Cards on the table: I’m not much for alternative medicine. That’s not to say there isn’t comfort, even healing, in herbal teas, reflexology, chiropractic and the like. As my doctor friend Frank says, “Hey, I like a massage as much as the next guy.” I just don’t think it can cure asthma. Not yet, anyway. Research into alternative therapies? All for it. Herbs are just drugs in green leafy form. But I’m always wary of its practitioners. I don’t know why I should trust someone pushing vitamins and practicing iridology more than one who graduated from Johns Hopkins’ med school. That’s all.
That said, I think even someone who’s less skeptical than I am could be dismayed at the news that Coretta Scott King died not at home or in a hospital close to home, but in a Mexican cancer clinic in Baja California. How sad.
Dorothy said on February 2, 2006 at 11:03 am
Here in Greenville they had someone reporting live at the airport when the plane carrying Mrs. King’s body arrived the other morning. That’s when I heard she had died in Mexico. My husband knew, which is weird because I’m the newshound of the family. That was sad to think she died there.
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Jenny said on February 2, 2006 at 11:51 am
Why is this sad? My son was diagnoised in 1991 with brain cancer, an astrocytoma, grade 4 at the age of 13, he was given three months to live. He received alternative therapy in a Tijuana, Mexico. Within one year his cancer was gone. He had his MRI’s in the states, read here, and they were totally amazed, and then had me arrested for child abuse, child endangerment and child neglect. How sad is that?
He is now a happy, healthy, successful 28 year old!
Is alternative therapy for everyone? No. Is it 100% successful? No. I believe all American’s should have freedom of choice in what treatments are available. All of them. Not just three, surgery, chemo, and radiation. Not to be decided by the American Medical Association, The Federal Drug Administration, and the drug company’s. Give me of the treatments that are out there, pros and cons, and let me make my own choice.
I have been witness to many success story’s from people that received treatment in Mexico. The success of alternative therapies is the individual person’s biological response to the particular therapy and how ill the patient was when they decided to seek treatment in Mexico. The most successful reports are from those that did not receive chemo or radiation in the states.
I have been involved in helping cancer patients from all over the world in finding the help they are seeking.
It is a shame that they are forced to seek treatment so far away from their home and their loved ones. How sad is that?
Jenny Hauf
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John said on February 2, 2006 at 11:56 am
Steve McQueen…I thought of him when I heard about Mrs. King.
I just watched The Magnificent Seven (Netflix) a few weeks ago and remembered how much I love watching him. It has been 25 years since he died.
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mary said on February 2, 2006 at 12:25 pm
I thought it was very sad that Mrs. King was in Mexico looking for a miracle. It is understandable that people can get desperate, though, and grasp at any hope there might be.
I believe in one and only one herbal remedy. Ginger. Ginger kept me from barfing my way through pregnancy number 2, and has helped me get the kids through bouts of stomach crud many times. I recommended it to a sick Macy’s colleague who’s med were making him nauseated, and it worked like a charm. Even smelling it can stifle a wave of quease for me.
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Colleen said on February 2, 2006 at 1:25 pm
“Mythbusters” actually did a test of seasickness remedies, and found that the ginger really DID work…even better than Dramamine….which I understand doesn’t make you “unseasick” as much as it makes you sleep so you don’t notice you’re queasy.
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mary said on February 2, 2006 at 1:39 pm
I’m telling you, ginger is amazing stuff. My OB was Chinese, and she recommended it to all her patients. Maybe all that prenatal ginger explains my sons’ proclivity towards stealing my ginger from sushi plate. I swear they both like beans because I ate beans and rice for lunch nearly every day while I was pregnant.
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Laura said on February 2, 2006 at 1:53 pm
I understand your feelings about alt. med., but in the past few years it has evolved. Most US medical authorties (NIH, AMA, etc.) now endorse (some) alternative practices as practical compliments to Western medicine. Heck, the NIH even has an altenative medicine department: http://nccam.nih.gov/
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Dorothy said on February 2, 2006 at 1:55 pm
“It is a shame that they are forced to seek treatment so far away from their home and their loved ones. How sad is that?”
That is exactly what I meant, Jenny. Sad that she had to be away from her home in her attempts to find a cure.
My mom always gave us ginger ale when we were sick. “Sip it slowly!” she would say. I’m not at all surprised to hear Mary and Colleen say such positive things about ginger.
I can’t drink ginger ale anymore, though, because it reminds me of being sick. Mint ginger ale, on the other hand, is the bomb!
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Danny said on February 2, 2006 at 2:02 pm
Jenny, thanks for your story and the needed perspective it gives us.
Alternative medicince has its place. And homepathic remedies have their place too. Especially when one considers the state of traditional medicine in the US. Many doctors are simply pill pushers. Some are getting kickbacks in one way or another from a drug company. Many are just too disinterested or busy to keep up with the latest or to reflect upon the possible fallacy of established paradigms in current practice. Look at the number of prescriptions some people are on. Please.
Another point. My aunt recently passed at 88. She was in nursing home for the final weeks after her stroke. You know what the caregivers did? Milked the insurance by giving her a bunch of tests that she did not need. My uncle said she was practically on her death bed (had stopped eating and drinking) and they wanted to get a few more CAT scans and a few more eye tests.
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nancy said on February 2, 2006 at 2:45 pm
My aunt recently passed at 88. She was in nursing home for the final weeks after her stroke. You know what the caregivers did? Milked the insurance by giving her a bunch of tests that she did not need. My uncle said she was practically on her death bed (had stopped eating and drinking) and they wanted to get a few more CAT scans and a few more eye tests.
This happened to my father, and I agree — bad, stupid, a waste of money. On the other hand, you could make the argument that it’s also what happened to Mrs. King, who was, after all, 78 years old and still recovering from a serious stroke she had in December. Add advanced ovarian cancer to the mix and her family should have been thinking hospice and palliative pain treatment, not miracle cures in Mexico.
The best doctors will tell you they never rule out miracles, that people get better against staggering odds, that they don’t really know why this therapy works on him and not her, that they’re all, to some extent, fumbling in the dark. And I know that they, like newspapers, are responsible to some extent for the mistrust many patients have. But I’ve know many, many more good doctors than bad ones, and none who didn’t care about their patients.
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mary said on February 2, 2006 at 4:16 pm
There are also families who want every test done right up to the end. If a doctor does not take every measure, perform every test possible, there are people who claim their loved one was left to die. Personally I agree about the uneccessary tests. If I was the one with end stage cancer and a stroke, I would just want to be kept as comfortable as possible in a peaceful place.
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Mindy said on February 2, 2006 at 4:18 pm
My alt. med. practitioner has pulled my ass out of the fire so many times when MDs could only scratch their chins in bewilderment that I now value his life above my own.
Over two years ago on a Saturday morning I suffered what I thought was a terrible heart attack complete with crushing chest pain and shooting pains in my left arm and jaw. Had I experienced an elevated heart rate I would have high-tailed it to the ER for sure. But since I’d had so many bad experiences with MDs I decided to wait until Tuesday when I had an appointment scheduled with the alt. med. guy. He sent me to a cardiologist as a precaution and told me to return in six weeks. I was to eat two heaping tablespoonsful of raw organic whole wheat flour stirred in applesauce to get it down and two apricots three times a day during that time.
At the cardiologist’s office I ran on the treadmill after glueing ten electrodes to my chest, drank the icky clear liquid required for an x-ray, and subjected myself to all sorts of other tests. The doctor concluded that the pain was all in my head and offered me a prescription for Prozac. Declining it, I returned to the alt. med. guy. He informed me that I had a virus in my heart and that it was very active. The whole wheat and apricots contained a large spectrum of antioxidants which helped to combat it. He also mentioned that viruses were responsible for fifty percent of all heart transplants. (Feel free to Google that.) After two months of supplements and lots of fearful doubt, I was free of all chest pain. All for the princely sum of $75.
Earlier this year I had a sinus infection that made a loaded gun look like a suitable cure. The alt. med. guy took care of it without any sort of antibiotic. Twenty bucks.
I could go on and on and on. While I am sorry to hear about Mrs. King, I can see her motivation.
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brian stouder said on February 2, 2006 at 4:48 pm
“…crushing chest pain and shooting pains in my left arm and jaw. Had I experienced an elevated heart rate I would have high-tailed it to the ER for sure. But since I’d had so many bad experiences with MDs I decided to wait until Tuesday when I had an appointment scheduled with the alt. med. guy.”
Well, I never argue with success – and if a person hasn’t anything nice to say, then that person should hold their tongue (so to speak) – so –
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Jen said on February 3, 2006 at 8:36 am
>
Well actually…neither can traditional medicine. Even the drug companies don’t advertise a cure; they call it managing asthma. So, if I’m using massage therapy to mitigate the degree and severity of my daughter’s symptoms, and still keeping her rescue inhaler handy, where does that put me on this spectrum?
“there is far more in heaven or earth than is dreamt of in [any of our] philosophies.”
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Jen said on February 3, 2006 at 8:47 am
I just don’t think it can cure asthma.
Well actually…neither can traditional medicine. Even the drug companies don’t advertise a cure; they call it managing asthma. So, if I’m using massage therapy to mitigate the degree and severity of my daughter’s symptoms, and still keeping her rescue inhaler handy, where does that put me on this spectrum?
“there is far more in heaven or earth than is dreamt of in [any of our] philosophies.”
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