He's encouraged to think that way. Because doctors have solved a problem for people who have serious joint issues. When the difference between having it and not having it is so big the side effects really don't matter. They are rightly proud. But we have reached diminishing returns when there is a solution. In cases where the process can be interrupted and healed, it is the body crying out for help.

We're back in acute solutions to chronic problems, which has a terrible track record. Type II diabetes: NOW there actually is a choice. Some people take the pills and surgery and that's a complicated mental issue. Others want to solve the actual problem and change the way they eat.

Over the last few years I've dropped my media contact, partly to work on making my own and partly because it was overwhelming But this new low oxalate thing (which seems to be working!) is about six weeks old and established, and my research shifted to a broader range, from Nina Teicholz to people who expose the pyramid schemes behind green smoothies and "fasting lessons."

All to help people pretend to try they are changing the way they eat but it is very difficult. That's why gimmicks like NOOM and "30 pounds in 30 days" keep selling. Because no one can teach you a realization, one has to work at it.

Imagine we knew someone who was always drinking and driving and getting in wrecks and they say they can't change the way they drive. This is how they LIKE to drive and it's how they LIKE to drink and it's someone else's fault their license has been lifted because they should be able to do what they want. And it works that way for food, because it is addictive. It can be explained with addict behaviors.

In my experience with autoimmune, I think doctors don't want to talk about side effects, and so they don't. My independent pharmacist would go over the side effects with a new medication. The corporate bunch I deal with now are not trained to do that. The corporation doesn't police that. So people drift along without adequate prep.

This is "standard of care." I read a memoir where a woman went to a famous multiple sclerosis specialist for "care" and got handed brochures with the instructions to Pick One. (Fortunately for her, it turned out to be a vegan B-12 deficiency.)

And they soothe autoimmune patients with, "it won't kill you. You'll die with it, but it won't be from the disease." No, it will more than likely be some other failing system that the drugs also messed up. OR, in the even worse scenario from my POV, a sudden, raging, infection. But it won't be autoimmune, so relax.

Granted, I think doctors suffer from this system in that they are upset and sorry, on some level, about not being able to do anything. So much that they block out anything else but getting through another sad new session. (I have met so many clinically depressed ex-oncologists, for some reason...)

As a doctor, they have the ability to say, "this is standard of care, and these are the side effects. Here is an alternative you can try, no downside in trying, that works for many people." And some of them are taking it. My doctor loves what I'm doing, and is very supportive.

Now that is what I call a Standard. One might even say, a fair Standard.