NOT!
First of all, I am one sarcastic belle. (Obvious coping method.) This is what accounts for the title of this post.
There is one four-letter word that starts with a “c” that really infuriates me to the core… CURE. What other word were you thinking I was going to say? No self respecting southern belle would never even think of that other word. Y’all got dirty minds. 😉
Anyhoo… I wake up to find this video on Facebook.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/2207487074001/cure-for-crohns
O.M.G. As we say in the South, “bless his heart.” (That’s not a good thing.) Where to start! Ari Meisel seems like a good person and I am sincerely happy that he has found something that works for him. But here comes the but. BUT don’t tell me you are “cured.” THERE IS NO CURE FOR CROHN’S DISEASE. I repeat: THERE IS NO CURE FOR CROHN’S DISEASE. This young man stopped smoking, ate less fast food, reduced his stress and had had been on strong Crohn’s fighting drugs. Yeah, I am sure this is how he was “cured.” Why didn’t I think of that! Stoopid, stoopid, stoopid me! Glory be! I must want to be sick.
I made this meme a couple of months back and I think it really speaks to the topic. Please note that herbs, acupuncture and hypnosis can be scientific and sometimes successful treatments for Crohn’s disease. Just please don’t use the word “cured.” There is where I have the problem.
I have tried lactose and gluten free diets, nutritionists, hypnosis, Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.), vitamin therapy and I’ve even been to faith healers, among numerous other off the grid treatments. Nontraditional and traditional therapies have done little to help me. Just please don’t use the word “cure.” People look at someone that has been so deathly sick as I and think, or even tell me pointblank, that I could be healthy if I really wanted to… if I would just “put in the work.” (Someone actually said that exact phrase to me not that long ago. She also believed all cancer could be “cured” with similar “work”. I don’t normally confront people when they speak such uninformed garbage, but that time I did… and it felt SO good. lol.)
Okay, Mr. Meisel (with what very much appears to be a somewhat mild to moderate case of CD) claims that the holistic treatments he has used and ceasing smoking have caused his “cure,” not the powerful drugs he was on previously. Please! Is it just me, or does he physically not look very healthy? (Pasty and his eyes look sunk in and sick.) Maybe he is having a common reaction to serious disease, denial? I would love to see follow-up stories in coming years and finding out how all this is working out for him. Oh, and I can’t seem to wrap my mind around this “art of less doing” thing. What the heck?! Stress can make illness worse? What a concept! Duh! “Optimize, automate and outsource” everything in your life. Huh? Makes me think of a cramped, cubical strewn office in a third would country where people are being paid 20 cents an hour to manage my life and disease. If I wasn’t so morally opposed to such things I might have asked for the contact info on this service. I wish they would never even mention stress in reports that so many of the general public see. It takes our plight of informing the public that IBD is NOT a disease of the mind back years. What saddens my heart to the core is the effect this kind of gross misinformation has on newly diagnosed and young Crohn’s disease patients. We are all living on the hope that this horrific illness will be cured in the near future. I am certain Ari Meisel is a good person and just wants to help others feel as amazing as he claims to now, but information like this does nothing in making our way to this most greatest hope.
What more can we really expect from Fox (Faux) News. Pfft! (Sorry, not a fan.) I guess they didn’t see the Obama sticker in that doctor’s office or they never would have ran the story. lol.
~BOTB
Belle of the Bowel 
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