You’d be forgiven for believing that medicine was all about drugs and surgery. But its not. As we begin to understand human beings as complex adaptive beings we are beginning to explore holistic approaches to health care. I’m not talking about New Age therapies of any kind. I mean ways of addressing suffering which consider the whole person within the contexts of their life.
Pain Clinics are amongst the most radical in this regard. Chronic pain can ruin lives and despite the best efforts of specialists using the best “evidence based” drugs, many patients still don’t get relief. Those who research pain these days tend to have both holistic and pragmatic views – they know that pain is not about lesions, is not directly proportional to the pathology in the patient’s body and is modified by emotional, psychological and social factors.
A new study of “mind-body” interventions of pain rates these methods as especially suitable for the elderly (because of the dangers inherent in many powerful drugs which are not suitable for patients who are more frail).
But if a therapy for pain is effective at reducing pain why limit it to a specific age group? And why try it last? At the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital where I work we see a lot of patients with chronic pain. We have a notice in the pharmacy – “TEETH” – its stands for “Tried Everything Else? Try Homeopathy!” – because the vast majority of patients we treat have already failed to find relief from all the other more orthodox treatments (drugs and surgery!) I think that it’s a shame people go through the harmful and side-effect laden treatments first – wouldn’t it make more sense to try the safer treatments first and reserve the more dangerous ones for those who don’t get relief from these gentle approaches?
Heroes Not Zombies 
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