| Family Guide to Complementary and Conventional Medicine |
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| Reviewed by Harmonious Living | |
| Wednesday, 28 May 2008 | |
   Representing the growing trend amongst Western medical doctors towards an Integrated Medicine approach, the Family Guide to Complementary and Conventional Medicine is a book for the 21st century family, and one that we think should be in every household.The book is made up of contributions from the world’s top doctors in their fields. Most of us have grown up with conventional medicine. We are now exposed to the myriad complementary approaches that are becoming more prevalent and whose ability to heal the body are becoming more widely understood and valued. The guide helps us to integrate and balance all these approaches in supporting the health of our families. We found this section to be fascinating reading and one of the most well-written, well-researched and certainly reliable descriptions of complementary medicines that we’ve come across. It is also refreshing to read a balanced view of each of the approaches and to know that it isn’t written by a practitioner promoting their therapy as the be all and end all cure to ailments that we sometimes encounter. The bulk of this book is then comprised of health plans for every condition you can think of and is conveniently divided into chapters based on the associated system in the body, such as Skin, Brain & Nervous System, Eyes & Ears, Respiratory System and so on, as well as chapters on Women’s Health (including a separate chapter on Pregnancy & Childbirth), Men’s Health, and Children’s Health. Now this is not a self-diagnosis book, and shouldn’t replace consultation with a qualified professional, but it does provide a list of alternatives and actions you can take to then help complement and support your body’s natural healing ability. I’m sure it is most people’s reaction when opening a book like this one to first look up the ailments that they are currently or have previously suffered from, and we in the HL office are no different. So using the common childhood ailment of Glue Ear as an example (that one of us suffered from, and is a condition we’ll be looking out for as soon-to-be parents), we explored some of its possible causes and read about the Conventional Medicine approach to treating it, and how nutritional therapy (such as food elimination and reducing sugar intake), homeopathy and bodywork therapies could also help in its treatment and prevention. It was certainly reassuring and empowering to discover that there are many other non-invasive approaches to treatment than the surgical approach that Conventional Medicine often recommends. So if you’re someone who can see the relationship between your state of mind and the health of your body, who appreciates that the body has the ability to heal itself but just needs support and encouragement to do so, who sees the value of medicinal treatments beyond the traditional western, then this is a book that will serve you and family well for years to come. |
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