Alternative medicine is an interesting topic. Essentially it is any medicine that has not been proven to actually work. It ranges from ancient traditional healing techniques and herbs that may be beneficial, to absolute nonsense. In this article we will focus entirely on the nonsense. On the weird alternative therapies that – even if they work – would still be insane to do. Some are harmful not only to the individual patient but to the animal kingdom. An example would be shark cartilage. Long touted as a natural cure for cancer, hammerhead shark cartilage is ground into a powder and taken as a dietary supplement. Shark cartilage may sound gross but the ten weird alternative therapies I will list in this article dwarf it in their strangeness.
10: Wine Baths
We start with one that actually sounds fun. It turns out some people regularly enjoy bathing in red wine. This expensive spa treatment has been gaining popularity in recent years. Proponents claim there are all kinds of benefits to bathing in wine, pointing to specific compounds within the drink. Being made from grapes, wine contains a wide range of antioxidants like tannin and resveratrol. In theory these are good for your skin, maintaining it’s elasticity and fighting off the signs of ageing. Some agree with this hypothesis while others disagree harshly. For obvious reasons there have been no major scientific studies of the effects of bathing in red wine. It’s just too ridiculous to warrant studying.
9: Vaginal Steaming
This one might sound truly bizarre, but many cultures around the world practice what is known as Vaginal Steaming. As the name suggest, a woman sits above some kind of heat source, while either smoke or steam rise directly into her genitals. Herbs like rosemary and wormwood are often mixed into the water below them. Traditional medicine claims this therapy is good for fertility, general reproductive health, and even sex drive. But like most weird alternative therapies, there is no evidence that it actually does any good. So despite Gwyneth Paltrow promoting it to her audience, vaginal steaming is a bad idea. If anything the practice can risk injury by way of infection or even burns.
8: Blood Injection
Some have in recent years opted for blood doping. Essentially blood is removed from the body, which then undergoes a process known as Centrifugation. This basically just changes the content of the blood slightly to stimulate the growth of red blood cells. When injected back into the body, this newly improved blood can boost performance in athleteles. But it’s not just athletes who opt for this kind of therapy. Some believe it has anti-aging benefits and can help patients recover from injuries. This is just one form of Blood Injection therapy. There are many others. But for all of such therapies, the evidence behind them tends to be mixed at best.
7: Train Track Therapy
This unusual treatment comes from Indonesia. Toted as a cure for various aliments, train track therapy is quite simple. Practitioners literally just lie down on train tracks. That sounds dangerous just on first hearing, but the tracks involved are active. They actually want to get electrocuted. The current that passes through train tracks is usually fairly mild and tolerable. The idea here is that the mild electric currents have some kind of healing effect on the body. Some people lie on the tracks for months or even years on end. There are stretches of specific railways that have come to be known as hotspots for train track therapy. It is actually a trend on the rise, with the Indonesian government worried about it’s widening influence.
6: Ear candling
Among the more popular weird alternative therapies, ear candling involves placing a candle in one ear and lighting it. In theory the heat emitted from the candle caused suction which pulls earwax and toxins out of your ear. At the end of the session there will be a visible substance resembling earwax collected on a piece of paper. But it turns out the reason it resembles earwax is because it is wax – candle wax. Critics point out that the only substance produced by ear candling is what can be found within the candle itself. So it’s unclear why people still do it. Also unclear are the origins of ear candling. Some say it began long ago as a native American tradition. Other say it was born in India or China. The sad truth is we will likely never know, and ear candling will likely continue.
5: Bee Sting Therapy
One of the more scary forms of therapy, this one involves letting bees sting you repeatedly. Proponents claim bee venom is effective in reducing the effects of various illnesses -from cancer to diabetes. Bee venom does contain amino acids that in theory could be good for our bodies. But the venom released in a single sting contains such small quantities of these compounds that you would need to get stung countless times to see any real effect. It’s a very unpleasant discussion, and considering there are better ways to get amino acids, there really is no point. Like vaginal steaming, it is recommended by Gwyneth Paltrow. But like the latter, it can actually be quite dangerous. A woman died from it in 2018 after having a severe reaction to the venom. She had undergone the process before and had previously been tolerant of bee venom.
4: Cave Breathing
Speleotherapy is a type of therapy that involved breathing exercises. That may not sound all too strange, but the breathing exercises are done inside a cave. The idea is that the air quality of the underground climate will benefit the respiratory system. It is especially recommended for people with asthma or related conditions. Patients usually spend a couple of hours a day underground for at least 3 months. One of the problems with this therapy is the lack of variable controls. Some will chose caves that are not too deep underground, while others will chose vast salt mines. Some underground spaces are also more damp than others. These variations will clearly give different results. Maybe this is why there’s no evidence for the benefits that Speleotherapy advocates so often claim.
3: Urine Therapy
Drinking your own urine might not sound like the most appealing idea, but a lot of people have tried it in the hope of achieving some kind of health benefit. Humans have been experimenting with urine therapy since history began. There is evidence it happened in ancient Egypt and Rome. And still today many do it. The idea is that some of the hormones and vitamins produced within out body is not properly absorbed. Excreted in our urine, we might be able to make full use of the lost chemicals if we drink our urine, forcing our bodies to reprocess it once more.
2: Emu oil Therapy
Emu oil Therapy involves ingesting or rubbing oil made from Emu fat onto your skin. Emu oil is full of healthy fatty acid, so it does in fact seem to be good for relieving inflammation, burns, and any kind of blemish. Many people ingest the oil in pill form, with the hope it will aid general health. It is commonly used for joint pain and arthritis, but falls more into the same category as fish oil supplements. While Emu oil therapy is certainly unusual, I really have nothing bad to say about it.
1: Bloodletting
Bloodletting is perhaps the oldest and most notorious of all weird alternative therapies. A common therapy until the early 1900s, bloodletting is literally just cutting open the skin and deliberately letting the patient bleed out for a while. Doctors for a time believed that there were different kinds of blood in out body. Having too much bad blood could potentially be the cause of a wide range of illnesses. So to relieve the body of said blood, doctors would simply cut open the patient – hence the name bloodletting. There were even special medical tools sold so that people could bloodlet themselves at home. Bloodletting did fall out of favor in the 20th century since it seemed only to serve as a risk to the patient. But in recent years it’s become a trend again. It might not be a big trend, but there are people alive today who practise bloodletting.