Alternative Medicine

During a clinic visit a few winters ago, while discussing ways to keep lung infections at bay, my doctor said that my option was to start a low dose antibiotic (azithromycin, I think it was) that I would take every day. When I said that I wasn’t too keen on taking antibiotics forever, her reaction was ‘Oh, I guess you like to take a more “natural approach” to your treatment’.

Well, now, I’m not opposed to going to doctors and taking prescription medicine, but being on antibiotics forever doesn’t seem like the best approach at this point in my life. I know that sometime down the road it may come to that, but for now I’d rather avoid that particular option if possible. I was a little put off by her tone and unwillingness to look into or discuss other means. Around this same time the owner of the print shop that I was working at became a doTerra rep.

I’m sure at this point most everyone has heard of doTerra, or any of the other essential oil companies that are being marketed on facebook by people on your friends list. After listening to my boss talk about how amazing the oils are I decided to try some for myself. I bought a few that I thought would be beneficial to me, such as Breathe, DigestZen & Peppermint, and after a couple months of ordering through my co-worker I decided to sign up for myself so I could get the discount. I won’t go into all of the drama, but let’s just say that having your boss be in your upline of a multi-level marketing scheme is not the best idea. I was told that I HAD to spend the minimum amount every month or her to make money and host so many classes and recruit more reps. Well, after using the oils and dealing with the drama for over a year, I wasn’t seeing the miraculous changes to my health that I was being told that I should be (according to my boss, I shouldn’t even need to take any prescription medicine, including my digestive enzymes as long as I was using the oils. For the record, I was not gullible enough to quit my normal routine, I had really only wanted something to supplement it from the beginning) so I decided I needed a break from it altogether.

Fast forward to a year and a half later, I feel like I’m ready to really give them another shot. I probably won’t do a lot of what I was told to do before, such as put the oils in my drinking water and spend a small fortune on the doTerra vitamins. But I would like to see if I can’t study it a little more on my own and figure out a way to use them that works for me.

I just got a diffuser so that I can have Breathe or Lavender in the air at night while I’m sleeping and I’ve also jumped on the Himalayan Salt Lamp bandwagon. I’ve had a lamp at home since last winter and I can’t with 100% certainty say that it’s helping my lungs, but the shelf that it sits on is dust free compared to others in the same room, so I know it definitely keeps the dust at bay. I just got a small one that I can keep at work since that’s where I spend the majority of my waking hours, to hopefully cut down on dust and allergens as well as help with the winter blues that I seem inclined to experience. I would love to be able to diffuse oils at work as well, but since I work in an open cubicle style office, I don’t think it would be very respectful to my co-workers. I’m going to give this some time to see what I think of these antibiotic alternatives.