Blog Post

I was helping my elderly mother with her shopping yesterday and was reminded of a typical problem with many doctors. Her doctor had wanted her to get a blood test. So, I took her to get the test, and then the doctor called her back saying she needed to start taking a Potassium supplement. So, I got her some Potassium. The doctor is treating her symptoms. There was no discussion of looking for the root cause or further testing to look for underlying issues. Also, no discussion of possible lifestyle fixes to address the root causes.

Last year the same doctor had also tested her thyroid since she was frequently tired. The results came back “in range†and so he had nothing else for her and suggested she see a sleep doctor. Many typical clients that an FDN helps have been bounced from doctor to doctor looking for help. An FDN is often able to help them improve with lifestyle changes that a doctor couldn’t. The standard set of functional tests that I run gives good insight into underlying opportunities that we can target lifestyle changes on.

Unfortunately, my mother’s condition is too advanced for me to be able to help. She is in assisted living and so is not in control of what she eats. She also has cognitive issues and can’t find her way around a store without someone to guide her. There is a time limit on making changes to your lifestyle. The general comments on avoiding cancer and Alzheimer’s are that you need to have made changes 15 or 20 years earlier.