Yesterday a man in his 60's came to see me with knee pain. He had a diagnosis of osteoarthritis, or in other words, wear and tear of his joints. He knew that the condition could only be treated symptomatically. He knew that there was no way of reversing the process and no real cure apart from replacing the joint. He had always refused, however, to take any painkillers, claiming that he believed in the body's innate ability to heal itself. Now he wanted a referral to the surgeons for joint replacement.
It struck me as really odd that this man would prefer surgery to taking tablets, but he's not alone. There seems to be an ever increasing proportion of patients who don't like the idea of taking medication. Whilst they're often happy to consume vast quantities of echinacea, arnica and all number of unknown 'supplements', be poked and prodded by tiny needles or pay a fortune to be put into a trance, the idea of taking conventional medicine is akin to ingesting poison.
Despite what you may be thinking, I am not a pill pusher. Indeed I am completely in favour of taking as few medications as possible, as infrequently as possible. Nonetheless I do find it hard to understand this deep mistrust of conventional medicine. Why do so many believe in therapies which often have little scientific basis and almost always no real evidence behind them, whilst those treatments tried and tested under the most rigorous conditions are somehow feared.
There is also a belief, I think, that conventional or 'Western' medicine is in some way unnatural when compared to the complimentary therapies. A feeling that the medications are artificial and as a result could damage the body. Yet huge numbers of our most commonly used medicines are sourced from natural products: penicillin from a fungus, morphine from poppies, digoxin from the foxglove, aspirin from the bark of a willow tree.
So what's the big problem with conventional medicine?
