How to Get the Most Out Your Functional Medicine Plan

Hi, I’m Dr. Emily Parke. With your Functional Health Minute.  Today I’d like to go over how to get the most out of your functional medicine plan. After you’ve had an initial functional medicine visit with your provider, whether it’s here with us at Arizona Wellness Medicine or another functional medicine provider, I would highly recommend you take time and read over your visit summary and any handouts that may have been given to you. That’s because a lot happens in the first functional medicine visit. A lot of information is conveyed, and so it’s very easy to miss something or forget something. But there is a complete plan for you that has been customized and personalized for you that will be your visit summary.

Again, the handouts will be also in the patient portal for you, and they’re there as guides to help you be able to follow through on the recommendations in your plan. Remember, your plan is going to have information on what to do for nutrition, sleep, exercise and movement, stress management, toxin reduction, how to complete laboratory testing.  And supplements, if we prescribed them at that visit, how to take them and what they’re for. So, really do take time to read everything over. That would be my very first tip for making sure you’re getting the most out of your functional medicine visit.

If you have any questions at all after reading over the information that’s been provided to you, please reach out. If you’re seeing us, obviously, please call us or send us a portal message. Let us know if there’s any questions we can answer. In addition to that, if you feel like you need extra help with being able to follow through on your plan, here at this practice at Arizona Wellness Medicine we do have a health coach. She is a certified functional medicine health coach. Her entire job was created to help patients be able to follow through on their plans without stress. So if you need any additional help, we do have health coaching services, as do many functional medicine practices.

The last thing I would say is to really try to complete your laboratory testing as soon as possible. That’s because a lot of the advanced functional medicine tests, they take two to three weeks to get back after they’ve been received by the company. We just want to make sure that we’ve got your results in time for your follow-up visit, so that you can get the very most out of your follow-up visit. Same recommendation I had for your initial visit holds true for your follow-up visit. Come with questions. If you have questions, write them down to make sure they get answered during your visit. This is Dr. Emily Parke with your Health Minute for today.