There is a growing group of naturopaths claiming to cure everything with natural approaches and homeopathic medicine. A lot of us with chronic illnesses end up falling into their hands when traditional medicines turns their nose at us and tell us we aren’t sick, when we clearly are and have been deteriorating quickly. They like to tell us it’s in our mind or they misdiagnose us since our diseases doesn’t have accurate tests and in the case of Lyme, those tests more often than not throws false negatives.

Those of us suffering with Lyme’s become desperate and frantic trying to find someone to help us, so we go outside of traditional medicine. Is that the right place to find help? We can only hope so, because they seem to be the only people willing to try.

I got pushed out of traditional medicine with a harsh kick. Nobody would help me, so we tried a homeopathic doctor. I was skeptical throughout the process. Some of the things she talks about were proven false. She mentioned being about to help my bipolar through diet, and that she could heal me from it, never mind that its a genetic mood disorder. The wifi isn’t really changing how your body reacts to things and the idea of crystals helping anything comes from old school witchcraft and have no base in science. I was on guard the entire four months I was there, even more so seeing as she was selling herbs and supplements out of her practice. Which is highly unethical and she would have lost her license for doing that if she was in traditional medicine. Everything was expensive. I didn’t notice a difference in how I felt after a lot of treatments.

But- some of the things she suggested have been studied, some of them did make a difference in the way I felt. Some of her concepts weren’t so far off the track I needed to be on. I needed to be helping my body detox, but it wasn’t through green juice and mystery homeopathic drops, it was through sweating and Epson salt baths, ways people have been healing themselves for centuries. I did need to be on some supplements, but ones that list every single ingredient that came from an independent source. There are a lot of supplements derived from foods that help boost your immune system, support your liver, and even have antibacterial qualities. I needed probiotics to keep my gut from being destroyed by treatments. I needed to cut sugar to help with the inflammation, but I didn’t need to clean my diet of every food I’ve ever loved.

I needed some of that natural healing. I won’t deny it, it’s insanely important, just as important as exercise and staying hydrated.

But, traditional medicine was still needed. I needed the stuff that has been backed  by countless studies. I needed antibiotics to kill off the bacteria and I needed a lot of them. The antibiotics are what got me to where I am. I also needed a beta-blocker to help control my heart palpitations caused by the inflammation of this inflammatory disease. I needed an anti-yeast prescription to protect my body while I was on all these medications.

I needed both, and that makes people from both sides scoff. Traditional doctors spend a lot of time putting down naturopaths, and for good reasons too. They help foster anti-vaxxers and keep people with cancer from getting chemo. They can be insanely dangerous to individuals and to our society as a whole. And, as I found out, they can also operate like a scam, telling you you need things that they supply just so they can line their pockets. But, the way traditional doctors scoff at them is one of the reasons people run to them, because traditional medicine has failed them, by not listening to their patients, but not taking the time to dissect habit changes they can make to help them heal along side their medicine. They drop eat well and exercise and send you on your way, when there is a lot more too it. Are certain foods worse for this disease? Can a certain kind of exercise help more? Is there any truth about the magic of sweat? (I literally could talk about how important sweat if for hours)

Doctors failing are the reason people run to natural cures. Natural cures aren’t the enemy, it’s the people profiting under that umbrella term.

I left that naturopath, by the way, and found a doctor who treats with both traditional medication and supplements and lifestyle changes, because they don’t exist without each other. Health is more than one thing, and we have to approach it as such.