I am a great believer that the cure for an illnes is often close by.
In the sub tropical mountains of New South Wales there is a stinging tree that if you brush against it it causes terrible pain.
Under the tree is another plant that when you rub its foliage against the wound the pain immediately goes.
I had an uncle that had cancer of the bowel and was given a short time to live.
This was back in the thirties and he was virtually sent home to die.
He started to purge himself every morning with epsom salts.
He lived for many years.
I know this to be true because my mother told me.

Cousin Ken

Use common sense, but be wary of the "doctors" who want to sell you a lot of stuff.

I have visited a chiropractor for a back ache and he helped. I have have known chiropractors who would tell me that their chiro treatment would cure flu and many worse diseases - that was a bunch of BS. In my experience, the chiropractors do help when it comes to musculo-sceletal problems, but hardly anything else.

To address Eric's point above - it is possible for a massage (done incorrectly) to tense up the muscles and cause significant pain afterwards, instead of relaxing them. There have been cases when chiropractic treatments had patients end up with broken vertebrae.

It is true that many medicines have harmful side effects, but they are also used to effectively treat problems. The "natural" supplements and remedies, all of them, have dubious medicinal value, in other words they are very rarely proven to have helped anything. The evidence of their efficacy is usually anecdotal, and most often they don't do better than the placebos in treating problems. Furthermore, despite Eric's assertions, there have been cases of "natural supplements" that had caused deaths.

My wife does work for a company that sells natural supplements. The owners of the company do not take these supplements - to me that is the most telling fact of all.

When we were expecting one of our kids, our friend who is a naturopath had given my wife some stuff that was supposed to take away the pain. This stuff did not work, but waiting for it to kick in we delayed getting the epidural, which does work, for several unbearable hours. As a result, my wife suffered unnecessary pain.

Draw your own conclusions, but remember that Western medicine has proven treatments of many health problems. If you find the alternative approach working, great. But be sure that in your pursuit of alternative treatments you are not delaying proven treatments for too long.

Regards

I think sometimes the best "cure" is prevention. After years of abuse trying to cure a disease is like unringing a bell, imho.
My younger daughter is in school to be a naturopath, also studies,chinese herbology and accupuncture. In her 4th year of a six year year course of study.

Alex,

you are absolutly right.
Western Medicine is the best we ever had for crisis intervention.

When you are in an accident you want an Ambulance not an herbal Doctor.

Kinda common sense isn't it?

People often ask me: I have a headache what herb do you take? And my reply is: 2 Tylenol.

They get a confused look on their face: "but you are supposed to be the natural Guru"!

If you are in accute pain, Western Medicine works the best period.
However if you have recurrent pain like migraines you need to look at the cause.

Sorry Alex, but unless you have a Tumor Western Medicine has nothing but drugs to offer to mask the pain and make you addictive.
Again I see it in the hospital every day.
Getting these pople of the drugs is not easy.

My wife had Migraines for years. 2-3 times a week.
Believe me I'm a nurse and don't take this lightly.
We did all the cat scans, MRIs, X-rays, lab tests etc.
Drugs that made my wife very sick were the answer.

After only 10 treatments of Accupuncture and herbal treatments from a Chinese Doctor trained in China the Migrains are gone.
End of story.
That is 10 years ago!

If you have a large tumor have surgery, chemo and or radiation.
However herbs can greatly reduce the side effects of these very harmful treatments.

In other words: each has strength and weaknesses.
If you are in an acute state of pain or any other symptoms; Western medicine does the trick everey time.

However, if you have some chronic disease Western Medicine does NOT have a cure.
Taking Insulin for the rest of your life or heart medicine for the rest of your life is NOT a cure.
Yes it is a proven treatment but hardly a cure.
Cure means it's GONE!
Do I claim that herbs can cure anything? NO!

And who cares whether it's placebo or anything else as long as you feel better.
What are you so afraid off?
I'm originally from Germany and we used placebo VERY effectifly in the hospital all the time.
Why don't we do this in America? Not because they don't work, but because of childish Lawsuits everywhere.
50% of my day at the hospital I do things in case we get suit, not because it is to the benefit of the patient.
I think that this is insane.

I grew up in Europe with both herbal and western medicine from our doctor.
Europe and other countries have done their own studies and have come often to different conclusions than America as you can see in post regarding Ginseng.
There is a reason for that; but people are blinded and brainwashed enough not to look any further!

Sorry to tell you this, but Americans are the sickest (and most overwheight) nation in the world with all it's wonderful treatments and drugs.
That's a fact!
(I'm not talking third world countries where there is no food or water)
Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

There are a lot of diseases that don't exist in other countries. Why? Beacause people take better care of themselves: through diet, exercise, herbs and whatever else there is.

As Mike already correctly put it: prevention is the cure, which can be done easily with herbs and other natural ways.
Whether you believe it or not doesn't really matter, beacause there are a lot of other countries in the world that have proven that.
I get my info from various sorces, not just one. Speaking more than one language helps.
And I'm not easily convinced either.
After all I'm still a nurse trained in Western Medicine.

Eric

BTW,

I totally agree that there are quite a few people out there that want to make a quick buck by selling you unnecasary stuff.
And I wasn't talking about that.

The original question was: what do you think about Holistic (Alternative) Medicine and not what do you think about people that sell you supplements you don't need.

I think we need to seperate the two.

Only beacause there are some horrible musicians out there, doesn't mean that music in itself is horrible.
We know that; don't we....

Eric