h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

one of the problems with acupuncture is you go in wanting it to work
of course you take pills wanting them to work too
but there is a point in there somewhere and when someone finds it I'll stand by it

I've self-administered Acupuncture before and Its worked wonders... Acupunctureing   infected boils and the like... Mind, I'm all for combined treatments, so I tend to have used antisceptic cream as well...
 

By the by - when it comes to needles, it's not something I was about to pay for and I wasn't convinced, but who knows... I'm happy for it to be anecdotal, that's all it was, I didn't have two sets of spasm that I could treat differently.

>>Does anyone know of any studies that have been conducted?

I heard about a study which showed that while a 'proper' trained acupuncture person can achieve good results, even better results can be had from a decent actor pretending to know what they are doing.

Bah.
It works if it works, forget the pyschobabble.

Been on the receiving end of needles for 3 years now and it's saved me from an operation(so far) I refused to have because I felt the doctors[s] weren't really trying and they were taking the easy way out(lots of tests and eventually the knife).

Chi...yes I like it. Do I believe in it? Meh. Not really the right question is it.

It's woo.

How do I know? Because if it wasn't - if a study had been done that had found a significant, repeatable, reliable effect, that would be ENORMOUS news. So enormous that you wouldn't need to ask, it would be literally front page everywhere. As it is, you have to ask.

Consider: would it occur to you to ask whether aspirin works? Whether antibiotics work? No. You don't need to ask. It would be huge news if they STOPPED working - we all know about MRSA, right?

Also, I won a t-shirt for writing this: A25910039

Keith, glad acupuncture has 'worked' for you.

I'm interested in what you expected from the conventional doctors, what would they have done had they being trying? They did some tests, presumably found out the cause of the problem, and then offered some treatment. I'm struggling to see what else could have been done.

Well it has to do with severe Achilles tendinitis and their answer was an operation[s] to cut and reattach with long term remedial work afterwards and a plan to be off my feet for many many months and in my line of work I need my ankles...
Any alternatives I asked? Probably a life of hobbling and anti-inflammatorys most likely, not to mention the associated long term pain if you don't go through with it. Thanks, I'll get back to you.

Tried the acu' and the practitioner from Japan had not come across worse legs in his 30 odd years of practice and after 2 months of weekly 1 to 1.5 hour sessions I was able to walk down stairs and stand up from a seated position with out grimacing for the first time in decades.

Call it what you will, but in my case, my circumstances, it's been working a charm without me taking any drugs which is what I was previously doing for years.
A brickie mate of mine got to play golf again after years of a bung shoulder stopping him and staring down the barrel of a shoulder operation to boot, again it's working for him.

Ah, I should of read the rest of the thread before posting.
I didn't realise it was a sceptics thread, oh well it's done now init.

It's a thread for everyone, but the people who have posted so far are skeptics. But there shouldn't be a case that skeptics and believers in woo don't mingle and discuss. Otherwise we would never get our beliefs challenged. If someone is a true skeptic they don't mind having their belief challenged because it enables them to re-evaluate the evidence and see if they are really correct.

Perhaps referring to things as woo inhibits debate?

>>the people who have posted so far are skeptics.

I'm not a sceptic, from what I've heard I believe it works, albeit by some remarkable placebo effect.

"Perhaps referring to things as woo inhibits debate? "

Not as much as believing in it does.

For myself I'm happy to call it dangerous woo. The acupuncturist who took £1000 of my mum treating her for an excess of damp which the dr later diagnosed as a post viral infection and cleared up quite quickly and the one who took £25 a week of my dad whilst he died of cancer are amongst the people for whom I wish to resurrect the concept of hell and then condemn to burn in eternal damnation.

But if you want a welcoming debate... Er perhaps I shouldn't join in! Sorry

Though those are important parts in debate too... I guess i aim to change people's mind about dubious cons/woo/alt med / complementary medicine, and the only way to do that is to be civil whilst explaining why they are wrong.

I think all my story shows is that there is one bad acunpuncturist. I hate it when people write off the whole of conventional medicine because of one doctor who was inattentive/wrong/unethical. Similar I get annoyed with sceptics promoting stories of alt. med. practioners who abused patients as if it told us something about alt med. It tells us that one person acted badly and that there were not institutional safeguards in place to prevent this.

"Perhaps referring to things as woo inhibits debate? "

Not as much as believing in it does...

Off I go for three weeks and I find an empty room when I get back! look at this place! Nettles are growing already!

Lucky I didn't bring the doughnuts...