I’m telling you right now… if you’re a proponent of some sort of alternative medicine, stop reading now, because if you don’t, you’re probably going to hate me.
Disclaimer: Â I’m sure that there are alternate medicines and therapies that, when used wisely and in conjunction with traditional medicine, actually work. Â That’s not what I’m talking about here. Â I’m talking about quackery that is used in place of traditional medicine or that can actually cause damage or harm. Â Don’t know the difference? Â Try Quack Watch.
And away we go…
Last evening, I was at an activity where a group of people were discussing First Aid for various situations. Â The person leading the discussion would ask the group, “What would you do for _________,” filling in the blank with something like “a first degree burn” or “a bad cut.” Â One of the people present would counter nearly every single answer given by someone else with an alternative therapy of some sort.
Apparently, burns can be treated with lavender oil, though oils have to be rubbed in. Â THAT’S gonna feel good on a burn. Â Peppermint oil can cure heat exhaustion. Â Ok, sure… if administered with enough water and the person is brought out of the heat, why not. Â (Though I doubt that it’s the peppermint oil that is the cure.) Â But the thing that drove me crazy was when they were talking about first aid for a cut. Â This person said to sprinkle cayenne on the cut.
WHAT??? Â Cayenne? Â Yes. Â You see, cayenne is a “blood balancer” which can treat both high blood pressure and low blood pressure, and can even break up clots that cause heart attacks or strokes when given in “tea form.”
Um…. NO.
First aid for a heart attack or a stroke is to CALL FREAKING 9-1-1 and get the person to an emergency room as soon as possible, not to make a cayenne pepper tea. Â First aid for a gaping wound is to apply direct pressure and to get further medical assistance, not to sprinkle on something that contains CAPSICUM, which is going to be a painful irritant that will have to be painfully flushed from the gaping wound if it’s applied there.
I’m sick of hearing about the healing properties of magnets or essential oils or copper bracelets or foot massage. Â It’s a load of hooey. Â I’m going to take my health problems to people that have therapies that are proven to work, not therapies that have anecdotal “evidence” from your mom’s cousin’s friend’s third grade teacher who tried it out and was cured. Â Give me a reason, other than some nice story, to believe. Â Nobody has provided that to me yet.
And don’t tell me that modern medicine is using their money to cover up the truth. Â Don’t tell me that your therapy is being suppressed by orthodox medicine because it’s controversial. Â Don’t show me your “credential” that is not recognized by responsible accreditation agencies. Â Don’t back up your claims with testimonials. Â Don’t tell me that science has gotten it wrong and just like science once thought the world was flat and then came around, that your therapy will someday gain full acceptance when people realize its effectiveness. Â Because if you talk to me about stuff like this, I may just call you on the issue and it’s not going to be pretty.
Go ahead and wear your bracelet or use your colloidal suspension or get your feet massaged or test your muscles or dump pepper on your gaping wound. Â Go ahead and take herbal remedies for your cancer or drink tea for your heart attack or stroke. Â You can even bury a potato in the back yard and dance around it half naked shaking a rubber chicken under a full moon if you think that it will help. Â But don’t evangelize your method to me. Â Frankly, I’m sick of it, and your essential oils won’t help for THAT sickness either.
I could go into the science of a lot of things here, but that’s not the point.
The point is, I’m not buying your snake oil. Â I’m not wearing your magnet, sleeping under your blanket, taking your herbs, and I’m NOT, I repeat, NOT letting you touch my feet. Â Because… Well… Ewwwwwww.
Please, let it be when I’m around, and you won’t be offended when I rail against your particular brand of alternative therapy. Â Find other topics to talk about, and don’t bend every single topic of conversation back to how you were helped out by this week’s brand of quackery. Â That got old a long time ago. Â Really REALLY old.
*flame off
DeShawn, I agree so much! For instance, I am sick and tired of people embracing diets based on faulty theory and then implying that I’m somehow a bad person because I still eat sugar and dairy. Whatever. I can understand that kind of thing if, like my sister, someone has food allergies/intolerances, and I truly think that most people who benefit from extreme diets are actually walking around with undiagnosed food allergies.
I have been helped by homeopathic remedies in the past–I prefer a broad approach to my health–but I’m not a die-hard natural-only hippie. Not at all. It really IS better to see a psychologist instead of relying on St. John’s Wort. I also visit a chiropractor, but he’s not the type of chiropractor who told my grandfather that he could fix my aunt’s congenital heart defect. I have no patience for that kind of attitude, especially about a genetic defect that led to my aunt’s death at 20. No chiropractic treatment can make a reversed heart normal. No homeopathic treatment can close a hole in a heart. No naturopath can cure your cancer. No herbal tea can make schizophrenia go away.
I’ve been helped by non-traditional things as well. I really have. I just get tired of people that PUSH their junk medicine on me all of the time. A chiro really helped me out with some back pain and even taught me some things that have made it unnecessary to go back to his office again. He’s not the kind of chiro that will schedule one or two adjustments a week for the rest of my natural life (which many want to do). Sadly, he passed away recently–brain cancer–for which he went to an Oncologist, NOT to a Chiropractor.
I picked up a book at the book store recently to flip through it. It was about a health issue I’m having. I was particularly interested in what kind of specialized diet it would recommend since I’ve heard a lot about them. On one page it said you need a lot of a particular vitamin and that red meat is an excellent source of that vitamin. Two pages later it says you need to stay away from a particular chemical, cut it out of your life completely, and red meat was a huge source of that chemical and so you needed to avoid it. I already had it in my mind that a diet won’t fix this, but that settled it.