The medical profession today focuses on treating the symptoms of many diseases and disorders and not the causes. Certainly, this isn’t the case in all situations, but too many times, for example when diagnosticians cannot identify a specific disease, as in many cases of inflammation, anti-inflammatories and antibiotics are prescribed to treat the symptoms. This stopgap measure doesn’t cure autoimmune conditions including rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, celiac disease, thyroid disease, and the many other hard-to-classify syndromes in the 21st century. Autoimmune disorders are runaway immune responses that cause your body to attack itself. These disorders are a major health burden to the health care system and according to Mark Hyman, M.D., an international leader in the field of functional medicine, the annual cost of treating autoimmune diseases is twice that of cancer.
The discipline of functional medicine is not a separate field, but an emerging discipline that some physicians subscribe to which suggests that looking at the core imbalances in the body will allow discovery of the causes of these disorders. There are steps that you can take to determine whether there are underlying issues causing your discomfort, including checking for hidden infections, checking for food allergies, getting tested for celiac disease or heavy metal toxicity, exercising regularly, fixing your gut by looking into possible irritable bowel syndrome, taking supplements, practicing deep relaxation techniques and talking to your doctor about functional medicine . Treating these causes as opposed to taking an anti-inflammatory or repeatedly taking antibotics can give you a true cure and permanent relief.
Written by www.labtestingnow.com