Desperation is the Death of Reason

     My first visit to the naturopath started off pretty well. His office was littered with pseudo-science hogwash, but he seemed intelligent enough. He used some sort of machine that ran along my spine to test its tightness, and sure enough it showed tightness that corroborated with where I felt it. He then went to work on my back and legs, loosening muscles here, pressing on nerves there. I was suffering from a bout of sharp leg pain at the time, and after he did whatever he did that sharpness was gone for about 15 minutes but the dull ache remained. Nevertheless, it seemed pretty promising so I booked a follow up appointment. As you may have noticed from before, I said that my interactions with him “started off” well. The implication that it ended badly is correct. This is because my second appointment was nothing like the first. For starters, it wasn’t private like the first one was. When I arrived there were nearly 20 people all lying on massage tables throughout a room. I was led to mine, and my worries at that point proved warranted. He treated 20 people at the same time in the only way that is possible for one person, by going from patient to patient only spending 15 seconds on one before moving on the next. In total we each got a minute or two of time spent on us for the half hour appointment we paid for, because naturopaths aren’t covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. It goes without saying I didn’t get any of the relief I did in my first visit, and so I stopped seeing him then and there. I still wonder how much bank he was rolling in by treating 20 patients at a time.

       The osteopath was a little more competent. He essentially acted as a chiropractor, physiotherapist, masseuse, and naturopath all in one. He too focused a lot on my spine and gave me certain exercises to do at home. At first it seemed like there was improvement, but over time I came to the realization it was just a coincidental fluctuation in pain. The only real benefit I was getting was from the massage aspects and I already had a good masseuse for that. I decided there was no point in continuing to see him, and him raising his prices didn’t help matters. Like the physiatrist, he espoused the benefits of an epidurolysis procedure and told me the name of which doctor he recommends that preform them. When I looked up the doctor online I had saw a lot of people were extremely upset about doing the expensive procedure, saying how their pain got worse rather than better. This gave me the impression the surgery made problems worse just as often as it helped. Even this wasn’t enough to disinterest me from trying it at the time.  This is because I still held the belief that if I didn’t find more pain relief I than I was getting I would eventually once again decide the only escape is suicide. Essentially for me, any risk was better than the status quo. I now know how wrong I was, because I now know what the source of my health issues are. I discovered from the doctor who eventually diagnosed me that the procedure would have been not just expensive and ineffective, but devastating for my body vulnerable. Furthermore, as details about the doctor who was recommended to me emerged, I found out he does the procedure for anyone who has the cash, regardless of if he thinks it will help them or hurt them. This brought my dad and myself to the conclusion that there was a bit of a referral racket going on between the physiatrist, the osteopath, and the surgeon in the U.S. They probably received kickbacks from each other for bouncing patients like me between them. We can’t prove this, but it is the most plausible explanation of their reckless disregard for patient safety. My personal lesson learned is that desperation is often the death of reason.