Blog Posts

If you've spent any time in the functional medicine world, you've probably heard of the pregnenolone steal. The idea is clean and elegant: pregnenolone is the "mother hormone" — the first thing your body makes from cholesterol, and the precursor to everything else. Cortisol, DHEA, testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, aldosterone. They all start as pregnenolone. The theory says that when you're chronically stressed, your body "steals" pregnenolone away from making sex hormone

Functional medicine has a chaos problem. Not a science problem. Not an effectiveness problem. A chaos problem. A version of this walks into my office every couple of weeks — often patients who've driven from Temple, Killeen, Georgetown, and across Central Texas looking for answers. They've seen multiple practitioners. They've done elimination diets, detox protocols, hormone panels, food sensitivity tests. They've spent thousands of dollars and months of their life trying ever

Why did your keto diet fail? Not because you lacked willpower. Not because keto "doesn't work for you." And not because you're broken. You failed because nobody told you about the salt. About 80% of people who quit keto in the first two weeks do it for the same reason: they feel terrible. Headaches. Brain fog. Fatigue. Legs like bricks. They think their body is rejecting the diet. What's actually happening? Their kidneys are dumping sodium, their electrolytes are crashing, an

You've almost certainly been exposed to Epstein-Barr virus. About 95% of adults have been. Most of the time, it sits there dormant. You got mono as a teenager, your immune system dealt with it, and the virus went to sleep in your B cells. End of story. But for some people, the virus wakes back up. Not enough to put you back in bed with full-blown mono. Just enough that your immune system is fighting a low-grade battle 24/7. You're exhausted. Brain fog. Can't recover from exer

Your labs say "normal." Your body says otherwise. You can't sleep. You're gaining weight around your middle. Your hair is thinning. Brain fog has you forgetting why you walked into the kitchen. You've been to your doctor twice. They ran a TSH. It came back technically in range. They offered an antidepressant. Maybe suggested you're just stressed. If you're looking for a hormone doctor near you who actually investigates what's wrong instead of just checking boxes, this is what

Most chronic disease starts in your gut. Not some of it. Not the digestive stuff. Most of it. Joint pain. Brain fog. Autoimmune flares. Anxiety that won't respond to medication. Skin problems. Weight that won't budge. Fatigue that no amount of sleep fixes. If you're looking for a gut health specialist near you who connects these dots, this is what I do every day in my Central Texas practice. These aren't separate problems that happen to occur in the same person. They're downs

By Dr. Matt Altman, MD | Rooted Health Clinic, Central Texas Here's a pattern I see almost every day in my Central Texas practice. Someone walks in for anxiety. They've already been to their primary care doctor, already tried an SSRI — maybe two or three. They're still anxious. The next move is usually a benzo or a psychiatry referral for yet another medication adjustment. And nobody along the way has asked about their digestion. In my practice, roughly two-thirds of my pati

You've been to your primary care doctor twice. Your cardiologist once. Your endocrinologist cleared you. You've had blood work, an EKG, maybe an ultrasound. Everything came back "normal." But you still feel terrible. The fatigue isn't getting better. The weight isn't coming off. Your brain doesn't work the way it used to. You're anxious in a way you've never been before. And every doctor you've seen has essentially told you the same thing: your tests are fine, maybe you're ju

You're not depressed. You're sick. Your doctor ran a CBC and a TSH. Everything came back "normal." They suggested you might be depressed. Maybe stressed. Offered an SSRI. Told you to sleep more. If you're searching for a chronic fatigue doctor near you who treats this as the medical problem it is, that's exactly what I do. You're already sleeping eight hours a night. You're eating well. You're not sad. You're exhausted. There's a difference. You feel like you're running on 40

I left insurance medicine five years ago. Not because I didn't care about patients. Because I cared too much to keep practicing that way. The math didn't work. I was seeing 30 patients a day. Seven minutes each. That's what the system demands when insurance sets the reimbursement rates and administrators set the productivity quotas. Seven minutes to take a history, examine the patient, document everything for legal and billing, and create a treatment plan. You can't practice

You've tried everything. Keto. Carnivore. Calorie counting. Weight Watchers. Maybe even Ozempic. The scale moved for a while. Then it stopped. Or worse — bounced right back. Every doctor you've seen has told you the same thing: eat less, move more. Here's a pamphlet about the Mediterranean diet. See you in six months. And you keep trying. Because you're not lazy. You're not undisciplined. You genuinely want to lose the weight. But nothing sticks. If you're looking for a weigh

By Dr. Matt Altman, MD | Rooted Health Clinic, Central Texas You already know the sleep hygiene list. Dark room. Cool temperature. No screens. No caffeine after 2 PM. White noise machine. And you're still staring at the ceiling at 2 AM. If you're searching for a doctor near you who actually investigates sleep problems instead of just writing prescriptions, this is what I do every day. Here's the thing — roughly a third of the patients I see in Central Texas have sleep as a p

Your supplement stack is worthless if you're not sleeping. I don't care how clean your diet is. I don't care if you're taking the perfect combination of magnesium, adaptogens, and B vitamins. If you're sleeping five hours a night, you're wasting your time and your money. Sleep isn't a pillar of health because it sounds good on a poster. It's a pillar because it's the foundation that everything else sits on. Your metabolism. Your hormones. Your immune function. Your mental hea