As we move into springtime here in the great white north, I want to address several issues, starting with the difference between allopathic and holistic medicine and their approaches. With spring comes the dreaded allergies as the trees, grasses and plants begin to spring forth in all their pollen filled glory. It can be a time of great suffering for many, and it is, unfortunately, a recurring issue every year. But it doesn’t have to be!
During my stint as the Herbalist at Herbnet.com years ago, I got an intriguing question from a young medical student.
I am a second year medical Student in an Osteopathic institution. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the conventional medical educational system as you see it? What items that I am learning should I put stock in, and which should I take with a grain of salt?
Great question! The answer has very broad implications. Conventional medicine, I really don't think it is at all appropriate to call it traditional medicine as that would imply that the model has been around for centuries and that simply is not the case at all.
Conventional is a far more appropriate term, as it is what is typically being practiced today and has been for about the last century, when the AMA in the US, (with the help of the drug companies), began to do away with true traditional medicine, or alternative medicine. My favorite term for this type of practice though is natural medicine as it is a system based on thousands of years of empirical data that relies on the assumption that your body has an innate and intrinsic healing ability if it is given what it needs and exposure to toxic influences are minimized.
Getting back to your question, conventional medicine certainly has its place. I believe its most appropriate if restricted to two areas, one is diagnosis, and the other is the treatment of acute trauma. The use of blood tests, diagnostic imaging and pathological evaluation can provide a very useful tool to rule out serious illness that can easily be overlooked by well-intentioned natural medical practitioners. So I would learn very well the diagnostic tools that you will learn in school as they will serve you well.
Where you will need to exercise extreme caution, is believing the treatment recommendations. You can be virtually 100% guaranteed that the model has been flawed by massive conflict of interests at the highest level.
Drugs are virtually never the long-term answer to any medical problem. They can provide short-term relief without addressing the underlying cause of the problem. And this is the major difference between the two approaches. Once you understand that, you can teach your patients this so they can use you appropriately as a health coach to guide them in their process of taking control of their own health.
I hope this student took my advice and leaned more on traditional medicine to treat the patients in her care. The truth of the whole matter is, it does us no good to keep throwing laboratory produced chemicals at an issue that will do little more than mask the symptoms. The idea in traditional, or more precisely holistic medicine, is to look at the body as a whole and address the underlying issue that is causing the symptoms. Many times, symptoms can come from another organ or system in the body than the one manifesting. It takes years of study and the willingness to take the extra time to discover what is at the root and deal with it – once and for all!
And of course, there are natural remedies that can ease the symptoms while we are dealing with the root issues.
Don’t get stuck in the trap of repeating the same ineffective practice again this spring. Give me a call and let’s get to work figuring out where this is coming from and how to deal with it. Stay tuned for more tips and information on how to get through spring with the least amount of angst.
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