There is no single right way to proceed. The many choices available in alternative and conventional healing can cause confusion and frustration. Here are some basic guidelines to help you find your way through the maze of options.
Stay Healthy, Think Healthy. Eliminate the chemicals in your diet as much as you are able. Cleanse gently, drink lots of filtered and non-chlorinated water. Find a good green drink. Many times your pH is to acidic and greens are an excellent way to bring things back into balance. A day of fasting once a week is like a breath of fresh air to your body. Always drink lots of filtered water while fasting. So many toxic chemicals are stored in our body through the years. Think about it, would your car run well if you never gave it a tune up or changed the oil. Your body is the most wonderful machine that was ever made. We forget that it needs caring for until it starts breaking down and causing us difficulties. If only we would think healthy before we get sick. Remember the old saying, an once of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Embrace these four practices: Good nutrition, regular moderate exercise, manage stress, and develop your connectedness to others and to the natural world. In practicing these four elements your immune system can maintain top condition, so you are able to resist most illnesses and recover quickly from the ones you can’t avoid. Quoted from Michael Lerner, Ph.D., co-founder of the Commonwealth Cancer Help Program, Bolinas, California.
Proper Home Care: If you get sick, proper home care can speed up recovery time. Combining rest, over-the-counter medications, using alternative remedies such as herbs, acupressure, meditation or prayer, and relaxing and stretching exercises. If you don’t improve within a week or if any symptoms worsen, consult a physician.
Professional Care: Call a mainstream M.D. if your problem doesn’t respond to home care within a week - preferably one who is open to blending conventional and alternative treatments.
Find an open-minded Doctor. Start by asking around. You may find leads from family members and friends or through self-help groups and people you share your faith with. Also, alternative health organizations offer referrals.
Briefly interview the prospective doctors over the phone. Relay to them your preference to have a practitioner who combines mainstream approaches with alternative therapies and see how they react.
Dialogue Re: Benefits & side effects: With a less serious health problem or one the seems to defy diagnosis you may want to go outside the medical mainstream and try other avenues of healing. Before you do, ask your M.D. about the benefits and possible side effects of any mainstream options he suggests. Also, ask which alternative therapies might be helpful. Then think about how you would like to proceed. When you have decided how to go forward, explain your plan to your M.D. He/She should be informed of any other therapies you are trying, especially if you’re taking pharmaceuticals. You don’t gain anything by keeping your doctor in the dark. Many mainstream physicians are curious about the outcomes of alternative therapies.
Keep Asking: If a doctor says “There’s nothing wrong with you.” Many people find this extremely frustrating: “What do you mean there’s nothing wrong with me?” Many times the doctor actually means that in mainstream diagnostic testing they were not able to find any problems that caused a red flag to go up. Meaning the standard medical tests available may not be showing any life-threatening conditions. Try not to feel that you are being dismissed or that your sanity is in question. Instead, use this opportunity to search out Alternative Practitioners. An alternative practitioner may not make a conclusive diagnosis either. But they can still offer you options for pain relief, recovery, and healing.
Consult an Alternative Practitioner: Because mainstream medicine is less effective at treating chronic conditions and vague dis-comforts that don’t fit it’s criteria for disease opting for alternative treatment either in combination with mainstream medicine practices or to go completely alternative may be the answer.
Which alternative therapy should you begin with? Traditional Chinese Medicine, Homeopathy, Ayurveda or naturopathy are different healing systems with different philosophies of health and disease. One of them may be able to provide a satisfactory solution to your health problems when mainstream medicine cannot.
Give a treatment time to work: Depending on how long you have had your condition and how much discomfort it is causing you “If you’re in severe pain and mainstream medicine doesn’t help within a day or two, then by all means try something else.” advises AlanP Brauer, M.D. “But if you have a chronic condition that’s persisted for several years, you can give a therapy a few months to work before moving on to something else.”
Keep everyone informed. When you change practitioners inform the new practitioner about the other practitioners you have consulted in the past. Discuss how well or how poorly each previous experience and treatments worked. If everyone has the whole picture and are well informed of what’s going on with you it can only help with their ability to diagnose and treat you.
Be your own Health Manager: You know yourself better than anyone else. Create your own health-care team. Check back with health care professionals you used in the past and liked even if they didn’t cure you. The insight they may have could benefit you in the future when pursue other therapies. If you get better relief from combining of therapies, encourage respective practitioners to discuss your situation with one another.
Persevere: It has been quoted by a M.D. “No single therapeutic approach provides all of the answers for everyone.” “But most therapies have some good answers for some people.”
It is true that changing practitioners can get frustrating, but it’s much better than giving up. By every measure your health suffers when you give up. Stress increases and your immune system becomes suppressed. Don’t give up - press on. Ultimately, the best choice in healing is the approach or combination of approaches that works for you.