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by TOM STIEGHORST
Business Writer
Six years ago, Marie Kerr smashed her elbow on the guardrail of a boat off Hillsboro
Inlet as she went over the side on a dive trip. She screamed in pain.
In seeking treatment, Kerr met with four doctors and had surgery on her damaged ulnar
nerve, without much effect. "It just kept getting worse and worse," she
said.
Last fall, Kerr decided to try acupuncture despite an aversion to needless. She said
daily use of the ancient Chinese medical technique has her functioning again.
"It's just totally amazing to me, " she said. "If I had had this beforehand,
I wouldn't have had the surgery. I wouldn't have been out of commission for six years"
Increasingly, Americans are turning to alternative medical therapies to cure what
ails them. They are drinking herbal teas, having needles poked through their skin,
submitting to chiropractic manipulations and using the mind to heal the body.
In a study published in January in The New England Journal of Medicine, a group of
doctors concluded that one in three Americans had used some type of unconventional
therapy in the past year.
Altogether, Americans paid 425 million visits to providers of such therapy and spent
$13.7 billion, about 75 percent out of their own pockets, the study said.It concluded
that alternative remedies are a hidden factor in the $752 billion U.S. health-care
industry.
The frequency of use of unconventional therapy in the United
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Dr. Yao Wu Lee says acupuncture stimulates the body to heal itself.
States is far higher than previously reported." the study said.
That growth is reflected in Florida, where the number of massage therapists has grown
88 percent in the past five years; acupuncturists are up 81 percent; and chiropractors
27 percent. In comparison, the number of doctors and physician's assistants has grown
22 percent in the past five years.
One reason more attention is being paid to alternative remedies is the new Office
of Alternative Medicine set up last year at the government-financed National Institutes
of Health. Frustrated by the lack of progress on fatal diseases such as cancer, Congress
urged the health agency to at least begin exploring new avenues.
The office will finance about $2 million of research this year into new therapies. |
While some doctors worry the move may validate useless or dangerous treatment, alternative
practitioners say it will help patients feel better about going outside a medical
system that can seem overly specialized and impersonal.
"I you want to use a more holistic approach to your health, you certainly should
have that choice," said Dr. Bud Fein, head of the Broward County Chiropractic
Society.
Acupuncture, the Chinese art of sticking needles into the skin at specific points
to cure pain and disease, also is becoming more established.
Acupuncture first gained a foothold in the United States in the early 1970's, after
President Nixon re-established trade relations with China, said Dr. Yao Wu Lee, who
has four offices in South Florida.
Lee said that at first acupuncture was banned by state legislators who considered
it a hoax. Today, nearly every state licenses acupuncture, including Florida which
has 334 licensed acupuncturists.
"The reason why acupuncture has become popular in so short a time is because
it works. It has a benefit," said Lee. "Acupuncture stimulates the body
to heal itself."
Lee said he sees about 30 patients a day. He said 1 percent of his patients are Chinese
or Asian, and about 20 percent are referred from other physicians.
Florida's acupuncture community has grown by 81 percent since 1986-87 according to
the Florida Department of Professional Regulation, which licenses health professionals. |
