Narrative 17: Modern Medicine
Objective 1: Understand the differences between allopathic (hospital) and natural (alternative) medicine.
Historically many forms of medicine have been practiced in North America such as naturopathic, osteopathic, allopathic, folk, spiritual, American-Indian, and African-American to name a few. In fact, before the late 19th century the US had a very “pluralistic health care system.” During this timeeven allopathic practitionersused techniques such as bleeding, leeching, and purging as well as oral treatments like homeopathic remedies andheavy. Today biomedical practitioners (allopaths)no longer use these methods. Drugs, surgery, implantation of medical devices, injection of foreign substances, prescription of hormones and the replacement of bone marrow tissue are a few of the routine treatments they currently use. Their medical training focuses heavily on disease processes, foreign organism invasions and treating diseaseswith drugs and invasive procedures. They do not concentrate on building the body’s natural immune system to prevent disease processes from occurring in the body. Therefore, most of the treatmentsthey use target the elimination of diseases, and/or the suppression of physical symptoms. The allopathic definition of wellness is the absence of disease in the body, and they value standardized information above an individual patient’s subjective, self-reported health information. This view of wellness leads the allopathic system to devalue time spent with individual patients to really learn about their individual case histories.
The allopathic medical school system set out to “standardize” medical training and they were able to influence legislation to shut down many of the natural training programs because they didnot offer “standardized” medical education. They portrayed these healing methods asdangerous to the public. This was initially devastating to natural healing schools. Many closed and never re-opened. Many that survived or started new established an accredited medical curriculum combiningbiomedical and natural healing courses so that they could be approved to train and license alternative healers such as chiropractors, acupuncturists, naturopathic physicians, massage therapists, etc.
Many allopathic professionals (MDs) don’t feel like they have to learn natural healing methods and don’t even believe in referring their patients for alternative/natural medicine. Most medical schools don’t teach natural healing methods to their studentsbecause they consider them unscientific. They don’t teach holistic medicine,otherwise understood as the connection between the mind, body, and spiritwith the environment and emotions in regard to the disease process. Those schools that do offer natural medicine courses offerthem as electives only, not as core curriculum. They teach that they have the best medicine in the world, all the while ignoring the fact thatin spite of all the good it does, their medicine also kills over 100,000 patients and injures millions more each year.
Natural healers (alternative/traditional) believe in holistic medicine- that optimal health involves multiple dimensions: mind, body, spirit andemotion interacting with theenvironment, bacteria, viruses, nutrition, stress, etc. This view of wellness strives for the balance of mind, body and spirit with the environment and stressors in general, and they value each patient’s individual objective and subjective informationrather thanrelying solely on standardized, one-size-fits-all information. This view of wellness requires the practitioner to spend more time with each patient to really understand their unique condition before deciding what treatment is most appropriate.
Many natural healing schools continue to teach successfultraditional healing techniques along with newlydiscovered scientific and clinical experiencesinvolving herbal medicine, hydrotherapy, massage, acupuncture, bone manipulation, light therapy, nutrition, exercise, pharmaceuticals, hormones, radiation, and surgery. Responsible alternative healers encourage their patients to work with their allopathic doctors for conditions requiring the allopathic perspective. Most accredited natural healing schools requiretheir students to take bothbiomedical and natural courses. They also encourage their graduates to work with other medical doctors and to refer patients to the hospital when the patient’s health issue is beyond their scope of practice. The students are taught that they are notexperts but that they are well equipped withnatural healing skills and are able to work with other healing professionals. They are also taught to continue to learn of other healing methods. This leads natural healers to be more open-minded to work with other healers and learn newhealing techniques.
Today thereare healers from allopathic and natural healing circles that do work very closely with each other. They are practicing “integrated or complementary medicine.” We are seeing more and more hospitals and other mainstream healing centersin larger cities adding massage, counselors, dietitians, acupuncturists, naturopathic physicians, reiki masters, spiritual healers, chiropractors,etc. as professional staff. In the past 20 years we have seen an increased demand and usage of all forms of alternative medicine by theU.S.citizensto improve their health conditions such as arthritis, fibromyalgia, headaches, body aches, chronic pain, menopausal problems, allergies, etc. Hopefully it won’t be too long before we see “modern medicine” including both allopathic and alternative healing modalities offeredtogether all across the country.
Objective 2: Understand the view of modern medicine in the world.
Because we are living in a capitalistic society in the USA, money has a great influence on the way we do things. This has often ledone business or company to do whatever it takes to put another company out of businessoften regardless of the truth. We see this with misleading phrasesused in advertisements ordirect attacks through legislature or restrictive business agreements. Looking back, one can see this in the pharmaceutical companies how they monopolized the health care system through financial agreements with insurance companies, governmental subsidized agencies, and daily mass advertising, etc. The allopathic world tries to sway people to use only their healing systems byputting down other natural healing systemsthrough labels such as unsafe, unscientific, quackery, placebo affect, alternative, etc. However, if one looks at these natural healing systems closely we realize that they have been used by generations of people all over the world for hundreds, even thousands of years before biomedicine was even invented. In fact, some of the biomedical healing therapies were derived from natural healing remedies such as aspirin, hormones, morphine, etc. In older parts of the world, many of the medicines we label as “alternative medicine” are considered traditional medicine. Our allopathic tradition of medicine is considered “alternative” to them. Most patients in China, India, and other parts of the world prefer natural healing methods before opting for drug therapy or surgery. Worldwide, most people still use herbs, physical medicine, nutrition, or spiritual medicine before they use drugs, radiation or surgery.
Objective 3: Understand the importance of alance in total health and wellness
When considering health and wellness a healer should respect the body’s innate intelligenceregardingthe complex mental, emotional, physical and spiritual interactions with belief systems, nutrition, environmental pollutants, allergens, stress, sleep, exercise, etc. It is very important to understand that the body wants to be in balance (homeostasis) for optimal health, and that chronic imbalanced stressors including overeating, insomnia, depression, etc. can have health altering affects on the body. The body will always try to balance each imbalancing stress. However when it can’t regain balance, the imbalancing influence will cause mental, emotional, physical or chemical changes in the body that will ultimately end in disease manifestation if not corrected. For example when the body is too hot it releases sweat to cool off, when it is tireditwill seek rest or sleep, and when it is allergic to somethingit will cough or sneeze to expel the foreign substance and prevent it from entering deeper into the body system. It is imperative to understand that the body is as strong as its balanced state. The body wants to be healthy however stress factors in our daily lives can tip the body into an imbalanced state that will eventually lead to a disease state if the body doesn’t get help in time to bring it back to a balanced state.
Balance Imbalance Disease
If we listen to our bodies throughout the day we will understand the many ways that our bodies try to inform us of their imbalanced states: the need to drink water when we are dehydrated, to urinate when the bladder is full, the urge to eat when our blood sugar levels are low, etc. Our bodies communicate to us via many systems and they are all part of the body’s self maintenance system to stay ina balanced, healthy state. We are constantly bombarding our bodies with things that cause imbalance such as heat, hunger, over-eating, over-working, over-stressing, bacteria, viruses, etc. A well-balanced and healthy body can fight off most of these imbalancing factors. However a foreign stress factor in animbalanced body, which is already weak,can make it more imbalanced and cause pain or illness to the body system. For instance, when bacteria invades the throat the body will signal throat pain, fever, chills, sweating, lack of appetite, body weakness, fatigue, swollen lymph nodes, headache, body aches, etc. Some people recognize the earliest sign/s and seek simple solutions to help the body correct the imbalanced state quickly. Others wait and ignore the body until it can no longer function. Then they become bedridden and require a much more powerful intervention to help the body recoverwhich often is a slower process. Some people get sick easily because they ignore their body’s signals that they lack sleep, are being over-worked, over-stressed, malnourished, experienceprolonged exposure to pollution, etc.
The body will speak its imbalanced states to us via many channels. It is important to know that there are also many ways to diagnose these imbalanced states. The hospital will do this through sophisticated diagnostic tools to look for physical or chemical changes in the body’s blood, stool, or urine. Natural healers, on the other hand,often use other means to diagnose these imbalances such as muscle testing, searching for patterns of signs and symptoms, or looking at the time, place, and location when the body first experienced the imbalanced state and so on.
Just as there are many things that can cause imbalance and disease formation in the body, there many ways to help put the body into balance again. Dependingonwhat the diagnosis is the treatments will be targeted differently. For instance, heartburncan be controlled through antacids, avoidance of the foods that trigger it, or by treating the food allergy that is the root of the problem. Health care approaches differ just like the many different ethnic groups and cultures in the world. Each has its own healing methods to deal with health problems. Some may work better than others but often there is more than one way to help restore balance. Remember that if you talk to a surgeon she will recommend surgery, if you talk to an herbalist he will recommend herbs, if you talk to an acupuncturist she will use acupuncture needles, and if you talk to an allopathic medical doctor he may prescribe drugs. I hope that this presentation will enlighten your view to modern medicine and be a great help to you as you pursue wellness.