Diabetes and Complimentary Alternative Medicine Therapies
Diabetes is one of the public health concerns which have affected many people all over the world, despite the recent advances in the field of medicine, care and management. It has been a burden to a lot of people, not only is it damaging to the people suffering from it but also damaging in terms of money. Having diabetes could lead to financial problems, as it needs to be supported and maintained by medications and treatments.
Because of this, people thought of ways on how they’d be able to deal with diabetes other ways the normal doctor-medication approach. What they discovered is the Complimentary and Alternative Medicine therapies (CAM) for treating Diabetes. They found out that CAM therapies are as equally helpful in fighting diabetes as compared to medications and other medical treatments. In various researches, it was found that there is a variety of CAM therapies available in the present.
These include acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, herbal remedies, high-dose megavitamins, solitary prayer or spiritual practices, intercessory prayer or spiritual healing by others, commercial diet programs, self-help groups, relaxation/meditation, lifestyle diets, guided imagery, massage, energy healing, folk remedies, biofeedback, naturopathy, yoga, hypnosis, osteopathy, and aromatherapy (Garrow & Egede, 2006; Yeh, Eisenberg, Davis, & Phillips, 2002).
These therapies are widely used not only for diabetes, but for other forms of physical problems as well, including heart disease, kidney disease, cancer, digestive conditions, allergies, depression, and many more. According to Yeh, et al, 57% of their respondents reported CAM use for the past year, and 35% used CAM specifically for diabetes (Yeh et al. , 2002). Several researches were conducted to test the efficiency of these complimentary alternative medicine therapies.
They were tested on people suffering from different types of diabetes, and whether they have any effect in the person taking the CAM therapy. These CAM therapies were then compared to the traditional way of dealing with diabetes, which is through medicines. These researchers wished to know whether these CAM therapies are actually working to help people with Diabetes problems instead of giving them false hopes that they are going to be cured. One of the notable characteristics of these CAM therapies is that it does not rip you off financially.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be something ingested, it could be a mental conditioning process, an exercise fitness regimen, or a mixture of foreign methods of healing other people. Traditional methods were more on drinking pills, consulting a doctor and having treatments. With CAM therapies, you can do anything you want and still be curing yourself. Also, there are several CAM therapies one could choose from and it doesn’t have to be the same thing over and over again.
However, the results of these CAM therapies are not that immediate, as compared to taking medications, wherein you know what time its effect will last or wear off. But still, it is not advisable to replace the conventional way of treating diabetes with unproven CAM therapies (National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2005). As much as possible, make sure that a CAM therapy is proven to be effective before trying it out. Based on the researches, those who used CAM for diabetes were all satisfied with it and found the therapies to be generally helpful.
Also, these CAM therapies are not just for taking care of diabetes, it is used in treating other conditions. It is also dependent on which group of people uses what types of CAM. There were those who uses prayer, vitamins, exercise, meditation, herbs, music therapy and many more (Cuellar, Aycock, Cahill, & Ford, 2003). It does not limit a person to one type of therapy alone, but wide range of treatment for those who are suffering from diabetes. One implication of this is the realization that it can give to health care providers, since many people are satisfied with CAM therapies.
On a research conducted by Cuellar, et al, it is recommended that health care providers must be aware that people using CAM are satisfied with their use (Cuellar et al. , 2003). Perhaps these health care providers would consider offering them to more patients who needs it, and introducing it to those who doesn’t know anything about it yet. In the advent of technology, there are still those people who prefer the old ways than the new ways. This does not only include our preferences, but also how we treat and solve our problems.
One example is the famed diabetes, known to have afflicted serous problems to millions of people worldwide. We should not limit ourselves to medicines and other types of treatment. We can always go back to the way nature intended us to be, that’s why we could solve this matter by going back to what are directly provided by our environment. Complimentary Alternative Medicine Therapies is not about how weird you a cure could be; instead it should be about how useful it would be to those needing it.
