Functional Medicine Specialist

What is functional medicine?

Functional medicine is an approach to health care that focuses on finding the true source of your problem by exploring your physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being.

The Terry L. Franklin, MD, team also evaluates the relationship between the environment and your body, looking for exposure to toxins and allergens that contribute to illness and disease.

Then they treat the whole person by creating a treatment plan that addresses every factor that plays a role in your health problem.

Why does functional medicine focus on the true cause of symptoms?

Conventional medicine treats symptoms. For example, if you have a headache, you take an over-the-counter medication that relieves the symptom: your headache pain.

But if your headache is due to a problem such as stress or sensitivity to a food additive, the pain will return because your medication didn’t treat the true cause.

Functional medicine practitioners determine why you have headaches, and then they treat all the underlying causes to stop the recurrent pain and restore optimal function.

What type of treatment might I receive through functional medicine?

In functional medicine, no two patients receive identical treatments. But the following treatments give you an idea of options Terry L. Franklin, MD, may include in your customized plan:

Hormone balancing

As men and women get older, their hormone levels naturally decline, causing a loss of energy and increasing their risk of developing a hormone imbalance that leads to a health condition. As a result, they may need to have their hormones replaced, supplemented, or optimized.

Terry L. Franklin, MD, is the only provider in the area offering BioTE® hormone replacement therapy. BioTE is a safe bioidentical hormone replacement from natural plant extracts and is customized to meet each person’s unique hormone needs.

Homeopathy

Homeopathy trusts the concept that “like cures like.” Homeopathic medicines are made from a diluted dose of a variety of plant, animal, mineral, and synthetic substances that are known to cause a specific response in your body. 

When you receive a dose of the substance that causes your symptoms or illness, it helps your body treat the condition. For example, a homeopathic dilution of red onion may help treat excessive tear production.

Detoxification

Detoxing uses special diets and colon cleansing to eliminate harmful toxins from your body.

Leaky gut treatment

An unhealthy gut lining can allow partially digested food, toxins, and bugs to penetrate the tissues beneath it, which can trigger inflammation and changes in the gut flora (normal bacteria). This can lead to problems within the digestive tract and can even cause the development of a chronic disease. Terry L. Franklin, MD, provides comprehensive diagnosis and treatment for leaky gut to restore optimal digestive health.

Nutritional intervention

Nutritional education and dietary changes are foundational treatments in functional medicine. The foods you eat can either cause illness and disease or prevent and treat chronic health conditions.

IV therapy

Intravenous (IV) infusions of vitamins can proactively maintain wellness and treat acute and chronic health conditions.

Stem cell therapy

Terry L. Franklin, MD, uses stem cells from Predictive Biotech, a company that takes donated tissues from the umbilical cords of healthy, full-term deliveries and purifies them so they’re safe for stem cell injections. 

Stem cells are the body’s natural healing agents. When injected at the site of an injury, they self-replicate and produce new cells that develop into the different types of tissues needed to repair your body.

If you have questions about functional medicine or you would like to schedule an appointment, call Terry L. Franklin, MD, or book an appointment online.