Alternative medicine
9 Good Reasons to See an Integrative Health Doctor
Nov 29, 2024 | 4:10 AM
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Here’s why an integrative health specialist may be right for you.
Integrative medicine is an approach to healthcare that looks at the whole person, rather than just a specific disease or symptom. Doctors specializing in this approach combine conventional medical therapies, like medications and surgery, with alternative and complementary therapies and lifestyle changes, such as nutrition, exercise, stress management, hypnosis, meditation, acupuncture, herbs, yoga, massage and more. The result is a holistic approach that may be very effective in disease prevention and treating chronic health conditions.
Here are 9 reasons why it may be beneficial to see a doctor who specializes in integrative health:
- It treats the whole person. Rather than just focusing on specific symptoms or diseases, integrative medicine considers many factors that affect your health. This includes your physical health as well as your behavioral, mental, emotional and spiritual health.
- It focuses on making you healthier overall. Integrative health specialists promote overall health and well-being. In this way, the goal is to prevent disease rather than waiting to treat it. This may lessen your need for doctors, medications, surgeries or other conventional therapies.
- It is personalized. Every person is different, and so is every person’s journey to optimal health. Integrative health practitioners pay attention to your wants and needs and work alongside you to consider all appropriate therapies, whether conventional or alternative.
- It uses evidence-based approaches. Just because some therapies aren’t conventional doesn’t mean they aren’t backed by evidence-based research. Many integrative health practices have been tested for usefulness, effectiveness and safety.
- It combines the best of both worlds. Many integrative health doctors use a combination of conventional and alternative therapies, as appropriate. This gives patients multiple approaches to wellness and options when therapies that have been tried aren’t effective enough.
- It empowers you to optimize your health. Since the goal of integrative medicine is to improve your overall health to thwart illness or disease, it puts you in the driver’s seat when it comes to protecting yourself from getting sick.
- It addresses symptoms of chronic health conditions. Integrative approaches are often used to help people address chronic symptoms caused by a variety of health conditions. These include pain, fatigue, nausea and anxiety, among others.
- It looks outside the box. Conventional doctors depend on medications, procedures and surgeries to make you well. Integrative health practitioners often expand the therapies available to patients, using herbs, botanicals and aspects of Eastern medicine to improve health and heal.
- It may lower the need for medication. There’s a need for prescription medications in treating many kinds of health conditions. But sometimes they aren’t very effective or have unwanted side effects. Therapies used in integrative medicine may lower the need for medications while producing similar results.
