WAYNESBORO, Pa. — Nurse Practitioner Heather Tillman offered insights into her practice of functional medicine when she spoke to Waynesboro Rotarians last week.
She described her practice as a whole-body approach to health and wellness. She said functional medicine is not alternative medicine but is based on the whole person rather than isolated symptoms in one area of the body.
Keys to functional medicine are a focus on root causes, personalized care, whole-person care, partnership with the client and disease prevention. Tillman said she became interested in the functional medicine approach after wondering why so many of her patients over the years had chronic diseases that didn’t seem to be getting better.
She had her own experience with chronic disease when her hair started falling out at age 41, and she felt bloated and unwell despite following good health practices and exercising regularly. Routine tests found nothing wrong, but on digging deeper she found she had celiac disease, an autoimmune response to eating foods that contain gluten.
Lifestyle and environment play a huge part in a person’s overall health, Tillman said. A person’s diet, sleep habits and stress levels are all significant.
Her time-intensive approach involves a lot of one-on-one time with patients and looking deep into root causes other than individual symptoms. By correcting bad practices and habits that are detrimental to health, significant improvement is possible.
“The exciting part is that the body is resilient,” Tillman said. “If your body is trying to tell you something, listen to it.”
