Legal disclaimer: This page contains educational books and information. It does not offer professional medical advice, and Empowerment Resources is not legally responsible or liable for how you utilize this information. If you have a medical problem, please see a doctor.
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Book Deal- Buy Alternative Medicine for $12.00-$12.98 as of 9/2/01. This is the hardcover edition for less than the new paperback edition.
Medical Self-Care
Take Care of Yourself: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Medical Self-Care, by Donald M. Vickery, M.D., and James Fries, M.D. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Taking Care of Your Child: A Parent's Illustrated Guide to Complete Medical Care, by Robert H. Pantell, M.D., Donald M. Vickery, M.D., and James Fries, M.D. Please remember to sign your children up for free or low cost medical care. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Mayo Clinic Guide to Self-Care, edited by Philip Hagen, M.D., and the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic also offers a website. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Out of print.
Dr. Koop's Self-Care Advisor. Published in 1996 by Time Life Medical. Currently out of print. You may be able to buy it from a pharmacy. Dr. Koop has since migrated to drkoop.com on the web.
Out of print.
Medical Self-Care: Access to Health Tools. Published back in 1980 by Tom Ferguson, M.D. Now out of print. Doc Tom has migrated to the web at Health World's Self-Care Central.
Conventional Allopathic Medicine
Conventional allopathic medicine is very powerful and can save your life in a crisis. Doctors and hospitals save people's lives. However, conventional allopathic medicine tends to be weak on holistic health, health promotion, and preventing illness in the first place. It also tends to rely more on expensive doctors and technology and less on inexpensive medical self-care. Also, allopathic medicine tends to focus more on conquering disease, while naturopathic medicine tends to focus more on healing and strengthening the body's natural ability to heal itself. In short, conventional allopathic medicine is very useful, but I believe it can be supplemented by alternative medicine and a wide variety of health-promoting activities.
The Merck Manual of Medical Information: Home Edition (2nd Ed, 1999). Merck decided for the first time in 1997 to share their wealth of knowledge with the general public through this new inexpensive book. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
The Physicians Desk Reference Family Guide Encyclopedia of Medical Care, by the publishers of the PDR. Published in 1999. This is the inexpensive consumer version of the authoritative Physicians' Desk Reference 2000, the authoritative $80 huge doctor's reference manual. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Complete Drug Reference: 2002, by United States Pharmacopoeia. 1,752 pages. Very thorough. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
America's Best Hospitals (1996), by U.S. News. An expansion of the U.S. News 1996 annual guide to the best hospitals in the United States. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
The Yale University School of Medicine Patient's Guide to Medical Tests, by the Yale University School of Medicine. A top-quality but rather expensive patient's guide to medical tests. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
The Patient's Guide to Medical Tests: Everything You Need to Know About the Tests Your Doctor Prescribes (Serial), by Joseph Stauffer Ph. D. and Joseph C. Segen. A much more affordable paperback guide to medical tests that provides less detailed information than The Yale University School of Medicine Patient's Guide to Medical Tests. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Medlink offers a good starting point for researching conventional medical information on the Internet.
Alternative Medicine
Book
Deal- Buy Alternative Medicine for
$12.00-$12.98 as of 9/2/01.
This is the hardcover edition for less than the new paperback edition.Alternative Medicine: the Definitive Guide, compiled by the Buron Goldberg Group. This is the new paperback edition of this huge book, published in Sept. 1998. You can also purchase the original 1,068-page 1994 hardcover edition. There is also a related Alternative Medicine Digest website. You can use this book to get innovative holistic health care ideas, but please be advised that (due to a lack of funding) many of these holistic health care ideas have not been adequately researched and tested and may or may not work. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Alternative Medicine Yellow Pages: The Comprehensive Guide to the New World of Health, by Melinda Bonk, lists holistic health care practitioners nationwide. For local listings, your local holistic health/countercultural/new age journal and resource guide may provide some good leads.
Alternative Healing: The Complete A-Z Guide to More Than 150 Alternative Therapies, by Hugh Burroughs and Mark Kastner, Dipl. Ac. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Buy from the U.S. government by calling 202-512-1800.
Alternative Medicine: Expanding Medical Horizons- A Report to the National Institutes of Health on Alternative Medical Systems and Practices in the United States, can be purchased for $25 by calling the U.S. Government at 202-512-1800.
HealthWorld Online (also reachable with quick access time) is a useful Internet site on holistic health, alternative medicine, and medical self-care.
Here is a list of Alternative Medicine Links on the Internet.
For an alternative viewpoint, Quackwatch provides a very skeptical view of alternative medicine. While I do not endorse this website, I believe it plays a valuable if overzealous role in critiquing the potential excesses and errors in alternative medicine.
Bodywork (including Rolfing)
Bodymind, by Ken Dychtwald. The body and the mind are very much related. (For example, muscle tension and mind tension go together, and exercise will flush out stress-chemicals in the bodymind and replace them with relaxation chemicals.) This book covers the bodymind connection in detail, and allows you to learn about yourself by observing how your life has molded your bodymind over the years.
Out of print.
The Sensual Body: The Ultimate Guide to Body Awareness and Self-Fulfillment, by Lucy Lidell. A fun-loving beautifully illustrated Gaia original book. Currently out of print.
Discovering the Body's Wisdom, by Mirka Knaster. A good introduction to using bodywork to heal your bodymind. It also lists more than 75 different types of bodywork, grouped by category. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
The Encyclopedia of Bodywork: From Acupressure to Zone Therapy, by Elaine Stillerman. This encyclopedia of bodywork lists over 200 different types of bodywork in alphabetical order. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Acupressure's Potent Points: A Guide to Self-Care for Common Ailments, by Mirka Knaster. This is a self-help book based on the Chinese principles of acupuncture, which attempts to manipulate the chi (or life energy) flowing through the bodymind. I can't personally vouch for it, but according to Ken Dychtwald, who wrote Bodymind, "Acupressure's Potent Points is well informed, sensitively written, and is easy to follow. This is an excellent book that can be used regularly to help relieve a headache, improve sleep, or just energize the body. It belongs on every family's bookshelf." Reviewed by Amazon.com.
See also massage.
Rolfing-- a form of Bodywork
Rolfing: Stories of Personal Empowerment, by Briah Anson. I can personally vouch for the healing power of rolfing, a powerful (and expensive) but not entirely painless form of bodywork. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Info on Specific Diseases, including Heart Disease, Diabetes, and Cancer.
Info on Heart Disease
Publisher out of stock in Nov. 2000.
Is Heart Surgery Necessary?: What Your Doctor Won't Tell You, by Julian Whitaker, M.D. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Alternative Medicine Guide to Heart Disease, by Burton Goldberg and the editors of Alternative Medicine Digest. Innovative ideas from the leading edge of holistic healthcare. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
The Chelation Way: The Complete Book of Chelation Therapy, by Dr. Morton Walker. Americans tend to get clogged arteries, primarily because the average American diet is over 40% fat in calories. (The video Diet for a New America shows this quite graphically.) You can slow down and possibly even reverse clogging your arteries by changing your diet. You can also use oral and/or intravenous chelation therapy, which will unclog your arteries. Clogged arteries lead to high blood pressure and many years later eventually lead to a heart attack or stroke. Chelation therapy is one possible alternative to non-emergency heart-surgery. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
(Note: I don't want to give anyone who derives joy and pleasure from consuming dietary fat a hard time. But I do want to let them know about health-enhancing options.)
Info on Diabetes
See the EmpowermentResources.com leaflet for for the Nov. 1, 1998 Walk for Diabetes sponsored by the American Diabetes Association. (Note: due to time and financial constraints, I prepared but was unable to distribute this leaflet.) An estimated 16 million Americans have diabetes.
Info on Cancer
See the EmpowermentResources.com leaflet for the 9/26/98 March Against Cancer in Washington, DC.
- See also nutritional supplements. -