The Top 2 Functional Labs You Need
By the time I hit my 20s, my health was falling apart. Digestive issues, fatigue, brain fog, hair loss, repeated infections, and just generally feeling awful…I desperately needed help. I went to different doctors, alternative medicine practitioners, naturopaths, you name it - and nothing helped. They offered various medications or supplements, but nothing was right for me. It felt like they were guessing about what might work. This went on for over a year, and needless to say, I only got worse. To get better, I needed to know what was actually going on in my body.
At my sickest, I could barely move. But according to standard lab testing, I was only out of range on a couple markers. Standard lab work wasn’t diving deep enough. It wasn’t until I approached my health issues with functional lab testing that I started to get answers. Functional labs get into the nitty-gritty.
Standard lab testing can still be helpful! I always check standard blood work with my clients. A complete metabolic panel, complete blood count, lipid panel, thyroid panel…all are good to look at. But standard blood work does have limitations. Many of the markers are vague, or can be low/high for a variety of reasons. That is why I use functional labs to investigate further.
Functional labs give us concrete information about what is going on in our body. Knowing exactly what is going wrong, and where, means we don’t have to guess what might be wrong. This is CRUCIAL if we want to make progress. Guesswork — blindly trying this and that — takes time, costs money, and it usually leads nowhere. We want to make targeted changes to improve our health. Getting useful data from functional lab tests was key to improving my health. If you have never gotten functional lab work done, here are two functional labs you should consider getting:
Don’t be fooled, this test is not just for people who have digestive issues. Remember - your gut health affects your immune system, hormone balance, mental health stability, energy production, cognitive function, and more!
I highly recommend doing this test if you have any of the following:
bloating
abdominal pain
feeling of food sitting in your stomach
headaches
gas
diarrhea/constipation
food reactions
undigested food in stool
weight fluctuations
frequent infection
fatigue
poor sleep
brain fog
joint pain
poor immunity
autoimmune conditions
skin issues
anxiety
The GI-Map detects bacterial imbalances in your gut microbiome. Too little, or too much, bacteria in your gut causes a whole host of symptoms. The GI Map checks for infections from pathogens, parasites, fungi, etc. Moreover, it lets us know if you have a gluten sensitivity, if your gut is inflamed/irritated, if you have low stomach acid, and if you’re producing digestive enzymes properly. The results can also provide insight on which foods or probiotics you may need to add to your diet - and which you may want to avoid.
Let me share some of my past GI-Map results:
Pathogens are the really big “bad guys” you can have in your gut. They cause severe damage and encourage further imbalance within the gut microbiome.
Back when I was really sick, it turns out I had high levels of C. difficile toxins. In other words: I had a chronic C. difficile infection. Big yikes. You may know of C. diff as that infection people can get in hospitals - and results in almost 30k deaths in the U.S. per year. However, chronic cases such as mine (and similar chronic infections such as E. coli, H. pylori, etc.) are often overlooked by the medical community. Unless you’re presenting with the textbook symptoms, doctors will almost never test for this.
I also had dysbiosis. Dysbiosis is when your normal gut bacteria are out of balance. This can mean you either have too little of the right bacteria, or too much of the wrong bacteria in your gut. Unfortunately, most doctors won’t test for this either.
In my case, I had a pattern of overgrowth dysbiosis. There was just too much of both good and “bad” bacteria in my gut, leading to symptoms such as bloating, poor food breakdown, slow motility, and pain.
Pattern of overgrowth dysbiosis
The GI-Map also includes markers like this one, where you can see if your body is reacting to gluten:
Ideally, this result should be low. However, if you did this test, you might see a similar result as the one above. This tells me that your body is reacting to the gluten you’re consuming. In this case, I would advise you to cut out gluten since that means your body is reacting to gluten.
And this is why functional lab testing is so great: it shows all these healing opportunities. By that, I mean areas in our body we can support or make changes to improve. Each little thing you do to help your body is crucial. Every small change you make to give it a break from being re-irritated every day (or multiple times a day) can help it finally heal.
If you’re having digestive symptoms, you have to find the root cause. In my case, it was infection and dysbiosis. For you it might be low stomach acid or bile production. Whatever the case may be - TEST, don’t GUESS.
2. DUTCH Complete Hormone Panel
(https://dutchtest.com/info-dutch-complete/)
The DUTCH Complete Hormone Panel includes sex hormone, adrenal, and organic acid markers. From it, we can see how your body is producing and processing hormones, and if there are imbalances. I highly recommend this test in individuals who are experiencing the following symptoms:
fatigue
infertility
PMS
headaches
mood swings
skin issues
weight fluctuations
anxiety
adrenal fatigue
hair loss
painful periods
sleep issues
Many clients I work with are struggling with exhaustion/fatigue. No matter how much coffee they drink, or how healthy they eat, or how much sleep they get, they’re still tired. If this sounds like you, let me tell you that your hormones are probably playing a large role in your fatigue.
If you were to get your hormones tested, you may have results like this:
This is a graph of cortisol production through the day, or your cortisol pattern. Cortisol is a hormone that helps us deal with stress. It gives us a bit of “get up and go” to tackle each day. But if your cortisol is as low as this throughout the day, it’s like you’re running on empty. There is no “get up and go” happening for you.
This is another reason I emphasize getting labs - it shows that there IS a problem. It’s not in your head. If you have low cortisol, you will NOT feel well! You just won’t.
On the flip side, if your body is overwhelmed (like mine was), you may have results like this:
Years of stress, chronic illness, autoimmune diseases, poor sleep and diet can contribute to a dysfunctional adrenal gland and result in improper cortisol production.
My cortisol was through the roof. This is common in individuals who are “go go go” people. Their body is constantly in “fight/flight mode” and there is no “rest” mode. They might experience feeling wired but tired, or increased anxiety or nervous energy. These are often people juggling kids and a job and illness, or are pushing themselves too hard in their career, etc. This is not sustainable, and it’s only a matter of time before their hormones crash.
And this is just ONE marker on the DUTCH test we can look at! Functional labs are a wealth of information.
If you want to know why you feel the way you do, and what you can do to finally make progress, get functional lab testing. Get answers for your health questions, and the information you need to feel better and accomplish your health goals
I highly, highly recommend getting functional lab testing if you want to make personalized changes for what is going on in YOUR body. If you have any questions about either the GI Map, or the DUTCH Hormone test, let me know!
Test, don’t guess.
