Alternative Medicine & Children
Alternative medicine common in kids; docs unaware
Here’s a quote from the article at the above link:
In places as far apart as Wales and Australia, about half of the children seen at pediatric hospitals are using complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), investigators report.
In a second study, British researchers found that children with chronic diseases were three times more likely to use CAM than healthy children.
In both studies, reported in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, the researchers found that parents and their children were unlikely to discuss CAM use with their doctors.
If the study is really representative of what’s happening across the civilized world, then I’m not only concerned about the obvious - the health of the children, but also about medicine as a profession for tomorrow. Children absorb whatever they’re exposed to … a child who is taken to a Chinese medicine specialist whenever he’s sick, is more likely to consider that practice as a valid profession when he’s old enough to decide what he wants to study. How many young minds across the globe are going to be lost to allopathic medicine in favor of the alternative and fringe pseudo-sciences?
Let’s carry that a step further … the children who grow up seeing alternative practitioners, whatever field they enter into as adults, will also be more likely to do the same with their own children … carrying the problem into yet another generation.
This could cost medicine dearly … through those who would have gone into research … all the way to those who would have become Generalists. Fewer people going into medicine is going to slow the advance of our research, and lower the quality of health care across the board. There already aren’t enough physicians going into the Generalist fields.
Here in the states, I keep reading that doctors are giving up their practices because of the condition of our medical system. Most of the doctors who’ve said that were either Internists or Family Practitioners. Compounding that problem is the fact that fewer medical graduates are choosing a General Practice, and a growing number of those who aren’t choosing to specialize along a “classic line” are going into the “newer” branches: e.g. hospitalists, intensivists … etc. …
I believe that in a generation or two, all of these factors are going to come together to create a health crisis in our country the likes of which we’ve never seen before … if medicine can continue as it has for another few generations.
I envision with dread my grandchildren hanging herbs above their babies’ cribs in the hopes of preventing illness … or having to travel untold distances to find a medical doctor. Unless things change, future generations will see the regression of the advances we’ve made thus far, and the progression of a “touchy-feely,” superstitious pseudo-science, which is masquerading as real medicine, and dragging us back into our own medical “dark ages.”
March 7th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
This article seems to have left you feeling a little stressed, why not stop and get a nice touch-free “aura massage”?
;)
March 8th, 2006 at 5:33 am
Hi Moof,
Many of my families are using alternative medicine and therapies (chiropractic, acupuncture, homeopathy, craniosacral something-or-other)
Most alternative therapies enjoy the benefit of being harmless. I can’t say that about so many of the treatments I offer. We’re talking about minor illnesses here, of course.
I’m not particularly threatened by it. If parents ask me about it I tell them the truth, which is that I don’t know anything about AM, but if it appears to be harmless, esp. homeopathy, I’ll say so.
best,
Flea
March 8th, 2006 at 6:28 am
Fug, my dear … let me go hunt down some incense … ;-)
Dr. Flea! Thank you for commenting. I need to ask you though - some of those alternative medicines may be harmless, but they’re also not helpful in the medical sense that the parents are hoping for. Meanwhile, don’t you think your silence reinforces their faith in that sort of thing?
By the way - I’ve known people who have been hurt during chiropractry sessions.
But I’m concerned as much about the exposure the kids are getting to the pseudo-medicines, how quickly it seems to be growing. Don’t you think that could impact the number of those kids who would otherwise grow up to be physicians, who instead end up getting into “craniosacral something-or-other” … ?
March 8th, 2006 at 11:42 am
Moof do you think ALL complementary or alternative medicine is hocus-pocus?
Many herbs really do work. In fact, the vast majority of modern medicines have their base in some kind of natural phenomenon or another (ie, a plant, flower, heck, gila monster saliva….) that we’ve learned to synthetically reproduce. The efficacy of some have been validated by modern science.
My uncle, shot point blank with a buckshot (not by Dick Cheney, you can be relieved) had decades of chronic pain. He tried everything allopathic medicine had to offer… nerve blocks, narcotics, fentanyl patches…. the only thing that worked? Accupuncture. And this from a red-nosed Irishman completely distrustful of anything non-mainstream.
I think we probably agree that the marketing of complementary therapies - and sometimes the price of them - is a little out of control right now. I agree that it can go too far. Certainly more standardization, more studies, etc, are needed and important. But don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater! Many alternative therapies have real value. Chinese medicine, for example, has endured through thousands of years. It wouldn’t still be here if it didn’t have some value.
March 8th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Hi Moof,
Nicely written! My husband has been having chronic trouble with a pulled muscle in his neck. It has been going on for over a year. He has tried antiinflammatories, visits to the ortho guy, massages, etc. Nothing has worked for him. Over the last two weeks, a friend recommended her chiropractor. My husband and I both thought, no way! I will tell you that my hubby is a surgeon, through and through…never supported alternative therapies. He felt if a person wasn’t an MD then they had nothing to offer him. However, feeling desperate, he decided to give it a shot…..and it actually worked! Now, we were total non-believers before…but this treatment by the chiropractor worked! I think there are some things that modern medicine doesn’t offer some people. As long as alternative therapies can back up their practices with study based data and not hocus pocus, then I’m all for it…if it is safe and is proven to work, then why not? :)
March 8th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Whoa! Youse guys! I’m gonna paint a white stripe down my back! ;-)
Maribeth, perhaps someday, I’ll write a post - or we’ll comment on another person’s post together - and actually agree. When that happens, I will go out and celebrate, and hope you’ll do the same!
I’m not big on AM. First of all, the fact that those herbs and so on actually do something worries me a lot. Right now, the pseudo medicines are kind of a “free for all” … anything goes! People can walk into a grocery store, buy anything they want, and since it’s “just herbs” they don’t feel like they have to tell their physicians about what they’re doing. Some of those “herbs” can be very dangerous to people with different medical conditions. Those with CRF or CHF shouldn’t consume herbs which are nephrotoxic, for example, and lots of them are - with no warnings on the labels. And that’s just the herbal part of AM …
From there, we can move on the some of the different practices. I was speaking with two otherwise very intellingent women the other day, and they were telling me that they weren’t taking their hypertension meds - they were going to go see some fellow who does something with “energies” or some such instead. Wow! I hope their high blood pressure isn’t too much of a medical issue. Mine has been as high as 285/160 … if I got that sort of notion, I’d stroke out in no time. Those dear ladies were really trying to coax me into give up those “medical doctors” who are “only after my money.” Where would I be if I’d listened?
Perhaps AM isn’t all bad … I know that it provides a “touchy-feely” aspect which is otherwise absent in medicine. That’s one of allopathic medicine’s biggest drawbacks - they most often only treat the physicial aspect of the illness, and the emotional aspect - which is often of equal importance for the patient’s ability to heal quickly and fully - goes begging.
But that said, I don’t think AM should bill itself, as it does, as something able to replace allopathic medicine, and I believe that it’s irresponsible for AM to do so.
Pattie! Thanks for your comment! I’m happy that your husband has had relief from his pain - by whatever method he was able to achieve it. I have to ask though - being a surgeon, I’m sure he understands the placebo effect … does he think he could be experiencing a bit of that? Even those of us who understand how it works aren’t immune from its effects.
I know a lot of people who see chiropractors - and swear by them. I certainly can’t say that they don’t know what they’re experiencing … and I believe them. But by the same token, I’ve also seen what the mind can do, and I’m not really convinced about a lot of these “results” people rave about because of that.
If AM really works, then it needs to work hand in hand with the other disciplines, and come under better control. Right now, it’s all over the place - good with bad - and I don’t fully agree with Dr. Flea that it’s harmless.
I believe that even if some of it is harmless medically, it’s not harmless to people’s attitudes toward allopathic medicine. What of AM is worthwhile needs to be sorted from the quakery, which is plentiful and growing daily … and needs work with the other disciplines in order to be seen as serious medicine.
March 8th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
Hi again,
It is funny that you mentioned the placebo effect. My husband actually thought that it is possible he feels so good because of that fact. The mind is a powerful healer, no?
March 8th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
Yes, I believe the mind is very powerful - for both healing and harming. I sincerely believe that the mind is a frontier far vaster than we yet realize.
I’ve seen too many inexplicable occurences to think otherwise.
I’m curious Pattie … being a man of science, and knowing that his “glow of health” could be, at least in part, a placebo effect, how does that affect his way of seeing chiropractry, and AM in general, and has it affected his own perceived response to the therapy he received?
I’m always fascinated by what seem to me to be contradictory ideas finding peace with each other …
March 8th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Well, you know it’s funny. He has always prided himself on science, and what he can prove. Lately, life has thrown him a few curveballs, and I think for the first time in his life, he feels he has become much more open-minded about many things, including AM. He is neither pro nor anti AM… yet. He has decided to give it more time, continue going once a week (because it is helping, whatever the reason) evaluate further, and then decide if it truly has helped him physically or if it is placebo effect. He is not ready to commit to either side at this point in time. I’ll certainly let you know. If you knew my husband, you’d be shocked he would consider going to a chiropractor in the first place. He felt traditional medicine offered him minimal treatment options for his problem.
March 8th, 2006 at 3:46 pm
I don’t need to know your husband to be a bit shocked, Pattie! *LOL* I’ll tell you what - I’ll be waiting to hear what he finally decides!
Just went over to your blog and took a look! Nice! I’ve blogrolled you. Keep up the great work, Pattie! :-)
March 8th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
I appreciate the support, Moof. I enjoy your blog as well. I haven’t figured out the blogrolling thing yet. I am not exactly techno saavy, but I’m trying to learn. Once I figure it out, I’ll be sure to blogroll you too!
March 8th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
Hey Moof…
Just throwing something in here.
Didn’t God give us the herbs to use for our medicine?
Here’s my thing:
Because man has a tendency to look at things from one perspective, he fails to see the whole picture. Looking at things from a clinical perspective only, does allow for the failure for the clinician to see the healing benefits of the mind, as well as the healing properties of alternative medicine.
Because man lives in a synthetic world, taking synthetic medicines seem to be a natural and progressive course of events, which appears to close the doors to all other avenues. But we fail to acknowledge the natural roots that these synthetic medicines have.
We cannot forget that medicine does come from the herbs that the Lord has provided us. And yes, he would provide us with medicine that is and can be very potent; because, why give us something that doesn’t work?
I think that there are things that modern medicine still doesn’t have a clue about. Secrets that have yet to be unlocked. Medicines that have yet to be developed.
I think that alternative medicine and modern medicine need to somehow come together. The healing arts has been lost in our modern societies. If medicine would remember where it began thousands of years ago, I think that we wouldn’t have near the problems that we do now.
Additionally, many ancient healers recognized the healing powers of the mind and used it fully (viewed by some as hocus pocus).
Our modern doctors have very powerful tools available to them… scientists just tend to forget the tools that they already have in their toolboxes.
I said all of that just to say this… (sorry for being longwinded)
I think that alternative medicine has a valid place and must be used judiciously.
Modern medicine needs to recognize and embrace it in order to help promote the judicious use of alternative medicine.
Love ya Moof!
later…
March 8th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
TJ … and I love you too! :-)
Absolutely! I’ve commented on many other blogs regarding allopathic medicine’s failure to treat the entire illness, and feel that as long as scientists (medical doctors) don’t deal with the whole person, they’re going to be watering other people’s gardens for them.
What worries me, TJ, is how many people are turning to AM instead of allopathic medicine. If the alternative practitioners were better regulated, followed, if their arts were better researched, if they worked more closely with the traditional disciplines …
But as it is, you can’t sort the kooks from the serious practitioners, the dangerous from the benign, the Dr. Snake-Oil from the fellow who truly does have a corner on something we don’t yet fully undestand.
It worries me even more that parents are doing this sort of thing to their children … without supervision. Some of those natural medicines are quite potent, and when parents are giving them to their children, don’t you think there should probably be someone keeping track of how the kids are doing on some of these “natural” chemicals?
Many of our allopathic medicines also came from nature - at least originally. Think of poppies and “lily of the valley” … opium and a digitalis-like drug, respectively.
I know a young woman who was raised on that sort of thing, and at the age of 20, has as many medical problems as an old woman. Between the “natural” powders and the “natural” enemas and the “natural” foods … it’s a wonder the kid is still alive. Just because it came from “nature” doesn’t mean it’s safe for children over long periods of time, and in unregulated doses.
You know, I’m amazed that this thread has attracted so much attention. I can’t believe I’m the only one with these concerns …
March 9th, 2006 at 2:01 am
Moof, I’m in 100% agreement with you!
I know someone, with lupus …who got mad (personality conflict) at her rheumatologist, and decided that because he was a jerk (and he was, I went to him to, 3 times, and chose to go see someone else after he told me that it was impossible to have lupus and myasthenia gravis together because it was impossible to have ‘two of these very rare diseases’ so the fact that my ANA was positive, I had a very high Anti DNA, pleurisy, mouth sores and inflammatory arthritis … had nothing to do with lupus, they were a fluke, because I had myasthenia gravis, I could not have SLE …uh ..buh bye)
Anywho … she decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater … and instead of going and getting a new rheumy, she decided to go to an AM.
She was so excited to get off her plaquenil, celebrex and prednisone … because she would be taking supplements instead of ‘all those poisonous drugs!’
So instead … she took a concoction of 8 herbs, and 4 minerals, and then 13 different vitamins instead. Yes, all bought at the AM practitioners place of business.
So, instead of taking 3 medications a day … she took all that ..oh yea … but it wasn’t medications!!!!
uh ..um ..er …
And .. her lupus got worse.
They put her on stuff to ‘boost the immune system to fight the disease’
Great … turn on an already overactive immune system …
Too many AM practitioners, just don’t know what they’re doing and hold out certificates, diploma’s and the like that the public doesn’t know if the person knows or doesn’t know if they know enough. And in order for the person to know if they really know what they’re talking about or not, they’d have to be almost as informed about it as a doctor themselves!
Ok, shutting up now.
bye
March 9th, 2006 at 2:33 am
Hi Moof. Thanks for promoting my blog. As in my previous post I’ll try to give you an ‘Alternate’ perspective ;)
Alternative Medical Therapies are a way of life in India. We have had them around for centuries. In face, allopathy is looked upon as the intruder in most traditional (Indian) medical circles. The circumstances are different in the US - a relatively young country which grew along with the advances in allopathy.
Why is there no mention of indigenous (Native American) alternative therapies in your post and in the comments?
As a scientific allopathic practitioner, I am sometimes appalled at what goes on in the name of traditional medicine in India. I’ll post something about the status in India in my blog later.
March 9th, 2006 at 10:29 am
Peggikaye! If you were here, I’d plant a big smooch right on the end of your nose! Thank you! I was beginning to think there wouldn’t be a single voice raised in support! ;-)
I’m not down on AM because it’s AM … but because there’s no way to sort the good from the bad, and no way to regulate its application. In my mind, that’s a dangerous combo.
Scan Man … thank you for your “alternate perspective!” That’s what this is all about. When we write something and everyone agrees, then it’s not nearly as stimulating.
I’m looking forward to your post about allopathy vs traditional Indian medicine. That will be an education in itself! I would imagine that in a country with such a huge population, and with deep religious roots, that the “traditional” medicine would probably be quite prominent. It concerns me to read that allopathy is still viewed as an “intruder,” though.
There is no mention of our indigenous peoples’ medicines because they are no longer common, even among the indigenous folks themselves. The younger Native Americans are becoming very “westernized,” and their cultures are slowly vanishing along with their elder folk. It’s very sad. I have a few close friends who are MiqMaqs, and know others who are members of our other northeastern tribes - the Passamoquoddies, and the Penobscots. When those whom I know become ill, they turn to allopaths.
I believe there are still “sweat lodges” in usage, and although I believe the origin of the sweat lodge was for healing and cleansing, it seems to have taken on other connotations now … including some sort of “rite of passage.” I think that different tribes probably follow different customs.
Our own AM seems to be more influenced by the Eastern Cultures than by our own Native Americans.
Although - admittedly, I’m not into that sort of thing, and only know what I read.
March 9th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
I know a young woman who was raised on that sort of thing, and at the age of 20, has as many medical problems as an old woman. Between the “natural†powders and the “natural†enemas and the “natural†foods … it’s a wonder the kid is still alive.
Sounds obsessive/compulsive…
But these same types of people, if their parents hadn’t have used alternative medicine, would have been sitting in the pediatrician’s office with a thermometer in their kid’s mouth about every other week.
We can only hope that the doctor would refuse to prescribe any unnecessary meds…
Which is probably why a lot of these folks are doing AM stuff because they are satisfying some sort of internal need.
There are abuses on both sides. People who believe they are sick all the time self-medicate themselves with medications found on the drug-store shelves more times than they do with herbal treatments.
I think THAT is bad.
It’s on television constantly, “You may have *this* if you have *these* symptoms. So CALL YOUR DOCTOR NOW BEFORE YOU DIE and ask about the newest *sswipe medicine available!”
A lot of people do call their doctors, pharmacists, etc., and sign up on the websites for FREE samples, yada yada yada…
We are convinced that we are sick. So…
Some people want to be sick with traditional drugs and others want to be sick with non-traditional drugs.
For people who are really sick and need medicine for high blood pressure, etc., if they get sicker on the homeopathic stuff they will usually go back to the doctor.
The fact of the matter is…
a lot of people have forgotten how to live a normal life.
later…
March 10th, 2006 at 11:02 am
The scary thing is, though TJ, that people who have diseases that can be treated with standard medicine, but were fatal BEFORE standard medicine (in otherwords, when all that was available was alternative medicine) came along … they want a CURE …
Doctor’s today can’t CURE them, they can only slow down the process, make life more liveable, keep them from dying as they would have in the past.
Keep lupus confined to the joints and linings of the lungs etc instead of invading the organs and killing …
But they want it to go away completely …so they go to alternative … only … they get worse, because alternative didn’t have the answer 50 years ago …and it doesn’t have the answer now, dispite what they tell you.
MS patients … MD’s don’t have a cure, but they have a way to slow the process, to make life more manageable ..but alternative medicine promises a cure that wasn’t there 50 years ago, and isn’t there now, and is strongly placebo effect, and by the time the patient figures it out, more damage is done.
Myasthenia Gravis patients same thing.
And the list goes on …cancer ..how many cancer patients decide are convinced to try alternative than that horrible awful ‘toxic’ chemotherapy …well, of coarse it’s toxic ..that’s how it KILLS the cancer!
Medicine is not where it was 50 years ago. So much more can be done. Alternative practitioners are hollaring about the evils of the world of the MD …and yet, before the world of the MD … people died of such diseases as cancer, MS, Lupus and MG.
March 10th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
I agree that there is a big difference between the management of disease and the curing of disease.
There’s just not many things that get cured by medications or supplements alone.
I also disagree with the alternative practitiioners who are against modern medicine. Same goes with MD’s who are against alternative medicine.
What is truly lacking here is balance. Without balance and common sense there are going to be problems.
I understand what Moof is saying here, and I agree to an extent.
I just believe that there are abuses on both sides of the fence and that we should not ignore these factors or the benefits from both types of medicine.
With that being said, I am not going to “legislate” what someone wants to do when it comes to their own health choices and decisions. Education would be fundamental in the decision making process, and that is where I feel that the medical community has seriously failed.
There are very few people who refuse to see a medical doctor, but the rub comes in when the medical doctor doesn’t truly “hear” what the patient is saying or feeling, and/or chooses to ignore to treat the whole person, psyche included.
These problems drive people away from modern medicine and its treatments.
If you guys ever get the chance to read a book here or there, here is a book that is an *extreme* example of how both the medical community, as well as the patient’s parents failed a child in her medical care.
It is my opinion that they both failed miserably because of their intense stubbornness and committment to only seeing things from their point of view.
“The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anne Fadiman.
later…
May 16th, 2006 at 12:03 am
Pod
Looks like your blog was spamed