When you are in a painful medical state like mine (dubbed by the profession as polymyalgia rheumatica or PMR), it would be a mistake not to go with what is proven to work by solid scientific evidence. There’s no reason to be shy about that phrase ‘scientific evidence’. It’s really just an extension of what we as a species can confirm with our own eyes.
And I’m sorry to say here that what works is big bad pharma. They have all the evidence. Despite the profit-driven abuses we all know of in the industry and despite all the side effects and contra-indications of their products, these products have been put through a rigorous evidence-gathering procedure to establish their effectiveness under appropriate medical supervision.
It’s the best we’ve got so we should grit our teeth and learn to love it. Would you in your right mind, or even in your wrong mind for that matter, go with alternative ‘medicine’, for which there is little or no evidence base? Would you go with the siren calls of all the self-appointed gurus who would like you to believe based on hearsay that X or Y (or bleach perhaps?) is the magic cure for your ailments?
I am taking so many pills at the moment that I believe I would rattle if shaken. They are all evidence based. I wouldn’t waste my money or my health on alternatives.
Agreed, I’m not even sure as I write this that it’s me doing the writing. I write through a fog induced by a pain-killing prescription drug called palexia. Bad as it makes my head feel, it works, and buys me time while the medical profession figure out how to treat the underlying condition with yet more prescriptions drugs. Which they will in due course. The palexia also gives me the breathing space enabling me to get on with a bit of physiotherapy in deference to my wasted muscles.
But the final cure, at which point the beast PMR is eradicated from my body for good, may take months.
So, please regard the flow of my blogs (following this one) as being in abeyance for the moment. It’s a temporary but necessary pause. The spirit is ready, but my mind and body are not up to it right now. Give me time, and I’ll be back. I’m not retiring.
Stay tuned. This is not my swansong. And stay away from the snake oil.