The functional medicine model of care offers a patient-centered approach to chronic disease management. It seeks to answer the question, “Why are you ill?” so you can receive personalized, effective care for your needs.
Dr Gerard spends her time listening to you and gathering your medical history. She then uses this information to identify the root cause(s) of the illness, including triggers such as poor nutrition, stress, toxins, allergens, genetics and your microbiome (the bacteria living in and on your body).
Once we identify the triggers, we can customize a healthy living plan for you. Your plan will address many aspects of your life, from physical needs, including nutrition, exercise and sleep, to mental and emotional stressors related to social, work and community life.
Dr. Gerard fully believes that wellness starts from the inside of your body & shows it’s beauty on the outside.
“Functional Medicine determines how and why illness occurs and restores health by addressing the root causes of disease for each individual. The Functional Medicine model is an individualized, patient-centered, science-based approach that empowers patients and practitioners to work together to address the underlying causes of disease and promote optimal wellness. It requires a detailed understanding of each patient’s genetic, biochemical, and lifestyle factors and leverages that data to direct personalized treatment plans that lead to improved patient outcomes. By addressing root causes, rather than symptoms, practitioners become oriented to identifying the complexity of the disease. They may find one condition has many different causes and, likewise, one cause may result in many different conditions. As a result, Functional Medicine treatment targets the specific manifestations of disease in each individual.”
The Institute for Functional Medicine
What Causes Illness?
Getting to the root cause of a symptom or disease requires identifying systemic physiologic imbalances and an in-depth investigation of an individual’s environment and lifestyle. Despite what we used to think, our lifestyle and environment, not our genes, has the largest impact on our development of disease. Our bodies are constantly responding to our lifestyle and environment. They bathe our genes in information, and our genes respond accordingly producing either expressions of health or illness. Dr. Gerard looks for imbalances occurring in the body and identifies the areas of lifestyle and environment that are causing those imbalances.
The 5 Causes of Illness
- Toxins
- Allergens
- Microbes
- Stress
- Poor Diet
Having identified areas of imbalance, Dr Gerard then work collaboratively with her patients to investigate lifestyle and environmental factors that may be causing and/or exacerbating the problem.
Will Functional Medicine work for my condition?
All symptoms and diseases have a cause(s). The Functional Medicine approach is designed to uncover and address the cause(s) of symptoms and disease for the patient. This requires looking beyond signs and symptoms to identify the fundamental imbalances in the body and what might be causing those imbalances. For this reason, Functional Medicine can be beneficial to anyone suffering chronic symptoms, whatever the diagnosis. Remember, two people with the same diagnosis might have different causes; and two people with different diseases may have developed them from the same environmental trigger!
Why Choose Wyoming Medical Wellness Center?
Dr. Gerard loves connecting with patients on a personal level and learning each of her patients’ life stories. Her love and understanding of the complicated biological systems of the human body reinforces her love for Functional Medicine. She truly wants to help each & every one of her patients. By utilizing her medical knowledge & the Functional Medicine doctrine she has been able to help her patients achieve their medical goals.