Unconventional Medicine Goes Haywire

“I had thought fresh fruits were very nutritious and it would not do me harm by injecting them into my body; I had no idea that would get me into such trouble”

said the 51 year old woman from China who was about to lose her life due to injecting herself with a cocktail of more than 20 different varieties of fruit juices.

Unconventional or better known as Complementary and Alternative medications include practices that come under 4 main categories:

• Energy-based medicines which deal with putative and verifiable energy fields.
• Biology-based medicines which use substances found in nature such as herbs, food, vitamins, and other natural substances.
• Manipulative and body-based practices which include movement of body parts.
• Mind-body medicines which take a holistic approach towards health that explores the mind, body, and spirit.

These are medical practices that aren’t necessarily part of a standard healthcare system, and are less expensive in terms of cost. Besides, they are easily available as a result of being practiced by the average number of physicians even in rural areas that include a philosophy and practice which is believed to be highly inclusive of a variety of worldly cultures. 

Hence, being an individual who solely believed in Complementary and Alternative medicines, the 51 year-old Chinese woman gave herself an intravenous infusion by grip, in order to improve her health. Unfortunately, it only resulted in an itchy skin and a rising temperature. She was put into intensive care for 5 consecutive days at the Affiliated Hospital of Xiangnan University of Hunan. The woman was reported to have suffered multiple organ failures all at once; Liver, Kidney, Heart, and including severe Lung damages. The doctors removed the toxins from her blood using dialysis, injected clotting agents into her veins and later gave her antibiotics. She was then moved to the kidney unit for a thorough checkup once again and was discharged after 5 days of intensive treatment safe and sound.

This incident caused a commotion among everyone on Chinese social media where more than 11,000 users posted with the hashtag #OldWomanPutJuiceIntoVeins. Besides, this has also raised questions, whether or not a large number of people have the proper, basic medical knowledge; despite so many other modern inventions and useful scientific medical methods being found and put into practice by so many China-based scientists and related medical students.

Fathima Nuskiya Nasar

An anti-depressant with words and trying to communicate with the world for the same. I write what comes to my mind only to get better with time.

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