At this point, assuming you've been paying attention and you know what homeopathy is, and you still buy homeopathic products,, you're .. um, what's the most respectful way to put this? .. you're, well, dumb as a sack of doorknobs. Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
I don't disagree. But I have heard the claim that worst case, you're spending money on nothing.
It turns out, worst case, you're spending money on baby poison.
Posted by DDDaysh (Member # 9499) on :
You do realize, don't you, that most people who are die hard about those kind of things don't listen to the FDA. They think "big pharma" owns the FDA, and that the FDA publishes nothing but lies... (or at least that's what I gather from Cafemom!)
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
This is the same issue with Chiropractic; it's more likely to harm than to help in practice, and it's based on completely bogus ideas.
Baby poison. Or zinc-loaded homeopathic 'cold remedies' that have permanently impaired hundreds of people's sense of smell, manufactured by shylocks who knew full well that homeopathic labeling allowed them to sell products that contained no active ingredients and do nothing.
Which is slightly less funny and more tragic than watching people rub inert wax on their foreheads to cure their headaches.
Posted by Herblay (Member # 11834) on :
Homeopathics gives real herbalism a bad name. And the fact that 90% of OTC herbal blends are so weak that it takes half of the bottle to get a medicinal effect, I guess.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
As far as Chiropractic issues, it depends. Some of those people claim to be able to cure anything, and that is a crock. But I went to one after a car accident, and they were MUCH better at reliving pain and fixing my spinal issues than most other doctors were, hands down.
I have never heard anything credible about any sort of Homeopathy that could be proven, which makes it much worse IMO.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by DDDaysh: You do realize, don't you, that most people who are die hard about those kind of things don't listen to the FDA.
Sure. But lots of people buy homeopathic "remedies" without being die-hard.
And I agree with Kwea about chiropractors. The ones who claim to be able to fix all sorts of ailments are the worst sorts of quacks. But many recognize that what they can do is limited to physical therapy, and are quite good at it. The chiropractic treatments I got for my sciatica was the only way I survived my last trimester with kid #3. And was recommended by my OB.
Posted by DDDaysh (Member # 9499) on :
quote:Originally posted by Herblay: Homeopathics gives real herbalism a bad name. And the fact that 90% of OTC herbal blends are so weak that it takes half of the bottle to get a medicinal effect, I guess.
I think the problem here wasn't that the herb (or natural remedy) doesn't work, it's that the product was so poorly controlled that you couldn't get an accurate dosage. Without the ability to accurately dose a substance, it's really difficult to use it.
Lots of medications, even Tylenol, would be extremely dangerous if we didn't know how much was in one pill. Luckily the FDA usually keeps a pretty close eye on "drug" manufacturers. A similar system is not in place for most "herbal supplements".
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Kwea: I have never heard anything credible about any sort of Homeopathy that could be proven, which makes it much worse IMO.
Chiropractic makes no credible claims for treatment, either. They're just much more established and few people know that the theory behind chiropractic is completely, 100% worthless and wrong. I'm sure many people would be surprised to learn that chiropractic claims that germ theory is wrong, or that systematic research showed that the risk of harm from chiropractic procedures (especially for children) far outweighed the possible benefits for short-term alleviation of back pain.
Go to an osteopath, or a physical therapy masseuse. They can treat you just as well (even when nearly all of 'successful treatment' in chiropractic is post hoc ergo propter hoc assumption) for the same problem, with far less chance of injury, and less chance of related snake oil sales. They will also have not wasted the years of time that chiropractic doctors waste learning about complete fairy tales involving the spine and general health, such as the 'vertebral subluxation.'
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
When my daughter wants me to pass the water at the table, she usually asks for the homeopathic grape juice.
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
quote: Go to an osteopath, or a physical therapy masseuse
I did both. Neither worked - at all. I did the physical therapy and all the stretching. I had an MRI and a bone scan done by a back surgeon. He was the one who finally told me there was nothing he could do and he recommended that I go see a chiropractor. The one I went to does not believe he can cure the cold or fix all my problems. He told me he could relieve my back pain and he did.
If that puts me in the realm of doorknobs, so be it. But at least this doorknob no longer has lower back pain.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
"It’s a miracle! Take physics and bin it! Water has memory! And while its memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is infinite It somehow forgets all the poo it’s had in it!"
-Tim Minchin, "Storm"
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: At this point, assuming you've been paying attention and you know what homeopathy is, and you still buy homeopathic products,, you're .. um, what's the most respectful way to put this? .. you're, well, dumb as a sack of doorknobs.
Given that X is quite dumb, is a sack of X any dumber? For all you know there could be emergent network effects. After all, a single neuron is not very bright, yet you would not use "dumb as a skullful of neurons" as an insult. Unless you had a particular skull in mind, perhaps.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
I thought my chiropractor was a miracle worker. Back pain and pelvic pain on pregnancy were massively improved. My chiropractor did at one point say that they were many chiropractors out there that made her ashamed of the profession, and she listed off different philosophies taught by different schools. Some were very crazy. But, pregnancy was way easier and less painful for seeing her. I would say it takes it a bit too far though to like claim that my super easy delivery was from seeing her.
Posted by Herblay (Member # 11834) on :
quote:Originally posted by scholarette: I thought my chiropractor was a miracle worker. Back pain and pelvic pain on pregnancy were massively improved. My chiropractor did at one point say that they were many chiropractors out there that made her ashamed of the profession, and she listed off different philosophies taught by different schools. Some were very crazy. But, pregnancy was way easier and less painful for seeing her. I would say it takes it a bit too far though to like claim that my super easy delivery was from seeing her.
A chiropractor uses a relatively sound methodology with a quack theory as it's underlying premise. Just as relativity "mostly" predicts astrophysical movement, the theory doesn't have to be entirely sound for the methodology to work.
Homeopathy, however, never worked beyond placebo. It is entirely based on false premises AND it doesn't have a working methodology.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I am suspicious of homeopathy.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by zgator: If that puts me in the realm of doorknobs, so be it. But at least this doorknob no longer has lower back pain.
Sack of Doorknobs territory is homeopathy, not chiropractic. Homeopathy is placebo anti-vac quackery. Chiropractic is quackery too (vertebral subluxations don't exist, germ theory is true, and no, Virginia, you cannot solve all malady via spinal adjustment), but it's not nothing. They're still masseuses, and they're doing stuff that will alleviate some pains and relieve muscle tension. Many chiropractic offices even eschew most of chiropractic's vitalistic b.s. and concentrate on the efficacious components of 'adjustment,' which boil down to, essentially, massage therapy.
I have to call a spade a spade, however. I can't go ape on homeopathy for being a completely wrong theory and not criticize chiropractic for being the same:
quote:chiropractic
Chiropractic is the most significant nonscientific health-care delivery system in the United States. --William T. Jarvis, Ph.D.
....chiropractic today includes more than 60,000 practitioners that represent a wide range of positions, from the traditional subluxation theorists to reformers who are critical of subluxation theory and its related pseudoscientific claims. --Ron Good
The basic idea of classical chiropractic is that "subluxations" are the cause of most medical problems. According to classical chiropractic, a "subluxation" is a misalignment of the spine that allegedly interferes with nerve signals from the brain. However, there is no scientific evidence for spinal subluxations and none have ever been observed by medical practitioners such as orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, or radiologists. On May 25, 2010, The General Chiropractic Council (GCC), a UK-wide statutory body with regulatory powers, issued the following statement:
The chiropractic vertebral subluxation complex is an historical concept but it remains a theoretical model. It is not supported by any clinical research evidence that would allow claims to be made that it is the cause of disease or health concerns.
Even so, chiropractors still maintain that spinal adjustment is the key to good health.
Chiropractors think that by adjusting the misalignments they can thereby restore the nerve signals and cure health problems. This idea was first propounded in 1895 by D. D. Palmer, a grocer from Davenport, Iowa, and a vitalist who considered intelligent energy to be conveying information among various body parts. There is no scientific evidence to support these ideas. Palmer claimed that he cured a deaf man, Harvey Lillard who was a janitor by trade, by manipulating his spine. As Dr. Harriet Hall comments: "This makes no anatomical sense."
Some long-standing members of chiropractic are even courageous enough to admit that chiropractic is completely wrong and should, essentially, be dissolved and reformed based on the fact that subluxation theory is completely bogus and has resulted in a medical practice of spinal manipulation which is much more likely to cause harm rather than good.
But am I really surprised that people are very very easily capable of anecdotally inferring that their experiences with chiropractic solved a lot more than it actually did? No. I even mentioned the ergo propter hoc part of it. "I saw a chiropractor and a few days later the pain was gone!" — people are notoriously wired to infer this sort of thing:
quote:Despite the fact that chiropractors claim there are thousands of studies that prove the effectiveness of spinal manipulation, most support for chiropractic comes from testimonials of people who claim to have been helped by manipulation. Whether they were helped because nerves were "unblocked" has not been established. And there is no way to measure whether any so-called intelligent energy is even present, much less affected by manipulation. Most of these testimonials have come from people who believe their back pain was alleviated by spinal manipulation. Whether the manipulation is any more effective than a back rub, hot creams, exercise, or time, is questionable. Relieving back pain is a notoriously tricky area, since our species is poorly designed for upright activity and most people suffer intermittent bouts of back pain. One is likely to seek a chiropractor (or buy magnetic braces or some other bit of quackery) when one's pain is most severe. Natural regression will usually lead to the pain lessening after the treatment, even if there is no causal connection between the two. This is not to say that chiropractors don't help people with aching backs, including people with chronic back problems. Maybe some do. But there is no scientific evidence that correcting these so-called misalignments by manipulation has anything to do with relief from pain.
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: When my daughter wants me to pass the water at the table, she usually asks for the homeopathic grape juice.
Good heavens, that first "the" should not be skimmed over -- it affects the meaning of the sentence (and my mental image of your dinners) most strenuously. Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :
Count me as one of the minions who believes that chiropractic treatment has some benefit. I'm sure they aren't going to cure my cold, but they definitely helped with my back pain. And, I might have learned something about exercising and stretching from them, too.
And I wouldn't qualify those treatments as massages, either. I might look forward to a massage. I don't look forward to anyone manipulating my back...unless I'm already in significant pain.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tstorm: I don't look forward to anyone manipulating my back...
Then don't bother; you have the advantage of knowing that there's little reason to suspect measurable benefit that you couldn't get with just a regular massage.
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
Except that regular massage did not do it in my case or, apparently, in many others.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Tstorm: I don't look forward to anyone manipulating my back...
Then don't bother; you have the advantage of knowing that there's little reason to suspect measurable benefit that you couldn't get with just a regular massage.
But my insurance pays for a chiropractor, not a masseuse. It did seem a lot like a massage though, with the addition of some exercises to help strengthen my back and pelvis.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: And I agree with Kwea about chiropractors. The ones who claim to be able to fix all sorts of ailments are the worst sorts of quacks. But many recognize that what they can do is limited to physical therapy, and are quite good at it. The chiropractic treatments I got for my sciatica was the only way I survived my last trimester with kid #3. And was recommended by my OB.
I had good results from a chiropractor for my sciatica, too. It went beyond massage. They took X-rays, found the pinched nerve, and used a combination of massage, exercises and electric current to fix it. Two sessions, covered by my insurance, and I had no more problem with it.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: When my daughter wants me to pass the water at the table, she usually asks for the homeopathic grape juice.
Your daughter... is so... awesome!!!!
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by rivka: And I agree with Kwea about chiropractors. The ones who claim to be able to fix all sorts of ailments are the worst sorts of quacks. But many recognize that what they can do is limited to physical therapy, and are quite good at it. The chiropractic treatments I got for my sciatica was the only way I survived my last trimester with kid #3. And was recommended by my OB.
I had good results from a chiropractor for my sciatica, too. It went beyond massage. They took X-rays, found the pinched nerve, and used a combination of massage, exercises and electric current to fix it. Two sessions, covered by my insurance, and I had no more problem with it.
This is a great example of how chiropractic *seems* to work... the electric current actually did nothing to help your sciatica, but you sure seem to think it did Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
quote:Originally posted by zgator: Except that regular massage did not do it in my case or, apparently, in many others.
I'm one of the many others. I was referred to chiropractors twice by different massage therapists who said they couldn't help me.
I have consistently been helped by chiropractors when the pain/tension/discomfort wasn't just going away on its own, and a massage therapist made me feel nice and relaxed in places but couldn't make the "locked" feeling go away.
Having said that . . . after a year of various ailments, aches, pains (including physical therapy for a frozen shoulder), I knew that if a life of constant adjustments at the chiropractor was not what I wanted for myself that I was going to have to be a bit more proactive. A little over three months ago I started working out w/ a personal trainer to strengthen my core muscles and hopefully eliminate some of the recurring problems. Best decision I ever made. I went to my chiropractor again after quite a long interval (for me), and he said it's the least locked up he remembers me being in a very long time.
What you say about the underlying theory being bogus makes sense to me. I certainly never understood it, and the history of it sounds fairly preposterous to me. All I know is that the techniques they use provide relief. But if I can prevent having to have the treatment by strengthening my body, well, I'm all for that.
And I use a homeopathic sinus treatment. Yes, it does worry me that it's not regulated and tested and so forth. But it works better than any prescription or OTC treatment I've ever tried. It's a gamble; I choose to take the risk because the results are impressive.
And yeah, I know -- one person's anecdotal evidence is useless overall.
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
What homeopathic sinus treatment?
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
I was in a car accident a few years ago and as a result one of the muscles in my neck was damaged. Not the bone, the muscle. I went to chiropractor who did some x-rays on the muscles and we found a tear.
He put me on an routine that strengthened the other muscles to compensate. He didn't even mention my spine during our sesions. I went to him for about three months. I am supposed to do the routine three times a week to keep it up, but there have been some months that I don't and I can tell a difference. I don't feel any pain, but things seem slanted to me and not straight. If you drew two lines perfectly parallel to each other, it would look like the top one was veering upwards.
Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
Parkour - Sinus Buster
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
That appears to be more of a "natural" than homeopathic product, as it has measurable amounts of capsaicin in it.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
Uprooted, I'm looking at a thing of Sinus Buster, which is sitting next to my keyboard. It is absolutely not homeopathic. Homeopathic doesn't mean "non-medicinal". It means diluted until there's virtually nothing left of the active ingredient. Sinus Buster is a capsaicin spray. I guarantee you that it isn't diluted like a homeopathic preparation. It burns like a sonuvabitch, but it does do the job.
Yes, it says "homeopathic" on the label. And maybe they get away with that because the capsaicin must be diluted to some degree, but it simply doesn't fit the definition of homeopathic.
Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
Guess I need to read up on the definition of homeopathic!
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest:
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: When my daughter wants me to pass the water at the table, she usually asks for the homeopathic grape juice.
Your daughter... is so... awesome!!!!
I know. Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Yes, it says "homeopathic" on the label. And maybe they get away with that because the capsaicin must be diluted to some degree, but it simply doesn't fit the definition of homeopathic.
I suspect they get away with it because there is no regulation of use of the term.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Uprooted: Guess I need to read up on the definition of homeopathic!
Homeopathic remedy is, quite literally, feeding minute portions of poisons to people when they have symptoms that those poisons also cause when they are fed to a person in an undiluted form. The dilution is so significant that there's rarely even any molecular portion of the original poison in the homeopathic dose.
So, for instance, if you have symptoms from a head cold which are superficially similar to what you would get with a degree of arsenic poisoning, a homeopath would prescribe sugar (or lactic acid) pills that were mixed with water that had arsenic put in it and was diluted to the extent that only if you are very very very very 'lucky' even contains even trace amounts of arsenic in it. But that's okay, because the 'memory of water' holds the 'vibrational imprint' of the arsenic, which now that it is just water with the vibrational imprint of arsenic, now cures stuff that is similar to what arsenic would cause if you fed it in an undiluted form to a healthy human being. Except the water is all dried out of the pill, so there's no more memory of water at work, but that's apparently okay too. Somehow it sticks magically.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Yes, it says "homeopathic" on the label. And maybe they get away with that because the capsaicin must be diluted to some degree, but it simply doesn't fit the definition of homeopathic.
I suspect they get away with it because there is no regulation of use of the term.
Neither of these. The product adds a homeopathic dilution of (probably) nettle to the product, so that it qualifies as a homeopathic product — there being additional substances in the product which actually do something is irrelevant to that fact.
And it is likely done, at least in part, because making a product 'homeopathic' has negligible cost (because it's just water) and because of special privileges that homeopaths have earned for their institution, it allows you to avoid a large degree of regulation by health safety institutions. Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Parkour:
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by rivka: And I agree with Kwea about chiropractors. The ones who claim to be able to fix all sorts of ailments are the worst sorts of quacks. But many recognize that what they can do is limited to physical therapy, and are quite good at it. The chiropractic treatments I got for my sciatica was the only way I survived my last trimester with kid #3. And was recommended by my OB.
I had good results from a chiropractor for my sciatica, too. It went beyond massage. They took X-rays, found the pinched nerve, and used a combination of massage, exercises and electric current to fix it. Two sessions, covered by my insurance, and I had no more problem with it.
This is a great example of how chiropractic *seems* to work... the electric current actually did nothing to help your sciatica, but you sure seem to think it did
Because my back and legs hurt less afterwards. How are you defining "help"?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Because my back and legs hurt less afterwards. How are you defining "help"?
Reduced symptoms through physical processes rather than through placebo affect? The subjective experience of pain is very susceptible to suggestion.
An effect is still an effect though, if placebo does it for you then great!
Posted by maui babe (Member # 1894) on :
I was always skeptical of chiropracters and was reluctant to go to one, even after years of chronic neck and shoulder problems. Finally, a co-worker referred me to her chiro - and assured me he wouldn't try to cure my acne or vision with his treatments. I went, very reluctantly and skeptically. After one treatment, I was pain free for the first time in over 5 years, and after 3 treatments I was good for over a year.
Frankly, I don't care if it's a placebo effect or not. I'm just happy to be able to move my shoulder freely.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Because my back and legs hurt less afterwards. How are you defining "help"?
Here's the deal:
1. Chiropractic scans for 'pinched or compressed nerves' via x-ray or thermography are bogus, and are rarely ever vetted by qualified x-ray readers. They are, in fact, usually used to avoid differential diagnosis and settle on 'evidence' of a 'subluxation.' Often times you will get a 'spinal misalignment' graph which looks like this and is completely, 100% guaranteed bogus as well.
Your scan was in all likelihood no different! But afterwards, you received a massage and some treatment, so the natural anecdotal assumption is that the scans must have found what was wrong, because the treatment afterwards alleviated symptoms, right?
2. The electrical stimulation, via a TENS unit or equivalent, is not indicated for use in the alleviation of sciatica pain. It didn't do anything. But it was part of the treatment, and your pain lessened afterwards, so the natural anecdotal assumption is that it had something to do with the alleviation of your symptoms, right?
Stuff like this is why osteopaths and therapeutic masseuses are superior to chiropractors; you can get the same benefit from them, without a lot of the care being tied up in unscientific diagnosis and waste-of-time treatments. Especially when it comes to spinal alignment, you want real doctors to be involved, not chiropractic practitioners. Medical students see large numbers of sick patients, whereas chiropractors training for the same style of treatments attend lectures and read about medical care. Moreover, chiropractors typically enter practice after four years of coursework in which they have limited or no exposure to problems outside of their limited scope. Most medical doctors have 3-4 more years of additional specialty training before entering practice.
If you are going to use a chiropractor anyway, because you can't or won't find better options or because you simply don't care what the scientific reality of chiropractic is, it pays to find out whether or not they're in the straight, mixers, or reform camp; reformers being regrettably rare.
quote:Straights, Mixers, and Reformers
Almost since the beginning, chiropractic has been fraught with many internal schisms. Today there is a wide range of differences between individual chiropractors, but most can be placed within one of three basic types.
Straight chiropractors consider themselves the only true or pure chiropractors because they limit their practice to the identification and treatment of spinal subluxations. They adhere strictly to Palmer’s concept of disease and believe that all ailments can be treated through manipulation to restore the flow of innate intelligence. Once freely flowing, they believe innate intelligence has unlimited power to naturally heal the body.
Straight chiropractors are the most extreme in their anti-scientific views. They openly advocate a philosophical rather than a scientific basis for health care, calling mainstream medicine “mechanistic” and “allopathic.” They call physicians “drug pushers” and disparage the use of surgery. They are careful not to give diseases names, but none-the-less they claim to cure disease with their adjustments. They oppose vaccinations. They also openly advocate the replacement of scientific medicine with chiropractic as primary health care. The statements of Dr. Wilson A. Morgan (who just passed away earlier this month), previous Executive Officer of Life College School of Chiropractic, are typical:
“Chiropractic: The health care system whose time as the official guardian of the public’s health is fast approaching!” “On the other hand, it is equally appropriate for chiropractors to be viewed as generalists in that the far-reaching effects of their highly specific spinal adjustments usually are followed by the decrease and often disappearance of a very broad array of symptoms, disabilities and pathological conditions.” “Unlike the medical profession, chiropractic has a very strong philosophical basis, which no doubt has contributed to its having been labeled ‘unscientific’ by the more mechanistically-oriented scientific community.” “It appears that education will prove to be the best strategy in the ‘war on drugs,’ including education about the dangers of drugs available on the street and also those available from the physician as prescriptions.”
Mixers, comprising the largest segment of chiropractors, may at first seem more rational. They accept that some disease is caused by infection or other causes and they do not limit their practice to fixing subluxations. Most chiropractors in this group, however, do not supplement subluxation theory with scientific medicine, but rather with an eclectic array of pseudoscientific alternative practices. Mixers commonly prescribe homeopathic and herbal remedies, practice acupuncture and therapeutic touch, diagnose with iridology, contour analysis, and applied kinesiology, and adhere to the philosophy of naturopathy. This broad use of unproven, unscientific, and fanciful so-called “alternative” practices clearly indicates an antiscience attitude, as well as a lack of scientific knowledge, on the part of those chiropractors who employ them.
The rhetoric of Mixers indicates that they are attempting to become accepted into the scientific mainstream, rather than replace scientifically based medicine with a philosophy based approach. They no longer openly oppose immunization, like straights do, but they do advocate the freedom to choose whether or not to be immunized. Their appeal to freedom is emotionally effective, especially in the United States, but it fails to recognize that immunization is far less effective in eliminating or containing infectious diseases when it is not given to everyone. They also advocate a role for chiropractors as a primary care portal of entry system within HealthCare, despite the fact that they lack adequate training as generalists skilled in medical diagnosis.
A small minority of chiropractors, numbering only about 1,000, or 2% of all chiropractors (these are rough estimates because accurate figures are lacking), have been openly critical of their own field. They have called for absolute rejection of the subluxation theory of illness, disposing of pseudoscientific and unethical practices by chiropractors, and the restriction of chiropractic to treating acute musculoskeletal symptoms. They are attempting to bring their field into the scientific mainstream.
Occasionally chiropractic reformers have attempted to forge a new profession, entirely shedding the pseudoscience attached to the chiropractic brand. About ten years ago one group in Canada renamed themselves “Orthopractors,” and considered the new discipline of orthopractic as distinct from chiropractic. Orthopractic is the use of manipulation to provide symptomatic relief from uncomplicated acute back strain. They do not believe in maintenance therapy, treating medical ailments, or the use of pseudoscientific alternative practices.
It worked, but then again, it has been proven to work by actual rigorous studies, so maybe not the same thing as homeopath at all.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Olivet: so maybe not the same thing as homeopath at all.
Not even remotely. That's herbal medicine, NOT homeopathy.
The main issue with that treatment is that the active level of statin-analogue is VERY different from batch to batch. Plus all the usual contraindications for taking statins apply, but without anyone checking your other medications or doing regular tests of your liver function.
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
Those issues did not apply in this instance, for two reasons. First, during the treatment I had blood work every 3 months. Secondly, there is at least one manufacturer of herbal medicines that is very rigorous about their levels of active ingredients. It's a German company, which I suppose is not surprising, considering how regulated manufacturing of any sort is in Germany. (Gotta love those Germans.)
Admittedly, this is probably not how most herbal medicines are taken, but they can be very useful if taken wisely and with medical oversight, just like any other medicines. Blanket condemnation of them disregards their usefulness when properly applied.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I don't think there's blanket condemnation of herbal medicine. The germans trust herbs to do more than they actually do, but this is way better than expecting homeopathy to do anything. =)
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
The chiropractor - who was recommended by my GP - didn't say anything about subluxation. In fact I hadn't heard of that before now. He, in one appointment with one follow up, made the pain go away. No "maintenance" unless you count the exercises he showed me.
So really. Letting that chiropractor at it was a really good thing.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:So really. Letting that chiropractor at it was a really good thing.
Possibly, but "was a good thing" and "is a good idea" are not the same. Consider cancers for which chemotherapy is indicated. Some percentage of these cancers will go into remission on their own. For someone who eschews chemotherapy and happens to be among the lucky few whose cancer goes into remission on its own, skipping chemotherapy was a good thing. That doesn't mean doing so was the wisest choice. Had this person decided to get coffee enemas, that doesn't mean that coffee enemas cured their cancer. For that person to then suggest that other people skip chemo and/or get coffee enemas would be actively harmful to the health of others.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Olivet: Blanket condemnation of them disregards their usefulness when properly applied.
Who's issuing blanket condemnation of herbal medicines? Not I.
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: The chiropractor - who was recommended by my GP - didn't say anything about subluxation. In fact I hadn't heard of that before now. He, in one appointment with one follow up, made the pain go away. No "maintenance" unless you count the exercises he showed me.
So really. Letting that chiropractor at it was a really good thing.
Sure. That's the point, is that through casual association, you are sure of what happened, in a way that you wouldn't realize that the electric work did nothing. And it is the same way when the spinal adjustments don't fix anything but someone who received one is sure that it did.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
And you know better about what happened to my back. Why?
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
I know what you don't know but might casually assume. Such as thinking that the electrical stimulation was at all useful in helping your sciatica.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
In cases of pain, a triggered placebo effect can actually work significantly better than actual treatment. I don't doubt that going to a chiropractor relieves pain, but I suspect that if a fake chiropractor did fake adjustments and did fake electrical stimuli, you'd get similar results.
The placebo effect is crazy. I wish I didn't know as much about these things, since now I doubt I'd get the same effect for my own back pain.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
So I would have been better off had I not followed my doctor's advice and gone?
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
Wow, Xavier. The fact that 47% of those with real acupuncture felt relief and that 44% of those with "sham acupuncture" felt relief is pretty damning, as far as acupuncture goes.
And wow, the placebo effect is crazy.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
From another POV, it means acupuncture really rocks. You can do substantially better than conventional medicine with very little training and no drugs.
Bend the curve, baby! Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: So I would have been better off had I not followed my doctor's advice and gone?
Not necessarily. It's just that the electrical current itself didn't do anything. Most likely your believing that it would do something is what did something. For nonspecific symptoms like "pain", placebo can be remarkably effective and can be safely "prescribed" to all. When the situation is a recognized physiological problem, placebo is less likely to be the most effective solution.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Again, how exactly do you know what happened to my back? Are you saying that electical current doesn't have any effect on nerves or muscles?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
When dealing with one person's back and a subjective symptom like "pain", there is absolutely no way to demonstrate whether something did or did not work. People report positive results for sham acupuncture at the same rates as people report positive results for "real" acupuncture. Because of this, your personal experience is literally of no informational value.
All that can be reasonably discussed is whether a given treatment works by means of careful study and there is slim evidence of that sort in favor of electrical stimulation as a treatment for pain. Given a body of research that basically says "it doesn't work", the most reasonable (tentative, of course) conclusion is that it didn't actually do anything to you.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP: When dealing with one person's back and a subjective symptom like "pain", there is absolutely no way to demonstrate whether something did or did not work.
Right. So please stop acting like you know what happened. It was demonstrated to me in that particular circumstance, which is all I am claiming.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
This gets into some really interesting discussion of medical ethics. Many treatments are now being shown to either be worse than a placebo or, in some cases, have been shown to provide benefit only because of the placebo effect.
Is it ethical for a medical practitioner to prescribe a placebo if doing so requires lying to the patient about the actual mature of the treatment?
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
Kate, if I claim that a pill called "Xavosin" cures my headaches very effectively, and you know it's actually just a sugar pill, should you just take my word for it that it works for me?
Edit: I don't know much about the medical research for chiropractic treatments on lower back pain. All I am objecting to is the "its my body so I know whether it was the thing that helped" logic.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I don't know. I am not a doctor; I don't know what effect sugar has on you. My headaches respond to hamburgers. Electrical current is more complicated than a sugar pill. I don't think we know everything there is to know about the human body.
I am not so arrogant as to assume that I know better than you do about what you experience.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Xavier: Kate, if I claim that a pill called "Xavosin" cures my headaches very effectively, and you know it's actually just a sugar pill, should you just take my word for it that it works for me?
Well, unless she has reason to think you're lying, sure. If you think the placebo works for you, then it probably does work for you.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
Yeah I wrote that on my way out the door and then realized I didn't word it very well. I meant something a little different from how that reads, but I'm finding myself lacking the energy to correct it.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Km, it's not arrogance, I think you're taking the wrong sense from what he's saying. I myself had electrical stimulation of my lower back for a broken disk. It worked- the pain decreased after the treatment both times I had it done.
He is not invalidating your experience, he is attempting to falsify your reasoning for that experience, which is a different thing. He's saying yes, you may have had that experience, but no, your belief that it was caused by a particular phenomenon may not be right. It's a perfectly valid point, and I don't think it warrants too much defensiveness from you. Nobody I think is denying that you really experienced this. However, given that the evidence is on his side, his argument that what you think happened probably *didn't* happen, is not arrogant, it's practical. He's saying that yes, you may have experienced a relief of pain, but that that relief of pain may not have been the result of the electrical stimulation's doing anything to you physically.
The fact remains that you had this treatment, and you felt less pain. However, you are not really in a position to insist that this treatment (specifically the supposed physiological effects of this treatment) is the reason why you felt less pain. You do not know whether that is true or not, especially considering that some scientific studies show that these supposed effects are not real, even while other effects, such as the placebo effect *are* real, in every way that actually matters to your personal experience.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Also, this stick of parafin wax here can cure your headaches. Just apply directly to forehead.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Of course he is trying to invalidate my experience. He (not just him of course) is telling me what I experienced didn't happen. He can certainly posit a liklihood about what happens to people generally but the only evidence of what happened to me specifically is what I tell him. He (not just him of course) doesn't know my reasoning or that of the MD that sent me to the chiropractor.
Why would you have a treatment you believe to be a placebo twice? I only had it once. Are you twice as foolish?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Interestingly, there is evidence that placebos can have an effect even if you know it is a placebo.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I suppose they had better, if BC/BS is paying for them.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Of course he is trying to invalidate my experience. He (not just him of course) is telling me what I experienced didn't happen.
No, I don't think so. There's a difference between what you experienced, and what happened. I think he's saying that what you think happened didn't. He is not saying that what you experienced was not real. So, he believes you when you say it worked, because it worked- but *why* it worked, according to you, he doesn't agree with. Is that so bad? Of course he doesn't *know* for sure what happened to you. But for that matter, *you* don't really know what happened to you either- you just know what you felt. It's like that feeling you get when someone runs their finger up your inner arm to your elbow- you feel the finger touch your elbow when it's still a few inches away. You still feel it- but that doesn't mean it really touched you.
What you told him is *not* good evidence that the treatment actually did what you think it did. It's only evidence that it worked on you for some reason. Sorry, that's just how it is.
And no, at the time I had no idea this was a scientifically questionable treatment. I just know I had it, and it relieved my pain. I'm perfectly willing to accept, though I am surprised, that my experience may have been the result of a placebo effect. I don't really care, and I don't know why you do.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:He (not just him of course) is telling me what I experienced didn't happen.
Nobody has said any such thing.
You: Electricity made my sciatica better. Matt: That was placebo. You: My back really did get better!
Yes, we know it did; nobody disputes that. It doesn't follow that it was the electricity that did it.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
However it does reasonably follow that it was the process of the treatment, some part thereof, that may have done it. Not specifically the electricity, is the main sticking point here.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
Yup. (To the last few posts)
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Based on what is known about the Placebo effect, the fact that kmboots had sought and received numerous treatments for her pain that were ineffective before she went to the chiropractor, greatly reduces the probability that the chiropractic treatment was solely a placebo effect.
This doesn't say anything about why or what part of the chiropractic treatment was effective, but it does invalidate the hypothesis that it was a simple placebo effect.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
No, it doesn't invalidate the hypothesis that it was a placebo effect. Those other treatments were given under different circumstances. We don't know why they didn't work.
I know from my own experience that with the electrical stimulation, I could feel tiny pricklings and a warming sensation in the area where the electrodes were. It was a palpable sensation. There is zero proof that that stimulation actually did anything, but I felt it- so my having a simple placebo effect would have been even easier.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
I'm very curious about the relationship of belief to physical pain relief. Doesn't it also work the other way? Can beliefs cause real physical pain? I find it interesting that from antiquity, there have been shamans and medicine women and the like who combine proven methods (for instance, herbal medicines that have been scientifically shown to be effective) with religious ones. Does this imply that religious (however you take that term) beliefs and practices are important to overall well-being? And why does Western medicine focus on the physical concerns almost exclusively? I know that I personally experience more pain relief for my migraines, with fewer side effects, when I am able to see my masseuse or get acupuncture (tell you the story in a bit). With the meds, I still feel woozy and nauseated and am pretty much out of it all day. How much of my reaction is due to scientifically traceable chemistry, and how much is "belief"? How much of the headache is brought on by psychological effect? I know my triggers, and some of them are uncontrollable physical phenomenon, and some are certain thought processes! I find that it usually takes a combination of triggers to cause the migraine. Does it make more sense to pursue "alternative" cures or alleopathic ones? I have so many questions, as usual!
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
Here's the story of my acupuncture!
I work at the local farm market, selling tea and incense that I make. One day, there was a fellow offering free acupuncture as a way to drum up business for himself. I found myself hitting the start of a migraine. I knew, from prior experience, it would only get worse from there. When one has a bad migraine, most folks will try ANYTHING to make it go away. (You don't even want to know what I've fantasized). I thought, why the hell not? Worst that happens is I get poked with sterile needles. So I tried it out. I honestly didn't expect anything much to happen.
The fella sat me down and pulled out three needles from sterile packages. Swabbed alcohol on the spots where they were going in. That made me more nervous - I associate the smell with hospitals and big needles and having people do things to me against my will. Then came the needles. A quick tap to insert it, then a few more to drive them into place. Didn't hurt, but definitely an odd sensation. Then I was to sit with the needles embedded for a few minutes. It was absolutely not scary when the needles were put in. After a few moments, I had the oddest sensation...it was as if there was something alive inside my head and neck, racing around where the needles poked. I began to feel relaxed and a bit lightheaded. The acupuncturist's wife was helping him watch the guinea pigs and told him maybe I was done. So he removed the needles. I got up, and felt not only better, but AMAZING. I was buzzing in the way you do when pleasantly tipsy, but without the muzzy headedness. I felt alert and alive and positively joyful. Quite unexpected. It was a getting-high experience,I guess. Which I certainly didn't anticipate. And it lasted most of the day.
I have no explanations for my experience, but all I can say is if THAT was placebo effect, I'd very much like to experience it again.
Posted by Baron Samedi (Member # 9175) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Based on what is known about the Placebo effect, the fact that kmboots had sought and received numerous treatments for her pain that were ineffective before she went to the chiropractor, greatly reduces the probability that the chiropractic treatment was solely a placebo effect.
This doesn't say anything about why or what part of the chiropractic treatment was effective, but it does invalidate the hypothesis that it was a simple placebo effect.
First, does it reduce the probability or does it completely invalidate it? Seems to be some skipping around going on.
Second, when you say "based on what is known about the Placebo effect..." you must know something different than I do. Placebo effect can vary greatly as long as the human mind can distinguish between the placebos given. The effect is so subtle that double-blind studies are more convincing than single-blind studies, because people can have different placebo effects from the exact same unmarked tablet if they pick up subconscious signals to its efficacy from the person administering it. When the difference is as radical as spinal manipulation & electrical current vs. whatever else was tried, I wouldn't draw any conclusions about different individual responses to those placebos.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by The White Whale: Wow, Xavier. The fact that 47% of those with real acupuncture felt relief and that 44% of those with "sham acupuncture" felt relief is pretty damning, as far as acupuncture goes.
I guess that means that acupuncture is so effective that even pretending to do it works. Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
And we are absolutely sure, since we know everything there is to know about the human body and everything about electricity that nothing other than a placebo effect could possibly have taken place.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Does this imply that religious (however you take that term) beliefs and practices are important to overall well-being?
Lying to people can sometimes make them feel better.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: And we are absolutely sure, since we know everything there is to know about the human body and everything about electricity that nothing other than a placebo effect could possibly have taken place.
All evidence is against it, and there is no evidence for it.
But there is abundant, ample, and reproducable evidence for the power of placebos.
Why do you care? You feel better. Why do you care about the mechanism? Although I do think it is important for other people to point out that it was a placebo, because that way the next person doesn't end up shelling out money for expensive, placebo treatments. Sugar pills are so much cheaper.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jenny Gardener: ... Does this imply that religious (however you take that term) beliefs and practices are important to overall well-being?
TCM and acupuncture are normally classified as superstitious rather than religious, if that helps.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
What's a placebo, other than an activation of a person's belief system?
Why do placebos work better, in some cases, than the pills that are prescribed?
What role does belief play in both the creation and cure of illness and disease?
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
And how do germ theory, physics, and biochemistry interact with the efficacy of placebos?
The world is an amazing place.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I have no problem with people broadcasting the power of belief in curing disease.
But charging for it is fraud.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Amazing that a big business like BC/BS doesn't seem to think it is being defrauded.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
It's complicated. Placebos *do* work and in many cases they work as well as traditional treatments, which may indicate that the traditional treatment was just a placebo treatment in the first place.
But, except in cases where they are being deliberately used as placebos in blind tests, the promotion of placebo treatments as something other than placebo is fraudulent. That said, most practitioners of "sham" treatments which rely on placebo effect actually believe in the implausible mechanisms which they describe as being the cause of relief. There is little deliberate fraud and people do feel better so there's not a lot of outrage to drive change.
Additionally, chiropractic has pretty broad acceptance amongst the public as a viable treatment. Given that, insurance companies that don't cover it are at a competitive disadvantage against those that do. All that really matters from a business perspective is whether, on balance, chiropractic costs more money for the company to provide than it would lose if it didn't provide it. Medical efficacy is only incidentally important.
It seems instructive that chiropractic is often covered on a similar schedules to mental health benefits - X number of treatments per calendar year - rather than on the same schedule as other medical coverage, which tends to have lifetime or annual maximums but otherwise no limits.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
BC/BS is in the business of spending the least amount possible. Therefore, it makes sense that paying for a person to get treated for a back injury at a chiropractor might save more epensive diagnostic tests down the road.
In other words, BC/BS may well know it is paying for placebo effect, but deems it a financially wise thing to do. If someone is complaining of back pain and sending them to a chiropractor fixes it (placebo or otherwise), then good - if they didn't reimburse for chiropractic that same person may have had extremely expensive diagnostics like ultrasounds, CT scans, MRIs, etc.
Paying for a placebo is smarter from BC/BS' point of view, in that circumstance. I don't work for BC/BS, but that is just what makes sense to me.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
Why not charge for placebo services? After all, we pay religious leaders, entertainers, political pundits, and stock pickers...all of whom provide dubious services...
Can a religious leader prove your life will be better if you follow the faith? That you will go to a better place?
Can an entertainer truly promise you happiness?
Does a pundit bring anyone the truth?
Do stock pickers know what they are doing, or is it more a matter of belief?
People do pay for their beliefs, whether or not you can scientifically prove the services rendered have helped them or not. Is it a crime to provide a service to a believer, when one is a believer as well? Is it a crime if you don't believe, but the other person does? What if you believe, but the customer doesn't?
Wow, economics and belief and science and morality!
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
quote:Originally posted by katharina: I have no problem with people broadcasting the power of belief in curing disease.
But charging for it is fraud.
Would charging for the education be fraudulent? Or the broadcasting in media?
What if someone said, "For all I know, this may work only through placebo effect, but I know how to do it and am willing to provide this service. I am asking you to pay for my training and time to perform the service. I don't really know how it works or if it will work. But if you want me to do it, I will do it for such-and-so fee."
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Why not charge for placebo services?
The problem is that they aren't sold as placebo services. There's no ambiguity in a bottle of sugar pills labeled "placebo" but much (but not all!) of the placebo effect can be lost if you know you're getting a placebo.
If you believe the lie you're selling, it's not fraud, it's just incorrect.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Fraud requires intent, so I'm not sure there is much of a distinction between fraud and "deliberate fraud."
I think it would fairly hard to prove intent in these cases.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
What's wrong with a service being labelled for what it is, and letting the consumer decide if it is a placebo service or not? Not as "health care" or anything of the sort, just straight up "acupuncture" or "chiropractics" or "faith healing"? Would that be fair?
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
For instance, I would never have dreamed of paying for acupuncture. However, after getting a pretty nice and otherwise nonharmful high off of it with the added benefit of getting rid of my migraine, I might consider paying for the service. Even if I am pretty sure it's a placebo effect...I rather enjoyed the effect. And I would rather pay for that than the headache meds I currently take that leave me feeling just a little less ill than before I took them.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
I think what I'm really trying to get at is the answer to the question...
How does freedom of choice affect people's health and decisions about their health? Should it be illegal to offer placebo services that sometimes work? Should we force people only to choose methods that are scientifically tested? Why? What are the various gradations that a society might create or allow when it comes to people's bodies and their decisions about them? Who, ultimately, is responsible for the health of a person's body?
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
It should not be illegal for people to go to chiropractors if they want to. But, I do believe people have a right to be informed, especially in matters of health and welfare. Chiropractors should have to dsclose that no scientific support exists for subluxation therapy, and that chiropractic is not a medical treatment for such things as infections. In addition, I think patients should be warned about the danger of manipulating the neck beyond its normal range of motion because of the small, but very real risk of stroke: Linky
quote:"Some neurologists think chiropractors are causing a lot of strokes, but we think it is a very low risk," Smith tells WebMD. "I don't think it is so low that a patient doesn't need to be informed about it. The consequences of a stroke can be enormous. People should be aware that spinal manipulation increases risk of stroke. Anybody who does a procedure of any kind that carries a risk should tell their patients about that risk."
[points up] What he said. Even though the risk appears to be small, patients deserve to be informed.
People going to chiropractice for musculoskeletal issues don't really bother me all that much. Yes, there isn't a lot of evidence that it benefits much but the act of manipulation and massage makes some people feel better. It's when people do things like take their young children to a chiropractor to have their necks cracked because the parent has bought a line that chiropractic can cure their kids' ear infections that I get a little incensed.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Belle: It's when people do things like take their young children to a chiropractor to have their necks cracked because the parent has bought a line that chiropractic can cure their kids' ear infections that I get a little incensed.
A-freaking-men.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
I'm all about the information. I think people should definitely understand that homeopathic cures are essentially water (for example). If people want to use what boils down to "magic", then that is their prerogative.
It always gets trickier when it comes to children...most of us get very angry when a family who believes in faith healing doesn't get medical help for a child dying of a curable or preventable cause. But it also gets tricky when a parent, understandably, wants to help a child get over the sniffles. Most remedies don't really do much, and time for the body's defenses to activate is the real healer. Is a homeopathic dose, in this case, going to do any harm (barring the poisonous ones that aren't really homeopathy)? If the parents and children believe it will work, might a flower essence placebo help the child get better through that lovely placebo effect?
I've found there is always more gray than most of us want to admit when it comes to issues of health, belief, morality, and responsibility. A blanket rule isn't going to work in every case.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by MattP: When dealing with one person's back and a subjective symptom like "pain", there is absolutely no way to demonstrate whether something did or did not work.
Right. So please stop acting like you know what happened. It was demonstrated to me in that particular circumstance, which is all I am claiming.
Yeah, that's the same fuzzy thinking which leads people to say the exact same thing about homeopathy. "It was demonstrated to me in that circumstance that the homeopathic remedy completely fixed my back pain, which is all I am claiming."
In terms of the electrical stimulation (which really does not fix back pain; TENS units don't work for sciatica), all that has been demonstrated is that you're willing to believe that it worked because it was associated with a time period where alleviation occurred. Post hoc. It doesn't mean that the TENS unit was demonstrated to work on back pain, or your back pain. But you'll readily believe it works, which is the way stuff like Chiropractic and homeopathy is perpetuated even where and when you are receiving completely useless treatments.
This is really just a gloss over of what I've already described for you; does it make more sense now?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
It wasn't a case of you not making sense.
You refer to a "time period". That "time period" was minutes. I went from not being able to move without pain to no pain. Right then. Again, I am curious as to how you know so much more about TENS units (which are still controversial) and my particular experience than my doctor (by which I mean the MD who sent me to the chiropractor) and the insurance company. Or about what I expected to happen.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
And you know more than that doctor because of your medical training?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
I have access to the same publicly available information on the efficacy of these treatments. Whether I know more or less than him on this particular subject is really just a matter of how much of that literature the two of us have read. As an MD, he hasn't necessarily been exposed to any more of that information than I have.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
I'm not sure why it would be necessary that MattP knows more than the doctor. As the article indicates, roughly 9% of doctors have prescribed placebos while outright lying (with a certain much larger but unspecified number using more creativity).
There's no reason why the doctor couldn't have sent a patient to the chiropractor knowing full-well that there is only a placebo effect at work.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: It wasn't a case of you not making sense.
You refer to a "time period". That "time period" was minutes. I went from not being able to move without pain to no pain. Right then.
If it's not a case of you not making sense, it's a case of me being right about empirical study — and reality — and you being a classic case of someone who experienced the wonder of placebo and have turned it into you really wanting to be convinced that what you experienced was not placebo. After all, it's your back, right? And it all happened RIGHT THEN. How is anyone else supposed to know better?
When Peter Popoff put his hand on a person's forehead after being told by the Lord what their ailment was and healed them in the name of the Lord and chased the Devil out, they were absolutely certain that they had lost all their pain. Women crippled by arthritis would stand and walk! It was all such a miracle! It had all happened. Right then. Popoff was a fraud with a radio receiver in his ear, but it sure didn't seem to matter!
And let's talk a little bit more about why I'm sure about what TENS units actually do; it's because I understand medical research and the placebo effect, and I understand how susceptible people are to placebo and how much they want to be tricked.
quote:If you do much study into TENS you will find that it falls into a category of pain relief modalities known as hyperstimulation analgesia. These hyperstimulation treatments include such things as acupuncture, acupressure, massage and vibration and all have one thing in common. They all produce about the same pain relief results as a placebo.
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in June 1990 casts considerable doubt upon the effectiveness of TENS. The study found "that for patients with chronic low back pain, treatment with TENS is no more effective than treatment with a placebo, and TENS adds no apparent benefit to that of exercise alone."
And most recent studies all seem to confirm this assessment:
quote:There were no statistically significant differences between the active TENS group when compared to the placebo TENS group for any outcome measures… [1]
quote:A meta-analysis of studies of TENS therapy… found that both TENS and sham TENS significantly reduced pain intensity; no significant differences were found between the two for either analgesic use or pain intensity. These results suggest that, just as with some other interventions, part of the efficacy of TENS can be attributed to a placebo effect. [2,3]
quote:TENS vs. Sham TENS… Fourteen trials were included. None found any difference. [4]
quote:Seven trials compared opioid plus TENS with opioid alone, four of which also included sham TENS. Five of seven trials reported no difference between groups. [4]
quote:They could find no study of note showing any difference in pain intensity or pain relief scores between TENS and a placebo treatment during labor. [5]
In other words, fake TENS - just like fake acupuncture - is just as effective as the real thing.
quote:Almost all the studies are in agreement that TENS does not seem well suited for the treatment of low back pain:
quote:The results of the meta-analysis present no evidence to support the use of TENS in the treatment of chronic low back pain. [1]
quote:For acute back pain, there is no proven benefit. Two small studies produced inconclusive results, with a trend toward improvement with TENS. In chronic back pain, there is conflicting evidence regarding its ability to help relieve pain. One study showed a slight advantage at 1 week for TENS but no difference at 3 months and beyond. Other studies showed no benefit for TENS at any time. There is no known benefit for sciatica. [6]
quote:Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) has been used to treat a variety of pain conditions… It is generally used in chronic pain conditions and not indicated in the initial management of acute low back pain. [7]
A BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Milne S, Welch V, and others, Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) for chronic low-back pain. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2000, Issue 4. Art. No.: CD003008. http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane/revabstr/ab003008.htm
2. Avellanosa AM, West CR. Experience with transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation for relief of intractable pain in cancer patients. J Med 1982; 13(3):203-13.
Your chiropractor gave you a massage, some perhaps useful exercises, and an episode with Willy Wonka's Electrocutudinal Zappy Happy-Fun Placebo machine. Of the three, we know which part was guaranteed placebo.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Wow. Is there anything in the whole wide world that you don't know?!?
Really. It isn't this particular thing that irks me. It is the attitude that there is nothing out there that could be different from what you think it is. That you think that you have the answer to everything and that any experience that might be different is discarded.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
People being knowledgeable about stuff that you don't yet realize shouldn't irk you. If it does, you should spend a good long time wondering about the implications about that.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
There is a difference between being knowledgeable and believing that you know everything there is to know about something.
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: That you think that you have the answer to everything and that any experience that might be different is discarded.
Recognizing a moment in which you got pain relief by placebo machine isn't discarding the experience, its recognizing the experience and knowing what actually happened (and why you think what you do about what happened) ... because this is what people are like, and scientific study can show us the many ways we trick ourselves. Or your doctor tricks you.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: There is a difference between being knowledgeable and believing that you know everything there is to know about something.
I can look at the situation and I can realize that there's two potential instances at play; that either you have very mysterious sciatica that is completely unlike any other sciatica in all of recorded and methodologically vetted medical history in the sense that it, alone, can be said to have been actually fixed in a non-placebo way via the application of a TENS unit (as part of a medical practice that is sincerely and demonstrably wrong about the cause of disease, no less), or the use of a TENS unit on your back produced, unsurprisingly, an expected placebo response that you thereupon assumed to be because of something that the TENS unit did that was not placebo. Something which is common, because people respond to placebo and become convinced that something else has happened.
Being knowledgeable enough to know, beyond a vanishingly small sliver of possibility, which of the two is the case here, is different than 'believing I know everything there is to know' about something; be it either a TENS unit or your history of suggestible reasoning patterns which make you an excellent candidate for placebo treatment in the first place.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
So, Samprimpary...I wonder how effective placebos would be for you. Have you ever tried a treatment you would consider a placebo effect? What was the experience like? I'm curious to find out whether placebo effect is only useful for people who want to believe in it. I'm really curious to learn if this effect can be harnessed and used (I think some people do this, at least some of the time, through their religious/spiritual practices). And I'd like to know why chronic pain (such as backaches and migraines) seems to be the sort of thing people are pleased to see placebo practitioners about, and why they prefer it to traditional Western doctoring.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
And really curious about response to placebo as an adaptation in the human population. Is it evolutionarily successful? Is it more or less successful than a reasoning mind that doesn't respond well to placebo effects? Which is better on an individual level? A population level? Why?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I don't think the evidence on TENS units is quite as one-sided as you make it out to be. I think that there are things about the human body that we don't completely understand yet.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I don't think the evidence on TENS units is quite as one-sided as you make it out to be.
Well, and this is just idle wondering here, have you read even a single medical article showing any demonstrated effect via a TENS unit on sciatica, versus the numerous medical articles showing that you can give people treatment with a fake TENS unit and they respond as well — if not better — in terms of pain relief as when an actual TENS unit is used in treatment?
Secondly — and this is the more important question — in the absence of having that presentable, vetted knowledge that could show me, actively, some controversy over the effectiveness of TENS units on sciatica in response to me saying 'it's placebo,' what does that say about your endeavor to want to believe that you didn't experience pain relief via placebo!
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Goodness, even Wiki says it is controversial.
I don't "want" to believe anything in particular. I have never been back to a chiropractor - and it has been almost 20 years. I have no stake at all in TENS units.
What bugs me is the arrogance with which you (not just you) seem to think that you know all they answers. You don't. Even grown up scientists are still finding out things.
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I don't think the evidence on TENS units is quite as one-sided as you make it out to be. I think that there are things about the human body that we don't completely understand yet.
I've heard of the god of the gaps, is this the "doctor of the gaps"? The sad thing of this argument is that people use the same thing in favor of homeopathy and its just as valid there. We can't say that homeopathy doesn't work for sure because we don't know there's not something in the body we don't completely understand yet! Now fit homeopathy or god or a tens machine in the gap!
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I don't think the evidence on TENS units is quite as one-sided as you make it out to be. I think that there are things about the human body that we don't completely understand yet.
You cannot reason from "We are ignorant about the human body" to "My explanation of how this worked is correct". Ignorance cannot protect a hypothesis that has been disproved!
But apart from that, just what is it you are arguing here? What is the assertion you want to protect? You have reported that you had electrical treatment and that your back got better; nobody doubts either fact. What then is it that you are so annoyed at having contradicted? We are not in the realm of religious belief now; are you really emotionally attached to the statement "Electricity is good for sciatica"? Because if so, boy, that's a weird thing to get emotional about.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
If you can't tell, I find the entire concept of mind-body connection fascinating. How much do our minds affect our body experiences, and how much do our bodies affect our mental/emotional experiences? That there IS a connection is understood. Beyond that, much is still a mystery!
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:What bugs me is the arrogance with which you (not just you) seem to think that you know all they answers. You don't. Even grown up scientists are still finding out things.
Are you seriously saying that the past 50 posts of increasingly bad-tempered discussion arose merely because you were peeved with Samprimary's confident assertion of facts? If so, I would suggest that the fault does not lie in Samprimary.
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Goodness, even Wiki says it is controversial
Not for sciatica. Or is this "controversial" in the same way the earth being more than a few thousand years old is "controversial"? There is controversy, and it is I guess arrogant in the same way on geologists part...
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
And why bother to continue arguing? I have lots of questions no one has bothered to discuss, instead people are fighting over a few people's personal perspectives. I was excited for a bit, but now the conversation is getting dull, antagonistic, and not something I feel like participating in any longer.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Jenny, for what it's worth, I'm very interested in those questions -- but I don't think anyone has anything resembling a real answer to any of them, and don't really have anything novel or earth-shattering to suggest in lieu of actual research.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I do. But I don't have a computer yet. And am kind of drunk and on a vacation of hedonistic excess. So, later.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
But I totally saw the question jenny and want to respond and dear lord how do you forum on a cellphone without your fingers falling off
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Jenny, they are significant questions. Like Tom, I just don't know any answers or have any intelligent insight. Posted by Amberkitty (Member # 12365) on :
Sammich, stop drunkenly foruming and get back to enjoying your hedonistic chocolate mousse cake and your almost white Russian.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
OKAY FINE
Posted by Amberkitty (Member # 12365) on :
Jenny, the issue surrounding placebos is that their comforting power is built upon deception. Homeopathy is not based on any reputable science (or logic). Its claims are not founded on any measure of reality. But people feel better because they believe in its power to heal, regardless of any physical improvement. The question now becomes whether to advise a treatment that could potentially make someone feel better even though it is not a true cure WITH the reality that the patient is deceived through the entire course of the treatment.
Is that ethical?
There is no such thing as believing in the placebo effect because by definition the placebo effect requires deception, i.e. believing that a treatment is effective without accepting the reality that it is inert. Why does it work? I can't truly say, but it's been speculated that feeling cared for can significantly improve one's health.
[ October 30, 2010, 01:29 AM: Message edited by: Amberkitty ]
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:So, Samprimpary...I wonder how effective placebos would be for you. Have you ever tried a treatment you would consider a placebo effect? What was the experience like?
To answer, sort of in order:
I've never really gotten a big effect out of placebo (nor was I ever commonly exposed to 'traditional' or 'herbal' remedy that would have offered me a consistent chance), but there were at least a couple of times where I would have sworn that something worked due to post-hoc reasoning. One of the big ones that works on a lot of people is when they take a bunch of vitamin C when they have a cold and they swear that it helped them get over the cold much much faster; I've done that lots of times. To the extent that I was surprised to learn that it was the product of well-disseminated misinformation by Linus Pauling that anyone thought that vitamin C helped people with colds. It's actually similar to how people thought that carrots improved your vision significantly due to deliberate misinformation by the British government. The ideas have stickiness, so they become new placebos.
The other common ones, such as echinacea, I didn't really go for. I had a perfect opportunity I recall to have been placebo'd by one of my friends; before I knew what homeopathy was, I was offered a homeopathic remedy as a sleep aid by her mother (a registered homeopath), and took the pills every day and went back in a week and said that I was pretty positive they were not having any effect at all. She asked me "You aren't touching the pills, are you? That disturbs their ability to work." That made me very, very skeptical, I later found out under what premise the pills I was taking were supposed to work, and stopped taking them.
quote:I'm curious to find out whether placebo effect is only useful for people who want to believe in it.
You can't 'believe in placebo' in that way. Placebo is getting benefit from the mistaken assumption that you have taken an efficacious treatment for a malady or disorder; it's solidly reliant on deception. For this reason, it's useful for any situation for which people would respond to placebo, whether or not they 'want to believe in it.' It works on people who have been tricked into believing that it is working/has worked.
quote:I'm really curious to learn if this effect can be harnessed and used (I think some people do this, at least some of the time, through their religious/spiritual practices).
It has been and is harnessed, whether the practitioners know it or not. In most cases, it's 'honest placebo,' in the sense that the practitioner believes it to be effective as much as the patient does. In some cases, it's purposeful trickery. As was mentioned before, doctors will prescribe you placebo. My doctor admits to doing it and has stated that over time you learn to spot the people who have suggestible or placebo-prone personalities — the sort to which the current argument (such as it is) acts as a microcosm of the thinking patterns at work; the evidence in the medical field, the understanding about whether or not something is or is not solely a placebo, is manifestly unimportant to them as long as you can give them an opportunity to 'find out for themselves' that it 'worked for them.'
quote:And I'd like to know why chronic pain (such as backaches and migraines) seems to be the sort of thing people are pleased to see placebo practitioners about, and why they prefer it to traditional Western doctoring.
They're excellent candidates for (intentionally or nonintentionally) doctoring via placebo. Things like headaches and back problems are common to the human condition, are often tricky to treat, have a long history of being counterproductively managed by the medical industry (to the point where noneffectual treatment is an alleviation of actively harmful treatment), and are chronic or intermittent human pain responses that tend to respond excellently to placebo in people. To add to that, most placebo treatment for backs is accompanied by massages and personal treatment that tend to 'gin up' a person's susceptibility to placebo; a massage, an adjustment, or a mild electrical stimulation can provide a sensation break or short-term pain alleviation and relaxation which start the positive response to placebo. It doesn't matter what the underlying theory is pretending to treat. You could be 'freeing up vertebral subluxations' or 'chasing out evil spirits.'
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Goodness, even Wiki says it is controversial.
This is not really an answer to my question, but I can extrapolate from it that no, probably not? That you hadn't looked at anything that countered the sources and analysis that I had provided?
quote:I don't "want" to believe anything in particular.
I think it's pretty likely you don't want to believe that you serve as an example of someone experiencing a placebo and turning that into anecdotal vetting for the efficacy of certain treatments.
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
I was fed ecenacea with an eyedropper every time I got sick. Hourly. It tasted disgusting. My mom still gets mad at me when I insist it is not a cold or flu remedy.
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
For what it's worth, the NIH has a resource for summarizing the scientific evidence for many nontraditional methods of treatment; e.g., Echinacea.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Great resource, CT. Thanks for the link.
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
A pleasure.
The NCCAM (National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine) is far from perfect, but it is a great resource for figuring out where to go next, if you want further reading, or just for a summary. I haven't been disappointed in what I have found there.
I don't tend to weigh in on Echinacea specifically much these days, because I used to share office space with Bruce Barrett, the MD/PhD who first-authored the first study listed in the NCCAM article I linked above. He is so solid and thorough, and he approached it with such a balanced expectation of what he might find -- and did a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial -- that I haven't the ability to look at the situation in an unbiased way anymore. I don't have the appropriate distance any longer.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
I'm a big fan of evidence-based medicine. I'd prefer I not be knowingly treated via the placebo effect.
If I want my mind to make my discomfort go away, I prefer to do it knowingly. I think self-hypnosis is great; been doing it most of my life for various things but am just now learning how much power it really has. I think it should be much more widely taught and used.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
I'd be curious to hear what Samprimary has to say about pinched nerves due to herniated disks, and how they do/don't respond to chiropractic adjustment.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: http://getbetterhealth.com/chiropractic-medicine-its-history-and-pseudoscientific-practices/2009.07.02
You may also want to note this part of the article, which is true:
quote:Spinal manipulation is contraindicated in cases of actual nerve impingement and should not be performed ...
So, if you actually have a pinched nerve, the best thing to do is .. not let chiropractic at it.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
The answer has been covered, yeah. Here's the wider story.
One: The pinched nerves usually aren't. Instead of saying 'subluxation' or 'vertebral subluxation,' most chiropractors will say they have found a 'pinched nerve,' which is a different way of describing the definition of a subluxation.
Chiropractic conceptualization of nerve impediment via subluxation is completely made up, so a chiropractic diagnosis of nerve impediment, especially spinal, means nothing. This is not an ambiguous fact; vertebral subluxation theory has been debunked so completely that at this point when a chiropractor tells you, absent an actually severe spinal impingement that could have you hospitalized, that you have a 'pinched nerve,' you might as well have a Reiki practitioner tell you you have impeded Chakras. It has nothing to do with actual instances of real nerve impingement.
Two: When you have an actually pinched nerve in an actually verifiable situation where there is nerve impingement, like a herniated disk, don't let a chiropractor near it. Do not go to a chiropractor. Period. Listen to a qualified orthopedist, and (if necessary) a neurosurgeon.
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
In cases of pain, a triggered placebo effect can actually work significantly better than actual treatment. I don't doubt that going to a chiropractor relieves pain, but I suspect that if a fake chiropractor did fake adjustments and did fake electrical stimuli, you'd get similar results.
The placebo effect is crazy. I wish I didn't know as much about these things, since now I doubt I'd get the same effect for my own back pain.
I've been thinking about this study for the past few days. If the placebo is twice as effective as actual treatment, I'm not sure it's really dishonest to recommend it. If I was in pain, I would want a doctor to advise me of the best known way to alleviate that pain.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
Yeah, that's the thing about that story, there's two major things to take from it:
1) Acupuncture as an art/science is a sham. There's nothing special about the places they put the needles and fake treatment gets largely the same results.
2) Acupuncture is considerably more effective than traditional treatment!
Reconciling the two is pretty tough to do. As a regular sufferer of back pain, I honestly don't know what to do about it. Do I try the traditional physical therapy route, knowing that it's less effective than a placebo? Or do I try one of the popular placebo treatments (acupuncture, chiropractic), knowing I am being scammed?
Right now I am just doing nothing about it.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I don't think it works if you know you are being scammed.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
Thanks, Samprimary! I am always intrigued to learn more about people's personal experiences and their thoughts about them.
Tom and Belle, that's why I ask them. Maybe if we keep asking questions, we'll find new answers and new aspects to explore. And maybe we'll end up questioning ourselves and our assumptions, and find out things about ourselves as individuals and a society, too.
I'm finding that I'm rather fond of my placebos, even if that's all they are. They seem to work for me and I find that I am content not knowing exactly why.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I don't think it works if you know you are being scammed.
The placebo effect can work even if you are aware that it's a placebo though the effect is weaker and less consistent.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Xavier: As a regular sufferer of back pain, I honestly don't know what to do about it. Do I try the traditional physical therapy route, knowing that it's less effective than a placebo? Or do I try one of the popular placebo treatments (acupuncture, chiropractic), knowing I am being scammed?
Right now I am just doing nothing about it.
I'm fine with placebos when they're applied/prescribed by people who know that it is a placebo (as opposed to thinking it's genuine), because they know both (1) the limitations of the placebo and the appropriate situations for its use, and (2) are vastly better suited to knowing what non-placebo treatments are going to be worth trying, and when to move between them or away from what they know to be placebo.
A better option overall, if your back pain can be effectively managed, is to use treatments that surpass the effectiveness of placebo in double-blind trials. You get the placebo effect from that too, because you know you're trying something which science has shown to work, and the confidence you get out of that is amazing for placebo benefit.
There's plenty of stuff which has demonstrated effectiveness in treatment of chronic low back pain, chief among them well-designed exercise regimens and posture correction. Then there's other stuff which is beneficial to back pain as well as to overall health (obv stuff like weight loss, etc). Simply isolate and remove things which have no scientifically vetted effectiveness.
quote:One: The pinched nerves usually aren't. Instead of saying 'subluxation' or 'vertebral subluxation,' most chiropractors will say they have found a 'pinched nerve,' which is a different way of describing the definition of a subluxation.
Hmm. My chiropractor didn't say he "found" a pinched nerve, he told me that without an MRI we couldn't know what was happening in my back. He suggested a board certified neurologist who could request authorization for said MRI, and when it came back, he looked at it and said: "That thing's gotta come out." So did the neurologist, the radiologist, my general practitioner, and two neurosurgeons.
In the meantime the chiropractor adjusted my back, and gave me relief. You'll have to forgive me, but given that a cough, a sneeze, or a small change in posture could trigger an intense burst of pain, I'm not willing to dismiss the idea that a mechanical movement that repeatably allows me to walk where a moment earlier I was not able to, is a legitimate form of treatment.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
I had a disk problem some years ago that was similarly bad, though not quite as bad as to require surgery, thank god. For me personally, I wouldn't have let a chiropractor within a ten mile radius of my back, it hurt so bad. I couldn't imagine at the time anything done to my back physically being helpful. My physical therapist also left it completely alone, though she did help me with my posture to minimize my discomfort as I recovered, and she did do the electrical stimulation thing, which seemed to help a little as a recall (though briefly).
But really, when a disk is so badly herniated that bumping the toe of your shoe against a door jamb causes your entire left leg to go numb, who wants to submit to the hands of a professional certified in a snake oil science? And the prospect of somebody actually kneading that area with their hands, when it hurt me even to have a pair of pants on that weren't sweats? It wasn't for me.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold:
quote:One: The pinched nerves usually aren't. Instead of saying 'subluxation' or 'vertebral subluxation,' most chiropractors will say they have found a 'pinched nerve,' which is a different way of describing the definition of a subluxation.
Hmm. My chiropractor didn't say he "found" a pinched nerve, he told me that without an MRI we couldn't know what was happening in my back. He suggested a board certified neurologist who could request authorization for said MRI, and when it came back, he looked at it and said: "That thing's gotta come out."
what thing?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
The demon, clearly.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
The section of my herniated disk that was impinging on my spinal cord.
Posted by Amberkitty (Member # 12365) on :
Good! A herniated disk is different from a regular "pinched nerve" 'cuz it exists!
But adjustment is still not a very good idea for that.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Samp I just wanted to thank you for some of the references you've provided in this thread. My partner's mother is very into homeopathy and chiropractic. I generally try to avoid arguing with her, because it's not worth the headache, but it's nice to have information to refer back to when it does come up. Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Aw, yeah, we've all been there. gooooooooooood luck.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
This thread reminded me to make an appt with my chiropractor. Though my goal was basically massages during pregnancy paid for by insurance and that is what I got so to convince me that was not useful, you really need to show massage doesn't help pregnant people. Well, that and back and pelvic exercises.
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