41-Year-Old Housebound Female Labs Overview
In this article we will examine the labs of a 41-year-old female who had been basically destroyed by the conventional medical system. Because of her treatments and poor medical advice, she was left housebound, and had lost pretty much everything. At that point she looked into functional medicine.
What is Functional Medicine, and How Do Labs Help?
Functional medicine is essentially basic physiology 101. The goal is to try and get your body to function optimally, the way God designed your body to be. If your body is not healing or functioning properly, then we likely need to do a polytherapy approach to get you better and into recovery.
Functional medicine looks at essentially two things: What is interfering with the problem? What are you deficient in? Getting blood work done helps us identify the answers to both of these questions. Once we find those answers, we can create a path for your recovery.
What Do We Look For in Labs?
Let’s look at an example of some blood work and identify what is wrong with this patient. This particular patient had some very extensive labs done. We looked at a wide range of panels to make sure we had the best information.
Whenever we look at someone who has a chronic problem, it’s best to always go over some of the most basic solutions first. Even if we end up needing to resort to some of the more complex treatments, such as stem cells, if your body’s basic physiology is not in order then the more complex treatments may not work.
For most patients, we look at sugar problems, vitamin D levels, and inflammation.
Glucose, Vitamin D, and Inflammation Indicators
Her glucose levels were high, but not too much higher than the normal range. Her hemoglobin A1C is in the functional range. Because these are in the normal range, we can say the problem likely was not sugar related.
We can then move on to vitamin D, an extremely important nutrient to our bodies. Every single one of our cells has a vitamin D receptor, and relies on the nutrient to perform basic functions.
This patient’s vitamin D levels came out at 6.3, when the healthy range is from 30-100. I have taken thousands of labs and have never seen a vitamin D level that low. And even though the range we consider to be “healthy” starts at 30, the research is showing that levels below 80 can cause health problems.
Next we checked for inflammation in the form of C-Reactive Protein. The range considered “normal” ranges from 0-3, but this patient’s reading came in at 12.4. It is possible this high inflammation marker is related to the low vitamin D levels. It could also be due to food sensitivities, or a low level of hydrochloric acid, or many other potential causes.
Inflammation prevents your body from properly healing. You will never fully recover as long as you have high levels of inflammation.
Next we look at homocysteine, a marker for DNA health, and found it to be at 10.7. The “normal” range is 0-14.5, but I like to see my patients more in the range of 5-6. Homocysteine measures how well your DNA is copying itself. Her levels were not very high, but treating it gently would still provide benefits.
Another couple of inflammatory markers we look at are the sedimentation rate and fibrinogen activity. Her sedimentation is 26, which is within the “normal” range, but I like to see it lower than 11. Her fibrinogen came in at 400, but I like to see it between 200-300. Again, signs of chronic inflammation.
Insulin
The next marker I want to look at is extremely critical: insulin. I’ve written about insulin many times, and spoken about it a lot in my videos. A conventional range for insulin is 2.6-25, though I like to see it closer to 5. This patient’s insulin reading was 41.8.
Insulin is a hormone that causes chronic inflammation in the body. It is sort of like having glass shards running through your body, scraping it up and causing inflammation.
Conclusion
Thanks to these readings, we have a lot of ideas of directions we can take. We know that we need to help this patient with:
Increasing vitamin D
Decreasing inflammation
Decreasing insulin levels
This is where functional medicine comes in. You need to work with someone who knows you and your condition, who you trust to help you improve. I’ll be the first to say that I have not helped 100% of my patients get better. But I have helped many, many people’s lives improve with a polytherapy approach.
If you are out there suffering, contact me. I can be reached on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, or through my website. Don't hesitate to make an appointment so you can start feeling better soon!