Alternative Medicine: Help or Hype?

People have always looked for different ways they could be healthier or treat different ailments. We’re considered “conventional” medicine, but some people think that a practice called alternative medicine may have more effective treatments for them. Can alternative medicine actually help people, or is it all just marketing? We’ve looked into it for you.

What is Alternative Medicine?

Alternative medicine is a term that covers treatments and medicines that are not given by conventional medical doctors. In some cases, this alternative medicine treatment is unproven, which is something an internal medicine doctor can’t really get away with. When you come to our office, we’re giving you treatments that have been studied extensively and drugs that were painstakingly researched and developed, and then put through trials. Alternative medicine may not be held to the same high standards.

Common Forms of Alternative Medicine

There are many types of alternative medicine, so it’s likely that you’ve heard of a few. Let’s take a closer look at some of the most common forms:

Prescribing Herbs: A practitioner of alternative medicine might alternative medical treatments you to stay away from pharmaceuticals, instead suggesting herbs and supplements that are aimed at treating certain ailments. St. John’s wart, for example, can be “prescribed” for depression, while lemon balm, oat straw, and other compounds could be suggested to someone who wants to quit smoking.

Acupuncture: Needles are placed in the skin with the aim of reducing pain, jumpstarting the body’s self-healing process, or reduce stress. Some even use it to try and quit smoking.

Hypnotherapy: This tries to get to the bottom of someone’s subconscious reasoning for doing something, whether it’s overeating or smoking. Then the goal is to stop that behavior.

Can it Help?

In some cases, people do claim that an alternative medicine treatment helped them. Hypnosis finally got them to stop smoking. Those herbs and supplements really made them feel better and gave them the energy they needed to get their fitness plan back on track. These reports are mostly anecdotal though, because many of these alternative medicine techniques have not been evaluated as closely or as thoroughly as more conventional methods have.

Risks and Drawbacks

One risk is that you pay for a treatment and it does nothing at all, wasting money you could have used to actually help treat whatever you’re suffering from. In some cases, an alternative medicine treatment could cause more harm than good. Again, we have to mention that many of these techniques have not been put through the kind of vetting that conventional medicine has. In any case, it’s wise to talk to your doctor before trying out any kind of medicine or treatment, alternative or conventional.

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