Dr. Devonna A'Belle, DMSc

I am a Functional Health professional who has been a PA for over 30 years. I  became interested in functional health after years of frustration of being part of a conventional medicine system that is failing patients. 

I underwent gastric sleeve surgery several years ago and while I have lost a great deal of weight and kept almost all of it off, (I gained some during lockdown when everyone was isolated and stress eating) I have seen many family members, friends, and patients who have undergone bariatric surgery and the surgery has failed. Either those people never lost much weight or they gained the weight back. It is heart breaking to see these people feel defeated, humiliated, and embarrassed that the surgery failed. 

I had my surgery out of the country because of insurance. While I had an excellent outcome and medical experience and lost 130 lbs., I realized I was still not healthy.

I realized that I was not being followed up with the appropriate nutritional evaluation or recommendations.

Because of the combination of me not feeling healthy and watching others who in desperation sought bariatric surgery and whose surgery had failed, I set upon trying to find answers to help these people find hope again and to get myself healthier. 

Although I had always been somewhat skeptical of Functional Health, the more I learned about the approach, the more I realized this is what I had been missing my entire career. A Functional Health approach is what all of conventional medicine is missing. Instead of just treating symptoms, Functional Health tries to find the actual cause or triggers of symptoms and address the underlying cause. 

Being overweight is a caused by a combination of things, i.e., hormonal imbalance, nutritional deficiencies, unbalanced gut bacteria, genetics, toxins, stress, etc.

Being overweight is a symptom that the system is not working correctly. Conventional medicine tries to treat you after you are overweight, functional health looks for the cause of why you are overweight and tries to correct the underlying factors that lead to you gaining weight to begin with. 

If you have had bariatric surgery, even if you have lost weight, you are probably not being followed up sufficiently to make sure that you are nutritionally healthy. Up to 70% of people who have had bariatric surgery can be nutritionally deficient. 

If you have had bariatric surgery, especially if you have not had the results you wanted, please call for a FREE consultation to see if a Functional Health program can help you finally lose the weight and become healthy!

Click here to schedule a free consultation