My question is what kind of doctor should I see in order to figure out what is making my skin react this way? I have seen commenters say that they saw a doctor who tested them for several allergies and finally found that they were gluten or dairy intolerant. What sort of doctor would be able to do this type of testing on me? It is a homeopathic doctor, Naturopathic or Osteopathic doctor? I’m very confused about these different doctors and their function. Would any of them be able to tell me anything? Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There are two questions in this email:<\/p>\n
- \n
- One about food allergies and acne<\/li>\n
- And what kind of doctor can diagnose these allergies<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I\u2019ll briefly cover the food allergy bit first and then we can talk about different kinds of doctors.<\/p>\n
Food allergies and acne<\/h2>\n
Yes, some people comment that food allergy tests helped them to sort out their acne. But these anecdotes in no way show that food allergy tests by naturopaths and other alt-med practitioners have any use.<\/p>\n
Gluten is a common boogieman in the natural health field, and hence alt-med practitioners \u2018diagnose\u2019 most of their patients as gluten sensitive. It\u2019s true that gluten causes problems for some people, so by pure coincidence some of those gluten sensitivity diagnoses are correct. The real problem is that the tests most alt-med practitioners use are no more accurate than coin flips (more on this later).<\/p>\n
My advice is not to worry too much about food allergies. They may cause acne for some people, but those people are a very small minority. I do recommend that you eliminate (at least for a few weeks to see if it helps) the most common trigger foods, like gluten<\/a> and dairy<\/a>, but that\u2019s as far as most people need to go.<\/p>\n
Chasing food allergies can lead you down an endless rabbit hole, and you can easily end up wasting tons of time and money for nothing.<\/p>\n
What kind of doctor should you consult?<\/h2>\n
![\"modern-vs-alternative-medicine\"](\"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/modern-vs-alternative-medicine.jpg\")
<\/a>Getting over acne can be a frustratingly complicated adventure, and sometimes it would be nice if you could turn to someone for help. So what kind of doctor should you visit? Dermatologists? Naturopath? Chiropractor? Homeopath? Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor? Acupuncturist?<\/p>\nUnfortunately, you are often better visiting no one. Let me explain.<\/p>\n
Dermatologists<\/h3>\n
Chances are you’ve already visited dermatologists for many times, and probably with less than stellar results. If the dermatologist profession would do their job properly, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend visiting them. Alas, this is rarely the case.<\/p>\n
Dermatologists are rarely up to date with latest research on acne. Based on what I hear and read, most dermatologists still cling to the outdated notion that diet doesn’t affect acne. Or even if they don\u2019t, very few actually give dietary advice to their patients. Mostly they just hand you a prescription and are only too eager to see you out of their office.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the other doctors are even worse.<\/p>\n
Natural and alternative medicine practitioners<\/h3>\n
I\u2019ll bundle all the natural and alternative practitioners together because, while they may \u2018prescribe\u2019 different therapies, they are all more or less equally useless.<\/p>\n
Before we get to talking why I think most alt-med practitioners are useless, let me just address some common objections. These practitioners don\u2019t like it when doctors and scientists don\u2019t take them seriously or outright dismiss them. This, according to alt-med people, is usually for three reasons.<\/p>\n
Science\u00a0isn’t\u00a0interested of studying natural remedies<\/strong><\/p>\n
Lack of evidence because science isn\u2019t interested in studying alternative and natural remedies (allegedly there\u2019s no money in them \u2013 except that Americans spent $34 Billion<\/a> on complementary and alternative medicine in 2007, and I\u2019m sure that figure has gone up since, so there is plenty of money in alternative stuff).<\/p>\n
And science does study alternative and natural stuff. All the time. Just look at the posts in this blog, the vast majority of them deal with natural remedies and most of my posts reference several studies. Then there\u2019s the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine that directly funds research into all sorts of alternative treatments. Their budget in 2012 was $128 Million<\/a>, a hefty sum that\u2019s enough to fund plenty of studies. And since 2011 Australian government has provided $75 million<\/a> for research on alternative therapies.<\/p>\n
So that claim is just outright false.<\/p>\n
Scientists are close minded<\/strong><\/p>\n
Close mindedness, i.e. scientists are materialists and reductionists who just don\u2019t understand these holistic, higher-order treatments. I\u2019m sure this is true for some doctors and scientists, but as we talked above, almost every imaginable alt-med modality has been studied scientifically, even something as ridiculous as Bach Flower Remedies<\/a> (not surprisingly, all the controlled studies showed it doesn’t work).<\/p>\n
Speaking on my own behalf, I used to believe in all sorts of alternative and natural treatments just a few years back. Until I just couldn’t ignore the mountain of evidence showing they don\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
The definition of close minded is \u201cIntolerant of the beliefs and opinions of others; stubbornly unreceptive to new ideas\u201d,<\/em> from the Free Dictionary<\/a>. Most alt-med practitioners know science doesn’t support their claims, skeptics have repeatedly shown to them that science not only doesn\u2019t support their claims but outright refutes them. Yet, they ignore all the contradictory evidence and keep pushing the same nostrums and woo. Who, let me ask you, is close minded?<\/p>\n
This is what I hate most about alt-med. Absolute refusal to take in new information and change. They know their woo works and anyone who says otherwise is just ignorant.<\/p>\n
The Pharma Shill Gambit<\/strong><\/p>\n
Ahhh.. then there\u2019s the pharma shill gambit<\/a>. When all else fails, claim that everyone who says your woo doesn’t work is paid by the Big Pharma to suppress these \u201ctime-honored healing methods\u201d. Because, were the public to learn about them, it would completely destroy the pharmaceutical monopoly on health. Or some other such nonsense.<\/p>\n
My first question is \u2018where do I sign up?\u2019 Since this blog makes hardly any money, me wants some of that filthy lucre also. Of course the \u2018Pharma Overlords\u2019 may not like it that I equally bash their products<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The real reason I dismiss most alt-med practitioners<\/h3>\n
Is simply because the stuff they recommend doesn’t work. Yes, sometimes natural and alt-med doctors do give sensible diet and lifestyle advice, but even then they often take the advice to ridiculous extremes and make grandiose claims about the healing powers of diet<\/a> that have no basis in science or reason.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the stuff they get at least little bit right. The advice that\u2019s exclusive to alt-med (i.e. everything else but diet, lifestyle and supplements) is even worse. Despite millions being spent on researching these modalities, there\u2019s not a scrap of convincing evidence for any of them. The Cochrane Collaboration Complementary Medicine Reviews<\/a> lists over 600 topics, covering countless alt-med modalities for different health problems. These plain-language summaries make for sobering reading and almost invariably show no effect or insufficient evidence to say anything.<\/p>\n
Problems with visiting alternative and natural practitioners<\/h3>\n
By now it should be abundantly clear I\u2019m not a big fan of alternative medicine. It\u2019s just waste of time and money. There are also other real problems putting your trust into these people, such as:<\/p>\n
There\u2019s always something wrong with you<\/strong><\/p>\n
They will always find something wrong with you. Now, I do agree that sometimes real doctors dismiss their patients too easily, especially when they can\u2019t find anything wrong. Medicine is far from perfect (our knowledge is incomplete and not to mention the fact that the pharma companies have too much influence over doctors and research, a problem well-known in the medical community).<\/p>\n
Alt-med practitioners almost always find something wrong with you. Getting diagnosed with something is of course encouraging because it feels like the first step in getting over the problem. But the real problem is that you often end up with a fake diagnosis for an imaginary problem, such as Candida overgrowth syndrome<\/a>, adrenal fatigue<\/a> (see also this post<\/a>) or electromagnetic sensitivity<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Useless diagnostic tools<\/strong><\/p>\n
Alt-med practitioners use a variety of diagnostic \u2018tools\u2019 to find out what\u2019s wrong with you. Unfortunately the vast majority of these tools are completely useless, such as:<\/p>\n