I live with husband, adult son and a menagerie of animals in a semi-rural area in QLD, Australia. Gardeners and farmers abound, there’s a strong artistic vibe, a thriving Steiner School, organic whole foods shop, organic farm, many great coffee shops, many alternative health businesses and yes, even a crystal shop.
It’s as lovely as it sounds.
The usual conventional health places exist too, GP’s, pharmacists, physios , radiologists, dentists. What you won’t find are community sharps disposal bins, pregnancy clinics for teens, indigenous health or refugee clinics and there’s not a sex shop or tattoo parlour in sight.
I was immediately drawn to the Alternative Health and Wellness (AHW) world when we emigrated to Oz in 1995 (my perspective has changed a lot since, bullshit radar up, scepticism now my go-to.)
So fascinating to see that chiropractors, naturopaths, homeopaths and acupuncturist’s were an integral part of the health provider landscape which is a mix of public health (similar to NHS, better funded) and affordable private health.
1995 was pre-internet, smartphones, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook didn’t exist. Books, music and magazines were our entertainment and I LOVED magazines, spent a fortune every month on Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair and “health” mags like Wellbeing and Natural Health.
Between soaking up the AHW magazine ads, work colleagues and new friends telling me about their ‘treatments,’ I was being sold.
I’d been educated and worked in the conventional illness model of medicine and hospitals. A cure not prevention world. This glamorous alternative was SO interesting.
I wanted to know more about these mysterious practitioners, chiropractors , kinesiologists, naturopath’s, homeopaths, acupuncturists and ayurvedic “doctors” with their holistic, integrative and personalised care, their adjusting and manipulating.
Wasn’t thinking critically at all, guided by intuition and feels only, by the good art, the warm welcoming personalities, beautiful consulting rooms, crystals, wafts of delicious essential oils, music (actually no, pan pipes and rain forest whisperings leave me cold)
So different from the tired-looking underfunded NHS hospitals and GP surgeries I was used to with their chipped paint, washable plastic chairs, cluttered corridors and wafts of disinfectant.
Diet culture also influenced me for sure. Soon as puberty hit I was bombarded with the negative cultural messaging of the time, the sexualised judgement around womans looks, of women in general, self-absorbed, overly critical of my appearance, my curvaceous size 12 body was deemed ‘fat.’ The wellness world with its over-the-top ‘food as medicine’ vibe, it’s restrictions and encouragement of disordered eating felt normal.
This, written by author/ journalist Sam Baker speaks to me, even now.
“It’s not quite so easy to dismiss a lifetime of calorie counting and disordered eating and fifty-odd years of looking in the mirror and seeing flesh that isn’t there or, if it is, isn’t quite as hideous as I think it is.”
These days I just try my best to follow basic common sense strategies, eat quality food, cut out junk and alcohol, exercise and spend as much time as possible in the great outdoors.
But I used to think if I consistently lived a rigid version of this how could I possibly go wrong health-wise?
And where did I develop the opinion that pharmaceutical drugs are bad, to be avoided at all costs? I hated the idea of taking any despite dispensing them daily at work and seeing their positive effects. I did regularly imbibe a fair amount of wine at the time but drinking pure ethanol apparently didn’t count. Haha.
And what of the media criticism of ‘big pharma’ but not ‘big supplements,’ those colourfully packaged expensive vitamins, minerals and potions displayed in all pharmacies, sold and popped with gay abandon in huge numbers, (allll the AHW clinics sell them), many ineffective, some problematic if taken in the wrong dose (young yellow – faced woman accidentally overdosed on Chinese herbs comes to mind) and how many people buy and forget to take?
Nurses, doctors and other conventional health practitioners are assiduously regulated, have to follow certain standards and a code of ethics, must register annually, keep a record of professional development. Random audits can (and should) happen any time.
I know a lot of complementary therapists are genuine people who care and want to help others, are affiliated with professional associations and maintain a certain standard of care. The good ones.
But these memberships are usually voluntary (?) there’s no legal obligation.
This allows snake-oil salesman free reign, those more interested in profit than care with no boundaries can sneak in, take advantage of vulnerable folks, practise with impunity, fly under the radar ‘counsel’ people with no professional qualifications to do so.
Of course problematic people turn up in the standard medical health system too (predatory types will pop up everywhere, makes my blood boil thinking about them) but the multiple checks and balances in place aim to weed them out, flag them before they cause harm.
Back to me and my lifestyle so pure.
I thought i’d NEVER need the support of pharmaceutical drugs, nor would any perfect little child of mine be sullied thus! The horror!! I would care for them so perfectly, breastfeed them till they were five (promise I didn’t🙅♀️😆) no chemicals in our house, lots of organic food.
That would do it surely, seal my superiority as a perfect mother with never-get-sick-littlies?
The hubris! The shock of new motherhood is another story for another time.
When it came time to vaccinating our first little baby, all this misguided hatred of pharmaceuticals, the ‘natural’ over the top healthy living had us (me more than my husband) feeling scared and I hesitated for a few weeks but of course went ahead with the full recommended programme with the counsel of a patient, wise GP. The thought of our baby contracting ANY of those vaccine-preventable diseases overcame the fear.
(My granny’s first little baby died of measles at 4 months old, can you imagine the grief?)
I was then well and truly put in my place by both our two little boys having asthma, glue ear, tonsillitis, chest infections and regular bouts of croup. Childhood ENT issues are familial on my side.
Back in 1960’s Scotland tonsillectomy was almost routine for little kids, my brothers and i had ours scraped out after the first sore throat.
I was determined not to go down the surgical route recommended for our two. As a nurse I knew the realities of surgery, knew the small but real risks, didn’t relish handing them over to anaesthetists and surgeons so instead stressed myself to the absolute max, with elimination diets and dabbling (gently, didn’t do anything stupid) in some of the aforementioned therapies but at the end of the day antibiotics, oral steroids, bronchodilators and finally surgery to remove tonsills, adenoids and insert grommets (several times for both!) solved all problems.
For myself, like most young people I didn’t have any health issues needing doctors but a niggly pain in one of my hips started in my early 30’s.
Initially I borrowed my Dads stoicism, tried to ignore, suck it up, not be a sissy. Swam laps like a demon, the spin classes, the personal training sessions at the gym (adrenaline hits made me happy but still I limped around in increasing agony) was a healthy weight, took the recommended joint supplements, visited the physio on the regular, did the exercise programmes. Did it all!
I also tried some recommended AHW practitioners to see if they could help.
But here’s a thing …. I’d been employed as a registered nurse/midwife in large city hospitals for 12yrs in Scotland prior to arriving in Australia, had worked alongside all the other healthcare professionals, physios, OT’s, radiologists and speech therapists so when it came to having consults with the alternative therapists recommended, they didn’t inspire me with confidence … not at all.
I know people who swear by their chiropractor, have regular “adjustments” or treatments but my British sensibilities made it hard for me to get even a placebo effect from the one I consulted, it all felt wrong like I was seeing a shady pretend doctor trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Hard to take him seriously especially when he produced a small metal device which he proceeded to randomly “click” on all my joints. Come on! I wanted to laugh and couldn’t get out of there quick enough.
The kinesiologist asked me to bring food which she thought I might be intolerant/allergic to then had me hold it in one hand and “tested” my muscle strength by pushing down on my outstretched arms one after the other, the one with food in hand went down much more quickly showing (tada!) that the food I was holding was a problem. But, I was SURE she’d pushed down harder on one arm than the other? Come on!
Money exchanged hands and I left feeling like an idiot, no specialist immunology appointment needed, no skin patch testing, just this dubiously qualified person doing her magical, performative thing and proclaiming results in an instant! How convenient.
I LOVED the idea of homeopathy, spent many hours and many dollars, consulted three of them, (around kids stuff too, trying to prevent) all warm caring personalities, great listeners, so beneficial to feel seen, be affirmed, consulting rooms gorgeous, lovely art on the walls.
Loved the ritualised way they dispensed remedies in tiny brown bottles but alas as much as I wanted homeopathy to work (for my son’s chest/ENT issues) it absolutely did not and I always felt faintly ridiculous dispensing those teeny tiny sugary pills tho the kids loved them.
Acupuncture is the only thing I feel i’ve benefited from. The sense of confidence imbued by the acupuncturists, the teeny-tiny needles, the massage, the heat, the fascinating meridian diagrams on the walls all left me temporarily, momentarily better.
Oh and f- you Louise Hay with your self blaming, guilt inducing, simplistic “you are the cause of your illness and every negative thing that happens to you” lists and affirmations. Tried them too but positive thinking alone did not magically boost my cartilage or produce a normal space between my acetabulum and femur, much as I visualised it!
Turns out my hip dysplasia, diagnosed and treated as a toddler had caused arthritis, the source of all the pain. At the age of just 45 I refused to believe I needed a hip replacement but two more specialists confirmed. Devastating to hear but once I got my head around it, realised there was no option if I wanted a normal quality of life I went ahead. It was life changing.
Rotten hip joint removed, pain gone.
I accepted ALL the general anaesthetic drugs, painkillers, anti- inflammatories and blood thinners prescribed but also popped arnica pills like they were going out of fashion. Placebo does have a place in healing, that’s for sure.
Fifteen years later, I’ve just had a second new hip installed and embraced all the drugs again. This time not a drop of arnica, Bach – Flower essences or Rescue Remedy passed my lips.
Most people will need pharmaceuticals and the help of medical experts at some point in their lives. Some people will find this difficult, been harmed by the system, don’t trust it, don’t feel safe with health professionals, reject all conventional help.
But my nearly 40 years working as a nurse/midwife colours my POV. Nursing dying women who’ve been too scared to access conventional help for cancer, who felt sure their AHW methods and treatments alone would suffice, who delayed treatment till it was far too late … is awful.
Traumatic for them at the end, traumatic for their family, traumatic for their treating team.
So where am I going with all this? What did I come up with? Well, a bit randomly, in a perfect world ….
Excellent, equitable healthcare would be available to all. Duh.
The NHS would function properly again. No one in Scotland would struggle to get a timely GP appointment, no corridor care, no ambulance ramping, no wait lists through the roof.
Nurse:patient ratios would be adequate, everywhere. Queensland Nurses & Midwives Union state “ratios save lives.” They do!
Adequate long term planning would be in place for our precious elderly population and their specific needs. Aged-care staff would be well paid.
Integrative medicine would be routine, “ medical therapy that combines practices and treatments from alternative medicine with conventional medicine.”
Women with chronic pelvic pain (the ones I see at work,) bent over, rocking, heat pack clutched, clock-watching, buzzing for more and more morphine-based drugs wouldn’t be in hospital in a panicked, state, still in pain. Would’ve had a team approach to their care from early on, Integrative Gynaecologist, pelvic health Physiotherapist, maybe Somatic Therapist or Psychologist, not just an over- worked GP (I sympathise, I do) a ten minute appointment, and script for the pill and painkillers.
Those born by a fluke of bad luck to the wrong parents, in the wrong neighbourhood with the wrong colour of skin would be given a break, would get the appropriate healthcare for their dire situation (a whole complicated topic/problem with no simple solutions)
In busy hospital wards, the aromatherapist, the massage therapist and acupuncturist would be part of the team, would stroll into the ward with everyone else of a morning. Can you imagine?
There’d be loads of (well – paid) GP’s, with long appointments and time.
Means testing for the rich.
No tax breaks for billionaires.
Young girls being taught about the magic and intelligence of their bodies, their cycles, about birth, starting in school, guarantee they’d love it. Shame be gone!
No one knows what problems their genetic lottery is going to gift them, no one knows what’s going to happen next but a baseline of good health has to be a good thing. Prevention better than cure. If the universe has randomly given you the education, resources, time and privilege to manage a healthy lifestyle you really are obliged to take advantage of it (I keep tell myself.)
So here’s to good health, however you wish to find it.
Lindsey Crossan