Hi! I’m Tori, and I’m a doctor of physical therapy who specializes in pelvic dysfunction,
which means I treat things that can go wrong around the pelvis; however, it also means
I have some experience in the world of Western medicine not only as a consumer, but also
as a provider. And, I am also a person who has healed from three “chronic, mysterious”
conditions and who is almost done, so close, to healing from a fourth, by going outside
of western medicine and sometimes leaning on more “alternative” interventions; which
means I have some experience in the world of “alternative medicine” as a consumer.
It is my firm belief that there are incredible healing aspects of both western medicine and
alternative medicine—I think that true “holistic” healing observes what both spaces have to
offer, and chooses the appropriate interventions from both spaces pending on the individual
who is seeking care. However, in the same way that both spaces have wonderful interventions
to offer, they are both for-profit industries, which means they inherently have pitfalls,
where money is placed above the health and safety of the consumer.
And I think in order to navigate either or both industries successfully, it’s important
to be aware of those pitfalls.
I was actually inspired to make this video because of a recent, ongoing conversation
that I’m having with a dear friend of mine, who reached out to express some of his frustrations
with alternative medicine and I think that his points are really important to understand
as a consumer, so, with his permission, I will be sharing some of his words in this
video.
As I mentioned earlier, the pitfalls in Western and Alternative medicine, I think, really
connect with them being for-profit industries and the last point I wanted to make before
I share more specific insights is that the experience in either type of medicine can
be greatly altered, for better or for worse, by your provider.
I’ve mentioned on this channel before how important it is to have compassion for providers,
how important it is to recognize that they are people operating in a for-profit industry
that forces them to sometimes treat an ungodly number of patients in a day in order to meet
impossible productivity standards so that they can make the most money possible for
their corporation—and that affects different providers, different people, differently.
Some people become robotic in order to protect their emotional and mental energy, others
treat all patients with the same blueprint, because they want to be helpful but don’t
have the time to create an actual individualized plan of care, and still others do their best
to offer emotional and mental energy to each patient and develop truly individualized plans
of care which ultimately leads to burnout and compassion fatigue. This is why I always,
always, always preach about radical self-reliance when it comes to healing—doing your own
research, questioning your providers, really trying to understand your individual body—and
doing your best to be an active participant in your healing, to be a team member with
your provider, instead of relying on a sort of passive, more “hero-victim”-esque relationship
that can sometimes develop.
So, having stated the importance of patient-provider relationships, let’s talk about the pitfalls
of western and alternative medicine. I think the pitfalls of western medicine are more
obvious, in that they are talked about more often. And I think that my friend did a really
good job of succinctly listing them:
an overfocus on pharmaceuticals—this is something I’ve talked about before, but
just to make it clear once more, I am not against pharmaceuticals, I think they can
be life-giving, life-changing, and life-saving, but I do take issue with their over prescription,
the lack of patient education associated with their prescription, and how quickly they’re
prescribed when other, more natural lifestyle changes that could be equally or more effective
haven’t been trialed at all
poor appreciation of psychosocial factors—and I do think that these factors, at least psychological
factors, are getting more attention nowadays; however, I have seen that pendulum swing where
now providers tell patients that they have anxiety when they do, in fact, have some sort
of biological issue going on
many doctors are bad at good patient relationships and communication—true, and a big pet peeve
of mine is when providers use medical language when speaking with patients and, ultimately,
speak over them and I try to have compassion and understanding for why those providers
would do that—but it does sometimes feel like a bizarre either power-play or time-play
to me, using language that you know a person probably doesn’t understand in order to
assert your authority and get that person to agree with whatever intervention you’re
pushing or using that language because you don’t have time to actually explain what’s
going on in layman’s terms and you need to see your next patient. I think it’s an
Albert Einstein quote but whoever said it I agree with it wholeheartedly—“if you
can’t explain it to a 6 year old, you don’t understand it yourself.” And that’s not
to say that you, the patient, operate cognitively at a 6 year old’s level, so much as it is
to say that medical language is quite literally a different language. So don’t ever hesitate
to ask for clarification or to record an appointment or to have someone on the phone who is medically
literate who can translate for you. You always deserve to understand your plan of care and
anything else that has to do with your body.
medical research is biased towards things which are profitable—and that’s simply
a tough truth, I think the opioid epidemic is a great example of this phenomenon. It’s
hard to offer any sort of solution here other than awareness. And I don’t mean to tell
you to be skeptical of all pharmaceuticals, so much as I mean to encourage you to do your
own research, know who is funding the research you’re reading, and have a healthy skepticism
that you marry to a healthy curiosity, a healthy open mind, when it comes to pharmaceuticals.
And those are some of the pitfalls worthy of your awareness as you navigate Western
medicine. Now, what my friend brought up that I don’t think as many people are aware of,
is that Alternative medicine, as an industry, is incredible at marketing. In part of our
conversation, he said, “they (alternative medicine) correctly point out problems with
the medical establishment in the United States, but many alternative practitioners are guilty
of the same or worse!”
This marketing technique is really effective, because you, as the consumer, feel validated
in your correct observations of the pitfalls of Western medicine, and you may not realize
that, because you’ve made to feel so seen, heard, and understood that you’ve been primed
to accept, or purchase, whatever the alternative practitioner is selling, as the solution to
your problem. And again, this is not me saying that all alternative practitioners are evil
salesmen or that all alternative practitioners are bad, I don’t believe either of those
things to be true. I’ve worked with incredible alternative providers whose services I would
recommend, and I have a lot of compassion for providers in either space, Western or
Alternative. But as a consumer, it’s important that you’re aware of the business model,
because that sort of psychological priming can easily cloud your judgement.
Let’s unpack the statement “alternative practitioners are guilty of the same or worse.”
So, I want to take the “overfocus on pharmaceuticals” and the “medical research bias towards things
that are profitable” Western medicine pitfalls and parallel those same pitfalls in Alternative
medicine, but instead of pharmaceuticals, we’ll be talking about supplements.
In the same way that Western providers over focus on pharmaceuticals, I think Alternative
providers over focus on supplements. And I hold the same view of supplements as I do
of pharmaceuticals—I am not against them. They can be life-giving, life-changing, and
life-saving, but I do take issue with their over prescription, the lack of patient education
associated with their prescription, and how quickly they’re prescribed when other, more
natural lifestyle changes, or even other, more natural supplements, could be equally
or more effective and haven’t been trialed at all.
What’s important to understand about supplements is that they are, essentially, unregulated
drugs, and they should be treated with the same attention and respect from both providers
and patients, in my opinion, as their regulated counterparts. The supplement industry is a
powerful, billion dollar industry that has very little regulation and, like most billion
dollar industries, that lends itself to prioritizing profit over safety and everything else. For
example, the two regulatory powers that be here in the United States are the FTC, the
federal trade commission, and the FDA, the food and drug administration. Technically
the FTC should regulate the marketing of supplements and their health claims, but they lean heavily
on the FDA’s determination of whether or not said health claims are supported, and
the FDA has very little power over determining the safety and efficacy of supplements until
enough people are injured from said supplement. And, in the early 90s after some 30+ people
died from taking a certain supplement, Congress attempted to change this law in favor or more
regulation; however, the billion dollar supplement industry not only created celebrity endorsed
commercials urging consumers to write to Congress opposing this law but also gave a lot of money
to republican senator Orrin Hatch and democratic senator Tom Harkin, who both ended up co-sponsoring
a bill to deregulate the supplement industry, as my friend so eloquently put it, “for
profit reasons, at the expense of consumer safety.”
And there is the supplement industry, much like the pharmaceutical industry, biasing
profit over safety, efficacy, and everything else.
Does that mean you shouldn’t take supplements or that you shouldn’t listen to your alternative
provider’s supplement advice? No. In fact, my earliest YouTube video is all about a supplement
that changed and continues to change my life—which, by the way is finally getting some recognition
in Western medicine! Anyway, what this does mean is that it’s important that your aware
that the supplement industry is driven by profit, that it isn’t regulated, that it
can effectively buy congressmen and providers, just like the pharmaceutical industry did
with opioids, and that supplements, much like drugs, can have short and long-term side effects.
And this all, again, boils down to radical self-reliance. Do your research. Understand
a supplement’s ingredients, especially when there is more than one ingredient. And be
weary of supplement protocols that cost you hundreds of dollars per month that are recommended
without any sort of lab draws or tests of your individual body that would indicate that
you specifically need that type of intervention.
And just to quickly touch on the other two pitfalls of Western medicine and how they
parallel to pitfalls in Alternative medicine—"poor appreciation of psychosocial factors,” I
think this is provider-specific, which means it’s probably partially specific to the
pressures that are being placed on that provider by his or her corporation, so know that alternative
providers exist within business structures, just like western providers, which means they
can succumb to the same problematic behaviors. And “many doctors are bad at good patient
relationships and communication”—I echo what I said earlier about medical language
and its relationship to power-plays and time-plays, but I also think that the real catch in the
world of alternative medicine is that, sometimes, you are made to feel like the relationship
is actually a really good one, and that communication is clear, but the medical language and diagnoses
that are being explained to you aren’t founded in any sort of actual science. And that’s
okay, science doesn’t know everything, sometimes it takes science a while to start to recognize
something that’s been true for a long time, and sometimes science is wrong. But knowing
that is important, so that you can actually practice informed consent and make sure that
you feel okay moving forward, for example, treating a diagnosis that isn’t supported
by science.
Look, human bodies are brilliant, and mysterious, and individual, and attempting to understand
a unique body takes nuance. Look for that nuance, that humility, in your provider. Neither
camp, Western or Alternative, knows everything about the human body through the lens of health
or dysfunction. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits all treatment, and any provider
who guarantees that what they’re selling will work for you under that guise is lying,
knowingly or unknowingly.
I love what my friend wrote to me, and I agree with him wholeheartedly—“I think that
any medical practitioner has a moral responsibility to be honest about the (uh-piss-ta-ma-logical)
epistemological status of any diagnosis and treatment. Given how much we don't know, this
means that humility is an important part of practicing medicine responsibly. We as patients
have limited time and money, so it is important for us to prioritize those resources on the
care which is most likely to succeed and the least likely to cause harm.”
So, as I’ve said before, when it comes to healing and navigating Western and/or alternative
medicine, rely radically on yourself, embrace trial and error, trust your intuition—your
connection with your body, and believe in your body’s innate ability to heal.
On that note, thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video, give it a thumbs
up, and if you didn’t, give it a thumbs down and let me know what I can do to improve
in the future. Feel free to comment absolutely anything down below including content suggestions,
feedback, criticism—anything, I do try really hard to read and respond to all of my comments.
Don’t forget to check meowt on instagram and finally if you want to see more content
from me, please do consider subscribing to the channel. I make videos about life things,
like today’s video, but I also make videos about pelvic things. Thank you so much again
for watching! I hope that you have a wonderful rest of your day and I will see you in the
next video, bye!