It can be difficult to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of a particular therapy for you and your disease. The Internet is full of conflicting information, individual people's testimonials, and websites put out by companies about their own products. Part of the problem is that many products have had little conclusive research done on them, so it is hard for anyone to tell if they work or not, or if they're safe or not.

Here are some steps you can take to find information on therapies you are considering.

• Read the reviews of safety and effectiveness on the authoritative websites of this list.
• Tell your physician and other healthcare team members about the therapy you are interested in and have an open discussion regarding its use. For more information about discussing alternative therapies with your doctor, see the section on what to tell your doctor. You may also want to bring them information from the authoritative websites.
• Take into account both the financial costs and the costs in terms of time to receive the treatment, and weigh those against the potential benefits.
• Carefully weigh the likelihood that the therapy will work against any possible dangers and side effects.
• Check for third-party testing of any herbs, supplements, or other ingestible products that you are thinking about using. Consumer Lab provides information about specific products that have passed its tests, but lists of those that have not passed are only available by subscription. Some labels indicate that the product has passed voluntary testing. A "USP" label means the product has passed testing by U.S. Pharmacopeia. Some products have "NNFA" or "NSF" labels, indicating some third-party testing. The Food and Drug Administration website may have warnings about specific products, but just because something doesn't have a warning there doesn't mean it's safe.