Nowadays, a growing number of people with health problems are trying alternative medicines and treatments instead of visiting their usual doctor. Positive or negative?
Nowadays, a growing number of people with health problems are trying alternative medicines and treatments instead of visiting their usual doctor. Positive or negative?
In this contemporary world, there has been an increase in the number of people who suffer from particular health problems trying alternative medicines and treatments instead of going to the hospital or meeting a regular doctor. While this development may bring some benefits, I would argue they are eclipsed by the drawbacks.
Proponents of patients with health issues are experimenting with complementary and alternative therapies instead of seeing their primary care physician, arguing that they can offer significant benefits. In particular, people can save money when they self-medicate. There are many minor illnesses, such as coughs, colds, and fevers, for which patients can try medicines and treatments themselves from traditional and natural medicine. For instance, Vietnamese tend to mix warm water, lemon, and honey to cure coughs, provide Vitamin C from orange juice to make cold-reducing , or use a piece of silver to scrape their neck and back to decrease headache symptoms.
However, the phenomenon above also raises valid concerns. One negative outcome that needs to be addressed is safety. In terms of the condition emergency, which requires surgery or a heavy illness, namely wisdom tooth extraction, stomachache, and cancer, the patients need a visiting doctor who has enough experience and professional training to ensure that they can cure and give people accurately treatments and medicines. Furthermore, this scenario may cause patients lacking awareness of medicine, they are able to be cheated by curing disease advertisements from unclear resources. Hence, when they try to buy it and drink it with unclear ingredients, their illness will get worse. My aunt, who suffered from neck and shoulder pain, is evidence for this. One day, she watched an advertisement on YouTube. She saw that some exercises and medicine could cure her illness. She bought that medicine, and in turn, there were no signs of disease improvement.
In conclusion, it seems to me that the disadvantages of people with health issues choosing alternative medications and therapies rather than going to their regular doctor are more considerable than their advantages.