Functional
Medicine
Caring for your health properly is so much more than just taking care of individual areas of your body. Sarah Yoakam, MD, we follow a “functional and integrative medicine” approach that treats the whole person, body mind and spirit.
Caring for your health properly is so much more than just the basics of eating right and exercise. With current medical research, we have discovered that the body is a complex collection of organs and systems and even bacterial colonies (the microbiome) that greatly impact each other.
While the standard of care hasn’t quite “caught up” yet with most of the current science, conventional doctors and “specialists” are still treating parts of the body separately without taking into account the fact that all these areas greatly impact each other.
When you are healthy, they work together like a symphony in perfect harmony – and you have vibrant health.
But when one of these systems is off balance, the whole symphony is out of tune! When you need a “tune-up” so to speak, not only do you need to look at areas that aren’t working right… but also that the rest of your body is in balance.
Sadly, most patients receive instead medications to treat symptoms associated with a body part that “isn’t working” when in reality, it’s oftentimes a systemic issue that needs to be treated in a completely different way.
In addition, the conventional medical approach also doesn’t consider that each person is born with unique health needs: Based on their genetic factors, the environment they were born into, what kinds of bacteria populate their gut, as well as what they are exposed to as they grow – each person’s body has a very unique health profile which means they need an equally unique healing protocol.
It’s no wonder people go from doctor to doctor and never find the answers to their illness! Conventional medicine is missing the mark when it comes to effectively treating many chronic illnesses caused by aging, environment and diet, hormonal imbalances, and food sensitivities because they try to treat symptoms with medication. In fact, we find with our patients that while they may share the same symptoms, they frequently suffer from very different imbalances.
That’s why at Sarah Yoakam, MD, we follow a more modern “functional and integrative medicine” approach that incorporates advanced functional lab testing and relies on current nutritional science to help you rebalance and finally heal.
This in-depth approach is the only successful way of treating chronic disorders because most chronic illness have many causes:
Instead of simply addressing different symptoms across separate areas, functional and integrative medicine seeks to treat the underlying root cause – while looking at lifestyle factors such as diet, environment, emotional health, and mindset that usually brings on the illness patients are seeking to heal.
Our Functional Medicine programs are a more comprehensive form of care (along with health coaching) to help patients learn how to upgrade their lifestyle – so they don’t remain stuck in the “chronic illness hamster wheel”.
Here are just some of the things we focus on in our program:
- We prioritize quality over quantity with our patients. We will only make a medical diagnosis after listening carefully to a patient’s medical history, reviewing testing, looking at lifestyle factors that are materially contributing to illnesses, then making a personalized recommendation based on each patient’s unique situation.
- Assessment, natural healing, and prevention are prioritized over wait-and-see treatment approaches.
- The most modern and advanced medical equipment available is used along with natural forms of healing like upgrading your diet and healing herbs or supplementation with fewer or no side effects.
- Patients are taught how to take a more active role in their own health and will learn up-to-date nutritional science & lifestyle modifications that can boost their health and overall wellness for a lifetime.
- Instead of relying on being prescribed medications again and again for temporary relief, functional and integrative medicine doctor Sarah Yoakam and her team at Sarah Yoakam, MD diagnose problems holistically and arm patients with the modern tools for healthy living.
Since the founding of her practice, Sarah Yoakam and her team have helped patients heal from life-altering conditions such as:
- Digestive Disorders (GERD, heartburn, IBS, SIBO, Crohn’s, Colitis)
- Autoimmune Conditions (IBD, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Psoriasis, Lupus, Inflammatory Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis, Hashimoto’s Disease, Celiac’s, Crohn’s, Type-1 Diabetes)
- Hormonal Imbalances (Feeling “tired & wired”, Hypothyroidism, Hyperthyroidism)
- Energy Issues, Stress & Chronic Pain (Chronic Fatigue, Adrenal Issues, Fibromyalgia etc)
- Cognitive Issues (SCI/MCI, “Brain Fog”, Memory Issues, Alzheimer’s Disease etc)