When you search for health information on the Internet, what do you find? On one hand, there are many sites that provide excellent information on conventional medicine and on the other hand, there are many sites that provide information on alternative medical approaches.

However, perhaps asking what you don’t find is a better question. The fact is that these websites usually focus on only one type of approach: most conventional sites have very little information on alternative methods and alternative sites rarely have information on conventional treatments.

And that’s a problem if you are trying to find out how to most successfully treat your medical condition(s). After all, both medical approaches have benefits. By using the ‘best of both worlds’, you are more likely to obtain the outcomes you desire.

Combining conventional and alternative approaches together has been referred to by different names. Integrative medicine implies using alternative methods as if they are conventional treatments. Complementary health implies using alternative methods as an adjunct (add-on) to conventional treatments to make them work better. Whether you use the term complementary health or the term integrative medicine, the end result is that you can obtain more options for your health.

There is a catch, however. Both medical approaches have benefits, but they also have pitfalls and you need to know what they are, especially with alternative methods that are less well researched. That is why it is important to use evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine.

There are numerous complementary health and integrative medicine websites that will laud the benefits of any number of methods, many of which have no research support. Even conventional medical websites that discuss complementary health or integrative medicine may list methods that are not well studied. That is what makes this website so unique… the information and education we provide is solely based on evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine. We tell you what works and what doesn’t, from both medical approaches.

Rather than using the terms complementary health and integrative medicine, we prefer to use the term Balanced Healing. The reason for this is that integrative medicine and complementary health both imply always using alternative methods with conventional treatments. Instead, Balanced Healing implies ‘balancing’ the two approaches, i.e., sometimes using alternative methods only, sometimes using conventional methods only, and of course sometimes using them together…whatever works best for your particular condition(s).

Certainly, complementary health or integrative medicine or Balanced Healing… whichever term or approach you prefer…can benefit you greatly. And whatever website you obtain information from regarding these approaches, make sure it uses only evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine.