I know many of you are curious about how our appointment went with our new Functional Medicine Doctor. If you need context as to what’s going on, you can read about Chrystal’s Health Crisis here and us anticipating this Functional Medicine Doctor appointment here.
So I’m here to tell you, Chrystal’s appointment went amazingly well.
Here are the details.
Our appointment was at 9 am and we were there at 8:45 am.
The office is an old home that’s been converted into a business as pretty much every other home on that street. The inside of the office was very nice. It felt warm and inviting.
The receptionist greeted us and we checked in. The first thing the receptionist did was measure Chrystal’s antioxidant levels which were on the high side of “good” almost to the “optimal” level.
The actual Functional Medicine Doctor appointment.
Before going to our appointment our Functional Medicine Doctor sent Chrystal over a super long questionnaire. The questionnaire was extremely detailed to get a complete picture of Chrystal’s health background.
Our appointment with the Functional Medicine Doctor was not the standard 15-minute “normal” Conventional Doctor visit. We met with our Functional Medicine Doctor for about 1 hour and 45 minutes (even though we only booked one hour of time with her, she stayed with us as long as she needed).
The Doctor asked a lot of questions and did a lot of listening. I feel many doctors I’ve seen communicate at you rather than converse with you if that makes sense? Our Functional Medicine Doctor had a conversation with us. She was just as concerned with mental health as physical health. She was extremely concerned with learning about Chrystal’s entire medical history.
We eat extraordinarily well at home. That said, the Doctor was able to let us know of a few things Chrystal needed to cut out of her diet and add into it.
No beans, peas or legumes of any kind. Yes on almonds and cashew ONLY if they’re raw and have been soaked in water for a minimum of 12 hours. No fruit except papaya or lemon in her water only. No eggs for 2 weeks and no raw vegetables for 2 weeks; instead lightly cook the vegetables to help aid with digestion. Extra salt. And plenty of black licorice.
The Doctor did a physical exam and found Chrystal’s pancreatic duct was inflamed (the one that had a gallstone back up in it last March and gave her pancreatitis and laparoscopic cholecystectomy). She showed me how to massage Chrystal’s lymphatic system, I got a new massage skill.
The Functional Medicine Doctor also gave Chrystal a bunch of supplements to help support the underlying problems, get her gut functioning better and help alleviate some of her symptoms. She also gets to do a betaine and pepsin tolerance test at home to make sure her stomach is producing enough stomach acid to break down her food.
One of the most interesting things I learned… And this is specifically for Chrystal from a Doctor… DO NOT DO THIS unless YOUR DOCTOR says to. The Functional Medicine Doctor prescribed Chrystal super high doses of a special type of iodine mixed with selenium and a couple of other things, not radioactive or anything like that. From her experience, the Doctor believes it will get rid of the cysts and nodules.
The Doctor also ordered a slew of blood tests. Chrystal said she didn’t look at the number of vials, but she knows it was a lot. They ran 10 tests, so she’s probably right. We are hoping to get the results for those back in the next couple of days so we can keep moving forward with her treatment plan.
We liked our old insurance, sure do wish we could have kept it.
I don’t care how you try to slice and dice it, the healthcare system in our country is broken. At one point in time we had amazingly awesome insurance. Then it was canceled because that policy wasn’t offered anymore. Now we have, for lack of better words, crappy insurance. Rant over!!!
How much ego can 2 doctors have?
None… and that’s so awesome. Both of our doctors are rad.
Our Functional Medicine Doctor is not in our insurance network, so she’s pay as you go… and our insurance doesn’t cover her lab orders since she’s out of network.
Our Conventional Doctor is stoked we’re working with a Functional Medicine Doctor who is trying to find the root cause of what’s making Chrystal’s health less than optimal. Since our insurance will cover some labs and not others, our Conventional Doctor is down to do what she can to help us order the the labs that our insurance will cover through Doctor’s appointments with her. Those labs, in turn, can be used by our Functional Medicine Doctor too.
We’re planning to make an appointment with her to see which of the next round of labs Chrystal will need our insurance will cover. We’re hoping that by working with her, we can get the best care possible without having to pay for everything out of pocket.
We’re super stoked our Doctors are working well together. There are a few Doctors out there who have God/ Superiority complexes… and the moment you even mention getting a 2nd opinion they get super offended and act like you kicked their puppy and pissed in their Cheerios. We’re so grateful that’s not the case with ours.
Doctors, nurses and healthcare workers all know our system is broken. It’s so awesome when people put their egos aside and come together to try to accomplish the same goal.
So what’s next?
We are waiting for the lab results to come back. Once they are, we’ll have a follow-up appointment with our Functional Medicine Doctor to get the lab results and to see what she says the next step and course of action is.
That same day we’ll schedule an appointment with our Conventional Doctor, share the results of our Functional Medicine Doctor appointment and we will all work together to help Chrystal get better.
We have hope!
We know the next steps down the Conventional Medicine path for Chrystal… biopsy/ radioactive iodine/ surgical removal of the thyroid / replacement thyroid hormone for life. Our Functional Medicine Doctor has given us hope there is another way.
Don’t get it twisted… even though our Functional Medicine Doctor is trying an “alternative therapy,” she is pro-science and bases everything she does in science. She’s not against Conventional Medicine by any means. Our Functional Medicine Doctor feels there are other approaches that can be tried prior to removal and has had tremendous success in treating other thyroid patients.
Chrystal is quarantined in our bedroom!
What? Yeah… it does appear Zoë, Kaylee and I all have throat infections. I went to the Dr this afternoon and have a mild fever, throat infection (not strep) and Amoxycylin. I’m taking the girls to the Doctor’s office 1st thing tomorrow morning (August 1st). So, to keep Chrystal healthy, she’s staying in the back of the house and we’re staying in the front of the house.
We are all in much better spirits after meeting with the Functional Medicine Doctor and we’re very grateful to have had her recommended to us. I’ll post more about what’s up with us later.
Functional Medicine Doctor Appointment on Monday!