Specialized Lab Testing
Specialized lab testing provides the most detailed analysis of specific areas of your health and wellness. At Freedom Functional Wellness Louise Higuera, NP, uses specialized lab testing to detect heavy metal toxicity, hormone imbalance, environmental toxins, gut health problems, and many other issues that can disrupt your health. Call the Mount Juliet, Tennessee, office or use the provided online booking feature to set up your testing appointment now.
Specialized Lab Testing Q & A
What is specialized lab testing?
Specialized lab testing refers to lab tests that go beyond the ordinary ones you can get at most medical care practices. At Freedom Functional Wellness, the focus is healing through root-cause medicine.
Functional medicine practitioners use specialized lab testing to find the underlying cause of your illness or health problems. The information obtained from these lab tests helps your provider determine the specialized care you need to attack and overcome the disease, starting from its roots.
What can I expect during specialized lab testing?
Specialized lab testing includes several types of analysis based on your unique diagnostic and treatment needs. Different methods of sample analysis include:
- Urine
- Saliva
- Stool
- Breath
In some cases, you’ll get immediate results, but in others, it may take a little time because a lab in another state (or even country) is performing the specialized analysis.
Why would I need specialized lab testing?
Freedom Functional Wellness might recommend specialized lab testing if you have unexplained symptoms or are fighting a chronic illness. Some of the specific tests that you may need are:
- Heavy metal urine testing
- Gut testing: small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) and comprehensive stool profile
- Genetic testing
- Hormone testing (urine and saliva tests)
- Environmental toxins testing
- Parasite testing (stool test)
Many other types of precise tests are available as well. These tests are important both for diagnostic reasons and for planning your treatment. For example, the blood sample gathered during specialized lab testing can help create your personalized SOT therapy if you have Lyme or other viruses or bacteria.
How are specialized lab testing and functional lab testing different?
Specialized lab testing is an expansion of standard functional lab testing. With specialized lab testing, the goal is to delve deeper into the specific causes of your symptoms, and these tests usually occur after standard functional lab tests.
With functional lab tests, functional medicine ranges are applied instead of the broad ranges used in traditional lab testing. This helps catch disease (and risk of disease) earlier, so functional lab tests can help make sense of your symptoms even where traditional lab testing cannot.
Once your provider identifies a specific area of concern, you might need specialized lab testing to narrow in on the issue further.
Schedule your lab testing at Freedom Functional Wellness or book an appointment online today.