Functional Medicine in Mason, OH Deeper testing for the symptoms nobody has explained.

Functional health starts from a different question than conventional medicine asks. Conventional care is excellent at identifying disease and matching it with a treatment, and you should absolutely keep your primary care provider in the loop. We work alongside conventional care, not in place of it. But if you've had blood work pulled at three different offices, heard "everything looks fine" every time, and you still feel like something is off, your body is raising a signal the standard panel wasn't built to catch.

That's the gap functional testing fills. Different markers. Deeper resolution. A picture instead of a snapshot.

At The Wellness Way - Mason, Dr. Ryan DeNome, Doctor of Chiropractic, pairs chiropractic care with comprehensive functional lab panels through our health restoration arm. We're cash-pay, transparent on pricing, and we don't order a test we can't explain to you. Patients drive from Mason, West Chester, Loveland, Lebanon, and the greater Cincinnati area, and a few from further out when their own neighborhood doesn't have what they're looking for.

What "normal" labs don't tell you

Lab ranges are built on population averages, and the population they're built on includes a lot of people who are tired, gaining weight, and not sleeping well. "Normal" can mean average for that population, not optimal for you.

A TSH of 3.5 lands inside the standard range and gets called normal. But your thyroid may be working overtime to hold that number, and you may be paying for it in energy, hair, mood, and weight. A single estrogen level pulled on day 21 of a cycle and called balanced is a little like checking your car's fuel gauge at one moment in the day and deciding the entire fuel system works. The DUTCH panel maps the whole cycle and shows the metabolites (the breakdown products that reflect how your body is using and clearing estrogen). That's often where a pattern hides: not in production, but in clearance and conversion.

None of that is a criticism of your doctor. Standard care is built to move quickly because it has to be. We're built for the conversation that doesn't fit inside a short visit.

How we work: the process

We use The Wellness Way's four-step process: New Perspective → We Test → We Discover → We Guide. In practice, that looks like four phases:

1. New patient visit. You tell us the story. The actual story, not the rushed version. It's a flat $99, covering the intake conversation and a review of any labs you've had run elsewhere, while we listen for the patterns the standard workup wasn't looking for.
2. Testing plan. If functional testing makes sense for you, we recommend a specific panel set (usually two or three labs that map together) and we walk through what each one costs before we order anything. Typical first-day lab spend lands between $300 and $700, depending on what we're looking at.
3. Results review. At your Plan / Discovery visit ($300), we sit down with the actual lab reports, side by side with your history, and name what's loading stress on your system. The Wellness Way framework is the 3 T's: Traumas (physical), Toxins (chemical), Thoughts (emotional). One or two of those is usually doing most of the work.
4. Care plan + follow-through. Chiropractic adjustments where the nervous system may need support. Targeted nutrition, supplementation, and lifestyle changes where the lab findings point. Retesting at the right interval so we can see whether the plan is doing its job, and adjust it if it isn't.

What we see most

Some patterns show up over and over in our practice. The body keeps the same conversations going, even when the surface symptoms look different from person to person.

• Thyroid patterns. Cold, tired, hair loss, weight that won't move, "normal TSH but I don't feel normal."
• Hormone imbalance. PMS that took over the second half of the cycle, perimenopause showing up early, anxiety that tracks with cycle phase.
• Autoimmune patterns. Hashimoto's, rheumatoid, and the long stretch where labs look a little off but nothing has a name yet.
• Digestive issues. Bloating, reflux, IBS, the patient who has tried every elimination diet and still doesn't know what's driving it.
• Chronic fatigue. Not sleepy. Tired. The kind that doesn't fix with a nap.
• Cardiometabolic risk. Cholesterol that came back "borderline" and left you with more questions than answers. Advanced lipid and inflammation markers can fill in the rest of that picture.
• Brain fog and mood patterns. The nervous-system end of the conversation, where gut function, hormone status, and thoughts (the third T) all converge.
• Joint and muscle pain. Chiropractic territory, but often with an inflammation or nutrient pattern underneath.

Labs we run

We don't run a fixed panel for everyone. We run what fits your story. The ones we order most:

• DUTCH panel (Dried Urine Test for Comprehensive Hormones): sex hormones, adrenal hormones, and the metabolites that show how your body is actually using and clearing them. Maps across the cycle, not a single timepoint.
• Complete thyroid panel with antibodies: TSH, Free T3, Free T4, Reverse T3, TPO, TgAb. The full picture, not just TSH alone.
• Comprehensive stool analysis: gut microbiome composition, digestive markers, inflammation markers, evidence of dysbiosis (imbalanced gut flora) or pathogens.
• Cardiometabolic panel: advanced lipid markers including particle size and inflammation, fasting insulin, and HbA1c. What a standard lipid panel doesn't show.
• Food sensitivity testing: for when symptoms point toward an immune reaction to specific foods. The Immuno Food Allergy Test is the panel we use most.
• TWW Basic Panel: broad foundational labs the parent brand designed to capture inflammation, blood sugar, liver and kidney function, and a few markers a routine panel usually doesn't include.

Tests are recommended, never required. We walk through cost and rationale before ordering anything. Cash-pay pricing only: most functional panels are not billable to commercial insurance, but HSA/FSA cards are accepted. See the full breakdown on our pricing page.

Why a Doctor of Chiropractic pairs with functional testing

Most patients searching for functional medicine in Mason are weighing two structures: lab work without hands-on care for the spine and nervous system, or hands-on care without the lab work. The Wellness Way model is the integrated version. Adjustments may support the parts of the nervous system that help regulate digestion, immune response, and hormone signaling, and functional labs can show what's happening downstream. The two are designed to work together. You can see how both arms of the practice fit together on our services page.

Dr. DeNome's training is as a Doctor of Chiropractic (chiropractic physician), and his certification as a Webster Technique provider gives him a specific protocol for prenatal care. The functional-testing layer comes through The Wellness Way's nationwide network, so the panels and the interpretation are consistent with how the parent brand runs care across the country.

Pricing, insurance, and what to expect

We're a cash-pay practice, and that's a deliberate choice. Insurance dictates visit length, what gets covered, and what doesn't. Cash-pay means we can structure visits around what the patient actually needs, run the labs that fit the picture, and charge transparently without surprise bills three months later. HSA and FSA cards are accepted for both visits and most lab panels.

The numbers: your new patient visit is a flat $99, which covers the intake conversation and a review of any labs you already have. Follow-up adjustments are $50, with soft tissue work, cupping, and scraping included at no upcharge. Labs are billed separately and transparently, quoted before anything is ordered; for a patient with no recent prior testing, first-day lab spend usually lands between $300 and $700. The Plan / Discovery visit, where we walk through your results and build the care plan, is $300.

What you should never see from us: a bill you weren't expecting, a panel ordered without consent, or a recommendation we can't explain in plain language. Full transparent pricing is on the pricing page.

Frequently asked questions

You don't have to pick a side

You don't have to feel guilty for not feeling well. You don't have to settle for "your labs look fine." And you don't have to choose between conventional medicine and a different conversation. You can have both running at the same time.

Common is not normal. Normal doesn't always mean optimal. You have options.

Reviewed and approved by Dr. Ryan DeNome, DC · Doctor of Chiropractic, The Wellness Way - Mason, Mason, Ohio