At Place Eight Wellness we follow a functional medicine approach to your health concerns. This means we understand there is often a root cause to illness and clinical testing can help us to identify what those are.
Rather than simply treating the symptoms of any health concern, we examine the role of diet, environmental toxins, infections and other lifestyle choices as potential triggers for illness.
Conventional medicine doesn’t always look at the same factors and can follow a fairly rigid, one size fits all approach to testing. ‘Clinically’ normal reference ranges can be very broad and many people, who feel unwell, are told their results are ‘normal’, leaving them feeling more frustrated than reassured about their concerns.
A naturopathic practitioner uses a much narrower reference range, looking for results which reflect optimal health . We don’t follow the idea that wellness is simply the absence of disease.
We work closely with some of the UK's most respected laboratories who provide a range of functional diagnostics tools to support our treatments and therapies. These tests allow us to investigate underlying imbalances that may be creating or contributing to a disease process and systemic imbalance.
Who can benefit from testing?
There are many reasons we may recommend testing to clients but they can be particularly insightful for those who suffer from constant fatigue, digestive problems, (including IBS diagnosis), history of food allergies or intolerances and those who suspect thyroid problems (even though a GP may have had this tested with ‘normal’ or ‘borderline’ results).
What tests are available?
Functional testing tends to place priority on Inflammation, nutritional deficiencies, toxic exposure and heavy metals, weaknesses in the immune system, hormones and neurotransmitters and the mind-body connection. There are many types of tests available but some we recommend regularly are:
Digestive Function & Infection
Food Intolerances (Cyrex)
Cardio & Metabolic Tests
Micronutrients
Methylation Plasma
Stress & Thyroid Hormones
Male & Female Hormones
Neurotransmitters
Viral
Testing costs
Costs can range anywhere from around £40 well into the hundreds. We understand that this can be a big investment for some and we don’t recommend testing unless we really feel results will be useful.
However, there is no doubt that tests can undoubtedly be the quickest and most effective method of identifying a cause of symptoms. This means we can be armed with the information we need to produce the most effective dietary, supplementary and lifestyle protocol for you. This in turn can mean relief from symptoms as quickly as possible.
If you are unsure about how testing can help, please contact us.