Hey friends, this one's for both practitioners and patients who've been around the functional medicine world for a while.
Here's the thing. When you've been dealing with chronic symptoms for months or years, it's really easy to fall into patterns. You start assuming every flare-up is the same old story. SIBO acting up again. Mold toxicity. Food sensitivities.
But what if it's not?
I'm talking about the differential diagnostic list, which is just a fancy way of saying: all the possible things that could be causing your symptoms. And here's where it gets tricky for those of us working in the functional medicine world.
We get so focused on the chronic inflammatory stuff, the SIBO, the parasites, the mycotoxins, that sometimes we can overlook the conventional diagnoses. The diverticulitis. The cancer, God forbid. The kidney stones. The things that need attention now.
I'll be honest, this is something I actively remind myself about. When I'm seeing a patient I've worked with for two years, and they come in describing abdominal pain, it's tempting to just pick up where we left off. But if they tell me the pain is different somehow, more intense, or now there's bleeding when there wasn't before, I cannot just chalk that up to hemorrhoids and move on.
Now, if you're a patient, here's what I want you to hear. Pay attention when symptoms vary, even just a little bit. Maybe they're 20% more intense. Maybe they're not triggered by the usual things.
And here's the critical part: don't present it to your practitioner with presumptions already baked in. Don't say, "Oh, my SIBO is flaring up again." Just describe what you're experiencing. Let them go through their checklist.
The differential diagnostic list in functional medicine is way more expansive than in conventional medicine. That's both a gift and a challenge. We're thinking about things other practitioners might miss. But we cannot let that blind us to the conventional stuff.
Being comfortable is not always a good thing. Experience helps us work faster, but complacency can be a real stealth enemy.
That my friends, is definitely the reality of medicine, especially at the intersect of functional and conventional medicine. Worth it, but more work.
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