A personalized systems medicine approach to refractory rumination.

RATIONALE, AIMS AND

OBJECTIVES

As with many functional disorders, rumination syndrome poses a great dilemma when approached via standard of care. This case report illustrates how rumination syndrome may be effectively approached using the systems medicine.

METHOD: The patient's treatment involved two distinctively different treatment cycles. Initially she was treated in an academic tertiary inpatient and outpatient multidisciplinary program with a primary symptom-based focus with little improvement. She subsequently sought care at a systems-based integrative medicine clinic within an academic family medicine centre, which identified the inciting events, diagnosed the current pathology and developed a stepwise treatment plan.

RESULTS

The patient is now rumination free.

CONCLUSION

Chronic or refractory diseases, especially when regarded as 'functional' may be approached by a systems medicine methodology, which allows physicians to fine-tune the vast amount of specific pieces of knowledge to achieve an integrated approach to managing the whole person.