To be looking so differently now at Drs, schools etc etc

[Loveafridaynightchippy]

Has anyone else had a change of opinion about things that they’ve not really questioned and always just accepted before, in the last few years?
It could be since a became a mum, but I’m wondering if it’s more.
My Dd has been very ill recently and I’ve gained much better help, advise from less traditional Drs-think medical Drs who focus on naturopathy too, homeopathy and so on, I never knew anything about homeopathy before my Dd got ill. The results I’ve seen are incredible and much more positive that traditional things like antibiotics, painkillers and so on.
I used to be a teacher and loved it, but I’ve found myself really questioning if this is the right system and the right way of doing things and am increasingly doubting traditional schooling. Even the way the majority of us work, the 9-5, the commutes, snatched weekends with loved ones, the yearly holiday.
Maybe I’m just becoming an old hippie! 😂
Does anyone else feel like this?

And my point in return was that, out of those, homeopaths were different. You then kept suggesting other types of treatment which weren’t like homeopathy, and I kept reiterating that I knew that, but homeopaths, the subject of the thread, and of the comment I made you that you initially responded to, are charlatans. Not sure what your point is, honestly.

@SophiaCohle It’s been described as children being thrown into sudden autism. Many of the symptoms mimic it, in a sudden, extreme way. But the symptoms are often not consistent at all. We have had two years in between our symptoms, once when was sick similar as she is now, lasting for 4-5 months after illness and now, two years later again. In between these times, she doesn’t display any signs of neurodivergence and presents as a *Typical child. But yes, the symptoms that occur whilst the child is ill, present very much like autism/adhd at times. My Dd also has physical symptoms-tiredness, nausea etc, until the inflammation calms, it doesn’t improve, it seems.

Homeopathy is not the subject of the thread - if you read the OP more carefully she covers naturopathy as well as homeopathy - the former includes a wide range of natural therapies to which my post referred.

Gotta love a sugar tablet.

And water with a memory.

Have you pursued the possibility of an autistm/ADHD diagnosis at all? In my experience (as an autistic person with autistic children and siblings) the signs of autism can be uneven, despite it being a lifelong condition, because the experience of being autistic can be aggravated by environmental conditions and stressors, developmental stages (especially puberty) and by the uneven demands placed on kids by the stepwise development expected at school.

Looking at the list of symptoms on the PANDAS page, I was struck, for instance, by things like 'sudden deterioration in visuospatial skills' and 'clumsiness'. That might well relate to the dyspraxia that autistic kids often also have, but might only become apparent when they're suddenly expected to change into PE kit independently when they haven't before - the onset isn't actually sudden, just the visibility of the problem. I get that you feel it followed a physical illness, but autistic children (and adults for that matter) often somatise, i.e. complain of feeling ill when actually they're (we're!) dysregulated. If other stressors ease off, then the feeling of malaise eases off too.

These are just examples, but the point I'm making is that the idea of the autistic experience being a consistent one, in contrast with this syndrome of your DD's, isn't entirely accurate or helpful. I often feel that I'm "particularly autistic at the moment" when external demands mean that, say, sensory things that I could normally cope with become intolerable.

I can't help feeling that this PANS/PANDAS thing might have been dreamt up based on the observations of parents who have no idea their child is autistic. When I think how hard it was to get an autism diagnosis, there's no question in my mind that going to the doctor with a loose collection of traits plus a complaint of feeling unwell would probably not have led to the correct diagnosis and might instead have led to a wild goose chase after a mystery illness. It's not surprising that parents without the family history to make ASD/ADHD an obvious starting point might end up thinking their child has some new and complicated syndrome. If you can bear to, I wonder if going back to conventional medicine might offer you more answers than you think.

Apologies if this is patronising. I just remember being gobsmacked by how many seemingly mysterious aspects of my own health and daily experience were fully explained once I re-examined them through the prism of an autism diagnosis I hadn't previously considered. I'm happy to discuss mine and my children's experiences by PM, if that would be helpful.

Maybe so, buts it’s homeopathy she talks about most.

The OP is about a broad questioning of traditional methods of medicine and education. It’s just that you have a particular boring obsession with homeopathy.

I really don’t. But ok. I’m out.

Homeopathic remedies are literally water. If your DD is on traditional medicines and homeopathy then it is the traditional medicine that is working, or she is getting better independently.

Unless she was dehydrated I suppose 😂

I absolutely agree with @SophiaCohle . My DS can very much appear neurotypical for weeks, months even, until demand exceeds his capacity, then it’s very clear he is autistic. Children pick up illnesses all the time, I could probably make the correlation that following an illness or cold DS’s AuDHD symptoms suddenly exacerbate. Having the mix of autism and ADHD can also mean that one can mask the other for a period of time.

On a different but related topic, my own aunt was very big in the alternative medicine world. She was a practising homeopath with many ‘patients’. She had all the equipment, studies, and an entire room dedicated to her work. She would research all the time. She would tell whoever would listen about her work and encourage them to reject traditional medicine and medical advice. Listening to her was very convincing and I tried quite a few of her therapies throughout the years.

Then, when she was diagnosed with an aggressive Stage 2 cancer in her 50s, she was advised to have a complete double mastectomy and chemotherapy. She scoffed that chemotherapy is what really killed people, not cancer, and that she would be healing herself. She died slowly and agonisingly 6 months later. Before she died, she had finally relented and begged for chemotherapy, but unfortunately the cancer was untreatable by that point.

Oh gosh, @Predes that's awful, so sad.

My aunt was also a wonderful person, although misguided, and absolutely would not have considered herself a scammer or promoting scams. It’s very possible that the people promoting these ‘therapies’ are well meaning, good people who are just wrong and misinformed. Unfortunately, the deeper you get into alternative therapies, the more you believe everything else is just a conspiracy, and ‘big pharma’; it becomes even harder to escape, much like a cult. This was definitely the case with my aunt.

I’m sorry your loss. But there’s no guarantee that your aunt would have survived aggressive cancer even with surgery and chemo. I think it’s important to respect people’s choices and reflect that we don’t know whether a different choice would have resulted in a materially different outcome. Your aunt may have ended in exactly the same place on the same timeframe.

https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/breast-cancer/survival

90% chance of survival at stage 2, with conventional treatment. So yes it seems sadly that this person's outcome would have been different with medical treatment not sugar pills.

You don’t know what grade it was. Aggressive = higher grade = more likely to metastasise. And there are substages within each stage so stage 2B is nearly stage 3.

I know someone who died of breast cancer that was only stage 2 on diagnosis but she died 9 months later despite surgery and chemo.

Equally cancer is very unpredictable. A statistical sample cannot tell you how it would affect you in particular. You might be in that 10% who die despite surgery and chemo.

PPS aunt was extremely likely to survive for 5 years at stage 2 with gold standard treatment. That doesn't mean everyone at stage 2 will survive of course, or the stats would be 100% not 90%. But declining treatment only ever leads one way. So in that sense it's completely predictable. Treatment isn't a guaranteed survival but declining treatment pretty much guarantees you won't.

To clarify, whilst my aunt never had any guarantees of survival (obviously), she was advised by the hospital that committing to treatment immediately had a statistical likelihood of prolonging her life and may well have put her into remission.

She decided to reject all chemotherapy and conventional treatment as she was convinced that ‘chemotherapy kills people, not cancer’.

There will be a difference in outcomes dependent on the grade which this data does not show.

But declining treatment only ever leads one way.

That’s not actually true, there are people who survive cancer who eschew conventional treatment. It might not be my choice but none of us know how we would cope with the horrific gruelling nature of chemo so there’s no point moralising about other people’s choices.

A friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer at stage 4 and started chemo but just couldn’t cope with it and stopped. It’s a moot point whether it would have given her more time or hastened her end, and given the extent of the metastases it was a question of when not if.

The page I linked does show data for the different grades - grade 2 90% 5 year survival.

I've worked with cancer patients for 19 years now. Some who tried every possible treatment died, of course. All of the ones who eschewed conventional treatment died, and some went through unpleasant so-called 'treatment' which did not help and made their last few months more unpleasant than they needed to be.

It's not moralising on other people's choices to say that taking the most effective treatment available gives you a chance of survival and taking no conventional treatment means you'll die. Of course someone diagnosed at stage 4 with extensive mets is weighing up a different decision than someone with a very treatable cancer choosing not to have treatment with high chance of success.

Chemo does kill some people though, oncologists are honest about that. One study of patients who died within 30 days of receiving chemo found that treatment had hastened death in 27% of cases and 43% reported significant toxicity despite treatment to minimise side effects.

As surgery and chemo is so hardcore you have to be 100% onboard & determined to do it. If your aunt had gone ahead with surgery and chemo and died anyway she may have gone to her grave regretting the choice.

No that’s stage 2, not grade 2. I’d have thought someone working with cancer would know the difference.

Your perspective fundamentally does not allow that people have right to make their own choices whatever the outcome. Some people cannot face chemo or start it and find they can’t cope - depending on underlying health, personality etc. Some people have fought off cancer a couple of times with aggressive treatment and when it recurs decide they’ve had enough. Some people, particularly older people actually want to die - and that’s up to them.

You have the right to make the choices that you believe in, but finger wagging at other people is pointless as they will make their own choices regardless.

Even the way the majority of us work, the 9-5, the commutes, snatched weekends with loved ones, the yearly holiday.
Maybe I’m just becoming an old hippie! 😂
Does anyone else feel like this?

I have my own ideas about homeopathy and the like (I do actually think being a good place mentally can be incredibly healing and for some people, the 1:1 attention that a complementary medicine appointment offers can be a real genuine help)

But the wider part of your post, yes. I have been feeling increasingly like this. I do not follow my heart or what I believe is truly right in many of the (macro) parts of my life. I don't think school is right for my children but I'm too scared to home educate. I don't like rushing around all the time but I'm too people pleasing not to. I want my children to sleep in my bed but I also crave space, probably because I'm so knackered all the time from the rat race. I am a positive, happy person but my life doesn't always feel authentic, but even using the word "authentic" feels wanky to me. I don't want to become a Lucy and Yak clad vegan either. I don't know. I'm very disillusioned by adult life.

Sorry I misread the post. Cancers are not generally graded 1-4 in my world but described as well differentiated versus poorly differentiated. That may differ across specialties I guess.

Of course people have the right to make their own choices. But someone trying treatment and then saying no more, or choosing palliation without treatment, is not the same as someone thinking that alternative treatment can cure them, or will work as well or better than conventional treatment.

It's not 'finger wagging' to say that having treatment you believe in, which is a faith based position, is equivalent to choosing to have or not have evidenced treatment. Chemo works (a lot of the time, not always) whether you believe in it or not.

@distinctpossibility Exactly, I feel the same