Question:
My wife sees a few alternative practitioners, with a variety ofbackgrounds, to help her stay in remission from cancer, and to try to getback to normal after chemotherapy. She has a lot of confidence in what theyare saying and suggesting. The problem here is that I can no longer affordthe whole thing. We have spent ourselves into oblivion. Almost none of thecharges are covered by insurance, and certainly none of the recommendedsupplements are covered.The last person she saw recommended a program of supplementation whichcould end up costing $600 monthly. We trust the guy, but we just can'tswing that expense. (he doesn't sell the stuff he recommends).Just visiting two or three people a month gets too darn expensive. ( shesees an accupincturist/herbalist, a chiropractor, and a medical doctor withserious alternative leanings) She feels that each has something to offerand helps her, so who am I to argue? After all, she is the one who survivedcancer. Paying for the office visits and the herbs-supplements they suggestis costing over $1000 every month. I realize traditional medicine isgenerally far more expensive, but at least insurance covers most of that.(that's another problem, since she got sick my insurance rates increaseddramatically, and I was forced to reduce coverage).At this point my out of pocket annual expense for alternatives is over$12,000, while my annual cost for traditional medicine (includinginsurance) is about $10,000. Just letting off steam.

Answer: You bring up an important point, and it relates to a topic that is ofcentral importance in the naturopathic profession right now. Alternativepractitioners, of course, wish their services were covered by insurance,and in fact more and more insurance companies are allowing patients to seenaturopaths (Oxford Insurance, for instance, is one of the larger healthinsurance corporations in the Eastern US; they now cover naturopaths).

However, the naturopathic profession integrates into the "mainstream"health care apparatus at a cost. It is no secret that *allopathic*physicians are beginning to rebel against treatment constraints placedupon them by the insurance industry in the managed care environment. Asnaturopaths and other alternative practitioners are allowed into the"market," there is no reason to think that they, too, will not beconstrained in their practice.

When this happens, then naturopathic medicine is changed into somethingelse. It loses an aspect of itself which is vital to its success and itspower. It is a double-edged sword.

On a more practical note regarding your wife's treatment:

One can see two schools - or treatment philosophies - within thenaturopathic community (and I suspect the other alternative health careprofessions are similar). One might be called the "traditional" school(I'm now talking only of naturopathic medicine). The other I'll call the"new" school.

The traditional school tends to adhere more closely to the principle ofusing the *least force necessary* to treat a given illness. Also relatedto this is the concept of the therapeutic hierarchy, where differenttreatments are placed in a hierarchy, with the ones with the *least*potential for suppression are employed first, and those with greaterpotential for suppression are employed later.

The new school tends to focus more on scientific research and clinicaltrials. This means that things like supplements and botanical extracts arethe primary treatments employed, as those are the easiest to find researchon (and conduct research on). They also happen to be rather far down thetherapeutic hierarchy (meaning that they are generally more suppressivethan other treatments).

If your wife was given $600 worth of supplements to take as adjunct forcancer treatment, I think it is safe to say that her alternative medicalphysicians falls more readily into the new school of alternativetreatment. One of the downfalls of that school is that treatment costsmore. There *is* more data about it, and it *is* more respected by theallopathic community (and probably by the larger population in general),but it is *not* the only effective form of alternative therapy.

I would suggest this to you: consider contacting the American Associationof Naturopathic Physicians and asking them for a referral to a naturopathwho has a more traditional treatment style. Such treatments includehydrotherapy, dietary change, homeopathy, maybe acupuncture. Suchtherapies are much cheaper than armfuls of supplements, and they are alsovery effective in the treatment of cancer, as my conversations withnaturopaths who treat numerous cancer patients has taught me.

It *is* unfortunate that alternative therapies can be so expensive; butthey don't *have* to be. I encourage you to explore the possibilities ifyou and/or your wife have been encouraged by the results you have seen sofar.