Every fortnight, a patient brings in a printed cortisol curve from a home saliva-test kit. They have been told their adrenals are exhausted, their adrenals are wired, their adrenals are flat, depending on who is selling them the next program. The truth is closer to this — a one-day saliva curve is a single photograph of a system that varies enormously across weeks, and the curve is rarely the story.
What is the story, in functional medicine, is the conversation that follows the curve. Sleep. Cycles, in those who still have them. The week of work that has just been worked. The number of nights in a row of less than five hours. The two coffees before nine and the third one at three. The wine on Friday. The four-day school holiday. The two months of the gym being skipped. The thing that did not get said in the kitchen at home.
These are not soft variables. They are the variables. We measure what is measurable — DUTCH where indicated, hsCRP, full thyroid, ferritin, B12 active, RBC magnesium, full red-cell mineral panel — and we read the patient in front of us with at least as much care as the spreadsheet from the lab.
The practice is on King Street, above the second-hand bookshop. The room has one chair on each side of the desk and a kettle. Appointments are seventy-five minutes the first time, sixty minutes thereafter. The lab requests are written by hand. The letter on the desk at the end is read back, in plain English, before you leave.
If you are reading this looking for someone to print you a supplement protocol from your cortisol curve, this is probably not the right practice for you. If you are looking for someone to spend seventy-five minutes reading the body in front of them, with the laboratory data sitting next to but not in front of the patient, the diary is online and we will write back within two working days.
Newtown bookseller, 32, with two years of cyclic acne and chronic bloating. Three-week DAO-supportive diet, structured reintroduction, and a six-week food diary. Joint care with her GP on cycle issues.
Outcome: histamine reactions down 80% by week eight; cycle acne resolved by month four.
Erskineville architect, 41. Three years of waking around 03:00, work stress, two glasses of wine most evenings. DUTCH free + reactive cortisol, no diurnal flat. Sleep-architecture work led by a sleep psychologist; nutrition and mineral support led here.
Outcome: wake-ups down to once a week within twelve weeks; full week of unbroken sleep by week sixteen.
Stanmore teacher, 47. Energy plateau and night-wakes. Full red-cell mineral panel showed low magnesium, B12 active borderline. Joint care with GP for thyroid follow-up. Daily strength training added through her physio.
Outcome: energy stable by week eight, sleep settled by week ten, follow-up bloods at week sixteen.
Sydney (BSc, 2006). Bachelor of Health Science (Naturopathy), Endeavour 2012. Three-year clinical mentorship under Dr Christabelle Yeoh through the FCRMA framework. Twelve years across two large integrative clinics before opening The Long Room above the bookshop on King Street in 2023.
The practice writes by hand. Long-form clinical letters every quarter. No commission-based supplement sales. Lab interpretation is part of the consultation fee.
The clinical letters left open on the desk between consultations. Lab printouts read aloud, not pushed across the table.
Fresh and dried botanicals at the back bench. Written by hand into the dispensary book. No commission-based supplement sales.
The dispensary cabinet — alphabetised. Standard liquid extracts and a small selection of practitioner-only formulations.
HotDoc opens slots a fortnight ahead, every Sunday evening at 6pm. New patients welcome with or without GP referral. Initial appointments run seventy-five minutes; follow-ups are sixty.
The Functional Letter
396 King Street, Newtown NSW 2042
Tue · Wed · Fri · Sat
08:30 – 17:30
+61 2 9519 4070
thepractice@functionalletter.com.au