Medical care

March 18, 2005

Alternative medicine is often practiced with the limited mindset of

conventional medicine

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

http://www.newstarget.com/005418.html

You may be surprised to learn that as much as prescription drugs are

now being shown to be dangerous for human health, there's also a big

problem in the way people turn to alternative medicines such as

Chinese herbs, Western herbs, nutritional supplements and superfood

supplements. And that problem is not in those remedies themselves,

but rather in the way people use them to address their health

challenges.

But to fully explain that problem, let's take a closer look at how

people view prescription drugs. The predominant view is that when a

person has a disease (or various symptoms that have been given a

disease label), they can turn to a prescription drug to solve that

problem. Unknown to most patients, however, is the fact that

prescription drugs only mask the symptoms of disease, they don't

actually resolve any health problems whatsoever.

Thus, the great failing in turning to conventional medicine or

relying on prescription drugs is that patients shift responsibility

for their health outcome to the drugs themselves. In other words,

they aren't taking ownership of their health outcome; they are asking

for a cure from outside themselves. They are visiting their doctor

and saying " Doctor, please cure me, or give me something that will

solve my problem. " And what goes unsaid is the rest of that thought,

which is " ...and I have this problem because I haven't been taking

care of myself. "

Let's face it: the vast majority of chronic diseases are caused by

choices made by the patients themselves. Typically those are choices

in foods, substance abuse such as smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee

or using recreational drugs, or in avoidance of physical exercise.

And perhaps two-thirds of the American population routinely avoids

physical exercise. And yet with all of this lack of responsibility on

the part of patients, and with these diseases that emerge as a

natural result of these lifestyle choices, these patients still

insist on finding external " cures " -- hence the popularity of

prescription drugs and today's pharmaceutical industry. " Cure me,

doc! " This is how organized medicine is, technically, pure quackery.

They're promising cures, but they only deliver dependence on

profitable prescription drugs.

With that said, you may be surprised that much the same problem

exists (although to a lesser degree) in the area of natural remedies

and alternative medicine. Because far too many users of herbs,

nutritional supplements and other complementary or alternative health

solutions view those solutions in the same way they view conventional

medicine. That is, they are asking for an herb to cure their symptom.

If they have pain, they want a pill that will eliminate the pain, and

the only difference in this example between patients who turn to

conventional medicine and patients who turn to natural medicine is

that the natural patient wants a pain pill from a plant. The problem

with both patients is that they fail to recognize the internal cause

of their pain, or they fail to take ownership of their role in

creating the disease they are currently expressing.

Getting acupuncture to cure your back pain so that you can continue

to sit on the couch, avoid physical exercise, and eat junk foods

isn't " natural medicine. " It's just allopathic medicine with

acupuncture needles as the tool. Similarly, curing your depression

with St. John's Wort isn't natural medicine, either. It's just

another ingested chemical to cover up the symptoms of a much deeper

problem. Healthy people don't need St. John's Wort for mental health.

That's not to say that the herb can't be helpful while you're making

lifestyle changes that improve your mental outlook (such as dietary

changes, increased exposure to natural sunlight, taking up exercise,

and so on), but to depend on St. John's Wort day in and day out is no

different than being hooked on Prozac (except the herb is a lot more

affordable and doesn't have negative side effects).

All this is extremely frustrating for practitioners of alternative

medicine, holistic medicine, herbalists, nutritionists, etc. Because

they want to help patients, but most patients really aren't looking

for long-term solutions: they're looking for short-term masking of

their symptoms, using products that they can call " natural. " Frankly,

this isn't natural medicine at all. This is just using herbs in a

strictly allopathic manner to shift the responsibility of the

patient's health outcome.

Good health practitioners, whether in conventional medicine or

complementary medicine, attempt to place that responsibility squarely

with their patients, and they do that through education. They try to

teach their patients about the value of nutrition; they try to show

them the wisdom of making new choices about their lifestyle habits

and chemical addictions that would lead them to a more healthful

journey for the rest of their lives. Good healers attempt to put

patients back in control of their health outcome.

But there are two huge challenges with this effort. First, educating

patients takes time and the time of both conventional physicians and

alternative practitioners is rather expensive. For them to take the

time to teach patients, they would have to charge a couple of hundred

dollars per visit, and most patients wouldn't want to pay that. And

that leads me to the second challenge with this approach, which is

that most patients don't want to hear this. The vast majority of

patients aren't looking to be educated. They don't want to change

their lifestyle, and they don't want to have to do anything that's

too uncomfortable or unfamiliar. And to many people, discomfort

includes getting up off the couch, turning off the TV, going outside

and taking a walk, and so on. For a whole lot of people, it's

uncomfortable to stop drinking coffee every morning, or to stop

smoking cigarettes, or to give up refined sugars or soft drinks (see

related ebook on soft drinks) or white breads and other refined

foods. These are all uncomfortable things for most people.

So the vast majority of patients, perhaps 95%, are visiting their

doctors or alternative practitioners and they are asking for the same

thing: some magic pill that will cover up their symptoms and

alleviate their responsibility for their health outcome. For some

people, it's drugs. For others, it's herbs. But it's all the same

distorted view on where healing really comes from.

That's the bottom line truth of what most patients are asking for.

And that is the common flaw in conventional medicine versus

complementary medicine. Because if you look at them both from the

perspective of a victimized patient who is not willing to take

control over their health outcome, then neither system of medicine is

going to solve a person's health problem in the long run.

Alternative medicine is no better than conventional medicine if you

treat it as a temporary cover up for a pattern of symptoms that you

created in your life through your unwillingness to make changes that

lead to long term health. Thus when people sometimes say to me " Oh,

yeah, I'm into alternative medicine, I once got acupuncture for my

knee pain " , I say to them " Well, that's not what alternative medicine

is about -- it's not about covering up knee pain with some

acupuncture needles. "

Herbal medicine has a much higher purpose than to be relegated to the

limited worldview of conventional medicine. Herbs should be used

holistically to support a healthy lifestyle. Patients should be

taught to use herbal medicine, acupuncture, chiropractic care,

nutritional supplements and naturopathic advice in conjunction with

their own good decisions about health. That's where herbs are truly

powerful and can, indeed, help a person overcome practically any

disease: cancer, heart disease, diabetes, depression, you name it.

Similarly, acupuncture is much more than just something to stop

nausea after chemotherapy (a role to which organized medicine would

love to relegate the therapy). In fact, virtually all the healing

arts -- acupuncture, Chinese medicine, herbal medicine, Ayurvedic

herbs, etc. -- have all been " dumbed down " as they were introduced to

western cultures. The teaching of alternative medical therapies in

this country is far too technical, and it lacks any real art. Some

people are taught that acupuncture is basically a system of points

that correspond to certain symptoms: put a needle on the P6 for this

problem, or Liver 3 for that problem, and so on. And that's all

hogwash. It has no resemblance whatsoever to the true art of

acupuncture as practiced in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and China.

If you really want good acupuncture in this country, find yourself a

healer who trained in Asia or learned from a native Asian healer.

They probably won't be accredited to practice acupuncture, but

accreditation is largely a joke anyway. With a true healer, every

treatment is different. Every patient is unique. It's truly a healing

art, not a technical skill. And there is no accreditation for that.

* Alternative medicine is often practiced with the limited

mindset of conventional medicine

Source: http://www.newstarget.com/005418.html

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