Herbal Medicine vs. Modern Medicine

Does modern medicine merely mask the root cause? Do herbal remedies actually work? Does the pill effect your hormones and general health? Are steroid creams detrimental to health?

All of these questions are always on the edge of my tongue, you never know which advice to listen to because everyone really is so different. Allergies to medicines really do terrify me — I’ll tell you a story of a knee operation I had. I tore my ACL and this operation needed to happen; I wouldn’t be able to do the exercise I do now without it. However, post op the nurses gave me morphine (very standard practise) and I had such an allergic reaction to it. I awoke from this operation feeling unbelievably disorientated – a feeling I cannot describe fully – I remember staring at a clock and vaguely being able to read it, realising that I had completely lost three hours of my life with no recollection of what had happened. All I could notice was that my leg had swollen up to twice the size due to swelling. How strange are operations? Someone had been fumbling around in my knee and I had no idea what was happening!! So, one of the lovely nurses placed a hand button next to me and told me to press it every time I felt pain. To be perfectly honest I didn’t really feel much pain at all through the whole process, but I presumed it was the right thing to do to press it. This allergic reaction caused itchy skin, I felt like I was burning up and I genuinely got anxiety about the fact that I’d just inserted this unknown drug in to my body. I digress…

If you hadn’t already gathered I’m very much a believer in natural medicine. However, I struggle terribly with eczema, a new symptom that came on as a result of Veganism and stress. I feel so torn between using my steroid cream in particular — something that my kinesiologist thinks is the devil; she tells me that anything you put on your skin can and will be absorbed by your body. At the end of the day I do get it, your skin is your largest organ so it does make sense. But, then I get myself in to such a pickle because the steroid cream works fast but is never a long term solution.

I’ve started using coconut oil all over my body – the holy grail of skincare (& haircare) let me tell you. It doesn’t react hugely well with my eczema though.. BioOil on the other hand works wonders! You see with all of these products on offer how on earth can you decipher which ones work, but I can recommend trying oils on your skin. For me personally they work better than creams.

So, I really do think that natural ways of curing yourself are far better for longterm gains but let’s be honest with a line of medics in my ancestry I can’t realistically turn my back on the fantastic modern medicine we have. I mean who would’ve thought that we would be able to see if a bone is broken using a camera or we could (temporarily) cure pain with morphine. I just wanted to write this to show my complete and utter confusion on what’s best; I think contrary to everyone else in my peer group I’m always more sceptical of modern medicine than natural ways of curing my body. It must be completely irrational I’m sure but I just think the best policy is to listen to your body as much as possible, it will 100% everytime tell you what it needs.

Listening to your body is such a huge mantra of mine, I mean honestly, modern medicine or herbal or hollistic or natural whatever you want to call it; learn what your body is telling you and become more in tune with it’s needs and it will thank you no end! I think I’m inclined to agree with one of my old philosophy degree mates Hippocrates:

 ‘Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.’

Words to live by.