You can read that article here. (but be forewarned that he uses a lot of cuss words) He speaks of his experience being educated in naturopathy (which is basically just natural medicine) and realizing afterwards that he thought he had the same education as a medical doctor just with the healing methods that actually work without side effects. I cannot remember the reason he woke up one day and decided naturopathy did not work, but he said that he was fooling himself to think he understood the human body as well as a Doctor who went to years and years of study to become an M.D. This really makes sense but what he said afterward is that he saw someone claim the benefits of clearing psoriasis while using naturopathy AND the steroid cream that the doctor had prescribed. Basically, he was saying the that the lady was giving credit to the natural ingredients that healed her and ignoring the proven effectiveness of the steroid cream. But what about the studies (not a blog, but actual studies) that I found on frankincense eating away at cancer? The actual studies is the evidence I needed from a source I can trust. His opinion that naturopaths are a hoax is biased to the fact that in a few instances, people are using both real medicine and natural medicine to heal themselves There is nothing wrong with merging the two whenever possible to get the desired effect if necessary. When are they going to do the study on that? Why is that people have to be so angry when they want to be right that they cannot concede that there might be some truth to investigating both sides of the argument and considering a merge of theories. The part of his opinion that I agreed with is that after going to the doctor for years and being blown off, patronized or just plain misdiagnosed, people start researching their own methods of healing because they felt that doctors had not taken them seriously. Maybe the doctor just didn't ask the right question.
I completely agree with this assessment and it sounded exactly like my experience was with a doctor. When I repeatedly told him;
- my legs felt like stumps in the morning
- I had been falling a lot
- I couldn't keep my flip-flops on my feet
- my allergies were ridiculous
- the muscles in my face seemed to have a mind of their own
- I got hives every time I took a shower
- I was losing my ability to open bottles of water
- my hair was falling out
- I couldn't sleep
- etc...
He ran a few blood tests, told me I needed more diet and exercise and sent me home with anti-depressants. "If you don't use it, you lose it" were his exact words about my loss of ability to open bottles of water. They called me and said all my blood tests looked good.
???
?!?
!?!
I was so frustrated. The more I thought about it the madder I got.
Hmm... If you don't use it, you lose it.
...if I never stopped opening bottles of water, why did I lose it?
I don't know any women that believe they exercise enough, but after I had time to think about it, it occurred to me that I am also NOT the laziest person I know and the lazy people I did know were not losing their ability to open bottles. One previous summer, I rode my bike to and from work over 30 city blocks per day in the heat 5 days per week. That should keep me from losing it, don't you think?
So, one day I ran across this article in prevention magazine about a guy who had several of my symptoms and he quit eating gluten and dairy and all of his symptoms improved. I returned to my doctor, article in hand and asked his opinion ('cuz your always suppose to talk to your doctor about diet changes, right?) and he said that he doesn't believe in the gluten-free diet but if I wanted to try it, I needed to do it for 60 days and not cheat to see any real outcome. So I commenced the change and I haven't eaten gluten since May 2015. It was one of the best things I ever did for my health. At the 60 day mark, I went back to him and told him that:
- My allergies were almost nonexistent
- The muscles in my face no longer twitched incessantly
- I no longer got hives in then shower
- My hair was sprouting back
- I was sleeping better
- My acne was gone (a nice surprise)
- I had lost 10 lbs. (I think gluten causes swelling, it's not a weight-loss diet)
I asked him if I could possibly have Celiac disease (which is a question, I am sure every GF person has asked after seeing those kinds of results) and said he didn't think so and tried to talk me out of seeing a gastroenterologist who could check. (I have been GF for too long to have it checked now) He even gave a patronizing thumbs-up and said "Congratulations, you figured it out." as he exited the exam room.
I felt judged. I carefully weaned myself from his anti-depressants and never returned.
I went to a different doctor who knocked on my knees with a hammer (yes, some of them still do that) and I had zero reflexes. He sent me to the neurologist and that's how I found out about my CMT neuropathy. The neurologist noticed the lack of muscle mass in my hands right off the bat. The meds I take for this have some pretty annoying side effects.
- I quit taking gabapentin because it made my balance and coordination worse, although it helped my legs stop drawing and pulling at night so I could sleep. I still have it around for flare-ups, but I only use it sparingly.
- I quit taking cyclobenzaprine, hoping to regain some energy. (so far, none has returned)
- I am still taking duloxetine, but I hate it. It causes profuse sweating. I feel like I always stink and I probably do. lol The summer is a miserable time and if you sweat in the winter, you get colder. Great!(sarcasm, for those of you who are confused)
My friend turned me on to essential oils and I was very skeptical at first, but I have seen some pretty impressive results.
- I made a massage oil for my legs that keep them from bother me at night.
- This smell of my massage oil could put anyone to sleep. I love it!
- my massage oil has a muscle relaxing ability that is even useful without a massage. You can use it like a menthol cream without that nasty smell.
- Peppermint takes the heat out of a sunburn and repels biting flies
- When the allergy season is upon us, I can spray a mixture that will reduce the sneezing and runny nose.
- I got rid of my daughter's cold with a sore throat in one night!
Now some of these remedies have been effective alone and some with a traditional medicine added to them, but I have never gotten rid of a sore throat 100% in one night with only meds. Does the fact that I used modern medicine and natural medicine together dilute my results?
No. Because I saw even more improved results compared to several times with modern medicine alone. And lots of these remedies did work completely alone. I have removed my muscle relaxer and one pain reliever from my nightly medicine regimen and I am still managing better without them than with them. How can you look down your nose at something and judge it based off of your preconceived notions?
You can't.
I only keep the duloxetine around because I am not brave enough yet to let it go. That is the first medicine my neurologist prescribed and the first relief I got from the neurologist and I am scared of getting worse again. Maybe someday...
Now, bear with me because it's about to seem as if I am suddenly on another subject...
I don't know if I have said this before, but I am Catholic. Before you leave because you are not Catholic, wait and see what I have to say that makes this important. I believe that as long as you have Christ in your heart, it is none of my business (or anyone else's business). That is beautiful and completely between you and God. Jesus wants us to love each other, not point fingers at each other or judge each other. Please don't judge all of us based on the weaknesses of a few.
When I met my husband, his family was Catholic and they have their flaws but are generally good people. I went to church with them and couldn't figure out why they bowed and kneeled so often (its impossible to go to sleep in a Catholic church because just about the time you doze off, they are moving again. lol) My husband never bothered to explain it and if I asked he couldn't always tell me. (English is his second language and at that time my Español was no bueno. lol Translating church stuff is a quite difficult.) But their example still inspired me to be a better person. (I was a much bigger sinner back then. Confession keeps me in check now.)
So I started reading or listening to every pamphlet or CD they had displayed in the back of the church. I decided to ask the priest to start me on the RCIA program which, if I remember correctly, stands for Roman Catholic Initiation for Adults. I had the most wonderful teacher who was so passionate about her faith. She was 80 years old but a feisty woman nonetheless. She shared her faith journey, and it touched me. She taught from Catholicism for Dummies and answered my questions to the best of her ability.
I learned that I can have a relationship with Christ and still be me, I just adjust myself from time to time when I understand a new aspect of my faith that seems to be lacking. Catholicism is not judging others, it's continually looking at MYSELF and asking "How can I make the world a better place?"
But the main thing I learned, and what I find the most important aspect of our faith is knowing that it is ok to ask questions, just make sure that the answers come from a reliable source. Like I said in previous posts, Anybody can make a blog and spout opinions. It is our duty to make sure that the information we receive is from a reliable trusted source.
The Catholic church takes care of that for faith related matters. A Catholic should be able to look on the back of their bible's title page and find the imprimatur mark where a bishop has reviewed that translation to be "free of error". Of course, that doesn't mean that other materials are wrong. I just means that a Bishop has reviewed it and found all included material to be within the teachings of the church.
In my opinion, there are 3 types of Catholics:
- There are so-called Catholics that think they graduated church and now they know that they can do anything they want as long as they ask for forgiveness. (let it be noted that they also rarely attend church) This is not at all what the church teaches, so please don't judge all Catholics by their misunderstanding of their faith.
- There are devout Catholics that go to church regularly and sing in the choir and pray the rosary twice a day and look down their nose at all of the people (namely the first group of Catholics)who don't live their lives exactly like them. This is not what the church teaches either. In fact, in my opinion these type of people (Catholic and Protestant) are ruining the face of Christ in the world because they forget the most important part of Jesus's teaching which is to have mercy and show love to your neighbor.
- (Dear Lord, I pray that you lump me in with this third group because this is what I try so hard to accomplish) There are Catholics that try their best with the hand that God dealt them, and show love to everybody they meet and try to be open and fair with all of them. They try to teach the first group whatever they seemed to miss during their faith formation. They welcome people into their parish that the second group has previously dismissed. And when they point out some wrong that they see, they do it with a tenderness that they learned directly from their relationship with Jesus Christ. ( I know this because I did not have a gentle nature before I believed) My college roommate is part of this group and she was my RCIA sponsor and I have never met anyone who didn't love her. Love, Mercy and Forgiveness is true Catholicism.
How does this relate to doctors and essential oils?
No matter what, you cannot judge other people.
The guy that wrote the article in the beginning was very judgmental of natural medicine. Yes he had seen it but he still made the leap back without considering the merge. Natural medicine has been around for ages and modern medicine hasn't been around long at all. Why not try a merge?
Why couldn't my doctor consider that my body tends to be an expert on how it feels? If I literally have tons of new sprouts of hair on my head (They were a pain when I wear a ponytail 90% of the time), isn't that proof that there might be something to this gluten-free lifestyle? Why not try a merge between medicine and something less familiar?
If all Christians did as Christ asked of us;
- we would be merging with people who did not know Him to share His grace with everyone
- we would merge with the people who don't go to church all the time and invite them to come back next week
- we would merge with the poor, the sick, the elderly, the oddballs, our enemies...
- we would attempt to merge all the conflicts in our daily lives into positive outcomes.
Next time that you, come across two ideas that seem to clash, research it with credible sources (as you hopefully noticed that I used throughout this article) and consider the merge.
No comments:
Post a Comment