Functional Health KC

Functional Health KC Functional Health KC is a chiropractic, functional medicine and acupuncture office located in Overland Park, KS.

We specialize in a low force chiropractic technique known as Activator Methods and focus on gut and hormone health. We are a general practice chiropractic, functional medicine and acupuncture clinic. We specialize in a low force chiropractic techniques known as Activator Methods.

Back pain during pregnancy is common.But common doesn’t mean you have to automatically accept it as something you can do...
09/10/2026

Back pain during pregnancy is common.

But common doesn’t mean you have to automatically accept it as something you can do nothing about.

Your body is adapting to an enormous amount of change in a relatively short period of time.

Your center of gravity shifts.

Your posture changes.

Different muscles start doing more work.

The forces traveling through your pelvis, hips and low back change.

And your body compensates so you can keep moving through all of it.

Sometimes it does that beautifully.

Sometimes those compensations start to hurt.

That’s why when a pregnant patient comes to us with low-back, hip or pelvic discomfort, we don’t simply ask:

“Where does it hurt?”

We also want to know:

“How is your body moving?”

When chiropractic care is appropriate, our Activator approach allows us to provide gentle, precise, low-force care without the twisting many people picture when they think about chiropractic.

The goal isn’t to make pregnancy “perfect.”

It’s to support comfortable movement so you can keep doing as much of your normal life as possible while your body does some pretty extraordinary work.

Save this for later—or send it to an expecting mom who needs to hear that she doesn’t necessarily have to just grin and bear every pregnancy ache.

I’ve had plenty of patients tell me they know they need to “manage their stress”…but somehow stress management has turne...
09/03/2026

I’ve had plenty of patients tell me they know they need to “manage their stress”…but somehow stress management has turned into one more thing they’re failing to get done.

That’s why I like starting small.

Try slowing your breathing for just a few minutes.

One simple option is:

Inhale gently for about 4 seconds.

Exhale slowly for about 6 seconds.

Don’t strain. Don’t try to take the world’s biggest breath. Just slow things down and let the exhale be a little longer.

Slow breathing can influence autonomic nervous-system activity and may help your body shift toward a calmer state.

Will three minutes of breathing make all the stress in your life disappear?

Unfortunately, no. 😉

But repeated small signals of safety and calm can be much more realistic than waiting until you have 30 uninterrupted minutes for the “perfect” stress-management routine.

And when appropriate, other conservative strategies—including movement, sleep support, chiropractic care for musculoskeletal concerns, and acupuncture—may be part of a broader plan.

Save this for the week when everything seems to hit at once.

09/02/2026

Your nervous system and digestive system are talking to each other all day long.

And the vagus nerve is one important part of that communication.

That’s why I don’t love thinking about the body as a collection of completely separate parts.

Stress can affect breathing.

Breathing can affect muscle tension.

Stress can affect sleep.

And yes, stress can also influence digestion.

That doesn’t mean every digestive symptom is caused by stress. If you have persistent or changing digestive symptoms, they deserve appropriate evaluation.

But if you’ve noticed your stomach seems to act differently during particularly stressful times, that pattern may be worth paying attention to.

The body is connected.

Sometimes understanding those connections is the first step toward understanding what your body has been trying to tell you.

Save this for the next time someone tells you stress is “just in your head.”

09/01/2026

Going gluten-free made sense.

He had celiac disease.

But years later, he was still dealing with gas, bloating, soft stools, burping, facial flushing, histamine-type reactions and occasional urgency.

So the question became:

What else are we missing?

His GI-MAP gave us additional pieces of the puzzle, including H. pylori, Blastocystis hominis and bacterial patterns that could be relevant to some of the symptoms he was experiencing.

That didn’t mean every result needed to be chased.

It meant we finally had better information to put alongside his symptoms and history.

After physician-prescribed treatment for the infections followed by additional work to address dysbiosis and support his gut, many of his symptoms improved.

And we’re still working on rebuilding.

That’s an important part of this story.

Functional medicine isn’t about ordering a fancy test and magically finding one answer.

It’s about connecting the dots.

Sometimes you’ve already made a very appropriate change—and you’re still symptomatic because there are additional pieces nobody has looked for yet.

Test. Don’t guess.

And then interpret what you find in the context of the whole person.

Has this ever happened to you—you made the “right” change but still didn’t feel better?

One thing I wish more people understood about migraine:The headache isn’t always the beginning.I can sometimes tell a mi...
08/27/2026

One thing I wish more people understood about migraine:

The headache isn’t always the beginning.

I can sometimes tell a migraine is coming because my brain starts behaving differently before the pain really gets going.

I may mix up words. Become much more sensitive to light. Feel foggy or clumsy. My legs can feel weak. Sometimes I get a very specific pain behind my right eye.

Those symptoms have become part of my recognizable migraine pattern.

Your pattern may be completely different.

That’s why I encourage people with recurring migraines to pay attention to more than pain intensity.

What happened earlier that day? How did you sleep? Where were you in your menstrual cycle? Had you eaten? Were you unusually stressed? Did you notice neurological symptoms first?

Patterns can give us clues.

One important caveat: new, severe, or changing neurological symptoms shouldn’t simply be written off as “my migraine.” Those symptoms deserve appropriate medical evaluation.

Migraine is much more complicated than “a bad headache.”

Share this with someone who lives with migraine and will understand exactly what I mean.

08/25/2026

Your head hurts, so the problem must be in your head…right?

Not necessarily.

Certain headaches can be influenced by the joints, muscles, and nerves of the neck.

That’s one reason we look beyond the location of the pain.

Is your upper neck moving well?

Are you spending eight hours a day looking at a laptop?

Are the muscles around your neck and shoulders constantly tight?

Has your body been compensating for another movement problem?

None of this means every headache is caused by your neck. Headaches have many possible causes, and new, severe, or unusual headaches may need medical evaluation.

But recurring headaches shouldn’t automatically be treated as an isolated “head problem,” either.

The body is connected.

Sometimes understanding why the headache keeps returning starts with looking beyond where it hurts.

08/20/2026

Why check the neck when your jaw is the thing that hurts?

Because your TMJ doesn’t work by itself.

1️⃣ Your jaw and neck share muscular relationships.

Muscles involved in head position, jaw movement, and stabilization all have to coordinate. When one area is working differently, another may compensate.

2️⃣ Head position can change the workload.

Think about how many hours we spend looking down at phones, leaning toward computers, or working with our head forward.

Your neck notices.

So can your jaw.

3️⃣ Clenching and guarding can involve more than the TMJ.

When someone is stressed or uncomfortable, tension may show up throughout the jaw, neck, shoulders, and upper back—not neatly inside one joint.

That’s why when someone comes into our office with TMJ pain, we don’t automatically look at the jaw and stop there.

We want to understand how the surrounding areas are moving and functioning too.

Pain tells us where you’re hurting.

It doesn’t always tell us the whole story about why.

📍Save this if you’re constantly rubbing your jaw AND your neck by the end of the day.

08/19/2026

She came in for neck pain.

The jaw problem almost sounded like an afterthought.

She’d been dealing with jaw pain and tightness for quite a while and hadn’t realized there could be a connection between what was happening in her neck and what she was feeling in her jaw.

So we checked both.

Using gentle, precise Activator treatment, I worked with her neck and TMJ.

She noticed less jaw pain and tightness, improved jaw range of motion, and greater comfort with chewing.

That’s one of the reasons we don’t like looking at painful body parts in isolation.

Your jaw has muscles and joints that work closely with your head and neck.

If you’re constantly clenching, guarding, working with your head forward, or compensating for restricted movement somewhere else, more than one area may become involved.

That doesn’t mean every TMJ problem is caused by the neck.

It means the body is connected—and it’s worth evaluating that way.

Address

6871 W 91st Street
Overland Park, KS
66212

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 12:30pm
2:30pm - 6pm
Tuesday 9am - 12:30pm
2:30pm - 6pm
Wednesday 9am - 12:30pm
2:30pm - 6pm
Thursday 9am - 12:30pm
2:30pm - 6pm
Friday 9am - 12pm
Saturday 9am - 12pm

Telephone

+19133810740

Website

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