Exactly. And doctors wonder why people seek their own homeopathic, herbal and alternative health treatments and reject prophylaxis so often.
My ortho's office leave their trade journals on the table for all to read (though I think this has more to do with the fact that some of his patients are doctors). I remember distinctly seeing ads in these journals making the claims that prescription medication aided faster, more complete healing and pain reduction aided in rehabilitation. I remember the slogan most clearly: "Get them better. Prophylax."
Note:
Prophylax means prescribe them drugs.
The even more dangerous piece to this puzzle is that
western medicine is the science of treating symptoms - not treating causes.
Should you arrive at your doctor's office with, let's say, a sore throat, he will see you up to seven or eight times trying to help you relieve your sore throat pain. He'll prescribe painkillers for you before he'll do an x-ray or ultrasound. You could go a year or more before imaging takes place unless what ails you is related to an accident or fall.
Dietary treatment for disease and illness will never occur until you have something *terribly* wrong with you - when you develop blood pressure consistently high for a period of time they may advise you to stop using your salt shaker once your food has been prepared. When you go in with black toes, they will put you on insulin and send you to a dietitian to educate how your diabetic diet will go.
Take, for instance, this blurb on the
ketogenic diet from wikipedia:
Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1998 reported that 50% of those patients starting the ketogenic diet reported a decrease in seizures of 50% or more, with 29% of patients reporting a 90% reduction in symptoms; these patients had previously tried an average of six anticonvulsant drugs.
[9] The success rate on patients who responded to anticonvulsants was not measured in that study (and appears to be lacking in other recent studies as well - there appears to be reluctance to try the diet on subjects except as a last resort). The success rate of the diet on those who are successfully treated with anti-convulsants may be higher, lower, or the same as those who do not respond. It may be that the diet and anti-convulsants are effective on different segments of the population. This has continued to be the statistics today, with approximately half of patients having at least half of their seizures improve. The ketogenic diet has been reported to work in cases where multiple epilepsy drugs have failed. There may also be cases where the ketogenic diet has failed and epilepsy drugs succeeded. When one epilepsy drug fails, there is a high likelihood that other drugs will also fail. When the diet works, the response is often rapid and dramatic.
[9]
Physicians will prescribe and prescribe and excise and excise - in fact, they would sooner perform a hemispherotomy (removal of half of the brain) than prescribe this diet.
My son is on an antidepressant and an antipsychotic. The latter has left him with new permanent nervous tics and even slower speech than he had before, but the medicine was crucial to managing his symptoms.
There are many things wrong with the overprescription of underproved medications. But I think several things have to happen to end this cyclic problem:
1. The medical education system as we know it must change syllabus to include education in dietary health, supplement therapy and some alternative medicines.
2. The drug industry must be opened wide to broad, independent study. The FDA need more staffing to review the plethora of medications now available and investigate research.
3. Treatment approach need be refocused on cause determination rather than symptom relief, and early intervention.
Once we focus on *really* doing no harm, early intervention by less expensive (monetary and health-wise) avenues can be pursued and perhaps fewer medical lawsuits will be on the books.
