2017 has been a wake-up call for Medical Doctors all around the world. The ‘war against opioids’ (opioids are morphine-like drugs) launched by the USA finally unveiled how the pharmaceutical industry may have misrepresented information to cause doctors to more easily recommend opiates without the fear of addiction, which led to mass opioid addiction across the USA and the world to prescription opioid and opioid-like drugs.
2017 has seen also a Guidelines by American College of Physicians for back pain (non-radicular back pain – pain that is not along the distribution of a nerve) recommending non-pharmacological techniques including heat, massage, acupuncture, manipulation, BEFORE pharmacological drug therapies.
(Amir Qaseem, Timothy J. Wilt, Robert M. McLean, Mary Ann Forciea, . Noninvasive Treatments for Acute, Subacute, and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Clinical Practice Guideline From the American College of Physicians. Ann Intern Med. 2017;166:514–530. doi: 10.7326/M16-2367)
2017 as well has seen the US FDA Education Blueprint for Health Care Providers Involved in the Management or Support of Patients with Pain (May 2017) recommend Health Care Providers become familiar with non-pharmacological management of pain including complementary techniques such as acupuncture, and Chiropracty. This article also recommended that Health Care Providers be aware of the levels of addiction of opioids and knowledge that they may do harm as well.
Yes, doctors are upset that all these years, one of the supposedly most respected, and well-learned professions ended up prescribing medication that they believed was helping their patients but which was actually leading to overdoses, addiction, and sometimes even death.
The new recommendations go some way to making amends. This is a tide of change for the medical profession. There is great protest and great unrest, but there is also great opportunity to open their eyes to what else is out there.
For years, complementary therapists have been treating pain and other conditions with little harm and great effect. Imagine integrating traditional medical approaches and complementary approaches together, so that one can be a truly holistic health professional.
The Integrative Health Convention 2018 is a step towards integrating traditional medical medicine, and introducing numerous different conventional and complementary health treatments to its course attendees. It is organised by medical doctors interested in paving the way forward in the UK to integrating Complementary Health with Traditional Medicine. It intends to have 36 different talks about different subjects ranging from Aromatherapy and Acupuncture, to Osteopathy, Physiotherapy, and even Sex therapy. The event will be held in Central London at the Park Plaza Victoria on both days of the weekend of the 13th and 14th of October 2018.
Tickets can be booked online at: www.IntegrativeHealthConvention.co.uk for GBP 250 for the whole weekend.
