After doing a presentation recently on Meniere’s Disease, I found out a few interesting tidbits regarding complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Meniere’s Disease is a disorder of the inner ear, whose cause is unknown. Symptoms include tinnitus (a ringing in the ears), hearing loss, vertigo, and aural fullness (a sensation that you have cotton in your ears). There is no cure for Meniere’s Disease, but there are some treatments that may help alleviate these bothersome symptoms. Some include the use of ototoxic drugs (which can really only be used in patients who have a severe hearing loss, as these drugs tend to worsen hearing and cause permanent damage); others have begun to turn to alternative medicine methods, like CAM.

Meniere’s Disease patients who seek CAM treatment for relief have found significant betterment of their symptoms. CAM includes treatments such as acupuncture, herbal medicine, naturopathy, hypnosis, and many other treatments. A CAM practitioner is one who is skilled in alternative medicine practices and treatments. They have received their licensure after completing a prescribed course of CAM school study and can legally practice on clients. Some CAM practitioners may specialize in a particular type of CAM treatment, but all have a pretty generalized knowledge of the scope of the field.

The benefits of CAM treatment on Meniere’s Disease patients are becoming more widely studied, as many patients are willing to try this natural method in order to alleviate their symptoms. Although it’s not a specific cure, CAM could be a helpful way for these patients to cope with their disease, which can actually cause an increase in demand for CAM practitioners.

Read up on some holistic health stories here.

-Amanda Fornecker

Tags: cam, cam practitioner, holistic health, meniere's disease, natural medicine

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 10:03 am and is filed under Spa/Wellness . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.