Alternative medicine or conventional medicine. There's no need to choose.

Herbs or anti-inflammatories? Muscle relaxants or acupuncture? Antidepressants or Reiki? Alternative medicine is becoming mainstream and the limitations of conventional medicine are well-known. Yet, finding unbiased guidance on melding alternative therapies with conventional ones is tough. Your acupuncturist touts acupuncture. Your Reiki Master pushes Reiki, and your herbalist praises his powerful teas.

Good luck to the patient navigating this tangled forest who seeks guidance from his busy primary care doctor. He is likely to encounter barely hidden eye rolling but is unlikely to get much practical advice. Often the best that such a patient can hope for is tolerance, but some won’t even get that.

Many doctors patronize these patients, or even openly criticize their choices. Patients may find themselves straddling two philosophies of care: the holistic, intuitive, alternative world on one side and the technical, scientific, linear world on the other side. Can these disparate world-views be united? Can they at least play in the sandbox together?

Medical science can be gloriously effective. It can snatch you back from death’s clutches, replace broken body parts and fight off relentless infectious invaders. It is just what you want after a brutal car accident or to treat your bacterial meningitis. I have seen unsuspected illnesses discovered by fancy scans, and lives saved by powerful medicines or skillful surgeons.

Conventional medicine has a tremendous amount to offer us, and we should not take its gifts for granted. Yes, it is expensive and invasive. Yes, physicians race through visits and rely heavily on their prescription pads. Yet, we must remember that children used to die of scarlet fever and be crippled by polio – tragedies that our children will escape thanks to medical science.

There is unquestionable value in conventional medicine, but it is not all-powerful. What about the people with fibromyalgia or multiple sclerosis? Not to mention patients suffering from tension headaches, chronic fatigue syndrome, and interstitial cystitis. For some illnesses, medical science is impotent. The scans are normal and the medicines are swallowed, but still the patients suffer. Some illnesses require a softer touch -- perhaps a balancing of energy, a gentle realignment, an understanding of subtlety, attention to the breath.

So which is better--alternative or “regular” medicine? They are both good on their own, but together they can be great. We, champions of either conventional or alternative medicine, must not become too attached to our own dogma. There is no need to choose between these two complementary philosophies of care. Blind faith in the medical model is passe and alternative medicine is no longer just for new age devotees.

The key to health and healing is integration. Rather than pitting surgery against homeopathy or psychiatric medicines against mind-body therapies, we should appreciate the unique gifts of each. Why not drink from both cups? Take medications for your hypertension, for example, but also try massage, acupuncture and yoga to decrease your stress and relax your blood vessels. This is the holistic way. It’s the integrated way. This is the way of the future.
Topics: alternative medicine , reiki , acupuncture , homeopathy , holistic , medicine