Alternative healthcare? Holistic Medicine? How about just…healthcare? Or just…medicine?
I often refer to anything other than conventional medical care as alternative healthcare, but it’s a problematic term. First, by defining what happens at a family doc’s office or the ER as “conventional” we normalize it and position it as THE thing we measure everything else against. But one third of the population (if you believe prayer to be a form of healthcare, then that figure jumps to three-quarters) uses “alternative” therapies. With such a large percentage, I’m not sure “conventional” vs “alternative” language applies.
The language also forces a false dichotomy – this or that. Different forms of healthcare have different strengths and weaknesses and knowing how to use each form of healthcare effectively makes us superhuman, in my opinion. I mean, how incredibly lucky are we: If I have depression, I can go to someone (like a ND) who will help me adjust my diet, exercise, stress, so that I am more resilient and then go to someone else (like a homeopath) who can prescribe a homeopathic remedy to help remove the depression, and go to someone else (like a therapist) to talk about the preconceptions I have of the world that made me more likely to become depressed in the first place! And if I get hit by a bus after one of my appointments, I can go to an ER and get stitched up!
I got a UTI a couple of years ago (horrible, nasty things) and went to my homeopath. She prescribed a remedy which was hard to find, and the company I ordered it from said the remedy would take 10 days to arrive. For a few days, I pitifully suffered, lay around, wished that peeing didn’t feel like being knifed in the urethra, and the remedy just inched its way along to me. After a few days of this, I developed a fever and my back started to hurt. So I panic. Those are signs of possible kidney involvement and are signs of a serious infection (I had a professor once who shouted THE KIDNEYS CAN DIE IN TWELVE HOURS. DO NOT DELAY TREATMENT – I don’t actually know if that’s true, but it certainly scared me). So, I went to the walk-in clinic and got antibiotics. I felt better in a few hours. Antibiotics really can be miracle workers. I got abdominal cramping with the antibiotics though, so I started eating lots of sauerkraut and felt better. After the antibiotics were done, I still had a few minor symptoms of the UTI, so when the remedy finally arrived, I took it and everything left was cleared up. And I can’t tell you how glad I am that I could do all of those things, and never had to worry. If the antibiotics didn’t work, I still had other options. And if the remedy didn’t work, I still had other options.
I think everything in the world works for some conditions, for some people at some point in time. The idea of “conventional” or “alternative” just doesn’t ring true to me. It works or it doesn’t work. Everything else doesn’t matter. So just find what works in your situation and use it!