Cure

When you see this type of old advertisement you are tempted to laugh. Such silliness! Such gullibility! Oh, the things our ignorant forebears would believe! How little we knew about medicine then! How easily the predacious could market useless products to people who didn't know better!
But... was it really so different? There are still myriad "cures" of dubious efficacy on the market. You can't go to a drug store or turn on the TV without seeing some sort of snake oil pitch.
Is it really so hard to understand why people purchased these things? In a world full of advanced technology in medicine and health we STILL don't really understand some of the dreadful things that can happen to our bodies (or that they can do to themselves). In this modern age there are still countless people suffering that can't find the help they need to get through the day without pain. When you live in pain you are desperate for answers. Desperate for relief, for help. And? If the medical establishment isn't offering that to you? Is it so strange to look for your answers elsewhere?
Sometimes, while slogging through the research debunking yet another cure-all, I have to remind myself not to judge others too harshly for finding relief when and where they can. Not to roll my eyes (well, not where anyone would see me, anyway) when someone on pinterest posts countless herbal cures that have very little chance of helping. We are all searching for something, after all.

Raisins are Gross Enough Already

I was browsing Pinterest when I came across this:

click me!

Gin soaked raisins will cure your RA, guys! Or, you know, you could cut out the middle man and just DRINK HEAVILY. That oughta make you feel better. Aw yeah.

Sorry, sorry. But really? I will tell you what else will make your rheumatism feel better: competent medical care (I am working on that one, myself. BUT I hear it does wonders if you are lucky enough to find it).

Taking the Plunge

A few years ago, back when they discovered that the problem in my hands wasn't carpal tunnel syndrome, they sent me back and forth to half a dozen specialists in an attempt to suss out the culprit. None of them had any real idea what was wrong but one doctor, a hand specialist (the one who finally did the test that determined a predisposition for rheumatic conditions) suggested that I should try acupuncture for the pain. He put through a referral to the acupuncture department for me, but I never followed through with it because A) It looked like we were going to get a real diagnoses soon, B) it's all the freakin' way in another city, and taking the bus to get there (we only have one car) for orientation would be a TWO HOUR trip through unfamiliar territory, and then require a half mile walk. And C) WHATEVER DUDES. I have a pretty low opinion of the pseudo-scientific "chi energy" rigamarole, and don't really want to listen to it.
But, things have changed in the last few years. For one, I hurt a lot more. And also, I don't appear to be getting any actual medical treatment, here. I'm just about at my wit's end, and at this point I would do darn near anything if there was any actual chance it would help me feel better, especially when I'm dancing. So, I looked in to it. There are real honest-and-for-true clinical studies that support the use of acupuncture, though of course no one actually knows why it works. They have theories ranging from triggering immune responses to counter-irritation to just plain old positive thinking. But... you know? At this point? *sigh* I don't even care WHY it works, just so long as it does, you know? And everyone I've talked to that has first-hand experience with it has been 100% sure it did something good for them. Of course, these are also the people who claim that it's painless and that you'll blissfully frolic through the experience with no blood loss. I have a friend who used to be a dogsbody at an acupuncture clinic, and among her grosser chores was cleaning up the large quantities of blood left behind after a session. UCKA. Fellow rheumy and blogger extraordinaire Jenny Lawson's book Let's Pretend This Never Happened contains her own account of acupuncture treatment. She lays it on the line and tells it very much like it is, pain and blood and all. But at this point unless they want to ram the damn pins in to my EYES they are totally welcome to give it a shot. So I'm signed up to take Kaiser's acupuncture orientation class at the end of November, and then we'll see how it shakes out.
Honestly, I am not amazingly happy with the idea because I don't like getting poked with needles, much. And I STILL don't want to listen to anyone regale me with wisdom about my chi. For crying out loud, people, you can't just make up something when you don't understand how it works!
I asked my (deep skeptic of a) husband what he thought about me trying it out and he has been supportive. Not that he's the sort of jerky husband who isn't supportive of most of my decisions or anything (he even lets me smudge the house, so long as he isn't there while I'm burning the sage), but I do so like to not make him think that I'm a crazy person on a regular basis.

Snake Oil Pulling

So, I am not totally opposed to naturopathic medicine or anything. It's interesting, my family is 50% crunchy-granola-hippy-flower-child-new-age-touch-therapy razzmatazz but also 50% science-minded skepticism. A firm background in the harder-core sciences coincides with a strong belief that we don't know everything there is to know. But, when it comes down to it, we just aren't gullible enough for most of that crap.
Now, I am not saying that trying the natural methods to fix something that is wrong with you is a bad idea. I successfully treated a moderate flare up of my chronic depression with St John's wort for a while, and I have had luck using garlic oil to help an ear infection (I didn't have health insurance for a while, can you tell?) and hey I am still willing to take valerian and flaxseed oil and whatever. But, the point is that this stuff has been subjected to actual clinical trials. I didn't start taking the flaxseed oil until I had read the extremely dry scientific papers about omega-3.
Anyhow, the point is that having a chronic health condition is like painting a target on your forehead for people who have read about a guy who read about a guy who had an aunt who tried something for her arthritis and wow now she is cured. Wow, guys. I am super impressed. My neighbor tried telling me that my problems would all be solved by drinking a glass of water with a spoon full of baking soda in it four times a day. That is basically like chugging a whole tube of Airborne every day. Which might feel like a scouring-pad of blessings when you are catching the sniffles and have a sore throat, but otherwise? Really? Yeah. But, this was also the neighbor who asked me what natural methods I was using to treat my cat's hyperthyroidism. I am using the method of giving her the drugs she needs to take twice a day for the rest of her life because it's proven to work and hyperthyroidism is fatal, thanks. I won't dick around with my pet's health even in cases when I might dick around with my own. Your cat/dog can't tell you that your tricks aren't working.
Sigh.
So, anyway, the latest-greatest in the world of treating your illnesses (whatever they may be) naturally is "oil pulling" which is benign enough that I suppose it won't do you all that much damage if you are in to it. But, that is about all I can say for it. If you haven't heard of oil pulling yet it basically means you take a bunch of (vegetable or seed-based) oil in your mouth and swish it around for twenty minutes every day. Now, I can see how this might be good for your oral health, okay. Because it rinses off some of the crap that flossing leaves behind (and nobody really flosses enough, right?). But there is no bloody freaking way in heck that it will cure my rheumatism, give me crystal-clear skin, and change the spark plugs in my car all at the same time (you know what I mean).
Now, if you have conducted a double blind study and have proven that this works on everything in the whole world, then great! When you have that paper published let me know and I will buy a copy of the New England Journal of Medicine that week. Until then, I don't really want to hear about how it "draws the toxins from your body" because dude, seriously? That is not how your body works.

(Also? It triggers my gag reflex just TALKING about it! Gross, dudes!)