Holistic medicine aims to achieve total wellness for a patient, an approach that delivers healthcare that integrates body, mind, and spirit while incorporating conservative therapies to minimize the effects of both illness and treatment.
Nurse practitioner Savitri Gopaul, FNP-BC, of Commonwealth Pain Management and Wellness in Richmond, Virginia, believes in the holistic approach, ensuring that your care considers the complete person that you are, not simply the product of your illness or injury.
Though conservative holistic care treatments tend to minimize side effects, it’s not always possible to avoid these completely. Today, we look at some common holistic treatments and their potential for negative complications.
When a practitioner focuses solely on illness and remedy, sometimes the patient’s well-being can become an afterthought. The general movement in contemporary healthcare considers, when possible, the impact that a treatment has on aspects of a patient’s life apart from their medical condition.
We see this in the move away from opioid medications as a mid- to long-term pain relief technique. The risks to a person’s mental and physical well-being apart from their pain can be enormous in the form of addiction.
Holistic medicine moves toward treatments with fewer side effects, or combination therapies that seek to offset the effects of treatment. We may recommend or use modalities such as:
At Commonwealth Pain Management and Wellness, we also offer therapies like analgesic and trigger point injections to control pain and promote healing in minimally invasive ways.
While minimizing side effects is a key principle of holistic care, sometimes these effects are unavoidable. Part of developing a holistic treatment plan requires learning about individual reactions and the most appropriate treatments for you as an individual.
Let’s consider some common holistic treatments and potential side effects.
A generally safe therapy, acupuncture can cause minor bruising and soreness around treatment sites. An unusual side effect that sometimes occurs is a temporary increase in symptoms that’s thought to be a sign that the treatment is activating.
Deep tissue massage and aggressive physical therapy can leave you aching and sore, though these are often signs of therapeutic progress. These treatments can also cause temporary effects like dizziness, headache, bruising, and muscle spasms.
The aim of chiropractic treatment is to bring your musculoskeletal system back into balance. Like massage and physical therapy, many of the side effects may also be signs of your body returning to balance. Soreness, stiffness, headache, and fatigue are common after treatment.
Pain relief and trigger point injections carry a small risk of infection, about the same as you have when taking allergy shots or providing a blood test. There may be temporary bruising or tenderness around the injection sites.
Contact us at Commonwealth Pain Management and Wellness in Richmond, Virginia, to learn more about the holistic services we provide as well as their potential effects on you. Request an appointment online or by phone today.
