Health care has become a major issue for most Americans. Costs are skyrocketing, many of us do not have health care coverage and a visit to the doctor can prove both costly and unfruitful. The typical medical doctor has spent about eleven years in college and residency programs to earn their degree. While well educated, sometimes they don't have all the answers.

Due not to poor education, but perhaps a limited scope, the M.D. can not always help the patient resolve their health issue. In the last 30 years or so, alternative health care has sought to fill in the gaps. Allopathic medicine is the purvue of the medical doctor, dealing with the strict science of disease conditions. Pharmaceutical prescriptions, lab analysis and surgery are the main treatments available.

Alternative health care encompasses diagnosis and treatment programs which analyze body systems as a whole. While the medical doctor treats the symptoms of the patient, the alternative practitioner approaches disease as a systemic condition. The condition which brings the patient to the doctor may be only a symptom of an underlying problem of another area or organ.

For example, if you are frequently prone to bronchitis, the allopathic practitioner may prescribe antiobiotics to resolve the infectious condition and thus bring it under control. The holistic practitioner may instead view the bronchitis as an underlying weakness of the immune system. The naturopathic, or holistic practitioner, recognizes that the bronchitis must be treated and may dispense a number of herbs which are natural antibiotics, such as garlic or elecampane root, a specific for respiratory problems to eliminate the coughing and excessive accumulation of phlegm. However, the alternative health practitioner won't stop there. He or she may also prescribe a natural immune system booster, such as echinacea, to get at the root of the problem which is causing the recurrent bouts of bronchitis. This alternative approach can eliminate the problem altogether.

Other examples of alternative health approaches include quit-smoking programs. While your regular M.D. may prescribe nicotine patches, they don't work for everyone. One alternative health discipline, accupuncture, employs the use of fine needles, placed along one of the meridians established in Chinese medicine, to eliminate the desire to smoke. Many people successfully quit with such an alternative health approach.

Have you been plagued by migraine headaches? This can be a very difficult medical condition. While there are pharmaceutical prescriptions available to counter and alleviate this painful condition, these medications may not work and may also carry serious baggage in the side effects. Alternative health practitioners may offer herbs or aromatherapy as an alternative solution, minus the side effects.

Good health is of concern to all of us. If you have unresolved medical conditions, you owe it to yourself to investigate what alternative health has to offer. To your best health!

Commentary

Alternative health has gained much momentum in the past decade. Alternative health practitioners include chiropractic physicians, massage therapists, Bowen therapists, acupuncturists, herbalists, osteopathic physicians, hypnotherapists, live cell blood analyst, Feldenkrais practitioners, Reiki masters, tai chi masters, nutritionists, colonic hydrotherapist, wellness practitioners, and there are more and more emerging professions. Each has its own place.

Because there are so many different professions within the field of alternative health, it is sometimes difficult to choose the alternative health practitioner that will be best for the person seeking health help.

Below are some guidelines that may help you decide who to go to.

1. Does your condition need a diagnosis? If so, choose an alternative health practitioner who is trained to diagnose: a chiropractic physician, an osteopathic physician, or a naturopathic physician.


2. After you receive a diagnosis and treatment from the physician, consider which other alternative health practitioners can make a great impact on yur condition. If your condition is related to muscular imbalance, tendon or ligament issues, choose a massage therapist, Feldenkrais practitioner, Reiki master, or tai chi master. Give the new alternative therapist a fair trial of at least four treatments.


3. If your condition is more systemic, meaning it does not really involve muscles, tendons and ligaments, solving it systemically may work better. That is when you should consider an excellent nutritionist, a live cell blood analyst, or a colonic hydrotherapist or wellness practitioner that focuses on detoxification. These types of alternative health treatments take time to show results, so you will have to give them at least a three month trial.

Of course, this is just a simple decision tree for choosing an alternative health practitioner. Another way of considering who to go to is to use your intuition and the blessings that are put along your path. For example, if you feel very strongly about seeing a massage therapist, use those feelings to proceed. Solving problems in life is rarely a linear path; it is more often a matter of a string of events that leads to solving the problem.

For example, you may go to four different alternative health practitioners - first a chiropractor, then a massage therapist, next a colonic hydrotherapist, and finally a nutritionist. It's possible that all the work you did with the three alternative health practitioners set up a certain amount of healing before you put the finishing touch on your health with the nutritional protocols. Maybe the different supplements along the way boosted your nutritional status to a high enough level to set you up for the final healing.

This Woman Used Alternative Health Methods First

What I have found in practice is that setting up a nutritional/herbal protocol from the start is often an excellent way to start the healing process. For example, one of my patients had been having neck pain for years and her skin was not as clear as she wanted it to be. She found little red splotches showing up on her skin everywhere and they were growing in number at an alarming frequency. She didn't want to go to a dermatologist until she had tried alternative health practitioners first.

She was most concerned about the spots on her skin and asked for a hair analysis test. The test revealed low levels of many minerals, especially manganese and selenium. Often I find that there is a high correlation between selenium deficiency and mysterious skin lesions. I've seen quite a few really angry skin lesions disappear simply from balancing one's vitamins and minerals.

A supplement program was set up for this woman. Within two weeks, the spots were almost totally gone. "It's kind of strange!" she reported to me. "My carpal tunnel problem hardly ever bothers me anymore and my neck feels stronger. It still needs an adjustment from my chiropractor but I can feel that it is getting better."

What I have found is that using nutrition as your first foundational therapy for getting healthy affects every part of the body and can accelerate healing of any illness.