Integrative medicine is an approach to healing and wellness that combines the practices and treatments of conventional medicine with those of alternative medicine.
If you’re interested in the current status of alternative medicine in the US, consider a sample issue of Townsend Letter.
Now in its 25th year of continuous publication under the direction of pioneer integrative physician Jonathan Collin, MD, the publication is subtitled “The Examiner of Alternative Medicine.” I learned early on that a subscription to Townsend Letter was virtually a requirement if I wanted to keep abreast of the many fields of complementary and alternative therapies.
…and this year is a bad one. Patients have been contacting me with all sorts of the usual hay fever type symptoms: watery eyes, runny noses, sneezing, coughing. My own allergies progressed to asthma and I was compelled to rummage around for an inhaler to use for a few days this month. (It’s probably not the smartest move to use an old dust-covered asthma inhaler, but that old saying that doctors make terrible patients is often true.)
