For nearly every illness, ailment, and condition out there, a variety of treatment options exist.

For many things, conventional or traditional medications are the first solutions to come to mind. For headaches, take an Advil or a Tylenol or some other conventional pill. Most people wouldn't even consider something like acupuncture or herbal remedies. In fact, maybe some people would consider these types of alternative treatments to be 'old wive's tales' that rarely ever work or lack a basis in science.

Despite these beliefs, alternative medications and treatments are not actually ineffective.

Recently, I visited a naturopath for treatment for some personal afflictions and left with a natural supplement, some sulfur pellets, and a flower essence mixture.

You're probably thinking, what can these things actually do to help me?

Surprisingly, a lot.

The supplement I was given, called 5-HTP, can be used for a variety of issues, from mental health to sleep disorders to premenstrual syndrome. Sulfur can be used for headaches, insomnia, and skin conditions, among other things.

Flower essences, when mixed together, have an overall benefit for many different factors of mental health.

While at my visit, I also attempted acupuncture. While I didn't make it through a whole session, I was willing to try it and I'm willing to attempt again. While there hasn't yet been a lot of research conducted on the benefits of acupuncture, my naturopath (who is also a certified acupuncturist) told me that throughout the body, there are meridians that energy flows on, and sometimes this energy can get blocked.

The acupuncture needles supposedly help to free the energy from these blocked meridians and let it flow freely again.

All of this, in fact, checks out with the practice of acupuncture in Traditional Chinese Medicine, so perhaps there's some merit to it if it has been around for so long.

The reason alternative medication exists has no one specific explanation, but the reason I chose to use it was that the side effects of conventional medication would be far too unpleasant to deal with and would likely have counteracted what they were intended to do.

Have you ever heard of the anti-depressant Lexapro? The side effects are far less than pleasant: insomnia, fluctuations in weight (typically an increase, based on what I've heard), nausea--the list goes on and on.

Some alternative medicines are there to provide a more natural approach to curing an ailment that also decreases the side effects.

Take 5-HTP, for example. While it does include some of the same side effects as Lexapro, the benefits greatly outweigh the costs: mood boosts, serotonin level increases, and occasionally an appetite suppressant, which can be beneficial to patients using 5-HTP as an aid in losing weight.

Alternative and holistic medications, as well as naturopathic healers, may sound phony to many people, and some may go so far as to say that these physicians are 'quacks' and their practices are ineffective, but think twice before you assume things.

Maybe one day, conventional medication just might not make the cut and alternative medicine might just be what cures your ailment.