More About Complementary Alternative Medicine

I’ve been stewing on this for several weeks as many of my favorite medblogs go on the offensive with respect to complementary alternative medicine – CAM. I’ve taken the opportunity to comment on these various blogs as a way of opening up a dialog so docs can hear from someone who’s researched both sides of the issue and written about it. To that end, I’ve been prepared to be ridiculed and attacked. I’m happy to report that none of this happened - which thrills me, because I consider a number of these docs buds. I've had a number of docs ask intelligent questions. What I never expected (foolish on my part) was to be summarily dismissed by so many.

And this is a huge problem. Dismissal is arrogant. I realize I'm nothing more than an irritant - a bug - and whatever I have to say isn’t important in their esteemed opinion. They’ve already set their bias guns on Stun and decided that a differing opinion is worthy of a shot.

What’s irksome is how docs formulate an opinion based on research that supports their opinions rather than going outside their comfort zone and looking at both sides of the coin. After all, isn't this what good scientists do? Going in with a preconceived notion ignores the data and flaws the hypothesis. In my way of thinking, voicing an opposing voice brings balance to any discussion. As a result, I’m continually asked to defend and justify my opinions (which is only good business), yet when I ask questions of docs, all I hear are crickets.

Not one doc has ever replied to my questions about what patients should do when the medicines they’re taking are just as risky as the affliction themselves, such as hormones for menopausal women create a risk of cancer. What are patients to do when their docs tell them there’s nothing more that can be done for them? I’ve outlined any number of times the hefty helping of skepticism regarding CAM during the research phase of my book, yet I was proven wrong with the betterment of my own health. What of that? Are these not verifiable results? It's achingly easy to chalk something up to the placebo effect rather than consider something non medical can be effective.

I’m pretty sure I’m being dismissed as a whole because I’m not a part of the club. I expected this result, so I’m good with that. But what about the docs who practice integrative medicine, such as the Continuum Center for Health and Healing – the largest alternative care facility in the US and is connected to Beth Israel – or GW Center for Integrative Medicine which is an umbrella of George Washington University Hospital (and where I did my research)? They are part of the medical community. Are their findings summarily dismissed as well because they stand in the face of the medical majority?

As mystified as I am by these omissions of response, I would never declare war on docs or the medical community. It’s ignorant and gets us nowhere. We’re in the fight for health together, and we should be uniting to cure body, mind and spirit. If that makes me a lunatic deserving of disregard, then it saddens me, because I respect the medical community a great deal and feel there needs to an opening of minds and doors.

Some docs claim to be open-minded, and this is lip service at its finest given that they point the finger at CAM practitioners as being the ones refusing to consider any opinions other than their own. I’d like to be shown evidence of proof. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but advocates of integrative medicine are continually trying to marry themselves with allopathic medicine in order to create whole body health, so why would they purposefully piss off the very people they’re tying to enlist? On the other hand, I know of oodles of doc’s refuse to listen to these ideas. Until bombs stop being lobbed across the aisle, this will continue to erode all the things that medicine could be while continuing to maintain the current status quo. Complementary Alternative Medicine is one where allopathic and alternatives are complementary to each other – not exclusive, and it makes sense for docs to embrace integrative methods in order to keep a close eye on their use.

Docs want to be shown the science before changing their methods of practice. They want to be proven something doesn’t work before they’ll stop, eg: hormone replacement therapy. I think this article lays out a pretty compelling case. It’s a fact that doctors all over the US are recommending many of their patients discontinue their HRT because it’s been proven women run a higher risk of cancer. I was one of those women, and I suffered horrendous hot flashes. I’ve been under the care of a CAM practitioner for a few years now and am taking natural plant-based substances for my menopause symptoms. Where many of my friends are still suffering, I’m not. Does this have zero validity or interest with my doc friends? Apparently not, because not one of them has ever replied.

Still on the topic of docs wanting to see proof something isn’t working before they discontinue use, how about the new “black box” labels warning diabetics about a high risk of heart failure that Avandia and Actos will soon be sporting? How many warnings on medicines are uttered at light speed on all those nightly commercials? With some, it’s a tossup between which is worse, the affliction or the meds.

This isn’t to say that I’m anti-med or anti-doc. I most certainly am not and would never advocate otherwise. Chemo, for instance, can come within inches of killing the patient, but the benefits outweigh doing nothing. But what about the side effects? Rather than pumping more meds into the patient, why not offer biofeedback, meditation, or Reiki, which have been documented to be very successful in alleviating side effects. So, while I’m by no means anti-med, I am a proponent of seeking the best, most appropriate product or method that offers relief or a cure.

Example: It’s minor in the grand scheme of things, but it does highlight my point. My daughter has warts. Lots of them. On her hands and legs. We’ve spent years having them burned off only to have them grow back or sprout elsewhere. Nothing was a permanent cure in getting rid of them. The cost for the liquid nitro wasn’t insignificant and easily ran into several hundreds. After years of this, Daughter gave up and discontinued the process. An integrative health practitioner offered up a bottle of oregano essential oil. Along with smelling like a pepperoni pizza, within two weeks her warts were gone. All of them. Three years later, they haven’t grown back. This, in my mind, was not only an appropriate alternative, but better than the allopathic choices.

My question is this: are these examples not proof that non-medical means can heal or alleviate suffering? Like everything in life, generalization is a dangerous mistress because of the tendency to throw out the good for the sake of ridding the bad. In most cases this isn’t too big of a problem. But when you’re talking about people’s health and quality of life, is it wise to do this? Would docs rather I stay on my HRTs and risk cancer? Or stay on Avandia and risk heart failure? I’m sorry, but this has the smell of arrogance.

Now, having said this, I do agree that integrative medicine has to be dealt with carefully, and that’s what those $120,000,000 studies by NCCAM are trying to establish. What works and what doesn’t. It’s smart, yet docs lambaste these studies as shoving a bogus idea on to an unaccepting public. It’s not the public that won’t accept the idea of integrative care, but the docs. It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t issue. Scientists are chided for “wasting” money on these studies while at the same time, docs scream for scientific proof. You can’t have it both ways. You need to spend money on the studies.

Docs talk about CAM practitioner’s intolerance to criticism, and I have yet to really see this for the simple reason that these people have spent their entire careers justifying, explaining, educating the public and medical society to exactly what it is they do.

Alas, this argument isn’t unlike political opponents who decry anyone with a differing belief as being intolerant. What they really mean is that they, themselves, are intolerant of anyone who believes differently from them. Since the medical community is such a vast lobby, they have the power to keep a differing idea under wraps with claims that integrative care is nothing more than a placebo, it’s pabulum for the idiotic masses, and docs know best.

In my discussion with docs, I’m continually held to a high standard which demands that I have concrete facts at my fingertips at all times and be prepared to sit under a bright light. I agree that this is vital. But it’s irksome that docs aren’t held to those same standards. If someone is going to offer opposition to a practice, it’s only logical to have a balanced and thoroughly researched reason.

After all this venting, I realize that I’m spitting into the wind. Instead, I see comments from those who claim to have an open mind accuse CAM advocates of "doublethink." This dismissive tone is especially depressing because it offers zero chance of there ever being a true sharing of ideas. I could present case after case, and I believe it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. Docs don’t check their beliefs in at the door of their practice, and I can’t help but feel that patients could be the worse for it.