The Internet is Not Squeamish

So I've been living with my girlfriend in the same apt. in Oakland since we moved here 3 years ago (which is a crazy thing to be able to say) And in that time we've both developed a lot of digestive problems, some similar, some not, but basically we're both in pain a lot now and weren't before. You'd think, oh well maybe you're both eating crap, but we have very different diets so I always thought it was just a coincidence. (Anyways, is it just me, or does everyone you know have IBS these days? Like seriously, what the hell is going on? How come everybody's in pain? Seriously.) But so a while ago I started noticing that sometimes our bathroom sink water would have lots of strange black flakes in it. It freaked me out a lot and I kept saying 'huh we should call our landlord or something' but I'm lazy I guess and didn't. We finally got a contractor to check out a lot of things in our house recently and while investigating the mysterious black crap, he discovered that in fact it was ALL our water and that our hot water heater was filled with this greasy black tar.

This freaks me out to no end, but he seemed to be not very excited about it, nor was my doctor who said that it wasn't the cause of my problems. Which actually is really annoying cause what the hell is?

Anyways, convinced that my insides were covered in tar, I started combing the web for holistic/herbal type things to cleanse my digestive tract (cause, what else do you have to do?) and my GOD, I stumbled into a world of frank poo talk that truly knocked my socks off. People do some crazy shit to their bodies! After a couple sites, I became convinced that what I really needed was to take Charcoal (Yes, charcoal. As in, the black shit at the bottom of your fireplace. They sell pills at Walgreens.) to absorb all the toxins in my body. [ Word to the wise, do NOT take charcoal pills. You will NOT feel better.] And that was even the mildest of them all. One holistic doctor had people swallowing copious amounts of Epsom Salts (which are normally used for baths and soaks) while another describe in GREAT detail the detriments of intestinal "plaque" which can weigh like 10 or 20 pounds, and actually had actual photos of the end results of their $95 dollar detox kit. NOT for the faint of hearts. That one actually scarred me for life.

It makes me wonder though. We rely for the most part on western medicine and when we do venture into the unknown world of homeopathy its usually for the basics - acupuncture, acupressure, etc. Most western doctors scoff at the idea of intestinal plaque or charcoal therapy, but what if medical history had been different? Are those things so crazy? I don't know. The internet is scary. Part of me wished there was a more consistent system of Peer Reviewed Sites so that I wouldn't have spent the better part of last week doubling over in charcoal-induced pain, but then who's to say that taking random over the counter stomach medicines are any less crazy than Epsom salts? Maybe we do actually have 10 pounds of crud lining the walls of our intestines. I don't know!