Testing of any kind has always been the tool that most practitioners use to help diagnose chronic health conditions or monitor how well their treatments are working. The data tests provide can often be extremely helpful by both setting a baseline to monitor progress as well as helping to figure out difficult or complex cases. But a test is only worth the paper it is written on if you know what to do with the information.
How many of you are either running tests through functional practitioners and still are not getting answers or results?
And how many of you are trying to interpret your own test results because you are trying to save some money?
I bet there are many of you. And you are the people I encounter in my practice every day.
And you know what? I get it! I am a mother with a son who had health issues I needed to help him with many years ago before I knew what I know today. And I learned how expensive it is to see practitioners and pay for treatments if you want to work outside the traditional medical model. And many of those practitioners also didn’t really know what to do, which meant I felt like I was throwing money away. But even within the medical model it is still very expensive to see specialists who end up just giving you a diagnosis but not much help further. To some degree governments subsidize the ‘sick’ system and not really the ‘health care’ system which puts functional practitioners at their patients at a disadvantage.
Nevertheless, it becomes expensive, and we try to save money by doing and experimenting by and on ourselves.
So, what’s the problem with that?
Nothing really. In fact, I encounter many ordinary people like you who end up knowing more about their health condition than most functional practitioners. The reality is that there is just too much information out there to keep up with for most practitioners. They are either time poor, or they have a niche in a specific disease or organ system which handicaps them in looking at the bodily system as a whole.
Because guess what? We are not organs and systems in isolation. We are 3 dimensional human beings where everything is interconnected. Absolutely everything. Your digestive system, brain or neurological system, hormones, thyroid gland…
Everything is regulated by cellular communication. And cellular communication is regulated by your biochemistry.
When you know how to interpret test results, whether it be blood tests or other functional tests, you can detect patterns within your biochemistry that can provide vital clues as to the underlying root cause of your condition and the best way to address this.
But this is wherein lies the trick.
Test results are not just about reading a panel, looking at a marker and knowing what it means. That is simple and easy, and still just looks at one individual organ or system.
STEP 1
First you need to be able to look at all the markers and form a complete 3 dimensional picture.
That’s the first step.
STEP 2
The second step is that you have to be able to even look at ‘normal’ markers and know when they are not really ‘normal’.
Test markers are based on a sick population because these are the people who get tested. So what we are looking for is ‘optimal’ markers…not ‘normal’.
STEP 3
The third step is to be able to look at the ratio’s between all of these markers in order to assess how your biochemistry is shifted. It gives us clues into many things such as genetic expression amongst other things.
STEP 4
The fourth step is to be able to interpret multiple tests, signs and symptoms, and history all together and form an even more complete picture.
Many tests show false positives and negatives, so you have to understand how your symptoms are correlated with your test results, or not.
STEP 5
And the fifth and most important step is then knowing what to do.
Not biohacking, but actually knowing what to do.
This is based on experience. By using many different kinds of methods, supplements, herbs on clients, testing and retesting, asking questions, and along the way learning what works and what doesn’t. It requires looking at thousands of test results and finding patterns that are often missed, and knowing what shifts these markers and get people better.
So again, it requires experience!
Following this whole process is the best way to save you time and money, and to get you the outcome you are looking for. Many practitioners miss one or more of these steps due to lack of training or understanding. The average person is not trained to understand all of these steps. Why should you be? You have better things to do, such as living a life and focusing on the career path you chose to follow. You should instead be able to get the help you need from someone trained in this area.
It’s important to know when you are out of your depth and when you need someone to put it all together for you.
Make sure you are working with someone who really knows how to put it all together. Someone who is not just ‘reading’ the tests but actually ‘interpreting’ them. And make sure you are not alone in treating yourself or your family members.
