Functional Medicine Reality Podcast

If your stomach drops every time your doctor's office calls, or you find yourself spiraling into worst-case scenarios before a test result comes back, you're not broken and you're not overreacting. Medical anxiety is real, and it's especially common for people who've spent years navigating chronic illness, uncertain diagnoses, or being told their labs are "normal&quot...

You did everything right. You pushed for testing when your doctors wanted to wait. You found a Lyme-literate practitioner. You went through the antibiotics, got through the rough stretch of feeling worse before better, and slowly started to climb back toward yourself. Months later, you're about 80% recovered. And then you stalled. If that sounds familiar, this episode is worth your full atten...

Ready to stop guessing and finally get a clear plan? Join Dr. Su for the Ask Dr. Mark Clinical Q&A Call , a small-group call limited to about five people each month where you can bring your real questions and get real direction. Book your spot: https://go.rootseekhealth.com/askdrmark If you've ever taken a probiotic for weeks, felt nothing, and quietly concluded they just don't work...

You've said it before. Maybe quietly, maybe to a close friend, maybe just in your own head. "I think I might have ADHD." And then nothing happened. There was nobody to follow up. Nobody to sit down with you and actually explored it. So you kept going, kept functioning, kept wondering. This episode is for you. Why This Episode Matters Adult ADHD, especially in women, is one of the mo...

If chronic illness has made you feel like a burden to the people you love, you are not alone, and you are not imagining how hard this is. Illness does not stay contained to the body. It moves through a household. It strains marriages, tests friendships, and quietly reshapes who you are in relationship to everyone around you. The fear that runs alongside it, the hypervigilance, the late-night sympt...

You went to the hospital. You got care. You came home. And then the bills started arriving, one after another, for amounts that didn't add up. And somewhere in your online patient portal was a diagnosis you had never been told about, for a condition nobody mentioned while you were lying in that bed. If that has happened to you or someone you love, you are not alone. And you are not missing so...

Once a month I open up one hour to five people only. Real questions, real answers, real direction.  Grab your spot at go.rootseekhealth.com/askdrmark . You've probably been told the story about stimulant medication goes one way. You take it, you focus better, maybe you sleep less, maybe you lose your appetite. That's the whole conversation. But what if the real story is bigger than that,...

If you've ever Googled "mold illness treatment" at midnight, desperate for answers, you already know how overwhelming it gets. The supplements, the sprays, the lab reports with pages of frightening health warnings, it can feel like you're drowning in information and still no closer to knowing what to actually do. This conversation is for you. Dr. Mark Su sits down again with Mi...

If you've ever stood in the supplement aisle wondering whether any of it actually works, or sat across from a doctor who handed you a prescription without explaining why, this conversation is for you. The question of pharmaceuticals versus supplements comes up constantly in functional medicine, and the honest answer is more nuanced than most people expect. In this episode, Dr. Mark Su breaks...

Got Lab Results But No Real Answers?   Download your free guide: rootseekhealth.com/labs You've probably stood in a supplement aisle, or scrolled past an influencer ad, and thought, I have no idea if any of this actually works. Maybe you've spent real money on things that did nothing. Maybe your doctor shrugged when you asked. That confusion is not a personal failing. It's the suppl...

Got Lab Results But No Real Answers? Download your free guide: rootseekhealth.com/labs If you've ever walked out of a doctor's office feeling like you were handed a prescription instead of an answer, you're not alone. That rushed, "here's a pill, see you later" experience is something a lot of people are navigating right now, and it leaves you with more questions than...

Got Lab Results But No Real Answers? Download your free guide: rootseekhealth.com/labs Ready to find out what's actually going on in your body? Book a consult at rootseekhealth.com. What does alcohol have to do with functional medicine? More than you might think. In this episode, Dr. Mark Su sits down with patient and guest MaryJo for one of the most honest, human conversations the Functional...

Got lab results but no real answers?   Download your free guide and finally understand what your body is trying to tell you: rootseekhealth.com/labs Episode Overview Mold. It's one of those words that makes people freeze, panic, or reach for their wallet before they even know what they're dealing with. In this episode of the Functional Medicine Reality Podcast, Dr. Mark Su sits down with...

What if the knee pain you've been blaming on age is actually a statin side effect? That's a question worth sitting with. And it's one of the reasons I wanted to do this episode, because I see this pattern in real people, in real conversations, all the time. Someone's been on a statin for a few years. They're moving less, feeling foggy, their joints ache. And when they brin...

I'll be upfront. I walked into my first encounter with Dr. Todd Watts as a full-on skeptic. I'm an MD. I like data. I've literally told vendors at conference booths, hey, I'm not buying anything, fair warning. That's just who I am. But I remember standing in that conference room years ago watching Todd present on parasites, a topic I had barely touched in fifteen years of...

Hey friends, what if we stopped fighting over labels and actually started treating the mechanisms behind what's making people sick? That's the question driving today's conversation with Dr. Jessica Lasky-Su from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. Here's the thing. Her team is working at the edge of some really fascinating science, genetics, epigenetic...

What does “I feel good” mean after years of chronic Lyme and a major surgery that reshapes your body and your identity? We sit down with Mary Jo to unpack a tender, determined third chapter: living well after treatment, navigating a post-hysterectomy reality, and rebuilding confidence without ignoring limits. The result is a rare blend of practical playbooks and soul-level honesty—how to budget en...

In this episode, I sit down with Sebastian, a family friend and college student, for an open and thoughtful conversation about health, food, mental clarity, and the overwhelm of modern wellness information. This is a rare and refreshing look at how the younger generation is thinking about health and asking questions many adults never learned to ask. Seb shares how his interest in lifting, performa...

In this episode of the Functional Medicine Reality Podcast , I sit down again with my friend and colleague Mike Schrantz, an Indoor Environmental Professional I often call the “Doctor of Homes.” I’m the “Doctor of People,” and together we work at the intersection where sick buildings and sick bodies collide. Today we step into a thorny topic that affects a lot of patients and a lot of practitioner...

One of the questions I am asked most often by patients is this: “Don’t doctors get paid to prescribe medications?” It is a fair question. And if you have ever left a medical visit feeling rushed, unheard, or confused about why a prescription was offered when you wanted to talk about lifestyle change, you are not alone. The short answer, from my experience, is no. Doctors are not paid directly for...

Hey friends. This is one of those foundational conversations that quietly shapes everything we do in healthcare, yet it’s rarely talked about outside medical training. In this episode, I walk you through the concept of differential diagnosis , what it is, why it matters, and how overlooking it can delay healing or, in some cases, cause real harm. Differential diagnosis simply means creating a thou...

Welcome back to the Functional Medicine Reality Podcast. I'm Dr. Mark Su, and today we're pivoting from the chronic inflammation world into the longevity space. I'm here with Cooper Paul, a pulmonary hypertension specialist at a major academic hospital in Boston and a true longevity medicine enthusiast who's taught me an incredible amount over the last few years. Here's th...

Welcome back to the Functional Medicine Reality Podcast. I'm Dr. Mark Su, and this is part two of my conversation with Mary Jo Anderson. If you caught our first episode together, you know we covered the long, painful road to getting a Lyme disease diagnosis. Today we're diving into what happens after you finally have answers. Here's the thing. Getting a diagnosis doesn't mean e...

Alright, so here's one I get asked constantly: Do I really need to throw out all my belongings if there's mold in my house? If that question's been keeping you up at night, or if you're stuck wondering whether dealing with mold means going bankrupt and starting over, take a deep breath. This episode's for you. I brought back Mike Schrantz, one of the most networked indoor...

Hey friends, this one's for both practitioners and patients who've been around the functional medicine world for a while. Here's the thing. When you've been dealing with chronic symptoms for months or years, it's really easy to fall into patterns. You start assuming every flare-up is the same old story. SIBO acting up again. Mold toxicity. Food sensitivities. But what if i...