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From: sdyer@bbncc5.UUCP (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: Info needed -dietitians & holistic health centers
Message-ID: <763@bbncc5.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 19-Oct-85 13:21:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbncc5.763
Posted: Sat Oct 19 13:21:11 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 21-Oct-85 00:44:42 EDT
References: <1259@mtgzz.UUCP>
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 46

> My wife is considering seeing a nutritionist at a holistic
> health center.  She is troubled by periodic dizziness,
> muscle soreness (arms & legs) and some headaches and general
> fatigue.  (I attribute most of the fatigue to our 2-year old
> son).  She's also interested in what this holistic center
> calls `colon irrigation', since she suffers from the
> irritable bowel syndrome (also called spastic colon).

If your wife has exhausted most traditional medical methods without
success, she has little to lose other than time and money to try what is
offered by a HHC, *PROVIDED* that the particular therapies recommended
have not been shown to be harmful by the medical/scientific community.
Other therapies might be considered useless or ineffective by traditional
standards, and some are likely perfectly compatible with orthodox
healthcare.  Every medical consumer should attempt to determine the risks
and benefits of a therapy against their current condition before making a
decision.  This, of course, holds true regardless of what school of
treatment you feel most comfortable with.

I would be quite wary of going to a HHC which offers treatments which have
been outright condemned by traditional medicine, because they are usually
not only based on faulty theories of physiology and disease, but are quite
dangerous.  Colonic irrigation is one of these.  It was mentioned a few
months ago on this newsgroup, and several people, including myself,
enumerated a number of facts: a number of deaths have occurred due to
fulminant infection through the use of contaminated irrigation solutions
and instruments.  Sterile technique may not be followed, and ordinary
cleanliness does not suffice to avoid such contamination.  The colon is a
big osmotic bag, and the irrigation solutions are not only absorbed through
the colon wall, but deplete the patient of vital ions like sodium and
potassium.  Chronic (and even acute) administration of colonic irrigation
has been associated with low blood pressure, dizziness, and serious heart
disturbances.  For these reasons, its practice has been outlawed by the
state of Massachusetts except by an M.D., which effectively eliminated such
treatments from the state.

Check, too, on the diet which is recommended.  It might be considered
strange (or not), but it is prudent to verify that it provides a well-
balanced set of nutrients.  If it is grossly deficient in any particular
nutrient category, and they recommend that you follow this for longer
than a few weeks, an alarm should sound, and I would recommend getting
a second opinion.
-- 
/Steve Dyer
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