The Importance of Symptoms

Just because you feel symptom-free doesn’t mean you are free from the risk of chronic disease. Imbalance in the body begins silently without symptoms. It begins with an unhealthy diet, high stress levels, lack of movement, poor sleep, weight gain, and for many, multiple prescription medications. These are all stressors. Consider then, the additional daily load of environmental toxins that we are exposed to. All of this works together to create inflammation, cholesterol imbalances, blood sugar imbalances, and nutritional deficiencies. This is the beginning of chronic disease development.

Currently, Western medicine is mainly focused on assigning a diagnosis based upon the signs and symptoms that a patient presents with. A disease is diagnosed and a prescription is given (a pill for every ill). Though symptoms may be temporarily reduced by the drugs prescribed, the root cause has not been treated. New symptoms arise as the body attempts to adjust to the “new” environment created by the drug and often, side effects from prescription medications are experienced.

Symptoms are one way our bodies communicate with us. They alert us to our body’s needs but most of us aren’t paying attention to these subtle shifts and cues. It usually takes pain to get our attention and using pain as a measure of health does not work out well in the long run. Just because you don’t feel pain doesn’t mean you are healthy. Pain is the last thing you feel, not the first.

Root cause practitioners know that one condition can have many causes and one cause can spur many conditions. For example, depression can be caused by a combination of factors such as inflammation, an Omega-3 deficiency, a low thyroid count, antibiotic use, Candida, hormone imbalances, toxins, and Vagus nerve dysfunction just to name a few. Meanwhile, inflammation can be caused by a combination depression, heart disease, diabetes, and/or a million other things.

Root cause practitioners know that each symptom may be a contributing factor to an individual’s illness. By identifying and treating the root cause(s) of an illness, there is a much higher chance of properly treating the individual. In my experience working with clients, I have never identified just one root cause to be at the root of the client’s symptoms. It is usually multiple issues all working together to throw the body out of balance. When I work with clients I seek to discover why they have an ailment or imbalance in the first place, and to restore what’s no longer functioning.

Whether you feel you have symptoms or not, root cause medicine can help with both chronic disease management and prevention. Root cause medicine takes into account bio-individuality or your unique genetic makeup and understands that all outside influences (diet, environmental, lifestyle, mindset) may play a contributing role in the development of disease.

Respecting that each body system is dependent on the other, root cause practitioners also understand that body systems do not exist separately. We work to correct core imbalances, restore optimal function, and in turn manage existing chronic disease while preventing further imbalances.

Are you interested in taking a deeper look into your health with the root cause approach? Get in touch!