Advice before using alternative medicine


	ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE INTRODUCTION


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Thinking of using alternative medicine?
5 advice from an expert on using alternative remedy

Here are the steps that you should take if you are considering to use alternative medicine to aid healing. This is the advice of Dr. Eisenberg, a Harvard internist, who directs the Center for Alternative Medicine Research at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center:

1. Write it down
Keep a diary to track symptoms. It's easy to forget how intense the feeling of pain was on a particular day or how many times a week insomnia occurred. Sometimes people think they're getting up two or three times a night, but when they keep a diary over three weeks, they find it's an uncommon occurrence. Writing down when symptoms begin and when they abate is a good way to determine if there is an association between treatment and relief.

2. One at a time
Add one therapy at a time. Don't use herbs, acupuncture, massage, homeopathy, and chiropractic simultaneously. It's confusing to know which may be helping and which may be causing side effects. Use the diary to track one treatment at a time. Of course, this is also what most alternative medicine practitioners will advise.

3. Be cautious
If an alternative provider suggests discontinuing a drug, check with your doctor first. It's one thing for a chiropractor to recommend that someone stop using ibuprofen (Advil) for muscle aches, and quite another for an herbalist to suggest that a person quit taking the antihypertensive drug that is preventing a heart attack or stroke.

4. Ask and you shall receive
Find out if the practitioner has experience with your condition. If a therapist has never treated someone with headaches, for example, and that's what you're seeking help for, he or she is probably not right for you. If, however, the healer has experience with headaches, he should tell you how many treatments over how many weeks, and at what cost, it will take before you can tell if the regimen is helping. If he or she can't give you some idea about a time limit, seek another practitioner. Although it's best to go to an alternative provider who is licensed by a state board or organization, requirements vary tremendously, so licensing is no guarantee that you're in good hands.

5. Go to the basics
Eating a low-fat diet that is rich in fruits and vegetables and exercising regularly have been shown to prevent cancer, heart disease, hypertension, and other chronic conditions. This, along with alternative therapy will do the body well.

from President and Fellows of Harvard College