Alternative Medicines

November, 2007

There's a lot of hype about alternative and natural medicines. Some of them are certainly over-hyped and without much value. People often believe what they want to believe, without regard for the evidence. Of course there is a lot of hype about regular medicines, many of which do as much harm as good. I haven't found any studies showing high rates of harmful side effects from natural remedies, but there are many reports available online that show thousands of people suffering side effects and death from traditional medicines. So I will personally risk trying the occasional natural treatment when I see compelling evidence for its efficacy and/or safety.

In fact, I have tried many alternative medicines over the years. So far I have not suffered any ill effects, and sometimes I have seen positive results. Here are a few that I can vouch for from experience.

Tea Tree Oil

Years ago, I had a lump on the side of my nose It was growing slowly and bleeding at times. I had it for years, and when I finally asked a doctor about it, he wasn't sure if it was cancerous or not. He recommended seeing a specialist. I looked for an alternative medicine instead, because I had very little income at the time.

I read about a cream made from an extract from a plant called Devil's Apple. According to what I read, most people who used this cream had eliminated their skin cancers. It was not only extremely effective, but apparently safe as well. Unfortunately the only company selling it in the U.S. had been shut down by the Food and Drug Administration. The rule is something like this: doctors can kill thousands with risky medical procedures, and thousands can die from approved prescription medications, but if an "unapproved" treatment causes so much as a skin rash it must be outlawed. A company in England would ship the cream here for $49, but they too were out of business by the time I tried to reach them.

Then I read somewhere that tee tree oil might work for removing skin lumps and bumps. I bought a bottle at a health-food store for $6, and I applied a drop to the lump each day. Soon it was getting smaller, so I continued the treatment. It took just six weeks and six dollars to be completely rid of it. Was this a coincidence? I don't think so, considering that I had the growth for about six years previously.

In fact I had another growth years later on my neck, and for several years, I couldn't remember what I had used the first time. When I stumbled upon the answer in some of my old notes, I used tea tree oil on that growth, which was even larger than the first one. It was gone in about six weeks.

St. John's Wort

Once, when hiking in Canada, I cut my foot. The gash was deep. I found St. John's Wort (Hypericum perfolatum), which has been proven to have anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal properties. I mashed up a few leaves and bandaged them to the cut, replacing them occasionally. I have honestly never seen a cut heal faster.

St. John's Wort is one of the better known alternative medicines now. It is used as an anti-depressant, with numerous studies showing it's effectiveness. It is also used by some as a temporary mood-elevator. This effect isn't proven yet, but whenever I've had tea made from the plant, it tasted awful and left me happy for two hours. Anecdotal and subjective evidence (I'm not even entirely convinced), but interesting.

Valerian Root

When my wife has cramps and pain, nothing works better than tea made from valerian root. You can get the tea in many stores now. I would recommend against driving after having valerian root, because this is a powerful relaxant.

Actually, valerian root is too strong for some people. A gentler herb that will relax you is chamomile. You can find this as tea too. It makes a great drink with honey, just before you are ready to go to bed.

Other Alternatives

There are so many alternatives out there. I have stopped a headache just by chewing on willow twigs (they apparently have salicylic acid in them, a precursor to the chemical we know as aspirin). I have stopped diarrhea with oak bark (careful - this can hard on the liver in large doses). I have watched a friend's poison ivy rash disappear overnight with the application of jewelweed juice.

I have tried just as many alternatives that didn't work, too, but you know what? Put all the ineffective ones together and the cost probably doesn't add up to the cost of one visit to a doctor.

Your Choice

I can't tell you what to do, but neither can a doctor with absolute certainty. His job is just to give you the wisdom of his training and experience. The decision as to what to do about a given condition is always yours. I realize that many people don't like this thought, but doctor's will have differing opinions, and all of them have a limited amount of knowledge, so it only makes sense to look into your particular medical problem using other resources as well.

What I can tell you is that I have used many effective natural remedies and herbal medicines, and many that didn't work. I have probably spent less on all of them than the cost of one or two visits to a physician, and no doctor yet has introduced me to any of those that worked. Do your own research, and look to the alternative press to get information on alternative medicines.

I can also tell you that I've never had a bad reaction to any "alternative" medicine, but everything we do has risks. Just listen to the list of side effects that they put on commercials for prescription drugs. My non-professional opinion is that natural treatments are safer than prescription drugs in many cases.

A risk that is often overlooked by those who dismiss alternative medicines is the danger of passing up treatments that might be effective. Keep in mind that for many conditions you will still have the whole range of traditional treatments available if what you try doesn't work. In my own case, I had the skin growth for many years, and a few weeks of natural treatment didn't mean I couldn't go to a specialist later if it didn't work. You're allowed to use common sense in your own medical decisions, despite what some doctors might think.

Should we wait until treatments are "proven" by science? It can be a long wait. One problem with the current system is that drug companies can't spend millions to get a natural medicine "approved" by the FDA, because they cannot patent it. So when there are safe and cheap things to try, why wait? What if early French explorers of this continent had waited for proof of Vitamin C before taking the cedar tea the natives offered? They would have all died of scurvy hundreds of years before science caught up with this natural remedy.

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