Happy holidays!
This is a long
overdue topic suggested by a reader. I’ve been thinking about it for months.
The reason for the long thinking process is mostly because I want to give alternative
medicine in pheo management a fair and clear evaluation. Here are my opinions
on alternative medicine.
Luckily, most
patients with pheo do not need alternative medicine. For the majority of
patients, preoperative preparation and surgical removal are sufficient and
definitive management of pheo. We don’t have to invoke alternative medicine for
them.
Patients may be
interested in ways to prevent pheo recurrence if they have had pheo, or ways to
prevent pheo emergence if they are carriers of mutations or have family members
with pheo. As the exact molecular pathogenesis of pheo has not been worked out
yet, there is no reliable knowledge on specific ways to prevent pheo recurrence
or emergence. Patients and their family members should follow a healthy life
style and appropriate surveillance.
Patients with
metastatic pheo may have hard-to-control symptoms, develop adverse effects from
treatment, or be resistant to therapies. For those patients, alternative
medicine may have a role but the patients and their mainstream physicians need
to be very cautious and act on good common sense. Alternative medicine won’t
shrink the tumors or magically make the tumors disappear but it may make the
patients feel somewhat better. The patients should let their mainstream doctors
know that they are seeking alternative medicine or under alternative medicine
treatment. The exact alternative medicine treatment should be known to the
mainstream doctors and should not be outrageous or dangerous. The alternative
medicine practitioner should not make grandiose claims about the regimen,
should have a good reputation, and should know when to stop the regimen. I
frankly don’t recommend alternative medicine to my patients in most situations.
Dr. Pheo
