Functional Wellness is a type of detective work that seeks to identify underlying weaknesses and restore function rather than manage/suppress symptoms.  At Underwood Functional Wellness, I use thorough history taking, experience, and occasional functional lab work to guide the health building process.

With over 25 years of experience in healthcare, including conventional as well as alternative paradigms, I have a lot of respect for both approaches but I don’t think they are always used appropriately. 

Conventional medicine is the real star with critical care or acute care medicine but functional wellness shines with lifestyle related diseases because the solution is also lifestyle and intelligent self-care.

 I work with clients to customize their self-care to support their unique needs.

Having worked in both environments I understand their strengths and weaknesses and when it is prudent to refer for medical intervention.

But at the end of the day, I get great satisfaction from health rebuilding!

I do not diagnose mental health disorders.  While Conventional medicine is diagnostic driven, it tells you little about the underlying cause. Functional Wellness is mechanism driven and focuses on identifying and correcting underlying imbalances that steal your health.  While you may have a diagnosis of depression or anxiety from another practitioner (or not), my role is to uncover and support your unique physiological requirements.

I don't recommend gifting Functional Wellness services.  Gift certificates are a great gift for passive therapies such as massage therapy or acupuncture. 

While the sentiment of family and friends is well-meaning, Functional Wellness is a hands on approach to self-care that works best when the client is motivated to pursue support themselves.

The Functional Wellness model involves customized self-care so  while anyone can benefit, clients need to be well enough and willing to participate in their own care.

If you are unable to participate in your own care, either due to severity of symptoms or a lack of desire,  the conventional medical model is strongly recommended.  

Self-care can always be revisited at a later time.

Consults are conveniently offered by phone or video-conferencing so you can take advantage of this resource from home, work, or anywhere in the country.

If you are a First Responder located in Virginia and seeking the best way to support the cognitive health for your Department, please contact me regarding options.

Talk therapy and Functional Wellness have different goals and you may benefit from both.

My services are geared towards supporting your physiology.  You need to have a healthy brain to have healthy thoughts.

Talk therapy may still be extremely beneficial for processing emotional grief or conflict.

Absolutely not.  Medicine and wellness serve different goals so there is a place for both. Problems arise when we try to use one approach for all things health. 

We have started to medicalize self-care and you cannot gain true health from a pill.  Likewise, if you are in need of crisis care, conventional medicine is the only way to go.  But for long-term improvements, self-care should really be a part of your plan.

If you are already on medication, it is important to work closely with your physician.  As you restore wellness, medications may need to be adjusted or discontinued and should only be done under the care of your prescribing physician.

I do not take insurance and while it may sound counter-intuitive, this actually benefits you. 

Insurance companies dictate a tight treatment algorithm that is one size fits all and does not typically reimburse for deep investigations into your health complaint.  Rather than serve the insurance company’s best interests, I prefer to serve your best interests and do the detective work that will uncover the root cause of your health complaint.

In other words, insurance dictates the length of visits, how many visits, is diagnostically driven, and dictates the treatment protocol, the exact opposite of what we do.

You are welcome to include those labs in your intake but labs older than six months may not provide relevant information about your current health status.  What they can do is provide a baseline to compare with current labs.  Genetic testing does not change and can be shared regardless of the age of test.