Dammit, white! White, I meant! Not blue. Sorry.
I think in my wife’s case it’s because she is desperate to find something that she thinks works.
Even if there’s no reason it should work.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.
Exactly. I’m taking Topamax, which is definitely a “YMMV” kind of drug, and has some prettty funky side effects that affect different people in different ways, but they do subside after your body adjusts to to it. There have been threads about it, even one pretty recently. I went through the whole parade of drugs, too, and most of them didn’t do anything. I was on atenolol, a high blood pressure drug, and the GP I was seeing at the time just kept upping the dose when it didn’t do anything. My BP was so low, I was dizzy all the time, and had no energy.
I found a new doctor (the neuro), and ended up being part of a clinical trial when it (the Topamax) was first tested years ago. It’s been a lifesaver. I’m nearly migraine-free now.
It’s better described as a stance against unproven medicine. If a given remedy can be shown, in a double-blind, repeatable study, to be effective, then it becomes mainstream medicine. The word “alternative” seems to be synonymous with “unproven”.
But a quick google search informs me that capsaicin is used directly on the area that is affected. It works by interfering with the nerves so that the pain signal is blocked. That wouldn’t seem to be the same principal as purposely irritating the back in order to help headaches.
I don’t wish to debate the benefits and negative effects of alternative medicines any more than WhyNot does. I don’t know much about them, but as a matter of fact, from what I heard in the news and from my own skepticism, I happen to believe that most practitioners of alternative medicines don’t do much good, and probably some bad. But this said, I do agree with WhyNot that this board has an anti-alternative medicine stance that goes beyond mere skepticism.
I am reminded of some good points AHunter3 made in threads about psychiatry. I don’t agree with his general anti-psychiatry stance and with many other of his ideas, but when he says that psychiatric medicine is barely a science yet, I tend to agree with him. He reminds us that having “depression” is really not the same thing as having, say, “a broken leg”. Mental illnesses are in many cases more like syndromes. The drugs you give to try to treat them might work, or they might not, the dosage is very hard to get right, and in most cases we have no idea why the drugs that work actually do so.
I tend to believe that some kinds of alternative medicine, say chiropractic, hypnosis and acupuncture, might have some benefits. Maybe we don’t know why they have these benefits, and the explanation given by the practitioners might not be better than what we’d hear from practitioners of Medieval Western medicine, but it doesn’t mean that these fields are simple “quackery”. Of course, more research is needed. But it seems that every time alternative medicines are discussed here, the “skeptics” come bearing their :rolleyes:s and dismissing them all right away. It’s almost as if – and here I’m not pointing a finger at glee in particular, I don’t know him or her, and maybe he or she’d have no problem accepting a study that showed some benefits in some alternative medicines – they get from their skeptic magazines and Randi’s site their talking points and believe them. And if any positive result is shown in research, well, it must be the “placebo effect” (another effect that’s real but not very well-understood, I gather). That’s not skepticism.
This said, I don’t know much about cupping, and a thousand dollars a month seems very excessive to me.
Some Western docs think acupuncture works as a counter irritant along nerve lines, which sometimes, but not always, line up with the “meridians” of Chinese Medicine.
An acupuncturist, of course, will say that treating the meridian on the back which influences the migraine will treat it. Note that the OP’s wife reported treatments on her forehead, as well as her back.
This is why it’s so tricky to try and make “translations” from TCM to Western medicine and back. It’s like explaining string theory using the Koran - they both tell truths about the universe, but with such different language and modes of thought as to make a direct translation impossible.
If you’re interested at all in why I think there are so few Gold Standard studies of TCM it’s largely because there are many more diagnoses and treatment strategies in TCM than in Western Medicine. If you design a study to test a migraine treatment, you round up 100 or more people who suffer from migraines, right? But in TCM, there could be 99 different diagnoses and 99 different treatments for those same people. So finding the sheer number of people with the same exact diagnosis and preferred treatment strategy is expensive and sometimes just impossible.
There’s also a lot of talk within the community about the ethical nature of controlled studies. Why, the question goes, should I withhold this treatment that my teachers told me works, the books say works, the history of my paradigm say works, and the suffering person on my table wants me to try, just to prove to a different mindset that it works? The only one it’s important to prove anything to is the patient. Either it works, or it doesn’t. Statistics are meaningless to that individual person.
Yes, it’s a totally different mindset. That’s my point. It’s a different way of thinking about not just the human body but the way the entire universe works.
It’s just not profitable to do testing. There’s very little money to be made in needle sticks and herbs, and most big pharma aren’t willing to be a part of it, and most practitioners won’t withhold treatment to comply with it, in my experience.
The OP’s wife’s acupuncturist seems to be doing OK, money-wise…
So in that sense, this board does have a bias against alternative medicine. Alternative medicine, by definition, is unproven.
But this mindset is one that cannot differentiate between reality and fantasy. Yes, it’s a different way of thinking, but it’s a far, far inferior way of thinking.
[singing] That’s a moray! [/singing] 
Exactly. I think this board does run in favor of rational thinking. Seems to be the principle on which it was founded. But giving irrational thinking the name “alternative” and then saying that those who are rational are biased against it is misleading at best.
Some practitioners of TCM are interested in Clinical Trials, in China & elsewhere. (As anyone who’s visited an American research center knows, plenty of Chinese are well-trained in Western science.) Clinical Trials are the only way that the ancient system will gain respect here. And they are the only way insurance companies will ever pay for traditional treatments.
This University of Maryland site tells what conditions often respond to TCM, what to avoid & how to find a qualified practitioner. Some articles in scientific publications are listed.
www.umm.edu/altmed/ConsModalities/TraditionalChineseMedicinecm.html
Could someone who has more experience with TCM than I do tell me if $1000+/month is out of line for what the going rate is for treating something like migraines? I don’t know much about TCM, but I suspect that it is, and that the OP’s wife’s practitioner might be overcharging her for either the cupping or the herbs.
Placebos do indeed work. Otherwise why would double-blind testing of drugs against placebo be the “gold standard”? Such trials require a third party to dispense the two to the “blinded” doctors, and carefully control and keep records of which is what. It would surely be easier and cheaper to test drugs using a “no treatment” control group rather than messing about with the placebos, no?
Mental stress and physical tension are certainly contributers to many types of pain. If a treatment causes the patient to relax mentally and physically, then it is wrong to say that the pain relief thus gained is not “real” because there was no physical or chemical mechanism involved.
I am disappointed you don’t want to debate. That’s a big function of this board.
I would point out that I don’t mind whatever you call these alternative treatments, but since no scientific trials have ever revealed the presence of qi or any effect of alternative medicine, I don’t see why anyone should use it, let alone pay for it.
As for your suggestion I spend 3 years time and money on something which has never been shown to work, let me tell you that I am the President of the British Society of Levitation. I run courses which teach people how to levitate. Not magic tricks - a pure mental ability which neutralises the gravitational field at the quantum level.
Fortunately there is a place on the next course, which cost a trifling £25,000. Can I sign you up?
There’s nothing in your paragraph here that supports the idea that placebos actually work, as in “cure a disease or correct a bodily malfunction.”
The most common reason to test against a placebo is that patients have expectations about whether a drug will have a benefit, and will subjectively interpret how they feel to reflect that. An example is someone who notices the times that he feels better after taking the treatment, and discounts those times when the pain is with him. This is cassic recall bias, and is the main reason that double-blind tests use a placebo for the control group. People look for things that support their preconceptions.
A possible benefit of placebos is that a person who believes he is getting effective treatment is more likely to be more active and generally have a healthier lifestyle, which leads to feeling better. Not that it cures any underlying disease, but feeling better is a worthwhile goal in itself.
A farther-out possibility is that the positive frame of mind actually stimulates the body to heal itself better. I personally doubt this one without strong evidence, and I haven’t seen that.
We also have a stance on those who claim the Moon landing was faked, the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, psychics and fortune tellers.
The common point is that they provide no satisfactory evidence for their theory.
I have no problem believing in gravity.
I use light switches with great confidence.
When microwave ovens came out I accepted that frozen meals could be heated by invisible rays.
I’m typing this on a computer which has no cables connecting it to the outside world. Instead it has a wireless adaptor that can send a signal through solid brick to a phone which sends my key depressions halfway round the World at the speed of light.
And you think I reject ideas because they are unlikely? :eek:
It’s very simple. Some alternative medicine, such as homoepathy, has been thoroughly tested.
‘So Horizon decided to do its own basophil experiments and enlisted the help of the Royal Society, the Royal London Hospital, University College London and Guy’s Hospital.
If we could show that ultra-high dilutions could still have a biological effect, then James Randi would have to pay up the million dollars.
If we found no effect it would call into question, once more, the very basis of homeopathy.’
It didn’t work.
Other alternative medical procedures refuse to be tested. ‘It’s too expensive’. ‘It’s been used for thousands of years’. ‘You can’t measure the forces involved’.
Of course I would be delighted to use a copper bracelet to remove my arthritis, rheumatism and other conditions. If only it could be shown to work…
As for the placebo effect, it has been measured. Provided the patient feels that someone is taking a genuine interest in curing them, then a percentage of patients will get well with sugared water.
‘There is no set placebo effect (approx. 30% is often given) and its extent depends upon numerous factors including:
Demeanour of person offering treatment
Patient’s attitude to health and their feelings about the treatment and person offering it
Suggestibility of patient
Form of treatment, e.g. whether it has worked before, how expensive it is, its invasiveness and reasons given as to how it works
Placebo effects on pain are generally greater than on other symptoms’
http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc/40002073/
‘Experimenters typically use placebos in the context of a clinical trial, in which a “test group” of patients receives the therapy being tested, and a “control group” receives the placebo. It can then be determined if results from the “test” group exceed those due to the placebo effect. If they do, the therapy or pill given to the “test group” is assumed to have had an effect.’
Charges vary according to location, but yes, $1000 a month sounds high to me. Where I live (Chicago), going rates are about $100 for an initial appointment and $50 for subsequent visits. Most people can’t be arsed to go more than once a week, although I understand in China itself the doctors like to do treatments every day.
I’d settle for a definition of “qi” and a cite that it exists.
That’s like referring someone to a Church to answer scientific questions about God.
There is no such thing as “qi” (or “chi” or however you want to spell it.Just so you know.
My point was that “cupping” describes a specific treatment, and what you and Randi describe is *not *cupping. I can’t even find another source which speaks of “Filipino cupping” or something similar, except the OP himself, who doesn’t know what it’s called or where it was taught and is describing a different technique besides. You weaken your own stance by arguing against strawmen of your own devising, just as a rabid Bush hater weakens himself by claiming that Bush himself is a baby raping psychopath. If you don’t have a basic grasp of what something IS, why should I believe you that you know it doesn’t work?
Now we’re getting somewhere. What you describe is a dermal hammer, called a Seven Star Needle. It’s has teeny tiny .20mm diameter needles that are 2mm long - traditionally, 7 of them, hence the name. It does not usually draw very much blood at all. It’s used, in TCM, to draw excess Heat to the surface so it can be expelled. What’s “Heat”, you ask? The tendency for redness, irritation and sharp stabbing pains.
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This sounds a lot like pseudo-medical gibberish. What is “Heat?” What is it made of? What does it look like? What do you mean by "tendency? What you’re describing are symptoms. How are these symptoms attributable to some kind of magical “stuff” that you can draw out of the body.
Oh boy. Now we’ve got “cold.” Another magical substance. How about a cite that any such substances as “heat” or “cold” exist.
By the way. There is no such thing as “Western” and “Eastern” medicine. There is legitimate medicine (all around the globe) and there is quackery (all around the globe). Real doctors in China practice the same medicine that real American doctors do.
“Not wanting to debate” something is a common feature of those espousing alternative medicine, ghosts, religion etc. Both Whynot and Severus have said it in this thread. What you want to do is come into the thread, state something unproven and have it accepted without argument. Not going to happen and nor should it. If your position can’t be defended within the rational culture of this board (long may it reign), you’re probably best off not stating it at all.
FWIW, I don’t espouse alternative medicine. I don’t want to debate it because I don’t know much about it, and in any case I don’t, for the most part, believe in alternative medicines. What I was doing was just pointing out what skepticism means to me, and why I think that a lot of Internet “skeptics” are not really skeptics, but just people who brush ideas away because that makes them feel smarter than others.
And in any case, this is GQ, not the place for a debate.
Same thing with atheism. I’m an atheist. But I find that many of the atheists on this board are infuriating with their assertions that God does not exist and no, it’s not their belief, it’s a fact and if you believe otherwise, you’re an idiot. Most of the time I get the impression that they had a bad experience with fundamentalist religion and now they must attack any religion.
I’ll answer glee’s post later, I have to go now.