DONTerra
I may be half hippie. But just half. I am a huge fan of modern medicine. I've witnessed miracles in medicine through my whole life. My brother was born with a hole in his heart, and within days of birth- his heart was removed from his body, repaired and reinserted into his tiny chest. My son in heaven lived a short life- though while he was with us, he was at the time- the smallest baby to have a peritoneal dialysis catheter successfully inserted into his abdomen by the brilliant and determined doctors at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago, IL. Medicine wasn't able to fix him- but it was able to find the cause of his issue and give me the ability to have yet another miraculous treatment that gave me my second son- a son who would have had over 90% chance of inheriting the same disease his angel brother passed from if it weren't for the magic of medicine. Yes, I have a true and strong love for modern medicine. But I also have an appreciation and respect for natural remedies. Therapeutic treatments, homeopathic remedies, and sometimes some old wives tales. I am a subscriber to the belief that chicken soup is indeed good for the soul- and a cold. I rub lavender oil on my overtired boy's little feet, and epsom salt is bought in bulk in this house. Several years ago, essential oils had a second coming. A rebirth if you will- into popularity and mainstream culture. I remember having to scour the shelves at health food stores just to find things like peppermint or lavender oil. I hated going into those shops because I always felt so out of place. I wore makeup and perfume, high heel shoes, and had some kind of funky manicure. The stereotype of who would shop there almost always worked there. A very plain, undoubtedly vegan woman with gray streaked wild, curly red hair would be festooned in obligatory tank top, broomstick skirt, and Birkenstock sandals. She would reek of sandalwood and patchouli, and give off this "I smoked a joint in a van with Jerry Garcia" vibe. For as much of a natural freak as I can be, I'm a whore for mascara- so put your judgy coconut oil-cleansed eyeballs back in your head because yes, these shoes are leather and I just ate beef jerky for lunch. It was a grass fed vegan cow though. Don't you fucking judge me, Moon Unit Zappa. I will plant this leather Louboutin right in your sunspotted kiester.
She's laughing at me. I can feel it.
Yes, before you ask, I vaccinate. I don't do all vaccines like the flu shot... and we stretch them out to not overwhelm his body. It's worked well for us, and where I think there's some truth in the anti-vaxx movement (which is why we space the shots) I'm respectful of my friends who are anti-vaxx, and they are respectful of me. I do my own research, and make the decisions best suited for my child. And as much as this is a mommy blog, I'm not here to tell you what to do with your kids- so that's where I leave the vaccine conversation. The point being- I'm a solid blend of supplementation of modern with a little hippie, a little Eastern, and a whole lot of reading. When I was pregnant with my first son, the pregnancy was high risk right off the bat. I'm always a miscarry risk, I was getting up there in reproductive age, I was considered obese, and to add insult to injury, at 16 weeks, I developed a bleed. I had just started really investigating the issues with my body I often write about. (Random and heavy weight gain, hair loss, chronic pain, etc) and was looking deeper into essential oils as a therapy option for inflammation and pain. I was already well-versed in oils for their aromatherapy value but I wanted to see what the current buzz was all about. A friend of mine had been a poster child for a well-known company called DoTerra. A MLM company that claimed to have the very best, purest essential oils available anywhere. SO pure, in fact- many of the representatives encouraged ingesting the oils. My friend is very sickly. She has a litany of blood related illnesses and is in and out of the hospital for one issue or another. It's very unfortunate because she's one of the sweetest women I know, and I'd just love to spend more time with her but she is literally always in the hospital. I give her a lot of credit- this is her life and she doesn't let it get her down. She, in the past several years, has really tried to take as much control of her health as she can- and she incorporated DoTerra oils into her lifestyle. In her communication with me about the company, she talked about being able to reduce some of her medications and actually stopping one. She credited this to the use of essential oils. Now I'm going to stop right here for a second and say this: I don't know if they are helping her. I have researched oils extensively. I've read medical journal studies that indicate there may be some qualities to certain oils with promise- but so far- that's kind of where medical science has stopped on the subject. A huge portion of modern medicine is derived in some way from a plant, flower, shrub, bush, tree, mold, etc. Clearly there is some value yet to be discovered. I have no doubt that's true. BUT there is an alarmingly large (and growing at an even more alarming rate) group of people that look at essential oils as a cure all. During my pregnancy, my sweet friend gently approached me about DoTerra oils to ease my aches and pains, and a LeVel rep clearly had a death wish- but that's another article. The sweet oil friend sent some samples to help soothe my muscles, and I can tell you that they helped. I enjoyed them and I was interested in buying the oils at "wholesale". As in the fashion of many MLM companies- you don't really know what you've walked into- until you're in the door and it's closed behind you. I enrolled for the DoTerra kit, thinking the value of the kit was worth the enrollment fee. I listened to the training- heard the spiel about the in-house doctor, the book written by the famous midwife, and how this company was groundbreaking in the "purity" of the oils. And down the rabbit hole I fell. I was added to the rep groups on Facebook. I've come to believe that these groups are the central hub for the most ridiculous advice and misinformation imaginable. Here, I remember asking questions of the other reps- and getting answers that made me literally laugh out loud. I laughed so hard at some of the claims, it inspired me to dig into the company and the legality of all the bullshit the reps spew all over the internet. This would be the first MLM company I challenged publicly. Well before MommyGyver was ever even a thought in my mind- I was pissing off the brainwashed already. And I may have secretly decided that most people really have a very low reading comprehension and retention rate because I could log in and watch the telephone game evolve IN the comments. No one reads the comments above theirs! So here I am, 6 months pregnant at this point. Absolutely miserable. My AI issues are flared up in all directions, but at this point, I don't even know I have autoimmune issues. I just know I'm in pain and having a hard time walking. I'm gaining weight so rapidly though I wasn't really eating much, and that's killing my feet. I was buying oils like a madwoman because I make my own soaps and bath products and was living off anything with peppermint, camphor, eucalyptus, and others that were soothing to body aches. I reached out in the group I was in asking about a safe weight loss option during pregnancy. One brazen-AF rep told me to start ingesting "Slim and Sassy"... DoTerra's blend for weight loss. I could mix a few drops in a glass of water and drink it. "It's delicious!" She said. Or I could take the capsules that the company made specifically for ingestion. Woah. What? Let's back it up here.
"One drop of peppermint oil is the equivalent of 27 bags of mint tea." (Raises hand) I have additional questions. 1. Why the fuck do I need to ingest 27 bags of mint tea, or its equivalent for any reason? 2. What knowledge do you have that this is safe during pregnancy? 3. Do you have something that tells me the toxicity levels of mint (or any of these oils) in a fetus? 4. Is there any medical science that shows if these oils cross the placental barrier? Yeah... I asked those questions. And here's the answers I got: 1. Mint is good for you. Why would one drop of oil hurt you? (Bitch, if you ever got one drop of mint oil anywhere near your eye, you'd know this shit can hurt you.) 2. It's natural and pure. Of course it's safe during pregnancy. (Ummm...) 3. Your (You're spelled incorrectly on purpose here, because this genius spelled it that way) INGESTING THIS. It gets digested. It doesn't go straight to your baby. Duh. (Uh-hmmm... so then I should drink this whole bottle of vodka- and drink it EVERY DAY because it goes to my tummy and not my baby, right? Here's DoTerra's own document on where the oils go when ingested.) 4. Yes. One of the owners is a doctor. Also read this book by our in house midwife (who is also at the tippy top of the pyramid scheme, and sells this shit herself) and she will tell you it's safe. Lawd, child, you need a slapping. So, that right there got me a'digging. And testing. I took a couple drops of Slim and Sassy, and diluted it in coconut oil. I rubbed that stuff all over my thighs. (Because the salespeople claimed that not only was this a miraculous weight loss drug, if you put it on your problem areas, it will make them magically not fat.) Yeah... so my thighs burned and felt cold at the same time. I developed a rash on my inner thighs that actually blistered. It.fucking.hurt. I wasn't going to ingest this stuff while pregnant if it burned the hell out of my skin. The doctor? Is a chiropractor. He's not an MD. Has no medical background that makes his opinion on ingesting anything any more or less valuable than the bagger at the grocery store. Or the hippie lady at the health food store. Something tells me she might have known this shit would burn. So I emailed the midwife. Now, I want to tell you that she's a very nice lady. I read her book, and I'm going to say that she seems like a hell-of-a knowledgeable midwife. In midwifery. BUT midwives aren't qualified to tell me what's safe to ingest in what levels in or out of pregnancy. It's not to be mean, she's just not qualified to make that determination. Mostly because regular old MD doctors don't know if EO's are toxic to fetuses and at what level. She sure isn't going to know. She was pretty careful with me, citing that I should always consult with my doctor before starting any essential oil regimine. But still... It would be like me going to my mechanic to deliver my baby just because he's probably seen a vagina and maybe held a baby. Or going to a podiatrist for a tooth extraction- because he's a doctor- so, samesies, right? I felt like I was the only person that was sane locked in the looney bin. To that rep who told me it's all safe- here's some arsenic. It's natural, and found in apple seeds. Eat it. I swear it's good for you. I've been to the doctor a LOT, so I'm qualified to tell you it's safe. Eat up... here... let me shove it in your mouth for you... And so it went for I don't know how long. I gave birth to my baby via emergency c-section at 27 weeks gestation. He was 1 1/2 lbs and very sick. He passed away two months later, and I was lost. Just lost. It was right after that I started to fight with my doctors about what was wrong with me, what felt wrong, and demanding answers. I was hell-bent on losing weight, and I thought- "Ok, let's see what Slim and Sassy can do." Since I wasn't pregnant anymore, and probably riddled with survivor's remorse and not really caring what the personal consequences were, I took the damn pills. They were cute. Little orangey gelatin ovals that smelled like orange and cinnamon. I noticed right away when they hit my stomach. I'd burp up orangey minty gas that burned after a while. I also noticed that if I took the pill on an empty stomach, I would get some pretty intense cramps. These symptoms increased, and after two weeks, I was experiencing what my doctor would diagnose as acid reflux and he advised me to stay away from acidic foods such as oranges, tomatoes, grapefruits, lemons, and other citrus. Well, since one drop of mint oil is the equivalent of 27 bags of mint tea, how many bags of orange and grapefruits' oils were in those little capsules I was ingesting a few times a day? No wonder why my appetite decreased. My stomach was too busy eating itself.
I started to look further. I found out the certification donned by DoTerra- the "CPTG" or "Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade" they bragged so much about- was actually a registered trademark owned by DoTerra. Of course they were the only "Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade" oil on the market. They invented the certification! There is actually no standardized grading scale for essential oils- therefore, there's no baseline for DoTerra to compare to- and no entity to comply with. Now, I'm not calling their oils shit- so calm your hippie titties. I don't know if they are or not- and neither do you. Do the oils smell varietally correct? Sure. But I don't own the equipment or the lab to determine the quality or purity of them- and if we've learned anything here, we know that we should not believe what we're told blindly- especially not by a company that serves to profit from it. Do I know that they are overpriced as compared to other oils that also claim to be therapeutic grade? Yes. Do I know they are one of the only companies to encourage ingestion of oils and BRAZENLY at that? Yep. A responsible company knowing that the science and testing (besides their own internal testing) for essential oil safety and toxicity doesn't exist wouldn't create pills filled with oils designed for ingestion, would they?
Or (and I love this one) the reps are called "Wellness Advocates" that "teach" classes. Don't get me started
on the credentials to teach anyone anything. And you can download your certificate that says you can teach people right from your back office. By who's authority? By the power of GraySkull! Ok, no. By the power of because a chiropractor you've never met bestowed upon the internet the ability to log into your back office and download your credentials. Totes legit, yo. So I'm chilling in these "information groups", just watching the trainwreck of misinformation being vomited everywhere in the same fashion as every other damn MLM does. Younique with their "tea leaves fibers" and "all-natural makeup" (There are no tea leaves in the makeup and it is NOT all natural. Don't believe me? Come at me. I'll educate you.) And here's where the problems lie. One of my attorneys summed it up best for me: "There are real risks associated with products you use on your body, put on your skin or hair, or IN your body. Even if you do your due diligence and share only the correct information, you're still exposed to liability." then he said something else- "Look, you're an independent contractor. If you repeat information that the company gave you in the best possible faith that what they told you is true- and it turns out to be untrue- you could be on the hook. You're independent, and as such can be responsible separate of any liability the company could have for their own misstatements. It's up to you to do your due diligence to share the truth. For the common person who doesn't have access to testing labs and R+D, that's a lot of liability to put on the layman." I thought back to the woman whom I'd like to share the natural wonder that is arsenic with, and how sad it was that she was setting herself up for a terrible lawsuit. More and more incidences of poisoning due to accidental (we hope, right) ingestion of toxic levels of essential oil are popping up all over the place- and the scary reality is that the number of children this is happening to is staggering. People think that natural equates to safe, and even more scary are those that think safe means safe for everyone no matter what the volume- or INSTEAD of modern medicine. Look, I love oils. I can tell you that I probably have a gallon of Lavender oil in this house and I HATE the smell of Lavender. But it works to mellow out the baby in time for bed. A drop in his bath? Sure. A few drops in a spray bottle of water- spritzed on his pillow at night? Yes. But It's insane to think that I can leave the bottle laying around and if the baby gets it- it's no big deal. IT'S A BIG DEAL. But I can't tell you how casually these "advocates" discuss ingestion of these oils. Where I think it's great IF DoTerra actually does all the testing to guarantee the quality of their oils that they claim to, they certainly don't provide any science to the dosage that they or any one of their reps dole out to anyone that will listen. It also isn't helpful to anyone to have the petal oil peddlers knocking on a new mother's door to discuss the benefits of essential oils because she saw her neighbor carting in a car seat all of a sudden. The whole vibe is very- "Do you have a moment to hear the word of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ?"
Listen, I know where to find Jesus if I need him, and I know how to buy oils too. I'mma hit up Jerry Garcia's girlfriend at the nature store down the street. I just won't eat meat that day.