Doctor - Doctor:

[Guest guest]

April 2003

 

" You have to be able to talk to your doctor and bring in ideas, " says

Margaret Mitchell, MD, who specializes in geriatrics in Amherst, New

York. " Accept responsibility. Allow the physician to not know

everything. Say to your physician, 'You may not have all the answers,

but where else can I go? What would you recommend I read?' Ask his or

her opinion of whatever you're interested in and of other possibilities

for treatment. "

Even if your physician hasn't heard of the treatment, says Wayne Jonas,

MD, former director of the Office of Alternative Medicine at the

National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, he or she has the

access to the research and the expertise to evaluate it.

 

" Patients should look for physicians who are willing to do that.

Physicians do it with conventional medicine all the time. Doctors may

not be able to deliver some of the therapies, but they can at least help

you understand some of the science and integrate it with the

conventional treatment so that it doesn't cause problems. "

 

And if the physician dismisses alternative treatments as so much

nonsense?

" It's one thing to have a criticism about this or that modality, " says

Mitchell. " It's another thing to not be open to any modalities. If

someone has a criticism, it may be founded in truth. If they have

criticism for everything without ever having read or learned about it,

shop for another doctor. "

 

For more information about finding the right alternative treatment for

you, read The Best Alternative Medicine: What Works? What Does Not? by

Kenneth R. Pelletier, PhD.  doctor, doctor

Physicians accept alternative medicine

By lori tobias

 

•For 13 years, Elizabeth Strand battled one illness after another:

fibromyalgia, allergies, chronic sinus infections and bronchitis,

pneumonia and finally, chronic fatigue, which left her almost fully

disabled. At 42, Elizabeth told her husband, Ray, an MD, that she felt

more like she was 82. Despite a daily cocktail of nine different drugs,

she remained bedridden for three months—until the day a friend

mentioned nutritional supplements. After only three days, Elizabeth felt

noticeably better. Within four months, she was able to stop taking much

of her medicine. And by the end of the year, she was off medication

altogether—her health better than it had been in 10 years.

•In upstate New York, a 71-year-old patient with severe rheumatoid

arthritis faced a painful dilemma: take the pills that eased her pain

and live with chronic, severe stomach upset, or skip the pills and

suffer debilitating pain.

 

Then her physician, geriatrician Margaret Mitchell, MD, administered

acupuncture. Within 20 minutes, the patient's pain significantly

decreased. Four months later, it remained at bay.

 

Another elderly patient was admitted to Mitchell's care in a nursing

home. Diagnosed with heart failure, the woman was given six months to

live. Mitchell prescribed a program of natural supplements, and after

four months, the patient's health began to improve. Three and a half

years later, the patient was off much of the medicine she once depended

on, and was able to enjoy life.

 

•The patient of US military doctor Wayne Jonas, MD, was a 3-year-old

boy, who, since moving to Germany, had been plagued with recurrent ear

infections. Antibiotics and tube implants were of little help. The boy

didn't sleep well, had no appetite and was generally miserable. As a

last resort, Jonas consulted a German doctor who practiced homeopathy.

Within two weeks of a single low dose of a homeopathic

preparation—herbs, minerals and other substances specifically designed

to stimulate the healing processes— the boy was eating and sleeping

better. In four weeks, Jonas says, " He was a different kid, " and in

eight weeks, the tubes fell out of the patient's ears. The toddler

suffered one more ear infection a year and a half later, was again

treated with homeopathy, and has never had another one.

Twenty years ago, even 10, doctors practicing so-called alternative

therapies risked being labeled quacks. Yet today, such practices as

acupuncture, homeopathy, mind/body therapies, and dietary supplements

are becoming so commonplace, the term " alternative " barely applies. It's

a dramatic shift in conventional thinking, driven, say experts, not by

physicians, but by patients—and one that may irrevocably alter the

core of Western medicine as we know it.

 

" People increasingly see conventional medicine not as health care but as

disease care, " says Larry Dossey, MD, a retired internist and executive

editor of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. " People want

more than that. It's irrational to always wait until one develops a

problem to pay attention to one's health.

 

" We physicians aren't noted for prevention. We're at our best solving

medical problems—often disastrous problems. We love difficult

diagnoses. We love high-tech care. We should be proud of what we can do

in our country in solving those kinds of problems, but most people

understand that it's ap-proaching things from the wrong end. There are

more people visiting alternative therapists than combined visits to

frontline physicians such as family physicians, internists and

pediatricians. Around 80 percent of the nation's 125 medical schools

have courses exploring alternative therapies, which is a historic

turnaround. This isn't really a marginal issue any longer. It's one of

the most significant social transitions taking place as we enter the

21st century. "

 

The road there, however, has been a long and bumpy one for pioneers in

the field.

" We were considered the maniacs and crazies, " says Bernie Siegel, MD,

the author of Love, Medicine and Miracles and numerous other books on

the mind/body connection. " Most people just said, 'We don't believe

you.'

 

" They wouldn't print my articles in medical journals because they said

they were inappropriate. When you stood up to report these things,

people yelled at you in medical meetings. They had to find a reason to

tell you it was unaccep-table. It was not part of their

belief system. "

 

Nor was it part of Ray Strand's. But when his wife, Elizabeth, raised

the issue of taking supplements, Strand recalls telling her, " You can

try anything you want because conventional medicine isn't helping you a

bit. "

healing naturally

 

" I didn't believe in nutritional supplements, " says Strand, a South

Dakota family medical practitioner. " I thought they only created

expensive urine because that was what I was taught. "

With his wife's dramatic recovery, however, Strand could no longer hide

behind medical school textbooks. He set out to re-educate himself, and

today he is the author of What Your Doctor Doesn't Know About

Nutritional Medicine May Be Killing You.

 

" I'm not treating a disease, " Strand says. " I'm building up the body's

natural defense system. Do I use anti-inflammatories for arthritis

patients?

 

" Yes, but I also put my patients on glucosamine sulfate, which can build

up joint fluid and cartilage and allow the patient to decrease

dependency on non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, which cause 16,000

deaths each year due to upper GI [gastro-intestinal] bleeding. "

Nonetheless, Strand says, for every authentic alternative treatment,

there are scores of useless " snake oils. "

 

" Believe me, " Strand says, " I've seen plenty of gimmicks and quackery

peddled to my patients. People are told an awful lot in alternative

medicine that just doesn't ring true. Coral calcium is a big thing now.

There are infomercials about it all the time. What happens is, people

take one nutrient such as calcium, and it becomes a panacea.

 

" The claims they make—that it cures cancer, heart disease,

hypertension—are basically outrageous and based on only one person's

opinion.

 

" Is calcium bad? No, it's great. Is coral calcium better than any other?

Well, maybe. But if it cures cancer, then any calcium will cure cancer.

There's a lot of hype in nutritional supplementation, and that hurts

nutritional medicine. "

gaining acceptance?

 

This is why, even with all the progress that's been made in alternative

medicine, doctors still hesitate to prescribe anything not heavily

backed by solid research.

Kjersten Gmeiner, MD, a Seattle physician now studying for her license

in naturopathy, says that she still runs into cases where a specialist

tells a patient pursuing alternative therapies, " Oh, that's stupid. "

Gmeiner calls this attitude dismissive. " The central issue for doctors, "

she says, " is the 'standard of practice,' a concept that says basically

the American Medical Association can prosecute a doctor who isn't

considered to be practicing within the 'standard of practice.' It's a

very loose term that's very amenable to witch-hunts because it's like

accusing you of not looking like everyone else. It's that vague.

 

" Even though what I prescribe is heavily researched and shown to be safe

and effective, it is, by definition, not what most doctors prescribe,

and therefore, I could be vulnerable to lawsuits. "

But times are changing.

 

" The train has already left the station, " says Dossey. " Doctors can get

on board or not. The doctors who don't respond are going to find

themselves marooned at the train station, and medicine is simply going

to pass them by. "

 

lori tobias