Why a Functional Practitioner Can Help You Fix Your Joint Pain and Transform Your Life

Joint pain is a big problem. It impacts our ability to move freely without pain and have the active quality of life we dream of. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 15 million adults reported severe joint pain due to arthritis, which is a leading cause of work disability in the U. S. Nationally, statistics support that 1 in 4 individuals will develop arthritis, women more frequently, with an increased prevalence with aging. Many individuals seek traditional medical support for arthritis, but many continue to lose hope of managing their arthritis to live a pain-free, desirable quality of life. Here’s why a functional practitioner can help you fix your joint pain and transform your life.

Helping you identify exactly what you are looking for when seeking help with joint pain.

Often people think that they are looking for a quick fix for their joint pain, something that prevents and addresses flares. However, if they think more broadly, they may be seeking a more permanent outcome or even life transformation. This is beyond preventing or alleviating pain with “bandaids” to control it, but finding the root causes, fixing them, and living a lifestyle that supports healthy joints and eliminates the need for the “bandaid” solutions. It could even mean taking their life in a more fulfilling direction once they feel better.

Traditional providers are not equipped with the training and skill sets to help people identify the root causes of their health conditions. Yes, they have a variety of surgical and or medical approaches which may help reduce the pain. However, they do not look for underlying causes whereas that is how a functional health practitioner is trained. These experts look for hidden causes such as hormonal imbalances, infection, digestive issues, detoxification problems, energy imbalances, or nervous system issues. The functional approach supports more permanent solutions by addressing underlying imbalances in the body that can lead to chronic joint pain.

What can transformation mean?

• A broader solution to the problem-Your joint pain likely comes from a trigger or more than one trigger that is often hidden or unknown to you. Certain diet or lifestyle factors may be contributing to your pain. It could be food sensitivities, toxins, pathogens, or nutritional imbalances that you just aren’t aware of. The detective work that a functional practitioner uses helps to uncover these.
• Functional lab testing and analysis–This type of testing helps to identify the underlying hidden causes along with your health history. Functional practitioners are trained in specialized testing not used by traditional providers to look at underlying triggers and causes of symptoms of disease. They put the pieces of the puzzle together by correlating the test results with your symptoms to get a picture of what is going on in your body.
• Coaching-Functional practitioners provide, have resources, or refer for personalized health coaching. This coaching specializes in supporting the right diet for you as well as personalized recommendations for rest, exercise, stress management, and natural supplementation.

The coaching process can help you not only find solutions to your joint pain but more broadly your desired quality of life. While traditional providers may refer to health coaching, sometimes this coaching is just directed at helping an individual follow the provider’s plan. A functional coaching approach is to look at a broader diet and lifestyle approach that considers your individual goals and desired outcomes, along with factors that are contributing to the health problems.  

Why You Should Seek Transformation and Not a Quick Fix

• For a long-term solution-Quick fixes are short-term solutions that are often surgical or medical in nature when you have chronic joint pain. While these can be helpful, they are short-term and don’t fix where there is an underlying trigger for chronic joint inflammation and pain. Pain often returns and sometimes with a greater vengeance.
• Avoiding the Risks of Medication and Surgery-Medicating for pain and taking over-the-counter medications or prescribed medications for inflammation and pain comes with both side effects as well as potential adverse outcomes. At best, they are temporary solutions and rely on continued treatment. Surgery has inherent risks such as infection, bleeding, reactions to anesthetics, etc.
• For an overall improvement in quality of life-A functional approach addresses the whole body and is not isolated to a specific organ. This is because the body organs do not work in isolation. Therefore, it provides broader benefits for your overall health.

Coaching helps you be in touch with your own values, deep desires, health priorities, and preferences. This supports you to move forward to achieve your health goals and desired outcomes. Ideally, this is about finding permanent solutions to joint pain and transforming your quality of life and not just a reduction in pain.

What does it take to transform?

• Understanding your personal values-Health coaches use techniques and specific tools to help you identify your personal values. This can be helpful in identifying and achieving your health priorities as well as specific goals. Coaching can help you put your values into action.
• Commitment-Transformation is a long-term solution and as such, it takes commitment and perseverance. It is not a quick fix or taking a pill for every ill. It is normal to have some ambivalence about whether you want to take this journey to transform your joint pain and your life. While it’s important that you are committed to a positive life change, coaching can help you work through the ambivalence as well as the ups and downs on your journey.
• Patience and Resilience-Taking the long road can lead to transformation. However, the course of the road may need to change depending on what is uncovered during the testing and coaching process. Being patient with yourself and tapping into your resilience and sharing your concerns, progress, and pitfalls with your coach are important to getting or staying on track with your goals.
• Acceptance-While transformation of your health is a goal, parts of your life may be improved and others may not. While addressing the underlying causes of your joint pain is important to rebalance your body, a solution cannot be guaranteed, but more than likely you will feel better, move better, and live better.

Accepting that you have done what is within your control to improve your diet and lifestyle is crucial. While diet, rest, exercise, stress management, and natural supplementation can help to vastly improve or eliminate joint pain, sometimes, additional referrals and therapies are needed to help solve joint pain. This is where it is important to remind yourself of the broader accomplishments you may have made in this journey with your health through diet and lifestyle. Health is an ongoing journey.

In summary, an Expert Functional Practitioner Can Help You Fix Your Joint Pain and Transform Your Life

In summary, a functional practitioner can help you fix your joint pain and more broadly transform your life. The goal is to not only make your body work the way it’s supposed to but also to help you achieve your life goals and dreams. As a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition® Practitioner and health coach, I help people move from pain to peace with functional lab testing, interpretation, and personalized healing protocols, so that they can live better, feel better, and move better.