Buckle up, this post is a little longer than normal.
Many years ago, a neighborhood family's daughter was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in her thirties. She was married with small children. Despite her doctor's objections, she decided to forgo the recommended medications and "heal" herself naturally.
She'd already been living a wholesome lifestyle with exercise and healthy food. So she decided to double-down on her life habits which meant more exercise, a stricter food menu, and meditation.
For a short time, it seemed to work. Her symptoms subsided. No new symptoms appeared. She felt better.
But then the symptoms came back. With a vengeance. Like a tidal wave. Extreme tremors developed. When I saw her, she couldn't walk and when she spoke, her voice shook so bad it was hard to understand what she was saying.
At some point, she agreed to take medication. But it was too late. She died within the year after I saw her.
I do not tell this story as a scare tactic to get people to take their meds. No.
I tell this story because for a long time I wondered why. Why was she so adamant, so immovable, so stubborn! - about taking medication that would have given her more of the chance of a normal life and probably would have saved her life? Her parents did not have the answer. Instead, she died prematurely, leaving behind a grieving husband to care for their young children who were devastated at losing their mother.
Somewhere along the line she got it into her head that medicines are bad, especially the ones you have to take for the rest of your life. At least that is what I think.
I'm not real big into medically doing things naturally. I know a lot of people have great experiences to share about their "natural" journeys, but a lot of us have had bad experiences.
Back in the 1980s, when it came to maternity, infants, and new mothers, there was a big push to do things naturally. There were different classes everywhere instructing on how to have a "mostly" pain-free labor. Doing it naturally was a joyous event for both mother and infant! If social media had been around then, there would have been websites, podcasts, memes, and posts from every platform with advice and true accounts of the beauty of natural childbirth! (There kind of are now, but it would have been much more of a deluge back then.)
I fell for it. I was expecting my first baby and heard and read repeatedly in the available publications of the dangers for the baby when you used drugs or an epidural during labor. So my first birth was natural.
It was horrible. I was in labor for almost three full days and the last twelve hours were a blur of every-muscle-in-my-body screaming in pain and semi-passing out between contractions. The whole experience was so bad that I was not able to bond with my first baby until months after she was born. Most mothers bond with their newborns within hours of birth.
For my second baby, I asked for an epidural. It helped tremendously, but I waited too long, so by the time it went into effect, I was already too exhausted to feel any positive feelings during the birth. If I'd gone through a third labor (I had a hysterectomy in my thirties), I would have called the hospital before we left home and asked them to have the epidural ready as soon as I entered the doors.
Some women's bodies are, pardon the word, natural birthing bodies. I've talked to a few women whose entire time of labor and delivery were around five hours. For one woman I knew, it was three! But for the rest of us, labor is long and painful, and when done naturally, STINKS!
A few other things to keep in mind about the "natural" way of doing things. Back when women had to give birth naturally because there were no other alternatives, babies died. Lots of them. Women in labor died a lot more often, too.
When talking about natural things in food, keep in mind that things like toenails, spit, urine, poop, and other undesirables are also natural. And back when foods were completely natural, far more people, especially children, died of starvation.
I had the mumps as a child because back then, the mumps vaccine did not exist. (Yes, I'm old. But I don't mind. A subject for another day.) Obviously, I didn't die. However, I did develop a fever one night that spiked so high I started hallucinating. I started talking about all the fireflies around me and tried to catch them.
My mother called the hospital intending to take me to the emergency room, but there had been a bad multi-vehicle crash on the freeway and victims were being taken to multiple hospitals for treatment. My mother was told, "Once these car victims get here, we won't have time or a bed for your daughter. Besides, mumps is just a childhood disease. She will be fine! But if she still has a fever in the morning, bring her in."
I did recover (barely, according to my mother), but my ears were damaged. I cannot have the slightest of cold air on my ears or I get terrible earaches. I can't even have a car's air-conditioning blowing on my face. I have to carry "ear covers" with me all the time, including the summer, in case a building I go into has the air-conditioning up too high. I wish the vaccine had been available in my childhood, which would have spared me my ear problem.
I'm not saying we should not be vigilant when a medical professional recommends medication. I took my one-year-old in for his one year physical and after checking his ears the doctor said, "He has an ear infection. Here is a prescription for antibiotics." I thought that was odd, because my son had no symptoms whatsoever. But I was a young, inexperienced mother, so I filled the prescription and gave the antibiotics to my son. He developed diarrhea and it was awful. I stopped the antibiotics and he was fine. A few years later I read in the newspaper that pediatric research showed that not all childhood ear infections were serious enough for antibiotics, especially if the child was not experiencing symptoms. Caution was urged. I think that is what my son had.
Okay, I went off on a tangent. Back to I'm not saying we should not be vigilant when medication is recommended. But those recommendations should not be dismissed out of hand just because they are . . . well, medications.
The young woman at the beginning of this post had multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease. Ulcerative colitis is an autoimmune disease. But because of it's, again pardon the pun, "nature," UC has one huge, rotten facet to it.
Ulcerative Colitis is one of those diseases that invites "natural" healing all over the place. It is wholly about the gut. And a person's diet affects the gut, right? Exercise and stress affects the gut, yes? Well, then, you don't need invasive, expensive, loaded with side-effects medication that you have to remember to take! Just do it naturally. Eat wholesome foods, exercise daily, practice mindfulness, take herbal supplements, get a blender and drink juice drinks loaded with kale and blueberries. That will stop the constant diarrhea, loss of blood, many bathroom trips, and horrendous pain!
Except, no, that is not what will happen. Those of us with UC know different. Because ulcerative colitis is an autoimmune disease, if we don't take our medication, the inflammation in our colons will worsen over time, resulting in far-worse symptoms and the possible removal of the colon.
Medications are not evil. They can be misused. They can be over-prescribed. They are far over-priced. Some have unpleasant side-effects. Navigating pharmaceutical protocols for authorizations can be maddening.
But in the end, medications save lives. And they allow, and have allowed, a livable quality of life. For millions of people. One disease and condition at a time. One person at a time.
Like me. Without medications, I would be dead. There is no doubt about that.
So, please. Just take your medicine!
© Colitis Senioritis 2025
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