Today, information is literally right under our noses. The internet has opened up entire libraries and made information on just about every imaginable topic readily accessible. Unfortunately, it's also made it easy for self-proclaimed experts to spread their own brand of "alternative" medicine without accountability.
So how do you know whom to trust?
Here are some tips:
- A legitimate naturopath or herbalist won't try to hide her credentials. A competent alternative health practitioner worked hard for her education. She didn't buy her degree at a diploma mill or through a 6-week "course". A legitimate practitioner is proud to say, "Here's where I went to school."
- A legitimate alternative health expert won't try to convince you that mainstream medicine is bad or unnecessary. All "natural" practitioners believe in the innate healing power of the body but they also know that emergency surgeries, x-rays and life-saving blood transfusions have their place.
- A legitimate alternative health practitioner won't try to sell you anything. It's ironic that so many alternative practitioners claim that mainstream doctors are little more than prostitutes for large pharmaceutical companies when so many of them are "wellness consultants" for some of the largest supplements companies in the world.
- A legitimate alternative provider won't prejudice you toward her own brand of "medicine". Alternative health care providers are, above all else, educators and a legitimate practitioner won't make you feel as though you're sitting through a sales pitch.
Let's face it. Between the outright charlatans and the well-meaning, but unqualified, practitioners, bad information is everywhere. Before you believe something you've seen on the internet, look at it a little more closely. If you know what to look for, you can see through the nonsense in no time.
