Introduction
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: What is going on, my friends? Welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue aka Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show about FDN – what’s the difference.
What we’re going to be doing today is breaking down the differences in philosophies so people can understand what we are doing at FDN and what other places do. In my opinion, and I think many FDNs would agree with this, there is a time and a place for every philosophy here.
In fact, there are many times when maybe we should be using all three philosophies all at once. It can be the most effective form of treatment for the individual. But what really needs to be understood, especially if you’re listening to a podcast like this and you’re trying to understand why do these people get these crazy health results? Like what is actually happening here? Are they that much smarter? Are they that much different? I don’t think anyone here is that much smarter. I really do not believe that.
Certainly not more than some of these incredible MDs and PhDs out there. We do have a good set of MDs and PhDs that have come through the FDN course. But I mean, the average FDN like myself, it’s not like we’ve done something super crazy like those achievements. There’s no way we’re smarter. Yet we’re getting dramatically different results with many of these chronic health challenges that modern people are facing.
It is not necessarily an intelligence thing. Instead, it’s a philosophy thing. But you can’t really understand why that’s working until you understand how these three are separated.
FDN – What’s the Difference: Allopathic Western Medicine
So, I will be breaking them down, like I said, into three categories. One is allopathic medicine, aka Western Medicine. Two is going to be natural/functional medicine. A lot of the times these end up being the same exact thing. Third and final, we will end up being the FDN philosophy. We’re going to put that kind of in an entire category in and of itself.
Let’s start with number one, allopathic Western Medicine. What does that literally mean? Well, allopathy is the treatment of symptoms and diseases with drugs and surgery. That’s literally what it is. It’s conventional treatment.
This means that you need to actually have a diagnosed or diagnosable issue before you can have this system really work for you. It’s not preventative medicine. Let’s take my own health journey as an example. I’ll use my health journey for an example with all of these different things. Even though I had a bunch of different conditions, I’ll probably focus mainly on severe cystic acne.
First of all, before Western Medicine is ever going to look at me for anything they need to see that I have acne. You say, well, that seems logical enough, right? Why wouldn’t they do that? Well, wouldn’t it be better if we were in a system where we were preventing those things to begin with?
Now, I’m not saying any system yet is particularly great at this. This also requires human beings to actually be proactive enough to think in a preventative way and actually want to act on those things. But that’s beside the point.
FDN – What’s the Difference: Least Harm for the Best Result
I need to have the cystic acne first. They don’t care that my mom had that or that her dad had it. They need to see it in me first. Then what are we going to do?
We’re going to start off with, generally speaking, the first line of attack that they have that causes the least risk or harm to the individual. Yes, I know some people out there believe that Western Medicine is nothing but bad and evil, trying to hurt everyone. I’m sorry, I’m not going to buy that. We don’t promote that at FDN. We don’t think that’s true. Like I said earlier, we have plenty of people from Western Medicine that go through the FDN course. I can’t believe that. I can’t bring myself to believe it.
I think it’s a difference in philosophy. They’re going to do the least amount of harm that they can to try to get the best result that they can. How that’s typically going to go for someone with cystic acne is probably something topical. They’re probably going to use some type of potion or lotion on my face. They’re going to want me to use that. There might be some minor side effects and hopefully it helps the breakouts.
I remember something that, actually, it caused harm as well, but it did work to some degree was Tretinoin Retin-A. It’s like a vitamin A derivative. It’s a topical thing and it does actually really work kind of well for most acne cases. Mine was pretty severe and it made a dent. It made something noticeable.
FDN – What’s the Difference: Do the Pros Outweigh the Cons?
But what it also did is prevented me from going out into the sun because I could burn really quick. It also caused very dry and itchy skin. So, you kind of have to wonder like, well, is this worth it? I mean, yeah, sure. You temporarily get rid of the acne, but you never addressed the real cause. Also, you destroyed the skin in the meantime.
Believe it or not, that wasn’t a question that was set up to be like a stab at Western Medicine. I actually kind of mean that. It is a good option sometimes. You might be saying, well, how, what are you talking about? It’s a good option when the pros outweigh the cons.
If someone is so stressed out from the acne they’re dealing with and they’re so humiliated, even though it might not be the long-term answer, then yes. It really might be a better idea to damage their skin a little bit, to have them have issues going out in the sun. Relieve the mental stress that comes from walking around all day having to worry about what people are thinking about and feeling like you’re less than. That’s how I felt. So, there is a time and a place. But it’s usually not something that we’d ever want to do long term cause it’s not addressing the real thing.
So that’s allopathic, right? They’re going to start that treatment and they’re going to do the least amount possible. If and when that does not work or ceases to work, if it was working previously, then we’re going to break out the bigger guns.
FDN – What’s the Difference: Bringing out the Bigger Guns
And in the case of cystic acne, what’s probably next? Not always, but what’s probably next is going to be a course of antibiotics. They’re going to try to get you on antibiotics, see if that works. In that case, you might be on longer term antibiotics.
I was going on for a month at a time, despite having already been on plenty of rounds of antibiotics throughout my adolescent years. And then when that doesn’t work, if and when, we probably have even bigger guns for that.
In the world of acne, the head kahuna, like the big thing, is what was originally called Accutane. The generic is isotretinoin. This is where we start to get into kind of weird stuff in the world of allopathic medicine because some of the treatments that are the big guns, yes, it might work, but usually there’s a lot of side effects and it’s not always made for that specific disease. It could be from something else completely.
Isotretinoin was a chemotherapeutic drug originally. It wasn’t an acne drug; it was a chemotherapeutic drug. We realized, oh, wait a second. This kind of burns out people’s sebaceous glands. So, for people with very oily skin, which is typically going to be at least some part of the profile of people who have acne, it is burning out these sebaceous glands.
It’s also a vitamin A derivative, so it’s helping in other ways, but it’s synthetic, so it kind of leads to its own issues. Not to mention, again, it’s a chemotherapeutic drug. So, we’re giving pimple face teenagers, and 20-somethings a drug that was originally used for cancer patients and as a side effect happens to help acne.
FDN – What’s the Difference: Are the Meds Worth the Risk?
By the way, sometimes it doesn’t even do that anymore because our lifestyle’s gotten so bad. This is kind of proof too, that it’s a lifestyle thing and not elsewise. Cause Accutane used to be a gold standard. Like when my mom took it when she was younger, it was literally guaranteed this is going to work, your skin’s going to be great. And it did work for her, it got her skin cleared up. So, it worked in the sense that it helped for that, but it comes with a whole other bunch of issues.
Accutane, its most severe side effect is actually that it could cause you to die. I’m not saying that’s particularly common, but I’m also saying that we’re talking about acne here. I mean, I’ve had some pretty bad acne in my life, but still, is that worth the risk of dying?
Is this a medication that I should have to sign a packet for as a 17-year-old? Like you literally have to sign something saying that you are agreeing to the risks of this so that you can clear up your skin. I mean, is a 17-year-old even capable of making those decisions? I don’t know. So, that’s usually what happens in allopathic medicine.
Now in the case of acne, there’s not really any surgery that you can do. But if this was a different condition, let’s say a thyroid disease such as the one that my mom had, they might start her off with some medications. You might get some Synthroid.
FDN – What’s the Difference: Situational Mindsets
Then when this doesn’t work overtime, the next option eventually would be to just remove the thyroid completely as if that was the main issue, which it’s absolutely not. Then we can give you the synthetic medication for the rest of your life. Cause now we can control it a lot easier since your thyroid is no longer a part of your body.
This is allopathic medicine. Where is there a time and place? Cause again, I want to seem objective. Well, like I said, if the pros outweigh the cons for mental stress, yeah. I mean, mental stress is big. It is a bad thing to have on the body, especially when it’s something reversible.
Like I can reverse the damage that was done with Tretinoin. I can’t really reverse Accutane, that’s not a good idea. But I could reverse Tretinoin. So yeah, the pros can outweigh the cons. Another time that this could be applicable is if you are a bit older. I’m even the first to say this myself.
There would probably come a certain time in my life that if I had a certain disease or if I had a certain issue, that you kind of just start letting loose a little bit. Because when you’re young or young enough and you’re dealing with health issues, you kind of get to the point where you realize, all right, eating a little healthier and not being able to have this crappy artificial stuff is a better reality. Even though it might be tough sometimes, it’s a better reality than living with my disease. Versus if I’m at the end of my life and I know maybe I only have a few years left anyway.
FDN – What’s the Difference: Natural/Functional Medicine
I can take a medication, mask my symptoms, get to eat my Hershey Kisses all the time and all the other crap food I want to eat and stay up late, or I could get rid of the disease. I could eat super disciplined, be super disciplined in every way, I don’t have to take the medication, and I still only live for a few years. I mean, I can understand that situation as well.
Maybe the person just wants to do whatever the heck they want for the last few years, and everyone has the right to do that. So, that could be another case where the allopathic side is something good to use.
Let’s move to natural and functional medicine. What this has become, even if this wasn’t how it was originally intended, is basically a knockoff version of allopathic medicine that might be a bit safer, but also generally speaking, not always, but generally speaking, a kind of less effective than many allopathic treatments.
I won’t list any type of specific profession; I will just say this. I went into a type of physician that was more natural oriented when I was in my early twenties, before I found FDN. It was like six, seven months before I found FDN, and that’s the stage of my healing that I was on. I was looking into stuff like that when I went to this doctor, super nice lady. I mean, I already felt like I was being much more attended to than I ever had in my life by any doctor.
FDN – What’s the Difference: Playing the “Sounds Like” Game
We sat down for like an hour each time. There was really, really big intake forms, which was actually a good thing cause I could tell this person was actually taking the time to read about my case and see the things that I struggled with. However, it was kind of a guessing game. Even if this person meant as well as they possibly could mean, they ended up just treating symptoms or things that they thought were there.
When I went to this person, they thought I had maybe some gut bug going on. They were already playing the “Sounds Like” game, which you’ll notice there’s a distinct difference between what FDN does and what these other places do. We don’t play the “Sounds Like” game, but this place was playing the “Sounds Like” game.
She said, well, it sounds like this and we ran a test because of that. If it shows up on the test, I mean, fair enough. I’m not going to argue that. But this is the worst part, because she was playing a “Sounds Like” game, you’re going to have some chance of risk there and some chance that it doesn’t work. And it didn’t.
I ran this test; it took a lot out of me at that time. Cause again, I was in my early twenties. I never went to college because of my health issues. There were multiple reasons, but that was actually a main one. I didn’t have any real income coming in. I was maybe making, I don’t know, $500, $600 a week. It was already $300 an hour to go to this person, and now the lab test cost me an extra few hundred dollars. So, I’m really saving up a lot to make this work.
FDN – What’s the Difference: Expensive & Getting Worse
We ran a test based on “sounds like” and the thing that she thought was there didn’t even come up. You’re like, well, that kind of sucks. Oh, it gets better. The worst part is that what we ended up doing was treating me for the thing that she thought was there that didn’t show up on the test, under the belief that it probably just didn’t show up on the test.
I have so many questions about this. You already know my situation, that I’m a young person. I don’t have a ton of money to spend on this, but obviously I’m dedicated because otherwise I wouldn’t be coming in and doing things completely differently than the other 20-somethings that I know.
You have me spend money on a multiple hundreds of dollars test, and you’re going to treat the thing anyway, even though it didn’t come up. I wouldn’t do it now, but I could at least get behind the logic of treating anyway, but why did we run the test then? If you were going to do this regardless, what are you spending my $300 for? Cause now I gotta save up for the supplements too.
So, I had to come back again and do that. We also tried things like ACV (apple cider vinegar), berberine, which in and of themselves, generally speaking, can be great supplements. They actually made my condition a little worse and started causing acid reflux because they didn’t test for the right thing. It turns out I didn’t have the best GI situation at the time. Those things were actually exacerbating my symptoms.
FDN – What’s the Difference: No Further Along
To be clear, I want to be honest here, I liked this person. This person is cool, this person is nice. They’re in my hometown. I doubt that they would ever hear this, but I respect this person. But their model and philosophy really kind of stank.
It didn’t work, it wasted a lot of my money, and it was based off a lot of theory as opposed to objective data. At least allopathic medicine is basing most of their stuff off objective data. They get some lab test back, they do a swab, they can see the symptoms. There’s a real diagnosis there.
This person didn’t hurt me that bad. I mean, honestly, that situation with the ACV and the berberine was kind of a rare situation. I don’t think that would happen to too many people, certainly less than not. But most people aren’t going to get hurt by going and doing that stuff.
You spent hundreds of dollars, it didn’t help the way that you wanted to, and you’re no further along. It just became a place, Natural Medicine that is, where they copy Western Medicine. Okay, cool. You have a diagnosis, or you have something that “sounds like” this thing, and we’re going to treat it with supplements.
Again, almost any supplement out there is going to be better than something like isotretinoin. Right? But it’s not the cause of the problem.
FDN – What’s the Difference: What is This Philosophy?
I’m not deficient in a particular supplement most likely. I guess it could be a vitamin, but I think that’s pretty rare that it’d be one singular deficiency that’s causing your health issues that are bad enough that you’re going into a place where you’re spending hundreds of dollars an hour to work with the individual. Probably more than that is going on then. So, this is a failed system as well.
It might be good to use some supplements if we can replace side effect ridden allopathic medicines. But if we can’t even do that, then Natural Medicine’s not that useful, overall.
So, what does something like FDN do? I mean, what is this philosophy? How is it different than even a natural/functional medicine thing?
We are not treating anything specifically. That’s already one of the core differences. We do not treat anything specifically. Western Medicine and my Natural Medicine practitioner treated things specifically that either were there on tests or sometimes weren’t even there on tests.
We use testing. So, how do we use it if we’re not treating anything specifically? Well, we’re using it to get a whole picture of the person. If you are always listening and maybe you get a little confused about, why do they run the same labs every time on every person, it is for the exact opposite reason that that natural person ran the one test on me.
We know better. We know that the body is tricky. Every single person presents differently. You could have two people, two similar ages, two similar upbringings, with seemingly similar experiences that have the exact same set of diagnoses or diagnosis, and yet they present completely differently on the labs. It happens all of the time, especially the more common the condition is.
FDN – What’s the Difference: Everyone Presents Differently
You show me five Hashimoto’s clients, even if they’re all 35-year-old women, which will be a pretty standard group to be dealing with something like that, you will see five completely different people if you run all the different labs.
You’ll see different food sensitivities, different gut infections or gut issues, and vastly different hormone profiles. There’s more to it than just one lab or one thing. So, we don’t care about any one thing. We’re not going to say, it “sounds like” this, so we’ll run this one lab. No.
If you want to use this system that works quite well because we have hundreds of stories proving it, you can hear a lot of those on this podcast, then what you’re going to have to do is do it this way. Because otherwise you’re completely risking it. This is why these things stay in business cause it’s like 50/50, right?
If I went to that Natural Medicine doctor, let’s give her the benefit of the doubt. Let’s say the thing that she thought it was, did show up on the test. And she was able to create an effective protocol because of that. My symptoms got better, or at least moved the needle, I probably would’ve been happy. I would’ve said, this person’s great. It wasn’t perfect, but this was worth my money. But you’re gambling. FDN is never a gamble.
FDN – What’s the Difference: FDN is Never a Gamble
I am not suggesting that this is a miracle. I am not suggesting that every single person who goes through an FDN program ever is going to be a hundred percent better in a few months. That’s unrealistic. There are people with terminal illnesses out there, and unfortunately it might just be too far.
Never too late to stop trying though. I’ve heard crazy stories. I would never, ever, ever stop trying, but you can’t fix everything. I get that. The difference is though, Western Medicine, you hear all the time about people getting worse sometimes based on the medications they took. Natural Medicine, a little rare, but you have my condition there where I actually got worse with what they did for me.
I have never, in five and a half years, heard of someone going through an FDN protocol with all of the labs and said they got worse after a month than better. Never once have I heard that. I swear to you, I’m telling you the truth. How can that be? It’s because we’re not going the way that those other systems are going.
We’re not getting some paperwork back and treating the paperwork. We’re not operating off the diagnosis paradigm where, it sounds like this, or we know it’s this so this always gets treated the same way.
No, I want to know, as an FDN practitioner, who is the person in front of me, what are their unique qualities? What has led them to the position that they’re in now and what is going on in the main systems of their body? That’s why we’re going to do all the labs.
FDN – What’s the Difference: Core Belief
Once I figure out what has uniquely led to these issues, then we start addressing the stuff on the labs. And when you start addressing the stuff on the labs in a holistic sense, unique to that person, which we train you to do, if you go through the course, all of a sudden, the symptoms get better, or diseases even go into remission. That’s not a claim.
I have seen that people have given that testimonial on this podcast. It happened to me. So, that’s not a claim, that actually happens sometimes. And the reason it happens is because of the deeper way that FDNs actually think. It’s one thing to say, we don’t treat paperwork, we don’t do that.
Okay, well, what do we do then? We address everything in a non-specific fashion based on a really core belief. The core belief is this, that the brain and body have to be healthy in order for the body to be asymptomatic. If there are one or more malfunctions in the brain or body, then it will lead to a state of dis-ease, it will present, the body that is, with one or more symptoms.
Now, when you think about it like this, it means that an unhealthy body automatically is one that is symptomatic, because this is actually serious, right? This is amazing. I went into the dermatologist and they’re telling me that I’m an otherwise healthy kid, but I have acne.
FDN – What’s the Difference: Proactive Healthcare with Precision
Well, how can I be healthy if I have severe cystic acne? We already throw that way out the door. Because in our model, if you have any type of symptom that is persistent, not just a temporary one like maybe you got poison ivy, let’s not be ridiculous. And yes, you had a normal reaction to the poison ivy. That’s fine. I’m talking about a chronic persistent symptom.
If that is happening, we know by definition there has to be one or more malfunctions in the brain or body. And just because there is a malfunction in the brain or body, does not mean it has gotten to the symptomatic state. At the very least, it doesn’t mean that it has gotten to the point where you are consciously dealing with a set of symptoms.
You might already be dealing with one or more malfunctions that hasn’t manifested yet as a disease. It hasn’t manifested yet as a full symptom or acne or a thyroid condition or whatever it might be, but there might be things going wrong. We would be able to see those on the labs if people were smart enough to do this before they ever got to that place. We could find the things or the malfunctions that are already occurring or have occurred and hopefully address it before we ever get to the point of a symptom or set of symptoms. That’s the difference.
Summary of Philosophies
Natural and functional medicine, and I don’t want to speak for all natural practitioners cause it’s not like this for everyone, but it’s become a scary majority. They rely on a set of symptoms or a diagnosis to be present before they can do anything. We unfortunately end up working with people who do have those things, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
We could help them long before that and we could help them with precision long before that. Western and Natural Medicine may be able to help before that, but my gosh, it’s with no level of precision, that’s for sure. We can help with precision. So I hope that makes sense.
Allopathic Medicine, Western Medicine, the treatment of symptoms or diseases with drugs and surgery. Natural Medicine has become a kind of knockoff version of allopathic medicine. And Functional Diagnostic Nutrition, the philosophy that we follow is one where we are not treating anything specifically. We don’t care, not in a lack of empathy way, but in the practical way, we don’t care about the disease that you have.
It doesn’t matter to us. We’re not doctors. We’re not treating anything specifically. We want to know what has gone wrong in your brain and body because that is leading to the symptoms. If we can help you with that, a healthy body, by definition, can’t have those things. So, we don’t have to treat your Hashimoto’s, your cystic acne, or your GERD. We don’t have to treat anything at all.
FDN – What’s the Difference: Give Your Body a Break
We have to have faith in the idea that if we help your brain and body get healthy, those symptoms and diseases go away on the run. And that’s not woo-woo. The body does this.
I’ve referenced this a million times on this podcast, but it’s worth always reiterating, if I get a paper cut, I don’t have to tell my body to heal. It heals itself. It closes it up, it scabs it, it fixes it for me. I mean, think about how many times you’ve had a cut on your finger and now you can look down and you probably can’t even tell where half of them were. There’s no scarring even. It literally fixes it. That’s what the body is able to do. That’s your given right as a human being and your ability as a human being to heal yourself.
But just like you can’t keep picking at the scab with the paper cut, and you can’t keep messing around with the things that gave it to you to begin with, you gotta give the body a break. You have to figure out, just like the things that are annoying the paper cut, whether it’s as simple as a piece of paper, literally, or maybe it was a dull knife that didn’t require stitches, but it still cut your hand, you can’t be playing with those things anymore.
FDN Doesn’t Require a Diagnosis
So, maybe in our world, you can’t be playing with certain foods. Maybe you have to figure out how to get rid of some gut bugs because you’re unintentionally playing with those. Maybe you gotta stop messing with your sleep cycle. And once you do that, you allow that given ability, that innate ability, for your body to heal. Just as readily as it heals the paper cut, it will heal those other things for you, but you have to remove the problem.
That does not require you having a diagnosis, it doesn’t require us knowing your diagnosis, it doesn’t require us treating your diagnosis. We don’t have to do anything like that. That is why our system works so well for chronic health issues, and that is why our system provides us with these wonderful stories and testimonials that we get to hear on this podcast.
So, if you’re someone who has had a story like this, we’d love to hear them. You can always reach out to us. Just go to our Instagram @fdntraining on Instagram. Give us a follow. Just say hello, whatever you want to do. You can also DM us there. We always have real humans, it’s never a chatbot. We don’t do that kind of stuff.
So, hit us up there if you’d like to talk to one of us, and maybe we can get you on the show.
Try the FDN Course for FREE or Speak with an Advisor
If you’re someone who is maybe considering the FDN course, and maybe that’s why you were listening today because you’re trying to figure out what we do differently, you can actually literally try the FDN course. You can go to fdntraining.com/tryfdn. I’ll have that in the show notes.
What you can do there is try the first part of the course completely for free. Maybe you already know about the course, you just wanted to get some finalization of answers. You can actually hop on a call with one of our advisors. Go to fdntraining.com/call. That’ll also be in the show notes. It will take you to a place where you can schedule with one of our course enrollment advisors to make sure that the course is actually right for you or just get any questions answered.
Maybe this is not actually what you want to do, and you’d be better off in a completely different school, we will recommend that for you. We have plenty of people that come to us, so it’s kind of a nice thing. There’s no shortage of people that are entering the world of functional healthcare. I’ll call it healthcare and not medicine because we are different than that, like I said.
So, as a result, we’re happy to recommend you to other places if we know that’s going to be better for you, because they do the same thing for us. I hope you guys enjoyed this.
Conclusion
Maybe this is something that you can send to someone if they just don’t get what you do. Maybe you’re an FDN practitioner out there, maybe you’re one who’s training. You’re thinking, how do I explain this to someone?
Well, they’re going to have to listen for about 30 minutes. But I guarantee it’s going to be beaten into their head because I tried to reiterate things as much as I could without being too obnoxious or too repetitive. I really wanted people to understand this. So, if you have any trouble explaining this, this could be a good podcast for that as well.
I should be back next time with our regularly scheduled interviews, but I had to pop in for this one. I am looking forward to talking to you guys again next time. But until then, please take care.
You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com.
To hire an FDN coach, go to fdnthrive.com.
For a FREE Health Review, go to fdnthrive.com/match/.
