Thursday, June 18, 2009

If it walks like a duck...............

Being in the Western medical field for many years I have obviously been trained in this form of medicine. However, I do believe that Eastern medicine can have advantages. Eastern medicine has been using herbs and plants for centuries many of which Western pharmaceutical companies utlize to make common medications used here in the United States.

Most certainly eating a healthy diet, taking vitamins and mineral supplements and other positive healthy lifestyle changes can help boost your immune system which plays a large if not the largest part in the bodies ability to keep the virus in a dormant (asymptomatic) state.

However, when it come to more advanced conditions of dysplasia whether it be CIN2/3 (cervical intraepithelial neoplaisa), VIN2/3 (vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia) or AIN2/3 (anal intraepithelial neplasia), the majority of which are caused by the human papilloma virus the fact is, you cannot CURE a virus! You can only remove the symptoms which the virus produces, i.e. dysplasia, cancer.

Many may utilize these methods and find their condition has regressed. Naturally they would attribute this to the use of these methods. But there is a percentage of these lesions which will regress on their own and there is no research to prove that these methods are what actually regressed the condition.

Obviously this is an individual choice, but far too many people have also been duped with claims of these types of "cures" for cancer or precancerous lesions having received the name "quack cures" The progression of HPV dysplasia to cancer is not as cut and dried as some may wish to believe. Statistically it can take years but there are those who have gone on to develop invasive cancers within months of their initial diagnosis.

I'm all for people trying various alternative types of medicine (which may also work purely as a placebo effect) but get extremely upset when people claim to have "cured themselves" when their HPV lesions/condition may have regressed on its own anyway. To then push these methods on others to the exclusion of Western medical treatments I believe to be irresponsible. This is potentially another persons LIFE you are talking about.

The more knowledge a person has, the more informed decisions they can make, but let them make those decisions themselves. After all, they are the ones having to live with the consequences.