Case Results

Real Patients. Individualized Care. Meaningful Results.

At Austin Medicine Clinic, we look beyond symptoms to understand the underlying factors affecting your health. These case studies illustrate how a personalized, functional medicine approach can address multiple health concerns together—from weight and metabolism to gut health, energy, hormones, and chronic pain.

Explore real patient stories to see how comprehensive evaluation, targeted treatment, and ongoing physician-guided care can create meaningful changes over time.

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The 67-Year-Old Who Came Off Every Pain Medication

The presentation

A 67-year-old woman came to Austin Medicine carrying a diagnosis of chronic pain and a medication list to match: multiple analgesics, both opioid and non-opioid, accumulated over years of management rather than resolution. She was also on a proton pump inhibitor, the kind of long-term prescription that quietly becomes permanent.

She was not being treated badly. She was being treated symptomatically, by a system with no time to ask why a body hurts everywhere.

What we found

Her functional workup identified several drivers that had never been evaluated, each of which independently amplifies pain.

Significant gut dysbiosis, which drives systemic inflammatory signaling and is increasingly recognized as a contributor to widespread pain sensitivity. Substantial nutritional deficiencies, compounded by years of acid suppression — long-term PPI use impairs absorption of B12, magnesium, iron, and calcium, and magnesium and B12 deficiency alone can produce pain, neuropathic symptoms, and fatigue. And the metabolic slowing that followed menopause, with the loss of hormonal support that affects muscle mass, body composition, inflammatory tone, and pain perception.

Excess weight sat on top of all of it, mechanically loading her joints and generating inflammatory signaling from adipose tissue.

None of these were her pain diagnosis. All of them were making her pain worse.

The plan

We sequenced it deliberately, because order matters.

First, foundation: a diet built specifically for her metabolism and her deficiencies, alongside a protocol to correct her dysbiosis and replete what she was missing. This phase came before any weight-loss intervention, and it is the reason the rest worked.

Then, metabolic support: GLP-1 therapy alongside targeted peptide therapy to address weight and inflammatory contributors to her pain.

Then, hormone therapy, which she describes as the intervention that changed everything.

Throughout, we tapered her medications carefully, under direct supervision, as her underlying drivers resolved and the need diminished.

The results, over one year

43 pounds lost
Off all pain medications, opioid and non-opioid
Off her PPI
Dysbiosis resolved and nutritional status restored

In her words, the hormone therapy saved her life.

The takeaway

At 67, after years of escalating prescriptions, she was told chronic pain was something to manage. It was not. It was the sum of an inflamed gut, a depleted body, an unsupported hormonal transition, and a metabolism nobody had addressed. When those were corrected, the pain that required daily opioids stopped requiring them at all.

Age is not a reason to stop asking why.

*Details are de-identified and shared with permission. Individual results vary. Medication changes were made under direct physician supervision.

Case Study: The 39-Year-Old Who Had Tried Everything

The presentation

A 39-year-old woman came to Austin Medicine with a story we hear constantly: she had tried everything to lose weight and get her energy back, and nothing held. Diets worked until they did not. Workouts left her depleted instead of stronger. Her focus was gone by mid-afternoon. She arrived 19 pounds above her healthy weight with a clear, reasonable goal: lose 15 pounds and actually change her body composition, not just the number on the scale.

She was not lazy and she was not undisciplined. Her results made that obvious later. She was working against a body that was not functioning well enough to respond.

What we found

Her workup told a story her previous plans had ignored. Her gut function was significantly impaired, with infrequent bowel movements, and she had ongoing eczema, an outward sign of the inflammation running underneath. You cannot out-diet a digestive system that is not eliminating properly, and you cannot build energy in a body that is inflamed.

Rather than handing her another generic meal plan, we built her nutrition around her own metabolism and her specific goals: a tailored plan designed for her body's actual needs, paired with a protocol to restore her gut function first.

The results, over 12 weeks

Daily bowel movements, restored and maintained
Her eczema cleared
14 pounds of fat lost
4 pounds of muscle gained
Energy and mental focus she describes as the best in years

Look at those middle numbers closely, because they are the entire point. On a standard scale, she "only" lost 10 pounds. In reality, her body composition shifted by 18 pounds in the right directions: 14 pounds of fat gone and 4 pounds of muscle built, which is a better outcome than her original goal. This is why we measure composition and not just weight. The scale would have undersold what her body accomplished.

The takeaway

Her weight was never the problem. It was the symptom. When we fixed how her gut functioned and fed her body according to its own metabolism, the weight, the skin, the energy, and the focus all moved together, because they were never separate issues.

*Details are de-identified and shared with permission. Individual results vary.