Overview
Functional medicine often uses an analogy to illustrate how traditional medicine can struggle with some chronic conditions: Water flows from a faucet, water overflows a sink and runs onto the floor as someone tries to mop up the water on the floor. The person mopping the floor represents addressing only chronic symptoms while ignoring the “root causes” of chronic conditions (the running faucet and the overflowing sink).
The point is that addressing only the flooded floor (the chronic symptoms) is a relatively inadequate response to deal with a running faucet and an overflowing sink (the chronic conditions). Functional medicine purports to better address chronic conditions by working to turn off the root cause of chronic conditions (the faucet) to alleviate the chronic symptoms (the overflowing sink).
Multiple Faucets
Turning off the faucet is the first step needed to address chronic conditions, but this analogy simplifies the source of chronic symptoms into one faucet. The reality is that many people with chronic conditions often have multiple issues–or multiple faucets– contributing to an overflowing sink. “Faucets” of chronic conditions can be:
- Exposures, such as mold, toxins, viruses, parasites, and blood-borne pathogens;
- Stressors, such as EMF, food sensitivities, and life events;
- Trauma, such as experiences, memories, and family history.
To address the ongoing challenge of chronic conditions, every issue contributing to the symptoms should be identified, mitigated and managed. ATP Reset prioritizes identifying and addressing chronic conditions, focusing on the major issues to reduce symptoms and help the body recover.
Opening the Drain
This analogy also only focuses on just turning off the faucet when there are actually two components to the water on the floor: the running faucet and the dysfunctional drain that doesn’t allow the sink to drain properly and forces the water to run onto the floor.
Effectively mitigating and managing chronic conditions involves addressing the causes of poor health and clearing them from the system in various ways such as supporting the liver and lymphatic system to “open the drain.” Just as a functioning sink requires a functioning drain, ATP Reset focuses on helping the body to effectively address stressors by supporting the immune system.
The Hidden Faucet
Chronic conditions often set up shop where there is an opportunity, which is why dental issues can frequently be a “hidden faucet.” Identifying and treating dental issues can be difficult because they are essentially “walled off” from treatment, meaning that unless they are physically corrected, dental issues can be a breeding ground to reseed chronic symptoms.
The hidden faucet of dental issues could explain why some people recover from chronic conditions and then relapse. Treating the rest of the body without treating dental is like putting out a house fire but leaving one room smoldering. It would be just a matter of time before the rest of the house catches fire again from the smoldering room. Dr. Sparks refers to biological dentists to effectively address dental issues.
Summary
ATP Reset isn’t a replacement for traditional medicine–it is important to mop up the water on the floor. The long-term objective of ATP Reset, however, is to reduce and possibility eliminate the water overflowing from the sink. ATP Reset seeks to solve the overflowing seek by identifying and addressing the issues most likely responsible for chronic conditions and helping the patient to clear their system.