Thursday, March 23, 2017

Enough With the Alternative Healing Articles!

I need to be honest, very few things drive me crazier than receiving yet another article, link, ad, or dissertation claiming that if I do this activity or drink this tonic, my ailments will be healed. Rarely does a week go by when I don't have some well meaning friend trying to make suggestions on how to improve my living conditions. Now, I do want to make it clear to my friends and family members that have sent me suggestions that this post isn't going after you. That being said, there are a few reasons why many of those who deal with chronic conditions, myself included, have a really hard time with articles such as I have mentioned.

1) Any drug, tea, food, or supplement that claims to heal or cure any chronic ailment whether it's Fibro, Colitis, MS, Autism or other such conditions are scams. While such tools can treat the symptoms of these conditions, that is a far cry from healing the patient. There is a reason the Mayo Clinic defines chronic pain as "Chronic pain is persistent, lasting for months or even longer. Chronic pain is considered a health condition in itself." The other side of the coin is frankly the really sucky part of dealing with chronic pain: it is permanent. We're going to be dealing with it for the rest of our earthly lives.

Now, as a devout Christian, I do believe in miracles. The Gospels are full of stories of Jesus and the apostles healing chronic conditions such as the woman with a mysterious blood illness, the ten lepers, the man at the pool of Bethesda, and the blind man at the temple gate. These stories tell us that miracles are possible, it is possible that tomorrow God in His omnipotence will heal me of all my pain and suffering. However, the likelihood is that I'll wake up tomorrow morning and that first stabbing pain will still be there as it was yesterday and yesteryear. I and people like me will most likely be dealing with our pain until our Master calls us home.

You might be wondering what the harm is. I mean, there are plenty of things out there that can be tried and some things that should be tried, I give you that. But, when chronic pain patients receive those well-meaning healing claiming suggestions, it can give many a sense of false hope. It can also really hit home at a deep and damaging level just how hopeless our situation is when those suggestions don't work.

2) These kinds of articles take personal Hells (and make no mistake that chronic pain is the patient's personal living Hell) and make them look completely trivial. Believe me when I say that if chronic pain could be cured with something as facile as a tea, many of us would have been back on our feet last week. It can be just as humiliating as someone telling us that our pain wouldn't be as bad if we were to do x,y, and z. Trust me, if we could, we would.

While I can't speak for every disabled or chronically ill person reading this blog, I can say that we can get pretty creative and proactive when it comes to dealing with our ailments. We also tend to talk to each other about what works for us. I have a very good friend that I discuss these things with. We compare notes on what works for him and what works for me. Not only is it helpful for ideas, it is wonderfully therapeutic. I tend to drink a lot of herbal teas and limit the amount of coffee I consume. I try to start and end my days with Tai Chi and Qigong to keep myself limber and lessen the stiffness of my tired muscles. I also do yoga via Youtube videos with sessions geared towards Fibromyalgia patients. Each of us has our different needs and different levels of discomfort to deal with so there is no blanket solution.

There is something I do want to make clear because I have just typed a lot of hard things. I understand that you care about your friend or loved one who suffers these ailments every day, You want them to feel better and have an improved quality of life. I have a lot of wonderful friends and family that want those things for me. Because I know this and understand this, I can see why these articles seem so wonderful and helpful. The heartbreaking problem is the fact that they rarely are helpful. They can even cause tremendous pain for those of us who struggle with coping with the burden of such pain. Worse of all, they trivialize that pain.

So that being said... PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP WITH THE ARTICLES! They're not helpful to me and other patients. The writers of such articles are snake oil salesmen in my estimation for the reason I have previously stated.

Please, by all means, continue to care about us, love us, support us and make yourself available. We love you for those gifts and we will let you know (as far as we are comfortable) what we need if we need something. All I ask for myself is that you leave treatment options and therapies in the hands of my physicians. That being said, if I find something that works for my pain management, I will share it in case it would work for someone else. But I add the disclaimer that the treatment will be different for each person.

I believe in the tender mercies of my God and Creator. I believe in the healing powers of my Savior, Jesus Christ. I believe through them anything is possible. But I've also learned that my pain has been a powerful tool that has made me more empathetic, loving and has brought me closer to my God. Even if I am never healed, I am reminded that this is for my good. I don't want it to be trivialized or seen as a simple issue. The complexities of chronic pain will never be simple therefore the cure will never be simple.

c-ya

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