By now, you have probably heard of complementary and alternative medicine, as it is one of the fastest growing segments of the medical profession. Why is it so popular? A good guess would be that people are growing disenchanted with allopathic doctors and their prescription pads. Side effects of prescription medications have grown to massive proportions, and it is said that the cure is sometimes worse than the illness as far as side effects are concerned. People are ready for a natural, whole-body method of treatment, one that treats them like the human being they are instead of a number or a machine. Complementary and alternative medicine, or CAM for short, is all of this and more.
Basically, complimentary and alternative medicine is any type of medical treatment, practice, or goods that are in no way related to conventional medicine, although some conventional doctors who went to college and medical school for MD degrees also practice complimentary and alternative medicine. Confused yet? The explanation is simple –
• Complementary medicine is used along with conventional medicine – i.e., it compliments conventional medicine. An example of this could be a patient receiving massage therapy (complementary) after treatment for a sprained shoulder. (conventional)
• Alternative medicine is used instead of conventional medicine. An example of this is a patient with Stage 2 lung cancer who stops all chemotherapy overseen by an oncologist (conventional) and instead begins a treatment regimen with herbs and plant matter. (alternative)
You may decide that you are interested in using complementary and alternative medicine. First of all, you should do some research for the type of medical problem you will be visiting the doctor for. Find out if there have been any studies or research done on your illness where complementary and alternative medicine played a role in the diagnoses and treatment. This will give you some advice and some ammunition with which to proceed. Then, have a talk with your current doctor. Tell him what you are thinking of doing, and find out what he thinks. He may surprise you and be all for you making the change, or he may be totally against it and advise you grimly that you will be taking your health into your own hands.
That’s exactly what you want to do! When you choose complementary and alternative medicine, you are making your own heath care decisions, possibly for the first time. That’s quite a heady feeling, but it can be a scary one, too. That is why you must be sure to carefully consider your options. Find a complementary and alternative medicine doctor you feel you can trust, and interview him. Ask questions, and offer information about your health history and any prescription drugs you may be taking. Listen to what the CAM doctor has to say, and then go home and sleep on your decision. You may want to repeat the above with more than one CAM doctor.
Whatever your decision, here’s to your health!
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If you are considering choosing alternative medicine for your health care needs, you may be a bit confused as to which category of alternative medicine would best suit your needs. First, you need to be aware of just what your medical needs are. Then, you also need a working knowledge of the category and type of the alternative medicine that best suits your diagnosis.
There is a huge range of categories of alternative medicine. Many of these categories were developed because there is no conventional, allopathic cure or treatment for many medical anomalies, and people are looking for something… perhaps not a cure, but a glimmer of hope for their ailment. Even for diseases where a cure is sometimes possible, alternative medicine is sometimes the better choice.
Take a cancer patient, for example. There are documented studies in the research books where more than one cancer patient under the care of an oncologist went through chemotherapy and radiation only to be told to go home and get their affairs in order, for there was nothing more that could be done for them. The patient, refusing to give up, embraced a regime of alternative medicine that included herbs and/or natural plant matter such as seeds. In a short period of time, tests revealed that the cancer was either greatly reduced in size, or had disappeared completely. Now, what person, upon hearing a testimonial like this, wouldn’t want to give any category of alternative medicine a try?
It is also little wonder that some people mightily distrust conventional medicine after an experience like this, and pass their feelings on to others. Alternative medicine’s popularity is growing by leaps and bounds, possibly due in part to bad experiences with allopathic doctors and their role as healers in our society.
However, and this must be said, it is impossible to know how many of the successes with alternative medicine were due not only to the fact that so many categories of alternative medicine are available for any illness or disease imaginable, but also to that peculiar and unexplainable phenomenon that both types of medical doctors have seen all too frequently. That is the power of the mind. While alternative medicine has both the scope and the power to be of assistance in healing, how much of its success is due to the fact that its devotees believed they would be made well so strongly that a virtual miasma of hope came forth from their soul to join with the branches of alternative medicine and initiate a healing?
We may never know how much power our minds have when it comes to alternative medicine. Suffice it to say that alternate medicine does indeed work, and for many patients, that in itself is quite enough.
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