Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Hitting a Medical Wall, and Turning to Unproven Treatments - The New York Times

What if you or your child had a chronic illness that seriously limited or threatened life, and modern medicine had no effective or acceptable treatments to offer you?

Imagine you were plagued by severe food allergies, rheumatoid arthritis, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or intractable epilepsy. Would you be willing or desperate or brave enough to step outside the realm of established medicine and seek help from an unconventional therapist — even someone with no medical or scientific training?

What if you heard about others in a similar situation who had tried a purported remedy that appeared to work, or the method seemed to make biological sense?

In her new book, "The Other Side of Impossible," Susannah Meadows, a Brooklyn-based former senior writer for Newsweek, has compiled compelling stories about people who faced and ultimately surmounted daunting medical challenges. The book focuses on several families, including her own, who felt they had no choice but to wade into the world of unproven therapies.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/well/live/hitting-a-medical-wall-and-turning-to-unproven-treatments.html