Holistic Medicine...What a Scam

I talked to this holistic medicine guy recently. Not by choice. He and I were at the same dinner party (how frou-frou) and the host so graciously introduced us. Please note: I call him a holistic medicine guy, not a holistic medicine doctor. That's because he's not a doctor, he holds no M.D., as a matter of fact, he's a chiropractor. What a quack.

I should preface this by saying that I actually came into this with an open mind. I mean the shit I've been suffering from is rather bizarre and I was open to getting fixed. Clearly I had no idea what this guy did.

Mistake #1: Talking to this guy in the first place. He was dressed entirely in black. He had a pony tail, two earrings in one ear (none in the other), and a facial hair style that I can only describe as "never fashionable". But I'm a nice guy, I don't judge right away, I wait until after I don't like you.

Mistake #2: Telling him my relevant medical history. Like any good fortune teller, this guy was excellent at reading his surroundings. We made it a billion times easier for him by telling him what was wrong with me in the first place. Damn.

Mistake #3: Letting him "ask my body a few questions." Before you even ask, this is 100% as awkward as it sounds. Let me walk you through this little disaster. He had me stand directly across from him with my arm straight out to my side. It was that scene in Titanic where Kate Winslett is standing in the front of the boat with her arms out. Except she would only have one arm. And Leonardo Di Caprio wouldn't be behind her. He would then push my arm down towards the side of my body, apparently this was the Q&A period. He moved very fast, and had me place my hand in various places on my torso, apparently diagnosing me.

A quick aside: I think one of the reasons he moved so fast was so that I didn't have time to figure out what exactly he was doing. I mean anything is nifty, but if you have enough time, you can figure anything out.

Anyway, there were times where I could withstand his pushes and areas where I could not. This clearly meant that I had problems with certain parts of my anatomy and not others. Whether he could push my arm down. Right. Anyway, I started to notice a disturbing trend. When he was unable to push my arm down, he would pull his elbow in and grunt, in a concerted show of strength. Okay....thats believable. He finally decided that I had a problem with the bacteria in my stomach and that I should take this supplement. He confirmed this by being able to push my arm down, but not being able to push it down when he produced a jar of some supplement and put that next to my chest.

Let me just clarify the audacity of this. He had me point to my stomach (apparently where I was being questioned) and then pushed my arm down. It went down. He then put a closed glass bottle where my finger was and pushed my arm again. It didn't go down, and he happily proclaimed that he could "walk on that arm." So let me get this straight. My stomach somehow recognized that the substance I was deficient in was in close proximity to my body. Let's say my eyes told it. It, in turn, was kind enough to relay this information to my arm muscle, essentially saying "you can be strong now, the objective is in sight." What a bunch of bullshit. I mean oh yeah, it looks good if you are a monkey, or have an IQ below 70, but if any person put any amount of thought into this, you would see how utterly ridiculous this proposition was.

OK, now that I've been rambling for quite some time, let me wrap this up quickly

Mistake #4: Not punching him in the mouth.

So holistic medicine, the art of studying the entire body, or something like that. As far as I can tell, it's like communism, great on paper but pretty shitty in practice. Stay tuned next week for a discussion with Gore Vidal.