Nose Job

What the hell is wrong with people.

I've just been watching The Ultimate Fighter, which is a silly reality show where bunches of fighters live and train together.

At one point, an entire team of fighters allowed themselves to be subjected to Cranial Facial Release. This is a bullshit therapy where a balloon is inserted into the subject's nostril, which is then rapidly inflated with fluid. The idea is that the force of the expansion will be sufficient to alter and correct the positioning of the cranial bone structure.

This treatment was created by some Chiropractor back in 1921, and is absolute nonsense, but even if it were a real treatment for some condition or other, why would it a healthy bunch of athletes allow it to be done to them?

Keep in mind that these are tough people who are used to getting slugged really hard, and choked, and having arms and legs yanked apart. They were all kicking and screaming about how horrible it was.

Noticing how stupid this all looked, I spent about ten minutes on the Google, and found did some research. I didn't go to any sites that lambasted the procedure, but instead went to several that promoted it. I read what practitioners claimed it was doing, and their own theories. It sounded like absolute nonsense; dangerous nonsense.

And these guys were letting some witchdoctor blast their sinuses with sufficient force that is either doing nothing at all, or if powerful enough to do what is being attempted, could mess them up royally.

It's like going to the spa on a cruise ship. They have all these seaweed-based detoxing wraps, and stinky-mud facials, each of which is supposed to do a host of things to purify and detox and who knows what else. It is all presented in a glowing, matter-of-fact style, as if any part of were true.

I know tons of people who run to the Chiropractor, but who would never go to their MD for the same condition. Let's say you've hurt your shoulder. A Chiropractor will almost universally perform some sort of spinal alignment in amongst whatever he suggests. A Medical Doctor will treat your injury without the heavy, spinal bias. If your spine is crooked, he'll address that. If it isn't, he won't.

Maybe Chiropractors can help with actual, back-related issues, but they adjust spines for almost everything. People think Medical Doctors are just pill pushers, but I've been many times with a wide-range of issues, and more often than not get nothing pill related at all as part of my treatment.

Did you know that you can become a Chiropractor after 3 years of university with a C+ average. That scares me right off the bat. I don't want anybody who earned a C+ at university working on my spine. They were either lazy in school, or just maybe they worked really hard and it was the best they could do. Of course, that is just in ordinary old undergraduate work. Medical Doctors have to have a full undergrad degree, with much more medically appropriate classwork, and a minimum GPA of B+. It is so competitive, that rarely does anybody with less than an A average gets accepted. They cannot have slacked off or been dumb.

Medical Doctors start their medical training with degrees already packed with much of what a doctor needs to know. This is followed by another 4 years of strictly medical training towards a medical degree. Any slacking and they are out. After that, they work supervised in hospitals as doctors for three years to complete what is called a residency requirement. Many don't make it. At that point, they are fully licensed. Altogether that makes up 11 years of training.

And yet many think these kind of folks are somehow robots following the dictates of main-stream medicine. Robots? Really?

I bet that after the airing of the stupid balloon-up-the-nose nonsense that was shown on a reality program that tens of thousands of people will be interested in having it done to them. It will be a Gold Rush for people willing to inflate the noses of the gullible.

Doctors don't know anything, but quack nose inflators do?

Still not convinced? Think of it this way.

Suppose you had nothing wrong with you at all, and you went to a physician, maybe for a checkup. The good Doctor agrees that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. He then goes on to suggest that, although nothing is wrong with you, that you let him rapidly expand a balloon inside your sinuses, which he says will magically re-align your cranial bones, and hurt like hell. You ask why, and he honestly says, “because some people think it's a good thing.”

Would you jump for joy and say, “where do I sign up?” Of course you wouldn't. Likely, you'd seriously consider finding a new physician.

So why do so many people jump for joy when a nasal-balloon scam shows up, or a body detox, or a cleanse?

Wait? You say you believe in detox treatments? They all claim they are removing different things from your body. The universal ones are sugars, and carbs (usually listed separately for some reason), caffeine, cola drinks (which are actually sugar and caffeine and shouldn't have a separate category, and alcohol. OK, let's pretend they are all poisons and you want your body cleared of them all. What do you need to do to get rid of every hint of sugar and other carbs, caffeine, and alcohol? Nothing. All of those items are easily metabolized, and result in CO2, O2, and H2O. There is nothing left in a few hours at all other than two kinds of air and one kind of liquid, none of which are harmful to your body, and all of it leaves via the normal channels.

Let's also say your body were to get rid of every hint of sugar, other carbs, caffeine, and alcohol, what would the net result be? No problem with losing the caffeine or booze. You'd better be ready for a meal as without any carbs you'd be approaching starvation, but as your brain would stop functioning and die before you could take a bite you'd already be dead. Your brain needs glucose, a sugar, to function at all.

If there is anything REALLY harmful in you, it doesn't get removed by mud facials, green tea, seaweed, or kale; it's your kidneys, liver, and gut bacteria that do the work, depending if the poison is in your bloodstream or digestive tract.

How about a nice cleanse? Maybe you decide to totally fast for a while, or maybe with some nice juice. Your guts don't actually need cleaning, and doing so isn't doing them any favour. We all have a working relationship with our gut bacteria. They help break things down into a digestible form, and protect us from certain threats, and get to live off a small share of what we eat. Stop eating, and they start to die. The more that die off, the less healthy you are gonna be after your nice cleanse.

Maybe the motivation has something to do with doctors sometimes being wrong. Of course they are.

I suppose it is better to be certain about these things, and picking a quack cure removes all doubt about whither something is going to work or not.

Unless you're up for a nice placebo, alongside of damaged sinuses.