Alternative health therapies and natural medicine are
excellent options for healthy living. But if you break a
leg or rupture your spleen, are you gonna call a naturopath
or hobble to the nearest emergency room for professional
medical attention?
I would choose conventional medicine in both cases, but
when it comes to chronic conditions and other diseases,
should we place all our faith in medical doctors?
According to a recent survey in the New England Journal of
Medicine:
95% of all doctors admit they had "contact" with big drug
companies;
35% have been reimbursed by these companies for costs
associated with attending medical meetings and conventions;
28% were also paid for lectures and consulting work; and
7% accepted free tickets to professional sports games,
concerts and other events.
This evidence raises the question of whether doctors are
working for the best interests of us patients or their drug
suppliers.
For most of my life I've taken my doctor's advice. But
after watching my two closest relatives lose their lives
within 21 months of each other while under the care of top
rated, board certified oncologists, I began to reassess my
beliefs.
One of the hardest things about breast cancer treatments is
the avalanche of available, often conflicting, information
about which treatment or therapy is best.
At the end of 2002, my 65 year old mom's breast cancer
returned after 19 years in remission.
In the spring of 2003, my 43 year old sister was diagnosed
with breast cancer for the first time.
They both benefited from some of the "best" conventional
medical care in the San Francisco East Bay Area.
I know because the shelves of their medicine cabinets were
lined with bottles of prescription medicine, a good
proportion of which were experimental drugs.
They also had access to leading alternative health
therapies too.
Acupuncture, essential oil therapy, deep tissue massage,
and herbal treatments are considered viable, highly
respected alternatives in northern California.
But not to their highly respected, board certified
oncologists at the hospital.
Whenever they did seek out alternative medicine, it had to
be done "under the radar" so as not to create conflict with
their oncologists.
In many cases, these alternative treatment alleviated the
debilitating side effects of "conventional" drugs and
chemotherapy.
Having to downplay or even hide the truth of what they were
doing certainly did nothing to calm or ease the stress of
their respective situations, either.
I don't blame the doctors or hold them accountable in
anyway for the eventual loss of my loved ones, but I was
frustrated and very disappointed by their across the board
refusal to explore or even allow for open discussion of
alternative therapies.
Whether they be conventional practitioners or alternative
healers, credentials and word of mouth are two key factors
when choosing my own health care providers.
I had a sit down interview with primary care physician and
asked pointed questions about his experience treating
asthma and allergies and the types of patients he had under
his care.
His answers and our subsequent discussion garnered my trust
and I've been his patient going on 10 years.
My acupuncturist and chiropractor were friends of friends
before becoming integral members of my chosen family.
There are lots and lots of credentialed and
non-credentialed experts on the internet.
Who's advice do you trust?
What information do you believe and why?
Mostly it's instinctual. Or really good word of mouth.
Think about how much trust you place in strangers. When
you're in line for a movie and the previous show is letting
out, how often do you listen to the 'off the cuff' reviews
of exiting moviegoers?
When's the last time you went to new restaurant without
reading a review or talking to a friend or co-worker first?
How about buying a new cell phone? Or digital camera?
Reviews, testimonials and recommendations from satisfied
customers often make the difference between a pass and a
sale on the internet.
People inherently distrust anything they don't understand
or have never heard of before, so other people's opinions
and insights usually make the difference between giving up
the cash and clicking back to that page of Google search
listings.
But, and this often gets overlooked in the decision making
process, what works for one person doesn't always work for
another.
This is particularly true when if comes to your health.
There's an avalanche of available (sometimes conflicting)
cures, remedies, protocols and fixes each with their
guarantee of success or your money back.
But we don't really want our "money back", we want to feel
better. We want the guarantee of success that the
advertised "health benefits" promise.
That's what we really want.
We all want relief from what ails us and we're willing to
trust people we've never met in person with our money in
the hopes of feeling better.
This is what we all are doing with ever increasing
regularity.
Finding the information is easy. Trusting your gut and the
opinions of others when making a decision about your health
can require a little more time and effort.
Stay informed. Read testimonials. Send emails to eBook
author or product manufacturer. Get your hands (and eyes)
on as much FREE information as possible.
As much as I trust and respect my doctor when it comes to
treating asthma and allergies with pharmaceutical drugs, I
now place a lot more confidence in my own life experiences
and knowledgebase gathered from surfing the web.
As I've grown more confident in making my own informed
judgment about my health, I've thought about asking my
doctor if he's ever been able to CURE any of his patients
of asthma and allergies.
I might just do that the next time I see him.
To your health and well-being,
Jay Greene
----------------------------------------------------
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