At Heron Wellness, we believe that health is wealth... and that everyone deserves vibrant health. Unfortunately, the conventional medical system wasn't designed to create & maintain vibrant health... it was born out of the need for acute care interventions like surgery, trauma, and acute illness care. 

In a time when chronic illnesses including behavioral health and substance use disorders are impacting increasingly more children, adults, families, and communities,  we need an altogether different approach. Expensive hospital stays, procedures surgeries, and medications are not going to improve our health and well-being. Healing will never take place in this current disease care model. Healing will only happen when we shift our attention to preventing and treating disease processes with a wellness care model. 

This new approach is called functional medicine.

A functional approach to health is a patient-centered,  systems-biology approach to medicine – which is short for looking at the body as an interconnected system that must be addressed in a holistic way in order to function optimally.  That's what coined the term "Functional Medicine" because ultimately, it's about restoring proper function to all the body's systems.

A good analogy is your car: For your car to get optimal mileage, you need to maintain it consistently: Change the motor oil, change spark plugs, keep it shined to prevent rusting, and fill it up with the appropriate fuel.

That's exactly how to approach your body with functional medicine... it's not about what to do when your body or mind is broken, it's about maintaining proper health in the first place and preventing the body from breaking down.

Caring for your health properly is so much more than just the basics of eating right and exercising. With current medical research, we have discovered that the body is a complex collection of organs and systems and even bacterial colonies (the microbiome) that greatly impact each other.

While the standard of care hasn’t quite “caught up” yet with most of the current science, conventional doctors and “specialists” are still treating parts of the body separately – without taking into account the fact that all these areas greatly impact each other.

When you are healthy, systems work together like a symphony in perfect harmony – and you have vibrant health. But when one of these systems is off-balance, the whole symphony is out of tune! When you need a “tune-up” so to speak, not only do you need to look at areas that aren’t working right... but also whether the rest of your body is in balance.

Sadly, most patients receive instead medications to treat symptoms associated with a body part that “isn’t working” – when all too often, it’s a systemic issue that needs to be treated in a completely different way.

In addition, the conventional medical approach doesn’t consider that each person is born with unique health needs: Based on their genetic factors, the environment they were born into, what kinds of bacteria populate their gut, as well as what they are exposed to as they grow – each person’s body has a very unique health profile which means they need an equally unique healing protocol.

It’s no wonder people go from doctor to doctor and never find the answers to their illnesses!

Conventional medicine is missing the mark when it comes to effectively treating many chronic illnesses caused by aging, environment and diet, hormonal imbalances, trauma, and substance use because they try to treat symptoms with medication alone. 

In fact, we find with our patients that while they may share the same symptoms, they frequently suffer from very different imbalances!

That’s why at Heron Wellness, we follow a modern functional medicine approach that is uniquely equipped to resolve chronic wellness issues with a goal of long-term recovery... without requiring lifelong dependence on expensive prescription drugs. It incorporates advanced functional lab testing and relies on current nutritional science to help you rebalance and finally heal.

This in-depth approach is the only successful way of treating chronic disorders because most chronic illnesses have many causes, brought on by modern lifestyle choices.

At Heron Wellness, our functional medicine programs are a more comprehensive form of care to help patients learn lifelong skills to improve their lifestyle and maintain health and wellness. 

Here are just some of the things we focus on in our program:

• We prioritize quality over quantity with our patients. We will only make a medical diagnosis after listening carefully to a patient’s medical history, reviewing testing, looking at lifestyle factors that are materially contributing to illnesses, and then making a personalized recommendation based on each patient’s unique situation.
• Assessment, natural healing, and prevention are prioritized over wait-and-see treatment approaches.
• The most modern and advanced medical equipment available is used along with natural forms of healing like upgrading your diet and healing herbs or supplementation with fewer or no side effects.
• Patients are taught how to take a more active role in their own health and will learn up-to-date nutritional science & lifestyle modifications that can boost their health and overall wellness for a lifetime.
• Medication management will be utilized with caution and careful consideration. If medications are no longer needed or are causing negative side effects, they will be carefully tapered. 

Since the founding of her practice, Dr. Amy de la Garza has helped patients address the following conditions and symptoms. 

• Digestive Disorders - bloating, constipation, diarrhea, GERD, SIBO, dysbiosis, irritable bowel
• Hormonal Imbalances - cortisol dysfunction, thyroid disease including Hashimoto's, menstrual disorders, perimenopause and menopause, postpartum disorders
• Metabolic Syndrome, Obesity & Dyslipidemia
• Energy Issues, Stress & Chronic Pain - chronic fatigue and pain, fibromyalgia, ME/CFS, long-Covid
• Behavioral Health - mood disturbance, anxiety, trauma, stress, substance use disorders

Unlike conventional insurance-based medicine, we carefully evaluate a patient's case before we agree to take them on as a client.

This is in the best interest of both you and your provider because we want to ensure we can truly help you restore vibrant health.

If you are interested in approaching Hormonal changes, Behavioral Issues, and Wellness with an Integrative Approach, please reach out to Schedule a Brief Consultative Call