New Agey alternative medicine -- does any of it work?

[BlueRidge]

There is a lot of information available here on "alternative" medicine: NIH National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health

 

[canbelto]

Rubbing an ankle with anything stimulates blood flow and compression is a standard treatment for a sprained ankle. There's nothing new age about this. As an aside, one of the best treatments for an injury of this type is alternating hot and cold, which is something any physical therapist will tell you.

I know it's not New Agey. I was talking about a home remedy that really worked.
New Agey treatments I associate with having a spiritual/mystical side. Like releasing energy, "womb magic," using the power of crystals to heal, detoxing negative energy, that sort of thing. Yoni steaming is supposed to reinivigorate the "magical chi" in your vagina or whatever.

Home remedies like drinking tea with honey for a sore throat or using tiger balm for achy muscles or chicken soup for a cold isn't new Agey. It's just home remedies that work.

 

[just tuned in]

I am prone to uterine infections, both yeast and bacterial. Maybe I will steam my "yoni" and see if it helps....

I think negative energy is definitely a thing, and there can be different ways people seek to remove that negative energy. For me, shiatsu and 528 Hz tones.

 

[rfisher]

I did find a home remedy for a sprained ankle that works. A ballerina recommended it to me. Take French argile clay (can be bought on Amazon), rub it on the ankle, wrap it in saran wrap, and put a tight sock over it, sleep for a night. It reduced the swelling and pain a lot.

So would elevating your ankle and icing it. What worked in your case was the tight sock which acted as compression.

 

[Japanfan]

I use a home remedy for colds that works really well, given to me by an Indigenous person.

You cut up three lemons and one ginger, and boil them with a cinnamon stick for about half an hour. Strain through a sieve then sweeten with honey.

It not only works like a charm, but is delicious. It makes more than one cup, so you can put the mix back in the pot and add water. The mix thickens as you continue to heat it up, so the flavors intensify.

 

[just tuned in]

I did find a home remedy for a sprained ankle that works. A ballerina recommended it to me. Take French argile clay (can be bought on Amazon), rub it on the ankle, wrap it in saran wrap, and put a tight sock over it, sleep for a night. It reduced the swelling and pain a lot.

Rubbing an ankle with anything stimulates blood flow and compression is a standard treatment for a sprained ankle. There's nothing new age about this.

We need a controlled study, one with clay, one without. @canbelto, next time, can you sprain both ankles?

 

[Jenny]

Not to get too picky here, but you say the remedy was given to you by an indigenous person, and yet three of the ingredients are not native to North America. They must be cultivated, and at least two are difficult to grow in northern climates, and therefore have to be purchased.

Sure it's a solid remedy, ginger especially has been used for various purposes in history and to the present day (how many kids remember having ginger ale when they were sick or had a sore tummy?), but I'm not sure what the connection is to indigenous peoples in Canada or the US.

 

[Japanfan]

Not to get too picky here, but you say the remedy was given to you by an indigenous person, and yet three of the ingredients are not native to North America. They must be cultivated, and at least two are difficult to grow in northern climates, and therefore have to be purchased.

True as that may be, the remedy was given to me by an Indigenous person - an older Indigenous person (she was over 40 when she gave me the remedy recipe some 15 years ago).

Using plants for healing is an Indigenous tradition, so Indigenous people are likely more open to natural remedies than some non-Indigenous people. And, Indigenous people do go to grocery stores and purchase things, you know, including foods that are not native to North America.

And it's equally possible that when the person who gave me the remedy got it from someone else (Indigenous or non-Indigenous) and knowing the remedy has nothing to do with her being Indigenous.

Plenty of non-Indigenous people are interested in natural remedies too, even though the western medical tradition doesn't embrace natural remedies.

Sure it's a solid remedy, ginger especially has been used for various purposes in history and to the present day (how many kids remember having ginger ale when they were sick or had a sore tummy?), but I'm not sure what the connection is to indigenous peoples in Canada or the US.

As I said above, I thought it may have reflected the Indigenous emphasis on natural healing.

Some or a lot of people who are non-Indigenous - Caucasion and other ethnicities - would not be interested in a natural remedy and would just take Tylenol Flu or whatever. Although there is a growing interest in 'alternative' medicines and healing processes in the west, a lot of people just think that natural remedies are nonsense and prefer to take some pills.

Also, I noticed that you did not capitalize the first 'i' in Indigenous and will point out that you should. Indigenous denotes citizenship and society no less than 'American' or Canadian' and the like do. Capitalizing that 'i' is a gesture of respect.

 

[Jenny]

Also, I noticed that you did not capitalize the first 'i' in Indigenous and will point out that you should. Indigenous denotes citizenship and society no less than 'American' or Canadian' and the like do. Capitalizing that 'i' is a gesture of respect.

Only because I wanted to allow the possibility that you were referring to an indigenous person of some other region than the one you live in, perhaps in your travels, given that your username is Japan fan?

And in the end, that remedy sounds like one a lot of grandmas might offer, regardless of origin. Natural remedies have been used by all societies in all parts of the world since ancient times. The advent of pills and mass produced medicines is relatively new in human history.

 

[Japanfan]

And in the end, that remedy sounds like one a lot of grandmas might offer, regardless of origin. Natural remedies have been used by all societies in all parts of the world since ancient times. The advent of pills and mass produced medicines is relatively new in human history.

I think the number of grandmas who would recommend natural remedies are dwindling. Western societies at large largely adhere to the western medical model (i.e. medications, clinical treatments).

I grew up in the 60s/70s in Northern Canada and there was certainly no interest in natural remedies among the town's largely white population. To the contrary, people embraced all things modern, from medicines to cooking appliances to canned soup to instant mashed potatoes (YUCK). Certainly true of my mother.

And I repeat, I think Indigenous people - First Nations in Canada - are generally more open to natural healing than non-Indigenous people, even though the general population is more open to it than it once was.

 

[emason]

A total aside, but the first time I wore my new pair of rose quartz earrings, the woman in line behind me at the grocery store asked me if I had had the crystals
programmed yet. Seriously? Like, no, they are just a pair of earrings.

 

[PRlady]

I think the number of grandmas who would recommend natural remedies are dwindling. Western societies at large largely adhere to the western medical model (i.e. medications, clinical treatments).

I grew up in the 60s/70s in Northern Canada and there was certainly no interest in natural remedies among the town's largely white population. To the contrary, people embraced all things modern, from medicines to cooking appliances to canned soup to instant mashed potatoes (YUCK). Certainly true of my mother.

And I repeat, I think Indigenous people - First Nations in Canada - are generally more open to natural healing than non-Indigenous people, even though the general population is more open to it than it once was.

Well, every time I got a cold in Israel, I was ordered to drink ginger tea. Being of the lemon-and-honey vintage myself, I was like what's with the ginger. I don't know if it actually helps but it sure is popular. (And Jewish/Palestinian grandmoms can argue between themselves who's indigenous, but they both pushed the ginger tea.)

 

[quartz]

Ginger, lemon, honey, salt, orange juice, are my go to items when I feel a cold coming on. That's how I grew up, and my family is a bunch of Dutch descent, white working class, ordinary folk from Michigan.

 

[Sparks]

Ginger is a natural anti-inflammatory. I make decaf green tea with a piece of ginger in a large bottle, then refrigerate it.

 

[hanca]

We don’t add the ginger, but we drink lots of hot tea with lemon and honey when we are ill. And also make lots of garlic soup.

 

[MacMadame]

There is a lot of misinformation in this thread. Let's start with detoxing.

First of all, what even is a toxin? I found this definition in a document about workplace hazards that is very good:

The toxicity of a substance is its ability to cause harmful effects. All chemicals can cause harm. When only a very large amount of the chemical can cause damage, the chemical is considered to be practically non-toxic. When a tiny amount is harmful, the chemical is considered to be highly toxic. The toxicity of a substance depends on three factors: its chemical structure, the extent to which the substance is absorbed by the body, and the body's ability to detoxify the substance (change it into less toxic substances) and eliminate it from the body.

So a short version of this is: the dose defines the poison. We call something toxic if even a tiny amount can cause harm. But anything can be toxic in the right dose. (Everything is a chemical.) So if you drink enough water in a short enough time period, you can die. In that circumstance, even water is toxic! But mostly it's not toxic or thought of as a toxin.

On the other extreme, arsenic is widely accepted to be poison and toxic. But arsenic does appear in foods naturally! There is arsenic in the seed of an apple for example. You aren't going to die if you eat the seeds in an apple. So in that case, though arsenic is toxic, there are safe quantities. (Keep this in mind when the media reports on barely perceptible amounts of scary-sounding chemicals in your food.)

Secondly, our bodies are designed to detoxify themselves. In particular, everything we ingest (eat or drink) goes through our digestive system. The nutrients and water are sucked out and we pee and poop out the rest. This includes anything toxic we have ingested (as long as it's in small enough quantities not to kills us before we eliminate it). So you can think of our digestive system as a conveyor belt where stuff goes in and crap (both literally and figuratively) comes out.

When you "do a detox" all you are doing is interrupting the conveyor belt, not putting new items on it, and flushing out whatever is in there all at once instead of gradually. It's not doing anything that your body already does except it's flushing out the good stuff (nutrients) with the waste and it's doing it in a shorter timeframe and more dramatically. (Also, some of these detox products have crap in them so they aren't even not putting new crap in while flushing old contents out.)

As soon as you start eating and drinking again, the conveyor belt gets food placed on it and your body continues to extract nutrients from your food and pass out the waste. But in a gradual way that is less taxing on your body (and doesn't throw out the good with the bad).

There are some chemicals that are toxic that our body doesn't pass out. They accumulate in our organs. Doing a detox doesn't do anything to cleanse our liver or kidneys and other organs not involved in the digestive system. So drinking a particular tea will not remove the mercury from your body.

We also take in toxins through other systems in our body such as breathing air or putting things on our skin. But drinking a tea doesn't impact those systems and definitely doesn't cleanse them.

TL;DR Detoxes are quackery. If you want to do a cleanse for spiritual purposes, knock yourself out but don't think you are doing anything good for your body. If you want your body to have fewer toxins in it, put fewer toxins in to start with.

 

[triple_toe]

Poppies are natural sources for pain relief

 

[snoopy]

If you want to do a cleanse for spiritual purposes, knock yourself out but don't think you are doing anything good for your body. If you want your body to have fewer toxins in it, put fewer toxins in to start with.

"Detoxes" are frequently advised as precursors to a change in eating habits. A habit jump start, so to speak. The beginning of low carb isn't sold as a detox but same idea - two weeks of really low carbs to reduce the addiction. Though that does have a physical effect on your body.

 

[MacMadame]

There are lots of studies on how to change habits successfully. Doing something drastic and unsustainable on purpose for a short period of time isn't one of them.

IOW, that may be how they are sold but it's not necessary to change a habit and not particularly effect.

Btw, in the Weight Loss Surgery community, there is a fad diet where you eat exactly as you did when you first had surgery when you had to eat that way because your stomach was healing. They progress through all the stages (clears, liquids, soft, etc.) in anywhere from 48 hours to two weeks time which is very condensed over what you experience right after surgery (so days instead of months).

They claim it "resets your pouch", which is not possible (stomach size won't get smaller because you ate liquids and soft foods for a few days) and when that is pointed out, they then claim it's more of a psychological reset.

It works they say because "I lost 2 pounds!" Um, that was probably 2 lb of water for one thing and also the people who promote this diet often use it more than once a year and in between struggle with their weight and eating. So not only doesn't it work to lose weight, it doesn't even work to reset their psychological view of food either.

It's a prime example of how we fool ourselves so we don't have to do the harder work of actually changing our thinking or our habits IMO.