Natural Remedies - My Story

Natural remedies sometimes get a bad rap from doctors and other health professionals. Certainly some of them are over-hyped and without much value. But then there is a lot of hype about traditional and accepted remedies and medicines, and many are eventually found to do as much harm as good.

Most natural remedies or medicines rarely hurt people as much as prescription drugs. This is one reason to at least consider them. The fact that many of them are not only safe to try, but inexpensive as well is another reason. Here is one I can vouch for from experience.

Curing A Skin Growth

I had a lump on the side of my nose many years back. It was growing slowly, and bleeding at times. After about seven years or so, I asked a doctor about it. He wasn't sure if it was potentially cancerous or pre-cancerous, and he recommended seeing a specialist. That sounded expensive, so I looked in a book of alternative medicines instead.

First I read about a cream called cura-derm, made from an extract from a plant called Devil's Apple. Skin cancers were regularly being cured with this. It seemed to be not only extremely effective, but safe as well.

Unfortunately, the only company selling it in the U.S. was shut down by the the regulatory agencies. Notice how doctors can kill thousands with risky medical procedures, but if an "unapproved" treatment causes so much as a skin rash it must be outlawed? I found an address of a company in England that would ship the cream here for $49, but they too were out of business by the time I tried to reach them.

Then I read somewhere that tee tree oil might work. I went to the health-food store and bought a one-ounce bottle  for $6 (100% pure oil). I applied just a drop to the lump each morning. Soon the lump was getting smaller. I continued the treatment. After having this growth for many years, it took just six weeks and six dollars to be completely rid of it.

Could it be a coincidence? Maybe, if it was a one-time thing. Later in life I had another growth on my neck. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember what I had used the first time, so I did nothing for years. Then I found my old notes on tea tree oil. I used it again on this growth, which was even larger than the first one. Again it was gone in about six weeks.

Should You Try Natural Remedies?

I have used many natural remedies and herbal medicines that are very effective. I have also tried many that didn't work. However, if I add up the cost of all the effective and useless ones, it barely equals the cost of one visit to a doctor. As for the effective ones, well, no doctor yet has introduced me to one of them. You just have to do your own research, and look to the alternative press, to get information on alternative medicines.

Are natural remedies dangerous? I have never had a bad reaction to any "alternative" medicine, but everything we do has risks. Have you ever listened to the list of side effects that they put on commercials for prescription drugs? My impression is that in general, natural treatments are safer than most new prescription drugs.

Of course there is a risk in treating a problem with a medicine that may not work, while not getting a more traditional treatment that may work despite its side effects. Of course, in my own case, after having the skin growth for many years, a few weeks of natural treatment didn't mean I couldn't go to a specialist later if it didn't work. You are allowed to use your common sense in your own medical decisions, despite what some doctors would say.

If we always wait until treatments are "proven" by science, it can be a long wait. Who will do the science? A drug company can't recoup the millions spent to get a natural medicine "approved" by the FDA, because they cannot patent it. In any case, when there are safe and cheap things to try, why wait? If French explorers of this continent had waited for proof of Vitamin C before taking the cedar tea the natives offered, they would have all died of scurvy hundreds of years before science caught up with this natural remedy.