Plans For Alternative Medicine
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The seven year boy has already been through chemotherapy and radiation to beat back the leukemia he was diagnosed with five years ago. His parents think that adding herbal remedies, bio energy sessions, magnets in his pillow and mattress, fruit and vegetable drinks and acupuncture is a good idea to help him recover. He has just be able to go through with a bone marrow transplant. Everything that is possible must be done for him, says his mother.
The American Academy of Paediatrics has asked all doctors to try adding treatments which complement the normal course of treatment. Lately the parents like to try Unconventional treatments says a survey. Parents are very interested in helping their children with chronic illnesses or disabilities such as cancer, autism, sickle cell anaemia.
Being concerned is not natural for a physician but that is what he is being advised to do. Can the treatment the patient is using be used as a complementary treatment? Is it good and does it have any benefits? Doctors have to find out. The amount of information found on the internet is one main reason for this change said the paediatric haematologist and oncologist at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters. If the parents are not asked what Alternative medicine they are trying they could withhold the info.
He warns the parents of the risks that maybe involved in the treatment. For instance, he said, folic acid works against a type of medication used in chemotherapy, so a vitamin supplement or diet heavy in folic acid can impair the effects of chemotherapy. He gives the parent total support for deep touch massage, music therapy, or meditation. no detrimental effect is what he looks for in alternative treatment. The parents will try all the possible ways to get their children better.
It is a fact that with the increase of alternative treatments the doctors have to face more complications. The Internet is full of pitches for such treatments many of which are unproven scientifically and difficult to assess. It is quite impossible to find out the ingredients that go into herbal remedies and vitamin supplements for example.
Medical schools are beginning to address the topic of alternative treatments in their curriculums, and some insurance companies will help pay for certain therapies, such as massage or chiropractic care. However the treatments just don’t seem to stop growing. If the parents are going for costly alternative treatments not covered by insurance, the doctor will warn them.
The boy’s mother thinks that without the doctor’s guidance on the alternative treatments, she wouldn’t have been able to do anything. The bone marrow transplant and the fruit and vegetable drink don’t really go together and hence it has been stopped for 3 months. Alternative and complementary therapies have been tried by parents who don’t even have children with serious ailments.
