Alternative Medicine...

[Alleya]

Anyone here use or know a lot about or practice alternative medicine?

I have been reading and talking to people who all work in the mental health field and it just seems that the conventional treatment options have so many side effects and people are having so many problems these days that it makes me wonder what options are out there vs conventional methods.

My mom is really into this being a nurse for 30+ years she has seen the good, bad, and ugly of the industry and is really big on essential oils and such.

I was wondering if anyone else might be practicing alternative treatment methods.

Short answer: If they worked, doctors would use them and they wouldn't be alternative anymore.

Long answer: Depending on what kind of illness you're talking about, alternative medicine can produce some results based only on the power of suggestion. Paying someone to give you this a pretty sizable sum of money for what you're getting is your own deal, but essentially a good doctor gives you the same thing for free. From an evolutionary standpoint, our bodies don't always go all out trying to defeat an illness or get rid of the symptoms (pain, etc) because doing so in our history would have been too big of a drain on our resources. Nowadays that doesn't matter so much, but the body has still evolved to have that innate caution. A lot of times, taking a drug or visiting your doctor has less to do with actually altering the chemical/equilibrium in your body and more to do with your mind simply giving permission to your body to expend the resources it needs to. Alternative medicine can work on this same principle of giving the body permission, their practices have no proven medical benefit other than that.

In the long run though, you should always prefer a doctor over a psychic or crystals or whatever. A doctor has the medical expertise necessary to find any illnesses, progressions, or warning signs of greater danger that some untrained yuppie in a herb shop does not.

[thatwasnifty]

I'll take evidence-based medicine over pseudo-science and quackery any day of the week.

/thread

If it were real medicine then it wouldn't be "alternative."

[Absolutely Virtue]

/thread

If it were real medicine then it wouldn't be "alternative."

People said the same thing about music.

Inb4 all drugs sound like Radiohead.

[guartz]

I think "alternative" medicine is a deceptive term.

For example, when I was a little kid, my grandmother 'cured' my red eye by soaking a towel in tea and pressing it against my eye. It worked, itching stopped almost immediately and redness was gone the next day. She learned to do that from her mother, and so forth, that remedy was passed on in generations.

So a more correct description for 'alternative' medicine would be 'original medicine'.

Now whether the original medicine works or not, is up for question. Societies rich in culture "e.i not America" have an easier time with this, though.

[Ruiner]

I think "alternative" medicine is a deceptive term.

For example, when I was a little kid, my grandmother 'cured' my red eye by soaking a towel in tea and pressing it against my eye. It worked, itching stopped almost immediately and redness was gone the next day. She learned to do that from her mother, and so forth, that remedy was passed on in generations.

So a more correct description for 'alternative' medicine would be 'original medicine'.

Now whether the original medicine works or not, is up for question. Societies rich in culture "e.i not America" have an easier time with this, though.

What you described your grandmother doing at least makes some sense. I'm not exactly sure how using a wet towel to quell an itchy eye compares to shit like accupuncture.

[Syntex]

Well to clarify by what I mean "alternative medicine" is basically anything that isn't the typical over-the-counter medicine but like oils/herbs ect.

Now for those who immediately jump on the "its all bullshit" bandwagon why is it that you think that?

Some say it could be placebo effect could be right, but at what point do you draw the line and say its not the effect but the medicine actually working?

Also part of all this stigma attached to natural remedies is because it costs the prescription drug company money if their pill for say back pain which costs an arm and a leg but if some doctor shows up saying that eating 3 oranges a day fixes the same problem that is where the problems arise.

Now say something big like cancer was cured by something simple, you know how many people would be out of a job? How many billions of dollars made from chemotherapy, support groups, medical supplies, hospital stays, funerals, ect will be lost and how many companies will go bankrupt?

But that aside there is also a double standard going on within the medical field that if someone dies from a natural cure like 1 in 100,000 people who have tried it that the item will be taken off the shelves and be on CNN about how 'dangerous' they are yet Abilify blatantly says in its add that it has "Increased chance of death" yet its on the market and being prescribed by doctors around the country yet said natural cure is the devil because it killed one person,...

YouTube - ABILIFY® (aripiprazole) Commercial
Abilify commercial

I would like to think that there is more to natural cures then just a placebo effect and that there is some actual good medicine behind them.

[archibaldcrane]

You still haven't said what ailment you want to cure with alternative medicine.

[Kiro]

Whiskeydick.

That's just me though.

[Slapper]

Coulda sworn gov't spent around 2.5billion researching alternative medicine and found nothing really worked.

[Tristam]

Well to clarify by what I mean "alternative medicine" is basically anything that isn't the typical over-the-counter medicine but like oils/herbs ect.

Now for those who immediately jump on the "its all bullshit" bandwagon why is it that you think that?

Some say it could be placebo effect could be right, but at what point do you draw the line and say its not the effect but the medicine actually working?

Also part of all this stigma attached to natural remedies is because it costs the prescription drug company money if their pill for say back pain which costs an arm and a leg but if some doctor shows up saying that eating 3 oranges a day fixes the same problem that is where the problems arise.

Now say something big like cancer was cured by something simple, you know how many people would be out of a job? How many billions of dollars made from chemotherapy, support groups, medical supplies, hospital stays, funerals, ect will be lost and how many companies will go bankrupt?

But that aside there is also a double standard going on within the medical field that if someone dies from a natural cure like 1 in 100,000 people who have tried it that the item will be taken off the shelves and be on CNN about how 'dangerous' they are yet Abilify blatantly says in its add that it has "Increased chance of death" yet its on the market and being prescribed by doctors around the country yet said natural cure is the devil because it killed one person,...

YouTube - ABILIFY® (aripiprazole) Commercial
Abilify commercial

I would like to think that there is more to natural cures then just a placebo effect and that there is some actual good medicine behind them.

The bullshit bandwagon is only when practitioners of alternative medicines claim to treat conditions when there is no evidence that they actually treat this condition beyond what would be expected by the placebo effect.

The line is drawn in studies that compare a proposed remedy with a control group and determine the statistical significance of the results. This has not been done successfully with any statistical significance to my knowledge for any alternative treatment. Search this blog if you want details, but I think you'll be disappointed.

Respectful Insolence

Yes there is alot of money in big pharma, but there's also alot of money in naturopathic or alternative treatments. The difference is that big pharma is regulated and must prove a benefit and provide consumers with potential side effects. There's plenty of dishonesty going both ways. As a person who knows many people involved in cancer research, I assure you that the reason there's no simple cure is because it's anything but a simple disease. If someone found a simple cure for anything, It's very likely they would publish it asap, the simple ideas tend to be the ones most easily scooped by another lab. The costs of treating vaccine-preventable illnesses are likely astronomical compared to the vaccination of a person, yet companies continue to design and market vaccines.

[Syntex]

You still haven't said what ailment you want to cure with alternative medicine.

Nothing really wrong with me that I am looking for some sort of cure or anything but the topic of it came up recently when talking with some people.

I have however seen some amazing results with Essential Oils from Young Living Essential Oils
I had a tooth ache and rubbed some cinnamon oil on my tooth and before I took my finger out of my mouth the pain was gone.

Also I have heard but not seen it anywhere so I am not sure of the accuracy of this claim but hearing that Tylenol is the leading cause of liver transplants because part of the contents gets stuck in the liver and over the years it destroys it makes me question the drug I would take on occasion for a headache and seek other medicine...

[Atreides]

If Aspirin didn't cure headaches people would think you were fucking crazy for scraping the bark off a willow tree and eating it. Same goes for eating mold to cure infections, or picking opium flowers to numb post-operative pain. Or even implanting a piece of copper in a woman's vagina to prevent pregnancy.

I see no difference between those and several disciplines considered "alternative" that are only called that because they haven't been accepted into mainstream western medicine *yet*.

We always look back at pre-modern medicine and laugh at not only its relative barbarity, but also how the medical establishment was so thoroughly convinced it was right it discounted all treatments not under their purview as heretical and without merit. I think to discount the entirety of alternative medicine with the same conviction is an equally reprehensible blunder, considering we don't even know how half the medicine we take works, just that it does.

[Atreides]

also a little Lavender oil on a tissue in my pillowcase really seems to make me sleep a lot deeper at night, it's kinda crazy how well it works actually.

[Talus]

If Aspirin didn't cure headaches people would think you were fucking crazy for scraping the bark off a willow tree and eating it. Same goes for eating mold to cure infections, or picking opium flowers to numb post-operative pain. Or even implanting a piece of copper in a woman's vagina to prevent pregnancy.

I see no difference between those and several disciplines considered "alternative" that are only called that because they haven't been accepted into mainstream western medicine *yet*.

We always look back at pre-modern medicine and laugh at not only its relative barbarity, but also how the medical establishment was so thoroughly convinced it was right it discounted all treatments not under their purview as heretical and without merit. I think to discount the entirety of alternative medicine with the same conviction is an equally reprehensible blunder, considering we don't even know how half the medicine we take works, just that it does.

That's the fall-back argument of most people for "alternative" or "natural" medicine, by making straw man arguments about "well this is from nature" or as you said "eating mold to cure infections" but the reason we even know the certain molds work to fight infection (bacterial, not viral, and typically Gram-positive organisms since they disrupt the synthesis of the bacterial cell wall) is because research was done, and it was observed that the mold would inhibit bacterial growth in the surrounding media. You are completely ignoring that everyone has mentioned (paraphrase) "alternative medicine is alternative medicine until it becomes medicine after careful research & study is done."

There is always scientific study and research going on - there are definitely eureka moments that happen as well. Viagra works pretty well for erectile dysfunction for example, but it was originally researched as a drug for pulmonary hypertension, but the nice side effect of getting wood was noticed due to increased nitric oxide to the erectile tissues of the penis.

The last thing that struck me was:

"I think to discount the entirety of alternative medicine with the same conviction is an equally reprehensible blunder, considering we don't even know how half the medicine we take works, just that it does."

I don't think anyone is discounting alternative medicine. However, there are a lot of quacks and snake oil salesmen and women out there that may be doing more harm than good and have a less than pure motive for advocating some kind of alternative medicine or treatment. All I'm saying is I'd rather be treated with something that has scientifically valid evidence to back it up, which has been thoroughly tested, than something that has not. Some alternative medicine may end up in the future being integrated into mainstream medicine, if research and clinical trials are done and it is shown to have an advantageous effect. It is also incredibly naive of you to say "we don't even know how half the medicine we take works, just that it does." Maybe that is the case with alternative medicine, but for most prescription medicine we know exactly how it works - what biochemical pathways are involved, its effects, etc. Maybe the layperson doesn't know how it works, but it's not some big mystery as in "I don't know how this pill works, but I take it and it lowers my bad cholesterol." That's not the case.

[Atreides]

I agree with everything you're saying, I think it'd be ridiculous not to use western medicine if you were sick, but I was really reacting more at the people who seemed to be implying using one excluded the other, or that forms of alternative medicine have no place alongside mainstream remedies.

And without getting into a huge debate on the state of medicine in the US in general, I agree that it's fair to question the motivation of 'snake oil salesmen' peddling alternative medicine, but it's equally fair to have a big big problem with the way the pharmaceutical industry more or less bribes doctors to get them to prescribe their drugs, regardless of efficacy, with resort weekend getaways and lunches and all that corporate whoredom etc.

[Alleya]

I agree with everything you're saying, I think it'd be ridiculous not to use western medicine if you were sick, but I was really reacting more at the people who seemed to be implying using one excluded the other, or that forms of alternative medicine have no place alongside mainstream remedies.

And without getting into a huge debate on the state of medicine in the US in general, I agree that it's fair to question the motivation of 'snake oil salesmen' peddling alternative medicine, but it's equally fair to have a big big problem with the way the pharmaceutical industry more or less bribes doctors to get them to prescribe their drugs, regardless of efficacy, with resort weekend getaways and lunches and all that corporate whoredom etc.

Corruption blah blah, you ignore the fact that in order to become drugs, they have to go through clinical trials which are monitored by the FDA before they can become a mainstream medication. They HAVE to produce some results over multiple testing in clinical settings, otherwise they would be legally unable to make the claims that they do. Alternative medication is alternative because they cannot and do not pass muster in this way.

There seems to be a great push by many people who believe this sort of corruption argument to essentially demonize doctors. There are tens of thousands of practicing doctors in the US. For every 1 corrupt dickwad you find, you will find 100 more who are genuinely good people who want to help others, who investigate alternative treatments and even conduct trials at their own expense to make sure that they are offering their patients the very best. It's a simple fact: If alternative treatments were as effective as established ones, they wouldn't be alternative any more.

I have however seen some amazing results with Essential Oils from Young Living Essential Oils
I had a tooth ache and rubbed some cinnamon oil on my tooth and before I took my finger out of my mouth the pain was gone.

Also I have heard but not seen it anywhere so I am not sure of the accuracy of this claim but hearing that Tylenol is the leading cause of liver transplants because part of the contents gets stuck in the liver and over the years it destroys it makes me question the drug I would take on occasion for a headache and seek other medicine...

Re: oil: That is an anecdote, which is not acceptable evidence in any scientific circle. It's most likely just a placebo effect.

The second claim is simply false. The leading 'cause' of liver transplant is hepatitis, followed by alcohol abuse.

[Syntex]

I agree with everything you're saying, I think it'd be ridiculous not to use western medicine if you were sick, but I was really reacting more at the people who seemed to be implying using one excluded the other, or that forms of alternative medicine have no place alongside mainstream remedies.

And without getting into a huge debate on the state of medicine in the US in general, I agree that it's fair to question the motivation of 'snake oil salesmen' peddling alternative medicine, but it's equally fair to have a big big problem with the way the pharmaceutical industry more or less bribes doctors to get them to prescribe their drugs, regardless of efficacy, with resort weekend getaways and lunches and all that corporate whoredom etc.

This 1000 times over...

Doctors are taught less then a day about nutrition but spend a ton of time learning about drugs and side effects because nutrition doesn't make money like prescription drugs do, that is not to say that drugs don't help people but it just amazes me that a big contributing factor for why people are sick can be fixed with nutrition and there is so little emphasis on it.

And in regards to the "snake oil salesman" I mean how can we tell who or what is good medicine and what process has been done to conventional medicine which makes it so conventional and accepted?

I think some of the reason that this medicine is not mainstream is there is already some form of medication that does handle something like depression(Abilify) and getting some of these natural cures on the market would hinder their sales even more so when the side effects of said natural doesn't include death...


EDIT:

Re: oil: That is an anecdote, which is not acceptable evidence in any scientific circle. It's most likely just a placebo effect.

I realize that this is just from my experience but where do we draw the line from "its just placebo effect" to actual medicine? What if this oil made a broken arm not hurt as much would it still be placebo? What if it cured my xxxxx problem would it still be placebo? Or maybe that the oil actually did stop the pain?

As we all know this one case of this instance is not conclusive evidence that the oil does or does not fix tooth aches but to say that the oil is nothing more then say olive oil in a bottle and the effect is simple you thinking its working therefore it just works is a little too much assumption.

Why can't we take this same reasoning and say Tylenol is a placebo effect? Because people would cite the ingredients in it, show research on what the ingredients do to the body and how they will help your pain, so lets take that thought process and apply to said oil and see where it takes us.

The second claim is simply false. The leading 'cause' of liver transplant is hepatitis, followed by alcohol abuse.

Where did you hear this? I would like to see more info on it.

[Alleya]

This 1000 times over...

Doctors are taught less then a day about nutrition but spend a ton of time learning about drugs and side effects because nutrition doesn't make money like prescription drugs do, that is not to say that drugs don't help people but it just amazes me that a big contributing factor for why people are sick can be fixed with nutrition and there is so little emphasis on it.

And in regards to the "snake oil salesman" I mean how can we tell who or what is good medicine and what process has been done to conventional medicine which makes it so conventional and accepted?

I think some of the reason that this medicine is not mainstream is there is already some form of medication that does handle something like depression(Abilify) and getting some of these natural cures on the market would hinder their sales even more so when the side effects of said natural doesn't include death...

Simply, you are wrong. Doctors learn more about drugs these days than in the past because there are more drugs. They have to learn more about them and how they work otherwise they won't be good doctors. Seeing a conspiracy in this simple logical fact is either ignorant or insane. A good doctor will always tell patients to eat right and exercise, the fact is that people simply don't listen to them. A good doctor will refer a patient to a specialist if they need it, and prescribe drugs if it seems to be necessary. The fact that corruption exists in a profession is not evidence of conspiracy.

Let's turn the logic around. There are thousands more alternative medicine practitioners than doctors who are actively harming people who come to them. They perform untrained surgeries with unsterilized instruments, they encourage people with deadly diseases to stick with a treatment or regime that does not work, leading to complications that stick the person with higher medical costs than they ever needed, permanent injury, or death. Does that mean the whole world of alternative medicine is corrupt? Absolutely not.

And in regards to the "snake oil salesman" I mean how can we tell who or what is good medicine and what process has been done to conventional medicine which makes it so conventional and accepted?

Scientific research. As I said in another post, mainstream drugs HAVE to PROVE results before they can be certified by the FDA. Most alternative treatments have been tested in this way, and they DO NOT pass muster, that is why they are not used.

Clarity: I'm not saying that drugs are the only option. There are some folk remedies for common ailments that do work, such as bathing foot fungus in the smoke from burning a termite nest. Many drugs are just simply concentrated doses of the active ingredient in folk remedies, and thus are more effective. But there is a lot more flim-flam out there than actual cures, and the culture of conspiracy theories and institutionalized distrust of scientific medicine that sprouts up around this flim-flam is extremely dangerous.

[Atreides]

I don't think the problem really lies with doctors so much as it does with pharmaceutical companies and drug reps, of course doctors get a very high level of control over what they do and don't prescribe, but the amount of money these drug companies spend to woo doctors is nothing short of staggering. I'm not saying there's any foul play here, but to suggest that doctors aren't influenced by advertising the way 99% of the rest of humanity is seems unlikely at best.

I think in a sense you're both right, you can't really deny how effective western medicine is at treating a lot of ailments but to ignore all alternative treatments simply because some haven't held up to the same standards-- that is, to tell someone in east asia that their medicine is inferior and ineffective despite years of evidence, however anecdotal, to the contrary just because we haven't gotten around to proving it yet seems unnecessarily arrogant. Of course there are risks in relying solely on alternative medicine for treatment, but that doesn't mean there aren't risks in solely relying on mainstream medicine.

And I know this gets a lot into personal responsibility, but it does seem like we've evolved into a society where we think we can live irresponsible lifestyles and just take whatever pills to fix all our problems, when that's exactly the kind of mentality that ends up making healthcare and insurance cost so much money. Personally, I'd rather eat healthy and exercise now than slam down cheeseburgers until I need to take lipitor, no one told me to do it and yeah it sucks that people are too stupid to realize they need to, but as the cliche goes an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

[Syntex]

Simply, you are wrong. Doctors learn more about drugs these days than in the past because there are more drugs. They have to learn more about them and how they work otherwise they won't be good doctors. Seeing a conspiracy in this simple logical fact is either ignorant or insane. A good doctor will always tell patients to eat right and exercise, the fact is that people simply don't listen to them. A good doctor will refer a patient to a specialist if they need it, and prescribe drugs if it seems to be necessary. The fact that corruption exists in a profession is not evidence of conspiracy.

Let's turn the logic around. There are thousands more alternative medicine practitioners than doctors who are actively harming people who come to them. They perform untrained surgeries with unsterilized instruments, they encourage people with deadly diseases to stick with a treatment or regime that does not work, leading to complications that stick the person with higher medical costs than they ever needed, permanent injury, or death. Does that mean the whole world of alternative medicine is corrupt? Absolutely not.



Scientific research. As I said in another post, mainstream drugs HAVE to PROVE results before they can be certified by the FDA. Most alternative treatments have been tested in this way, and they DO NOT pass muster, that is why they are not used.

Telling a patient to eat right and exercise is so very vague and should maybe find out what in their diet is causing for example back pain instead of "your back hurts here is a prescription" ect..

I was just trying to make a point that maybe doctors should have a little more emphasis on nutrition then the very limited section they have as it is...

I did not mean to imply how you mentioned there is an evil overlord making sure all they get taught about is pills all day so that nothing else important can be taught or how you implied.