East, West and Wellness:
How to Talk to Your Doctor About Alternative Therapies
This is part 3 of a three-part series about partnering with your doctor to choose alternative medicine.
You can find part 1 here.
Find part 2 here.
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Some medical professionals have begun to embrace the concept of integrative medicine. “Integrative” means they draw treatment recommendations from the best of conventional medicine, like drugs or surgery, together with complementary or alternative approaches to medicine (CAM), like acupuncture, meditation or herbal remedies.
However, most doctors don’t know enough about specific CAM therapies and therefore aren’t willing to integrate them. That frustrates many patients and creates a communications disconnect. We need a way to both be honest with our providers and to feel as if our interest isn’t just being dismissed.
Some providers have no interest in learning more. No matter what you say or do, they won’t engage in the conversation. If that happens, and you are adamant about trying an alternative therapy, then you’ll need to decide whether it’s time to find a new, integrative doctor.
But if you have a good relationship with your current doctor, you may want to see if he would be willing to learn more. Here’s a way to accomplish that:
You will need to introduce the concept. Your doctor won’t have the time or inclination to learn on his own. During an appointment, ask if he would be willing to explore possibilities with you.
If yes, then learn everything you can about alternative or complementary therapies appropriate to your medical problem. But beware! Most CAM books and Web sites are not credible and some may even be criminal. The most credible place to start is the government’s CAM website, http://nccam.nih.gov . Find additional, credible CAM Web sites at http://tinyurl.com/CAMresources .
The reason many doctors don’t recommend CAM to their patients is because evidence is lacking to prove their success. So that’s the key -- finding CAM therapies that are evidence-based. Without that evidence, your doctor probably won’t be supportive.
Once you have found a therapy that you believe will help you, and have reviewed the evidence to support it, record your source or copy the information to take to your next appointment. But don’t just hand your findings over to your doctor. Instead engage him in a discussion. If he asks for your sources, then you can give the materials to him.
Together the two of you can determine next steps. You will have kept your partnership intact, and created a win-win situation where both of you have learned something new about a possibility for improving your health.
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