Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

snake oil

I bought snake oil today.

No, wait, it is flaxseed oil.

I've been feeling really crappy most of the time for several months. I thought I might be anemic or something, but I had a physical and bloodwork and apparently I'm fine. Well, fine except for the (occasionally crushing) fatigue and malaise.

Actually, I'm not really totally fine, because for years I've had endometriosis (I know...dangerously close to "TMI." Don't worry, I won't share details.) I've been controlling it with drugs for the most part, but for about the last year the drugs have been kinda letting me down. I just read something in the past week or so that suggested that even when the usual endo symptoms aren't acute, that one might still be suffering from a variety of things like, oh, say, fatigue and malaise.

Huh.

Well, it does make sense. When it acts up, I am in a world of hurt, and it does take a toll. Maybe I am just having trouble recovering fully from month to month.

I ordered a book about a holistic approach to treating endometriosis. The word "holistic" has some connotations to me: crystals, chanting, balancing chakras. It shouldn't, though. Dorland's, the medical dictionary that sits on my desk, defines holistic health as taking "into account the whole individual, his own responsibility for his well-being and the total influences--social, psychological, environmental--that affect health, including nutrition, exercise, and mental relaxation."

That makes perfect sense. Anyway, this book's holistic approach has a lot to do with nutrition. I don't have a horrible diet, but it could be better...for every meal of fresh organic vegetables, I eat a Big Mac. I don't know if I really want to kick caffeine and preservatives, but I'd rather give that a try than, say, abdominal surgery.

I'm not adverse to drugs, either, but as I said, the drugs that used to help aren't doing it for me anymore. And I've been working in the pharmaceutical field for most of the last 15 years, and honestly, the more I learn about drugs the more I'd rather not take them if I can find another alternative.

That doesn't make me a big proponent of "natural products," though. It's not that they don't work...plants can have huge effects. That's where we got (and in some cases still get) the drugs from, after all. But it is hard to get plants to standardize, as an old boss of mine used to say. And too many companies are marketing too much unproven garbage to too many naive and desperate sick people. Beyond that, I shudder when I hear people equate "natural" with "safe." Yeah, right. My favorite natural product is belladonna.

So: nutrition. The diet calls for the usual low fat, low refined carbohydrates, low sugar, heavy on fresh vegetables, fruit, and whole grains. It's also big on the fatty acids. I'd love to eat salmon a couple times a week, but it happens to be one of the fish to which I am allergic. I'm not sure how many walnuts I can eat a day. So to increase the fatty acid intake, I found myself standing in the pharmacy this afternoon, surrounded by the poorly-tested and the unproven natural remedies, with bottles of flaxseed and evening primrose oils.

My ex-husband once suggested that I suffer from an anti-placebo effect...even drugs that work don't work on me because I'm too cynical.

Well, maybe. I'm also becoming one of the desperate, though. So I took my oil capsules. And maybe I'll do a little chant, too.

Posted by Nic at September 24, 2003 08:56 PM | TrackBack