Alternative therapies and overall health

As a supplementary option to modern evidence-based medical treatment, it fills the intervention gap at the physiological-psychological-social interaction level that is not covered by conventional medical treatment. It assists in improving the overall health level on the premise of excluding organic diseases and not affecting conventional treatment, but it absolutely cannot replace the core therapeutic role of conventional medical treatment.

Speaking of this, last year I handled a case involving a 32-year-old Internet product manager. Migraine had been tormenting him for three years. Xuanwu and Xiehe were all over the place. He took several X-rays but no organic disease was found. The doctor’s plan was to take triptan analgesics when the pain was so severe that it affected his life. He took it for more than half a year and suffered from stomach burns. I got panicked and occasionally felt nauseous. I couldn't bear it anymore and went to a regular Chinese medicine clinic for 8 weeks of targeted acupuncture. I also followed the APP for 10 minutes of mindful breathing every day. Later, the frequency of migraine attacks dropped from 3-4 times a week to 1-2 times a month. The pain was also much lighter, and I didn't need to rely on painkillers every time.

I previously talked about this case with a physician at a tertiary hospital, and his attitude was very clear: the current effectiveness of acupuncture for migraine is indeed supported by some small sample studies, but the improvement reported by more patients does not rule out the role of the placebo effect. More importantly, if he had not done a complete internal examination first and skipped the examination with the mentality that "acupuncture can cure the disease", if it happened to be an intracranial space-occupying lesion, it would have really delayed the opportunity to save his life. In the eyes of most practitioners of evidence-based medicine, there is generally insufficient data on the effectiveness of alternative therapies, and there is a lack of unified safety standards. If they are used as the first choice for treatment, the risks far outweigh the benefits.

On the other side, a friend who has been doing holistic aromatherapy for 12 years gave a completely different perspective. She has many clients with long-term sleep disorders. They went to the hospital and were prescribed melatonin or even anti-anxiety drugs. After taking them, they either felt dizzy the next day or became dependent and couldn't stop, so they came to her for treatment. Her first rule when accepting clients is that they must provide a formal physical examination report within three months, and rule out problems such as hyperthyroidism, sleep apnea, and severe anxiety that require medical intervention. What she often says is: "Western medicine is to repair your broken parts, but we are to help you adjust the rhythm of the entire machine. None of them can be missing." ”According to the school of holistic natural medicine, modern medical treatment focuses too much on local lesions and ignores the overall impact of factors such as emotions, work and rest, and diet on the body. Alternative therapies can just make up for this shortcoming.

Of course, chaos in this field cannot be avoided. There was a piece of news last year about a patient who was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. She didn’t believe in the hospital’s surgical plan and instead believed in the words of some “naturopathic guru”. She relied on starvation therapy and Paida to detoxify her. After half a year, she progressed to an advanced stage and could not be saved even if she was saved. This type of case is also the core reason why many people scorn alternative therapies: many informal practitioners deliberately exaggerate the role of alternative therapies, and even advocate that it can replace conventional treatments such as chemotherapy and surgery. This is essentially a scam to make money.

I have been doing health management for 7 years, and the advice I give to my clients is always to “clear mines first, then fix the leaks.” Whether you want to try acupuncture, mindfulness, yoga, aromatherapy or the homeopathy that has become popular in recent years, the first step must be to go to a regular hospital for a complete examination to make sure there are no organic problems that require emergency intervention. If you have diagnosed chronic diseases, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, you must not stop taking conventional medicines and engage in alternative therapies. At most, with the permission of your doctor, you can use these methods to help improve symptoms. For example, patients with high blood pressure can practice mindful breathing for 10 minutes a day to stabilize their mood and avoid sudden rises and falls in blood pressure while taking antihypertensive drugs regularly. This is no problem.

In fact, in the final analysis, overall health is not as simple as "the absence of disease". Whether you have the strength to get up every day, whether you are inexplicably irritable, and whether you can sleep well and soundly, these are all part of your health. Modern medical care helps us maintain the bottom line of "not getting seriously ill", and legal alternative therapies are actually based on this foundation to help us move towards the upper limit of "living more comfortably". The two are not antagonistic in the first place. We have to take sides in black and white, either thinking that alternative therapies are all a lie, or treating them as a miracle cure for all diseases. To put it bluntly, they are just too lazy to use their brains for their own health and are just lazy in finding a standard answer. What suits you is the best.