Why people choose alternative treatment for addiction

July 25, 2015

Why people choose alternative treatment for addiction: Helping addicts to remain focus in recovery process

Why people choose alternative treatment for addiction it is because of several benefit. When addicts are engaged in activities like exercise they are able to release some stress off and remain focus to their recovery journey.

I believe that this is not the very first time you are hearing what addiction is. It is a chronic brain disease that triggers obsessive thinking and compulsive drug seeking and consumption. The problem can be very devastating and harmful in many ways. And while addiction can effect changes the brains normal functioning, the personality, judgment and values of the individual victims will also become compromised. Experts at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center under the able leadership of doctor Dalal Akoury says that once addicted the addicts will continue using these substances despite the harmful consequences that are associated with the drugs. They will often live with a significant degree of denial about their situation, preferring instead to lay blame, generate excuses or simply lie to themselves and others that they have their addiction under control. Like many other chronic diseases, such as diabetes, asthma, or heart disease, drug addiction can be managed and treated effectively. The difference is that recovery for addiction will combine medical help, behavior changes and social support to help the individual generate a self-sustaining sobriety and that is why people choose alternative treatment for addiction even as they explore the all treatment avenues available.

Why people choose alternative treatment for addiction: Drug Addiction reveals the whole picture

There are a number of reasons why people often choose alternative treatment. Some of those reasons may include the following options:

One of the most common reasons for why people choose alternative treatment options is because there is the feeling that the available medical treatments are not meeting their needs. In the event that the scientific medications fail to work then naturally people will be tempted to look elsewhere for solutions.
People come from different cultural backgrounds where they have their own way of doing things including treatment. It therefore means that some people may be comfortable with their approaches to treatment and not be keen on the main stream medications like for example, traditional Chinese medicine or Ayurveda medicine from India.
People can follow a spiritual path where there is a belief in healing energies that have not yet been discovered by science. Those individuals who believe in healing energies will want to benefit from them.
There is a common perception in the public that alternative treatments are more natural, and that natural means they are better and safer free from chemicals.
Those individuals who have had success with alternative treatments can convince family and friends to consider these options. A common reason for why people first experiment with complimentary is due to a recommendation for a friend.
Many times physicians have recommended alternative medicine for their patients, this communicate strongly that if they believe it will complement the current treatment or if they feel unable to find an appropriate treatment within western medicine then alternative medicine is the way to go.
There are some theories that claim that standard western only treats the disease but alternative medicine treats the whole person. It is suggested that a more holistic approach really gets to the root of problems it does more than just treat the symptoms.
It is believed that alternative medication has little or no side effects further crediting their use by many people. to be fewer side effects associated with many alternative
Due to the fewer number of clients that alternative therapists attend to, it is believed that they offer more personalized care. This may be because physicians are overworked or in some cases they will treat patients like puzzles instead of people.

Why people choose alternative treatment for addiction: Examples of alternative treatments for addiction recovery

There are many alternative addiction treatments available including:

Some individuals do seem to be able to recover from an addiction by purely relying on their own inner resources, this could be described as true natural recovery. This is not an option for everyone, and most people who seek treatment will already have tried and failed many times to quit by themselves.
There are a number of herbal remedies that may be of value to those who are trying to escape addiction. An example of this would be passion flower which is said to help with the mental aspects of addiction withdrawal.
There are many addicts who claim to have benefited from reiki, acupuncture, and other energy treatments. These techniques tend to enhance and not replace traditional treatments.
There is growing evidence that practices such as mindfulness meditation and yoga can be of great value to people in recovery. These continue to be considered alternative treatments by many in the establishment, but this is likely to change in the future under the weight of evidence that supports them.

Why people choose alternative treatment for addiction: Problems associated with alternative addiction treatments

Like in all treatment methods, doctor Akoury says that there are a number of problems associated with alternative addiction treatments too. Some of which may include the following:

If these treatments had sufficient evidence to support them they would not be considered alternatives. This of course does not mean that such evidence will not appear in the future a common problem with complementary therapies is that they have not been adequately researched on.
There are undoubtedly people out there who are willing to scam those who looking for help for their addiction. Almost anyone can claim a new addiction wonder cure and try to sell this to other people – those who are cunning enough will be able to do this and remain within the law.
Some alternative treatments could prove to be dangerous. This is particularly likely when untrained individuals begin offering medical advice for example, they may tell their clients to stop taking medications prescribed by their physician.
There can be unpleasant side effects associated with most of the herbal remedies. It is not recommended that people begin taking any of these natural medicines without first consulting their physician this is particularly important for those who are already taking prescribed medications because there will be the risk of negative interactions.
Meditation techniques can be highly effective for people in recovery, but it is also possible to overdo it. In rare instances people have developed meditation-related psychosis (also known as Kundalini syndrome) as a result of their practice.
Some alternative therapists make claims for their methods that are exaggerated. This may be because they actually believe such claims or because they are out to make money and they have no scruples about this.

Finally things could be worse for some addicts particularly those who only have one more chance at recovery. Doctor Akoury says that if such people make what they call their final attempt using alternative medication and this fails to work, they are likely to give up on ever recovering from their addiction. It would be advisable that patients consult widely before taking any action. If you are worried on where to start from, then look no further and schedule for an appointment with doctor Dalal Akoury today for a more professional approach on your struggle with an addiction.

Why people choose alternative treatment for addiction: Helping addicts to remain focus in recovery process

Stroke

June 2, 2015

Stroke: Saving The Penumbra

stroke Stroke is one of the most dreaded life threatening and altering health conditions affecting the world’s population. Fear of stroke is majorly due to its lasting effects on surviving victims like paralysis. It is also feared due to the fact that it can cause death if not treated immediately and properly. Actually almost quarter of stroke victims always die. According to a 2004 research conducted by American Heart Association, about 700,000 new or recurrent cases of stroke occur yearly in the United States of America. According to the same study, about 4.9 million stroke survivors live today. The same research also estimates the direct and indirect costs of stroke to be about 53.6 billion American dollars. The 30 year projection by the study shows that these numbers will increase and as such outpace the overall population growth.

Available statistics is a pointer to the devastating effects that stroke has on the victims as well as o family and friends. Imagine your spouse, parent, child, brother/sister or your closest friend permanently paralyzed after a stroke. Now you have to spoon feed them, wash them and move them around on wheelchairs. Majority of survivors of stroke lose their jobs because of paralysis that renders them unable to perform at work.

The effects of stroke could be social, economic, physical and emotional.

Emotional effects of stroke

When a stroke victim is hospitalized, it affects their emotions due to the strange environment in the hospital. The change in routine and lack of ability to take in what is happening to them is a serious blow to their emotions.

Physical effects of stoke

Onset of stroke causes loss of power in the muscles of the face, trunk, arm and leg on one side of the body. The power however gradually returns in most cases. However, the limbs need to be put through a range of movements and placed in the right position lest they stiffen and become useless even with the return of power. Survivors may in such cases need to move around on wheel chairs and be assisted with their daily physical activities

Financial effects of stroke

Hospitalization bills, loss of employment and the cost of assistance that a stroke survivor would need are some of the financial implications of stroke.

Social effects of a stroke

After an attack by stroke, the life of the survivor greatly changes not only for them but for people close to them too.

What really is stroke?

It would not make sense to discuss stroke without giving its scientific definition and explaining how it occurs.

Stroke, also referred to as cerebro-vascular accident (CVA) is a medical condition resulting from cut-off of blood supply to part of the brain. Brain tissues in the affected area are damaged and eventually die off. This is because the interrupted blood supply deprives the tissues of oxygen and nutrients which they require to function always supplied in blood.

Depending on what causes the cut-off of blood supply to the tissues, there are two kinds of stroke:

Ischemic stroke occurs when a blood clot interrupts the supply of blood to the brain tissues in the affected area. This kind accounts for about 85% of all stroke cases.
Hemorrhagic stroke results when blood vessels in the brain rapture and bleed thus interrupting supply of blood to the tissues of the affected area.

In the affected area, there are two major zones of injury:

The core ischemic zone is the zone of severe ischemia with blood flow as low as 10 to 25%. This leads to loss of oxygen and nutrients thus energy stores are rapidly depleted. The result of this is death of neurons and supporting cellular elements
Ischemic penumbra zone is a thin layer of tissues that are found between the core ischemic zone and the normally perfused area. Cells in this zone may remain viable for several hours since arteries anastomosing with branches of the blocked vascular tree supply blood to them. This supply is however not sufficient enough to sustain the neural nutrient and oxygen demand indefinitely. The cells of the penumbra will thus eventually die unless there is reestablishment of reperfusion during the early stages of stroke.

Saving the penumbra

Stroke Pharmacological interventions are most effective in the penumbra zone. All acute stroke therapies aim at saving the penumbra.

The only approved treatment for acute ischemic stroke to date is intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (IV t-PA). The aim of this treatment is to restore the patency of the artery and increase blood flow. This has the effect of reducing the amount of cerebral damage and in effect reduces functional deficits. Its use is limited to 3-4.5 hours after the onset of stroke. This is because chances of it causing a cerebral hemorrhage drastically increase after several hours.

Another treatment called Neurothrombectomy is approved in US for use in removing blood clots in a time span of 8 hours from the onset of stroke. It requires the services of an experienced invasive neurologist.

There exists an unmet need to develop more treatments of acute ischemic stroke.

For more information about bone marrow transplant and stem cell transplantation, visit www.awaremednetwork.com. Dr. Dalal Okoury has years of experience in integrative medicine and will be of assistance.

While at it, visit http://www.integrativeaddiction2015.com to learn about the upcoming integrative addiction conference 2015. The conference will deliver unique approaches to telling symptoms of addiction and how to assist patients of addiction.

Stroke: Saving The Penumbra

Eating Clean Seasonally

November 7, 2014

Eating Clean Seasonally

It is general knowledge that we all ought to live healthier lives by observing certain uncomplicated dietary rules. These are things we do not have to be taught. We just know through simple intuition that taking excess sugar is unhealthy, consuming too much fat can be fatal in the long run, eating excessive salt could cause life threatening diseases like diabetes among others.

We hear these things every day. We meet these warnings almost everywhere we go. Yet, it is very much obvious that most youths around the world continue to take processed foods that are high in sugar, cholesterol and salt.

You find the head of a family suffering from diabetes. He no longer takes tea with sugar. Oftentimes we would assume that that is a close lesson for the rest of the family that are still healthy to take caution when approaching the amounts of these nutritional contents as found in their daily regimens.

Yet that is not the case. The youngster in the same family still views the father’s case as an old man’s destiny; something far from their own course. So the girl of the house proceeds to observe a portion of fries in her daily routine and the boy keeps on with his double-the-required-amount of sugar for his everyday tea.

clean eating diet

The results? Teenage vulnerability. Even if they do not directly begin to suffer the ultimate diseases such as diabetes, they often experience a variety of ulcers and other frequent disorders. Chances are that even after starting to suffer such ailments these young folks still find it hard to change course and observe healthier diets.

Stubborn generation

It is not sufficient to say that the youth are the people who do not eat clean diets. That would actually be preposterous. Yes there might be difficulty establishing a clear-cut age line separating youth from adulthood. But we can seek logic to help us go about this topic. It is not decent language to refer to some married fellow with a family in his mid-thirties as youth! In my view that is just not good.

These are the people who are highly affected, second only to the teenagers. At this age you find that the person is stably employed or is running some successful business. Money is not a problem. So what does he do?

Out he goes every evening after work to drink with colleagues; members of the same age bracket. They drink a lot of vodka and eat roasted meat. As a routine. Surrounded by a bunch of willing ladies who take shifts for different days.

Another breed also take beer as a staple food. They let their bellies develop into a pot and get proud of it. Then they do no exercise to burn the excess fats and cholesterol.

What then will contrast this generation of people from that of the teenagers who do not have much money but get enough for their daily fast foods? Bottom line: both have inappropriate eating habits.

Clean-Eating

Eating clean

What then does eating clean entail? Of course there are certain world cultures that observe healthy eating habits. This is why you will seldom find overweight people in Japan. Their diet is highly comprised of sea foods and vegetables and just like the Chinese, food to them is majorly regarded from a healing perspective.

This is in contrast to the Western, and specifically American culture where most of the food that make their diet consist of processed materials, candy, fried foodstuffs or soda that are basically low in nutrients.

The Mediterranean is another region that can be said to observe safe eating styles throughout the seasons. Diet here majorly comprises of green vegetables in large quantities, nuts, fresh fruits, beans and varieties of fish. From a health perspective such diets contain healthy antioxidants and the beta-carotene which are the best for disease prevention.

Generally speaking then, we all need to try pursuing some form of traditional eating lifestyles seasonally in order to stay healthier. Diets that are enriched with fruit varieties, vegetables, lean proteins and natural oils may just be the ideal culinary composition for the contemporary mankind.

Eating Clean Seasonally

Curcumin and triple negative cancer

August 7, 2014

Curcumin Is a Triple Negative Cancer Treatment Compound

curcumin Cancer doctors and researchers have always done a great job in trying to find us the best treatment to this disease. This is not because there are no cancer treatments that work but because some of the most common conventional cancer treatments like chemotherapy radiation therapy and surgery have left some loophole that needs to be filled for cancer treatment to be effective and safe for all cancer patients. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy have been used for a long time in cancer treatment. However they focus on killing of cancerous by poisoning them. When done the chemotherapy drugs not only kill the cancerous cells but also kill the healthy body cells that are vital for optimum body functioning . This leads to many side effects that make cancer treatments a very painful ordeal. Several cancer patients have died after chemotherapy because of the severe side effects that it is associated with.

Today we have very many alternative cancer treatments thanks to the tireless researchers and cancer doctors who have continued to do research on better cancer treatment alternatives. The researchers have availed varied cancer treatments alternatives ranging from dietary manipulations to natural cancer treatments. Use of natural cures of cancer treatments have since gained popularity due to their availability and cost effectiveness. Another reason that has seen cancer patients seeking natural cancer treatment alternatives is because of the facts that they are devoid of the life threatening side effects that most conventional cancer treatment methods are always associated with. Use of fruits and vegetables are popular today and are sought after as some of the most effective cancer treatment methods worldwide. Some of the diets that have been proposed to work best in cancer treatment involve the use of these fruits and vegetables. The Gerson’s therapy is one of the most famous alternative cancer treatments that have been used in cancer treatment. Researchers have also been able to discover compounds that are effective in fighting cancer in some of these fruits and vegetables. Recently researchers found that a compound in the peach fruit helped in fighting cancer. However peaches are not the only fruits that have been promoted as effective alternatives to cancer treatment. Berries among other fruits are part of the long list. One of these naturally occurring compounds that help in fighting cancer is curcumin. Curcumin is an effective component in turmeric.

Curcumin

Curcumin is a compound in Turmeric. Turmeric is a member of the ginger family, turmeric has been highly valued for its many medicinal abilities, among most of its medicinal abilities is that it is very effective in reducing inflammations. Turmeric is a common spice to Indians who value it for its health benefits. Curcumin is the most active component of turmeric. Curcumin is effective in reducing inflammations. It exerts its anti-inflammatory activity by inhibiting the enzymes and prostaglandins that are essential for inflammation. Curcumin has not only been promoted as an anti-inflammation agent but several studies have proved that it helps in cancer treatment.

Not long ago researchers at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas conducted a research that involved dividing 45 patients with rheumatoid arthritis into three groups. One group received curcumin, the second group was given a standard rheumatoid arthritis drug and the third group was given both. After eight weeks, both the group who took curcumin alone and the group that got both the drug and the spice had a greater reduction in symptoms such as joint swelling and pain compared with those who only took the drug devoid of curcumin. It was also noted that those who were on the curcumin did not suffer any side effect as was the case with those who were under the standard drugs. The findings of this research is pointer that curcumin can help in cancer treatment as inflammation is a feature in cancer.

A new research study done by researchers from Zheijian Provincial People’s Hospital in Zheijiang, China shows that a compound in turmeric known as curcumin, which gives the spice its characteristic saffron-like color, has the ability of inducing cell death, also known as apoptosis within triple negative breast cancer cells.

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most difficult cancer to treat as these cancer cells are very resistant to drugs. These cancer cells do not have the characteristic receptors for estrogen, progesterone and Her2/neu. This makes it very hard to treat a patient with Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) as most treatments especially the conventional cancer treatments target these receptors that are missing in the cells. Without these receptors such treatments do not work. For example Tamoxifen targets estrogen receptors, in absence of estrogen receptors Tamoxifen cannot work in cancer treatment. For this reason, TNBC is considered the most aggressive, the most likely to be treated with less-targeted (and therefore more toxic) forms of chemotherapy, and the soonest to return when treatment fails. For Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) target therapies are not the best options for treatment.

Today it is approximated that between 15-25% of all breast cancer cases are triple negative. This statistics remind us of other treatments that can best work in cancer treatment. Unfortunately those bodies that are known to create awareness on Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) are only focused on raising money for a pharmaceutical cure that is yet to be made. Curcumin can effectively be used in treatment of Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) as it works better here than any other target therapies.

Curcumin Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) can be treated best in integrative cancer centers such as AWAREmed where all the possible cures will be put to use to ensure that the disease is fought and won.

Dr. Dalal Akoury (MD) is an experienced integrative cancer doctor that has helped many cancer patients in their fight against the disease. She has worked hard not only in treating the disease but also in availing informational support to cancer patients at Awaremed which has become a place called home for many cancer patients. Call on her now and get help on cancer.

Curcumin Is a Triple Negative Cancer Treatment Compound

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