Integration of orthodox and alternative medicine

[elettaria]

NHS urged to reject homoeopathyGood. They've been researching it for years, and there's never any evidence that it's an improvement on placebo, nor that the underlying theory is sound. I can think of a number of complementary therapies which the NHS would do well to fund, but I'm talking about the ones which work, which are backed up by a solid

Comments

[elfbystarlight]

While I generally agree with all you've said, I have to point out that lavender oil and sleeping tablets are about as far apart on the 'making you sleep' scale as two things can be. :) Vetivert EO with lavender *arguably*, valerian herb *arguably* are close-ish to the effect of sleeping tablets - but honestly, speaking as a life-long student of such things... lavender EO is about as mild an aid as you can get after chamomile tea, and sleeping tablets the strongest. You certainly wouldn't use the two interchangeably.

[elettaria]

It depends what you're trying to treat. You have insomnia of the sort which seems to resist pretty much everything. A lot of people, however, just need to improve their sleep hygiene and will do fine with something mild, especially if they get into a nice little routine taking it, but are automatically handed strong sleeping tablets. The scale thing applies elsewhere: tiger balm is great stuff, but I don't think it'll see you through major surgery. The major surgery degree of pain is a less common reason for needing pain relief overall, though.

Of course, another issue is cost, which I didn't go into and which complicates matters hugely. Sending someone off for a course of aromatherapy treatments is probably not financially possible on the NHS. Still, I'm sure they could manage more integration than they do now.

[elfbystarlight]

I was speaking on a general scale, not on how they affect me. No matter what way you look at it, lavender EO and prescription sleeping tablets aren't comparable. It's like comparing aspirin and mophine. Same idea, opposite ends of the scale (and if doctors occasionally give morphine when they should give aspirin, it still doesn't make them the same).

Most GPs don't hand out sleeping tablets like that. There probably are a few who do, but with most of them you have to fight for them, or at the very least try all the other available options.

[elettaria]

I've had doctors hand out sleeping tablets like candy, more than one GP as well. Yes, they're on different ends of the scale, but my point is that there are plenty of people whose needs would be met by stuff on the EO end of things who get prescribed stuff stronger than they need. This happens in other areas too, over-prescription of antibiotics has been a concern for a long time. It's obviously not going to make a difference in cases where they really do need the stronger stuff, but that's not all cases.

Incidentally, I found an article the other day which was talking about aromatherapy and these sorts of issues. It was citing the use of tea tree oil to treat yeast infections and similar. Apparently it was doing very well, and the researcher commented that

"Tea-tree oil is far weaker and acts much more slower than synthetic drugs. But it does have two advantages - it kills multi-resistant strains and it has a broad spectrum

[elfbystarlight]

I haven't heard that story, but I have to say I'm pretty skeptical as well. I can't imagine anyone who's ever worked in a lab doing that - the odds are far too high that the vat will be something like sulphuric acid. I could buy an accidental spillage, perhaps.

[elettaria]

Maybe he was doing research specifically on Really Mild Liquids? It's odd, the story turns up in loads of aromatherapy textbooks.

[elettaria]

While I'm bitching about the NHS, it could really do with making better use of pharmacists and nurses, both of which aren't valued and used as they should be. Not to mention stopping this nonsense with working junior doctors to death (or rather, to the deaths of patients being treated by someone severely sleep-deprived). I don't know if you know, but they finally spotted that junior doctors were working horrific hours and took the most ludicrous measures to deal with it. They put a cap on how many hours the junior doctors could work. They didn't throw any more doctors or other staff in to do the rest of the work, so what happens now is that junior doctors work as many hours as they did before, but on their timesheets it says that they work within the legal maximum, meaning that they're only getting paid for around two-thirds of their work.

[elfbystarlight]

Yes on the pharmacists/nurses thing, but on the other hand I seem to run into a lot of pharmacists who seem to be frustrated wanna-be doctors - my favourite so far is the one who insisted I was going to get major organ failure from lucozade tablets and when I asked for his opinion on a replacement, instead gave me an hour-long lecture on how eating a mediterranean diet would cure my ME. (Without asking me what I ate, or giving me the chance to point out that except for the chicken, I ate more or less what he was describing already.)

Here there's an NHS walk-in centre, which is staffed by nurses and was set up specifically to deflect a lot of the basic stuff away from the GPs. I don't know how well it works, but the doctors like it and it's still going, so it must be doing something right.

[elettaria]

I had a nurse practitioner tell me all about how her husband was miraculously cured of ME by Knicker Mickel Reverse Therapy. I couldn't run away, because she was removing a mole from my neck at the time. Some people are just like that, I think.

The main thing with pharmacists is that they're the ones who really know how the drugs work, doctors don't have time to keep up with everything regarding new drugs. I think the NHS has finally noticed that hey, pharmacists and nurses are useful, more of these sorts of things seem to be springing up. Of course you then get people who insist on being seen by a doctor, preferably a specialist, for something really mild that is easily within the limits that a pharmacist or nurse can handle, my mother's a bit like that. I usually just point out that better use of resources like this generally results in better treatment.