Complementary & Alternative Medical Systems?

Question

What is your personal perspective on the use of Complementary & Alternative Medical Systems. How likely (unlikely) are you to consider such therapies in your future? Defend your answer.

Answer 1

Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is a joke. Why do you think doctors don't give you alternative medicine? Because they are giving you what works, and not what doesn't work. That's why.



Using alternative medicine is like using a horse and buggy to get to work and saying,

"Well it works for me. I tried a car once, and it broke down on the way to work. Then I tried horse and buggy, and it worked, I got to work. Besides, horses have been used for thousands of years, so that goes to show that they do work."



The only difference is that a horse functions like a car. It gets you to where you gotta go. Whereas CAM doesn't even work. The mechanisms on a molecular level are not designed to function in a particular way to help your body the same way that billions of dollars and hours of education make pharmaceuticals work.



CAM = Sham.



oh and btw, its a shame how many pro CAM people are "top contributors" on this section of yahoo answers. Talk about bias! They have no clue on anything! Go to medical school, take organic chemistry, biochemistry, and then pharmacology, and then pathology and THEN tell me CAM works. I dare you. Only then will you have credentials and knowledge about the topic, at least.



Toni I: You are the one who is brainwashed.... I actually went to medical school, and everything you say is immensely untrue.



Time and time science is false? Yes. You are right. That is because science is ever changing. It builds upon old ideas as new evidence and research uncovers things we hadn't known before. This is the opposite of alternative medicine, which lies in old beliefs and understandings that have time and time been proven wrong (to the point that continuing to do research on it is not worth the expenditure nor the time).



Who is making money off these drugs? Doctors surely are not. How does a doctor make money off of a drug he prescribes? You're beliefs are conspiracy theories of the grandest nature. "Big pharma" conspiracies do not hold in the educated community.



If nature is better than modern medicine, why has our life expectancy doubled since modern medicine? And even more importantly, you must really be unknowing of the mountains of scientific research pouring in each day. I am certain you are not a pubmed reader, nor nature, nor new england journal of medicine, nor anything based upon real evidence.



Debunking quacks like yourself is a feat in of itself, seeing how you throw around logical fallacies like a lottery machine with numbered balls. Picking each and every fallacy by people like you is something few educated people are willing to do, not only because it takes time, but also because you talk in circles and always end up back to where you began (usually some sort of conspiracy theory with you being the knowledgeable hero, attempting to inform us ignorant dupes about the evil conspirators with all their power and greed...).



I'd say go read up on some true facts, but I think you have dug too deep a psychological hole for yourself to ever admit how huge of a dumbass you were for such a long time.

Answer 2

I think there can be a lot of benefit using complementary medicine systems. I am a Certified Acupuncturist and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Practitioner who first was a patient. Even though it is labeled anecdotal I pursued my profession after I achieved results with TCM where my neurologist and physical therapy had not.



Speaking strictly for Acupuncture and TCM, there are volumes of supporting research and data showing positive outcomes using this complementary system.



Western Medical Science is great, but it does not have all the answers. Complementary systems are also great, but they do not have all the answers. This is because as similar as we are to one another, each person responds differently to medical interventions. Finding the best combination of treatments for the individual is, I feel, a key part of improving patient care.

Answer 3

Complimentary and Alternative medicine are therapies we used for thousands and thousands of years that only are damaging when your therapist is a quack now used to be an addition to regular conventional medicine mostly on a Herbal or Meditation bases. Regular Conventional Medicine has only been widely applied after WW2 is mostly Chemically based and can even be hazardous in the hands of skilled Doctors.

Answer 4

First - I will apologize for such a long answer - but you did want us to defend our answers. Also, I use the term holistic because the complementary and alternative has such a wide description, yet all three are the same concept.



I had Hepatitis C and the doctors told me when I was first diagnosed that they could not help me. They said that interferon was too strong for me and that it only worked on 5% of the patients, anyway (at the time, 1991).



I used holistic programs starting in 1994 and started feeling better right away. By 1998 my body was clear of it. I became a nutritional counselor because of this.



I had many medical doctors as clients. When I asked them why they didn't use holistic practices with their patients, I was told that it was because they were taught Allopathic medicine, which is different than holistic.



Allopathic Medicine is the treatment of disease through the use of pharmaceuticals and surgery. In the United States, allopathic medicine refers to medical training that leads to a "Doctor of Medicine," which is the degree a medical doctor holds.



Holistic practices are the use of herbs, nutrition and other therapies that are designed to enhance and strengthen the bodies' ability to heal. This is based on facts such as when you break a bone a doctor sets it - but your body heals the bones and surrounding tissue itself. The same holds true for a cold, flu, cut, etc. You might use an antibiotic - but the body does the healing.



Medicine is different than herbs, nutrition and other holistic practices - although a Doctor of Medicine will receive one semester of nutrition. Acupuncture, herbs, homeopathy, nutrition, all require their own extensive training.



Most doctors have to shun holistic practices because medical insurance will only cover "The Standard of Practice," which is the the standard medical practice used at the time in question. Herbs are absolutely not a standard of practice and do not fall into the category of pharmaceuticals, which doctors of medicine are trained to use.



These days, however, you see many medical doctors using nutritional therapies themselves. Two of my dear friends are medical doctors that retired early and went into alternative practices - one became a Doctor of Acupuncture and the other a specialist of chelation therapy.



One of the aforementioned doctors was an onconlogist (cancer doctor). He later went on to work with cancer patients in a holistic manner with much success. Personally - I have met people who healed themselves holistically from Hep C (like myself) and various cancers including breast, stomach and testicular. In all cases they had tumors or cancer surgically removed but then shunned chemo for holistic practices. One link I put below is a Medical Doctor's perspective on cancer, western medicine (allopathic) and holistic practices.



As for my family - we use mainly holistic. My children are 6, 10 and 12. They have never had antibiotics (we will use herbal antibiotics instead) and do not have many health problems other than a common cold or flu, etc. Their doctor still says they are the healthiest children he sees (yes, he knows how we feel about drugs/pharmaceuticals). We all drink fresh vegetable juice on a regular basis and we enjoy a good hamburger sometimes.



However - we do not discount pharmaceuticals because some are necessary. When in pain - homeopathy just doesn't work for us - we tried it. We use painkillers when necessary. If one of us breaks a leg, I'm not running to the massage therapist or herbalist. I will go to a doctor first.



IMHO, doctors and pharmaceuticals for emergencies and such, holistic therapies for healing, long-term protection and prevention.



The book stores and libraries are full of books written by doctors that will give you their perspectives on pharmaceutical and surgical procedures compared to holistic or alternative therapies. You might be surprised to find many in favor of alternative/holistic/complementary.

Answer 5

Answer and rebuttal to Matt R:



The reason so many top contributors favor alternative medicine is that the IS the alternative medicine section - not the mainstream apologist section.



Personally, I am surprised to see how many people here worship the false gods of science, when history has shown time and again that the science of today quite often proves to be the quackery of tomorrow. Nature on the other hand, remains true yesterday, today and tomorrow.



Now, beyone that, the TRUTH is that alternative medicine often works far better than mainstream medicine and the ONLY reason that doctors do not prescribe it is not because it does not work, but rather because they and we have been brainwashed for generations to discard 6,000 years of man using nature for healing and to instead opt for medications that are patentable and hugely profitable - which nature is not.



Doctors are taught precious little about prevention, diet, lifestyle or natural herbs and healing at medical schools whose primary source of funding is the pharmaceutical industry. Instead, they are taught to treat illness by prescribing drugs made by . . .guess who!



Beginning in the 1800's with the alliance of the Rockefeller and the newly formed AMA and later in the early 1900's with the formation of the IG Farben drug cartel, mainstream medicine and patented drug makers have conspired to suppress natural healing and replace it with methods of healing and patented unnatural drugs which they control and profit from immensely.



If you want to know the ugly truth about mainstream medicine, see my article "Modern Medicine: How Healing Illness became Managing Illness" http://www.tbyil.com/Managed_Illness.htm



Kind of hard to argue with proven facts and history, Marc.



Or, exactly when did Nature and God become quacks and man become God?



"Nature is the physician of man." - Hippocrates, "the father of medicine"



"Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to

cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they

know nothing." - Voltaire [Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire]



"The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his

patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and

prevention of disease." - Thomas Edison



"I have endeavored to show that there is no real service of humanity

in the profession [of medicine] and that it is injurious to mankind." - Mahatma Gandhi