Rip-Off One: You’re told you need to do a battery of tests before your first visit.

This is one of the biggest scams, and is NOT considered REAL Functional Medicine. When you’re told you need to do a panel of tests before your first visit…or the doctor needs you to do all kinds of tests for a ‘comprehensive workup’ before your first meeting…this is code for SCAM.

In the city where I practice there is a compounding pharmacy that offers testing like this. Everyone gets the same panel of blood and urine tests. Everyone. You’ll also find this popular scam on the internet. Don’t fall for it.

We are all biologically different and unique. Running the same tests on everyone across the board is a generic, one-size-fits-all approach to healthcare. And, like a one-size-fits-all tee shirt, it rarely works.

Plus, it’s unethical. Period.

Functional Medicine is by its very nature personalized medicine – like a custom tailored suit. Your Functional Medicine doctor should sit down with you first and take your complete history before ever deciding which tests are appropriate for your case.

And, they should also review all your past tests – any and all tests run by your family doctor and specialists – before deciding which tests are appropriate for your case. In this sense the tests you actually need are custom tailored exactly for your specific case.

You avoid spending money on tests that you don’t actually need. And, you avoid spending money on tests that have already been done, too.

Rip-Off Two: You’re told you don’t need ANY testing.

Some doctors think they don’t need to do any testing on you because they can figure out your case just from your symptoms and a detailed history.

In my opinion if you’re doctor’s not testing that means they’re GUESSING. And they’re wasting your time and your money.

In order to find the underlying cause of your health problem a certain amount of testing must be performed to see what’s out of balance…and what’s not. I’ll give you a common example…

Many doctors think they don’t need to test your vitamin D levels because ‘everyone is deficient’. (Which is, for the most part, true for us here in Canada. Just about everyone I tested last year was vitamin D deficient or insufficient. Ideal vitamin D levels are 125-250nmol/L.) But, then they prescribe a generic amount of vitamin D for everyone to take – usually 1,000iu-2,000iu daily.

(Again, a one-size fits-all approach rarely works for anyone…)

Here’s the problem with this…

Vitamin D deficiency can be all across the board – mild deficiency…moderate deficiency…or severe deficiency – regardless of symptoms. Depending on how SEVERE the deficiency is it will obviously require a different dosage to fix. Your doctor won’t know that unless they test you first. Plus, vitamin D deficiency does not correlate with any specific symptoms.

In fact, vitamin D deficiency mimics many, many different diseases…

So without a test the doctor usually takes you on a wild goose chase based on your symptoms alone…

And just wastes a lot of your time…

And your money.

(That’s just one example with vitamin D. I could give you many other examples.)

Doctors that do not test either don’t know what to test or are not comfortable with interpreting the test results – this means they’ve never been fully trained in the Functional Medicine approach.

(You don’t want this doctor.)

Or, it’s entirely possible that they fundamentally cannot legally even run tests because they’re not even a real doctor, or they’re practicing outside their scope of practice!

(Crazy, I know…but I’ve seen it happen!)

A good Functional Medicine doctor will always have a plan for testing you, and will explain the pros and cons of testing based on your case, so you can decide whether or not you want to go ahead with testing.

Tests can be expensive…I know that. But, in order to find the underlying cause and not waste any more of your time and money oftentimes the best investment in your health is running the right tests.

Again, when you’re not testing…you’re guessing.

Rip-Off Three: Re-running tests that have already been done.

Unless you’re retesting to measure progress…why test twice?

To pad the doctor’s wallet…no other reason.

I especially see this with blood tests. Doctors needlessly re-running tests that have already been done by someone else because they’re too lazy to get copies of your medical records.

That’s why a good Functional Medicine doctor will request all your medical records from all your doctors to see what has already been tested and avoid repeating tests unnecessarily.

Now, most test results are only good for about a year or two. Tests older than this don’t hold as much relevance to your present state of health. In this case retesting is usually necessary to get an accurate picture of your present health.

Make a promise to yourself starting today:

Stop feeling lousy…rotten…awful…crummy…miserable…terrible…crappy.

Find a good Functional Medicine doctor to help you get to the root cause of your health problems.

Like I always say:

Find the cause.

Fix the cause.

Feel normal again!

Dr. Carri Drzyzga, DC, ND – The Functional Medicine Doc

Find the Cause. Fix the Cause. Feel Normal Again!