When Life Gives You Cancer, Some People Reach for Turmeric and a Toad
Forget oncologists — today’s cancer “experts” wear yoga pants, livestream from Mexican spas and think coffee belongs in your colon. As NHS trust tanks, desperate patients turn to TikTok.
Once upon a time, if you were diagnosed with cancer, you’d shuffle into an NHS hospital like a good citizen, sit in a room the colour of digestive biscuits, and be blasted with enough chemotherapy to kill a small horse. But not anymore.
No, these days people are turning their backs on boring old medicine and placing their faith in something far more reliable… It’s called ‘random strangers on TikTok’, with usernames like @HealingWithCrystals92 and a worrying obsession with enemas. Because apparently the NHS is just not spiritual enough.
Now I get it. Honestly I do. When you’re told you’ve got three months to live, your brain doesn’t operate on logic, it operates on sheer unfiltered desperation. I should know. When I was given my terminal diagnosis, I started researching anything that might help. Yes, I mean anything. I once drank something that claimed to be a Peruvian tree bark extract but smelt like bin juice and tasted like petroleum. I slathered on essential oils, did yoga with goats and was one Amazon click away from buying powdered Himalayan frog spleen. Don’t even ask what I did with turmeric. I’m joking, but you get my point.
Because when you’re staring death in the face, even licking a toad while whispering mantras sounds better than doing nothing.
I’ve met people who’ve flown to Mexico and handed over thirty grand—yes, thirty thousand pounds, for something called “full-body cellular rejuvenation therapy,” which from what I could gather, involved vitamin C drips, coffee enemas and sitting in a sauna with herbs that looked suspiciously like garden mulch. It didn’t cure their cancer. But it gave them hope. Sadly that’s something our NHS, with its nightmarishly complex, illogical phone systems and three-month waiting lists for blood tests, is tragically running low on.
In fact, the NHS right now is about as useful as a pork pie to a vegan, or as reassuring as a satnav that keeps telling you to ‘turn left’ into a river. The analogies are flying in thick and fast today, like pigeons at a wedding buffet or conspiracy theories on Facebook; I digress again…
So it’s no wonder people are going rogue. Social media is overflowing with miracle cures, natural remedies and people who despite zero medical training, somehow know exactly what you should do with your immune system. Just eat raw asparagus, stop consuming “toxins” (which, let’s be honest, is code for “food”), and do daily colonics while meditating to a YouTube video of dolphins singing Coldplay.
The problem is, people are dying. Because fad “cures” don’t actually work. And while you’re off drinking kale smoothies blessed by a monk in Utah, your cancer is having a lovely time spreading like gossip at a WI meeting in Stogumber.
Doctors at ASCO are waving red flags like they’re guiding in a Boeing 747, saying patients are turning up months later, desperate and incurable. One oncologist said he lost a patient who spent their final months chasing some mystical unicorn treatment involving intravenous honey. Another said they’d been ghosted by patients who left for Mexican clinics and never came back; until their obituary popped up in the paper.
Meanwhile, I’ve become obsessed. Since I finished my treatment, traditional treatment I may add, I’ve been compiling the most bonkers, barmy and bizarre list of “natural” remedies you’ve ever seen. It’s thousands of entries long. Herbs, mushrooms, tree roots, lichens, minerals, sea cucumbers, fermented yak milk and something one bloke swore was a cancer-killing cuttlefish. Google occasionally locks me out assuming I’ve had a breakdown.
This isn’t a list of cures, let’s be clear. This is a list of potential helpers. Side-effect softeners. Gentle nudgers for the immune system. Chemo wingmen. I call it “Chris’s Colossal Cancer-Fighting Compendium of Curiously Cranky Remedies”. Yes one day, I’ll publish it. Probably in waterproof format, for those reading it in the bath with a mushroom tea. The thing is, some of the crazy cures, remedies or whatever you call them, do in fact help. They don’t cure cancer, but they can make you feel better or enhance the effects of traditional treatments; I digress again.
But the real problem is the trust in the NHS, it’s in freefall. Patients don’t just want a prescription anymore. They want connection, empathy, time and a plan that doesn’t involve waiting for six months while your tumour orders room service and unpacks its bags.
Until the NHS fixes that, the snake oil peddlers of the world will continue to thrive. Selling miracle cures from sun-drenched Mexican villas, filmed on iPhones with motivational music and zero data.
Worst of all, patients will keep buying it. Because when your back’s against the wall, even nonsense starts to sound like science.
That’s not stupidity, that’s human nature. Mixed with a generous helping of fear, a dash of Facebook and just a hint of ginger.
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Chris Geiger, Author of The Cancer Survivors Club.
Daily Dose of Disbelief!
Bsky: @chrisgeiger.com
Bsky: @thecancersurvivorsclub.com
Bsky: @dailydoseofdisbelief.com
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