You’ve seen multiple doctors and your results all look fine, yet you feel drained. If your normal blood tests tired story sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Standard testing often misses subtle imbalances that functional medicine can uncover to restore real energy.
But here’s what they’re not telling you: you don’t feel fine. You wake up exhausted. Your brain feels foggy by 2pm. Your mood swings have you feeling like you’re on a rollercoaster. And you’re starting to wonder if it’s all in your head.
After 12 years of working with patients in exactly this situation, I can tell you with absolute certainty: it’s not in your head. The problem is that “normal” lab ranges are designed to catch disease, not optimal health. And the standard tests your GP runs? They’re missing about 80% of what’s actually happening in your body.
The Problem With “Normal” Reference Ranges
When your GP orders a standard blood panel, they’re checking whether you fall within a massive range that includes both healthy people and those on the edge of disease. For example, your thyroid-stimulating hormone might come back at 3.5mIU/L, which is technically “normal” because the reference range goes up to 4.0 or even 5.0. But research shows that optimal TSH is actually between 1.0 – 2.0mIU/L for most people. You could be struggling with subclinical hypothyroidism, and your doctor would never know it from that single number.
The same applies to ferritin, vitamin D, B12, and countless other markers. You might be “in range” but operating at the low end, where your body simply cannot function optimally. It’s like having enough fuel in your car to keep the engine running, but not enough to actually drive anywhere.
What Standard Testing Misses
Most GP panels check about 10-15 markers. That’s it. They’re looking at your liver, kidneys, blood sugar, cholesterol, and maybe thyroid if you’re lucky. What they’re not checking is your gut microbiome, which produces 90% of your serotonin and directly influences your mood, energy, and immune function. They’re not checking your cortisol patterns throughout the day, which determine whether you wake up energised or exhausted. They’re not looking at your methylation pathways, which affect everything from detoxification to hormone metabolism.
I recently worked with a patient who had been told for three years that her fatigue was just stress. Her standard bloods were “perfect.” When we ran a comprehensive microbiome analysis, we discovered she had virtually no beneficial bacteria, massive overgrowths of various species, and markers indicating significant intestinal inflammation. No wonder she was exhausted. Her body was fighting a war every single day, and no one had thought to look.
The Functional Medicine Difference
Functional testing goes deeper. We’re not just looking at whether your organs are failing. We’re looking at how efficiently they’re working. We’re examining the underlying biochemistry that drives your symptoms. A DUTCH hormone test, for example, doesn’t just tell us your oestrogen level. It shows us how you’re metabolising oestrogen, whether you’re producing enough progesterone to balance it, and how your cortisol rhythm is affecting everything else. That level of detail changes everything about how we approach treatment.
Similarly, an Organic Acids Test can reveal nutrient deficiencies, mitochondrial dysfunction, neurotransmitter imbalances, and bacterial overgrowths that would never show up on standard testing. It’s like comparing a black and white photograph to a 4K video. We’re seeing the full picture of what’s happening in your body, in real time.
Reading Results Through a Different Lens
Sometimes it really is as simple as reading your existing blood results through a functional medicine lens. I often start by reviewing whatever testing patients have already had done through their GP. More often than not, I find clues that were overlooked. That slightly elevated liver enzyme? It might indicate methylation issues or oxidative stress. That “normal” ferritin of 30? Insufficient for optimal thyroid function and cellular energy production. Those cholesterol numbers? They might be telling a story about inflammation, not heart disease risk.
This is why I always ask new patients to send any previous testing in for me to look at in preparation for the appointment. There’s valuable information there, we just need to interpret it correctly. It saves you time, money, and gives us a starting point before deciding what additional testing might be needed.
What Happens Next
When you finally uncover what’s really going on, everything changes. Instead of guessing with generic supplements or another prescription that only masks symptoms, we can create a targeted treatment plan based on your actual biochemistry. We can address root causes instead of playing whack-a-mole with symptoms. And most importantly, you finally get validation that what you’ve been feeling is real, measurable, and treatable.
I’ve seen patients cry with relief when they finally see objective evidence explaining their symptoms. It’s not weakness. It’s not laziness. It’s not “just stress.” It’s a real, physiological problem that we can now work together to solve.
Your Next Step
If you’ve been told you’re “fine” but you know in your gut something’s wrong, it’s time to dig deeper. The answers are there, we just need to look in the right places with the right tests. A 15-minute discovery call can help us determine whether functional testing might finally give you the answers you’ve been searching for.
Because feeling “fine” isn’t good enough. You deserve to feel truly well.