VIDEO: Alternative, complementary therapy considerations for ulcerative colitis

Editor’s note: This is a previously posted video, and the below is an automatically generated transcript to be used for informational purposes. Please notify iwaters@healio.com if there are concerns regarding accuracy of the transcription.

Complementary therapies are very important to patients, and therefore, they should be very important to physicians. Physicians really need to ask patients about whether they're taking other medications other than what are prescribed by physicians. Studies have shown that the majority of patients are taking an alternative or complimentary therapy either for their inflammatory bowel disease or for something else, and if you don't ask about it, you'll never know, so I really think it's important to ask not only what medications are they taking, but are they taking anything else, anything over the counter, any vitamins, any minerals, any supplements, and I'll say any complimentary therapies. It's important because I think it allows for a better sort of communication with the patient and the physician, if they think, oh, well he's asking me about these, and he's not looking down on me for taking this, and it's important to talk about it, and I think the key is often they're complimentary, right? You're using these in combination with other medications, although, you know not really recommended by any organizations, I will talk about the potential benefits for cumin or turmeric, maybe for vis biome, which was used to be VSL number three, for those patients with really mild ulcerative colitis who were failing mesalamine therapies, sort of as a bridge or before stepping them up to biologic therapies, the patient does great, fantastic if not, you're just sort of working them into a biologic therapy. Okay, here's what we're going to try, if it doesn't work, here's our next step and sometimes that goes a long way.