Everyone's an Expert

Isn’t it amazing how when you have a chronic disease, everyone becomes a medical expert? Why don’t you try herbs, vitamins, magical tropical juices (which only make the pyramid scheme sales people rich), more rest, less rest, more exercise, less exercise, a raw foods diet, the maker’s diet, giving up meat, eating more meat, juicing, a different climate, more sun, less sun, positive thinking, not stressing, and on and on. A total stranger in a discount house tried to persuade me that a “special juice” would cure my disease, after all, there was a story about it on Yahoo! No kidding.

Reality check: Would so many millions be allocated to research if the cure was that simple? Don’t you think the researchers might just have checked out some of these theories? Would so many people be sick and suffering if these proposed cures really worked? And just why are we supposed to think of all medical people as the enemy? The disease is the enemy, not those who treat us. It makes sense to eat a balanced diet and it makes sense to take the best care of ourselves that we can. But to expect a miracle cure in the latest fad is senseless. But Redd Foxx sums it up better than I ever could, “All those health food nuts are going to feel mighty foolish when they’re lying there in the hospital dying of nothing.”