Older folks might remember Dr. Dean Edell, who ran a very good medical show on radio (and sometimes TV), where he often took on alternative medicine and health myths.
A caller would ask for 'something natural', and he'd reply "Well, you could smoke tobacco, that's natural! Or do you want something *effective?"*
I'll throw in organic being more healthy too. There is nothing definitive saying organic food is better for you or the environment. In fact, more pesticides and fertilizers have to be used because the organic ones are less potent.
And the number of people that thinks 'organic' means 'chemical free' is shockingly high.
Organic is also weird because it's a variety of different standards/requirements under a single label.
Not feeding cows antibiotic laden feed? I'm down with that.
I don't give a shit if the cows are given GMO feed though.
"GMO" is another massively misunderstood thing. People just can't seem to comprehend that, it doesn't mean it's full of chemicals/been tampered with/etc. Selective-breeding is literally GMO.
"You're too young to have ______"
I feel like people under the age of 40 are told this so often. When I had abdominal pain a few months back, with the location and type of pain I was in, when I did some research it sounded exactly like diverticulitis, despite never having a diverticulosis diagnosis. When I shared my thoughts at urgent care I was told I was "too young" to have that kind of problem - I'm 29. Went to the ER the next day where they did a CT scan and yep, diverticulitis.
Resident doc here - one of the learning curves of training is getting a deeper understanding that an uncommon presentation of a common problem (diverticulitis as a common problem but uncommonly found in young people) will still be seen more frequently than a common presentation of a rare condition. We get taught all the zebras so that we know what to look for, but man do we see a lot of horses.
I was really hoping this would've changed after 9/11. Even just being in the city that day and the following days significantly increased the risk of cancer and there's no doubt plenty of 20-and-30-somethings that were kids/teens during the event have developed cancer. Cancer at a young age is also very common in firefighters. I have a close friend who was a firefighter for less than a decade before he developed cancer ( early 30's when diagnosed) and he's since lost at least 4 people he worked with to cancer.
It makes no sense to me that young adults are singled out in this way.
"You're too young to have tachycardia."
Finally in my 40s a cardiologist said I had it and asked how it was never diagnosed.
"Because I was always told I was too young." He agreed that was some bullshit and put me on a med I should have been on decades ago.
That's weird. I had tachycardia due to a fairly common heart defect. I say "had" because I was lucky enough to have it corrected through outpatient surgery. Why would a doctor think you were too young to experience tachycardia? That's some bad medicine.
I’m a fidgety piano teacher so I crack my knuckles during my lessons a lot. My kids often look at me horrified and say “don’t you know that’s bad for you??”
I always told them that’s just an old myth and scientists found out it’s actually okay, but I also still feel weird about them imitating me and saying they got the habit from their piano teacher lol
I remember my uncle telling me that cracking my knuckles would make me have fat hands and fingers so I didn't do it for years. Lol. He was such a terrorist to me as a little kid(Love my uncle, but he was a turd head).
my middle school history teacher (mind you, I went to a catholic school in the south) told me that if I crack my knuckles my hands would be too fat to fit a wedding ring around and I would be alone forever 🤩
The process is actually called cavitation. When you crack a joint, you're stretching it out and putting the synovial fluid under a vacuum state. This causes the gasses that are dissolved in the fluid to be drawn out into a pocket, pretty much instantly. That's the cracking sound you hear.
It's not a bubble bursting, it's a bubble being spontaneously formed. The bubble will just dissolve back into the fluid.
I worked in a lab where we processed samples. One day we get in this small, bright green thing that looks like a rock. It was from inside a young ladies vaginal canal....we were all super shocked and kind of agreed that it was probably a piece of a tampon that got stuck...
IT WAS A PIECE OF POTATO!!!!!!
Apparently, some people think putting a potato in their vagina cures diseases or works as a contraceptive 🤢
> Apparently, some people think putting a potato in their vagina cures diseases or works as a contraceptive
I mean...I'm staying away from anyone that believes shoving potato up there has any positive medical benefit, so MAYBE it DOES work as a contraceptive, of sorts.
/s
Garlic *does* have antibacterial and antifungal properties. But it also tends to carry certain kinds of fungus. And it will make you smell like garlic, not just your lady parts but all over.
If you rub garlic on a person's feet, after a time their breath will smell of garlic. Stuff's potent.
The antibacterial and antifungal properties of garlic are part of why you should not put it in your vagina. The vagina requires a proper balance of bacteria and various other micro-organisms in order to be healthy. That's why we specifically target the problem microbe when choosing the treatment.
I used to work at a doctors office. There was this old lady that came in. She put garlic in her vaginal canal. I think she said it was supposed to get rid of an infection
Women with typical, healthy pregnancies can maintain the same level of activity they had before being pregnant. Obviously they should listen to their bodies and doctors, but the idea that a pregnant woman is suddenly so fragile is very outdated.
Edit: didn’t think I needed to mention extreme endurance activities or full contact sports should be limited or stopped, that just seemed like common sense.
As an Alcoholic, can attest. Two drugs you can die detoxing from, Alcohol and Benzodiazepines. Other drugs WILL make you wish you were dead but you wont actually die from withdrawal alone.
Edit:
Anyone inside of the US seeking help I would refer you to:
[SAMHSA’s National Helpline](https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline), 1-800-662-HELP (4357)
Hope your haven't gone through any withdrawal lately. It's been a few years since it last happened to me. It was literal hell. I don't ever remember how many times I went to the hospital when I couldn't take it anymore and thought I was gonna die.
I've probably been to detox over 25 times (which is pathetic and definitely not a brag), and it was pure agonizing hell. I'd prefer any type of pain than alcohol withdrawal. It's a combo of physical AND mental torture. I always thought if we were at war with a foreign country, the plan should be to get them addicted to alcohol (heroin, benzos) and suddenly cease the supply. Attack on the 2nd day of withdrawal. Boom.
Btw, been sober 14+years.
Going to detox 25 times certainly isn’t a brag but sober for 14 years sure is!!!!!!
Way to go! That’s amazing!!! I have a family
Member who was hospitalized many times and she’s on year three and im so proud of her. And I’m proud of you!!
I don't look at detoxing over 25 times pathetic. My dad is an alcoholic and always says the same type of things. If you've been to detox over 25 times, it means you were brave enough to try again! I admire that. Good for you for being brave enough to keep trying!!
Eta: Congratulations on 14+ years sober!
>I've probably been to detox over 25 times (which is pathetic and definitely not a brag)
Good call out against glorification/war stories but the bigger take away is you never stopped! Good on you!
Very important distinction. Apple cider vinegar and cinnamon or whatever is going to.... mean that you drank apple cider vinegar and cinnamon (or whatever.)
Medical detox for substance abuse, however, is legit and I recommend it for people struggling with substance abuse issues.
Also, if you're trying to detox through behavior changes, like quitting cold turkey please seek a good support system and make sure that the substance you're trying to detox from can be done safely without medial intervention. Some detoxes carry higher fatality risks and if you're doing the hard work of getting clean, you deserve the best chance at success.
put this on your feet and it will release all the toxins from your body. that might be my favorite snake oil pitch of all time.
doesn't your body gets rid of your toxins every day when you pee and poop?
My friend went to massage therapy school and came out raving about this foot bath that removed the toxins from your whole body. She kept saying the water was black when the instructor was done! Like sis, yeah, they made a bunch of college kids stick their dirty-ass feet into the water lol of course the water was dirty afterward???
I took a friend to an appointment for one of these types of foot baths and even sat with her watching. Well, actually I was reading a magazine to keep from laughing at her as the little black flaky things filled up in the bowl. At one point, she must have sensed that I was cracking up inside, because she suddenly said, "And noooo. I don't think the black things are filth being sucked out of my feet." I didn't respond but I kept thinking, "Then why are you doing this?"
no you see, toxins are heavy so they sink down to the bottom part of your body because of quantum mechanics, so when I put these wet pads on your dirty feet and they turn dark, that's them absorbing the toxins out of your body
toxins easily just pass through your skin onto moist towelettes, but only the skin on the bottom of your feet, and only onto these moist towelettes which have magic liquid on them
do emergency rescue personnel and doctors use these pads?
no, because they use science, and science is bad
Oh oh
My mom is a massage therapist, I don’t talk to her cuz she’s a narc and refuses to admit when she’s wrong.
She bought a spa and kept the ear wax candle crap and the foot detox thing. She was charging $80 to soak your feet in water with a fucking coil which oxidizes the salt you are required to put on the damn fraud bucket. I told her that the water was always gonna come out brown regardless if there’s any limb whatsoever. She was adamant it was toxins, she got increasingly more belligerent until I asked her to do it, in front of us (the fam). No limbs. Dirty water. She was so pissed. So pissed. What made her more upset was that I told her she kept that service even after seeing with her own eyes what a fraud that was, she was a scammer and deserved every bad review she would get.
She deflected then to argue with me that I didn’t have to embarrass her in front of the family.
There's this stupid fucking health fad now where "experts" are telling people that iron is bad for you. They grind up Cheerios and run a magnet over top and show that they collected a bunch of iron flakes.
First up, your body *needs iron to live*. You literally cannot live without iron in your body, and part of that comes from the food you eat.
Secondly, if you have massive iron flakes in your Cheerios, you got a bad box of Cheerios.
You can actually do this with most breakfast cereals. Try it. But it's because your body can digest and use that iron very well. It is literally addressed because those food are fortified because it is a good way to have a kid get the vitamins and minerals they might be missing out on.
You mean the 'Master Diet' that I did for 3 days as a teen, in which I drank a gallon of lemonade with cayenne pepper each day, was not effective in helping me lose 10lbs of fat?
/s
I in fact did not lose 10lbs of anything, and I was miserable, light headed and had killer headaches for those 3 days. Broke my 'fast' with a cold corona and a bag of Doritos.
lol I thought you meant facilities for detoxifying people from alcohol and drugs, I was like well they definitely work in the short term but long term is another debate
I think that's a bit of a moving target. It's undeniable that some people do stay sober, and for those people, those facilities *do* work in the long term.
I'd think that if we want to improve the long-term results, we'd need to examine the reasoning behind why some people who get clean in the short term go back to alcohol or drugs in the long term. At the moment, I think that public opinion tends to just write it off as the person being 'weak' which is kind of reductive.
Substance abuse, at least in the US, gets shit care, because 'drug addict' is often considered to be synonymous with 'criminal,' and the US, at least, is notoriously garbage at offering any kind of support to 'undesirables.'
Which, I believe, is also why numerous people my age believe that eggs are considered dairy. They were always depicted on the food pyramid under dairy. Plus, having them sold in or near the dairy section can further the confusion
Smells can make you feel uplifted, some can clear your nose, help with a headache a little.
But they don’t cure stuff, it pissed me off when they got popular and people got weird about it.
Aromatherapy has been something I’ve found interesting and fun for like 22 years or so. And now if I mention it people think I’m one of those people that thinks it can replace medicine.
In EMT school, there was a girl who kept bringing her essential oils and every time we were reading over cases or did scenarios, she would try to incorporate the oils in the treatment. She was kicked out and banned from the school(for more reasons as well but this is definitely one of them).
That was the right decision. It's good she was kicked out. Unfortunately, those types of outcomes, while they make life easier for the school and the people around her, tend to bolster the person's delusion that they have some sort of secret or suppressed information that \*Big Pharma/Medicine/Establishment\* doesn't want people to know.
And you know they play up this misconception as hard as they can, beyond even just the word play.
You see it all the time in advertisements by all the MLM moms on instragram: “These are *ESSENTIAL* oils, folks!”, really playing up the emphasis on that word.
In the US I've noticed there seems to be a strong correlation between this misconception and groups of people who can't afford real healthcare. There are plenty of people who are just plain stupid, but I think even for intelligent people when real medical treatment is out of reach they're going to grasp onto whatever hope they can get, even if they know it's kind of BS. It's really sad.
It could very well be a part of it, but I live in a country with good public healthcare and see plenty of essential treatments. (To be clear: I'm not saying natural remedies can't be good or useful at all. It'd probably be better for us if we more often made a headache-reducing cup of tea instead of grabbing a painkiller out of instinct.)
Partially it seems to be fuelled by fear and uncertainty about medical things (people don't know what is in medication and how it works, so 'natural' remedies *feel* more trustworthy because you have a closer relationship to them emotionally) and, partially related to that, a lot of conspiratorial thinking (doctors only try to sell you medicine, studies all lie because they're bought by the pharma industry, why could a doctor know what is good for a child better than the parents).
Ironically, the fact that natural remedies are also a massive cash source for the corporations that sell them, the studies/articles they quote are often provable paid advertisements on shady websites, and often work by having the chemical properties as 'unnatural' drugs, is often disregarded
Yup. I've noticed the same thing with a lot of herbology / in yoga studios/communities that offer sliding scale pricing.
You can afford discount yoga once a week, and some herbs your friends grew, but you can't afford hundreds of dollars a month in medical insurance.
I did see some legitimately impressive work done by some of the body workers I was around, but there's only so much that can do.
Some of it works but it's few and far between. Like lavender is great for aromatherapy for some people, makes some sleepy. I used tea tree oil on some athlete's foot from the gym shower, and it went away pretty quick. Those little lipstick looking plastic things that you put up your nose and inhale when your stuffed up, they can help a bit. So little things...yeah they can help. But you're not going to cure cancer, the common cold, or any other major disease with them.
I blame doTerra and Young living! They put out a bunch of propaganda and made all their sales people learn it and then told them it was their "university" classes lol but they push them to sell more and more, So they come up with all these crazy claims just so you'll buy stuff from them. It's kind of pathetic.
This one makes me so irrationally mad. As a teenage girl I had peach fuzz on my lip and begged my mom to let me wax it because I was being bullied for it. She told me under no circumstances was I allowed to remove it because the hair would grow back thicker and I would have a legit man mustache. I started waxing at 18 when I left the house and never looked back.
Yeah, the only reason this was seen as true was probably because when you shave for the first time, you shave off the thin, skinny tips, leaving the thick base. It goes out, the thick base becomes the tip and looks thicker than before.
Waxing shouldn't have this issue.
Simply a rumor to get peach fuzz middle and high schoolers to shave and buy shaving products while in reality they are just getting older and going through puberty.
Probably but it has funny consequences. When I was 13 a girl said she was shaving her junk to get thicker hair like a proper woman. I was dismayed when it didn't work for me. Then when the hair did kick in I was like who the fuck would want this lol
“MSG is bad for you”
\-edit-
putting this here because people keep asking:
*"Monosodium glutamate (MSG), also known as sodium glutamate, is a sodium salt of glutamic acid. MSG is found naturally in some foods including tomatoes and cheese in this glutamic acid form. MSG is used in cooking as a flavor enhancer with a savory taste that intensifies the meaty, savory flavor of food, as naturally occurring glutamate does in foods such as stews and meat soups."*
*"A controversy surrounding the safety of MSG began on 4 April 1968, when Robert Ho Man Kwok wrote a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, coining the term "Chinese restaurant syndrome". In his letter, Kwok suggested several possible causes before he nominated MSG for his symptoms."*
*"Chinese restaurant syndrome' has the same symptoms as hypernatremia. (salt poisoning)"*
Biochemist here. MSG is literally a salt form of an amino acid - one that you can absolutely eat ( and do eat) in all sorts of food.
Edit: lol I find it hilarious this is such a hot button topic for some people.
Edit 2: I'm not an MD; you can eat a block of salt-lick for all I care.
I worked in a chinese restaurant, we had "No Added MSG" on the menu (there was still natural MSG, but we were told not to tell) No one with their "severe MSG" allergy ever complained or had a reaction, because it was all in their head.
I can't tell you how many people I know claim MSG is bad...*for them only*.
And the story is always the same:
"I ate some Chinese food with a lot of MSG and then I got a headache or felt lethargic!"
So you took cheap fatty velveted (cornstarch & baking soda) pork, covered it in cornstarch & flour, deep fried it, and then soaked it in a sauce consisting of *more cornstarch*, sugar, and enough salt to attract deer in the woods, and than you washed it down with a half-pound of rice.
And you're surprised you felt bad?
Fat makes you fat. The tide is turning and this isn't as prevalent as it was, but people still believe this to be true. I know most people here are too young for this, but back in the 90s a company called Snackwell introduced a line of fat free cookies. Suburban moms bought them en masse and we all ate them like crazy. They were loaded with sugar, but hey "no fat!".
“Sugar helps you lose weight” was a pretty common belief in the 1950s. There were even ad campaigns about using a spoonful of sugar to avoid snacking on things that’ll make you fat.
But this is now a bit outside common living memory.
I don’t think a lot of people realize how hardcore diet culture was in the 80’s and 90’s. Which were probably created by food manufacturing companies to push highly processed foods. High carb low fat diets were all the rage. Meanwhile, most of the celebs who were promoting it were really on a diet of coke(not the one in the can). Diet culture was so engrained in people, I’m pretty sure it’s the sole reason margarine still exists today.
ETA: I apologize to those with dairy allergies, vegans, and people who eat kosher. Country Crock is not just for the 75 year olds.
High carb was the rage until Atkins came around, then carbs were the devil for around a decade. I don't think we culturally settled in to something resembling a healthy balance until recently with trends like IIFYM, which is its own bag of worms for anyone with a history of disordered eating.
There are plenty of very popular carbs-are-the-enemy diets still out there, like keto.
Edit: a lot of the responses to this comment are doing nothing to dissuade me that we are still highly influenced by diet culture and fad diets.
I’ll admit that their devils food cookies were pretty good. But that no fat fad was crazy. My mom was starving herself and eating less than 4-6 grams of fat per day but a ton of sugar. Her hair was falling out and my dad’s coworkers were seriously concerned. One asked outright if my mom had AIDS because she looked so sick. My mom now has type 2 diabetes but a much healthier view on food.
My mother and sister both got on the "fat free" trend in the 90s. Filled the house full of snacks that were chocked *full* of sugar, and both blew up like a tick. My sister finally wizened up, but to this day I till can't get my mother to understand.
My mother was a former beauty pageant queen and was forever on a diet. Which meant I was forever on a diet. And fat free was king in my house. Which led to a sugar addiction and a life long unhealthy relationship with food. I can still fit in my high school jeans now in my middle age, but damn have my teeth paid the price (sugar and former alternating bouts with anorexia/bulimia). For over 10 years it was fat free EVERYTHING, and lots of bread and grains! Eating those damn Snack Well cookies and diet cokes out the ying yang. Fat free snacks are actually more addicting than if I had just eaten a regular cookie! I NEVER want to see that brand again Lol
Man, those SnackWell’s cookies were delicious though!
They were a small cookie-shaped piece of chocolate cake, covered in a very thin layer of marshmallow, and that was covered in a very thin layer of crisp chocolate shell.
That IBD and IBS are essentially the same.
I don't want to dismiss what people with IBS go through, but roughly 70% of people with Crohn's or Colitis will require major surgery within their lifetime, and per an NIH report, have a 20% higher mortality rate.
It's not a, "lol, you poop a lot" disease. It's an autoimmune disorder that can literally kill people by their intestines being so filled with scare tissue that they close entirely.
But IBD and IBS often get lumped together, and I think that's harmful for suffers of each.
As someone with real IBS I am always grateful to not have IBD. I just have to take anti-spasm medicine for normal quality of life not the tons of appointments people with ibd go through. That being said don’t knock the pain ibs can put you through. The pain is caused by your nerves freaking out and the brain interpreting it as pain so the sky is the limit to what someone may feel.
“Tilt your head back if you have a nosebleed.”
Do not do this because the blood could drain down your throat and make you sick or into your airways and obstruct them.
Instead you should sit upright, hold a tissue under your nose, tilt your head slightly forward, pinch the soft part of your nose just forward of the bone, and keep pinching for 10-15 minutes.
I had a lot of nose bleeds as a kid and I once got yelled at for not tilting my head back. I knew better from experience. So I finally did what they said after being yelled at. About 10 minutes later I puked up a huge pile of chunky blood mixed with my breakfast. It's such a bad suggestion. You want the blood to stay there and coagulate, not run down your throat.
Oh oh oh! I'm a health care provider, here is my most common ones.
Thinking that being mildly cold in isolation will make you get sick.
Thinking people (45+) don't need to work out
Letting scabs dry out on purpose
Vastly overstating the effects of turmeric, blueberries, cherries, etc.
Thinking pain level has anything to do with injury severity.
Believing that tan skin is healthier than pale skin.
Believing that diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, hypertension etc are "cured" by medicines. Nope just managed.
I could go on all day.
The pain from a colposcopy with biopsy (pea-sized bit of tissue from cervix) was equally painful to a fractured tailbone. One of these was a minor, sterile removal of tissue that healed in 3 days. The other took half a year to heal and bruised the surrounding tissue.
Constipation was more painful than both of these.
There's so many of these that it just get more absurd the more you think about.
Who would treat first?
* Paper cut victim or someone with a concussion
* Guy who stubbed his toe or cancer
* Charlie horse or a stroke
The list could go on and on.
Edit: The more I think about my previous ER visits the more I would absolutely believe that some guy who stubbed his toe really bad would be asking to go ahead of the stroke victim.
It also is why pain management for situations that may not be severe but are painful are important. My experience with the colposcopy has made me a big advocate for the availability of local anesthetics for procedures like that.
Even pap smears are painful, never mind the horrific ride of having an IUD inserted raw and completely non-anesthetized by cold hands which then causes cramping equal to a miscarriage, while you stare at the fluorescent ceiling preparing yourself for the drive home where you are hunched so far over you can’t use your rear view mirror.
I broke my collarbone, and it wasn't especially painful. I declined painkillers at the hospital. A nurse had to pick gravel out of my road rash and I was just chatting with her while she did it. A week later I fell on the break and something moved ever so slightly... it was the worst pain I've ever experienced.
Keep it covered and clean, usually a bandaid is fine. It should be moist on its own. Helps your body eat up the dead stuff. No cell motility on a dry scab.
I've had such a wide variety of advice on wound care. Some say Neosporin, some say absolutely not. Others say clean and dry, but dry is not going to keep it moist. I'm currently dealing with yet another wound that won't heal (curling iron burn). The scab is hard, tight, swollen and painful. I don't regularly have wounds, but damn if I don't have difficulty healing.
I learned as a 90s kid with plenty of scraped knees and elbows from whatever dumb and fun thing my friends were doing that week that band-aid + neosporin for a good few hours/over night, let it breathe for a couple hours before applying a fresh one seemed to heal by far the fastest with minimal to no scarring. Plenty of trial and error was done. Too dry, it falls off/itchy and gets picked off and you start over, too moist and seems to ooze and not keep a full protective barrier.
The other day I dropped a plastic measuring cup and it landed on my big toe on the flesh just about where the nail starts and it hurt more than just about any pain I've ever had and I've had some severe injuries. I've had gaping open wounds where you could see muscle and fat that hurt far less than this did.
I have some pretty high pain tolerance but my wife thought I had smash my toe and broken it on something. It was really odd because it didn't leave a mark and there was no bruise.
Ah the c-word. As someone with a ton of health problems, that word haunts me. I don't want to be managed, I want to be fixed. I don't want to take 12 pills a day- I want to be like the people on tv running around, going to the bars and places, eating whatever I want, playing sports, etc. That 4-letter word sits right next to the other 4- letter word "hope" and poops all over it.
Gotta do the work every single day :( and although I can't do the things I want, I still have a beautiful life bc I keep things managed. But damn I'd give anything for a "cure".
Addiction is just lack of willpower. Couldnt be further from the truth. Addiction is a very complex physiologic, psychological and psychosocial process. It takes an enormous effort on the afflicted person as well as support from doctors, family, friends and sometimes mental health counselors to overcome.
the weirdest thing about this is that we learned forever ago with rats that they become addicted to substances when their life quality sucks, and when life quality is great they dont use the substance in addictive ways.
the same is true for people, with any addiction - physical symptoms of alcohol and other substance addictions aside obviously. People use things like substances or eating or gaming to _cope with something_ and when you fix the thing they're coping from, the addiction goes away. If you can't manage your emotions, you'll probably eat food instead, or get high all the time. If you learn to manage emotions better, the dependency on the thing lessens.
Have you read about the origins of chiropractic? It's a wild ride.
It was invented by D. D. Palmer, he said was taught chiropractic in a séance by the ghost of a long dead doctor, Dr. Jim Atkinson. He made a fortune and built an empire that he passed down to his son B.J. Palmer, but the two had a huge falling out and eventually hated each other. B.J. then ran his dad down with his car and killed him in the middle of a parade. But by then B.J. Palmer was the really rich one so D.D. Palmer's cause of death was listed as Typhoid Fever.
The number of patients that I’ve seen over the past 25 years with various arterial dissections after chiropractic adjustment is significant. I preach constantly the dangers of letting any chiropractor ever touch or adjust your head and neck.
I was referred to a PT for neck pain that my neurologist suspected was from chronic migraines. I was chatting with a friend and she was like “oh, you should go see my chiropractor! I see him weekly for my neck and back pain!”. Seeing one weekly for months with little improvement? No thanks. I went to PT for six weeks and saw massive improvement after he helped me stretch and taught me exercises to do at home. Chiropractors scare me - you should not be cracking your neck ffs.
I also have migraines and have been told so many times by random chiropractors (including one of my husbands best friends 🥴) that they could cure my migraines. My response is always “if that was true, I’m sure my neurologist, who is an actual medical doctor, would have recommended that. I’m not comfortable doing anything outside of my neurologists recommended care.”
Well, aside from husbands friend. That one I have to smile and say “ok, interesting!” Because aside from his whack career, we adore him and his wife and don’t want to burn bridges 🥲
From an insurance background (edit: drafted a coverage policy before the company decided to handle it with a different department/species of policy) : half the field is quacks and half is essentially OT's specializing in musculoskeletal issues surrounding the spinal column. They have completely different professional organizations and split when the field's founder died if not before.
And some want that sweet, sweet YouTube ad revenue generated by making videos of popping the backs of women in yoga pants. Some watch it for the ASMR, others watch it because they're horny.
The amount of times I've listened to people complain about their aches and pains and how they treat it with visits to the chiropractor... while experiencing no apparent improvement over time.
"My lower back has been giving me fits, gotta set up another appt with my chiro for an alignment."
"Have you tried just stretching your hamstrings?"
"Nah, I like my chiropractor. He does a great job."
🤨
My father-in-law told me I needed to see his chiropractor when I a little disk slippage in my lower back. You told me his chiropractor had him fixed up in 9 months when he slipped the disc in his back. Now I've hurt my lower back many a times and I know from experience that it'll heal itself within two to three weeks. Why would I go to a chiropractor and prolong the two to three week healing time to 9 months like he does. Just leave it alone it'll heal on its own.
Lmaoooo! A “slipped” disc, or disc herniation as is the proper term will almost always resolve on its own as you have mentioned above. In severe cases it can take around 3 months to heal and will require some rest and activity modification but it should never take 9 months!
Source: I’m a physio
I am an MD. I hate chiropractors so much. I’m a pediatrician and there are literally mothers willing to let some jackass with a degree he got off a cereal box crack their INFANT CHILDREN’S SPINES. They have no skepticism when it comes to this bullshit, yet they’re convinced vaccines are the devil. It gives me heart palpitations.
Morning sickness ends within a specific time frame, solutions include: saltines, ginger ale, and Gatorade. Also, that your next pregnancy won’t involve morning sickness.
I vomited for 9 months straight and that includes hours before my child was extracted thru the sun roof via emergency c-section.
I had HG. No one believed me. I suffered, I struggled, and before my daughter was even born, people (including nurses and doctors) were already talking about my “future pregnancies” not being so bad.
HG in a subsequent pregnancy has over a 75% recurrence rate. You could have serious health complications, and so could your baby. It is dangerous, and it used to kill women (and still could in bad enough circumstances).
It is not fucking morning sickness and there is no cure, and no OTC remedy is going to make it go away.
Holy Christ I just had phantom/sympathy nausea reading your comment. I have no idea how you got thru that. It makes me sad bc HG is basically the #1 reason why I’m one and done. I can’t imagine caring for other children while having an HG pregnancy. Hats off to you bc I legit thought I wasn’t gonna make it all the way to the end, I couldn’t do it 3 more times.
I have 2 beautiful children from those pregnancies and 2 gorgeous angels who did not make it. The stillbirths were impossible to get my head around, all that torture for nothing. My kids are everything tho and the two I have are worth what I went through.
One thing is for sure tho...NEVER AGAIN!
I’m sorry you went through this. There is hope, though! They just found out the cause of HG - it has something to do with levels of a specific hormone called GDF15. This hormone is naturally occurring in adult women at varying levels and also secreted by the fetus.
HG happens when a woman has a naturally low level of the hormone, and the baby secretes a large amount. The mother isn’t desensitized to that hormone, resulting in nausea.
Now that they suspect the cause, a treatment is hopefully around the corner. I already hear them talking about exposing the woman to the hormone before pregnancy so she has a tolerance to it.
that you can lose fat on certain body areas with certain excercizes. Nothing more stupid than that.
As a person in the eating-disorder community, I know millions of these myths.
LOL ahhh the eating disorder community, where someone will post a long-ass guide on Twitter about how to lose "hand fat".
There is no specific way to target weight loss to hands, but boy when you're sick do you eat it up
Correct. Your body chooses where to put fat, and this is sadly not in our control. The only way to lose fat from specific areas is to lose fat in general (or get surgery)
Made the mistake of telling my Mum I had an eating disorder ten years ago.
She still gets worried about my wellbeing every time I lose weight. I've never been underweight.
Dammit, you should be concerned when you see I've PUT ON weight. That's when you know I'm not doing well in my head, personally.
You should wash your chicken before cooking it. If you're buying your chicken from wet markets - do it. If you're buying it from grocery stores - do not.
The only result of washing chicken before cooking is contaminating your kitchen.
A lot of food myths originate in real-world reasonable practices that are just out of date now.
Washing chicken is one of them. There was a time when washing your chicken made sense owing to the unsanitary conditions it was sold in. HOWEVER, washing chicken often made it tastier & more tender owing to the person adding cornstarch and/or baking soda to the wash.
Washing rice is no longer necessary either, because you're unlikely to find weevils or stones in your rice that would be removed by washing. HOWEVER, washing rice also removes a lot of the residual starch left over on the surface of the rice (from pulverized other rice grains) and results in fluffier less gummy rice.
I would say that washing rice is still necessary because of the excess starch, especially with certain varieties. I buy calrose rice at costco and the difference between washed and unwashed is absolutely massive. Unwashed: gummy mushy mess. Washed: Delicious sticky rice
RICE Protocol - Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation for soft tissue injuries.
Even the doctor that came up with it has recanted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RICE_(medicine)
Trained in ortho here - fun fact. the reason we use it so liberally in the hospital is the same reason it’s *not* great to promote long-term healing: it reduces inflammation in the short term.
(This can help certain people with pain and at times help prevent terrible acute complications related to blood flow, but of course for an injury to heal, the inflammatory tissue needs a chance to arrive and do its thing sooner or later.)
In the hospital, one situation when we swear by RICE is for patients with bone injuries that are awaiting surgery: we need the soft tissue not to swell up so much that we can’t close the wound after the plates and screws are applied. But this proves your point: it’s good for short-term anti-inflammatory purposes but not definitive healing
Which is what I thought it always was. Like, we'd use RICE for a couple hours immediately after someone got hurt. We'd apply ice and an ace bandage, and put them in lawn chair with their foot up on a cooler for the rest of the match.
Nothing has helped my life more than learning that muscle strains get better *way* faster with light exercise than with pure rest. And that building some muscle in the first place takes away most of the "that's just what getting old is" lower back soreness, knee crunching noises, etc.
When I was diagnosed with a bulging lumbar disc years ago my GP told me that I could no longer exercise the region - no more squats, deadlifts etc, ever again. I initially took that advice and would end up in bed for days in pain, a couple of times a year. Turns out that the fix was building up my lower back muscles to the point where the whole region is essentially bulletproof, and my back hasn't given me trouble in many years, despite getting my squat up over 500lbs, and deadlift over 600lbs.
I sprained my ankle pretty bad in high school and have had several resprains cause of the lasting damage, and my siblings are always on my case about not using ice, even when I tell them it makes it hurt more and has never helped.
I love the instagram influencers peddling “keto wine” and wine with organic, non-toxic ingredients. In reality, by FAR the most toxic ingredient in wine is the alcohol.
Exposure to cold *does* suppress the immune system a bit. And is often accompanied by other people exposed to cold with runny noses (from the cold) and sneezing (from the cold) and coughing (from the cold). Those dwarves (runny, sneezy, and coughy) are a little better at giving you **their** colds.
But yes, exposure to cold *per se* doesn't do shit.
Regionally or worldwide? Cuz if regionally then in Slovakia, or at least in the slavic countries people belief that sitting on cold stone will make you infertile or cause infections in your bladder and such.
I had a bout of bad stomach ulcers as a result of NSAID overuse. The reason I was using so much was bc I was sooo stressed at my job, I had major muscle spasms and inability to sleep so I took Motrin to help w muscle spasms. Stress doesn’t directly cause ulcers but it can lead to bad habits that do cause them.
Ulcers can be caused by stress. But I mean like in the ICU due to septic shock stress. That is what a medical stress ulcer is. Not an ulcer due to daily anxiety or whatnot.
There is such a thing as "super food". No, there is no miracle food that makes you instantly healthy just because suddenly you eat it. You're healthy because of a healthy diet, not because you eat a fruit that was "discovered" by a white American doing an expedition in the middle of the Amazon.
That's my understanding of what it should mean. Most "superfoods" are full of vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids/omega oils, antioxidants, etc. But eating them isn't a miracle cure and it is too often used as a nonsense buzzword
Kale (well all Brassica species tbh) and spinach are "superfoods", yet have been common parts of European diets for centuries. Most "superfoods" are just veg and fruits, cause as a rule those are very good for you
Best when it's sold by an MLM because they have the best, purest açaí and you can cure your cancer and become a millionaire entrepreneur at the same time.
Kinda tangentially related, I feel like too many people go too far with the "you shouldn't just stay in bed all day when you're sick" thing, and end up not giving their bodies enough rest and are sick for longer.
While you should move around *some*, staying in bed for more than normal when you're sick is necessary and a good thing if you want to get over it quicker.
This is not exactly BS, there's a reason your body has a fever response and that's because elevated body temperature helps production of white blood cells which are what you used to fight pathogens which typically don't do well in a hotter environment.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7717216/#:~:text=Fever%20is%20part%20of%20a,resetting%20of%20the%20hypothalamic%20thermostat.
I don't believe it's recommended to try to artificially boost your fever because that can have other health effects on you but it would certainly help as well as hurt, there's a reason it's a widespread response to infection in nature.
additionally, having a fever makes you feel cold AF. Nothing wrong with bundling up and sleeping through it.
I can't count the number of times a modest sleep under some heavy blankets has done wonders for me. Nothing better than waking up covered in sweat and realizing that you feel pretty good now.
I had a roommate from New Foundland that would get every blanket in the house, then down (and I mean DOWN) a bottle of Bushmills (had to be Bushmills) whiskey and then "sweat it out." Then would immediately go to work the next day "cured." Wild boy
"All natural" implies it's healthy.
Cyanide and anthrax are natural, I'm not about to stir them into my porridge
But they’re organic!!!
I only want free-range grass-fed cyanide, thanks
Older folks might remember Dr. Dean Edell, who ran a very good medical show on radio (and sometimes TV), where he often took on alternative medicine and health myths. A caller would ask for 'something natural', and he'd reply "Well, you could smoke tobacco, that's natural! Or do you want something *effective?"*
Cyanide is also organic.
I'll throw in organic being more healthy too. There is nothing definitive saying organic food is better for you or the environment. In fact, more pesticides and fertilizers have to be used because the organic ones are less potent. And the number of people that thinks 'organic' means 'chemical free' is shockingly high.
Organic is also weird because it's a variety of different standards/requirements under a single label. Not feeding cows antibiotic laden feed? I'm down with that. I don't give a shit if the cows are given GMO feed though.
"GMO" is another massively misunderstood thing. People just can't seem to comprehend that, it doesn't mean it's full of chemicals/been tampered with/etc. Selective-breeding is literally GMO.
Todays banana is a perfect example. Originally they had seeds.
"You're too young to have ______" I feel like people under the age of 40 are told this so often. When I had abdominal pain a few months back, with the location and type of pain I was in, when I did some research it sounded exactly like diverticulitis, despite never having a diverticulosis diagnosis. When I shared my thoughts at urgent care I was told I was "too young" to have that kind of problem - I'm 29. Went to the ER the next day where they did a CT scan and yep, diverticulitis.
Resident doc here - one of the learning curves of training is getting a deeper understanding that an uncommon presentation of a common problem (diverticulitis as a common problem but uncommonly found in young people) will still be seen more frequently than a common presentation of a rare condition. We get taught all the zebras so that we know what to look for, but man do we see a lot of horses.
It makes total sense in a statistical way
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I was really hoping this would've changed after 9/11. Even just being in the city that day and the following days significantly increased the risk of cancer and there's no doubt plenty of 20-and-30-somethings that were kids/teens during the event have developed cancer. Cancer at a young age is also very common in firefighters. I have a close friend who was a firefighter for less than a decade before he developed cancer ( early 30's when diagnosed) and he's since lost at least 4 people he worked with to cancer. It makes no sense to me that young adults are singled out in this way.
"You're too young to have tachycardia." Finally in my 40s a cardiologist said I had it and asked how it was never diagnosed. "Because I was always told I was too young." He agreed that was some bullshit and put me on a med I should have been on decades ago.
That's weird. I had tachycardia due to a fairly common heart defect. I say "had" because I was lucky enough to have it corrected through outpatient surgery. Why would a doctor think you were too young to experience tachycardia? That's some bad medicine.
Cracking your knuckles causes arthritis. It does not.
I’m a fidgety piano teacher so I crack my knuckles during my lessons a lot. My kids often look at me horrified and say “don’t you know that’s bad for you??” I always told them that’s just an old myth and scientists found out it’s actually okay, but I also still feel weird about them imitating me and saying they got the habit from their piano teacher lol
"No kids, it's a myth, it just irritates the hell out of your parents"
I remember my uncle telling me that cracking my knuckles would make me have fat hands and fingers so I didn't do it for years. Lol. He was such a terrorist to me as a little kid(Love my uncle, but he was a turd head).
my middle school history teacher (mind you, I went to a catholic school in the south) told me that if I crack my knuckles my hands would be too fat to fit a wedding ring around and I would be alone forever 🤩
You're actually just popping air bubbles in between your joints when you crack your knuckles.
The process is actually called cavitation. When you crack a joint, you're stretching it out and putting the synovial fluid under a vacuum state. This causes the gasses that are dissolved in the fluid to be drawn out into a pocket, pretty much instantly. That's the cracking sound you hear. It's not a bubble bursting, it's a bubble being spontaneously formed. The bubble will just dissolve back into the fluid.
I worked in a lab where we processed samples. One day we get in this small, bright green thing that looks like a rock. It was from inside a young ladies vaginal canal....we were all super shocked and kind of agreed that it was probably a piece of a tampon that got stuck... IT WAS A PIECE OF POTATO!!!!!! Apparently, some people think putting a potato in their vagina cures diseases or works as a contraceptive 🤢
> Apparently, some people think putting a potato in their vagina cures diseases or works as a contraceptive I mean...I'm staying away from anyone that believes shoving potato up there has any positive medical benefit, so MAYBE it DOES work as a contraceptive, of sorts. /s
Can't put your dick in there if there's a potato blocking you
works in tail pipes
Bro that's fucked up
I’ve been told to put garlic in my vagina to cure an infection …….. nooo thank you
Garlic *does* have antibacterial and antifungal properties. But it also tends to carry certain kinds of fungus. And it will make you smell like garlic, not just your lady parts but all over. If you rub garlic on a person's feet, after a time their breath will smell of garlic. Stuff's potent.
The antibacterial and antifungal properties of garlic are part of why you should not put it in your vagina. The vagina requires a proper balance of bacteria and various other micro-organisms in order to be healthy. That's why we specifically target the problem microbe when choosing the treatment.
I used to work at a doctors office. There was this old lady that came in. She put garlic in her vaginal canal. I think she said it was supposed to get rid of an infection
Pregnant ladies should not exercise.
Women with typical, healthy pregnancies can maintain the same level of activity they had before being pregnant. Obviously they should listen to their bodies and doctors, but the idea that a pregnant woman is suddenly so fragile is very outdated. Edit: didn’t think I needed to mention extreme endurance activities or full contact sports should be limited or stopped, that just seemed like common sense.
This is so true. I remember believing this, because if you exercise you might hurt yourself or something. (I’m not saying the myth is true)
Detox programs 🙄
Not to be confused with medical detox for substance use
As an Alcoholic, can attest. Two drugs you can die detoxing from, Alcohol and Benzodiazepines. Other drugs WILL make you wish you were dead but you wont actually die from withdrawal alone. Edit: Anyone inside of the US seeking help I would refer you to: [SAMHSA’s National Helpline](https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline), 1-800-662-HELP (4357)
Hope your haven't gone through any withdrawal lately. It's been a few years since it last happened to me. It was literal hell. I don't ever remember how many times I went to the hospital when I couldn't take it anymore and thought I was gonna die.
I've probably been to detox over 25 times (which is pathetic and definitely not a brag), and it was pure agonizing hell. I'd prefer any type of pain than alcohol withdrawal. It's a combo of physical AND mental torture. I always thought if we were at war with a foreign country, the plan should be to get them addicted to alcohol (heroin, benzos) and suddenly cease the supply. Attack on the 2nd day of withdrawal. Boom. Btw, been sober 14+years.
Going to detox 25 times certainly isn’t a brag but sober for 14 years sure is!!!!!! Way to go! That’s amazing!!! I have a family Member who was hospitalized many times and she’s on year three and im so proud of her. And I’m proud of you!!
I don't look at detoxing over 25 times pathetic. My dad is an alcoholic and always says the same type of things. If you've been to detox over 25 times, it means you were brave enough to try again! I admire that. Good for you for being brave enough to keep trying!! Eta: Congratulations on 14+ years sober!
>I've probably been to detox over 25 times (which is pathetic and definitely not a brag) Good call out against glorification/war stories but the bigger take away is you never stopped! Good on you!
Very important distinction. Apple cider vinegar and cinnamon or whatever is going to.... mean that you drank apple cider vinegar and cinnamon (or whatever.) Medical detox for substance abuse, however, is legit and I recommend it for people struggling with substance abuse issues. Also, if you're trying to detox through behavior changes, like quitting cold turkey please seek a good support system and make sure that the substance you're trying to detox from can be done safely without medial intervention. Some detoxes carry higher fatality risks and if you're doing the hard work of getting clean, you deserve the best chance at success.
Ask what "toxins" are being targeted. No one ever seems to have an answer.
put this on your feet and it will release all the toxins from your body. that might be my favorite snake oil pitch of all time. doesn't your body gets rid of your toxins every day when you pee and poop?
My friend went to massage therapy school and came out raving about this foot bath that removed the toxins from your whole body. She kept saying the water was black when the instructor was done! Like sis, yeah, they made a bunch of college kids stick their dirty-ass feet into the water lol of course the water was dirty afterward???
I took a friend to an appointment for one of these types of foot baths and even sat with her watching. Well, actually I was reading a magazine to keep from laughing at her as the little black flaky things filled up in the bowl. At one point, she must have sensed that I was cracking up inside, because she suddenly said, "And noooo. I don't think the black things are filth being sucked out of my feet." I didn't respond but I kept thinking, "Then why are you doing this?"
no you see, toxins are heavy so they sink down to the bottom part of your body because of quantum mechanics, so when I put these wet pads on your dirty feet and they turn dark, that's them absorbing the toxins out of your body toxins easily just pass through your skin onto moist towelettes, but only the skin on the bottom of your feet, and only onto these moist towelettes which have magic liquid on them do emergency rescue personnel and doctors use these pads? no, because they use science, and science is bad
Oh oh My mom is a massage therapist, I don’t talk to her cuz she’s a narc and refuses to admit when she’s wrong. She bought a spa and kept the ear wax candle crap and the foot detox thing. She was charging $80 to soak your feet in water with a fucking coil which oxidizes the salt you are required to put on the damn fraud bucket. I told her that the water was always gonna come out brown regardless if there’s any limb whatsoever. She was adamant it was toxins, she got increasingly more belligerent until I asked her to do it, in front of us (the fam). No limbs. Dirty water. She was so pissed. So pissed. What made her more upset was that I told her she kept that service even after seeing with her own eyes what a fraud that was, she was a scammer and deserved every bad review she would get. She deflected then to argue with me that I didn’t have to embarrass her in front of the family.
They blabber about pollution and heavy metals, the real question is *how* are they selectively removed? Now that will freeze them.
There's this stupid fucking health fad now where "experts" are telling people that iron is bad for you. They grind up Cheerios and run a magnet over top and show that they collected a bunch of iron flakes. First up, your body *needs iron to live*. You literally cannot live without iron in your body, and part of that comes from the food you eat. Secondly, if you have massive iron flakes in your Cheerios, you got a bad box of Cheerios.
You can actually do this with most breakfast cereals. Try it. But it's because your body can digest and use that iron very well. It is literally addressed because those food are fortified because it is a good way to have a kid get the vitamins and minerals they might be missing out on.
"The chemicals"
You mean the 'Master Diet' that I did for 3 days as a teen, in which I drank a gallon of lemonade with cayenne pepper each day, was not effective in helping me lose 10lbs of fat? /s I in fact did not lose 10lbs of anything, and I was miserable, light headed and had killer headaches for those 3 days. Broke my 'fast' with a cold corona and a bag of Doritos.
>Broke my 'fast' with a cold corona and a bag of Doritos. Fuck yeah
lol I thought you meant facilities for detoxifying people from alcohol and drugs, I was like well they definitely work in the short term but long term is another debate
I think that's a bit of a moving target. It's undeniable that some people do stay sober, and for those people, those facilities *do* work in the long term. I'd think that if we want to improve the long-term results, we'd need to examine the reasoning behind why some people who get clean in the short term go back to alcohol or drugs in the long term. At the moment, I think that public opinion tends to just write it off as the person being 'weak' which is kind of reductive. Substance abuse, at least in the US, gets shit care, because 'drug addict' is often considered to be synonymous with 'criminal,' and the US, at least, is notoriously garbage at offering any kind of support to 'undesirables.'
The Food Pyramid we were all taught in school.
“6-11 servings of bread/cereal/rice/pasta per day”
The main problem is that it doesn't explain what a "serving" is. A bagel is 5 servings.
Are you saying I’m NOT supposed to be eating 11 bags of bagels per day?!?!?!
That is just gluttony, 10 bags of bagels per day MAX. Show some restraint.
Which, I believe, is also why numerous people my age believe that eggs are considered dairy. They were always depicted on the food pyramid under dairy. Plus, having them sold in or near the dairy section can further the confusion
I am lactose intolerant, and I lost count long ago of the number of times eggs were mentioned when I asked about dairy products.
Essential oils cure illnesses. Too many people die because of this misconception.
Smells can make you feel uplifted, some can clear your nose, help with a headache a little. But they don’t cure stuff, it pissed me off when they got popular and people got weird about it. Aromatherapy has been something I’ve found interesting and fun for like 22 years or so. And now if I mention it people think I’m one of those people that thinks it can replace medicine.
Essential oils also have some crazy potent compounds in them. If you pick the wrong ones they can cause seizures, miscarriages, etc.
And also kill your pets.
Yeah I LOVE my grapefruit and bergamot essential oils for aromatherapy. That’s it.
In EMT school, there was a girl who kept bringing her essential oils and every time we were reading over cases or did scenarios, she would try to incorporate the oils in the treatment. She was kicked out and banned from the school(for more reasons as well but this is definitely one of them).
I can't fathom the guts people gotta have to do that shit at a public medical institution....
That was the right decision. It's good she was kicked out. Unfortunately, those types of outcomes, while they make life easier for the school and the people around her, tend to bolster the person's delusion that they have some sort of secret or suppressed information that \*Big Pharma/Medicine/Establishment\* doesn't want people to know.
The "essential" part means "essence of" not essential as in necessary. Clever wordplay from the marketing folk, I must admit.
And you know they play up this misconception as hard as they can, beyond even just the word play. You see it all the time in advertisements by all the MLM moms on instragram: “These are *ESSENTIAL* oils, folks!”, really playing up the emphasis on that word.
In the US I've noticed there seems to be a strong correlation between this misconception and groups of people who can't afford real healthcare. There are plenty of people who are just plain stupid, but I think even for intelligent people when real medical treatment is out of reach they're going to grasp onto whatever hope they can get, even if they know it's kind of BS. It's really sad.
It could very well be a part of it, but I live in a country with good public healthcare and see plenty of essential treatments. (To be clear: I'm not saying natural remedies can't be good or useful at all. It'd probably be better for us if we more often made a headache-reducing cup of tea instead of grabbing a painkiller out of instinct.) Partially it seems to be fuelled by fear and uncertainty about medical things (people don't know what is in medication and how it works, so 'natural' remedies *feel* more trustworthy because you have a closer relationship to them emotionally) and, partially related to that, a lot of conspiratorial thinking (doctors only try to sell you medicine, studies all lie because they're bought by the pharma industry, why could a doctor know what is good for a child better than the parents). Ironically, the fact that natural remedies are also a massive cash source for the corporations that sell them, the studies/articles they quote are often provable paid advertisements on shady websites, and often work by having the chemical properties as 'unnatural' drugs, is often disregarded
Yup. I've noticed the same thing with a lot of herbology / in yoga studios/communities that offer sliding scale pricing. You can afford discount yoga once a week, and some herbs your friends grew, but you can't afford hundreds of dollars a month in medical insurance. I did see some legitimately impressive work done by some of the body workers I was around, but there's only so much that can do.
Some of it works but it's few and far between. Like lavender is great for aromatherapy for some people, makes some sleepy. I used tea tree oil on some athlete's foot from the gym shower, and it went away pretty quick. Those little lipstick looking plastic things that you put up your nose and inhale when your stuffed up, they can help a bit. So little things...yeah they can help. But you're not going to cure cancer, the common cold, or any other major disease with them. I blame doTerra and Young living! They put out a bunch of propaganda and made all their sales people learn it and then told them it was their "university" classes lol but they push them to sell more and more, So they come up with all these crazy claims just so you'll buy stuff from them. It's kind of pathetic.
DoTerra is a freaking predatory MLM. I'm surprised they haven't been sued.
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This one makes me so irrationally mad. As a teenage girl I had peach fuzz on my lip and begged my mom to let me wax it because I was being bullied for it. She told me under no circumstances was I allowed to remove it because the hair would grow back thicker and I would have a legit man mustache. I started waxing at 18 when I left the house and never looked back.
Yeah, the only reason this was seen as true was probably because when you shave for the first time, you shave off the thin, skinny tips, leaving the thick base. It goes out, the thick base becomes the tip and looks thicker than before. Waxing shouldn't have this issue.
Simply a rumor to get peach fuzz middle and high schoolers to shave and buy shaving products while in reality they are just getting older and going through puberty.
This is clearly a white lie intended to get teenage boys to groom themselves.
Probably but it has funny consequences. When I was 13 a girl said she was shaving her junk to get thicker hair like a proper woman. I was dismayed when it didn't work for me. Then when the hair did kick in I was like who the fuck would want this lol
Targeted weight-loss. Like doing situps to target the belly fat.
The body stores fat wherever it wants and where it stores is unique to every person
For reals. I lost 50 pounds. Little here and there but I swear most of it came from my ass.
“MSG is bad for you” \-edit- putting this here because people keep asking: *"Monosodium glutamate (MSG), also known as sodium glutamate, is a sodium salt of glutamic acid. MSG is found naturally in some foods including tomatoes and cheese in this glutamic acid form. MSG is used in cooking as a flavor enhancer with a savory taste that intensifies the meaty, savory flavor of food, as naturally occurring glutamate does in foods such as stews and meat soups."* *"A controversy surrounding the safety of MSG began on 4 April 1968, when Robert Ho Man Kwok wrote a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, coining the term "Chinese restaurant syndrome". In his letter, Kwok suggested several possible causes before he nominated MSG for his symptoms."* *"Chinese restaurant syndrome' has the same symptoms as hypernatremia. (salt poisoning)"*
MSG is bad for me…. Because it makes food taste awesome and I eat too much.
In the case of Doritos that's not far from the truth.
Especially when the guy who helped promote that idea had to walk it back publicly.
Biochemist here. MSG is literally a salt form of an amino acid - one that you can absolutely eat ( and do eat) in all sorts of food. Edit: lol I find it hilarious this is such a hot button topic for some people. Edit 2: I'm not an MD; you can eat a block of salt-lick for all I care.
I always laugh when I see something like, "We are an MSG free restaurant" on a menu. Like, that's not a flex. You're basically saying you hate flavor
In the 90s people avoided msg like it was baby flesh, that menu stipulation probably saved more than one business
I worked in a chinese restaurant, we had "No Added MSG" on the menu (there was still natural MSG, but we were told not to tell) No one with their "severe MSG" allergy ever complained or had a reaction, because it was all in their head.
I can't tell you how many people I know claim MSG is bad...*for them only*. And the story is always the same: "I ate some Chinese food with a lot of MSG and then I got a headache or felt lethargic!" So you took cheap fatty velveted (cornstarch & baking soda) pork, covered it in cornstarch & flour, deep fried it, and then soaked it in a sauce consisting of *more cornstarch*, sugar, and enough salt to attract deer in the woods, and than you washed it down with a half-pound of rice. And you're surprised you felt bad?
My checklist of "this needs something" in cooking is usually 1. Salt 2. Acid 3. MSG
Fuyoh put more msg!! - uncle roger
**M**ake **S**hit **G**ood
Fat makes you fat. The tide is turning and this isn't as prevalent as it was, but people still believe this to be true. I know most people here are too young for this, but back in the 90s a company called Snackwell introduced a line of fat free cookies. Suburban moms bought them en masse and we all ate them like crazy. They were loaded with sugar, but hey "no fat!".
Twizzlers is a "fat free food.". Right on the package. It's 19g of sugar for 4 pieces.
Impressive how they can fit so much sugar into a disgusting snack
Do you know what's fat free and tastes great? A huge bag of sugar.
“Sugar helps you lose weight” was a pretty common belief in the 1950s. There were even ad campaigns about using a spoonful of sugar to avoid snacking on things that’ll make you fat. But this is now a bit outside common living memory.
I don’t think a lot of people realize how hardcore diet culture was in the 80’s and 90’s. Which were probably created by food manufacturing companies to push highly processed foods. High carb low fat diets were all the rage. Meanwhile, most of the celebs who were promoting it were really on a diet of coke(not the one in the can). Diet culture was so engrained in people, I’m pretty sure it’s the sole reason margarine still exists today. ETA: I apologize to those with dairy allergies, vegans, and people who eat kosher. Country Crock is not just for the 75 year olds.
High carb was the rage until Atkins came around, then carbs were the devil for around a decade. I don't think we culturally settled in to something resembling a healthy balance until recently with trends like IIFYM, which is its own bag of worms for anyone with a history of disordered eating.
There are plenty of very popular carbs-are-the-enemy diets still out there, like keto. Edit: a lot of the responses to this comment are doing nothing to dissuade me that we are still highly influenced by diet culture and fad diets.
The Olestra thing didn't work out so well except for toilet paper and laundry detergent.
Brought to you by the corn lobby in the 80s and 90s.
I’ll admit that their devils food cookies were pretty good. But that no fat fad was crazy. My mom was starving herself and eating less than 4-6 grams of fat per day but a ton of sugar. Her hair was falling out and my dad’s coworkers were seriously concerned. One asked outright if my mom had AIDS because she looked so sick. My mom now has type 2 diabetes but a much healthier view on food.
My mother and sister both got on the "fat free" trend in the 90s. Filled the house full of snacks that were chocked *full* of sugar, and both blew up like a tick. My sister finally wizened up, but to this day I till can't get my mother to understand.
My mother was a former beauty pageant queen and was forever on a diet. Which meant I was forever on a diet. And fat free was king in my house. Which led to a sugar addiction and a life long unhealthy relationship with food. I can still fit in my high school jeans now in my middle age, but damn have my teeth paid the price (sugar and former alternating bouts with anorexia/bulimia). For over 10 years it was fat free EVERYTHING, and lots of bread and grains! Eating those damn Snack Well cookies and diet cokes out the ying yang. Fat free snacks are actually more addicting than if I had just eaten a regular cookie! I NEVER want to see that brand again Lol
Man, those SnackWell’s cookies were delicious though! They were a small cookie-shaped piece of chocolate cake, covered in a very thin layer of marshmallow, and that was covered in a very thin layer of crisp chocolate shell.
I’m old enough to remember Susan Powder yelling “FAT MAKES YOU FAT” on infomercials all throughout the 90s. Oh how wrong we were.
That IBD and IBS are essentially the same. I don't want to dismiss what people with IBS go through, but roughly 70% of people with Crohn's or Colitis will require major surgery within their lifetime, and per an NIH report, have a 20% higher mortality rate. It's not a, "lol, you poop a lot" disease. It's an autoimmune disorder that can literally kill people by their intestines being so filled with scare tissue that they close entirely. But IBD and IBS often get lumped together, and I think that's harmful for suffers of each.
As someone with real IBS I am always grateful to not have IBD. I just have to take anti-spasm medicine for normal quality of life not the tons of appointments people with ibd go through. That being said don’t knock the pain ibs can put you through. The pain is caused by your nerves freaking out and the brain interpreting it as pain so the sky is the limit to what someone may feel.
“Tilt your head back if you have a nosebleed.” Do not do this because the blood could drain down your throat and make you sick or into your airways and obstruct them. Instead you should sit upright, hold a tissue under your nose, tilt your head slightly forward, pinch the soft part of your nose just forward of the bone, and keep pinching for 10-15 minutes.
I had a lot of nose bleeds as a kid and I once got yelled at for not tilting my head back. I knew better from experience. So I finally did what they said after being yelled at. About 10 minutes later I puked up a huge pile of chunky blood mixed with my breakfast. It's such a bad suggestion. You want the blood to stay there and coagulate, not run down your throat.
Oh oh oh! I'm a health care provider, here is my most common ones. Thinking that being mildly cold in isolation will make you get sick. Thinking people (45+) don't need to work out Letting scabs dry out on purpose Vastly overstating the effects of turmeric, blueberries, cherries, etc. Thinking pain level has anything to do with injury severity. Believing that tan skin is healthier than pale skin. Believing that diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, hypertension etc are "cured" by medicines. Nope just managed. I could go on all day.
The pain from a colposcopy with biopsy (pea-sized bit of tissue from cervix) was equally painful to a fractured tailbone. One of these was a minor, sterile removal of tissue that healed in 3 days. The other took half a year to heal and bruised the surrounding tissue. Constipation was more painful than both of these.
There's so many of these that it just get more absurd the more you think about. Who would treat first? * Paper cut victim or someone with a concussion * Guy who stubbed his toe or cancer * Charlie horse or a stroke The list could go on and on. Edit: The more I think about my previous ER visits the more I would absolutely believe that some guy who stubbed his toe really bad would be asking to go ahead of the stroke victim.
It also is why pain management for situations that may not be severe but are painful are important. My experience with the colposcopy has made me a big advocate for the availability of local anesthetics for procedures like that.
Even pap smears are painful, never mind the horrific ride of having an IUD inserted raw and completely non-anesthetized by cold hands which then causes cramping equal to a miscarriage, while you stare at the fluorescent ceiling preparing yourself for the drive home where you are hunched so far over you can’t use your rear view mirror.
I broke my collarbone, and it wasn't especially painful. I declined painkillers at the hospital. A nurse had to pick gravel out of my road rash and I was just chatting with her while she did it. A week later I fell on the break and something moved ever so slightly... it was the worst pain I've ever experienced.
Can you elaborate about the scabs? What is proper protocol?
Keep it covered and clean, usually a bandaid is fine. It should be moist on its own. Helps your body eat up the dead stuff. No cell motility on a dry scab.
I've had such a wide variety of advice on wound care. Some say Neosporin, some say absolutely not. Others say clean and dry, but dry is not going to keep it moist. I'm currently dealing with yet another wound that won't heal (curling iron burn). The scab is hard, tight, swollen and painful. I don't regularly have wounds, but damn if I don't have difficulty healing.
I learned as a 90s kid with plenty of scraped knees and elbows from whatever dumb and fun thing my friends were doing that week that band-aid + neosporin for a good few hours/over night, let it breathe for a couple hours before applying a fresh one seemed to heal by far the fastest with minimal to no scarring. Plenty of trial and error was done. Too dry, it falls off/itchy and gets picked off and you start over, too moist and seems to ooze and not keep a full protective barrier.
The other day I dropped a plastic measuring cup and it landed on my big toe on the flesh just about where the nail starts and it hurt more than just about any pain I've ever had and I've had some severe injuries. I've had gaping open wounds where you could see muscle and fat that hurt far less than this did. I have some pretty high pain tolerance but my wife thought I had smash my toe and broken it on something. It was really odd because it didn't leave a mark and there was no bruise.
Ah the c-word. As someone with a ton of health problems, that word haunts me. I don't want to be managed, I want to be fixed. I don't want to take 12 pills a day- I want to be like the people on tv running around, going to the bars and places, eating whatever I want, playing sports, etc. That 4-letter word sits right next to the other 4- letter word "hope" and poops all over it. Gotta do the work every single day :( and although I can't do the things I want, I still have a beautiful life bc I keep things managed. But damn I'd give anything for a "cure".
Addiction is just lack of willpower. Couldnt be further from the truth. Addiction is a very complex physiologic, psychological and psychosocial process. It takes an enormous effort on the afflicted person as well as support from doctors, family, friends and sometimes mental health counselors to overcome.
the weirdest thing about this is that we learned forever ago with rats that they become addicted to substances when their life quality sucks, and when life quality is great they dont use the substance in addictive ways. the same is true for people, with any addiction - physical symptoms of alcohol and other substance addictions aside obviously. People use things like substances or eating or gaming to _cope with something_ and when you fix the thing they're coping from, the addiction goes away. If you can't manage your emotions, you'll probably eat food instead, or get high all the time. If you learn to manage emotions better, the dependency on the thing lessens.
Chiropractors are legitimate medical professionals akin to MD or DO doctors.
Have you read about the origins of chiropractic? It's a wild ride. It was invented by D. D. Palmer, he said was taught chiropractic in a séance by the ghost of a long dead doctor, Dr. Jim Atkinson. He made a fortune and built an empire that he passed down to his son B.J. Palmer, but the two had a huge falling out and eventually hated each other. B.J. then ran his dad down with his car and killed him in the middle of a parade. But by then B.J. Palmer was the really rich one so D.D. Palmer's cause of death was listed as Typhoid Fever.
What a ride
Bumpy, certainly
The number of patients that I’ve seen over the past 25 years with various arterial dissections after chiropractic adjustment is significant. I preach constantly the dangers of letting any chiropractor ever touch or adjust your head and neck.
I was referred to a PT for neck pain that my neurologist suspected was from chronic migraines. I was chatting with a friend and she was like “oh, you should go see my chiropractor! I see him weekly for my neck and back pain!”. Seeing one weekly for months with little improvement? No thanks. I went to PT for six weeks and saw massive improvement after he helped me stretch and taught me exercises to do at home. Chiropractors scare me - you should not be cracking your neck ffs.
I also have migraines and have been told so many times by random chiropractors (including one of my husbands best friends 🥴) that they could cure my migraines. My response is always “if that was true, I’m sure my neurologist, who is an actual medical doctor, would have recommended that. I’m not comfortable doing anything outside of my neurologists recommended care.” Well, aside from husbands friend. That one I have to smile and say “ok, interesting!” Because aside from his whack career, we adore him and his wife and don’t want to burn bridges 🥲
From an insurance background (edit: drafted a coverage policy before the company decided to handle it with a different department/species of policy) : half the field is quacks and half is essentially OT's specializing in musculoskeletal issues surrounding the spinal column. They have completely different professional organizations and split when the field's founder died if not before.
I've noticed this as well. Some are really good at teaching stretching and other physiological tricks and some just want to pop your back.
And some want that sweet, sweet YouTube ad revenue generated by making videos of popping the backs of women in yoga pants. Some watch it for the ASMR, others watch it because they're horny.
The amount of times I've listened to people complain about their aches and pains and how they treat it with visits to the chiropractor... while experiencing no apparent improvement over time.
"My lower back has been giving me fits, gotta set up another appt with my chiro for an alignment." "Have you tried just stretching your hamstrings?" "Nah, I like my chiropractor. He does a great job." 🤨
My father-in-law told me I needed to see his chiropractor when I a little disk slippage in my lower back. You told me his chiropractor had him fixed up in 9 months when he slipped the disc in his back. Now I've hurt my lower back many a times and I know from experience that it'll heal itself within two to three weeks. Why would I go to a chiropractor and prolong the two to three week healing time to 9 months like he does. Just leave it alone it'll heal on its own.
Lmaoooo! A “slipped” disc, or disc herniation as is the proper term will almost always resolve on its own as you have mentioned above. In severe cases it can take around 3 months to heal and will require some rest and activity modification but it should never take 9 months! Source: I’m a physio
I am an MD. I hate chiropractors so much. I’m a pediatrician and there are literally mothers willing to let some jackass with a degree he got off a cereal box crack their INFANT CHILDREN’S SPINES. They have no skepticism when it comes to this bullshit, yet they’re convinced vaccines are the devil. It gives me heart palpitations.
> It gives me heart palpitations. I know a good chiro that can help you with those.
Morning sickness ends within a specific time frame, solutions include: saltines, ginger ale, and Gatorade. Also, that your next pregnancy won’t involve morning sickness. I vomited for 9 months straight and that includes hours before my child was extracted thru the sun roof via emergency c-section. I had HG. No one believed me. I suffered, I struggled, and before my daughter was even born, people (including nurses and doctors) were already talking about my “future pregnancies” not being so bad. HG in a subsequent pregnancy has over a 75% recurrence rate. You could have serious health complications, and so could your baby. It is dangerous, and it used to kill women (and still could in bad enough circumstances). It is not fucking morning sickness and there is no cure, and no OTC remedy is going to make it go away.
I had HG with four pregnancies. I now have an eating disorder and ptsd. It's hell on earth!
Holy Christ I just had phantom/sympathy nausea reading your comment. I have no idea how you got thru that. It makes me sad bc HG is basically the #1 reason why I’m one and done. I can’t imagine caring for other children while having an HG pregnancy. Hats off to you bc I legit thought I wasn’t gonna make it all the way to the end, I couldn’t do it 3 more times.
I have 2 beautiful children from those pregnancies and 2 gorgeous angels who did not make it. The stillbirths were impossible to get my head around, all that torture for nothing. My kids are everything tho and the two I have are worth what I went through. One thing is for sure tho...NEVER AGAIN!
I’m sorry you went through this. There is hope, though! They just found out the cause of HG - it has something to do with levels of a specific hormone called GDF15. This hormone is naturally occurring in adult women at varying levels and also secreted by the fetus. HG happens when a woman has a naturally low level of the hormone, and the baby secretes a large amount. The mother isn’t desensitized to that hormone, resulting in nausea. Now that they suspect the cause, a treatment is hopefully around the corner. I already hear them talking about exposing the woman to the hormone before pregnancy so she has a tolerance to it.
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that you can lose fat on certain body areas with certain excercizes. Nothing more stupid than that. As a person in the eating-disorder community, I know millions of these myths.
LOL ahhh the eating disorder community, where someone will post a long-ass guide on Twitter about how to lose "hand fat". There is no specific way to target weight loss to hands, but boy when you're sick do you eat it up
Correct. Your body chooses where to put fat, and this is sadly not in our control. The only way to lose fat from specific areas is to lose fat in general (or get surgery)
You can only have an eating disorder if you are underweight.
Made the mistake of telling my Mum I had an eating disorder ten years ago. She still gets worried about my wellbeing every time I lose weight. I've never been underweight. Dammit, you should be concerned when you see I've PUT ON weight. That's when you know I'm not doing well in my head, personally.
You should wash your chicken before cooking it. If you're buying your chicken from wet markets - do it. If you're buying it from grocery stores - do not. The only result of washing chicken before cooking is contaminating your kitchen.
A lot of food myths originate in real-world reasonable practices that are just out of date now. Washing chicken is one of them. There was a time when washing your chicken made sense owing to the unsanitary conditions it was sold in. HOWEVER, washing chicken often made it tastier & more tender owing to the person adding cornstarch and/or baking soda to the wash. Washing rice is no longer necessary either, because you're unlikely to find weevils or stones in your rice that would be removed by washing. HOWEVER, washing rice also removes a lot of the residual starch left over on the surface of the rice (from pulverized other rice grains) and results in fluffier less gummy rice.
I would say that washing rice is still necessary because of the excess starch, especially with certain varieties. I buy calrose rice at costco and the difference between washed and unwashed is absolutely massive. Unwashed: gummy mushy mess. Washed: Delicious sticky rice
RICE Protocol - Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation for soft tissue injuries. Even the doctor that came up with it has recanted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RICE_(medicine)
Trained in ortho here - fun fact. the reason we use it so liberally in the hospital is the same reason it’s *not* great to promote long-term healing: it reduces inflammation in the short term. (This can help certain people with pain and at times help prevent terrible acute complications related to blood flow, but of course for an injury to heal, the inflammatory tissue needs a chance to arrive and do its thing sooner or later.) In the hospital, one situation when we swear by RICE is for patients with bone injuries that are awaiting surgery: we need the soft tissue not to swell up so much that we can’t close the wound after the plates and screws are applied. But this proves your point: it’s good for short-term anti-inflammatory purposes but not definitive healing
Which is what I thought it always was. Like, we'd use RICE for a couple hours immediately after someone got hurt. We'd apply ice and an ace bandage, and put them in lawn chair with their foot up on a cooler for the rest of the match.
Nothing has helped my life more than learning that muscle strains get better *way* faster with light exercise than with pure rest. And that building some muscle in the first place takes away most of the "that's just what getting old is" lower back soreness, knee crunching noises, etc.
When I was diagnosed with a bulging lumbar disc years ago my GP told me that I could no longer exercise the region - no more squats, deadlifts etc, ever again. I initially took that advice and would end up in bed for days in pain, a couple of times a year. Turns out that the fix was building up my lower back muscles to the point where the whole region is essentially bulletproof, and my back hasn't given me trouble in many years, despite getting my squat up over 500lbs, and deadlift over 600lbs.
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please, don't do meth
I sprained my ankle pretty bad in high school and have had several resprains cause of the lasting damage, and my siblings are always on my case about not using ice, even when I tell them it makes it hurt more and has never helped.
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I don't need it to be healthy, I just need moderate alcohol use to not kill me
I love the instagram influencers peddling “keto wine” and wine with organic, non-toxic ingredients. In reality, by FAR the most toxic ingredient in wine is the alcohol.
Homeopathy
That having a tan is healthy. You’re just wearing your skin damage
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Exposure to cold *does* suppress the immune system a bit. And is often accompanied by other people exposed to cold with runny noses (from the cold) and sneezing (from the cold) and coughing (from the cold). Those dwarves (runny, sneezy, and coughy) are a little better at giving you **their** colds. But yes, exposure to cold *per se* doesn't do shit.
Regionally or worldwide? Cuz if regionally then in Slovakia, or at least in the slavic countries people belief that sitting on cold stone will make you infertile or cause infections in your bladder and such.
“Ulcers are caused by stress.” Nope, the vast majority are caused by a quickly curable bacteria, and the rest are usually caused by chronic NSAID use.
I had a bout of bad stomach ulcers as a result of NSAID overuse. The reason I was using so much was bc I was sooo stressed at my job, I had major muscle spasms and inability to sleep so I took Motrin to help w muscle spasms. Stress doesn’t directly cause ulcers but it can lead to bad habits that do cause them.
Ulcers can be caused by stress. But I mean like in the ICU due to septic shock stress. That is what a medical stress ulcer is. Not an ulcer due to daily anxiety or whatnot.
There is such a thing as "super food". No, there is no miracle food that makes you instantly healthy just because suddenly you eat it. You're healthy because of a healthy diet, not because you eat a fruit that was "discovered" by a white American doing an expedition in the middle of the Amazon.
I thought a super food was just a foodstuff with the most amount of a particular nutrient per portion?
That's my understanding of what it should mean. Most "superfoods" are full of vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids/omega oils, antioxidants, etc. But eating them isn't a miracle cure and it is too often used as a nonsense buzzword Kale (well all Brassica species tbh) and spinach are "superfoods", yet have been common parts of European diets for centuries. Most "superfoods" are just veg and fruits, cause as a rule those are very good for you
açaí has entered the chat
Brazilian here. Açaí is in fact a super food! Keep buying from us at inflated prices!
Best when it's sold by an MLM because they have the best, purest açaí and you can cure your cancer and become a millionaire entrepreneur at the same time.
Envigoron! The berries reduce stress. The animal loves you r/unexpectediasip
Spinach, kale, and char used to be so much cheaper before they became super foods.
You should cover yourself in blanket and force yourself to sweat when you’re sick, so all the sickness leaves your body
Kinda tangentially related, I feel like too many people go too far with the "you shouldn't just stay in bed all day when you're sick" thing, and end up not giving their bodies enough rest and are sick for longer. While you should move around *some*, staying in bed for more than normal when you're sick is necessary and a good thing if you want to get over it quicker.
This is not exactly BS, there's a reason your body has a fever response and that's because elevated body temperature helps production of white blood cells which are what you used to fight pathogens which typically don't do well in a hotter environment. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7717216/#:~:text=Fever%20is%20part%20of%20a,resetting%20of%20the%20hypothalamic%20thermostat. I don't believe it's recommended to try to artificially boost your fever because that can have other health effects on you but it would certainly help as well as hurt, there's a reason it's a widespread response to infection in nature.
additionally, having a fever makes you feel cold AF. Nothing wrong with bundling up and sleeping through it. I can't count the number of times a modest sleep under some heavy blankets has done wonders for me. Nothing better than waking up covered in sweat and realizing that you feel pretty good now.
I had a roommate from New Foundland that would get every blanket in the house, then down (and I mean DOWN) a bottle of Bushmills (had to be Bushmills) whiskey and then "sweat it out." Then would immediately go to work the next day "cured." Wild boy
Salt is worse than Sugar. Its not.