Tuesday, November 15, 2011

I Only Wish It Were That Easy

Awesome carrot picture found on wikipedia. 

The latest Venus Williams news? She's eating vegetables.

Really? Vegetables?

Apparently this will erase her Sjogren's woes:
Venus Williams has revealed that she believes a diet of raw vegetables will blast her back to the top of women’s tennis.
What a revelation! What a concept! Gee, I'm sure that it has NEVER OCCURRED TO ANY OTHER SJOGGIE to eat more healthy fruits and vegetables to encourage good health. Or doctors or researchers, either! What were we thinking? The woman is a genius! Alert the media!

Wait.....

Oh, right. She did.

9 comments:

cargillwitch said...

I have to admit she may come up short of her goal, but I know I for one wouldn't wait for medical research to find my way through this.
Who would monetarily benefit from her theory being true? perhaps me I'm an organic farmer but we don't have much to donate back to research.I think we all look for the quick fix and one that doesn't require altering our habits. Eating habits are formed over a lifetime of daily reinforcement and as a nurse myself I know people would rather swallow a pill regardless of the possible negative side effects than attempt the monumental task of altering ingrained habits.All we really have are anecdotes ( especially with autoimmune disorders!) and I know I do much better on a very specific diet. May not work for others but neither will all medications.
So I say Venus, eat your veggies. I wish you all the best

annie said...

I'm not sure if Venus is doing sjoggies any service. Some of my friends have told me "she's taking medication that's going to cure her"! As if I'm still in the dark and not doing anything to help myself get better.

Foods we eat do impact our bodies, so if we can eat healthier,preservative and additive-free, so much the better. But to tout eating raw veggies as though that will "cure" sjogren's? TOTALLY IRRESPONSIBLE on the part of Venus and her entourage. Seriously, who is her doctor and how can they go around saying things like this to the gullible public? We are more inclined to be realistic and not believe this garbage, but people who know nothing about our illness will now say we can cure ourselves just like Venus is doing. I want to see how long this will take Venus to get herself cured and back to the game of tennis. I vote NEVER, this illness is unforgiving. I wish her well.

Julia Oleinik said...

Cargillwitch, I should have explained my bratty comments a bit better. I'm a HUGE supporter of eating fresh organic veggies and fruits and good non processed foods. It's just frustrating for me to hear the media proclaim Venus' choice to eat more produce as if it had never occured to the other four million of us. Or our rheumatologists. For many of us, eating this way has been of some limited benefit, but we know that evn though fresh fruit and vegetables incorporated into our daily diet is good for our bodies, that the cure for autoimmune disease just isn't that simple. And I really and truly wish that it were.

Amy Junod said...

I admit that I had my own bratty inner child pop out when I read the articles yesterday too.
I had the same reaction to the Dr. on ABC say that he has a friend who is a surgeon. This woman was able to lead a very productive life. She must be in the early stages I thought. It was a sort of downplaying of the seriousness of the symptoms I thought.

I think we all have varied degrees of challenges with Sjogren's. What seems consistent though is that we might have one issue resolved then Sjogren's progresses. Maybe that's just my experience with it. Like having a knuckle ball thrown at me.

Good post! (Not that the Christmas Flamingo didn't catch my attention!)

stephanie said...

Venus' words really are doing the rest of us a disservice. Maybe her docs are hoping for fame. My opinion is that Venus is still in a stage of denial (that it CAN be fixed, which she as good as said on her TV interview) and is probably desparate to feel better. I know I have been delusional on several occasions as I have found something to make me feel better, but was disappointed when it only helped for so long. I think all of us are looking for something that will make us feel better forever. Venus just happens to have her attempts posted all over the internet and news.

Scott S said...

Yeah, right ... her raw food discovery is worthy of the press, right?! I believe all these people do disservice not only to all the other individuals with Sjögren's Syndrome, and all other autoimmune diseases as well. Like everyone could somehow change their diets and be cured of MS, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Autoimmune Type 1 diabetes and countless other autoimmune diseases. These people should stick with their own "success" but not do greater damage to public perception by keeping their non-replicated discoveries to themselves quiet!

ILoveThisBar said...

I find it rather expensive to eat raw veggies and fruits and live a healthy eating habit. Sure, I try. But when feeding a family, you tend to have to live on frozen or canned to be able to fit them into the menu. Most of my money lately is going to paying medical deductibles.

Which brings me up with another question for Julia-Is there a point when blood work isn't diagnostic and will be covered more by insurance? I dread Jan. 1 and blood work on the 11th. If they label it diagnostic again, I will have to pay about $300 towards it.

Anonymous said...

Of course having a good, healthy diet is a good point to help with the illness, but it's not a cure !! And when you have stomach issues, some meals are forbidden to you, so what will she said to that?

SjogrensStyle said...

Oh, dear. I'm sure that Ms. Williams is in some denial right now--encouraged, perhaps by those who make their living off of her fame--but comments like these are damaging to the rest of us and I fear that she's going to be terribly disappointed in the long run.

http://sjogrensstyle.blogspot.com/

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