Dueling doctors

At my last appointment, my herbalist says, "Talk to your MD about your levels of xyz hormone, I think they're a little low. Maybe you might need to get a little extra, maybe with product XYZ...?"

I checked the web under Product XYZ, and I knew immediately it was a bad idea. The pictures were so happy... happy happy people... don't you want to be as happy as those people? Of course you do. It's very easy. Ask your doctor if XYZ is right for you. Don't ask about the side effects, leave that to your doctor (yeah, we gotta tell you, they're down there in ant-ass printing, 6-point type). But... Look! Look how happy they are! You want to be just like them, right?

Now, there are some things we all know are important under some very specific circumstances, but that you never never see "happy happy people" ads for. "Ask your doctor if insulin is right for you." "Ask your doctor if vitamin D is right for you." "Ask your doctor if thyroxin (thyroid hormone) is right for you." And, by the way, at the pharmacy, said things are always CHEAP. Not like, say, the M.S. Drug Du Jour, costs how many hundreds of dollars per dose, which you need to take every day (maybe twice a day) for the rest of your life, ask your doctor if that's right for you, look at these happy happy people, you want to be happy like them, don't you?

Anyway, back to the story... So, herbalist wants me to ask MD about hormone xyz.

I go to MD, ask him about it; MD says that this hormone depletes with age anyway, that's as normal as normal gets, that almost nobody needs additional doses of that hormone, which by the way, if you get it administered with that particular drug XYZ, has been known to stop your heart. So no, it's not "right for me," and not taking it doesn't help make me happy, it helps keep me alive.

But, MD says, because I've kinda whined about missing it and how much I used to enjoy it, and my spirits have been kinda low for a while now, he wants me to go out and find, and enjoy, some crème brûlée. A spirit lifter (which I think it would be, truth be told). It was always a big favorite of mine, and especially, a green-tea version! Yum, yum, YUM!!! That would definitely lift my spirits! (At least, we think so, maybe...)

Cut to anti-dairy herbalist. The same herbalist who told me to ask my MD about hormone xyz, who has also put me on a sixty-five-underlines-no-means-NO dairy diet. It's really, really bad for you, he says. It could, quite possibly, stop your heart.

Well, so I've got doc "A" telling me to look into some hormone that just might stop my heart, and doc "B" telling me that I have to to have a dessert that just might stop my heart.

Well, the Neurological Highway is never short on laugh lines, is it?

But, the story will, I think, have a happy ending. Herbalist will adjust his formulas, MD will be happy because I've not only found a place to get a VEGAN version of said favorite dessert (ah, L.A. can be quite the culinary paradise!) I'm well on my way to figure out how to make it myself, dairy free. I get my spirit lifted, my heart keeps working, both doctors are happy. Everybody wins!

Now, those of us on the M.S. Highway have to be our own best advocates, and do our own research, don't we?

These skills assist us in the most amazing ways, don't they?