christensen@apollo.uucp (Wendy Christensen) (06/20/85)
from E. Michael Smith: > ...Is there an arthritis specialist on the net who > can take the time to read The Arthritics Cookbook and comment? and from Tom Stanions: > Funny, in the real life instances I have seen of people being cured using > only nutritional (and the obvious mental changes required to use natural > methods) the cases that are most successful are those involving heart and > circulatory problems, with arthritis a close second. And let us not forget > "The Anatomy of an Illness", in which Norman Cousins shows us how attitude > helped in his disease... > Please stop grabbing at straws to try and defend modern medicine. I am not an "arthritis specialist" per se. However, I have lived with arthritis for almost twenty years now, and I am certainly qualified to speak to these issues. All this "nutritional" hoohah works just fine IF THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU TO BEGIN WITH. I have had to put up with an awful lot of people recommending the most insane and inane "cures." Some of these people were well-meaning, but most took the attitude that if I didn't spend all of my time chasing various quack cures around the country (and the world) then it was my own damn fault that I suffered. (You know, "My aunt had a friend who went to Florida for the snake venom, and she was cured... I knew someone who took took cod liver oil and axle grease and her "arthritis" disappeared, the DMSO magic paint thinner craze, etc., ad nauseam.) Those of us who are really afflicted (come over and see my x-rays some time), and don't just have a few vague and random complaints and a large capacity for self-delusion, know that for arthritis, there is nothing like the good old pharmacy. I have two choices: 1) Take a relatively large amount of "unnatural" drugs, and be a useful, working, taxpaying, productive, active person. 2) Take no drugs, waste all my time (and my or, more likely, someone else's, money) chasing naturopaths, quacks, snake-venom vendors, and other such riffraff, and be a totally unproductive (and very sore) basket case, dependent on government handouts and a burden to my familiy. And don't get me started on Norman Cousins. Although he had a few good common-sense suggestions for standing up for your rights in a hospital, any good he did with that $%^$%#^% book was more than overshadowed by the innacuracies, misinformation, and just plain bunk in the book. For example he did not (I repeat NOT) have ankylosing spondylitis; I suspect he thumbed through a medical dictionary and found the name of a disease at once so obscure and terrible-sounding (yet conveniently non-fatal) that he figured no one would call his bluff. I can't tell you how many times people have accused me of WANTING to suffer with my anklyosing spondilitis because I refused to take massive doses of vitamin C or because I don't laugh enough. (And BTW, Norman, not all of us can afford to live in a hotel suite for several months spend our days watching old "Candid Camera" clips, and take leisurely month- long vacations at the beach. Some of us actually WORK for a living.) As for "grabbing at straws" to defend modern medicine: I have probably walked out on more doctors than most people will see in a lifetime. It is the deplorable attitude of many doctors, NOT modern medicine itself, that properly deserves censure. Both I and my titanium hips are quite happy with modern medical technology. w. christensen Apollo Computer (standard comprehensive disclaimer)
tjs@cbdkc1.UUCP ( Tom Stanions) (06/24/85)
If you are happy then you are doing the best thing. I used to be pretty happy with the way my life was going, then I found out how happy I wasn't. Even though I have always been considered healthly I have never been "well". Now I am trying to get "well". You express your situation and that is good. I would like to hear more about the "cures" you tried and their effects. However, your attitude is terrible. We have all agreed I think that a change in the state-of-mind acompanies most natural remedies. With your sour-grapes attitute I am surprised that anything helps. Maybe your problem is outside the realm of "Total cure through natural methods". If there is structural damage then this is often the case. Natural methods are much slower then conventional medicine. You spent many years getting sick, why should you get well in a month? The path to health is sometimes as long as the one to sickness. As a general rule "Nothing heals in the human body in less than 3 months, then one month for every year that you have been sick" (quoted from Jack Richadson). There are true quack doctors. Are you sour-grapes at all doctors because this is so? There are bogus non-conventional treatments also. If you are not ready for natural methods then don't shoot them all down just because it didn't work for you. Many people are cured successfully with these methods. Would you denie others the choise just because you don't agree? By all means tell them your experience, let them make an informed judgement. Just don't tell part of a story, let them hear about those that were helped also. I take exception to your reference to "Those of us who are really afflicted", I know you don't speak for all ill people. I have talked to many that have been cured and who whole-heartedly endorse natural methods. {allegra|ihnp4}!cbdkc1!tjs