K
Khalid
Guest
An osteopath isn’t a medical professional, unless they’re a D.O., which is like an MD but with a more holistic (meaning mind, body, and soul, not the common conception of “homeopathy” or “natural medicine”) approach.
Western medicine, like most everything else Western, is evidence-based and the best available. Western doctors are trained in all legitimate medical sciences in their field; as a GP, a little of everything; as an allergist, a focus on allergies, and as a neurosurgeon, focus on brain anatomy. It is patently untrue to say that “Western doctors are ill trained in X”, and then go on to claim X to be a valid, useful, and efficacious treatment.
Allergic reactions are very well defined in terms of actual, legitimate medicine. Migraine headaches are not caused by any sort of allergy. “Allergy”, in “natural” or “homeopathic” medicine, on the other hand, is a catch-all term for “spend your money here, I’ll promise a cure, modern Western society is bad and is poisoning you with fluoride and aspartame”.
“Alternative medicine”, by and large, is another word for quackery. I don’t discount the placebo effect, but that’s all it is. “Experimental medicine” is something else completely (i.e. the implanting of electrodes in the brain to help depression), but it is just that - experimental, and has not been tested rigourously for safety, efficacy, etc.; in time, experimental medication becomes mainstream if it works. Alternative medicine is one of those things that never becomes mainstream, because it’s already been tested and rejected by the body of research (and sometimes practising) physicians. Sometimes quacks like to call their practise now, “complementary medicine” instead of “alternative medicine”, but complementary medicine is also a separate discipline, which involves things such as TENS in addition to opioids for back pain, psychotherapy in addition to methadone for heroin addiction, light therapy in addition to anti-depressants for seasonal depression, cognitive-behavioural therapy in addition to benzodiazepines for panic attacks, spiritual and psychological counselling and guidance in many conditions, so on and so forth: an adjunct medication or treatment which is used to supplement, in a complementary fashion, the main treatment, usually with an eye to a more total, more speedy, or longer-lasting remission of symptoms, or a decrease in reliance on certain addictive medications. What some quacks today call “complementary medicine” is not - true complementary medicine is recognised by the body of practising physicians - but is at best worthless and at best harmful, such as homeopathy, chiropracty, etc.
However, this is not to discount the insights of a legitimate medical specialist in a certain field as opposed to the preliminary diagnosis of a general practitioner. This is why one receives “referrals”. A general practitioner doesn’t known the ins and outs of psychiatry: he knows enough to know (hopefully, as some have large egos that get in the way of this) when to say, “this is a case for a psychiatrist: here’s a name and telephone number”. The same would be said for a neurologist treating epilepsy, in comparison to a general practitioner attempting to treat it, or an opthamologist treating an issue with eyesight, etc.
On the other hand, you wouldn’t want an ear-nose-and-throat doctor treating cancer, or an oncologist treating ulcers - some well-intentioned quackery comes from when a professional attempts to apply knowledge from their area of expertise, to generalise it to all areas, or another area, that he is not an expert in. Some quackery comes from just not knowing, and being a conspiracy theorist with a God-shaped void that needs to be filled, or an unabashed worship of Mammon. Some still further comes from people who have become disciples of the latter listed above, and do not have the necessary personal requisite knowledge, and are too ignorant to see, or refuse to see, that what they are doing is not helpful.
Just about the only other treatments that I am aware of for migraine headaches are opioids (which engender a strong physical and oftentimes psychological dependency, and grow weaker with prolonged use, and cause rebound headaches), butalbital and caffeine (even more addictive than the opioids, as it’s a barbiturate, and also causes rebound headaches), and an entire class of drugs called “triptans”, which are distant structural relatives to tryptamine, melatonin, and hallucinogenic drugs: they do not cause dependency or rebound headaches. However, true specialists (who have gone to a fully-accredited 8-10 year medical programme and are in good standing with a legitimate and acknowledge board of peers in whatever field it is they practise in) may know of more.
If you’ve tried triptan drugs and they don’t work, and hormonal treatments do, it sounds like for the time being the hormonal treatments are the only available efficacious option.
However, I am not a medical doctor and do not attempt to, and can not, issue medical advise. For any questions relating to health, see a qualified medical doctor (one that’s an “MD” or a “DO”, not a naturopath, or homeopath, or osteopath, or an acupuncturist, or chriopractopath, et alia) or pharmacist, if the issue deals with drugs, or an ordained priest, if the issue deals with spiritual health, or a dentist, if it has to do with the dentition or gingiva, or a veterinarian if it has to do with your pet.
The contraceptive effects of taking ABC for medical reasons are obviously the impediment to procreation that “is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever”, but when we KNOW that ABC is abortifacient (which wasn’t an issue when Humanae Vitae was written), we need to make moral decisions in light of this knowledge, and not ignore the fact that hormonal contraceptives can kill a viable human life. This is not an issue if one is not engaging in sexual intercourse.