Saturday, November 24, 2012

Alternative medicine and pheo


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