Vitamin Pee?

My 12-year old son came to me last night to complain about his feet and how sore they were. He normally discusses his personal health issues with his dad but, you know, sometimes when you feel crummy, you just want your mom. His feet were red, swollen messes and it was clear to me that he had a mild case of Athlete's Foot (in his case Athlete's Feet). Never having suffered with this ailment, it was difficult to commiserate. I could only recall memories of my older sister suffering through numerous bouts of Athlete's Foot during her childhood. I gave him a hug, helped treat his immediate symptoms and promised him that I would find him a cure.

As with most Internet searches, my search engine returned hundreds of thousands of great links to resources for Athlete's Foot including: medical encyclopedias; photos (by the way, I'm passing on lunch today); products; literature (kudos again to Amazon's marketing staff); and, personal web sites and blog entries on the topic. I plan to take Medline's advice and visit my pharmacist to discuss an appropriate non-prescription cream, spray or powder that will relieve the pain, swelling and itching. I will follow Wikipedia's advice and continue the treatments even after the symptoms disappear to prevent re-infection from dormant, yet persistent, fungi that linger in footwear too expensive to throw out.

Among the many links, I found a reference to alternative therapies that piqued my interest. You should know that my preference is to avoid unnecessary medical interventions when a more natural, less invasive option is available to me. Naturally (pardon the pun) I followed the link. The title took me by surprise -- Urine Therapy.

I kid you not.

It seems that medical and laboratory researchers have been conducting research on the healing properties of urine which is known to be a source of vital nutrients, hormones, vitamins and antibodies. According to one site, tests using Urine Therapy have been used to treat "cancer, heart disease, allergies, auto-immune diseases, diabetes, asthma, infertility, infections, wounds, etc." In fact, the author of that site talks about her own experience with Urine Therapy's "profound ability" to heal a crippling disease that was, otherwise, incurable.

Please understand that my knowledge of Urine Therapy is limited to a few facts that I gathered (but did not check) during a one-hour search of the Internet. I neither support nor refute claims made about Urine Therapy; I simply find it to be an absolutely fascinating subject.

Articles on the web repeatedly state that urine is NOT a toxic body waste but rather a purified derivative of blood. This is particularly interesting to me since I know first-hand of more than a dozen people who refuse to eat candies from any restaurant's complimentary candy dish. These people agree that the candies in these dishes are all contaminated by urine from patrons who fail to perform adequate hand-washing after trips to the restroom. Do we deduce then that only people who don't wash their hands eat candies from this candy dish? A topic for another day perhaps.

Toxic body waste or not, you're probably wondering how Urine Therapy is administered, I know I was. Urine can either be administered orally (I'll pass on dinner now too) or applied externally. I found several references that suggest that men in India have been ingesting urine for thousands of years and that this practice is not uncommon in the East. No, I don't mean Newfoundland or Rhode Island, I mean the FAR East.

Through my reading, I came to realize that Urine Therapy was not entirely unknown to me before today. I was first introduced to the notion as a household cure for poisonous bites or stings. That is, I have been told that in an emergency, I could pee on a snake bite to disinfect the wound. That said, I grew up on a farm next-door to my loving grandparents who had a makeshift cure for nearly anything but death itself.

My research produced credible sources and compelling arguments in support of Urine Therapy. If you decide to do your own research, you can also use the term "Urea Treatment" to learn about scientific studies in medicine and agriculture.

The truth is, the list of diagnoses successfully treated using Urine Therapy includes some rather daunting diseases -- cancer, hepatitis, multiple sclerosis -- and conventional medicine doesn't guarantee any cures. Wouldn't you try anything to save your life? What if your life wasn't on the line? Would you commit to a daily dose of "Vitamin Pee" if it offered allergy relief? Would you pee on your snake bite?

If my grandfather was still alive, I'm sure he would suggest that my son stand in the shower and urinate on his burning, swollen feet. In fact I'm toying with the idea of printing off an article that suggests this very thing as a treatment just to see how he reacts. I'd probably stop him before he got to the bathroom. Probably.