Drunk rather than eaten.....
When in my late teens I suffered horribly from keloidal acne. It was awful. Think huge bumps on my face and neck that, when they opened, looked even worse. I could have been an extra on ‘Shaun of the Dead.’ It was ruining my social life, not to mention my self-confidence. My parents sent me to various doctors, and I was given a string of antibiotics that did nothing but give me an upset stomach, and this for months on end. This was before retinols came on the market (now, I imagine that one would be prescribed Accutane).

At a loss, I began to look into alternative therapies. I spent hundreds, if not a thousand dollars on herbalists, ayurvedic doctors, traditional Chinese medicines…. One alternative practitioner even hooked up electrodes to my neck and upper chest, sending shocks into my skin and claiming that such treatment would cure me. Needless to say, it was money down the drain.

Finally, I turned to an acupuncturist in San Francisco (where I was living at the time). On entering the small office in the basement of a home, I was ushered into a room with a medical table. The doctor ordered me to strip down to my y-fronts and to lie down, which I unquestioningly proceeded to do as she hit play on the tape-recorder. As the Chinese classical music droned in the background, she looked at the unsightly lumps on my neck and face, shaking her head. On came latex gloves, and then the needles. All over – on the soles of my feet, on my face, stomach, legs….. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The pain was minimal, and paled in terms of discomfort, with what was to come.

After a lengthy treatment, I was told that I would need to also take some "herbs." No problem, I thought. 20 minutes later, as I waited at the front desk the doctor reappeared with a paper bag and a small clay pot. Do NOT open the bag until I was ready to boil the contents in the clay pot with water, I was told.

Ready to try anything, I rushed home, rinsed out my new clay pot and opened the bag. Inside were what looked like twigs, dessicated mushrooms, and some sort of insect exoskeleton. But the smell. It was indescribable…. Pungent, heavy, bitter yet slightly sweet. A couple of years beforehand, a mouse had crawled into the engine of my car and died. The smell of the herbs came closest perhaps, to the odor that had wafted through the air ducts of my car on the hot, late summer day when I turned the ignition and realized that something was seriously awry.

Not to be deterred, however, I heated the water in the pot as instructed, and when the water began to boil, I poured in the "herbs" and covered the pot. A fetid steam rose forth from the spout and filled the house with its noxious scent. With all our windows open, it would take 2 days for the smell to completely disappear. My family would later be furious. “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?” my father yelled as he entered the house that evening.

After the required 30 minutes of boiling, I turned off the stove and, escaping the stench, went out for a walk while the pot cooled. I returned home and to the smell, and cautiously poured out the contents of the pot into a glass. I sat there staring at the viscous, thick black liquid. With memories of endless antibiotic regimes and painful skin peels, I made my up my mind to drink. Think bitter and powdery with a whiff of rubber and a complex, moldy, acidic finish. I barely managed not to vomit.

I returned to that acupuncturist 3 more times, and on each visit was given more "herbs." My family was furious. But it worked. I am complimented on my clear skin to this day, and I rarely, rarely break out.

Edit -- THANK YOU for reading!
(neil4ad, Fri 27 May 2011, 5:18, 6 replies)

That must have been some paper bag.
P.S. I like herbs too.
(boozehound is drinking your bar dry, Fri 27 May 2011, 9:42, closed)

So a magic bag of twigs and dead insects can cure keloidal acne?
I mean, this anecdote proves it! So much for the enlightenment and the scientific method.
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Fri 27 May 2011, 10:18, closed)

yay Science!
Because of course this scathing comment with no supporting evidence of its own disproves it.

Woo!
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Fri 27 May 2011, 15:35, closed)

You know what they call alternative medicine that has been proven to work?
Don'tcha?
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Fri 27 May 2011, 16:21, closed)

science?
I was rather hoping that people would just find the story funny....but in terms of science, there's quite a bit that we don't know about the body and how accupuncture works (even if as a placebo): online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704841304575137872667749264.html

I don't blindly turn to alternative therapies, but I think that they can be an option for non-life threatening cases in which conventional treatments have failed.
(neil4ad, Fri 27 May 2011, 16:58, closed)

Poor youbut well done for being brave enough to try it - sometimes it does pay off! I'm normally a bit sceptical of alternative medicine but I have seen it work sometimes. Glad it did for you. :)
(resurrection_mary cannibal_ferox, Sun 29 May 2011, 21:06, closed)