One of the earliest things you learn with a disease like MS is that everyone is a fucking expert. I think I did a post similar to this a few months ago with input from Lyma (who also has MS) citing the things a PWMS hates to hear - included in that was weird and wacky remedies guaranteed to do nothing more than push you into bankruptcy and make nil-by-mouth a positive thing by removing swallowing from one's daily routine.

Not that kind of swallowing, pervert. Go to the back of the class.

I didn't realise there were so many blissfully ignorant people inhabiting my environs (and god knows I'd already met a few by the time I got sick) who just knew right off the bat what I needed to beat MS and make the symptoms all disappear. Their mother's cousin's uncle's neighbour's cleaner's friend's pet talking hedgehog told them.

A reliable source, you see.

The net is full of sites offering incredibly kosher information all about colonic irrigation and aligning your bedhead to the south while sleeping on a magnetic underlay on a space-age foam bed listening to subliminal messages on how to lose weight and not be depressed, delivered via a guided self-hypnotic past-life regression meditation designed to get you in touch with your inner self and what you did wrong in 1066 when you got a sharp one up ya on a beach near Hastings where you cut the legs off an English soldier, after your weekly Reiki Yoga and Tai Chi sessions, living in a house flowing with the positive chi from the North combined with a little pool of running water under a mirror by the door that changes your perception of your own tastebuds so that your morning cup of concentrated urine tastes like the strawberry (made with real strawberries) power drink cum yoghurt shake containing 135 million different nutrients that YOUR BODY NEEDS EVERY DAY that only costs $50 per can that you are going to have for lunch.

*snort* fuck that.

I think I'd rather eat 9 knobs of goat shit and a plate of tripe. And you know I hate tripe.

The trouble with all these people is that they are full of shit. Some fringe medicine snake oil merchant knows more about MS (and all those other chronic and chronically ill-understood debilitating diseases) than a few thousand dedicated professionals and researchers (and one tall, skinny brick) do after all their years of examining and treating and learning about MS.

I gotta start buying Tuis by the keg. I could keep it in my genuine Tui fridge. Like this one.





There is a place for complementary medicine, but not dispensed by people with not a shred of medical knowledge who don't know what they are promoting nor how it will work with you, your disease and your other medications. The worst thing of all is that those who give you things "to make you feel better" are trying to help. They just don't understand that none of it works on us like it does on others and being unappreciative makes them churlish. It's not pretty.

An example of these commonly used complementary dietary supplements is Echinacea. We often take this to boost our immune systems, fight off infections. I even have a bottle of it right here - Thompson's Echinacea; "Today, the reknowned antibacterial properties of Echinacea make it a popular herb that can help to enhance the immune system against seasonal challenges by building resistance".

I recently read that in the States, Echinacea carries a warning that says it should not be used by people who have auto-immune diseases.

These brainwashed anti-orthodox medicine health-nut people are just plain dangerous (in the most caring sort of way) - and they are living in your neighbourhood.

Of course, none of them have MS. And they like the summertime.