Medical care has improved greatly in the last century, but even with technological advances it remains far from perfect.
every medicine on the market is like
pros: you’ll stop coughing
cons: you might die
(via chronicillnesscat)
Terminology Crash Course: Holistic Medicine
allopathic medicine: mainstream Western ideology and treatment, often with use of pharmacology.
alternative medicine: non-mainstream medical treatment, often with roots in Eastern medicine and philosophy. increasingly accepted by allopathic doctors, however still met with skeptics.
Examples of “alternative” medicine include:
- acupuncture
- cupping
- reiki
- chiropractic
- shiatsu massage
- rolfing
- homeopathy
- naturopathy
- meditation
- yoga
- traditional chinese medicine (TCM)
- and more!
Acronyms Frequently Used:
CAM: Complementary / Alternative Medicine
CIAM: Complementary / Integrative / Alternative Medicine
Complementary refers to Western therapies used alongside Eastern/holistic therapies. I.E., a patient who sees Western doctors for traditional symptomatic treatments and alternative therapies. Parallel treatments.
Integrative refers to a practice or physician who is licensed under Western medical standards and alternative therapies. I.E., a patient who receives pharmacological prescriptions and acupuncture from the same doctor would be seeing an integrative doc.
For the common ailments, a cold, headache, stomach ache or wound, which remedy is actually the best?
(Source: , via chronicallyscrewed)
Doctor prescribes multiple medicines
in combination they cause uncontrollable vomiting
Mom loves me so much, she got me a bigger pill box to fit all my pills. (Taken with instagram)
(via crohns-sucks)
When I saw my face I screamed.
Is it nervous energy? Real hunger? Or side effect of medication?
I love it when medication works but I hate when the side effects are overwhelming.
Sigh
12/19/2011— A new tool designed for more effective treatment plans and better doctor-patient communication.“A new questionnaire that takes into consideration both patient and physician perspectives is designed to detect rheumatoid arthritis flares in between appointments, and also may enable patients to self-detect flare and immediately seek an appointment…”
If only pills looked this pretty……but they are not.
Note: the title is somewhat misleading. There is no indication of when/how/where this vaccine will be released.
12/25-27/2011: New scientific research has come closer to finding the trigger mechanism of autoimmune diseases. Based on nanotechnology and manipulating an enzyme that triggers immunoprocesses to spin out of control, scientists are developing a vaccine that will, hopefully, reach a human clinical trial stage.
So far the results of this vaccine on animals have been successful. One step closer!
For more information: read this second article detailing the science behind the research
“A team of scientists from Stanford University tested 24 subjects who had an arm heated to the point of moderate pain. Rather than rely on the subjects’ self-reported discomfort, the doctors gave the subjects functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans. The brain scans generated brain patterns in the pain-processing centers of the brain, which the doctors recorded. For comparison, the doctors also recorded the participants’ brain patterns when they were not subjected to pain…”
While clearly an MRI is not going to be used to measure our chronic pain, it’s one step closer to better understanding of patient complaints and better than a confusing 1-10 pain scale for multiple types of pain.
Cricoarytenoid Arthritis. Ever heard of it? Most people haven’t. There is a weird silent suggestion that CA is rare, but is it? Not at all. In fact, post-mortem findings from the American College of Rheumatology found that 7 out of every 8 patients show evidence of CA at autopsy.
So what is…
