Preventative and Curative Medicines

I returned last night from the British Society of Ecological Medicine’s excellent conference on vaccination and preventative medical interventions (of which nore anon) feeling rather smug that I had not, for almost as long as I could remember, made use of any of the drug based interventions, either preventative or curative, which had been discussed. So focused was I on this this happy state of affairs that I took the potato I had been baking out of the oven, complete with metal skewer down its middle (an excellent way to reduce the time taken to bake a potato, by the way) and pulled the skewer out of the potato without using a cloth, thereby inflicting deep burns on two fingers and a thumb.

‘Cool it down’ – plenty of cold water – then reach for the aloe vera and squeeze a huge dollop onto my sizzling fingers. The pain vanished as my charred skin sucked up the healing gel. Twelve hours and at least half a tube of aloe vera later and my fingers which, by rights should have been deeply blistered and very painful, showed no sign of any mishap. What would one do without aloe vera?…

But then, what would one do without tea tree oil – which I use as universal antiseptic, with which I have cleared a deep infection from a cat bite which had defied two courses of antibiotics, and a dose of impetigo which had also resisted all antibiotic attack? Or arnica – easer of all bruises, bashes and bumps? Or calendula – almost guaranteed to deal with all skin irritations, no matter what the cause?

And hang on here… Who now slathers a thick dollop of virgin coconut oil on a cracker every day to ward of Alzhiemer’s – although I can also recommend it for adding a really intriguing new layer of flavour to many cooked dishes as well. And who downs a witch’s brew of green barley grass and strange dark brown superfood powder laced with liquid crataegus to ward off a stroke? So who am I kidding when I say that I make no ‘preventative medical interventions’?

And as for the curative? Who trots off to her Chinese medicine practitioner whenever she is feeling out of sorts for some needles in appropriate places to stimulate and rebalance her energies? Who slugs down gallons of hot lemon and whisky to cure sore throats, coughs and colds? Who rushes for the red wine bottle when she has had too many encounters with the electrosmog of the big smoke? (‘Honest, gov – red wine stimulates the liver which, in my case gets overwhwelmed by too much electromagnetic radiation – promise – it’s true – ask my Chinese medicine practitioner!)

So – what am I saying? That, before I get too cocky, like everyone else I too need crutches and aids to get me through the day – the only difference between us all is which crutches we choose to lean on…. Although, when you have read the report of the BSEM conference which I hope will appear in next weekend’s newsletter, you may feel that some crutches, far from supporting us,  can make matters a great deal worse.