Posted: Jun 14, 2010 2:14 pm
Arcanyn wrote:Allopathy is shortsighted as a result of the approach it takes, and is almost unable to treat the entire person. Even homepathy falls short of this ideal, to treat the entire person, simply due to logistics and lack of complete knowledge about any patient.
What does it actually mean "to treat the entire patient"? If we give someone antibiotics to kill the bacteria which have infected their toe, how is this deficient? Their problem is that there are a whole bunch of bacteria in their toe getting up to no good, and the antibiotics get rid of them. Once this is done, what more is there to do? Why do we need to 'treat the entire patient', when there's nothing wrong with the rest of the patient? It's like criticising the fire brigade for simply dealing with the one house that happens to be on fire, rather than 'treating the entire neighbourhood' that has no fire problems whatsoever.
OK lets take a case history and see how it works.
Patient presents with flu symptoms, fevers, body aches, upper respiratory symptoms, fairly common, viral plus secondary bacterial infection. Conventional medicine prescribes antibiotics which addresses the secondary bacterial infection, assumed primary viral put down to random virus. Symptoms re-appear two months later, cycle is repeated and continues for two years.
Insight from a homeopathic book leads to diagnosis from an allopathic allergist who identifies an extreme allergy to house dust mites. Steps are taken to remove dust from beds etc etc, and symptoms improve significantly, however good health is not totally restored. Increased vigilance around dust mite eradication gives limited results.
Skin issues arise, upper respiratory issues are mild but chronic, other apparently unrelated reactions occur, hives appear on exposure to cold water, known as idiopathic cold urticaria. Removal of dairy from diet improves things partly, however overall health starts to decline rapidly, weight loss is 1kg per month, skin itch and eczema becomes close to unbearable.
In desperation, diet is reduced to a few basic food types and symptoms begin to resolve rapidly. Further tests show that celiac disease is probably at the core of issues spanning from somewhere between 20-50 years in the patients life. Always underweight, with unexpected bouts of un-wellness as a child and marked changes in health depending upon city lived in. Finally diet changes reveal that issues with gluten are possibly at the centre of all issues, from allergy to dust mite, intolerances to numerous food types, weight loss, general weakness and malaise.
In this case treating a bacterial infection was certainly effective with antibiotics, but only in the short-term, and damaging in the long-term. Because allopathic doctors are trained to look through keyholes with both eyes at the same time instead of opening the door, meant that over a number of years that no one allopathic doctor was able to do more that diagnose and prescribe according to their narrow definition of health. In addition this was possible only when a tentative self diagnosis had already happened. The use of an iridologist at various stages during this process allowed the patient to get an idea of the status of each major body organ and system. This meant that herbs could be taken to assist with a stressed immune system, or pancreas, or liver as it struggled to deal with the collateral damage caused by gluten, and subsequent allergies and intolerances.
Alternative practitioners were also not in a position to diagnose the person entirely, however were able to assist and diagnose related issues and once a diagnosis was made for celiac, could place symptoms and remedies in the correct context. In addition to this continual use of herbs does not have the same damaging effect as the long-term use of antibiotics.
Conventional medicine was able to diagnose specific issues like the presence of allergy to dust mite, and the presence of the celiac gene, but only when the patient presented this as the probable cause. Only the treatment prescribed by alternative medicine had any chance of treating the whole patient as opposed to symptomatically.
If you haven’t already guessed, the above is a précis of my health through my life and I have consulted with dozens of doctors from allopathic, various specialist, herbalists, homeopaths, dual practitioners, acupuncture. The major issue with conventional medicine is the reliance upon pinpoint technology to diagnose, rather than a natural ability to heal and read people. Its rather like someone reading a book on leadership, when they really just do not have the natural ability to lead. Reading about techniques can certainly help if you have the right attributes, but if you do not, it just makes you a pill pusher.
This means that treating symptoms especially if acute might be appropriate, but not when you cannot see, or lose sight of the patient overall. Alternative medicine at least recognises that there is necessarily a causation stack underlying the symptoms, masking the symptoms and getting through the days appointments is not a long term fix for many cases. There are many people with chronic and undiagnosed health issues that can be easily corrected if the correct path is taken to diagnosis and treat these.
Does this make it any clearer?