killcolitis said...
chcl, I wish I had the confidence in "big pharma" and "science" that you did. My husband is a philosopher of science, who studies the set up and validity of scientific trials. He feels much of what passes for valid science in the drug industry/approval process is seriously flawed. If you look at how many pharmaceuticals have very recently used poor African women, for example, as guinea pigs for new drugs (such as Depo provera) without any consent whatsoever you might or might not change your mind about the interests of these companies and the science they pursue.
As for Chinese Herbs, there are studies regarding their efficacy and they are many people who have benefited from them. We have tried them with mixed results but that does not mean I don't believe they are effective for others or that I will give up trying them. I see you are on every med out there and if that is what you are comfortable with, then that's great. You need not look any further.
I don't think that the drug industry works perfect and I'm aware that there has been drugs in the past that has been rushed through flawed studies and I'm sure it will happen again in the future. I also know of several instances where the ethics of the trials is just incredibly bad. And I'm also very aware about
the classic "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". In other words, just because there are no conclusive studies about
for example Ulcerative Colitis and diet does not mean there is no connection. It can just be that we have not studied the right thing yet or done large enough studies.
However, that said. I believe it is the best we have and that being in a long term flare is often way worse for the body than the side effects of medicine. There are few things that are so well connected to cancer as inflammation in the body. And well, in my case I don't really have a choice as I become really ill very fast when I hit a flare (30+ bms, always blood, almost always pain). It quickly hits the stage where the options are Prednisone or the hospital with IV cortisone. So yes, while I'm also exploring dietary modifications, supplements and reading studies I do take a lot of medicine as this disease has really taken over my life and I know that soon surgery will be the only option.
The reason I'm against alternative medicine is that it itself is a billion dollar industry that seems to hold no responsibility for what it claims. This results in sad stories like with a woman that was diagnosed with operable stage 1 breast cancer (extremely good survival rate) that refuses treatment because she does not trust "western medicine" and will instead seek alternative treatments. A year or two later the cancer is stage 4 and her children will only have one more year with their mother, at most. It is often not as drastic here of course and I can see that people weighing pros an cons with pred/6mp etc. especially if their flares are not that bad, but ignoring stuff like 5-asa just because it is a medicine feels...odd.
I can give another example about
alternative medicine. I was in a store buying Vitamin D, Omega 3 and also decided to try some Curcumin/Tumeric supplement. I struck up a conversation with the owner and she had no problem at all trying to throw stuff at me promising that it will "cure" my UC. It was not really her fault because the manufacturers seems to have no problems peddling their products as something that cures everything.
Imagine a doctor doing that. Yeah, you should try this pill. We have absolutely no studies what so ever supporting it being good but it probably won't harm you so why not just buy it? It is only 30 bucks!