Most people who come to The Healing Place have already been through the conventional healthcare system. They have had blood work done. They have been told their results look normal. And they have gone home with no answers, still feeling exhausted, inflamed, foggy, or unwell—because the testing they received was designed to detect disease, not to reveal the functional imbalances that drive chronic symptoms long before disease ever takes hold.
At The Healing Place in Franklin, Tennessee, we do things differently. Our advanced laboratory testing goes far beyond the standard panels ordered in conventional practice, using specialized, comprehensive tools that reveal what is actually happening in your body at the metabolic, hormonal, immunological, and cellular level. We do not wait for a condition to become diagnosable. We identify what is moving in the wrong direction—and we address it now, before it becomes something harder to turn around. If you have been searching for real answers, functional testing is where we start.
There is nothing wrong with conventional laboratory testing in its proper context. It is an effective tool for detecting acute conditions, confirming diagnoses, and monitoring known disease states. But it was not designed to do what most patients actually need it to do—reveal the root causes of chronic, complex, and difficult-to-diagnose health challenges.
The first limitation is range. Conventional lab results are compared against pathological reference ranges—statistical averages derived from the general population. If your result falls within that range, you are considered normal. But with more than half of the American population currently living with a chronic health condition, the population that defines "normal" is already significantly compromised. Normal by that standard is not the same as optimal. Functional medicine uses tighter, research-backed functional ranges that reflect genuine physiological health—and within those ranges, dysfunction becomes visible long before it meets the threshold for a conventional diagnosis.
The second limitation is scope. Conventional panels typically assess a narrow set of markers focused on detecting overt disease in individual organ systems. They rarely assess the deeper physiological layers that drive chronic illness—hormonal metabolism, gut microbiome health, toxin burden, food immune reactivity, nutrient status, adrenal function, and the complex interplay between these systems. Our functional testing panels address all of these layers, providing a genuinely comprehensive picture of what is driving your symptoms and what needs to change.
The third limitation is interpretation. Even when the right markers are tested, the way results are read matters enormously. Our functional medicine team interprets your results through a functional lens—looking not just at whether individual markers fall outside pathological ranges, but at the patterns and relationships between markers that reveal how your body's systems are functioning together. That interpretive difference frequently changes everything about the care plan that follows.
At The Healing Place, functional testing is never ordered as a generic protocol. Every panel we recommend is selected based on your unique health history, your current symptoms, your goals, and what we have learned from your clinical assessment and neurological evaluation. We do not test for the sake of testing. We test to answer specific clinical questions—and then we use what we find to build a care plan that is precisely tailored to your body's actual needs.
We use a curated suite of the most advanced, clinically validated testing panels available in functional medicine today. Each one is chosen for the depth and precision of information it provides, the quality of the laboratory performing the analysis, and the actionability of the results it generates. Every test we recommend has a clear purpose and a clear path from findings to treatment—because testing without a thoughtful, integrated response is just data collection.
When your results come in, we walk you through every finding in detail at your report of findings appointment. We explain what each marker means, how it connects to the symptoms you are experiencing, and exactly what we recommend in response. You will leave that appointment with a clear, prioritized, personalized plan—not a pile of numbers and a referral to someone else.
Your metabolic health is the foundation of everything—energy production, organ function, blood sugar regulation, hormonal balance, and the basic physiological processes that keep you alive and thriving. Our custom Comprehensive Metabolic Panel goes significantly beyond the standard CMP ordered in conventional practice, assessing 14 key markers related to kidney function, liver health, electrolyte balance, blood sugar regulation, and protein status—and expanding that foundation with a comprehensive thyroid panel that most conventional providers never include as part of routine metabolic assessment.
On the kidney side, we measure blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, and the BUN-to-creatinine ratio—giving us a clear picture of how efficiently your kidneys are filtering waste from the blood and how well your body is maintaining hydration balance. On the liver side, we assess alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, and total bilirubin—markers that reveal liver inflammation, bile flow, and the health of this critical detoxification and metabolic organ. We assess blood glucose for insulin resistance and diabetes risk, electrolyte levels for fluid and nerve function, and total protein and albumin for nutritional status and liver health.
What makes our metabolic panel genuinely different from a conventional CMP is the comprehensive thyroid assessment we include as standard. Rather than testing TSH alone—the single marker most conventional providers rely on, which frequently misses significant thyroid dysfunction—we assess the full picture: TSH, free T3, free T4, reverse T3, thyroid peroxidase antibodies, and thyroglobulin antibodies. This expanded panel reveals not just whether the thyroid is producing hormones, but whether those hormones are being properly converted and utilized, whether the body's stress response is interfering with thyroid function, and whether autoimmune activity is affecting the thyroid gland—three of the most common drivers of thyroid-related symptoms that standard testing routinely misses entirely.
Hormonal imbalance is one of the most common and most frequently misdiagnosed root causes of chronic health challenges—affecting energy, mood, sleep, metabolism, libido, fertility, and the quality of daily life in ways that are profound and pervasive. Standard hormone testing, which typically measures a single blood draw at a single point in time, captures an incomplete and often misleading snapshot of hormonal function. The DUTCH Complete test takes a fundamentally different approach.
DUTCH stands for Dried Urine Test for Comprehensive Hormones—and comprehensive is exactly what it is. Rather than measuring hormone levels at a single moment, the DUTCH test collects urine samples at multiple points throughout the day, providing a dynamic picture of how hormones are produced, metabolized, and cleared from the body over time. This matters because it is not just the level of a hormone that determines its effect on the body—it is how that hormone is being processed and eliminated. Two people can have identical estrogen levels and dramatically different health profiles depending on how that estrogen is being metabolized.
The DUTCH Complete assesses sex hormones and their metabolites in detail—estradiol, estriol, estrone, and their downstream metabolites that reveal whether estrogen detoxification is proceeding safely; progesterone metabolites that evaluate menstrual cycle regulation and estrogen balance; and a full androgen panel including testosterone, DHEA-S, DHT, and their metabolites, which influence libido, muscle mass, mood, hair loss patterns, and energy in both men and women.
It also assesses adrenal function with a precision that standard cortisol testing cannot match—measuring both free and metabolized cortisol and cortisone across the day to reveal the full pattern of adrenal output, HPA axis regulation, and stress response. Melatonin production is assessed as a marker of sleep quality and circadian rhythm health. And the DUTCH Complete includes organic acid markers that provide insight into neurotransmitter metabolism, B vitamin status, glutathione production, and the body's overall capacity for detoxification and antioxidant defense.
This test is particularly valuable for anyone dealing with PMS, PCOS, infertility, perimenopause or menopause, chronic fatigue, adrenal burnout, sleep disturbances, mood instability, weight gain, or low libido—and for anyone who has had standard hormone testing come back normal despite ongoing symptoms that suggest something hormonal is at the root.
The gut is not just a digestive organ. It is the seat of the immune system, a major site of neurotransmitter production, a critical regulator of inflammation, and an ecosystem of trillions of microorganisms whose collective health has a profound influence on virtually every system in the body. When the gut is dysregulated—when the microbiome is imbalanced, the intestinal lining is compromised, or digestion is impaired—the effects ripple outward into immunity, brain function, mood, metabolism, skin health, and the development and progression of chronic disease.
The Gut Zoomer is one of the most advanced and comprehensive stool analysis tests available in functional medicine, and it provides a level of insight into gut health that no standard gastroenterology workup approaches. It begins with a thorough microbiome analysis—measuring hundreds of bacterial species to assess the diversity and balance of your gut ecosystem, identifying beneficial bacteria like Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, Akkermansia, and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, and detecting the overgrowth of opportunistic and pathogenic organisms including harmful bacteria species, Candida and other fungal overgrowth, and intestinal parasites that conventional stool testing routinely fails to detect.
It assesses intestinal permeability—what is commonly known as leaky gut—through markers including zonulin, which is the primary gatekeeper of intestinal barrier integrity. When zonulin is elevated, the tight junctions that control what crosses the intestinal lining have become compromised, allowing bacteria, toxins, and undigested food particles to enter the bloodstream and trigger the systemic inflammation that underlies a wide range of chronic conditions. Calprotectin and lactoferrin reveal active gut inflammation associated with inflammatory bowel disease, food sensitivities, and infection. Secretory IgA assesses the gut's frontline immune defense.
Digestive function is evaluated through markers of pancreatic enzyme production and fat, protein, and carbohydrate absorption—revealing whether nutrients are being properly broken down and utilized. Short-chain fatty acid levels reflect the gut microbiome's capacity to produce the compounds that feed the intestinal lining, regulate immune function, and influence brain health through the gut-brain axis. Neurotransmitter metabolites provide insight into gut-derived serotonin and dopamine production—critical for mood, motivation, and cognitive function.
This test is particularly valuable for anyone dealing with chronic digestive symptoms, irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, leaky gut, food sensitivities, autoimmune conditions, skin conditions, brain fog, anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, or unexplained weight gain. But it is equally valuable as a proactive health tool—because gut dysfunction frequently precedes and drives conditions that do not seem obviously gut-related, and identifying it early creates the opportunity to address it before it becomes something significantly harder to resolve.
Food sensitivities are among the most common and most overlooked contributors to chronic inflammation, digestive dysfunction, and a wide range of symptoms that patients and providers alike often fail to connect to diet. Unlike food allergies—which produce immediate, IgE-mediated immune responses that are often dramatic and unmistakable—food sensitivities involve delayed immune reactions that can occur hours or even days after a triggering food is consumed. This delay makes them extraordinarily difficult to identify without testing, because the connection between what you ate and how you feel is obscured by time.
Our food sensitivity testing through Vibrant America assesses both IgG and IgA immune reactions to an extensive panel of up to 209 foods—providing a comprehensive picture of delayed immune reactivity that covers every major food category. IgG reactions reflect delayed hypersensitivity responses that are commonly linked to gut inflammation, autoimmune activity, and systemic inflammatory conditions. IgA reactions assess mucosal immune responses in the digestive tract—revealing foods that are triggering gut inflammation and potentially contributing to intestinal permeability.
The panel covers dairy in all of its forms, gluten and the full spectrum of grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, meats and seafood, fruits and vegetables including the nightshade family, eggs tested separately as white and yolk, herbs and spices, and artificial additives and preservatives. This breadth matters because food sensitivities are rarely limited to the obvious suspects, and addressing only the most commonly reactive foods while missing others that are silently driving inflammation is one of the most common reasons that elimination diets provide only partial relief.
Food sensitivity testing is particularly valuable for anyone dealing with chronic digestive issues, skin conditions, joint pain, migraines, brain fog, fatigue, autoimmune conditions, mood instability, or weight loss resistance. It provides the specific, actionable information needed to design a truly targeted elimination and reintroduction protocol—one that removes the foods that are actively harming your gut and immune system, gives the intestinal lining the chance to heal, and creates the reduction in systemic inflammation that allows the body to recover.
We live in a world that is more chemically complex than at any previous point in human history. Every day, we are exposed to hundreds of synthetic compounds through the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, the products we apply to our skin, and the environments we inhabit. Many of these compounds—heavy metals, environmental chemicals, mold mycotoxins, and agricultural pesticides and herbicides—accumulate in the body over time and create a toxic burden that can silently drive chronic illness, neurological dysfunction, hormonal disruption, immune compromise, and metabolic disease.
The Total Tox Burden test from Vibrant America is one of the most comprehensive toxin screening panels available, designed to identify what is actually living in your body that should not be there—and to give us the information we need to address it effectively.
The heavy metals panel screens for more than 20 toxic metals including mercury, lead, arsenic, aluminum, cadmium, nickel, tin, thallium, cesium, and uranium. Heavy metals accumulate in tissues over years and decades, creating neurological damage, immune dysfunction, hormonal disruption, and chronic fatigue in ways that conventional providers rarely consider and standard blood tests rarely detect at the levels that functional medicine considers clinically significant.
The mycotoxins panel screens for more than 30 mold-derived toxins including ochratoxin A, aflatoxins, trichothecenes, gliotoxin, and zearalenone—compounds produced by toxic mold species that are far more prevalent in indoor environments than most people realize, and whose effects on human health—including brain fog, chronic fatigue, respiratory dysfunction, immune suppression, and neurological symptoms—are still largely underrecognized in conventional medicine.
The environmental toxins panel screens for more than 39 synthetic chemicals and pollutants including phthalates, BPA, parabens, toluene, xylene, perchlorate, styrene, and benzene—compounds found in plastics, personal care products, food packaging, industrial pollution, and household products that disrupt hormone signaling, metabolic function, thyroid activity, and brain health.
The pesticides and herbicides panel detects agricultural chemicals including glyphosate, atrazine, organophosphates, and legacy compounds like DDT that persist in the environment and the food chain long after their use has been restricted. Glyphosate in particular has received growing research attention for its effects on gut microbiome diversity, immune function, and neurological health—and it is present at measurable levels in a significant proportion of the population.
For anyone dealing with unexplained fatigue, brain fog, memory difficulties, hormonal imbalances, thyroid dysfunction, chronic inflammation, autoimmune conditions, or a history of known exposure to mold or environmental chemicals, the Total Tox Burden test frequently provides the missing piece of the clinical puzzle—revealing the toxic contributors that have been silently undermining health and creating a clear roadmap for targeted detoxification support.
Ordering advanced laboratory tests is only valuable if the results are interpreted with clinical depth and translated into an actionable, personalized care plan. At The Healing Place, that translation is as important as the testing itself.
When your results are ready, we schedule a thorough report of findings appointment where Dr. Anthony or Dr. Amy Putrus walks you through every finding in plain language—explaining what each marker means, how the patterns across your panel connect to the symptoms you have been experiencing, and what we recommend in response. Nothing is glossed over. Nothing is minimized. And nothing is presented as a list of problems without a corresponding path to resolution.
Your care plan following functional testing integrates targeted nutritional supplementation using professional-grade products not available over the counter, dietary and lifestyle modifications grounded in your specific test findings, detoxification support where indicated by toxin burden results, gut healing protocols informed by Gut Zoomer findings, and neurological chiropractic care where appropriate—because the health of the nervous system and the health of the metabolic and hormonal systems are profoundly interconnected, and addressing both simultaneously produces results that neither approach achieves alone.
We track your progress with follow-up testing at appropriate intervals, so you can see the objective evidence of what is changing in your body over time. Because you deserve to know that what we are doing is working—not just to feel it, but to see it in the data.
Functional testing at The Healing Place is for anyone who is ready to stop guessing and start knowing. It is for the patient who has had normal labs but still feels profoundly unwell. It is for the person managing a chronic condition who wants to address its root cause rather than its surface symptoms. It is for the family that wants to take a genuinely proactive approach to health—identifying imbalances and vulnerabilities before they become diagnoses. It is for the child whose developmental challenges, behavioral patterns, or chronic illness have not responded to conventional approaches. And it is for the adult who simply wants to perform at a higher level—with more energy, clearer thinking, better sleep, and a body that feels genuinely well rather than merely functional.
Whatever your reason for seeking answers, functional testing provides a level of insight into your body's actual state that changes what is possible in your care. It is the difference between treating the pattern of symptoms and understanding the physiological reality beneath them. And that understanding is where real, lasting healing begins.
Your body is communicating with you every day—through your energy levels, your sleep quality, your digestion, your mood, your skin, and the symptoms that have persisted despite everything you have already tried. Functional testing gives us the tools to listen to what your body is actually saying—and to respond with the precision and depth that your health deserves.
Schedule your first consultation at The Healing Place today and let us uncover the metabolic, hormonal, and toxicological keys to your optimal health. Call us at (615) 455-5350, email us at hello@hellohealingplace.com, or book your appointment online. Real answers are closer than you think.