From an online alt med forum posting from a mother of a sick child:
“I have a son, he is 2 years old. He has a very bad problem of swollen adenoids and tonsils. The slightest cold, or virus irritates it to the point where he can’t sleep all night due to sleep apnea and he looses so much wieght. He keeps turning blue while he is sleeping and then startles awake to catch his breath. I cannot sleep in fear that one of the times, he won;tbe able to get his breath back.”
The poster visited doctors but was dissatisfied with their recommendations for a sleep study and possible surgery, and horrified about a recommendation for a course of steroids (after visiting this site):
Mom goes on to say:
“I have lost all faith in the doctors now. I found my self a very educated person in homepathy, and have started treating my son with homeopathic medicine, which by the way has no side effects. My son has been struggling with his breathing for the past month. I have been giving him the homeopathic medicine for 1 week now. I have seen very good improvement. I am so happy that there is a natural healthy way to treat this.”
The website which so alarmed Mom and turned her away from physicians to the services of a quack, is one of those MEDICAL CARE KILLS AND DOCTORS DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW sites, feeding gullible people cherry-picked, distorted and outright wrong info in order to feed their alternative agendas.
The end result is this kid, and many others like him, will have a wretched time with repeated infections and breathing problems (along with possible long-term health issues) because of lies by quacks and their enablers.
I don’t care when people want to use homeopathic stuff for a cold. It’s not like it’ll hurt anyone. But to deny a child proper medical care because a website tells you conventional medicine is evil?
I’m guessing that if he gets sick enough, though, he’ll end up in a hospital where they’ll treat him with actual medicine. Poor kid, to have to wait till he’s dying to get better.
It’s one thing when an adult pursues useless cures, another when children (or pets) are used as guinea pigs.
One reason I feel strongly about this (apart from the various horror stories out there) is that I have a close friend who was similarly denied treatment for bad tonsillar and adenoidal swellling as a child and went through extended misery as a result before finally getting curative surgery (she was also taken to a chiropractor for her asthma :rolleyes: )
Sadly, while some public agencies and courts will mandate proper therapy for a child with cancer, it’s less likely this mom can be held to account.
Pretty wide brush you’ve got going there, Jack - there’s plenty of advice on that website that coincides with mainstream medicine. Right off the bat they recommend NOT automatically using antibiotics to treat ear infections, and that’s exactly what the American Academy of Pediatrics says. I don’t have time to investigate every nook and cranny, there may be some dreck on that website, but I saw plenty of things that are commonly believed and practiced by competent mommies of my acquaintance.
You seem to forget that medicine is an evolving science, and sometimes winds up turning back to “folk remedies” that did help, after all.
Personally I wouldn’t ignore a child’s inability to breathe, no; but once they’re out of crisis, I’d definitely look for cures beyond “gee, let’s medicate the kid.” I hope the poster to whom you are referring has read My House is Killing Me, a Guide for Families with Allergies and Asthma. The author documents cases where a specific piece of furniture (an old rocking chair, a couch) is the source of allergens.
Actually, a little research shows that the active ingredient in homeopathic remedies can cause harm. It has been shown cause death if accidentally inhaled, damages tissue in prolonged contact when in its solid form, can cause death when ingested in excess, has been found in tumors, and in sufficient quantities can cause homelessness.
I guess, even after mixing it with water 300 or 3,000 times, the memory properties that we all know water has will retain the essence of bullshit in such a way as to bring about a variety of side effects.
People who think doctors are automatically doing the “best” or course of action are delusional. Come on! Do you imagine they’re all the same? They’re all equally well-read on every subject, every development? That must be why they all agree on everything.
I’ll give you an example – in 1987 I was diagnosed with cystitis. I went to the doctor to complain of excruciating pain when urinating, did a few rounds with antibiotics, it kept coming back. The doctor told me I should have surgery to enlarge my urinary (urethral) opening. He explained that in women the opening is sometimes too small, and that’s why women sometimes develop cystitis. This man was young, not some old fart.
I happened to be working at the public library right then, and a new book called You Don’t Have to Live With Cystitis (by Dr. Gillespie) arrived. I read it, followed her advice, and never had another problem with cystitis. Without surgery.
It’s that thing – if your tool is a hammer, then all you see are nails.
I don’t think anyone made that claim. It’s just that you stand a better chance with a doctor than with someone who mixes bullshit and water.
But doctors can goof. A GF’s cousin was once experiencing extreme abdominal pain. Really bad, she was doubled over and could barely walk. Her friend took her to the ER of a really dodgy hospital. He condition baffled the best medical minds they could dig up from under a rock. They were stumped. But they figured it was pain, so treat it with pain killers. They put her on percoset. Her condition worsened.
Anyone want to take a guess as to what was wrong with her?