Alternative therapies and treatments

My mother made me take homeopathy when I had a cold as a kid. She also had a thing for homeopathic sleeping pills.

We should conduct controlled trials to test effectiveness, and where proven, fund such treatments.

 

I agree with Hexagon, I think clinical trials, similar in format perhaps to drug clinical trials should be done to assess how effective alternative therapies actually are. I tend to lean towards the belief that alternative therapies work, or feel like they're working more due to a placebo effect than anything else, because there's no proper quantitative data on whether or not these things are actually significantly effective for most people who use them as far as I'm aware.

 

I agree with this. There are probably even more effective methods that people don't know about yet. It's funny that you mention this since my mom also liked to use homeopathic stuff too :O.

 

I cured my mother of that particular affliction. Without a single sugar pill needed. Just a well reasoned argument.

---------- Post added 13th Jul 2014 at 03:37 PM ----------

This guy sums up my feelings pretty well.

[YOUTUBE]V0W7Jbc_Vhw[/YOUTUBE]

If you can't be bothered to listen to the whole 9 minute beat poem, the part I'm getting at is: "You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proven to work? Medicine." But you should. It's a good 9 minute beat poem.

 

Did she suggest anything as an alternative?

 

I think most alternative therapies are ineffective. I'd like to try acupuncture though.

 

No, she thought homeopathy was, like, this amazing herbal remedy thing that gave all the benefits of drugs but none of the downsides, and there was nothing else as good. But we had a few conversations about it, and she's feeling much better.

 

A few may help relieve symptoms and improve how one one feels but I always think these things should be used as add on's and never replacements for conventional medicine. Things like homeopathy have been demonstrated to be useless beyond a placebo effect and to replace tried and rigorously tested medicine with such things is reckless and dangerous.

Happy days

 

I mean, are these alternative medicines used into making you think that you're much better or do these medicines actually do something when you use them? I wouldn't like it if the medicine I thought helped me actually didn't, and as a result I'm worse than I was before.

 

Yes, the placebo effect is significant, but one must also consider the ethics of that kind of systematic deception. It becomes effectively useless once people are alerted to the fact that the treatment doesn't work. It's easy to talk about it in terms of the numbers of people who get well, but it's more complicated than that. I know I wouldn't be pleased to be lied to like that, and that's really all I have to go on when making decisions for others. A solution that makes use of the placebo effect without deception is hypnosis, though.

 

I think they can be very beneficial.

I do think a certain category fall under the category of placebos: reiki, homeopathy, reflexology, crystal therapy. But the power of the placebo should never be underestimated. Simply "feeling better" or more relaxed can trigger the body to begin to heal and repair itself. As long as these therapies cause no harm and are supplemented by appropriate Western medicine if required then all is good.

In contrast I think there are alternative therapies that genuinely work: acupuncture, certain parts of herbalism (many people confuse this with homeopathy but they are different), aspects of Ayurvedic medicine such as yoga, mindfullness meditation, massage, hydrotherapy (including floatation, steam rooms, ice baths etc).

These have been shown in studies to be of direct benefit (i.e. more than just a placebo). I think once we have strong evidence confirming benefit then yes we should fund them.

I think sometimes that the modern medical field is embarrassed to admit that some traditional or alternative medicines may be of benefit. It kind of makes sense, when it takes years of high-end research and millions of dollars to develop a drug like prozac it may be painful when research shows a traditional plant extract like St Johns Wort will do an equally good if not better job for many users with half the side effects.

 

[YOUTUBE]i3u2mBVFEHc[/YOUTUBE]
This video sums up my feelings.

 

:lol:

 

I always use homeopathic remedies when I get a cold. The cold always clears up within a week.

 

As far as the pills go I am not so crazy about them. I mean they come to find that a lot of them, as explained, are placebo

So I am on the fence on this

I REALLY think the FDA or someone ought to test these things for efficacy and if found to not be useful, all claims should be removed immediately

On the other hand, if someone knows that it's a potential placebo effect and still wants to take then wh am I to judge?

My biggest problem is people thinking they can simply switch their prescription meds to herbals. That scares the heck out of me. I've had two clients now stop taking anti depressants and anti anxiety pills and try St. John's Wort and Kava Kava, both with disastrous effects

I agree to an extent that the medical pharmacy system is bloated and very one-sided. I've seen it personally with the drug reps and free dinners and incentives to use their brand of drug. But still, people have got to research before just trying to drop their drug and trying an herbal

St. John's Wort and Depression | NCCAM

Now...I did say I was on the fence and I should present my other side as well

WITH all that said...placebo is an amazing thing. I am not a medical doctor, but I am well aware that ethically speaking, the three psychiatrists I work with can't just give someone with paranoid schizophrenia a sugar pill and think there won't be repurcussions. However, I have seen the benefits of things like massage, chiropractic care, accupuncture and reiki. I've referred many clients to most of those (yes including reiki when I had my Wiccan client) and the results were superb. There is power to belief.

I currently practice a few hypnotic suggestive routines and they do the trick...though not all the time. Upon completing my MBA, I will be getting fully certified in hypnosis and I will continue learning the energy work I do now.

Overall, I don't believe we can just say to take an herbal and call it a day...but I also don't think anyone can definitively say that alternative treatments are useless when the effect is there

 

Hi Linco

I’m a big fan of acupuncture and have been treated on many occasions for trouble related to neck and shoulders; I’ve been unlucky and needed 3 lots of surgery on my shoulders, had months of traction on my neck and had pain killing injections in my cervical spine. The acupuncture is great at controlling pain between major interventions and in many cases has an immediate beneficial effect.

The needling process it’s self is not really painful and the needles used are much thinner (0.1 mm diameter) than those used for jabs. Sometimes once the needle has been in for a few minutes you can get a dull throbbing pain from the area surrounding the needle. The sterile needle is free to move in a plastic tube which is held against the skin. The blunt end of the needle protruded a few millimetres out of the end of the tube and is tapped quickly by the therapist’s finger to allow the sharp end of the needle to break the skin, this is usually painless. Once the needle has broken the skin the plastic outer tube is removed and the blunt end of the needle is held by the therapist to push the rest of the needle into place, sometimes this can feel a little uncomfortable but only lasts a few seconds.

Most of my treatments only involve leaving the needles in for 15 seconds but occasionally I have had them in for 20 minutes, most sessions only require 4 or 5 needles but on some occasions I have had 13 needles at once.

For the beginner perhaps the most confusing part of the process is that sometimes the area being needled is not the area you would expect and can be some distance from the area of pain being treated, i.e. a needle in the ankle or foot for a pain in the neck or back.
The most painful experience was having my Scalene Muscles in my neck needled which was positively eye-watering but very beneficial.

It’s usual to feel light headed after treatment so it’s best not to drive for the first few treatments until you get used to it. Some people can also faint the first time around, not from the needle insertion but during the treatment once the body starts to correct all the imbalances that are causing the pain. I fainted the first 3 times I had treatment and I have no fear of needles it was just I had built up so much negative tension that I couldn’t cope with its release.

I once went to a high street Chinese doctor who stuck 4 needles right in the top of my head which produced the most amazing feeling and made me feel energised. When I asked my physio therapist to do the same she refused because although it made me feel great it was in fact the opposite treatment to what I should have received. So it would seem that some acupuncture points just make you feel great but don’t treat the underlying problem and may be used by unscrupulous individuals just to get money from you.

I have no idea what you want to receive the acupuncture for but I would recommend finding someone who was western medically trained but who augmented the treatment with Acupuncture. I am going to see my physio (who also teaches at Manchester university) this week so will ask her to recommend a professional body you can check any possible therapists with.

Just for clarity I don’t get this on the NHS but through private medical insurance. If I had to pay, my physio charges £40 for a 30 – 45 min session which can include normal manipulation, ultrasound, and acupuncture. The first session was mainly taken up with going through a full medical history with only 15 mins for acupuncture.

Hope this helps

Sale Gay Guy


P.S. You can buy electronic acupuncture devices that use small electric shocks instead of needles to activate the acupuncture points. I have one and find it helpful but not as good as a proper needle in expert hands.

P.P.S I’m a scientist and was very sceptical about acupuncture because I couldn’t see how it could work, but it does and I’m a convert. My physio also does things with magnets to test for muscle weakness and to test if I’m hypertonic before the actual acupuncture process, this has me totally baffled but it also works. So I would have to say that Western medicine can’t explain everything.

 

I agree 100%...I had two in the top of my head and one in each eyebrow for 15 minutes and I felt high while they were in and just plain calm and relaxed for the rest of the day

sadly my current accupunturist is pretty crap...I miss my guy from Chicago