My great-great-grandfather was a healer
I picked this picture on Pexels because the little girl holding her grandfather's hand looks very much like my pictures at that age. I also picked that picture because I wanted to talk about heritage.
My grandmother Alice, my father's mother, rest in peace, used to talk about her grandfather. During the days of oils and elixers, he had a cure for skin cancer. According to my grandmother, people would come from all over to rub this medication on their skin.
He also spent a lot of time in prison for not being a doctor and having a quack medicine. Before my grandmother told me the story, my mother had discovered herbs. We used comfrey in a poultice for wounds. It stopped infection and cuts healed faster. We used powdered goldenseal for mouth cankers and mother used to talk about how her grandfather kept a plug of tobacco for infection.
My grandmother saved her daughter's life with dandelion tea when her daughter had jaundice. It was during WWII and there was no extra medicine for civilians. She got this idea from her grandfather.
My mother had a distrust of doctors because from the time she was a girl she had a severe rash on her hands and arms. I think now that it might have been psoriasis. We don't know for sure, but the doctors gave her creams, which didn't work. And when I was young, they had her soak her hands in an iodine mixture which turned her skin a strange color. That treatment didn't work either.
She still looks for herbal concoctions to care for her rashes. She found out later in life that she was allergic to perfumes in the lotion. But I think she may also be allergic to her food. So because the doctor's were unable to help her, she has a real distrust of doctors. Maybe she has it right. She is 81 now and is still working. She has better health than I do.
My grandfather Bagley, my father's father, was a faith healer. In his church, it was from the "power of the priesthood." People in his church would come for blessings. The pain did go away. He is also gone now.
I have a sister who uses Reiki to keep her daughter who has had seizures for most of her life, stable and healthy.
I was looking through my pills. I take a lot of vitamins because I don't always get them from my foods. I've had shingles twice, usually whenever I change an immunosuppressant. The first time when I went from Immuran to Cellcept. I spent two weeks in severe agony from shingles. What I learned about that one is that if I take an antiviral and L-lysine, an amino acid, the pain goes away quickly and then the infection heals about the same with no new bubbles. I knew people who had shingles for years. I feel blessed that I could figure out what worked and only have this condition for two weeks.
Like my great-great-grandfather I am passing down what worked for me. Unlike my ancestor, I am not saying it will cure cancer. No, the recipe never made it to us. Everything was destroyed after his death. Because I believed in my gggrandfather, I looked for it.
In my mind the pharmcuetical companies are the inheritors of the hucksters of before. Sometimes the medications work and sometimes they cause more problems. I believe that we need to understand what we take into our bodies. We can't just trust that the medical professionals always have our interests at heart.
My second piece of advice. If you are having problems with malaise after taking a certain procedure, you may need to take an anti-viral.
To be fair we do live with better health care than ever before. Maybe it will get even better. I can only hope.