10 Bizarre Medical Treatments You Won’t Believe Exist

The universe is full of strange things. Such stuff is hard to believe when you haven’t come across it in your life, but what is even harder to believe is that a lot of people believe in it. Here are a list of bizarre and weird treatments that actually exist:

1. Swallowing a live fish to cure asthma

The Bathini Goud family, who administer this therapy, claim that the recipe of herbs was received from a Hindu saint in 1845. The herbs are inserted in the mouth of a live sardine, or murrel fish, and the wriggling 5cm fish are slipped into the patient’s throat, often leaving them gagging. The family maintains that the fish clear the throat on their way down and permanently cure asthma and other respiratory problems – if the treatment is administered three years running. After digesting the treatment, patients are told to go on a strict diet for 45 day. The Indian government arranges special trains for the ‘fish medicine’ festival every year and extra police are on duty to control crowds.

 

2. Leech Therapy

Leeches secrete peptides and proteins that work to prevent blood clots, which keeps blood flowing to the wounds and helps them heal. Because leeches are so effective at increasing blood circulation and breaking up blood clots, they are also used to treat circulatory disorders and cardiovascular diseases. Today, they’re mostly used in plastic surgery and other microsurgery.

Fact Source

 

3. “Doctor Fish” to alleviate symptoms of psoriasis

Garra rufa, also called doctor fish or nibble fish is a species of fish that lives and breeds in the pools of some Turkish river systems and hot springs. In modern times, they have been integrated as a spa treatment, where they feed on the skin of patients with psoriasis. While the doctor fish treatment has been found to alleviate the symptoms of psoriasis, the treatment is not curative, and no cure for psoriasis currently exists. The practice is banned in several of the United States and Canadian provinces as cosmetology regulators believe the practice is unsanitary.

Fact Source

 

4. Cupping treatment

Cupping therapy is an ancient form of alternative medicine in which a local suction is created on the skin; practitioners believe this mobilizes blood flow in order to promote healing. Suction is created using heat (fire) or mechanical devices (hand or electrical pumps). Through either heat or suction, the skin is gently drawn upwards by creating a vacuum in a cup over the target area of the skin. The cup stays in place for five to fifteen minutes. It is believed by some to help treat pain, deep scar tissues in the muscles and connective tissue, muscle knots, and swelling. Many Hollywood celebrities like Kate Moss and Jennifer Aniston make use of this therapy.

Fact Source

 

5.  Urine Therapy

In alternative medicine, the term urine therapy or urotherapy, refers to various applications of human urine for medicinal or cosmetic purposes, including drinking of one’s own urine and massaging one’s skin, or gums, with one’s own urine. Some people in India also believe that drinking cow urine is good for health. Some also believe that the Bible recommends urine therapy.

Fact Source

 

6. Electroshock for treating depression

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) or electroshock is a well-established, although controversial, psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for therapeutic effect. Today, ECT is most often used as a treatment for severe major depression which has not responded to other treatment, and is also used in the treatment of mania (often in bipolar disorder), catatonia and schizophrenia. It was first introduced in the 1930s and gained widespread use as a form of treatment in the 1940s and 1950s; today, an estimated 1 million people worldwide receive ECT every year.

Fact Source

 

7. Distraction Osteogenesis

 Distraction osteogenesis is a surgical process used to reconstruct skeletal deformities and lengthen the long bones of the body. A corticotomy is used to fracture the bone into two segments, and the two bone ends of the bone are gradually moved apart during the distraction phase, allowing new bone to form in the gap. When the desired or possible length is reached, a consolidation phase follows in which the bone is allowed to keep healing. This treatment has the benefit of simultaneously increasing bone length and the volume of surrounding soft tissues. Generally, doctors tend to discourage this because it involves breaking perfectly functional limbs, confining yourself to crutches or a wheelchair for over a year, and exposing themselves to unnecessary risk of infections, of damaged nerves and blood vessels, and fat embolism that can result in death.

Fact Source

 

8. Fecal Bacteriotherapy

Yep. You read that right. Poop. A Faecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) also known as a stool transplant is the process of transplantation of fecal bacteria from a healthy individual into a recipient. FMT involves restoration of the colonic microflora by introducing healthy bacterial flora through infusion of stool. Due to an epidemic of CDI (Clostridium difficile infection) in North America and Europe, FMT has gained increasing prominence, with some experts calling for it to become first-line therapy for CDI.

Fact Source

 

9. Cryotherapy

Cryotherapy is the local or general use of low temperatures in medical theapy. It is used to treat a variety of benign and malignant tissue damage. Its goal is to decrease cell growth and reproduction, increase cellular survival, decrease inflammation, decrease pain and spasm, promote the constriction of blood vessels, and when using extreme temperatures, to destroy cells by crystallizing the cytosol, which is the liquid found inside cells, also known as intracellular fluid (ICF). Cryotherapy is used to treat a number of diseases and disorders, most especially skin conditions like warts, moles, skin tags and solar keatoses. Liquid nitrogen is usually used to freeze the tissues at the cellular level. The procedure is used often because of its efficacy and a low rate of side effects.

Fact Source

 

10. An one of the creepiest yet…Snake Massage

At a spa in Bali, pythons are used for massaging the customers. The snakes’ movement is believed to offer sensations that a massage therapist’s hands cannot, and being covered by the slithery serpents induces fear in customers, releasing adrenaline into the body – believed to positively affect metabolism. A 2011 study found that increased adrenaline was associated with certain metabolic processes, including lactic acid release from muscle and the breakdown of lipids. These massages can release muscle tension, relieve stress, and ease aching bones and joints.

Swallowing that bitter pill that the doctor prescribed for your cough and cold doesn’t seem so bad now, does it?