Alternative Medicine

[RCglider Profile]

What's your thoughts and experiences on the subject? This includes but is not limited to things such as colloidal silver (i.e. non-pharmaceutical anti-microbials), nutritional therapy, herbal medicine, cancer, infectious disease, electro-medicine and other modalities. Comments on the politics of medicine are welcome too.

ex: the FDA is a revolving door.

[Folic_Acid Profile ICQYIM]

In my limited experience, I've come to learn that colloidal silver isn't all it's cracked up to be, mainly because of the varying amounts of silver contained in the formulations offered by various companies - I think tests showed that the amount of silver actually present in any given formulation could very from 15% - 125% of the amount of silver the product claimed to contain. Obviously, the side effect of silver ingestion - that of turning your skin blue-grey - isn't life threatening, as far as I know, but isn't very convenient or acceptable either. In any case, I've never really heard definitively why silver was preferable to common pharmaceutical antibiotics...

As for other alternative medicine, I do know that the effectiveness of herbal remedies for various ailments also wildly varies, depending on the amount of the herb actually present in the forumlation. I think that the benefits of herbal remedies are rather overstated, especially the benefit of the herb being "natural." In reality, herbs are merely naturally occuring forms of their pharmaceutical equivalents. For example, you might be encouraged to take an herbal remedy containing willow bark for a headache, rather than taking an aspirin - this despite the fact that the active headache-fighting ingredient in willow bark is a weak concentration of acetylsalicylic acid - the same active ingredient as aspirin.

My experience (and my wife's medical knowledge) has convinced me that the body really has an astounding ability to fight disease and heal itself, although it often needs some augmentation from modern medicine. So, IMHO, I'm not going to shy away from pharmaceuticals or doctors, just because I may prefer "something natural." I do think, though, that an over-reliance on drugs (even seemingly innocuous and harmless ones) can be damaging.

My final verdict - alternative medicine isn't that great. I trust traditional medicine more, but so much that I depend on it as a crutch.

[Camel toe joe Profile WebsiteYIM]

from what i remember the silver, from the colloidal silver acts as a catalyst, and I read that people used to drop a Sillver dollar(when they used to contain more silver) in a glass of milk. As far as herbal and natural medicine I feel it works and most stuff over the counter is crap. I remember watching this show that was talking about using maggots to clean wounds. one doctor said that there was a homless guy brought in with a large open wound in his face and it was discusting and full of maggots, they removed all the maggots and cleaned out the cut and the guy died the next day. the maggots only eat dead flesh and secrete something that has antibacterial properties. pretty (gross) but interesting stuff