Own Your Health: Choosing the Best from Alternative and Conventional Medicine

This is an excellent work which covers both conventionaland alternative medicinal protocols. The author describesthe various massage methodologies which involve theartful manipulation of soft tissue to achieve healing.The craniosacral rhythmic therapies are described as part ofa spinal realignment regimen. In 1997, the author describeshow the National Institutes of Health released findings ofa "Consensus Panel reflecting the opinions of many experts on acupuncture for pain. The panel found 'clear and promisingevidence' that acupuncture helps to relieve low back pain."The book describes how Boswelia relieves chronic colitis.In addition, the atherosclerosis protocol shows how thecondition may be prevented with a low fat diet, increasedintake of fruits and vegetables and various bridge techniquesof both conventional and alternative medicinal protocolsutilized in unison.

Own Your Health: Choosing The Best From Alternative & Conventional Medicine is a solidly written, nicely organized, and truly "reader friendly" guide to understanding and making choices among alternative and conventional medical treatments. Anecdotes, judgmental weighing of facts and statistics, pros and cons, and so much more fill the pages of this compendium of information. Own Your Health is a quite excellent and very highly recommended resource -- especially for those wrestling with chronic ills with symptoms that resist standard medical treatments.

As a fellow medical writer, I'm very impressed with the information presented in this book, and with its easy-to-follow format. Besides telling the stories of various individuals who have found relief for their conditions with combinations of allopathic and complementary medicine, Weisman and Berman give readers detailed backgrounds of treatments/techniques such as meditation, Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine in sections called "A Closer Look." "What's the Evidence?" sections concisely summarize the published research on various treatment modalities. The "Take Action" sections offer practical advice for patients coping with pain, aging, cancer, menopause and childhood illnesses. Weisman's candor about her own recovery, as well as about her son's challenges facing a chronic illness, engages and empowers readers in a way that most self-help medical books cannot and do not. Whether you are a patient yourself, or are simply reading this to become better informed, you will surely own your health by the end of the book. Bravo to both Weisman and Berman.