Another difference between your doctor's blood work and the functional lab tests I do is how I interpret them. When you get any results from the lab, they indicate whether you are in range or not. This range is based on the average of all the people who took the test. Then, about 25% on either side of that average is said to be in range or "normal."
The first problem is that these ranges are based on many country code philippines list patients who are getting the test. Take a thyroid test, for example. Many more patients are getting the test than are healthy. So what the lab says is "normal" is actually normal for a symptomatic patient.
The second problem is that “normal” does not equal optimal. As a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner, I am trained to look for the optimal range. This is much narrower than the clinical lab range. You don’t want your test results to be “normal.” You want them to be optimal! Optimal is the range that people are in when they are healthy and have no symptoms. If your results are not optimal, then we work to make them optimal.
For example, if the TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) is between 0.5-3.0 μU/mL, the lab calls it a normal range. The optimal range is much narrower at 1.4-2.2 μU/mL. I had a client whose TSH was 0.9, so her doctor told her she was fine because she was in range. But she was experiencing symptoms of low TSH, like cold hands and feet and infertility, so she wasn't doing well!
3. Root causes, not band-aids