Let’s play Jeopardy!
Answer: 33.9 billion on CAM.
{cue the Jeopardy! music}

Question: How much did Americans spend on complimentary and alternative medicine (CAM) in 12 months?
On top of the trillions of dollars (with a “tr”) spent annually on health care in the United States, Americans are spending almost 34 billion – with a “b” – on alternative treatments.
According to the NIH/National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, about 38% of Americans use some sort of CAM to either stay healthy or help manage or treat illness or symptoms of illness. CAM covers a wide variety of practices, too numerous to mention. …read more

According to a National Health Survey in the United States, done in 2002, an estimated 8.2 million adults in the U.S. had had acupuncture at some point. A little over two million had their acupuncture within the year before the survey.
In 2005, a study was done in Australia regarding three alternative, or complementary, treatments: chiropractics, acupuncture, and osteopathy. Of 1067 people interviewed by phone, about one-quarter (271 people) said that they used at least one of the three therapies within the past year: chiropractic: 16.1% (176), acupuncture: 9.2% (101) and osteopathy: 4.6%.
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As I said to my husband – it’s my blog and I’ll whine if I want to…
I’m used to back pain, I’m used to joint pain, I’m used to migraines…. I am *not* used to this awful pain in my neck. (I posted it about it earlier in the week: Posts may slow down for a bit) It hurts something awful. It started like a “crick” in the neck, but now it’s the muscle that goes from the back of the neck and down. It’s a holiday weekend so nothing is open in terms of acupuncture or anything like that. …read more