Osteoarthritis Pain Treatment

How does holistic health care measure up to conventional Western medicine?

With the current turmoil over health care reform, Americans are now resigned to the decisions of Congress, the Senate and the President, who take a great deal of time to reach a consensus on what plan might form a workable solution to the lack of affordable health care options. The lack of options directly affects our health, indeed, at times, becoming a matter of life or death.

What is puzzling, in this supposed health care reform, is the absence, or extreme cutbacks in funding, for a natural approach, using nutritional, herbal and other well-documented, successful corrective therapies. The conventional Western approach to medicine seeks to identify the symptoms of your disease and apply medications which will suppress those symptoms.

Therein lies the rub. Holistic health care seeks to treat the root cause of your condition, eliminating the causes of your condition and thus, rid you of the symptoms and restore you to health.

For example, let’s say you suffer from osteoarthritis pain. You have pain that is sufficient to require pain medication, on a daily basis. From the traditional Western allopathic perspective, a prescription for pain meds is all that can be done to help allay your pain.

On the other hand, from the holistic health care perspective, perhaps you suffer from vitamin and mineral deficiencies which are causing much of the pain.

Osteoarthritis is a condition that mainly affects people over 50. While your doctor may say, “It’s simply a result of a lifetime of wear and tear on the bones and joints”, it seems too coincidental that people over 50 also incrementally lose the ability to readily absorb vitamin B-12. Deficiencies of vitamin B-12 are directly related to muscle pain and stiffness, as well as fatigue and a host of other symptoms.

Some older people also do not get adequate exposure to sunlight, finding it difficult to move around enough to get their natural vitamin D. Deficiencies of vitamin D have been demonstrated to be directly related to bone pain.

The allopathic physician seldom tests blood levels of nutrients, thus missing an opportunity to help solve the real problem. The holistic health care practitioner has a different approach, addressing not only the symptoms, but the level of health in your entire body.

The holistic health care practitioner may prescribe remedial nutrient doses to get you back to normal blood levels, remedying the cause of the pain, to a point where you do not need to take, or require a lower dose of pain medication. Which approach makes more sense to you?

While the government is working on its health care reform package, they certainly should consider the merits of holistic health care, with its ‘can-do’ focus, rather than emphasizing the spiraling costs of health care. Perhaps our population would be more healthy and require fewer expensive medicines. So far as I can tell, the health care reform issue really seems to be one of cost.

Do a little checking for yourself. See how many serious and debilitating conditions are negatively affected by a lack of nutrients. Check out herbal medicines as well. Holistic health care may be one of our best options.

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Holistic nutrition therapy may be just what your doctor should order!

Holistic medicine is fast taking hold in America. More than a third of Americans, queried in random surveys, say that they have used some form of alternative medicine to help what ails them.

It seems that conventional allopathic physicians are starting to take notice of this trend. Holistic nutrition therapy is at the forefront of many doctor’s strategies in dealing with chronic ailments.

While your doctor may not refer you to an acupuncturist, he or she may well be inclined to take a look at your nutritional needs as they may relate to a medical condition you suffer.

Every doctor knows that good nutrition is essential to good health. In fact, your doctor probably spends a good deal of time promoting your healthy eating habits! However, it’s also likely that your doctor is aware of current commercial farming practices, and genetically engineered foods which may be robbing you of the nutrients you should be getting from the foods you buy.

While you may think you’re eating healthful, nutritious food, with plenty of produce and good sources of protein, this may not truly be the case. For example, commercial farming practices tend to leach the soil of trace minerals and certain vitamins. As for genetically engineered foods, who knows? These are strong arguments in favor of holistic nutrition strategies.

Here’s where the holistic approach to health care really comes into its own. Many degenerative diseases which are now epidemic in Western cultures, are exacerbated and sometimes even caused, by vitamin deficiencies, which often go unnoticed in mainstream medical practice. For example, people who suffer from chronic pain may be prescribed a pain medication to ease their suffering. However, the condition causing the pain does not get better, but instead usually gets worse. The pain medication simply masks the pain.

A doctor who sees the value of the holistic nutrition strategy may decide to address the possible root causes of the pain. There are a number of vitamin deficiencies which can result in muscle and joint pain. It’s also known that as we age, we are less able to absorb certain nutrients.

Here’s a case in point: a friend of mine suffers from osteoarthritis pain, osteoporosis and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, experiencing a considerable amount of pain on a daily basis. She got fed up with having to rely on pain medications to alleviate the pain as well as some of the side effects.

After doing a little research on her own, she discovered that a holistic nutrition strategy might just be the answer she was looking for. She talked to her doctor about getting tested for blood levels of certain nutrients which might indicate deficiencies contributing to the pain.

Her doctor ordered lab work which showed rather substantial deficiencies in vitamins D, Folic acid and B-12. The doctor prescribed these vitamins to get her levels back to normal. After a few months of these supplements, her pain has dramatically decreased and she reports feeling more energetic.

Think of it this way: holistic nutrition is sort of like a more sophisticated and intelligent ‘food pyramid’. Eating foods that should be good for you doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting the nutrition you paid for!

If you suffer from a chronic condition, do yourself a favor by doing a little research into holistic nutrition. If you find information that may indicate a nutritional factor that affects your condition, talk to your doctor. The lab work will tell the real story.

Holistic Nutrition Therapy Holistic Nutrition, osteoarthritis pain