In this issue, Dr. Onysko discusses "alternative" pharmacologic approaches to painful peripheral neuropathy. (See page 470.) Because so many of our patients use alternative therapies, I contend that alternative therapies are no longer "alternative." Even the federal government has officially recognized the widespread use of alternative therapies by changing the name of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in December 2014 to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.
Alternative medicine had a bad name in mainstream medicine until 1991, when the National Institutes of Health established the Office of Alternative Medicine, officially recognizing that some alternative treatments might have a scientific...