| Scleroderma and Alternative Therapies (MAIN MENU) |
| This page was written by Shelley Ensz, and has not yet been medically edited. See Disclaimer. |
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| Scleroderma and Alternative Therapies |
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| Overview |
| Complementary and Alternative Medicine for Scleroderma Excellent information on herbs, vitamins, acupuncture, massage therapy, and biofeedback. Aetna InteliHealth. |
| A Positive Approach to Scleroderma by Dr. Andrew Weil. This is a respected source for information on alternative therapies. Dr. Weil. |
| Mayo Clinic's Top 10 Complementary Therapies Safe and Effective Treatments That Enhance Conventional Medical Care. Their top 10 include acupuncture, guided imagery, hypnosis, massage, meditation, music therapy, spinal manipulation, spirituality, tai chi, and yoga. Amit Sood, MD, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, on BottomLine. |
| Placebos Recommended Routinely By Doctors, Study. Forty five per cent of respondents recommended placebos to patients in clinical practice and believed in the mind-body connection. Medical News Today. 01/04/08. |
| A Placebo a Day, Keeps the Doctor Away. "It is quite possible that people who adhere to healthy lifestyles also tend to take care of themselves by greater adherence to prescribed treatments". RxPG News. British Medical Journal; Volume 333 pp 15-18. 08/19/06. |
| Musculoskeletal conditions and complementary/alternative medicine. Complementary/alternative medicine (CAM) is immensely popular for musculoskeletal conditions. It is, therefore, essential to define CAM's value for such indications. Collectively the evidence demonstrates that some CAM modalities show significant promise, e.g. acupuncture, diets, herbal medicine, homoeopathy, massage, supplements. None of the treatments in question is totally devoid of risks. PubMed. Best Pract Res Clin Rheumatol. 2004 Aug;18(4):539-56. (Also see: Fibromyalgia) |
| Scleroderma Symptoms and Treatments Look up each of your scleroderma symptoms here to find other ideas for conventional and natural ways to deal with them. ISN. |
| Warnings about Complementary and Alternative Therapies |
| Warning over untested web 'cures'. Leading medical experts are warning patients against using untested remedies advertised on the internet which, they say, sell "false hope". BBC. 11/10/08. |
| Beware of Internet Health Fraud The Internet is chock-full of misleading, misguided and mistaken information on the one hand, and trustworthy, cutting-edge science on the other. How can we decide who and what to believe? These sites offer some practical guidance. ISN. |
| Twenty-Five Ways to Spot Quacks and Vitamin Pushers How can food quacks and other vitamin pushers be recognized? Here are 25 signs that should arouse suspicion. QuackWatch. |
| Accupuncture |
| Acupuncture relieves symptoms of fibromyalgia, Mayo Clinic study finds. Evidence suggests acupuncture reduces the symptoms of fibromyalgia, according to a Mayo Clinic study. EurekaAlert! 06/14/06. (Also see: Fibromyalgia) |
| Acupunture Acupuncture is not without risks. There have been some reports of lung and bladder punctures, some broken needles, and some allergic reactions to needles containing substances other than surgical steel. Acupuncture may be harmful to the fetus in early pregnancy since it may stimulate the production of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and oxytocin, which affect labor. There is always the possibility of infection from unsterilized needles. And some patients will suffer simply because they avoided a known effective treatment of modern medicine. The Skeptics Dictionary. |
| Chiropractic |
| Alternative/Complimentary Therapies for Scleroderma. Doctors of Chiropractic medicine (D.C.) manipulate or adjust the spinal column with easy, manual thrusts to move the spinal vertebrae back to their normal positions. A chiropractor will sometimes also manipulate the joints of the neck, arms, and legs. Chiropractors also are concerned with a patient's overall well-being and recognize that many factors affect health, including stress, exercise, diet, rest, environment, and heredity. Johns Hopkins Scleroderma Center. |
| Hypnosis |
| Hypnosis in Contemporary Medicine. To determine whether hypnosis has a role in contemporary medicine, relevant trials and a few case reports are reviewed. Patients treated with hypnosis experienced substantial benefits for many different medical conditions. An expanded role for hypnosis and a larger study of techniques appear to be indicated. Mayo Clin Proc. 2005;80(4):511-524. |
| Look up each of your symptoms on the main Scleroderma Symptoms page to find many other ideas for natural and conventional treatments. |
| Massage |
| Massage: A Hands-On Approach to Improved Health. What therapy can help decrease pain, anxiety, stress and depression? It can help patients with arthritis, lymphedema, fibromyalgia, scleroderma, pregnancy and psychological disorders. It’s massage—one of the oldest forms of therapy. Today, there’s growing interest in the benefits of massage used in conjunction with other conventional medical treatments. Newswise. Mayo Clinic. 01/06/05. |
| Meditation |
| Body-mind meditation boosts performance, reduces stress. The findings suggest a measurable benefit that people could achieve through body-mind meditation, especially involving an effective training regimen, but larger studies are needed to fully test the findings of this small, short-term study. EurekAlert! 10/08/07. (Also see: Causes of Scleroderma: Stress) |
| Mindfulness meditation alleviates depressive symptoms in women with fibromyalgia: Results of a randomized clinical trial. Depressive symptoms improved significantly in treatment versus control participants over the 3 assessments. This meditation-based intervention alleviated depressive symptoms among patients with fibromyalgia. Wlley InterScience: Arthritis Care & Research Volume 57, Issue 1, Pages 77-85. (Also see: Fibromyalgia) |
| Transcendental Meditation reduces the brain's reaction to pain. Transcendental Meditation could reduce the brain's response to pain because neuroimaging and autonomic studies indicate that it produces a physiological state capable of modifying various kinds of pain. EurekAlert! 08/09/06. (Also see: Emotional Adjustment) |
| Stress Reduction |
| Stress can play havoc with the immune system, as well as trigger and worsen attacks of Raynaud's. Alternative therapies that help reduce stress, such as biofeedback and yoga, may improve scleroderma symptoms. |
| Strive for moderation in everything—just enough but not too much exercise, good sleep every night with sufficient rest breaks during the day, and well-balanced, regular meals. |
| Arthritis sufferers benefit from the healing powers of yoga. As an increasing amount of research points to the health benefits of physical activity for those with rheumatic conditions, one type of exercise in particular seems to be growing in popularity is yoga. Gerri Grant. Canada Healthcare Newsletter. Hospital News. Mar 2009. (Also see: Arthritis and Pain Management) |
| Stress: Unhealthy response to the pressures of life. Letting stress get the best of you may be doing more harm than you think. Stress can worsen the symptoms of autoimmune disease. Mayo Clinic. 09/14/06. (Also see: Causes of Scleroderma: Stress) |
| Symptoms and Treatments |
| Look up each of your symptoms on our main Scleroderma Symptoms page to find many other ideas for natural and conventional treatments. |
| Books: Alternative Medicine |
| The Arthritis Foundation's Guide to Alternative Therapies Should you try acupuncture? Is there a reliable herbal remedy to help you sleep better? Which alternative remedies are helpful, and which ones are probably bogus? Get help with these tough questions! |
| Living Better : Every Patient's Guide to Living with Illness Carol J. Langenfeld, M.S.Ed., L.P.C., has more than 20 years of experience battling with scleroderma, a connective tissue disease which has caused life-threatening cardiac arrests. Douglas E. Langenfeld, M.B.A., C.P.A., has lived with the results of a pituitary tumor since 1991. |
