Conventional medicine vs alternative medicine

When it comes to the treatment of diseases and health conditions, or simply a healthier life, there are two options available: conventional medicine and alternative medicine. Both of them have the same goal – physical wellness, but are essentially different. It wouldn’t be fair to say one is better than the other one.

Effectiveness

Conventional medicine is excellent in emergency/casualty type care and whenever one has to overcome life-threatening situations. Conventional medicine is the only choice whenever a patient needs a quick fix: after a car accident, if a patient’s heart fails, when patient’s arteries are clogged with cholesterol, etc.

On the other hand, when an emergency situation is settled, patient may turn to the long time healing: a proper diet to sort out the cardiovascular problems, for example, or relaxation techniques to manage stress better.

Treatments

Conventional medicine usually treats symptoms but not the underlying causes. The traditional medicine doesn’t investigate the reasons why a particular individual suffers from certain health problem. Conventional therapist will prescribe certain drugs or surgery to help the patient but will not treat the actual cause of the problem.Conventional medicine treats body in parts and not as a whole.

Alternative medicine, on the other hand, treats the body is an integrated system of complex interactions. Alternative medicine, furthermore, approaches the patient by focusing on the cause and the very origins of the symptoms. The goal is to cure the root of the disease and prevent future diseases. Alternative medicine reaches this goal by restoring optimum function to the interrelated system as a whole. In most of the cases alternative treatment produces a whole lot more benefits to an individual, because the body reacts to the treatment as a whole.

Drugs and remedies

Drugs are chemicals and foreign matters in the body and they just provoke the reaction that diminishes symptoms of the disease. On the other hand, there is a significant financial value for manufacturers because owner of the patented drugs sells the drug at the high price. Natural remedies, used in alternative medicine, are found in the nature and they can’t be patented so the price is always competitive and they are always available. Alternative medicine treatments are, also, rarely associated with complications and side-effects. Conventional medicine, especially drugs, often provokes further complications that also require medical treatment that may sometimes be very expensive unless the person has an excellent health care plan, and even in such a case, the bills could be quite enormous.