The road to alternative medicine.

I've always considered myself a fairly intelligent person that believes in science and evidence-based practices. Both my parents worked in medical fields, and I had no reason to distrust medicine, science, or the FDA. Had I remained a healthy middle-aged woman with no medical concerns, maybe I would have stayed that way. 

Three specific things happened to me that directly led me away from this world, and into the aisles of health-food stores and the clinics of naturopaths. Places that were completely foreign to me before the age of 30. 

The First.
I had a child. 
She was perfectly healthy at birth. At 3 months old, these scaly patches of rough skin started to show up. It was diagnosed as eczema, a skin condition that could be caused by many different things. 

We bathed her in oatmeal water, and slathered her with expensive lotions. We used prescription lotion from the Doc but it had a limitation of 4 weeks on it. While it worked, we had to cease using it after that time. When I asked what we do next, my Doctor said to just keep doing the oatmeal baths and lotions, which weren't working. 

So I googled my way down some rabbit holes and mothers blogs and found a connection to milk. I stopped eating all dairy and the patches started to clear up. My Doc referred us to an allergist named Doctor Doctor. He performed the test reluctantly and stated that Dairy Allergies are rare and not proven as a cause for eczema in his evidence-based practice. The test came back, no dairy allergy. He suggested I go home and eat all the cheese I want. My breastmilk will be fine for the baby. 

I followed Doctor Doctor's suggestion and went home and ate nachos, as I had missed them terribly. 
The red rash my nursing infant woke up with the next day was the worst it had ever been, she was so uncomfortable and in so much pain. I don't care what he believes to be true, I know this to be true. 
I felt immense guilt and I cut out dairy for the next year and a half. Her eczema disappeared completely.
Strike 1. 

The Second. 
I was bit by a tick. 
A week later all my joints ached. My family had downplayed the tick (that had only been attached for 6 hours) as nothing, so I had forgotten to mention to my Doctor as I had already erased it from my mind.

3 months later I remembered, and she immediately ran 3 Lyme tests, back to back. They all came back clear, no Lyme.

Over the course of the next 6 months I had various health issues, joint pain in my knees, ankles, wrists and fingers. Rashes all over my body, intense stomach pain, a lump that grew on my thumb. It was this crazy mystery that no blood test could solve.

My Doctor finally ran a different tick-borne illness, a Rickettsia test and it came back positive. She put me on the standard antibiotic course for a tick-borne illness and my symptoms temporarily improved. 10 days of antibiotics. 

When the symptoms returned I asked "what next?" and she said that's all she could do. I still couldn't write or hold my baby without pain. 

She referred me to an internist who found it amusing that my symptoms had not cleared after the antibiotics. He called them the "gold standard" and suggested I get the "tick idea" out of my head and maybe my symptoms will go away on their own. He explained condescendingly that he practices evidence-based medicine, and continued infection after treatment is not what the research shows.

After exhausting all my options, I went to a naturopath who confirmed my suspicions that I had a continued infection. I tested positive for Rickettsia and Lyme. I did a 9 month protocol, and 5 months into my treatment all my symptoms went away. I am now symptom-free a year and a half later, with the exception of some supplements I take for some lingering histamine responses my body still has.

As far as I was concerned, evidence-based medicine didn't necessarily mean truth. It simply meant, not yet known.
Strike 2. 

The Third. 
My daughter started having violent tantrums at the age of 5, virtually overnight. 
It seemed connected to eating particular foods, especially, Tylenol, fruit loops, and candy canes. 
The culprit seemed to be red dye. 
When we cut it out, her violent tantrums stopped. 
The FDA dismissed all research stating that red dye which is found in nearly all children's medicine, toothpaste, toothbrushes, drinks, candies and other processed foods, causes intense behavioural and neurological issues. The same research was used to ban all food dyes in some European countries. The same research that confirmed a problem with this ingredient in one country, was considered not good enough in America/Canada. 

Once again, I'm wandering the aisles of health food stores, thanking my lucky stars that there are people and companies out there who have made this connection and created food without this seemingly "safe" dye, despite the FDA assuring the public it is safe for human consumption. 

Strike 3. 

The pandemic created a large divide between evidence-based and conspiracy, but like all things, it's not so black and white. 

The gaps I found myself in over the last 5 years were due to lack of research, sometimes because of ethics. Mothers and babies are often the last to be included in scientific research for ethical reasons. Historically, science has excluded women from a lot of research, so the results from the last 150 years will continue to be limited and biased (The Deadly Truth About a World Built for Men). 

The arrogance I kept running into, this evidence-based gaslighting was not limited to Doctor's offices. Twitter and Reddit have become over-run with arrogant medical professionals (and other random professionals calling themselves "science communicators") slandering any and all practices that are not evidence-based, with no end to their mocking. 10 years ago, I might have joined them, because it's amusing to belittle someone who seems to have gone off the deep-end. 

After my experience, however, the whole truth and science are no longer synonymous. 

Those that have made it their life mission to destroy all treatment methods that are not evidence-based have clearly never had a child with an incurable illness, or been diagnosed with something chronic with no known cures. It's no coincidence that these "science communicators" are often straight white men. These avenues they so enjoyably mock are not necessarily "snake oil salesmen" but a last resort, a parents last hope. The care I received from each Naturopath was complete, thorough, supportive and worked. It was the best care I've received as a woman, and in a perfect world, every young woman should be given the opportunity when her cycle begins in her teenage years, to see an Naturopath.

While these Doctors and the like say their reason for pushing evidence-based education is to keep poor vulnerable parents from getting duped, I don't see it like that at all. It's outright sexism.
It's their ego, looking for more ammunition, more fact. 
It's their ego unable to live in chaos. 

They can't seem comprehend a world with any unknowns. 
Which is terribly naive considering how little we know about the universe.
Even the researchers, the scientists, have an element of awe in their work, an awareness of the unknown.

But the Timothy Caulfields' of the world, lack that, and therefore, lack my respect.