Does Alternative Medicine Cost More Money Or Less For Fibromyalgia?

There are two schools of thought on this issue.  One says that adding insurance coverage for alternative medicine will cost more money because people will use both.  The other says that using alternative medicine saves money because people get less sick and take care of themselves more.  Can we have the drumroll please?  The cost less people win!  Washington state did an analysis of people who had coverage and the people who use alternative medicine cost the insurance companies about $400 dollars less.  Most interesting is that the really sick people cost insurers almost $1500 less per year.  Some of these people had  back pain, fibromyalgia or menopausal symptoms. 

In terms of Fibromyalgia, I went looking for the alternatives for Fibromyalgia on WebMD.  The person writing about Fibromyalgia is an M.D. who happens to have Fibromyalgia.  He's written thirteen books on Fibromyalgia.  He also happens to be "a physician speaker for pharmaceutical companies that make medications used to treat fibromyalgia."  I sense a vague conflict of interest when discussing alternative treatments as primary. Not surprisingly, he doesn't mention dietary change, GABA, DHEA, probiotics, or a range of other likely treatments.  Instead he focuses on a number of antidepressant herbs that are basically milder versions of the antidepressant pharmaceuticals being used.   

In focusing on the antidepressant aspect of treatment, our expert is playing to the "all in your head" phenomenon I see more and more often in chronic diseases.  But the reality is that a range of other factors affect Fibromyalgia patients, including a blunted adrenal response.  A number of different studies support this connection (one is below).  So rather than saying it's all in your head, we should be looking at the rest of the body.  Maybe this is why alternative medicine saves people money.  We look toward the big picture rather than just managing the symptoms. 

J Rehabil Med. 2010 Sep;42(8):765-72.


Evidence of reduced sympatho-adrenal and hypothalamic-pituitary activity during static muscular work in patients with fibromyalgia.

Kadetoff D, Kosek E.

SourceOsher Center For Integrative Medicine, Stockholm Brain Institute, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To assess activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis during static exercise in patients with fibromyalgia.
PATIENTS AND METHODS: Sixteen patients with fibromyalgia and 16 healthy controls performed a static knee extension until exhaustion. Plasma catecholamines, adrenocorticotropic hormone and cortisol, as well as blood pressure and heart rate, were assessed before, during and following contraction. Plasma C reactive protein was analysed at baseline.
RESULTS: Blood pressure and heart rate increased during contraction (p < 0.001) and decreased following contraction (p < 0.001) in both groups alike. Compared with baseline, plasma catecholamines increased during contraction in both groups (p < 0.001), but patients with fibromyalgia had lower levels of plasma adrenaline (p < 0.04) and noradrenaline (p < 0.08) at all times. Adrenocorticotropic hormone increased at exhaustion in controls (p < 0.001), but not in patients with fibromyalgia, who also had lower adrenocorticotropic hormone at exhaustion (p < 0.02) compared with controls. There were no group differences, or changes over time in plasma cortisol. High sensitivity C reactive protein was higher in patients with fibromyalgia compared with controls (p < 0.02).

Ernst Reporting On Colic Alternatives.

Since I can link to Amazon easily from Blogger, I thought I would provide a link to Ernst's book.  He's not an objective observer of alternative medicine, he's one of the outspoken skeptics.  So his reporting on studies involving alternative medicine should not be taken as definitive.  Here's my other report on colic, and my webpage showing his review, a previous review by the same journal, and the evidence in support of alternative medicine. 

Allergies: The Time to Start Treating Is Now

From Allergies Update, at Maloney Medical (all abstracts available there):

Deep winter is the perfect time to start treating for allergies in the spring.  We have a range of different plans that will down regulate the histamine response, but don't wait to start sneezing.  That's like waiting for a flat tire before you go out and get a spare. 

Currently the standard program to desensitize patients involves injections. But the state of the art is now drops under the tongue. “Sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) has been proved to be effective in allergic rhinitis and asthma…New sensitizations appeared in 34.8% of controls and in 3.1% of SLIT patients.  ” But, you ask, is it as effective as the injections? “The mean peak expiratory flow result (how much air you can exhale) was significantly higher in the active group than in the control group after 10 years.

But can I go off my inhaler? Unfortunately, we don’t know, because: “when mild-moderate asthmatic children are optimally controlled by pharmacologic treatment and HDM (human dust mite) avoidance, SLIT does not provide additional benefit, despite a significant reduction in allergic response to HDM. Under such conditions, only a complete, but ethically unfeasible, discontinuation of inhaled corticosteroid would have demonstrated a possible benefit of SLIT.”  It could be dangerous to remove the inhalers, so we’ll keep people on them for life. Of course, the long term effects of steroids…

Has Homeopathy Ever Been Given a Fair Shake?

It seems as if homeopathy is, in the minds of some, a recent phenomena that somehow can be squashed by constantly providing misinformation.  Despite numerous attempts through the centuries, homeopathy is thriving.  Even as critics "squat" on alternative medicine definitions on Wikipedia, the growth of alternative medicine continues.  And poor old beaten up homeopathy may finally have an answer as to why it works. 

The Most In Depth Discussion of Energy Work.

Despite their age, these are still the two most comprehensive books on energy work.  Preparation, explanation of phenomena, basic patient interactions.  I found the second book much more interesting in terms of depth and concepts.  A great deal of what is said dovetails off of the Course in Miracles.  If you make it through all the text at the beginning of that book, then you've got me.  I just skipped to the lessons (spoiler:  we're all one.) 

New Lyme Books

My dear patients have loaned me two Lyme books.  The first, Healing Lyme Disease Naturally, can be broken down to one word:  Teasel.  If you haven't tried it, get the book.  (It might be worth it for the picture of Wolf in the back alone). 

The second book, The Top 10 Lyme Disease Treatments, is a laundry list of a number of different treatments.  I assume the top ten were selected based on popularity.  Teasel, from the book above, gets a paragraph mention as a possible antibiotic. 

In neither book did I see what I've begun to put together from the medical literature.  The concept is that the antigens from the spirochete interact with the immune system so that continuing Lyme symptoms have much more to do with autoimmune response than continuing spirochete counts. 

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Alchemist reminded me of this earlier work, which is better as a book than as a movie.  That is saying a lot, since the movie is very hot, but you can't translate the sense of the book's ethereal nature into a movie.  The movie is a tragedy, but the book somehow avoids that sense. 

Mercola's Journey

If you look at Mercola's journey, he has moved from conventional to unconventional medicine for the sake of his patients.  Mercola's discussion of his journey.  So many doctors haven't taken the time to examine not just how they practice, but the overall picture of how to truly get their patients well.