Re: Betty Cammack - Bernadette

[Guest guest]

I also had never heard of EDS before and I think doctors just aren't

trained to recognize it because it is a syndrome. It never dawns on

them to assess the whole picture. The specialization in gastric,

orthopedic, thoracic etc. blocks out what is happening in other

systems. One can see why patients are interested in holistic

medicine.

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Good observation. It is also a very tidy summary of one of the most

crtical problems with typical " western/conventional " healthcare.

In the medical field " real " doctors are called allopaths. To them,

anything else is frequently considered fringe, quackery, pick your

choice of derogatory, mud-slinging names. Holistic practitioners

are NOT considered doctors. This is not just a mind-set. It is

typically codified in the laws governing the practice of medicine,

which are written by allopaths. I have posted on this before, but

the problem goes back over 100 years in the United States and it all

has to do with competition and money.

And the problem has only gotten worse in recent years. You just

don't see the old-time, general practice, family doctor anymore.

Allopathic medicine has become increasingly specialized - eye, ear,

nose and throat; orthopedic; pediatric; cardiac; etc.

Two things happen with specializaton. The first is that the

specialist lacks the broad, multi-disciplinary training to function

in areas outside of their specialty. Consequently, when you go to a

specialist, they are going to direct your treatment according to

what they know.

As for allopathic training in general, western/conventional medicine

is geared toward either surgery or drugs. There is also a definite

financial issue involved with the pharmaceutical approach. It takes

very little time to write out a prescription compared to

actually " doing " something. Even for osteos and chiros, it takes

relatively little time to do a quick thrust adjustment compared to

doing less invasive but more time consuming techniques. Again,

follow the money.

Too frequently with drug intervention, all it is is suppression

therapy. It is not curing anything. It is just masking the pain or

symptoms. To the extent that it makes life bearable for the patient,

there is value in this. There is value as long as the doctor and

patient realize what is happening or not happening.

It is true for other things as well, but soft tissue issues very

commonly involve symptoms in areas unrelated to the CAUSE of the

problem. Two perfect examples are myofascial restrictions and

trigger points. Both involve pain or dysfunction symptoms in areas

unrelated to the cause. Few doctors are trained in either of these.

TMJ issues are another example. There can be many causes for TMJ

and some of them have nothing to do with the mouth. Braces, guards,

grinding down teeth, and even more drastic orthodontic procedures,

are not all that effective if the problem is a jammed coccyx or

misalignment of the temporal-parietal suture in the skull. They

might fix the symptoms but they don't fix the cause.

Things get even more interesting when you start discussing problems

with other systems or internal organs.

There is a real irony with some of Eastern or holistic approaches.

Where Western medicine is symptom driven (often completing missing

the actual cause), the so-called alternative and complimentary

therapies tend to look at not the BODY as a whole, but the PERSON as

a whole. That is why they are categorized as Body-Mind-Spirit

therapies.

The irony relates to some of the traditional nutritional and

particularly herbal treatments. Because they look at the person as

a whole, they also recognize that it is not always A = B when it

comes to cause and effect, problem and symptom. Five different

patients could go to a holistic/eastern medicine practioner with

identical symptoms and come out with five different diagnoses and

five different treatment plans. As an example, it might be IBS in

all five cases. But the reasons for the IBS might be different for

all five, requiring different treatments for all five.

This makes it very difficult to identify specific ingredients that

can then be synthesized, patented, and marketed at high profits.

The result is no financial incentive for research and development.

It's late - time to get off my soap box. But you really do make a

very valid point.