointment-this saves time, so the first visit is all about YOU.
- Expect to spend 90-minutes discussing your health issues in detail.
- Testing of blood work to assess your nutritional and inflammatory status. We may also recommend specialty labs, like a comprehensive stool analysis, cortisol testing, or advanced thyroid testing, to get to the root cause of the problem that has never been fully identified.
- Lifestyle, nutrition, sleep, movement, and stress management recommendations are individualized.
- Discussion of the follow-up plan to get the best outcomes and get you feeling better.
2nd Visit
- Review of Findings: We detail the results from your lab tests, the implications to your health, and a corrective treatment plan. This is typically a 60-minute visit.
- Adjust the lifestyle treatment plan for maximum benefit.
- Recommend short-term supplements and/ or short-term noteworthy nutritional changes to change the issues causing your disease.
3rd Visit and Beyond
- Support and adjust the treatment plan to reach our treatment goals.
- Most patients will see at least a 50% or more significant reduction in their symptoms, and many reach a full resolution of their symptoms. Many can reduce their long-term prescription medication or even stop them with their primary care provider.
- Rebalance the lifestyle for the long term to maintain optimal health and wellness and prevent future avoidable diseases.
Even the Cleveland Clinic offers a Functional Medicine Clinic option for their patients! Many medical schools are now incorporating a functional medicine tract into their curriculum. Functional medicine is an emerging and scientifically backed way to reduce the chronic illness burden suffered by so many and improve lives for generations to come!
Call now to schedule your FREE 10-minute phone consult to see if this is right for you.
This service will be billed to your insurance with the same out-of-pocket copays and deductible as you would pay to see your primary care provider.
