Manic Monday

Maladies

Do you get sick often? What illness do you come down with the most frequently?

I do get sick relatively often, primarily because I treat my body as if it were 100% self-healing. It's not. I've reached the age of Garbage In-Garbage Out and I'm having to rethink a lot of aspects of the way I live, from nutrition to sleep to stress levels. Who thought I'd ever be told to watch my cholesterol? Well, since my dad had three or four heart attacks before the one the did him in...anyone who has three brain cells would have thought cholesterol might be a problem for me, duh!

When I was a kid, for about five years running I developed a nasty case of strep throat every winter, like clockwork. "January, cold. February, strep. March, sniffles." The rest of the year I was ok.

Today I have a sore throat, for no apparent reason. Sudafed did nothing, ignoring it for 6 hours hasn't helped. Hello, Bayer.

As far as repeat occurrences go, I'm voting for a tie between messed up throat/sinus and pissed off GI tract. If it's not one, it's the other.

Do you believe in "alternative" medicine? If so, what aspects of it appeal to you?

Background: well before I was born, my grandmother (Dad's mom) lost all of her hair, due to her unwillingness to go to a doctor--my guess is she couldn't afford a doctor--and her reliance on patent medicine. She continued to buy into the whole faith healing/you can heal yourself/doctors don't know anything well into her 70s, and this attitude contributed mightily to her removal to a nursing home in her early 80s, when I was about 7. I don't remember what one event precipitated it, but I do remember my parents arguing, LOUDLY, about it at the time.

More background: when we dismantled Mom's apartment last year, we found a God-only-knows-how-old jar of Balsam Peru. Mom used to put that on our cuts, rashes, achy areas...and possibly she dosed herself internally with it occasionally. It was her dad's. When I was young, it was doled out like gold, only in dire emergencies and when nothing else worked. It always resembled nothing so much as engine grease, though it smelled nicer.

More background: My sister nearly died because she was prescribed medication by a doctor who gave her anti-typhoid pills, the kind you get when nothing else works and you might die, for a head cold. The reason you only get those pills for typhoid when nothing else works is that it has some pretty horrendous side effects. A true Drug of Last Resort. Oh, and did I mention....no, I didn't: that particular medication wasn't legally on the market yet when she was given it.

Fast forward: I have been to a chiropracter. I won't go back (to him); it was a waste of money, and he was actively scamming my insurance company. I have a massage therapist who can fix anything. I refuse to use herbs; the three times I tried using them I got sicker than a dog and had to have medical intervention twice. I don't trust doctors as far as I can see them, and question each and every test and
prescription I'm given. I can't stand doctors who don't listen to me, and who assume they're God because of the time in medical school. Jerks.

However, I trust them more than I trust fly-by-night "cures" that have no scientific proof behind them. My brother-in-law was involved with clinical trials on asthma meds in the 90s. I know what drug companies have to do to get drugs out on the market, and while it's far from a perfect procedure, I'll take that over "Aunt Mabel's Best Cream (because she says so)" any day of the week.

The best thing I can do is pay attention to my body and know what works for me. When I start with a cold, I take 2000 mg of Vitamin C and go to bed. That works. When I have an allergic reaction, I go directly to the ER (fuck passing Go and collecting $200--my life's worth more than that!) for epinephrine. When I get a headache, I work through as much of it as I can tolerate, and then I hide from reality till the pain is gone. When I become a neurotic pile of slush in mid-January, I take anti-depressants until I stop crying every time I'm asked to behave like a normal human being.

If all that doesn't work for you, fine. Don't tell me what to do, and don't get all holier-than-thou because YOU can work through pain or don't need prescriptions or whatever...your day will come. I promise.

In return, I promise to try very hard not to tell to go, or not to go, to the doctor, to take this pill or no pill. But I will tell you if I think you're a slacker. Because I work with one, and she gives people with real medical problems a VERY BAD name.

Not that I have issues in this area or anything.

Whew.

Aren't you glad you asked??