You've Seen Three Specialists and Still Don't Have Answers — Here's Why

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 just stressed, here's a prescription.

If you're searching for a functional medicine doctor near you who will actually investigate why you feel this way, this gap is exactly what I address every day in my Central Texas practice. Not a gap between good doctors and bad doctors. A gap between what the conventional medical system is built to do — and what you actually need.

When Conventional Medicine Works Brilliantly

Let me be clear about something upfront: if you're having a heart attack, you don't need root-cause medicine. You need the ER. If you have bacterial pneumonia, you need antibiotics. If you break your arm, you need orthopedics. Conventional medicine is extraordinary at acute care — trauma, infections, surgical emergencies, cancer treatment.

The training is rigorous. The tools are powerful. The speed and decisiveness save lives every single day. I work in an emergency department three days a week. I've seen what modern medicine can do when someone's life is on the line. It's remarkable.

So no — this isn't about conventional medicine being "bad." It's about understanding what it's built for and what it's not.

Where the System Falls Apart

The problem shows up when you're dealing with something chronic. Something that's been building for months or years. Something that doesn't fit neatly into a diagnosis code.

Here's how it works in most primary care clinics. You get about 15 minutes with your doctor. In that time, they need to take a history, examine you, document everything for legal and billing purposes, and come up with a plan. Insurance reimbursement is tied to visit codes and procedure codes. The longer the visit, the more documentation required. And there's no code that pays well enough for a 60-minute deep-dive consultation.

So what happens? Your doctor matches your symptom to a medication. Tired? Check TSH. If it's "normal," maybe try an antidepressant. High cholesterol? Statin. Anxious? SSRI. Can't sleep? Ambien. Acid reflux? PPI.

This isn't bad medicine. It's constrained medicine. Your doctor probably knows there's more going on. But the system doesn't give them the time, the reimbursement, or the framework to dig deeper.

The result? You bounce from specialist to specialist. The cardiologist looks at your heart. The gastroenterologist looks at your gut. The endocrinologist looks at your thyroid. Each one is looking through their own lens, and nobody's stepping back to see the whole picture.

You leave with six prescriptions and zero answers about why any of this is happening in the first place.

The Question Nobody's Asking

Conventional medicine asks: "What drug matches this symptom?"

Functional medicine asks: "Why is this happening in the first place?"

That sounds simple. It's not. Because answering "why" requires time, different testing, a framework, and follow-through that the insurance-based system isn't built to provide.

​Time. When someone comes to Rooted Health for the first time, we spend 60 to 90 minutes together. Not because I'm slow. Because I need to understand the full timeline. Patients drive from Temple, Killeen, Georgetown, and throughout Central Texas for this kind of investigation. When did the fatigue start? What else was happening in your life then? How's your gut? How's your sleep? What's your stress load? What have you been exposed to?

Chronic disease doesn't appear overnight. It builds. The timeline matters because it tells me where to look.

​Different labs. A standard annual physical checks maybe 15 markers. When someone walks in with chronic symptoms that nobody's been able to explain, we start with metabolic markers and an expanded thyroid panel — free T3, free T4, total T3, total T4, and TSH. Not just TSH. We try not to hammer patients with a thousand dollars in labs on day one. We work through what's more common and what's less common, systematically.

If something doesn't add up — if the baseline doesn't explain the symptoms or treatment isn't working — then we go deeper. Comprehensive stool analysis. Hormone panels. Inflammatory markers. Environmental screens. We go as deep as we need to until we find the answer.

​A framework. This is the part that separates good functional medicine from expensive chaos. I use a tiered system. Tier one is the foundation — gut health, metabolic function including thyroid, and stress response. That's where we start with almost every patient because that's where most of the answers live.

If tier one doesn't explain everything, we move to tier two — hormones, toxins, chronic infections. And if needed, tier three — genetics, mitochondrial function, structural issues.

The framework prevents the biggest mistake in functional medicine: doing everything at once and solving nothing. You start at the foundation. You fix what's broken there. And you only go deeper when you need to.

​Follow-through. In conventional medicine, you get your prescription and your next appointment is in three months. At Rooted Health, we're adjusting, retesting, and course-correcting continuously. The first intervention rarely solves everything. But it tells you something. And what it tells you guides the next step.

What This Looks Like for Real Patients

A version of this walks into my office every week. Someone in their early forties. Working full-time, maybe two kids. Tired all the time. Gaining weight despite eating well and exercising. Brain fog so thick they're forgetting things they never used to forget. Anxious in a way that feels completely out of character.

They've been to their primary care doctor. Basic labs came back normal. TSH was 3.4 — technically in range. They were told to manage stress better. Maybe offered an antidepressant.

When we sit down together, we spend the time to actually investigate. We run metabolic markers — fasting insulin, fasting glucose, HbA1c. We run an expanded thyroid panel. And we find that the TSH might be "in range," but the free T3 is low. The body isn't converting thyroid hormone efficiently. Or we find that fasting insulin is sitting at 18 — the patient is deep into insulin resistance, and nobody's ever checked their insulin before.

Suddenly the fatigue, the weight gain, the brain fog — it all makes sense. It's not stress. It's not age. It's physiology. And physiology is fixable.

We address the insulin resistance through dietary changes and targeted support. We optimize thyroid function. We work on sleep quality and stress response. Within a few months, energy comes back. Brain fog clears. Weight starts moving.

That patient didn't need six specialists and a handful of prescriptions. They needed someone with the time and the framework to actually investigate what was broken.

The Business Model Had to Change

There's a practical reason this kind of medicine works differently: I don't take insurance for my functional medicine work.

That's not an ideological statement. It's a math problem. Insurance reimburses based on visit codes and procedure codes. A 60-minute investigation doesn't have a code that pays enough to keep the lights on. So insurance-based practices are forced into the 15-minute model whether they want to be or not.

Rooted Health uses a membership-based model. Patients pay a monthly fee that covers visits and my time. No copays, no surprise bills, no prior authorizations. I answer questions directly. No front-desk gatekeeping.

This means I can spend the time each patient actually needs. I can run the labs that matter. I can follow up properly instead of hoping things work out by the next quarterly appointment.

It also means I have a fraction of the patient load. Most primary care doctors carry 2,000 to 3,000 patients. I have a much smaller panel. That's by design. You can't do deep, personalized medicine at scale.

When You Actually Need This

You probably don't need functional medicine if you're generally healthy and just need annual check-ups. Or if you have an acute problem that needs standard treatment. Or if your current care is working and your conditions are well-managed.

You probably do need functional medicine if you've been told "everything looks normal" but you still feel terrible. If you're on multiple medications and nobody's asked why you need them. If you have a chronic condition that isn't improving despite standard treatment. If you've been to three specialists and nobody's connecting the dots. If you want someone to actually investigate your health instead of just managing your symptoms.

That's the gap I fill. Not replacing conventional medicine. Completing it. Taking the patients the system wasn't designed to help and giving them the time, the testing, and the framework they need to actually get answers.

The Bottom Line

Conventional medicine and functional medicine aren't enemies. They're different tools for different problems. You need both.

But if you're dealing with something chronic that conventional medicine hasn't solved — if you've been bouncing between specialists collecting prescriptions without getting answers — there's a different approach. One that starts with "why" and doesn't stop until we find it.

If any of that sounds familiar, that's worth a conversation.

Give us a call at 254-780-0023 or visit rootedhealthclinic.com to schedule a consultation.

Rooted Health Clinic — 1401 N Stagecoach Rd, Salado, TX 76571