The #1 Difference Between Conventional and Alternative Medicine

I had someone recently ask me, is there ever a condition where you would not recommend someone seeing their doctor for? And the short answer is there are probably the majority of chronic conditions I would not recommend people see their doctor for, besides to rule out red flags and maybe to do some labs, because I know where that road goes. And I thought in this video I would share a very specific example of what that looks like and use it as an illustration just to show the difference between often how conventional care practices and how alternative medicine views things differently and how it practices. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hyne, doctor of Chinese medicine and licensed acupuncturist. So before we jump into this video here today, check out these two links right below this video. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, there's a link right below this video to contact my private practice and clinic. And there's also a free guide below the video which is four daily rituals that could potentially help you add years to your life with Chinese medicine. So check those out right below the video. Now I've seen many people where typically in the aftermath of loss, you know, divorce or having a parent die, rarely seeing a spouse or even a kid die, where people end up taking antidepressants. You know, I've seen many many people where they start having anxiety or depression or panic attacks following some kind of difficult life experience. And a lot of people just do whatever the doctor says and I get it. I mean they're an authority and they must be an expert in medicine, theoretically. But there was one woman that I had that was young that went through a very similar loss of one of her parents and was experiencing the same symptoms of anxiety and depression and she couldn't sleep for months and had panic attacks. But the difference for her was that she was absolutely adamant about not taking medication. And I find these people to be a relief, honestly, because they want to find the healthiest way to cope with loss. Understanding that loss and not sleeping well after loss is normal. It's not pathological. It doesn't need to be medicated away unless you really want it to. And she wanted to deal with it. She wanted to feel the emotions and she really wanted to deal with the healing process in what she viewed as a more healthy way. So even though she was experiencing a lot of these same really intense symptoms that other people had, because she'd seen other people take antidepressants, she was very scared by them, actually. And working with her over a period of about three months, we got her to a point where within about a month she was sleeping normally, at least seven hours again, not having to use any kind of sedative, not using alcohol, not using Xanax, not using anything. And within three months she was good. She could sleep normally. Her appetite was back. She was stable during the day. She didn't feel like she was going to have a panic attack five times a day at work. And she was free. And I told her, you know, you don't have to come back unless you want to or you want to check in once a month or reach out as needed. And I viewed that experience as really an archetypal evolved healing response, right? She wanted to feel it. She wanted to deal with it. She didn't want any suppressive medications. And three months later she'd gone through it and she was fine. She didn't need anything to feel normal. She had adjusted and she had healed and she dealt with it. And I was really reminiscing on how few times I've seen that happen. How often patients don't want medication. How often people want to feel the pain. How often people are really willing to confront things head on and deal with whatever's coming at them. And I don't want this to turn into some judgmental video about do this or don't do that or you're evil if you take antidepressants or medication because I don't believe that to be true. I think they're helpful when they're helpful. But it was so refreshing to see someone that was willing to, even in suffering, deal with the suffering. And as a result she was free way faster than almost everyone I deal with. You know, dealing with that at the beginning is much harder after 20 years of antidepressants. So I thought I would use her case as kind of a good example on and a good story on When I sum up how I view conventional medicine versus alternative medicine or integrative medicine, whatever you want to call it, root cause medicine, I don't know if you want to use that term. What I see as the main differences are really simple. What I see in conventional medicine is that good or bad, it's primarily used to treat symptoms. And there's nothing inherently wrong with treating symptoms. I treat symptoms all day long too. The problem is that it's often easy now for hard later. A good example being taking antidepressants right now and then trying to get off them in five years. Very, very difficult and you're not going to feel well for a long time. Taking antidepressants for six months and getting off them is going to be a lot easier and it's going to be a lot lower dose typically. Much, much, much easier and less painful to get off. Because inevitably what happens? If you stop this after six years, nothing has changed in the intervening six years, so of course you're going to feel horrible. But what if it's something like just indigestion? You get acid reflux and so you're taking PPIs or you're taking something else for your stomach because it bothers you a lot. I find that it's the same thing. It's easy now versus hard later, right? Trying to stop those after five years is going to be a much longer recovery process versus for the next six months we're going to look at dietary changes. I'm going to have you take an herbal formula every single day twice a day to heal the stomach and the gut lining and manage the reflux symptoms. You're going to have to figure out what it is about your life. If stress is a major factor because you're working 75 hours a week, then you're going to have to do something with that. And let's say it's anxiety, right? We just talked about anxiety but SSRIs, very much easier to discontinue in the short run versus after 10 or 20 years. I can tell you that for a fact. Long-term antidepressants, just like any medication really, and really any lifestyle change. I mean all these ways we habitually utilize neural pathways then end up wiring them to a certain degree. But medications like antidepressants, there are studies showing that long-term use causes physical changes in the brain. So six months of that, 20 years of that, it's a big difference, right? And so it may mean if you don't want to do that the next six months are going to be really really hard. You're not going to sleep well. You're not going to feel well. Your appetite's going to be crazy. You're going to feel uncontrollably anxious some days. Like you can barely get through the day. But in six months of treatment you're going to be free forever. And that's what I see if you deal with it right now. But that's not the case for most people in SSRIs. They're given them for six months at a time maybe. I mean I see innumerable patients where they're prescribed them by their general practitioner. They're not even checked up on. They're just allowed to get refills for literally years. I mean ad infinitum forever. And it's a little scary to me actually. It's really scary to me. What about migraines, right? Another thing. Let's say you have horrendous debilitating migraines. Easy now is just taking whatever migraine medication your doctor gives you. And whatever OTC stuff for pain relief. But if you want to do hard now for easy later, which is really the the integrative way to deal with it, in other words, deal with it medicine, you may have a really uncomfortable next few months. Horrible actually. Bad sleep, feeling terrible, barely can work, calling out of work. But then you learn that hey maybe for a couple of my migraines it's dietary. I don't know why. That's weird. So let me adjust my diet. Maybe for some of them it's stress. Maybe for some of them it's something you're taking. Maybe it's a medication you're taking. And then you have to unpeel and get to the root cause and figure out what's going on here. For me with Chinese formulas, I find that almost right away within a month people have less days of migraines almost immediately than they did the month before. Sometimes they go from having a migraine every other day, 50% of the days, to now just 20%, 10% of the days within three weeks. So what I see is the big difference between conventional medicine and alternative or integrative or non-traditional medicine is that one is primarily symptomatically focused, which is not good or bad, it just is, and often works in the short run. And one is often dealing with trying to figure out why you're having that. And sometimes that means a lot more short-term pain, but long-term freedom. And I'm not here to judge and say what's good or bad. All I know is that if you want this to be over forever for good and not have to deal with it again, I would highly recommend trying an integrative or holistic approach so that you don't have to deal with this for five years or 20 years or even a year. So in my mind that's the biggest difference between conventional and alternative medicine. That's just what I see clinically. Most people on medication don't get better over time. I just really never see that. The medication just has to be increased or changed or altered or combined. So I don't really see a lot of healing at all coming out of conventional medicine. And that's why I do what I do, right? But that's it for my rant for today, guys. Before you go, two related videos for you right there, and I'll catch you in the next video.