Page 9 - August 22 2020 Issue PCOS

The PCOS Journey: Conventional or Funtional Treatment, Which is Right for Me?

model can help control and on running standard • Determine gut bacte-
the symptoms, but it does blood tests like a CMP ria health

not get to the root of the (Complete Metabolic • Balance hormones
problem. Functional medi- Panel) the glucose and • Decrease androgen

cine looks at the body as a Hemoglobin A1C tend to production
whole and a more holistic be elevated. Metformin is
approach to see how all the obvious choice. In our practice we first

of the body systems are How Functional Medicine like to figure out the root
functioning and what dif- Treats PCOS cause of the problem.

ferences are found in hor- Whether fully blown di-
mone production. A typical protocol often agnosable PCOS is pres-
looks like: ent, or if the symptoms

Another approach often • Balance blood sugar are early and you only
taken by conventional (determine insulin resis- have none or 1 of the Rot-

medical practitioners is tance) terdam criteria, we can
addressing blood sugar • Detoxify the liver easily identify and treat
dysregulation using a • Change diet the problem. In the early

pharmaceutical called • Address causes of stages of excess androgen
metformin. In these sce- inflammation production and insulin

narios the patient is often • Underlying infec- resistance (progressing
struggling to lose weight tions to PCOS) we see patients
that have tended to be fit

woman, with blood sugar
symptoms and functional

dysregulation on their
blood work, cystic acne
and irregular periods. As a

general rule, they have al-
ready been through a con-

ventional medical model,
tried antibiotics both topi-
cal and internal, and birth

control. Often, they have
been told that nothing is

wrong with them. These
Photo Courtesy of google.com women do not always fit

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