Alternative Medicine and Me

To Use or Not to Use, that was My Quandry

As I sat at home, in the dark, I had to make a decision, despite the pounding in my head of yet another migraine. Do I go to the clinic and get yet another migraine medication? (many don't work for me). Do I go to the emergency room for a shot which I know will work, but will have side affects that I am not particularly fond of, not to mention my hatred of needles? Do I go to the chiropractor and hope that the cause of my headache was a simple misalignment in my neck, which could be easily fixed and once fixed would hopefully ease the pain? Or do I go to the massage therapist, hoping that the headache would back off it's hold if the muscles in my neck and back weren't as tight as a violin string?

It was, all in all, a decision that can be quite hard to make, even when one's head doesn't feel as if it is trying it's hardest to imitate a base drum. There are many treatment options out there, even more so when one considers conventional medicine and alternative medicine. For some the decision is quite easy, it's falls under a strong belief in one or the other. For some it comes down to what works. Frankly, I have found that many don't really
even understand where the lines fall and what alternative medicine even is.

So, what exactly is alternative medicine? For many hearing those words might bring with them mental images such as some oddly dressed person mumbling hard to understand sounds and waving smoke around. Which, I suppose might be the tenet of some form of alternative medicine, but it certainly isn't a good grasp on what it really is. When it comes down to it, many people already utilize some alternative medicine and don't even realize it. Even my ultra-traditional and conservative granny does.