The trouble with "self-help medical" books....

Ok.  I'm an intelligent woman.  I'm also a woman with endometriosis, who is gluten-free.  

I went gluten-free because of one of these self-help books on endometriosis.   The problem with the book was that it had conflicting information.   It would say "do this" and then a couple paragraphs later, "do the opposite".  It did say that the majority of women with endo have trouble with wheat, dairy, or both.   I figured it wouldn't hurt to try an elimination diet.   Cut both out, completely, for about a month, maybe a bit longer.

When I couldn't take it anymore, I bought a tub of ice cream.  No issues.  Went back on the diet.  Tried introducing wheat back in.  Problems.

Of course, what I didn't realize was that going gluten-free would not enable me to be tested for celiac.  Because you have to be eating gluten, and every time I've eaten gluten, it kills me. (and this has happened accidentally enough times that I know it isn't the power of positive thinking)

But recently I read Jennifer's Way.  Which was a decent book in as far as it went, but then, in the last few sections, she started talking medical/diet/etc.  And there, the book started venturing into "mystical medicine" territory.  

This happens with celiac and endo really often, because neither condition is well supported medically.   People come up with their own tricks, which work for them, but they aren't necessarily supported by science.

Take the thing which devalued Jennifer's Way, for me.  This was the idea that you can change the PH of your body by what you eat or drink.   Um, really, no.   And I'm not sure that powdered or liquid vitamins are any more easily absorbed than the horse pills, because horse pills do break down in your stomach.

With endo, there is a little bit of the same thing.   Endo is medicated in a way that basically goes back to Victorian thinking.  HORMONES!    Which only worked for me if I was on them, and I've had doctors say horrible sexist things to me.  Just ugh.  And with endo, as with celiac, it takes a while to diagnose, and can really only be confirmed with surgical/invasive diagnostics.  

Both are treated somewhat cavalierly by doctors.  I was told by one, well, we'll do a blood test to see if you are celiac.  I was appalled.  You can't tell!  I'd have to be eating gluten, and there is no way I will do that!

So is it any wonder that people come up with their own routines?  With a little bit of magical thinking?

But the problem is when the magical thinking gets shared as fact.  In otherwise well-written books.  In otherwise factual books.  I just wish they would call it the "mystical medicine" section.  We could have the: facts about the disease section, and then the "magic remedy" section, of what worked for me, but doesn't actually make a lot of sense when you think about it.