Many people believe that the various forms of alternative medicine being practiced today are simply forms of quackery and that until there is evidence based scientific testing it will remain that and no more but I am not one of them, not at least wrt accupuncture.
One does, of course, have to take care to find a fully trained, experienced, licensed practitioner and word of mouth is often the most reliable source of a recommendation as there really are quacks out there who will take your money and run but the effort can be worthwhile.
Currently I receive regular acupuncture treatment from a very skilled acupuncturist who was trained in traditional methods. When I started I had been told by medics that I had incurable nerve damage caused by surgery that I just had to learn to live with and that I had exhausted the available options for managing my illness, yet after just one session the phantom nerve pain had reduced and I had regained sensation in an area where it had been absent for years. Now several months on the daily pain has significantly reduced to the extent that I’ve not passed out from it in months.
I have experienced the attempts made by medics using conventional medicines and techniques, including repeated surgeries, to manage my medical condition and shared in their frustration when they are unable to do anything to stop the relentless progress of the disease. I’m not naïve enough to think that the acupuncture has cured me but it has quite clearly, to me, improved my health.
So I find myself wondering just how acupuncture has succeeded where conventional medicine has not; is it a state of mind? Am I deluding myself that there has been an improvement? (I seriously doubt this as I keep a pain diary which has changed significantly) Is it due the holistic approach that comes from treating the whole body and not just the individual symptom each consigned to be treated by a different doctor? I don’t know, I’m just grateful that it does and wish it was more easily accessible.
How about you? Are you a believer or is it all just untested and therefore unsafe?
Alyss posted on Sep 04, 2006
| views: 361
Comments
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Razulki said on Sep 04, 2006....
Disregarding eastern medicine is a favorite passtime of skeptics who hold sceince to be the "god" of all. They not so cleverly disregard the fact that it was the primary form of medicine available to those people for something like 3000 years and has worked for them quite well. Obviously there's something there.
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silverwhisper said on Sep 04, 2006....
frankly, i think that there's something more to eastern medicine than most people will accept, but less than the zealots would believe.
ed
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dauntlessreign said on Sep 04, 2006....
Science is not always a fact. ;0)
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Alyss said on Sep 05, 2006....
Razulki; there is definately a school of thought that says if it can't be consistently recreated in a lab it doesn't exist.
SW; as in all things there are extremes.
dauntless; care to say more?
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hotaka said on Sep 06, 2006....
As you may know from one of my recent blog entries, I have a student who is an acupuncturist. I have learned a lot of interesting things from him that fly in the face of conventional western medicine. The fact is that once people are treated by him they go back. He can often tell what is wrong with someone before they say so. By touching pressure points he can tell what needs to be done.
The best case of his I heard about was when a four-year old girl with growth problem was brought to him. Doctors said it was a problem with her growth hormones and recommended the parents give her hormone injections. The problem was that the hormones could not be administered in large enough doses to have much effect because of her body's age, which was about two years younger due to its lack of maturity.
Upon examining the girl, my student discovered she had something wrong with her kidnies. I don't remember exactly what he told me next but it was something to the effect that the kidnies were not doing their job right and as a result were affecting something else that was affecting her body's ability to digest food properly. That affected her appetite control and as such she ate very little and her body didn't get sufficient nourishment to develop and grow. Something like that.
After treating her the first time the parents returned a week later reporting that the girl's appetite had increased and she had more energy. There were still many sessions to go but he felt that he had found the source of the problem and could heal her.
The Chinese have been working on the mysteries of the human body for thousands of years. I wouldn't say that they are completely off base, especially with what I have learned from my student.
Chiropractors are also snubbed by most doctors, I have heard and yet some people swear by them.
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raft said on Sep 06, 2006....
I've yet to do Acupuncture. I'm a complete ignoramus concerning that. I've had friends who swear by it. I'm skeptical but not against it. I know there are plenty of mysteries that I've yet to encounter.
On the other hand, I'm actually seeing a Chiroprator because I threw my back out last weekend.
Having been in the spinal medical industry supporting a software/hardware diagnostic, I've had the chance to get a good feel for the types of spinal problems. I'm no doctor, but I can tell what type of doctor to go see. So I threw out my back. My wife applied some tiger balm, it didn't help at all. So I knew it wasn't a muscular issue. This left the spine itself. So I went to see a Chiro. What they do is realign your spinal column. In case of an acute problem (such as mine), they usually follow you closely for a period of time (2 weeks for me at this point), and realign your spine, until it stays aligned.
Usually they will try to get you to come back for touch ups.
This is not a medical advice, only personal opinion: I wouldn't get a neck realignment. The cervicals are touchy and there is a chance of nerve pinching or worse (you usually get to sign a waiver before they do it). I refuse to sign it. I don't want it done.
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CreativeWoman said on Sep 06, 2006....
Would you believe I used to be a contributing editor for a publication where I wrote about energetic healing?
I love this stuff.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think acupuncture has been around for about 5,000 years. It would not have lasted if it didn't work. Right?
CW
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hotaka said on Sep 06, 2006....
CW - Possibly 5,000 years. When I read 3,000 years I always forget to check if that's B.C. or ago. I did read something about 3,000 years though. In either case, that's longer than ER has been running.
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CreativeWoman said on Sep 07, 2006....
hotaka,
What's 2,000 years between friends? It's longevity is the point. :-)
CW
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hotaka said on Sep 07, 2006....
Good point (get it? point?).
Come here CW and let me stick a needle in you.
Ooh... That sounds a bit rude, doesn't it?
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