Looks like your blog was spamed

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…

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.

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…

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.

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

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.

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Our modern doctors have very powerful tools available to them… scientists just tend to forget the tools that they already have in their toolboxes.

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 …

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…