Ayurveda vs Allopathy – Differences, Side Effects

What is better Ayurveda or Allopathy? Now, this is the most common question that comes to everyone’s mind when we think of treating any disease. And it is justified to have a doubt and question of this context considering the lives of your loved ones is involved. So, it becomes very obvious and necessary to know the difference between both the treatments their own merits and demerits.
When one starts to think about the above question the first point for counter debate would always be that Allopathic treatment delivers quick recovery when compared to Ayurvedic treatment. However, the fact that Ayurvedic treatment is slower is true but it also counts that it provides permanent relief.
Ayurveda, which happens to be the most cultured and reliable health care procedure, was implemented in India by some influential individuals around 5000 years ago. It has proven to be the sole treatment alternative for many decades. But today, in modern days, Allopathy, which is a 300-year-old branch of medical research, is majorly dealing with it.
Ayurveda, “Science of the Seers” was developed years ago. The sages and seers who lived their lives in hilltops, mountains, deep woodland, and isolated areas that average people couldn’t even enter were added. They always thought about mankind’s goodness. They went in search of medicinal herbs, seeds, and fruits that could cure each of the diseases faced by the common man. Without any chemist or researcher to experiment with chemicals, these seers identified such plants with their in-depth information that could permanently cure any disease. Currently, all these herbal medicines were known as Godsend!
Western medicine has extended its wings into science and creativity in recent times. Innovation for any illness recorded in the world. This kind of drug has become a call away for the emergency care needs of any citizen with the infinite contribution of scientists. To get the best out of it, different components and chemicals are worked on and then the drug is made. With its strong impact of certain chemicals, the Western type of treatment is said to have a random effect on the sufferer in no time, relieving him/her from the pain.
Ayurvedic treatment’s philosophy is to protect human beings from unnecessary pain and to provide them with an extended and healthy life. It consists of natural ingredients and is based on the consciousness of the straight sense, logical implication, and hearing from souls and saints who are understood. In the other side, allopathy treats the disorders with certain medicines that produce entirely changed outcomes from those instigated by the ailment itself. It is carried out primarily in three steps: Theory, Testing & Observation and Conclusion.
In essence, Ayurveda contains fruits, vegetables, spices and natural herbs that help to cure diseases without having any side effects on the patient.
Now, let us dig more into detail on Ayurveda vs Allopathy.

Meaning of Allopathy and Ayurveda

The word Allopathy derives from the Greek word állos (other or different) + pathos (sickness or suffering), meaning “other than illness.”
Though Ayurveda is a Sanskrit term derived from “Ayus,” meaning life, and intelligence or science means “Veda.” Thus, the word Ayurveda means “Knowledge of Life.”

What is included in Treatment be it Ayurveda or Allopathy?

In allopathic treatment, physicians rely solely on the disease’s effects and not on the disease’s true cause. In other words, in the field, they just do what they should do. With any disease, it appears like there is a medication and then a pill for each side effect induced. As the medications are designed only to treat the symptoms and not the underlying cause, Allopathy gives only a partial cure.
Ayurveda, on the other hand, advances the philosophy of the ‘Five Major Elements’ (Prithvi, Jal, Agni, Vayu, and Akash). Both these components should be in accordance with the ‘defect’,’ tissue’ and ‘defilement’ according to this approach. The equilibrium between the three elemental forces

• (Doshas), Vatt (Air + Space = ‘wind’),
• Pitta (Fire + Water = ‘bile’) and
• Kapha (Water + Earth = ‘phlegm’) – This is the subject of Ayurveda.

Individualised Treatment versus Non – Individualized Treatment

In Allopathy, during treatment, no individualization is held in view. When two people have the same condition, they will all be treated with the same medication. No distinctions, as such, are taken into account. The care is individualised according to the body constitution of the person (Vata, Pitta, and Kapha) in Ayurveda and treated as per the requirements.
The emphasis of Ayurveda is not limited to supplying remedies when a problem has arisen. Ayurveda is about having treatments for good health such that, to begin with, you do not have any issues. The idea that treatment is easier than cure is the foundation of Ayurveda. This compares with allopathic medicine that emphasises on symptom control and recovery.
This is where Ayurveda is a simple winner because Ayurveda focuses on the root cause that has contributed to the issue of health and then proposes effective solutions. Ayurveda proposes a systematic approach to treatment that means that the condition is removed from the source instead of only treating signs, as is the case for allopathy.
In finding the root of a disease and then removing it entirely from the patient, Ayurveda objects, while Allopathy believes in offering patients’ instant relief by abolishing the creatures that created the disease, but it is not clear that the disease is healed permanently.

What are the Side Effects of using Allopathic as well as Ayurvedic Treatment?

Allopathy has a chain of side effects of its own. It is one of the allopathy’s big pitfalls. Each prescribed medicine is correlated with many side effects that we have to take more medications to treat and the cycle continues. We blindly conclude that Ayurvedic drugs will do us no harm when it comes to Ayurveda because they are made up of herbs and natural products. If not used properly, as per the body’s reaction to the medicines, Ayurvedic medicines can cause adverse effects. Also, without any adulteration, the medications should be used in their purest forms.
Natural science is the foundation of Ayurveda and thus all Ayurvedic cures are similar to nature. In other words, Ayurvedic medicines make use of spices, extracts and plants that are natural. One of Ayurveda’s benefits over allopathy is that there are no side effects that resemble allopathic medicine with the herbs and plants it uses. Allopathic medication is made in laboratories and side effects that can range from moderate to serious are found in any allopathic medicine. This is not the case in Ayurvedic medicine, where all the medicines are naturally made from natural ingredients and do not cause devastating health consequences.

Is Allopathy or Ayurveda more accurate in terms of result and diagnosis?

How reliable the diagnosis is in contrast to allopathic medicine is one of Ayurveda’s benefits over allopathy. Your doctor will prescribe a wide range of tests for allopathic medicine, and if he is unable to identify the cause, he will order more. Before you know it, this will easily raise prices. To search for any imbalances, Ayurveda takes a radically different approach and looks at the Doshas. If the body is out of equilibrium, ailments will happen. Also, not to ignore that the health condition is dependent on the imbalance that has occurred in the body stating it to be a minor problem or a major problem. Ayurveda helps to diagnose the issue accurately when compared to allopathy.

What is Affordable with Prices – Ayurveda or Allopathy?

Like it is mentioned in the above point, that when one considers allopathy over Ayurveda, he or she has to undergo different tests to know what actually the problem may be and what could be the causes of it. And it would be then after the tests that the doctor will prescribe medicines. But if those tests are not useful then there would be many more tests recommended. This goes on and your savings go down as well. You will not be able to get it till the point when the prices for your treating the problem through allopathy have been raised too much that it would start affecting your bank balance. Ayurvedic treatment is much more accurate and less expensive when it is compared to allopathy.

Is Allopathy or Ayurveda more useful when it comes to drug resistance?

Through the overuse of allopathic drugs, drug resistance can develop, and this cannot be overlooked when talking about Ayurveda vs. allopathy. When allopathic drugs are used constantly due to their ‘easy fix’ nature, their usefulness will gradually decrease. Because of how the bacterial strains have grown to withstand the antibiotic made to kill them, the antibiotics used a decade ago are not as useful and effective today. Ayurveda is more popular because of its nature-based remedies, as it uses herbs that can cure the root problem. You do not have to think about resistance with the help of Ayurvedic therapy. Thus, the decades-old and the oldest medicine – The Ayurveda is now required a whole lot of innovations and research in order to get this drug resistance under control.

Allopathy has been unable to find a permanent cure for a few of the disorders such as Jaundice, Piles, and Biliousness, etc., despite being the latest treatment system. Ayurveda can successfully treat these illnesses.
While Ayurveda works slowly but works amazingly from its root and cures the disease. This is the reason, as people become aware of their future alongside their present, it is nowadays outshining Allopathic medicine.
The cost of health insurance is constantly growing today and impacting the willingness of families to access health benefits. For economically deprived countries such as India, drug-based drugs are unaffordable and due to various side effects, troublesome in Western nations. The medicine should be the last form of therapy rather than the first, starting with the process of natural healing such as Ayurveda. One of the methods of Ayurvedic therapy, such as Panchakarma, will cure the illness before it occurs.
Choosing one from either of them is not the only available option. But choosing wisely and caringly is what is expected. There are times where choosing both is of great help and could show fast and early recovery. Hence, choosing anyone and sticking to it does not totally make any clear sense. It goes with the saying- go with the hour. Similarly, when you feel choosing either one of them would be the best choice to go for it. But also, do consider the fact that both allopathy, as well as Ayurveda, can be used together to get results. For example, 68-94% of people with arthritis use complementary and natural treatments, including Ayurveda. It is also important to understand Ayurveda and Western medicine as two sides of a coin, and they must come together to work for humanity.
The approach to allopathic and Ayurvedic therapies is vastly different. Ayurveda has developed as a therapeutic method with an understanding of physiology that helps it to preserve and restore wellness with a few side effects and emphasises on health rather than allopathy, whose analytical understanding of physiology contributes mostly to the suppression of symptoms with many side effects. Similarly, in the areas of emergency medicine, medical procedures, and surgery where the current tradition of Ayurveda cannot compete, there is a significant contribution of allopathy. Therefore, in order to benefit from pain, all mechanisms have to balance each other.
The very heart of Ayurveda is built from certain very foundational ideas, such as Panchabhautic philosophy, the principle of Prakriti that explains the predisposition to and prognosis of the disease and regulates the preference in the production of disease of the treatment, equilibrium, and imbalance of the three doshas (Vata, Pitta, and Kapha).

Final Words

Interestingly, on these ideas, Ayurveda builds further to design measures that will fix the imbalance. Via their different properties, the acts of medicines are defined based inherently on their elemental composition. Hence, there is not a particular answer to Ayurveda vs Allopathy?