Imagine that you have a toolbox to heal, with classical medicine on one side and "different" therapies on the other.

Each tool has its interest and its field of action. Sweet medicines excel in the prevention of diseases and the support of chronic conditions. Their care is often less toxic and less violent to the body - provided they are practiced by serious and well-trained therapists.

Another downside: what is good for one organization will not necessarily be good for another. What is effective at a specific moment in one's life will not be effective for another.

Testimonials and explanations of Dr. Thierry Janssen, ex-surgeon who is pure and hard, who was initiated in the United States to "integrative medicine" - association of classical medicine with unconventional practices.

Chinese medicine

This discipline includes different practices: prescription of herbal remedies and minerals, massage therapy, energy work by tai chi or qigong and acupuncture, more known in the West.

His favorite areas are: stress management (smoking cessation in particular), eating disorders, pains (headaches, low back pain, sciatica, shoulder pain, rheumatism, etc.).

How it works ? The principle of traditional acupuncture is to plant needles on the skin at preferred locations along the meridians. Each point has a predictable effect on the pain or the diseased organ. Modern science has measured the electric charge of these points, corroborating the locations of meridians.

Testimony: " I smoked two to three packs a day, sighs Dominique, I tried acupuncture for three years, three sessions, three days in a row, the first time it did not work because I I wanted to please my mother, the second one because I wanted to please my daughter, the third time it finally worked, I have not touched a cigarette for ten years, as my doctor says:

In smoking cessation, there is 50% motivation and 50% acupuncture.

kokouu / iStockphoto.com

The opinion of the doctor : "In acupuncture, as in all these complementary medicines, we must leave 'the chance to the body' and persevere if it does not work at first, but beware of dubious practices and charlatans. very many sessions without convincing results, suspicion.Three or four sessions should be enough to know if one 'responds to treatment.We begin to better understand the modes of action of acupuncture.Mergers MRI studies at Harvard have have shown that stimulation of an acupuncture point with a needle or a laser causes activation in the brain in areas related to the effects expected by the treatment, for example by stimulating a point supposed to improve visual problems, we observe the activation of visual occipital cortex. "

hypnosis

Her favorite areas : certain surgeries, where she replaces anesthesia, pain, stress, disturbed sleep, eating disorders, psychosomatic diseases (allergies, eczema ...), sexual disorders.

How it works ? Hypnosis causes real physiological changes in the brain. This global therapy makes it possible to work on sensations, emotions and their mental representations. So on the body and the mind. During the sessions, it is the words, the images, the metaphors, suggested by the therapist or proposed by the patient, that act. We talk about brief therapies, because a dozen sessions can suffice.

Testimonial: "When I was 27 years old, I was still suffering a lot of acne, and since I wanted a baby, I could not take the treatment," says Véronique "The more I was stressed, the more I was scratching myself. His therapist, it has improved a lot since then.

Hypnosis helps me to speak in public - my pet peeve at work.

"Before the difficult meetings, I have a little session, as my therapist taught me, and I do not shake, my voice remains and I look the room in the face without fainting."

The doctor's opinion : "Hypnosis is a natural phenomenon to which we are all subjects without knowing it.When we read a book, we are in an almost hypnotic state, so concentrated that the rest disappears from the consciousness. As we fall asleep, we also know this kind of "dissociation." To induce this state has nothing to do with the phenomena of the fair, it suffices to relax and focus on a thought. to some of our packaging, which is why hypnosis is so often used in smoking cessation, eating disorders and phobias. "

homeopathy

His favorite areas : stress, allergy (eczema, urticaria ...), winter infections and ENT disorders of childhood. Homeopathy uses, at infinitesimal doses, products chosen for their ability to provoke, at a higher dose, symptoms similar to those that we want to correct. To lower the fever, the substance that causes this fever is used at very low doses. This technique works by rebalancing the person, activating each person's own repair mechanisms.

Testimonial : "My daughters often had cold sores during their periods or their stresses of stress, explains Brigitte.Antiviral ointments did not give much.In a book of homeopathy, I found the recipe against herpes And there, miracle: the granules of vaccine toxinum have stopped the appearance of the button, provided to be taken from the first tingling on the lips, and this closely.It worked every time.

Simple, effective and cheap.

"I also remember an eczema all over the body that I normally should have treated with corticosteroid ointment, I consulted a homeopathic doctor and the crisis is over."


erierika / iStockphoto.com

The opinion of the doctor : "Around me, many people have cured when they only resorted to this practice.If it is because of the placebo effect, so much the better: to heal cheaply and without effects It may not be so bad, but perhaps we must also accept the hypothesis that a trace molecule can have an effect without any scientific explanation at the moment. In the meantime, we would be wrong to throw water with 'the memory of water' ".

Herbal medicine

His areas of predilection : Strengthening of immunity and winter infections, stress, sleep disorders, digestive, gynecological or urinary, circulatory problems. Herbal medicine (decoction, infusions, essential oils, drops, capsules ...) offers a natural mode of action of the whole plant or one of its parts (roots, leaves, flowers, buds .. .), sometimes more active than the isolated principle synthesized by chemistry. This therapy requires a diagnosis and does not admit self-medication, except for minor ailments that reoffend and that we know well. In aromatherapy, a dozen essential oils are enough to treat the most common sores.

Testimonial: "One day, I was on the phone with a doctor and I was coughing all the time because of a badly treated puncture by antibiotics, recalls Nelly.This doctor recommended me Algerian essence or a simple mixture of essential oils based on eucalyptus, pine and thyme, to pass on the upper chest several times a day.The next day nothing. "

At the least sore throat or ENT problem, I rub it everywhere I hurt for two or three days.

The opinion of the doctor : "We often forget that healing with plants is as old as medicine.Phytotherapy must be practiced by a specialist, doctor, pharmacist, or even herbalist storefront, which knows the synergy of plants and their mode of administration for maximum effectiveness.These remedies are sometimes so active that they are used badly, they become time bombs.At the plants whose origin is unknown, all that is green or organic is not necessarily good. "

osteopathy

His favorite areas : "mechanical" pain (back pain, sciatica, sprain, osteoarthritis, tendinitis, etc.); and also migraines, insomnia, vertigo, digestive or gynecological disorders resulting from cumulative imbalances of the spine. Osteopathy is a global manual medicine, preventive and curative, which relies on the self-healing abilities of the body. Osteopathy "hard" consists of manipulations by small stretches and mobilizations. The "soft " , called "cranial " , works by touching, by sliding, sometimes by simple imposition of hands on the bones of the skull.

Testimonial: " When I met my husband, he got up every morning with back pain that disappeared after a quarter of an hour.One day we met an osteopathic physiotherapist who prided himself on intervention in 'act unique' .Tope there! My husband settled on the table, the man put his hands on his skull a few minutes without mobilizing, without creak or pain, just the sweetness, and there I saw the legs of my man lie down. "

The next day, it was no longer pain, and for fifteen years, it lasts.

"A few years later, I consulted the same therapist for me, and there, nothing, not the slightest effect." Folded in two pain for low back pain, I saw later other osteopaths, doctors or physio, who only worked with radios, and there, in a manipulation, I was much better. "

The opinion of the doctor : "The hypothesis of the 'living matrix' issued in the journal 'Nature' a few years ago seems interesting to explain the way osteopathy works.According to a Harvard researcher, Donald Ingber, information would be conducted throughout the body by the nervous system, blood vessels, and a network of mostly collagenous fibers, so it is conceivable that the mere touching of a part of the body may result in distant reactions to the heart. of each cell, and allow the rebalancing of the whole body.This line of research may explain the effects obtained by osteopaths.

To read :
"The Aromatherapy Guide" by Guillaume Gérault and Ronald Mary (Albin Michel).
"The inner solution: towards a new medicine of the body and mind" of Dr. Thierry Janssen (Pocket ed.).