Accupuncture

For pain relief it definitely worked for me in terms of muscular pains and tendinitis type of symptoms.

For curing cancer and other diseases I'm not so sure on - but I'm not a doctor so I couldn't really comment fairly.

My experience is purely anecdotal.
 
One of my friends studied Chinese Medicine (Or something along those lines!) at uni. practised acupuncture for ages... did some on me, had some effect but I think you need to do it more than once/twice for it to have any effect!
 
benjii said:
The whole point of a placebo is you believe that the treatment is effective, therefore when you receive it you believe that it has helped. What you're describing sounds like a perfect example of a placebo.
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I'm not convinced. I could feel heat in the muscle during the acupuncture session.
 
I've published a bit in this area; it seems to me that the advice the NHS give is a good summary of knowledge in this area at the moment:
"There is some scientific evidence that acupuncture is effective for a small number of health conditions."
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Appropriate emphasis should be given to "some evidence" and "small number of health conditions"! Lower back pain seems to be the most promising area - see the NICE treatment guidelines (warning: pdf).
 
benjii said:
It's the same for Homeopathy, Chiropractic etc. I keep reading about it in Psychology journals, while there may be little hard evidence that the treatment itself has an effect, the placebo effect is very real. Thus, they have medical relevance as, one way or another, the patient feels better.
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You saved me writing a post. It's no better than placebo, but for some people, the power of placebo is enough.
 
gregorius said:
Appropriate emphasis should be given to "some evidence" and "small number of health conditions"! Lower back pain seems to be the most promising area - see the NICE treatment guidelines (warning: pdf).
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It's also worth mentioning that there is no objective way of measuring or even ascertaining that pain actually exists, which is why a placebo is likely to be effective.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
It's also worth mentioning that there is no objective way of measuring or even ascertaining that pain actually exists, which is why a placebo is likely to be effective.
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Although it is true that much research involving pain evaluation involves subjective assessment, you may wish to look at this recent paper in the New England Journal. Some way to go, of course.

The implication in your assertion is rather unclear; why would that explain the "effectiveness" of the placebo?
 
Thanks for the link, I'll give that a good read. The implication of my statement is that ailments that are affected by acupuncture may be more of a psychological than physiological issue.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
Thanks for the link, I'll give that a good read. The implication of my statement is that ailments that are affected by acupuncture may be more of a psychological than physiological issue.
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Ah, I see what you mean. You might also like to look at Hróbjartsson et al.'s work on the placebo effect (start with "Is the placebo powerless?") . tl;dr version - the placebo effect doesn't actually exist; where it seems to appear it's due to mistaken study design and/or data analysis. Controversial work, but the conclusions refuse to go away :-)
 
A friend of mine had her neck/shoulder go, caused by an injury to her knee and how she was walking with crutches etc, and she was in agony. She had acupuncture and she was exceedingly happy with the results.
 
gregorius said:
Ah, I see what you mean. You might also like to look at Hróbjartsson et al.'s work on the placebo effect (start with "Is the placebo powerless?") . tl;dr version - the placebo effect doesn't actually exist; where it seems to appear it's due to mistaken study design and/or data analysis. Controversial work, but the conclusions refuse to go away :-)
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That does sound interesting. No doubt the paper will be behind a paywall :( I miss being a student.
 
ElliorR said:
A friend of mine had her neck/shoulder go, caused by an injury to her knee and how she was walking with crutches etc, and she was in agony. She had acupuncture and she was exceedingly happy with the results.
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The difficulty with assessing anecdotal data like this is that one doesn't know what would have happened in the absence of treatment. The body is quite good at healing itself or at adapting to new situations. I, for example, have a chronic problem with one of my knees that involves pain that comes and goes all by itself. If I had a course of treatment during a pain episode, I could not conclude that the treatment had been effective if the pain subsequently disappeared; I already know that the pain is likely to disappear all on its own!

Establishing a causal relationship between treatment and outcome is quite tricky, usually involving some sort of randomised trial, or at least a very high quality observational study.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
That does sound interesting. No doubt the paper will be behind a paywall :( I miss being a student.
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Original paper is freely available via a google search; the 2010 Cochrane Review update ("Placebo interventions for all clinical conditions") should be freely available in the Cochrane library (I think).
 
benjii said:
It's the same for Homeopathy, Chiropractic etc. I keep reading about it in Psychology journals, while there may be little hard evidence that the treatment itself has an effect, the placebo effect is very real. Thus, they have medical relevance as, one way or another, the patient feels better.
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Eh? Can you explain the chiropractic reference?

This time last week I couldn't lie down, barely stand and walking was excruciating. 5 minutes with the chiropractor and all pain had gone, I could walk and do everything normally.

Homeopathy and acupuncture could well go in the same bracket but chiropractic medicine is nothing like the other two! Physio therapy or sports massage would be more like the other two (not that I think they are).
 
boxman2000 said:
Eh? Can you explain the chiropractic reference?

This time last week I couldn't lie down, barely stand and walking was excruciating. 5 minutes with the chiropractor and all pain had gone, I could walk and do everything normally.

Homeopathy and acupuncture could well go in the same bracket but chiropractic medicine is nothing like the other two! Physio therapy or sports massage would be more like the other two (not that I think they are).
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Chiropractic medicine isn't like physiotherapy, it's suggesting that out of place bones and muscles are the cause of things like asthma.
 
boxman2000 said:
Eh? Can you explain the chiropractic reference?

This time last week I couldn't lie down, barely stand and walking was excruciating. 5 minutes with the chiropractor and all pain had gone, I could walk and do everything normally.

Homeopathy and acupuncture could well go in the same bracket but chiropractic medicine is nothing like the other two! Physio therapy or sports massage would be more like the other two (not that I think they are).
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Hate to burst your bubble but they're all fairly similar in so far as there doesn't seem to be much of an evidence basis for any of them... Certainly the foundations of all three are based on primitive nonsense... magical chi energy, water having memory, magical subluxations etc...
 
dowie said:
Certainly the foundations of all three are based on primitive nonsense... magical chi energy, water having memory, magical subluxations etc...
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But by the same token the fact that the placebo effect works proves something does it not?
 
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