Huckstering, Dangerous Quackery, and Why I'm Still Here

Bear with me everybody. I feel like I need to purge all the negative stuff about my experience with oils before I can truly move forward, open minded, in my experiments with them. The last post focused on the multi-level marketing salesmanship surrounding the oils world,

and this one is going to focus on the way Jane Average is using them for medicinal purposes.

If you are a member of any of the numerous social media forums dedicated to the use of essential oils, you will read a lot of intriguing stories from users. There are lots of questions about how to treat specific maladies, and there are plenty of fantastic sounding testimonies which sound pretty legit unless you have this darn nursing background, and can blow holes in their stories as wide as that iceberg did to the Titanic.

Example? Ladies who swear oils cured their ailment, when in fact oils had nothing to do with it. Case in point? A mom of a toddler posted a picture of her rash, along with an explanation that her child had a fever a couple of days before the rash appeared. The picture, to the medically trained, is a classic case of Roseola, a benign, self limiting viral rash. Fellow oilers threw out lots of suggestions for how to treat this rash, diagnosed the rash as multitudes of WRONG things. This rash needed no treating. Lavender, everyone said. Melaleuca, frankincense...put it on the rash diluted, put it on the rash neat, diffuse it, swallow some OnGuard beadlets yada yada. And do you know what?! The rash went away! Mama, I hate to tell you, but that rash was going away whether you slathered that baby in voodoo juice, or you didn't. But if you don't know, you don't know. And THIS is how essential oil huckstering capitalizes on the medically naive.

I mentioned in my post Wacky and Weird the way oils are used for some bizarre things, like expelling demons from one's kitchen. I won't rehash that. I will just say that on any day, there are dozens of posts on these Facebook sites from people who are "treating" common ailments that normal, busy people usually just ignore as a minor inconvenience. Everything from hiccups to hang nails, to mosquito bites. Helpful oilers will say, "I have an oil for that!" I say, "why do you need to fix what doesn't need fixing?" Then there are the oilers who are just flat out dangerous, when they advise people to use oils when what the ailment warrants is a doctor. Example: a mom posted a picture of her son's massively swollen eyelid. Huge blepharitis. Probably periorbital cellulitis, that without prompt antibiotic treatment could lead to abscess, meningitis, hydrocephalus, blindness...you know, bad stuff. But hey, it's just your eye, so by all means, trust the advice of strangers on a social media site who wouldn't pass a pathophysiology test if their own eyeballs depended on it. You can't argue with them. They have done their "research," which never involves reading a medical journal or taking an entry-level biology course.They mean well, but they are not doctors. So this ticks me off.

Then there are reasonable oilers.There are experimenters like me. There are those who are truly interested in the mechanism of action at a molecular level. We see straight through the endorsements and "education" of the paid spokesmen, former doctors and nurses, who now own stock in the MLM oil company. We're drawn to the legitimate possibilities of oils over other non-medical pursuits, such as buying that supplement from GNC or Complete Nutrition that guarantees you will drop two pants sizes, increase your metabolism, and supercharge your sex drive if you just spend $49.99 on their gallon bucket of powder drink mix.
And so I am still here, the Newbie Oiler, and the journey continues. To keep your attention, I now present this:

Six, 15ml bottle of essential oils, for a grand total of $28 and change, including shipping. Experiment ON! Details to follow!

Is is More about Getting Healthy, or More about Getting Paid?

In my last blog entry, which by the way, was so scandalous it got me banned and blocked from my local oil group’s facebook site, I mentioned that I was wresting with the use of essential oils as a treatment modality, and with the multilevel marketing scheme that inflates prices and creates brand loyalty through brainwashing.

Man, did I ignite a crap storm.

Apparently, administrators of the Facebook site felt my line of questioning was NOT TO BE TOLERATED, and needed to be SQUASHED before any of the other sheep under their “care” could read it and be de-programmed. This was all done under the guise of keeping the site “positive,” as I was told by a friendly insider. No one contacted me before I was summarily dismissed. I was viewed as a threat for thinking, and expressing those thoughts in writing among people who had previously stated they were all about educating one another, and learning from each other’s successes and failures. I think their idea of what education is, and what it actually is, are at opposite ends of a spectrum.

Of course I predicted this, and thus named the title of that entry “Ready to Be Ex-communicated.” That is precisely what happened. I threatened their cash-flow.

Back in the early 90’s, some people I went to church with at the time were distributors for Amway, which was, if you don’t know, a multilevel marketing scheme selling health and beauty products and home cleaning goods. It was the fad of the day, as was Herbalife. They were fantastic salesmen. They had to be, to convince a single, 20-something with a very tiny income that I should buy hugely overpriced laundry detergent. This laundry detergent was exceptional though, they claimed. It had been “tested” and “certified” and was the “only” pure detergent that wouldn’t harm my skin or my clothes or the environment.  They were not as forthcoming about how they were getting a piece of the pie, and the distributor above them was getting a piece of that pie, and the uppermost level distributors were making bank off my naivety. Live and learn.

Fast forward twenty years to the current MLM fad, essential oils. DoTerra and Young Living make the same claims. Their products are the “only” oils that are “pure,” or “certified therapeutic grade,” or “tested,” which are terms that are actually meaningless and not associated with any independent quality testing standards or FDA regulation. DoTerra says that their oils undergo testing from three independent labs, whom of course DoTerra pays. Draw your own conclusions about the impartiality of their findings.  Oil companies could bottle up dog urine, label it as God’s own sweat, and there is no regulation that will challenge it. Are their products of high quality? Maybe. Can I get the same quality from a non-MLM company for a fraction of the price? I’m about to find out. It might be like in the world of cosmetics, where you really do get what you pay for, where Urban Decay and MAC beat the tar out of Wet-N-Wild and Maybelline. Maybe DoTerra is the premier oil producer. Maybe $5/bottle oil is horribly, woefully inferior. Or, maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle.

I have an order of oils arriving in two days from a non-MLM health company. Average price for a 15ml bottle is around 5 bucks. Stay tuned for my impressions J

Ready to be Ex-Communicated From the Oils World

It's been awhile since I wrote a blog entry here. I've been wrestling with myself, my science background, my understanding of pathophysiology and disease processes. The skeptic in me has won out for the past months, and although I keep getting my monthly shipments of oils from The Company, the orders have been getting smaller. As the next month's order comes due to be shipped, I can think of nothing I actually want. This post is overtly negative, overtly critical, and overtly thought-provoking. If challenges to the use of oils, and to your particular brand are offensive to you, stop reading now. If you can stand the scrutiny of a critical thinker, read on.

I have been thinking of the almost-religious zeal with which some oilers profess complete alliance to The Company, and I began to wonder if, because they are themselves spending hundreds of dollars a month on the products, and because their own financial gain from the business side of selling oils is at risk if their product was only so-so, have they come to believe their own talking points as holy doctrine? Is it possible, that if The Company packaged their product in a generic-labeled vial, sold it at Walmart, and asked for no multi-level marketing buy-in, would the users have as stunning of success stories? How much of the use of these oils is because the oils work, and how much is because The Company has a brilliant marketing scheme with millions of devotees?

I ordered The Company's #1 selling product, the combo-vitamin/supplement trio. It's a lot of pills, and its pricy. But, if it did what everyone says it does in terms of boosting energy and increasing overall feelings of wellness, it might be worth it. The man and I began with half the daily recommended dose. After three weeks, nothing. I was ok with feeling nothing after one week, even two weeks, but after three weeks??? Disappointment. I quit. If I had bought a product at Walmart that failed to deliver on its promises after three weeks, I would toss it, as would most people, and admit that I'd been suckered by a slick advertisement. I'm sure some will say I didn't give it enough time, or should have taken the full 12-pills-a-day dose. Maybe they are right. Or maybe I just saved myself almost $900/year on placebos.

The other thing that feeds my skepticism is reading the posts on the social media sites from fellow oilers. Once in awhile, someone will post about side effects they are having from using an oil, or lack of achieving the intended benefit from using them. The respondents always have the same answer. The oil isn't the problem, YOU are. YOU are toxic. You are having negative effects because the oils are ridding you of the bad things in your body, and its manifesting in rashes, or headaches, or breathing difficulties, or whatever is happening to the oiler. Or, the respondent will tell them they are sensitive to that particular oil, and they should try something else. The nurse in me says, if I take XYZ blend, and my hair starts falling out, and I quit using XYZ blend and my hair stops falling out, maybe I wasn't the problem and maybe the XYZ blend was.Also, the concept among oilers that so many ailments we suffer can be chalked up to having raging Candida infections is categorically, scientifically FALSE, yet even the medically trained oilers among us will testify that this is TRUE, and push products that will fix this "overgrowth of yeast." The point at which cult-like devotion to medically unsound concepts trumps evidence-based, provable, re-creatable science is the point at which I have to check out.

So where does these leave me in my journey with essential oils? I don't know. I may do some experimenting. If a bottle of $30+ with shipping oregano can burn off a skin tag, maybe I will buy the $8 bottle of oregano from the health store and see if it too can effectively treat another skin tag. I know some of you just gasped in horror. The hospital system for which I work does NOT use The Company's products. In fact our clinic pharmacy sells what they do use for about $8/bottle, and the patients are benefitting.  I am not sure if my skepticism is more heavily questioning the concept of oils in healing, or about The Company's multi-level marketing dogma that is making some people at the top extraordinarily wealthy, while the thoroughly brain-washed, average Joe is shelling out double digits for it spuriously effective product.

If I need to be ex-communicated now for having raised these issues, I understand. It is, no doubt, heresy to some. I also invite considerate feedback in the comments section here, if someone wishes to point out flaws in my thinking. I am eager to keep learning. I love a good debate. I am not here to antagonize, or to ridicule, or to tell others what to believe, or to convince anyone what they should and shouldn't spend their money on, but to provoke thought. If you are also, let's hear it!

Adderall or Intune?

I'm an RN at one of the two largest healthcare organizations in southwest Wisconsin. I am a member on the council that guides outpatient nursing practice across the system. We get to help create and direct process improvement to make care delivery more efficient and more standardized. We're the sounding board for new proposals that may change nursing practice. Basically our job is to fix problems, and troubleshoot new initiatives. Today was our monthly meeting. First on the agenda? The integrative health nurse came to discuss essential oils!

The inpatient world has been using EO's for a few years. Patients recovering from surgery may have toes anointed with lemongrass or lavendar for pain control, the nauseated may have cottonballs dabbed with ginger taped to their hospital gown. People coming off nicotine from not being able to smoke in the hospital are being treated effectively with black pepper. The use of oils has gained more traction as nurses see success stories, and patients opt for more natural remedies before immediately jumping for medicinal ones.

I work with children, from one day old through college graduate. A good part of my day is working with children with ADHD, behavior disorders, autism spectrum disorders, mental health disorders, and the traditional western medicine cure is always a visit to the pharmacy. Sometimes drugs work, a lot of the time they create other problems. Many parents want another alternative. Some parents agonize over having few alternatives but to chemically scramble the way their child's brain receives and reacts to stimulation. These parents want another way.

What if essential oils gained more respect as a complementary method of treating these disorders? What if they were trialed before drugs? Certainly plenty of oilers who are treating their own children would attest that there is improvement in symptoms, sometimes even complete control of symptoms. For those for whom oils alone isn't enough, maybe oils help that child deal with the side effects instead of prescribing a second and even third drug to manage those? Maybe oils prevents the need for increasing dosages? There are so many possibilities!

Its something I am pondering bringing forth to our department's leadership. I am fortunate to work with physicians and nurse practitioners who truly care about the health and well being of their patients, so we'll see if they are ready to expand their treatment repertoire to include essential oils!

Sharing is Caring

Word is getting around that I'm "doing the oils thing." My colleagues are amused by the stories I share about successes and failures in my learning journey. Because we are in the medical field, I feel the constant urge to defend my experimentation with oils, even though everyone has been very positive and inquisitive about them.
Last week, at the most inopportune time possible, I was chatting with some colleagues about the spray bottle of bathroom odor eliminator that I made and brought in for use in one of our restrooms. If you haven't heard of "PooPourri," it is wildly expensive mist available commercially that one sprays into the toilet bowl before one....relieves themselves.The essential oils in the spray trap the odor in the water and therefore one never leaves behind a smelly bathroom. I made my own version with a recipe I found online with the same oils the commercial brand uses.  As we were chatting about the poo spray, none other than our administrative director and the vice president of operations decided to make rounds in our area, and capture our crew yukking it up about....poop. Oddly enough, these individuals also poo, and readily admitted it, and expressed earnest interest in how to mask or hide their own bathroom odors with my miracle spray. Score one for executive level poo and essential oils!

That same day, I gave a colleague a rollerball bottle of "Liquid Xanax" for her husband to use on their upcoming flight to Florida. Hubby apparently gets a little keyed up on planes, and develops a nervous cough and throat clearing tic that makes my friend want to suffocate him with a flight pillow. I instructed her to apply to the soles of his feet, frequently. We'll see if he makes it back to Wisconsin feeling mellow, or with feathers lodged in his throat.

Having read about Josh's skin tag testimony with oregano oil, everyone I know has now found something on their bodies they want to try to burn off. That skin tag has its own cult following, and I don't have enough oregano oil to go around!
Do you have a fun story about an experience with sharing oils? Feel free to comment below :)

It Worked!!! It Worked!!!

I debated writing about this for public consumption, but it's my first real, honest-to-goodness testimony. Even though I did not experience it personally, my man did, so close enough.

Perhaps you read my experimentation with oregano oil on my skin bumps on my face. The man, Josh, was so amused by observing my application experience he asked me to treat a skin tag. His skin tag is in a very sensitive location which I shall refer to non-specifically as the "groin region." As happened with me, several seconds after applying the oregano to Josh's precariously located skin tag, eyes began to widen, breathing came in gasps, and the man's usual stoic composure evaporated til he was a whiny two year old begging for the "owie" to stop. Yep, oregano oil burns....

Fast forward twelve hours later, we're arriving home from our respective workplaces, and the man eagerly drops down to his skivvies in the kitchen, excited for me to see the results of last night's treatment. And I'll be darned, but the skin tag is gone. After one treatment. GONE! Poof!

Also vanishing is the wall of skepticism that I had put up about the use of oils. Which is fantastic timing, considering my monthly shipment of new oils just arrived, and I am about to embark on creating new rollerball concoctions, new diffuser blends, homemade PooPourri, and a myriad of other fun stuff. Stay tuned for more adventures!

Adventures in Self-Injurious Behavior

As I have entered my forties, things are happening to my body. I have developed a couple of  BB sized, raised, flesh colored bumps on my face close to my hairline. Probably no one knows they are there but me. Of all the things unsightly about my earthly temple,such as the fifty extra pounds clinging to my hips, arms, thighs, belly, butt, and chins, these keratotic papules are what I obsess about.
I know all about oregano being a "hot" oil. We are warned to use extreme caution when applying "neat" to our skin, because it can burn. Heeding that advice, I have been dabbing, ever-so-scarcely, my funny skin bumps with oregano dotted onto the head of a Q-tip. Nothing was happening. It's been a couple of weeks. I barely felt anything, certainly not burning, and my bumps haven't gone anywhere.
So tonight I put a dropper bottle cap on the oil bottle and used the glass pipette to directly apply the oregano to the bumps. The application was much more precise and more of the oil went on the bumps instead of getting absorbed into the Q-tip.

For awhile, I begged Josh to call the fire department. The only thing that will save me is the blast from the fire hose, soaking me with the pressurized million gallons of cold water per second. It feels like I have peppered my face with burning hot lava. My face is red, much like the fire truck I request. It appears my face is melting as the little bumps are actually weeping. I am weeping.

Ok, I'm not really weeping, Its not THAT painful, but it is pretty dang uncomfortable. As the burn subsides, and the redness dissipates, I think I finally have my first testimony of oils doing what they are said to do. Burning my face off was not how I wanted to confirm the effectiveness of oils, but alas, I think my skin bump's days are numbered.

Wacky and Weird

When you join the world of The Company (I will refrain from using the name of the company whenever possible, and this refer to it only as The Company), you are granted membership to many Facebook groups. Some groups focus on the business side of The Company, and some focus on peer support, asking advice and recommendations on oil treatment options for various conditions. There's even one for use of oils on animals. These groups are both enormously beneficial and helpful, and they are at times maddening and hilarious. I will share my interpretation (paraphrased) of some of the ones I found amusing. Warning: I am going to make fun of fellow oilers. If you can't stomach lighthearted mockery, or feel the need to defend even the most absurd use of oils, you should probably skip over the Wacky and Weird posts.

"I have an African Gray Parrot and he is very noisy, singing and chattering all day long. What oils can I diffuse or put on his feet to make him be quiet?"

"This is super duper embarrassing, but my dog eats his own poop and of course has terrible breath. Is there an oil I can use to make him stop this?! It's SO gross!"

And one I just read today, "I have a ghost in my house. He opens all the drawers in my kitchen when I am gone. What oil will rid my house of undead spirits?"

Please remember I'm new, and to me using oils to try to change the normal behavior of animals seems, well, out-there. And ghosts? I can't even....
Maybe in a few years these things will seem perfectly reasonable to me as a seasoned oiler, in which case I grant my family permission to stage an intervention to deprogram me.

Earnestly Seeking My “A-HA!” Moment

 I want it to be true, what all the Die Hard Oilers swear is true. Who wouldn’t rather treat their disease with a natural substance created by God over a toxic chemical stew brewed up in a pharmaceutical laboratory? As I am learning about oils, I discovered that they have been used medicinally for thousands of years, and that they aren’t really a new fad at all.

But in learning that, the wheels of skepticism begin turning in my brain, stubbornly tethered to the traditional medicine/science foundation that has been my life for 20+ years. Why, if oils were the cure a millennia ago, did we not have immunity to or cures for cholera, typhoid, polio, measles, small pox, tuberculosis, malaria, dysentery, influenza and all the other pandemics that killed so many in history? Why, if oils were doing a fine job on their own, did our pioneering forefathers of modern medicine have to get busy finding cures and remedies and vaccines to prevent and manage disease?

Then, the traditional medicine/science side of me makes the counterargument. Modern medine’s cures are often worse than the disease itself. In the 60’s, Thalidomide was welcome relief to pregnant mommies with morning sickness, until their babies were born without arms and legs. How do we know that the pills in out medicine cabinet today won’t be found to be the main cause of babies being born with third eyes and furry tails tomorrow?

So I fight with myself. And I choose to continue exploring the benefits of essential oils. I remain open minded and hopeful that I will have a testimony to publish, highlighting the way in which the oils helped me or my family. Stay tuned for that post!

Fungi, Feet and Pepperoni Pizza

My boyfriend Josh has gnarly toenails. He got a fungal infection in Iraq, courtesy of 120 degree days and combat boots. The treatment for this infection is lengthy and has the notable side effect of being potentially toxic to the liver. Throwing caution and his liver to the wind, Josh completed the lab screening and first month of treatment but never completed the second or third month of pills.
I eagerly scoured the internet for sage advice from knowledgeable oilers and came up with a protocol of melaleuca and oregano, in a roller ball topped off with FCO (fractionated coconut oil, for all you non-oily types) applied nightly. After a month of faithful application, his toes are still gnarly, with maybe ever-so-slight clearing at the nail base. We will continue on, for at least another two months before declaring success or failure. Maybe we'll add in some Frankincense. Maybe we'll go to twice a day application. Thanks to the oregano, the pungent aroma of pepperoni pizza permeates the air of our bedroom, which is a special bonus.

 

Oils....you mean like motor oil? Or olive oil?

I will first begin by admitting that I am a skeptic about most alternative or complementary methods of health. By profession, I've spent 18 years as a nurse, so quite well acquainted with the traditional Western medicine. Chiropractic medicine even stretches my limits, if I am going to be completely honest. I've never met anyone who needed to go to a chiropractor except people who go to chiropractors. Twenty odd years ago, in nursing school, I remember rolling my eyes at the guest speaker who came to talk to class about Reiki, while whirling his hands around our heads like some mystic playing with our life forces. Whack job. Just like the acupuncturist, the herbalist, and the Yogi.

Now, as a mellowed-out forty-something, I am considerably more open minded about health and wellness, and how people choose to interpret and use all the options available to them. I'm much more Libertarian in my views, and as long as you're not hurting me or my loved ones, I don't care if you like getting your spine readjusted, or ingest certain herbs to calm you down, or find enjoyment bending yourself like a pretzel in a hot yoga class. To each their own.

In late 2014, I began noticing a trendy new fad circulating around on social media. It seems everyone was suddenly into ESSENTIAL OILS, and for the low, low price of a few hundred dollars, you could join and find relief from your eczema, infertility, constipation, ADHD, and more! Oh, and by joining, you by default could have your own business selling the oils, convert new disciples into the oils world, and potentially earn a modest income if you worked very hard.

Okie dokie. I'll pass.

Until I started reading some testimonials on Facebook from people I knew and did not believe to be insane. In particular, a gentleman whom I have known since middle school, who has been debilitated for a decade with Multiple Sclerosis, started posting testimonials. This is a sincere, Christian man, salt of the Earth kind of guy. He hadn't been able to move his lower extremities for years. Then one day I saw a video he posted where he was not only wiggling his toes, but lifting his legs up away from his wheelchair! This got my attention. Or at least my curiosity.

I went to a couple of oils classes, ordered an oils kit, and decided to give it a shot. This blog will    take you on my journey.