What is a Functional Medicine Doctor?
A functional doctor or functional medicine doctor is the one who treats chronic diseases that occur due to hormonal imbalance in the body. A functional doctor addresses, identifies and treats the root cause of a disease in a patient’s body.
They treat illness by examining gut health, liver function, nutritional status, lifestyle choices, learning about a patient’s lifestyle, medical history, family history, diet, etc.
How Does a Functional Doctor Treat Patients?
Every specialized doctor has their own way of treating and approaching any health issue a patient comes with to them. Functional doctors too have their own way of managing, treating and improving the health problems their patient come with:-
- Lifestyle Integration- Functional medicine doctors focus and recommend changes in the daily lifestyle and habits of the patients like diet, overall physical movements all day, exercise plan, outings, etc. This approach not only focused on physical living of the patient but also mental and emotional levels in order to reduce stress and anxiety in the patient.
- Holistic Approach- A functional doctor just not only keeps track of the disease the patient came for the treatment but sees the whole person as for treatment. They focus on how the disease is affected by not just physical status of the patient but also mental, emotional and environmental factors around the patient.
- Focus on Root Cause- Treatment is not just with medicine and doses but a functional doctor focuses and works on the actual root cause of the disease and tries to treat and heal it for not only fast recovery but also to prevent the disease from appearing again.
- Personalized Care- The treatment, medicine, care and schedule is tailored to each individual while keeping in mind that every person is unique and different and needs a different approach of solution and care.
What Does a Functional Medicine Doctor Treat?
As mentioned, functional doctors generally treat diseases that are affected by hormones and their function in the body like:-
- Adrenal disorders
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Dementia
- Arthritis
- Asthma
- Autoimmune diseases
- Cancer prevention
- Cardiovascular disease
- Diabetes
- Digestive disorders
- Fibromyalgia
What is an Endocrinologist?
Endocrinology is a branch of the medical world where the treatment of diseases and issues related to the endocrine system is done. The doctors that specialized in this branch are called endocrinologists.
What Does an Endocrinologist Treat?
Endocrinologists also treat diseases related to hormonal imbalance but only those related to endocrine system and the organs included in it like:-
- Hypothalamus
- Pituitary gland
- Thyroid gland
- Parathyroid glands
- Thymus
- Adrenal glands
- Pancreas
- Ovaries
- Testes
When a Person Visits an Endocrinologist?
There are certain health conditions or issues for which a person should visit an endocrinologist cayuse of their specialty in that range of health medicine:-
- Thyroid issues- Any issue related to thyroid gland like over secretion of thyroid hormone or lower than needed secretion is addressed by an endocrinologist.
- Diabetes- Diabetes type 1 and 2, blood sugar levels and the medications related to both are all managed by an endocrinologist.
- PCOs- Hormone imbalance diseases are what an endocrinologist is expert in. So, if you have PCOs and excessive hair growth due to it, then an endocrinologist is what you need.
- Infertility- Infertility problems in both males and females like low sperm count, cysts, irregular periods, etc, are all addressed by an endocrinologist.
What are the different kinds of endocrinologists?
An endocrinologist may specialize in certain areas of endocrinology called subspecialties, including:
- Diabetes and metabolism
- Thyroid disease
- Endocrine oncology
- Neuroendocrinology
- Pediatric endocrinology
- Gender affirmation
- Reproductive endocrinology
- Endocrinology nuclear medicine
Difference Between the Both-
Well, as both are doctors related to hormones and the diseases or issues occurs in body due to the imbalance of hormones in the body, still there are very crucial differences in both such as:-
- Functional medicine doctor treatment has a preventive approach to not only treat the disease but also to prevent it from occurring again while, endocrinologists have more focus on treating and diagnosing the exact disease and do not focus on prevention and root cause treatment.
- Functional doctors treat diseases by finding the root cause of it while a endocrinologist is more of a drug- disease doctor means, works by giving medicine of the exact disease to suppress it.
- Endocrinologist Brisbane focus mainly on symptom management, because of which the overall state of the patient including mental, emotional, societal and environmental scenarios gets overlooked. On the other hand, a functional doctor approach to treatment is more patient- centered and focuses on the overall lifestyle of the patient for better results.
