Alternative medicine treatments are a great option for anyone looking to take a holistic, comprehensive approach to their health. Holistic medicine is generally concerned with your overall health and looks at the body as a singular whole, taking other factors like your lifestyle into account when considering treatment methods. There is, however, a variety of specialities within holistic medicine which are worth research to ensure you’re getting the right treatment for your medical conditions and personal beliefs.

The team at Better Health and Wellness is composed of skilled, experienced alternative medicine doctors in Tampa, FL. We understand from our collective experience that a number of factors go into what makes a practitioner the right choice for a given patient, ranging from obvious factors like areas of specialization to less clear ones concerning personal compatibility between a doctor and patient.

In this blog post, we’ll go over all of these factors to ensure you can make the most educated decision possible when choosing the right doctor for you.

What kinds of alternative medicine doctors are there?

Alternative medicine still resembles certain aspects of traditional medicine, and one of these is its variety of specialized practitioners. As with standard medical treatment, the first step to finding the right doctor for you is finding one whose style of treatment makes sense for your condition. Some of the different types of alternative medicine doctors you can visit include:

• Doctor of Osteopathy: These doctors focus on hands-on treatments to relieve tension in your muscles, joints, and nerves. Treatment from an osteopathic doctor is especially helpful for migraines, back and neck pain, arthritis, digestive issues, and period aches.
• Integrative physician: An integrative physician blends traditional treatments with alternative methods. They’ll typically advise holistic therapies as a supplement to standard approaches like medication.
• Ayurvedic doctor: These practitioners offer treatments meant to restore your body to an equilibrium in accordance with the ancient Indian tradition of Ayurveda, which holds that your body is governed by the three life energies of vata, pitta, and kapha. These treatments are supported by research as being effective for certain conditions.
• Naturopathic doctor: Naturopathic doctors can order most of the same types of tests as an MD, but will typically recommend less invasive treatments for the same conditions.
• Traditional Chinese medicine practitioner: These practitioners focus on treatments like acupuncture to help your vital energy, or qi, flow freely throughout your body in order to balance two opposing forces, your yin and yang.

To read more about these different types of alternative medicine doctors and the types of treatments they offer, take a look at this article from Health.com.

Are you compatible with the doctor?

Beyond the specific treatments a practitioner has to offer, it’s important that you gauge how compatible you are with them before choosing to begin or continue treatment with them. We’ve written about the factors of compatibility before on our blog in relation to our own practice, but they apply no matter which doctor you’re considering.

To reiterate, you should assess the expertise and professionalism of the practitioner’s staff, the atmosphere of their work environment in terms of cleanliness and comfort, and their equipment and approach to treating you.

In addition, you need to make sure an alternative medicine practitioner you’re considering is willing to work with conventional health care providers over the course of your treatment. You also should find out as much as you can about the practitioner’s own experience, credentials, and expertise with your particular condition, as well as whether their services are covered under your health insurance.

You can read more about how to evaluate an alternative medicine doctor in this article from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.

Work with our Tampa, FL alternative medicine doctors now!

With over 30 years of experience and an expert team of medical practitioners, you’ll be in good hands at our wellness center. Contact us now for a consultation and to learn more about how we can help you.