If you’ve been seeing one or more health care providers for chronic knee pain but you’re still suffering, support from a functional medicine practitioner is a great choice for care. Typically, medical care providers offer a limited range of options for managing knee pain. You may be prescribed pain medications or anti-inflammatories, offered injections for pain management, or given a referral for physical therapy. Depending on your condition, you may be advised to have surgery as a possible means of alleviating your discomfort and improving mobility.
Unfortunately, pain medications often involve serious health risks or side effects. They are not a solution; they do nothing to help improve the condition of your health. Physical therapy may help in some cases, but it may not help much, or it may fail to offer relief long term. Surgery is an invasive procedure that involves many risks, a great deal of recovery, and may not help in the long run. It’s understandable that an individual may feel reluctant to consider more medications, therapies, or invasive procedures when the care they’ve received has failed time and time again.
Functional medicineis a different type of health care that often succeeds in helping patients who suffer with knee pain, even when other types of care have failed. A functional medicine practitionertakes a comprehensive approach to helping patients. This means they do not focus exclusively on one area of complaint, such as a painful knee. Comprehensive care includes a complete neurological examination as well as x-rays that are necessary to examine the condition of the knee.
Functional medicineconsiders the body as a whole. Systems and organs within the body interact; health is a product of the function of various parts of the body acting (or failing to act) together. Dysfunctions, deficiencies or imbalances in one organ or system can contribute to problems in another, seemingly non-related area. As an example, your main complaint may be knee pain. But oftentimes, individuals suffering chronic knee pain also struggle with hip, back or foot pain. These are not “unrelated” when the body and your health are considered comprehensively.
Through careful, methodical, in-depth testing, a functional medicine practitioner will learn a great deal about your overall health. Any dysfunctions or deficiencies that are affecting how you feel will be identified. It is then possible to develop a healing strategy for knee pain as well as any other health conditions that need attention. When your health is approached comprehensively, you’ll benefit from more rapid healing and begin to feel better much more quickly than if knee pain was addressed on its own.
Functional medicine does not involve medications or painful therapeutic techniques. Instead, you can look forward to benefiting from safe, natural, non-invasive healing therapies that include advanced technology. Many patients with chronic knee pain find they feel better and achieve greater mobility within a few visits. Advanced technology and therapeutic programs are highly effective, involve no risks, and have proven to help patients with knee pain even when other types of therapy or medical support have failed.