In today's podcast episode, I'm going to share with you how you can move from simply surviving to thriving using the power of functional medicine. That's all coming up next right here on embracing your healing journey.
Welcome to Embrace Your Healing Journey, a podcast for women with autoimmune and other chronic conditions to help them navigate the illness without fear of isolation and uncertainty and find relief from their symptoms. Your body is your guide and ally in healing. If you're ready to embrace this journey with compassion and awareness, then the show is for you. Tune in as I, a Functional medicine certified health Coach, deliver tips and insights that demystify the healing process, guiding you towards the relief you deserve so that you can feel healthy and happy once more.
So I came across Functional Medicine in 2014. This was when a daughter was suffering from extremely severe eczema for many years and was under strong medications to just manage her symptoms and make life more bearable. But the condition did not improve substantially, and she suffered a disastrous side effect as a result of one of those medications. But to cut a long story short, I started doing my own research and literally stumbled across functional medicine in 2014. We started her on a functional medicine treatment in 2015, and after two long years, and of course I took the help of a practitioner. Back then, we managed to get her eczema under control and get her off all the medications by addressing her gut health.
That is the power of functional medicine. And she's had a couple of flare ups, one, uh, one which was severe during the pandemic here, but it's nowhere close to being as bad as it used to be for so many years, for the ten years that we suffered. And she suffered terribly. And with the help of diet lifestyle, you know, that supports her gut health. So her situation is under control. She is a thriving child, vibrant 17 year old who loves horse riding and is able to live her life fully. And I've shared this journey in episode one so you can go back and listen to this. In fact, it was this journey towards finding a way to help her that led me to become a functional medicine certified health coach and practitioner, and also led me to create this podcast for you so that you know, I can help those who are suffering, just like those who are struggling.
So maybe you have given up traveling or laying on the beach, or just soaking up the sun without any consequences because you are not able to tolerate that anymore.
Maybe you have been on medications for more than two years now, but you are on three more medications to deal with the side effects of the earlier ones, and that's much more common than you think.
Or maybe you are no longer able to go for a long walk, or even watch a movie without falling asleep. And so all the dreams that you once had are stuck inside your head, and you're simply trying to survive from one day to the next as best as you can. But you are not thriving anymore.
You are not living fully anymore. You are just existing. And you see the real problem causing all these issues and bringing you to this point in your life is the focus is on managing symptoms or suppressing symptoms without diving deeper into the underlying causes. And that's the conventional medicine approach, because the underlying issue, more often than not, stems from imbalances or dysfunctions in the body's systems, such as hormonal imbalances, inflammation, digestive disturbances, nutritional deficiencies, and, of course, the health of your microbiome, which is a collection of microbes in your gut, particularly in the gut.
So if you do not address these at the root cause levels, then you remain stuck in what I call a disease Merry-Go-Round. And this is where we were stuck for many years. Our daughter was stuck in this family for many years, moving from one medication to another, from one doctor to another.
A functional medicine approach helped us to uncover and treat these root causes. And that's when her eczema actually went away. And I've shared some books and resources below in the show notes to help you understand this in greater detail. 1s And maybe you've already, uh, taken medications hoping that they would provide a permanent solution. But as I said, you have not really gotten any better. And in fact, symptoms have become worse over time.
And you've maybe even tried making changes in your diet and you've added omega three, you've added probiotic and you've added curcumin because you've heard that they are very helpful, but it has not really made much of a difference to you.
Or you've even turned to the latest health trends or solutions that you found on the internet, such as detoxes or cleanses, but they fail to provide anything much beyond temporary relief, if at all.
The thing is, a lack of personalized, holistic approach that takes into your unique internal and external environment, such as your genes, your lifestyle, and you know as best as is. That is what is needed. And that is what when you when, when you lack that, it becomes a Band-Aid solution. So it's like putting a Band-Aid on a wound, uh, when you actually need to also maybe do a surgery or something else underneath. Right. So that Band-Aid approach just provides temporary relief.
So what you need to do is instead shift your focus to adopting a more personalized and comprehensive strategy. And that is what functional medicine is all about, right? It is actually personalized. It is preventive, and it is participatory because you have to take an active role in this. And it's like being a health detective for your own body. And that's the reason it's participatory or not a passive recipient anymore of prescriptions and treatments, you have to take an active role. And instead of just treating symptoms like a cough or a fever or a headache, uh, functional medicine allows you to dive deeper and find the real reasons behind your health issues. Why do you have this disease? So in functional medicine, we say it's not only what disease this person has as it is about what kind of person has this disease, right.
That's the distinction. So think of your body as a complex system where everything is interconnected. Regular medicine might focus on just one part that's not working right. And that's what conventional medicine actually does. But functional medicine looks at everything your diet, stress levels, sleep, uh, toxins, genetics, you know, environment, you know, and it sees how that all of this fits together and how all of how all of these are interacting with each other. And it's kind of, you know, finding out why your smartphone is not working properly, maybe. And you, you know, maybe you're just restarting it, hoping that it will fix itself. But you need to maybe look at the apps, maybe the updates, maybe have not updated it. You know, software update is required and maybe even the hardware needs to be fixed.
So you need to figure out what's going on underneath. And functional medicine actually does that for your body. But what I want to also mention here, it's not that medicines are not important or that conventional approach is not important. It is lifesaving. Medications are lifesaving., treatments are lifesaving. Um, you just need to know what approach to use when. And sometimes we need to use both. So you might have to be on medications so that, you know, you can prevent further damage for your tissues and organs. And at the same time, you also need to harness the power of functional medicines. It's like yes. And and that's what we did with our daughter's health. It was while she was off medications that we got the time to actually work on other things lifestyle, diet and whatever else that I mentioned here. And that's what did the trick, right? It was both for a while and then we could get her off medications.
So again, the goal of a functional medicine is to help you get better by fixing the root cause of your health issues, and not just by covering the symptoms. It's a personalized approach, which means the treatment is tailored specifically to you. That's where most people go wrong. They actually do things that are not really customized for them. Right? So it's like having a custom made plan to help you be at your best.
And here are three ways to help you get started right away.
One is, of course, embrace functional medicine with the help of a functional medicine practitioner or a health coach. And you know, you can seek a holistic assessment that is based on this approach because we are trained to look at the body as interconnected systems. So, you know, if you can work in identifying and treating the root causes of your illness other than just managing symptoms, that's where the magic happens. And this is this approach is actually highly individualized because it has to take into account your unique health history and genes.
The second thing is to incorporate lifestyle changes with the help of a functional medicine certified health coach. So it's about addressing aspects of your lifestyle that affect your health. So it can be stress. It is sleep. It is a physical activity. It is your relationships like anything and everything that actually affects your health. And all of these do, and they are all interconnected because it's your just one person and you are one person. Your thoughts, your mindset, your stress, everything matters as far as your health is concerned, because we are talking about not just your physical health. We are talking about your physical, your emotional, mental and spiritual health as well. So these simple regular changes, making changes in your habits, uh, you know, in your reach, creating new rituals, cultivating new, healthier habits can have a profound impact on your wellbeing. That's the power, again, of functional medicine because it helps you to support your body's natural healing processes.
And the last thing that you can do is to be a part of a community, such as a Facebook group, maybe an online community. It can be a offline community as well. It can even be, you know, getting into a group coaching program which actually helps you to implement all that I have been talking about. So having this kind of a support can provide the motivation, accountability and even insights from another person, right? While this obviously has to be customized at your level, the insight that you get from someone who is on a similar health journey is I feel it's priceless, right? And the kind of motivation and the support that only someone who is in your shoes can provide you is, again, priceless. And that's where a lot of people struggle. They don't get the support and this kind of encouragement, because others are not really able to relate to what they're going through. But someone who is in your shoes, literally and figuratively can.
So that's the power of healing in a community. And adopting a functional medicine approach in this manner, as I said, helps you to uncover and address the root causes and not just your symptoms. Uh, you know, the symptoms that you're experiencing at the superficial level. And you finally start seeing your body as an integrated symptom where everything from your diet, sleep patterns, stress levels, genes, and even your environment, the toxins that is coming in, it's, you know, your mindset, your thoughts, they all play a crucial role in your health because it is really important that when you're dealing with a chronic condition such as autoimmune disease or any other disease for that matter, that you actually create a personalized health blueprint, you know how you build a house and you have a blueprint and you have that plan or roadmap. You know, you can call it whatever you like, but it's this blueprint that is specifically tailored for your body's unique needs. It's not a one size fits all approach.
It's about understanding how different factors in your life and body are interconnected and how they contribute to your health conditions. And also, it's not just about being symptom free. Of course, you want to be free of your symptoms, but a more holistic approach would enable you to enhance your overall well-being and make it sustainable. Because it includes your mental, it includes your emotional and physical health, right? Not just the physical level. So it's about making you feel better overall and help you lead a more fuller and vibrant life. And that's what I call being an empowered warrior. So what you were before is a WEARY WARRIORr where you're trying out different things, but. We are exhausted trying to figure things out because you're doing it from the outside in. You're focusing only on inputs from outside.
Whereas the approach that I've just taken you through and using the power of functional medicine, it's an inside out approach, uh, wherein you actually uncover what is really going on and you become an empowered warrior, because this is when you move from survival mode to thriving mode and you start making plans once again. You can dress up and play with your children. Like you said earlier, you can also think of wearing high heels and going dancing. The you know the sky is your limit in that sense, right? There's so many things that can change for you. It's pretty much transformative. And that is the power of functional medicine.
of course it will depend on what kind of damage has been done, what has happened. You know, how much commitment you are, how much time you can put in, how much commitment you have. There are a whole host of factors. But make no mistake, uh, if you can take an approach like this, it is truly transformational. So if you have any questions, you can connect with me on Instagram @aninditarungta
Thank you so much for joining me today for this episode of Embrace Your Healing Journey. If you are ready to start on this journey, then you are not alone. You can join our community Embrace your Embrace Your Healing Journey podcast on Facebook, and that offers support and guidance from individuals embarking on similar paths. And this community offers you a safe space to share your insights, experiences and get the encouragement and accountability you need as you navigate your path to health.
In the next episode, I will talk about the five key changes that turned a chronic sufferer to a firm believer. And I'm going to continue this conversation on functional medicine. Don't miss it. Your body knows how to heal. Are you ready to support it?
