When Bloomfield resident Vicki Faverino lost her only son to suicide, the trauma was too much to bear, and she had nowhere to turn.
“There were times when I’d just stop breathing,” Faverino said. “It scared me when that happened.”
Faverino tried all sorts of therapy and forms of treatment to deal with the pain, but hit a dead end. It was then a co-worker suggested she see Rodney Russell, who, at the time, had a practice in Dallas.
With nothing to lose, Faverino boarded a plane in Albuquerque to see Russell for her first visit 11 years ago.
“Two hours after I left the table, my whole body felt lifted,” she said. “Whatever he did, the pain was just gone. I was hooked.”
Faverino still sees Russell to this day, but the commute, recently, has gotten much easier: Earlier this year, he opened Durango Functional Medicine at 2855 Main Ave.
Russell’s practice, known as “functional medicine,” is an alternative, vaguely defined type of treatment that focuses on addressing the body, mind and spirit as an integrated whole. Methods of treatment can include meditation, acupuncture and better nutrition.
“I take a lot of different perspectives and approaches,” said Russell, who has been practicing for 20 years. “Everyone is uniquely individual, so when I have someone lay down on the table, I just let the body start talking to me. It sounds kind of weird, but your body will tell on you so quick.”
According to Russell, he tries to find the underlying cause of a condition through different means, to gain insight on how the body interacts with itself. He then determines which course of action would be best for treatment.
“I look at everything from a multi-functional standpoint,” he said.
Since the form of practice was created in the early 1990s, functional medicine has been criticized as a pseudoscience, but it’s clear that those who believe in it swear by it.
“I was skeptical, but I went in there to see him and I was hooked,” Faverino said. “Not only did he deal with the death of my son, he worked on some trauma from childhood keeping me from being who I was.
“He touches your body in different pressure point places,” she continued. “And he breaks that connection.”
Casie Whitton, a caretaker for Joan Spicer, a patient of Russell’s, said with no other treatment helping ease the pain of severe arthritis, Spicer turned to functional medicine.
“There really is no cure for that, but he has helped her to manage her pain, greatly,” Whitton said. “He ties it all into together: spiritually, emotionally, physically. He doesn’t look at one thing; he looks at the whole package.”
Russell, too, has difficulty explaining his practice, saying, “You just have to try it.” He encouraged anyone frustrated with his or her current medical care to give functional medicine a try.
Russell, who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in human anatomy and a doctorate in chiropractic from Parker College of Chiropractic, said his patients are often the ones doctors can’t figure out.
“Or people that have been to doctors and still feel like there’s something wrong with them,” he said. “I like to find the root cause of everything so people don’t have to come back.”
Sessions can range from $90 to $205, depending on the care, and insurance is not accepted. Any blood tests that are run are priced at cost.
Faverino, for her part, is just glad she only has to drive about an hour rather than take a whole day to fly out to Dallas for treatment, or in extreme cases, when she’d fly Russell to New Mexico.
She said she has never experienced a relapse since she started treatment with Russell.
“I don’t have any issues, other than just regular life,” she said. “Stuff he can’t fix, like bills, neighbors. That kind of thing.”
jromeo@durangoherald.com
