What is Alternative Medicine?
By Alexandra Heep, 26th Jul 2010 | Follow this author
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Posted in WikinutHealthAlternative Medicine
Overview of alternative medicine, what makes it popular and what makes it unpopular as well.
Overview of Alternative Medicine
In the Western world, alternative medicine is generally seen as the opposite of traditional treatment. Contrary to what the names might mean, the traditional treatments were developed recently, whereas the alternative medicine has been around for a lot longer.
As man develops and learns, his explorations into science have created chemicals and surgeries, which prolong life. This means that traditional medicine is mostly concerned with prolonging life and curing or cutting out terminal illnesses, but it does not concern itself very much with the quality of life it prolongs, or easing suffering of those who live longer.
Alternative medicine focuses on not only treating the symptom, but also the cause. Science teaches that pain is the signal of the human body that something is wrong, so traditional medicine treats the pain. However, on further study you can find out that pain is not the first signal of a problem in your body, but simply the last signal in a chain of events.
However, what of people who suffer from chronic pain due to what are labeled "neurological illnesses"? In that case, traditional practitioners generally won't prescribe pain medication for longer than a specific period, as they are addictive. If the pain persists after the pills run their cycle, x-rays and blood tests may be ordered.
If these tests show nothing, the patient is assumed to be well and sent on his way. The pain remains, but since nothing shows up by using traditional methods, the patient is now generally labeled as a drug seeker, even perhaps mentally unstable by traditional medical standards. Since this is mostly when people turn to alternative methods, since traditional methods did not help them, alternative medicine has a bad reputation with many.
Ironically, traditional medicine is developed nonetheless by expanding on some alternative medicine, as products are chemically recreated in a lab to mimic healing benefits of plants. This is the case with Aspirin, which is based on a compound found in Willow Bark. The problem is that Aspirin cannot duplicate the compound hundred percent identically. People with ulcers are warned to not take Aspirin, as recreating the healing properties of Willow Bark in a laboratory create an unnecessary compound, which can create internal bleeding.
That is why traditional treatments undergo years of federal studies, before they will be approved for the general public - because of the dangerous risks of side effects. Do alternative treatments have potentials to be harmful? Of course, but many people are generally firm supporters of either traditional or alternative medicine and they rarely practice both, as both sides generally say only one or the other is likely to work.
Why are there no studies on plants (or other alternative methods) then, to see if there are healing benefits instead of just calling them dangerous hocus-pocus by opponents? It's simple really, there is no profit to be made by something that grows out of the earth and/or is accessible to everyone.
However, alternative medicine does not only use plants in the form of teas, poultices and essential oils. There are practices such as acupuncture, massage, chiropractic treatments, yoga, mediation, etc. On the other hand, other trends have sprung up everywhere about all kinds of things, from magnetic arm bands to eating super foods to prevent or even cure illnesses, or even avoiding any type of health care altogether. The dangers with these trends are that all they do is to make practitioners and believers of traditional medicines despise alternative methods even more.
Many people out there benefit financially by selling so-called alternative trends at high prices to desperate people, which also gives alternative medicine a bad name, especially with strong supporters of traditional methods. In the end, every adult should be free to choose for himself or herself to make decisions, and this includes health treatments and what type to use. This includes to live accordingly with the consequences. If some alternative methods were more accepted to work in conjunction with traditional methods, perhaps even studied and documented, who knows what scientific marvels may await us in the future.
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