What Is Functional Fertility Nutrition (FFN)?
Functional Nutrition is part of the bigger umbrella of functional medicine/integrative medicine. It’s a medical specialty that uses therapeutic lifestyle interventions as a primary modality to manage chronic conditions. Functional medicine practitioners address the root cause of your illness. We use methods such as functional lab tests, blood work, signs and symptoms and health questionnaires (that may span back to your childhood) to find out why you’ve come to this current state of dis-ease. All very similar to the current model you’re probably used to at your doctors office. However, we dig and dig until we find answers. We usually spend countless hours with our clients and behind the scene researching if we don’t easily come up with the answer. A big change from the 300 seconds you get with your PCP.
Additionally, functional medicine practitioners use a tighter reference range when looking at all your lab results to determine how best to support your health. In the functional medicine practice we actually call them “optimal ranges” because that value should contribute to the pool of information that helps us optimize your everyday feeling of good health.
By using optimal ranges, we can help identify when a client is trending towards dysfunction and help guide them back to good health.
The standard reference ranges, that your doctor has used all your life, are useful at diagnosing pathology; that is, if some disease is causing a given biomarker to register as excessively high or low, it can serve as a clear sign to your doctor that you’re suffering from a clinical condition and that their diagnostic thinking was correct. However, health is not that black and white. And this kind of black-and-white thinking — where the patient is either healthy or sick with a clinical condition — leaves many dysfunctional, unhealthy patients to suffer. That is after all, why you are here reading this paragraph, because your health concerns by the allopathic system have either been brushed off or never adressed - because you are not officially “diseased yet.”
BUT DON’T WAIT FOR DISEASE TO SET IN! STOP SUFFERING IN THE MIDDLE!
Think about it like this, we all know someone with heart disease, diabetes, or even worse cancer. There was a time in their lives that they were feeling unwell BEFORE THEY WERE OFFICIALLY GIVEN THEIR DIAGNOSIS OF DISEASE. It was months, even years of hanging out in this “middle and gray area” that the current system is not designed to catch. There was a time (it was when they were in the gray area - and labs didn’t show up excessively high or low) where addressing the root cause of their illness could have slowed down, improved and sometimes even reversed their disease. By catching them in the window where they are dysfunctional and not quite “diseased yet” is where applying lifestyle interventions and assessing their labs in narrower range can actually make a difference.
This is why you’re here. Because a functional fertility nutritionist can help you if you’re in the middle - you’re not diagnosable yet - but you don’t feel right and haven’t achieved your family goals yet. Stop before you become diagnosable! I can help you return to good health and help you optimize your fertility. We won’t guess, we will test. I won’t dismiss you or your symptoms. I will hear you, support your and help you find the answers so that you can THRIVE EVERYDAY THAT YOU’RE ALIVE!
How The FFN Process Goes..
1. We will identify the level of support that is right for you.
After we’ve decided to work together, you will fill out a comprehensive health assessment asking you about your health history and current signs and symptoms that are troubling you and send it back to me through the secure health portal.
In our first session, we will review your health assessment. You will be able to verbalize to me everything you’ve been going through and all of your concerns. We will then decide whether you need a basic or advanced level of support and functional fertility nutrition testing.
2. Functional Fertility Nutrition (FFN) Testing
I will ship you your tests with instructions on how to use them.
These tests will help us assess your overall health status, thyroid function, inflammation status, nutrient deficiencies, food sensitivities, gut health, and sex hormone production/balance.
While we are in the process of testing and waiting for test results, we will start making a few basic changes to your lifestyle that will set you up for long term success.
3. The Plan, Application, Support, Change & TTC!
Our goal is to bring you back to a state of good health and fertility. Based on your results we will create a roadmap to better fertility.
Together, we will help you make manageable changes in a practical manner that will bring your body back into balance and a state of good fertility.
The first few weeks I will provide you with a high level of support, with weekly check ins. After you’ve concurred some of the hardest changes - and most of all when you feel comfortable to do so - we will switch gears to less frequent check ins.
After approximately 3 cycles (or about 2-3 months for men) - and every case is different depending on what you started with - we will recheck your reproductive hormones.
Finally, get back to the fun of Trying to Conceive!! (TTC)
Some Of The Functional Nutrition Labs We Will Use Together….
To get to where you want to be with your future family, a minimum commitment of 3-6 months will be needed so we can effectively assess, address and change your current state of health.
For patients who report signs and symptoms of intestinal permeability, thyroid disorders, menstrual irregularities, autoimmune disorders, chronic fatigue, or chronic inflammation - these tests will help us address and support the root cause of your health imbalances.
Full Blood Chemistry Panel
This will tell us some of the basics on your liver function, kidney function, blood lipids, blood sugar & electrolytes.
GI-MAP Stool Analysis
This stool test uses the most advanced technology to to detect dysbiosis patterns, parasites, bacteria, fungi, and more.
Nutreval Organic Acids Test
By evaluating organic acids and other elements, this test assesses macronutrients & micronutrient status, as well as markers for toxic exposure, mitochondrial function, and oxidative stress.
Food & Chemical Sensitivity Tests
The tests assess different immune responses to foods and substances commonly consumed & encountered to determine an individual’s risk for negative immune mediated reactions.
DUTCH Complete - Sex Hormone & Adrenal Assessment
These tests will assess your reproductive hormones and their metabolites, as well as your daily cortisol patterns.
Proov Reproductive Hormone Testing
We use these tests as an easy and affordable follow up test to our baseline testing. They help us monitor your hormones in response to the lifestyle interventions and support we have put into place.
Take Back Your Health & Fertility Today!
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