What is Nutritional Therapy? Part 3

Written By Elise Doppel

Hey there, full-on client. At this point you’re likely super committed to bettering your health and seeing how far your goals can take you. But after the initial consultation, where we’ve outlined goals and action steps, what should you expect moving forward?

Follow-Ups/Standard Appointments

Like I mentioned at the end of part two, we first need to determine your follow-up schedule. Let’s say, for example’s sake, you want to take your journey at a pace of roughly two to three goals biweekly. And let’s say those first few goals we landed upon were:

  1. to drink a certain ounce amount of water per day with a high-quality sea salt,

  2. to swap a traditional high-sugar granola bar for some nuts, seeds, and natural sugar source, and

  3. to get a source of protein in at every meal.

Our mode of communication during this follow-up period is up to you and what works best -- we can meet in person (again, at a time and place of mutual convenience), or meet virtually/electronically as well.

It will depend on how you’re doing -- we may originally set our first follow-up appointment for exactly two weeks from the initial consultation, but maybe a few days prior to the follow-up, you realize you haven’t yet bought any nuts and seeds, and are still figuring out what protein you like. You might want to reschedule, since your goals haven’t yet taken much effect.

On the contrary, maybe you need clarification on some of the things we discussed, which is what’s holding you back from diving right in -- in that case, keeping the scheduled follow-up appointment is probably a good idea.

So you can see how the same situation would warrant a completely different follow-up schedule depending on the details. This is actually a great piece about nutritional therapy in general -- the schedule, goals, and needs are personalized to your own situation with no specific benchmarks or expectations. If you have any further questions about this, don’t be afraid to reach out.

The Next Big Thing - the Functional Clinical Assessment (formerly titled Functional Evaluation)

A unique procedure that I’m personally certified and specialized in, called the Functional Clinical Assessment (FCA), is an appointment style to consider after some follow-up has taken place. This appointment is typically going to be more expensive since the service offered is not something you can readily seek from other healthcare practitioners. I offer package options if you want to include this type of appointment in your nutritional therapy.

The FCA is a series of manual palpations I perform along a client’s supine body that correspond to specific organs and organ systems (and if that sounds intimidating, don’t worry -- I have a super comfortable padded massage table for clients to lay on, and the majority of the palpation locations can be found on the ribcage and abdomen).

What this looks like: you lay face-up on my massage table, I ask permission to physically touch you, and I begin the first palpation by finding your xyphoid process (the bottom of your sternum). From this reference points, I can find the majority of the points accurately.

At each palpation point, I will ask your body (notice I’m not asking you) to provide a tenderness rating on a scale of zero to ten:

Zero = no reaction at all or just simply feeling pressure,

Ten = like pressing on a fresh bruise.

Tenderness is the key word here -- do not expect to feel any pain. I take the “low and slow” approach, which simply means the amount of pressure I use will depend on your toleration of tenderness. This assessment is not designed to hurt you.

I will palpate the various points, get a tenderness “reading” from you for each one, and these ratings will serve as your baseline. What we do next is the even cooler next big thing.

Lingual-Neuro Testing

Lingual-Neuro Testing (or LNT’ing, as us FTNPs like to say) is a process by which your central nervous system responds to substances presented to the body. This probably sounds confusing, or super woo-woo, but hear me out because this procedure is truly amazing.

Once I have your baseline tenderness ratings as described above, I will compare the areas of highest reported tenderness with the intake paperwork and health concerns we’ve already discussed in the initial consultation. Comparing and contrasting your body on paper with your body in real life allows me to narrow in on a perfect place to start LNT’ing. It also narrows down what kind of nutrients your body is currently needing.

Here is what LNT’ing truly is:

  • I will select a nutrient or supplement from my own personal testing inventory and place a sample of it on your tongue. (I choose specific things to test based upon all the comparing and contrasting done above.)

  • I’ll have you taste the nutrient or supplement for roughly 30 seconds (not swallow or chew, just long enough to ensure you can taste the flavor).

  • I’ll then ask to re-palpate some of those higher-rated points (and others, as well). If what you’re tasting is something your body needs in order to best support your current health issues, the tenderness ratings, when re-palpated, should drop a significant amount (think going from a 9 out of 10 to a 3 or 4 out of 10).

Sound too good to be true? Come in and have it done. I didn’t believe it until I had it done for myself and witnessed first-hand how powerful my body truly is when I relinquish control.

And that brings me to another point -- I recommend not overthinking it too much. I’m asking your body to provide the ratings, not what you think or expect them to be mentally. Truly allow yourself to be out of your busy head and into your calmest self -- this will provide the best results.

What This Looks Like, Practically

  • The client (you) will come to the place where I’m able to conduct the FCA. At the time of this post’s publishing, this is at my home. I have an office specific for client visits that allows for complete privacy and access to all the supplemental tools I’ll need to complete the FCA appointment. (At some point in the future, this location may be moved to an outside office.)

  • You will be asked to wear comfortable clothing without zippers or buttons. This can be in the form of exercise attire, lounge clothing, etc.

  • I will also ask you not to consume anything at least 30 minutes prior to the appointment. This includes water, if you’re able. (I will provide water at this appointment, in-between testing supplements, so have no fear! But if you do need to have water within that 30-minute window, that’s okay too.)

  • We will briefly go over the biggest talking points from the paperwork and your symptom burden graph.

  • After permission to physically touch you, I will manually take both your seated and standing pulse rate.

  • I will then ask you to lay supine (face-up) on the padded massage table, and after I reconfirm permission to touch, I will begin. There are a couple logistical steps as we set up the FCA, but this is where the palpations enter the assessment. The first few begin on the ribcage, and my landing point is the xyphoid process, as mentioned above.

  • Gathering the baseline palpation readings may take anywhere from 30 minutes to over an hour, depending on what body systems we’re focusing on.

  • Once the entire baseline FCA is complete, I will choose a supplement and have you place it on your tongue, seated on the table.

  • Once you’re able to taste it, after about 30 seconds, I’ll ask you to lay back down and I will zero in on some key “hot spots” of your baseline FCA (not the entire sequence all over again) to see if any of your ratings have changed after exposure to the supplement you taste.

If the specific ratings I’m looking for do not decrease and/or increase, I will have you sit back up, spit out the supplement, and flush your mouth with water. We will repeat the LNT process until we either find something that works for you, or come to a different conclusion.

Why Might it Not Work?

Some clients’ bodies simply have more healing to do before supplementation proves to be effective. There are plenty of diet and lifestyle tweaks we can come up with that can help get you there, if this happens to be your experience when you come see me.

Specific, targeted supplementation found through the FCA is typically designed to get someone past a plateau or speed bump in their health journey. If a client has underlying conditions whose root causes are not addressed and eradicated, supplementation may only put a bandaid over the problem and mask the symptoms until the supplement is discontinued -- and the whole point of nutritional therapy is to support the body from the inside out, and only lean on extra boosts of supplements on an as-needed, situational basis.

I have, however, had clients who were still interested in pursuing supplementation while they continued on their overall nutritional therapy journey. Some clients wanted to support their quality of life while improving their health and tackling their goals, and others used it to expedite feeling better with targeted tools long-term. Supplementation is an option for you at any time in your journey, and we can find the most suitable ones through the FCA.

As I mentioned, I have my own arsenal of testing supplements, but if there’s something you’ve purchased that you want to have tested in a FCA, we can absolutely do that. Just bring it to the appointment -- I’ll gather your dosage, thoughts, and experience with the product, and repeat the same process as above.

Who is the FCA for?

The FCA is for anyone looking for a more personalized approach than what we've already done in our consultations. Even children and the elderly can have this done! We simply take it a little easier and shorten the length of the assessment as needed.

The only subset of the population that may take extra caution when considering the FCA is pregnant women. A mother-to-be is not someone I feel the need to palpate and test supplementation on, personally, even though there may be other practitioners out there that will do it. There are plenty of other ways I can help you strengthen your immune system and fuel your digestion with nutritional therapy.

I realize a lot of this seems abstract until the time comes for you to actually experience the FCA, and that’s okay! It’s an amazing process and very unique to this line of work -- there is always ambiguity in the unknown. Just trust your intuition, trust this process, and trust your body. It will never lead you down the wrong path. And if the FCA doesn't sound like something that interests you, we don't have to do it. Every nutritional therapy journey is different.

Again, if you have any questions at all about this specific visit or others, feel free to reach out to me on any of the below social media platforms or via email. I’m available and eager to get them answered and be as thorough as possible!

#PGMW #NutritionalTherapy #FunctionalNutritionalTherapyPractitioner #FNTP #FunctionalClinicalAssessment #FCA #FunctionalEvaluation #FE #Palpations #Tenderness #Goals #ActionSteps #FollowUp #NutritionCoaching #NutritionCounseling #Supplements #Nutrients #RealFood #RealFoodMovement

Elise Doppel
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Why I'm Not an RD.
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What is Nutritional Therapy? Part 2