The "wellness" industry and chronic illness

[Leavesofautumn]

I just need to have a rant about this. It seems that the wellness industry is really for people who are already well in the first place. I have a chronic illness and I don't see how spending £50 on your bespoke, artisan vitamin supplements is going to make me feel any better.

Also, yoga doesn't cure serious diseases. HTH.

I've met numerous yoga people who make all sorts of claims including that it can stop cancer, or who recommend treatments that are utter nonsense for people with very serious conditions

Where do you meet all these 'yoga people'?

@DillonPanthersTexas That sketch is making fun of homeopathy. Not the same thing as the wellness industry

They are both stable mates as far as I am concerned. The wellness industry is full of charlatans over promising results to the gullible and the hopelessly optimistic.

Claiming that it makes them feel better, therefore "be" better is not a scam.

It's not the same as pretending you are cured.

Apart from money, there's a certain health privilege of being well enough to be able to use this stuff in the first place. For example, people with Crohn's flareups are not going to do juicing. People who are housebound are not going to go to a spa. Maybe I'm wrong, but my perception of wellness enthusiasts is that they were more or less well in the first place and have no idea what it's like to have serious chronic medical conditions. I find myself resenting them all because they're mainly doing this stuff for fun. And yes I do do yoga, but it still doesn't cure any of my serious medical problems, just helps me stretch.

Yes, I entirely get what you mean. When I'm in the midst of a flare-up I can't leave the house, can barely eat, and am incapable of carrying out basic tasks that others would take for granted.

My dear old dad used to send me cuttings from those ghastly Daily Mail articles about various 'Miracle Cures' that are nothing of the sort. They would usually be about a trial drug that wasn't available yet on the NHS, or something like eating fermented lambs' arseholes for a week. Bless him.

@DillonPanthersTexas

Whenever I think of the wellness industry or clean living I can't help but think of that Mitchell and Webb sketch.

@DillonPanthersTexas

and I think of that Armstrong & Miller sketch when the ambulance brings in a car crash victim and they try to heal him with crystals & chants.
of course he dies, but they have tried everything!🤣

They are both stable mates as far as I am concerned. The wellness industry is full of charlatans over promising results to the gullible and the hopelessly optimistic.

Ah okay then, point taken.

@SoddingWeddings

HTH - hope that helps

Bespoke vitamins are a scam anyway, just buy a cheap multivitamin with iron and get on with it.

I take an extremely high dose of Vit B2 (riboflavin) for migraine prevention, plus Feverfew, magnesium and a bunch of other stuff - all evidence-based and recommended by neurology. My neurologist wrote the available guidance on the subject! That's a VERY different beast from some shill company (or god forbid, MLM) trying to sell me ££££ versions of the same thing I buy in Holland and Barratt.

What is feverfew?

OP I agree with you. The entire ‘wellness’ industry is a joke.
healthy people don’t need any extras apart from good food, sleep, a stable environment and exercise.
If you’re unhealthy then you need a lot more than that and there’s no magic pill that doctors won’t prescribe.
Also yoga in the Western world makes my blood boil. The majority is simply callisthenics and these ‘instructors’ aren’t even qualified to lead a PE warm up let alone teach yoga

I was trying to find the sketch and found out it's on Prime!!!!
hurrah!

healthy people don’t need any extras apart from good food, sleep, a stable environment and exercise.

you still benefit from wellness extras like massages, and many people get a lot from meditation etc.

Wellness in itself, and taking time to take care of yourself is important.

healthy people don’t need any extras apart from good food, sleep, a stable environment and exercise.

I must admit that when I was younger, I used to say stuff like, well you shouldn't need to take supplements if you eat a healthy diet. I now recognise this as a type of... ableism? Not sure of the right word, but I now know from experience that many millions of people with chronic illnesses take (non-trendy) supplements because the extra nutrients are needed for specific things, and they do help a bit but only to a certain extent.

The only thing I'll concede is that millions of people in our climate could do with extra vitamin D due to the lack of sunshine hours.

You aren't far wrong op.

I like to think as I sit in the park bench in the sunshine for free and regularly get to bed early that I'm doing them out of my cash.😉

Having a chat or "gossiping" is also a free health booster.😂

Anyone who makes out yoga can cure serious illness is a charlatan, of course they are.

However, our so called health service is largely a national illness service, and what yoga (and other reputable alternative therapists/therapies) do is support better physical and mental health.

Sadly there's little to no money to be made to prove this through large scale and peer-reviewed scientific research.

Some examples from my own experience as a yoga student and now a teacher:

• Stress reduction. Cortisol (the stress hormone) is implicated in conditions like heart disease and poor sleep. Stress can also lead to emotional over-eating, which increases the risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease again, joint problems etc..
• Can help with back pain (as someone else mentioned)
• Makes you more aware if your own body - I had one student who swears her successful treatment for early ovarian cancer was because her yoga practice had develop that body awareness.

I've been trained as a yoga teacher by two senior teachers who are or were medical doctors.

Yoga co-exists with Western medicine and they swear by the benefits - one of them says Yoga can help reduce the dosage of medicines his patients need.

@isthisareverse You really don't get it.

If only a massage and meditation would cure all my health problems.

Yanbu. I have PCOS and there are so many snake oil sellers (nutritionists, bloggers, self-dubbed PCOS experts with no medical training) out there preying on women’s insecurities and desperation to get pregnant. There is so much misinformation on the internet as a result and it absolutely infuriates me.

[quote Leavesofautumn]@isthisareverse You really don't get it.

If only a massage and meditation would cure all my health problems.[/quote]
Where did I say a massage would CURE you?

I said that you benefit from wellness, that they are a plus, and anything that HELPS you FEEL better actually help you BE better.

Let's try another example: a cup of tea won't heal anything either. It still make an awful amount of people in this country FEEL better.

Regular wellness and self care is important and beneficial.

I think what annoys me in the current era is the public sector backing out of keeping us "healthy". Leaving it to the charlatans in part.

So nutrition in hospitals and school is not prioritised. New housing estates
mushrooming but no new parks or sports facilities. Outdoor spaces within our towns seem neglected maybe a function of them being unable to be monetised. (And yet who wants to go into grim town centres?)

It's all down to the individual and we are prone to being seduced by slick marketing.

@Yogateacherherehello Look, I've been doing yoga for about fifteen years. It helps me with sciatica and general stress relief, but it didn't stop me from getting Crohn's and two other incurable medical conditions, one of which is very difficult to get diagnosed and it's doctors not listening who are causing far more stress than can be relieved by yoga.

A few years ago I spent time in hospital with a serious Crohn's flare-up. I scored 7 on the Bristol Stool Chart for weeks on end and it was full of blood. I was put on a drip. I emailed my yoga teacher from my hospital bed, just to say why I couldn't make it to the class for a while. Her response was sorry to hear that, and maybe it would be worth seeing a homeopath.

[quote Leavesofautumn]@isthisareverse You really don't get it.

If only a massage and meditation would cure all my health problems.[/quote]
Nope, it won't.

It won't cure my hip, sciatica-like pain etc. Because of concomittant issues yoga, or any stretching based activity, will only exacerbate the pain and do more long term injury.

Pity as I like the solitude and quiet of a good yoga session.

Nor will moderate exercise help my overlarge red blood cells, 2 types of anemia, lack of aerobic fitness, tiredness.

Pity as I like walking, taking the dog out.

Contrary to common belief the only exercise that will benefit me is weight based stuff, weight lifting if I can get to a gym, resistance bands, body weight exercises.

Happily I used to teach just such group classes and have all the kit I need - me and a big elastic band

I have to explain all of that a lot. I usually end up Top Trumping with my degrees in Health and Exercise and walking away in disgust!

maybe it would be worth seeing a homeopath. And don't forget the mindfulness - think well to be well!!

Oh and by the way @Yogateacherherehello, referring to the NHS as a "national illness service" is a tired old trope that's widely used by the wellness industry. Of course it's an illness service, that's why I go there for help when I'm ill. And at the opposite end of the stick, the wellness industry is a place people go to when they're already well.

I don't know why that tickled me so much @Leavesofautumn but thanks, it did!

I do agree with you about the yoga practitioners who say it can cure cancer. Its a scam preying on the ill.

But this: "I just feel like a lot of the people who are into this stuff are "playing shop" and doing it for fun" I think thats generous. I think many of them are in it for money one way or another (either they are selling their own snake oil or advertising someone else's or it fits with their "lifestyle brand")

A stay in a luxury destination resort is wellness too. It might not cure you, and no-one has ever pretended it will, but it does most people a world of good.

When we are lucky enough to live in a western world with the luxury to take time and care about ourselves for more than the bare basics, we might as well make the most of it. How can it be a "scam" to make you feel better?

I don’t think it’s all entirely rubbish, depending on what the illness is. Many people can manage their symptoms better by changing their diet and taking supplements. I have friends who’ve reversed diabetes, reduced inflammation pain, found out migraine triggers, took supplements like b12, iron and vitamin d when they felt utterly exhausted for months. It hasn’t cost them lots either.
Some people can improve their wellness, but that doesn’t mean everyone can.