Traditional Medicine vs Alternative Medicine

Fordeey

Hi

I am just wondering other people's perspective on this....

I am a believer in both alternative and traditional medicine and have time for both and have been helped by both.
I know there is a lot of scepticism around alternative/herbal medicine and I am just wondering what others think......

What has been your experience when you have been ill...what did you find most useful? Would you consider alternative therapies ever?

calfmuscle

If it works then it becomes medicine.

mloc

The reason there is so much scepticism with alternative medicine is that the claims that are made are rarely backed up by fact. In many cases, it's an easy way to make money and play on people's weaknesses.

Unless it's efficacy has been demonstrated in a double blind, placebo controlled, well performed trial, then the effect that is seen cannot be said to be more effective than placebo. For some conditions that's OK, but when I see alternative cancer therapies are that are at best dubious and at worst morally depraved, it makes my blood boil.

SteelyDanJalapeno

Alternative medicine that is proven to work is commonly known as "medicine"

Tigger

how come there is no skecpicisim over penicillin etc?

mloc

Tigger wrote: »

how come there is no skecpicisim over penicillin etc?

Years of peer review.

Tigger

mloc wrote: »

Years of peer review.

i know :cool:

what i ment was

hey op why do you think there is ......

Duffman'05

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHVVKAKWXcg

Pretty much sums it up:rolleyes:

UL_heart_throb

In this country

osteopaths
chiropractors
acupuncturists
nutritionists
reiki thearpists
chinese medicine dispensers
martial artists

are completely unregulated. They do not have to have any formal training or qualification. Many of them will claim to have regulation or qualification but when these are researched they are shown to be from sham organisations.

Why would anyone take a chance with their health based on something someone else learned from the internet, a 2 week corresponance course or a 8 hour seminar. You'd be mad.

Mellor

"By definition", I begin
"Alternative Medicine", I continue
"Has either not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
Do you know what they call "alternative medicine"
That's been proved to work?
Medicine."

—Tim Minchin

Mack_1111

Steve Job's turned away conventional treatment and pursued an alternative approach. Although it's not clear whether he'd still be alive had he been operated on what is clear is it was his best option. Conventional medicine will always be realistic about the efficacy of it's treatment, however alternative medicine is not governed by the same ethics or standards will promise you what ever it is you want.

I think it is also important to distinguish between what is an alternative treatment and what is a complimentary treatment. Complimentary treatments such as acupuncture and meditation can be used alongside conventional medicine and may help patients deal with the stress and pain associated with some treatments.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=alternative-medicine-extend-abbreviate-steve-jobs-life

robodonkey

Mack_1111 wrote: »

Steve Job's turned away conventional treatment and pursued an alternative approach. Although it's not clear whether he'd still be alive had he been operated on what is clear is it was his best option. Conventional medicine will always be realistic about the efficacy of it's treatment, however alternative medicine is not governed by the same ethics or standards will promise you what ever it is you want.

I think it is also important to distinguish between what is an alternative treatment and what is a complimentary treatment. Complimentary treatments such as acupuncture and meditation can be used alongside conventional medicine and may help patients deal with the stress and pain associated with some treatments.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=alternative-medicine-extend-abbreviate-steve-jobs-life

Whilst I agree with a small bit of what you say (specifically meditation and positive benefits to the patient's feelings of wellbeing) I would say it is dangerous in the extreme to align scientific medicine alongside alternative therapies.

This give the illusion that the scientific body of evidence that supports modern medicine is somehow also supporting treatments which have never (in individual and meta-analysis) beaten placebo effect.

I'll illustrate my point with a cautionary tale from a story I heard recently:
Chap with cancer, 70% survival stat at time of diagnosis, decided to try a radical new treatment in China. 20000 Euro later he is now back in back in the system, and inoperable.

A sad but true tale of the dangers of pseudo-science.

As others have said, when natural therapies and remedies "work", they become medicine, subject to the rigours of the scientific method.

Mack_1111

Hi,

In my defense I wasn't trying to promote alternative treatments.

Fordeey

Okay...so have read all everyone has to say and I understand your opinions, a few years ago I would have perhaps agreed with you.....BUT

I was diagnosed with intersistal cystitis 7 years ago. I was miserable and in awful pain; Doctors who I visited continuously gave me antibiotics which worked at first but with it occuring every few weeks, it was getting very upsetting. One doctor referred me to hospital to have full check up and ultrasounds etc..they found nothing..I had every antibiotic on the market and while doctors did what they could and were helpful; it seemed I had become immune to antibiotics and they couldn't undrstand why I wasn't getting better....I had to leave work and go to A & E when things got too bad one day..a doctor there gave me antibiotics by injection to help and explained he could try help me but that they had exhausted most routes and it would be a case of starting the process over again and that it could be worth trying an alternative form of treatment...the doctor himself said to me that he knew people who tried a mix of both types who were very successful!

I tried a herbalist and got immediate relief (as I had with antibiotics) and it then made the "attacks" less frequent and more bearable but still wasn't fully better....

The herbalist referred me to an amatsu practitioner who looks at the way your organs are alligned and works on correcting mis-allignments....

It hurt like hell and I bruised a lot..but he could tell that my liver all the way down to my bladder was at sitting higher on the left....he asked if I had been I injured in one side as a child or ever in a card crash etc....but I hadn't ...he worked to re-allign them..took a few trys of course..your body has been this way for years , it will do what it thinks is correcting itself and go back to as it was....but by the third go...I was better!!!
Turns out I had a complicated breech birth as a baby and was "pulled" out (lovely) and easily could have knocked something out of line...

anyway within a few weeks I was better...I have now been well for 3 years without a problem!!!

Now this is something a doctor/surgeon/hospital could not tell..as being the way they work they look at the bladder in my case, the one organ in issolation and they couldn't see this problem?

So there ye have it...maybe it can't be scientifically proven like traditional medicine but if it works??! why not?! There is a place for both and I would still go the doctor when very ill and maybe try alternative for milder things...whats the harm in having a few opinions in general..it is your health after all..and how many people have been mis-diagnosed etc?!

28064212

Fordeey wrote: »

So there ye have it...maybe it can't be scientifically proven like traditional medicine but if it works??! why not?! There is a place for both and I would still go the doctor when very ill and maybe try alternative for milder things...whats the harm in having a few opinions in general..it is your health after all..and how many people have been mis-diagnosed etc?!

Interesting choice of words there: http://whatstheharm.net/

Fordeey

Okay fair point...but people who have tried traditional medicine have died....?! The point I am trying to make is..that it has helped people..I am bloody one of them :-)

BUT if a doc can help you...good stuff..if a herbalist can..great..if either opion fails..it's good to be able to turn to the other for an "alternative"..no?

Anyone else every had a success story with trying anything outside traditional medicine?

This is like mad hippy lady vs the non believers??!..and I'm not...I know there is a pre-conceived "type" who use alternative..I'm right up there with still thinking some of it is a little kooky but maybe it works for someone?

I just know I had great success and it really changed my opinion and then again I have had great success with doctors...so I think both can offer something to someone who is ill depending on the case and the individual?

Annnyyyooonne agreeing with me here....hello? :-)

robodonkey

Without any evidence supporting alternative treatments (beyond placebo) they are de facto "faith based".

Paying 60 Euro an hour for faith based treatments (maybe 10 or so) involves a significant opportunity cost, ie the money you are spending on "treatment X" you are likely NOT spending on a treatment that could actually have a real effect on your ailment/illness.

Having personal experience of having a limited budget and a significant medical problem, I can confirm that the internet, your peers, your family all have a story of the "friend of a friend" who got fixed by "treatment X".

This is not evidence.

In a very real way, if I had spent some of my budget on "treatment X" my ability to pay for proven medical treatment would have been eaten up a lot sooner.

"Science doesn't have all the answers"
"It worked for me"
"What harm can it do?"

These are not arguments.

Bottom line, If it can't or won't be tested walk away and save your cash for something worthwhile!

Clearlier

Western medicine does a few things well but has limits. When those limits are reached it makes sense to explore alternative options. That a type of practice is unregulated in Ireland does not mean that there is a problem with that practice just that there is a problem with the regulation of that type of practice.

Any practitioner that claims to know everything about everything (including western medicine practitioners) should be left well alone.

robodonkey

Clearlier wrote: »

Any practitioner that claims to know everything about everything (including western medicine practitioners) should be left well alone.

Western medicine uses the scientific method to validate it's claims.
That is, it tests itself, subjects itself to open peer review and continuously challenges its own beliefs. What is discovered and observed to be effective is maintained. What is not, is removed.

The Scientific method gives us our best guess with current knowledge.
It's been wrong before (flat earth anyone?), and will be wrong again, but it's our current best guess and open to challenge (in fact, it welcomes challenge).

What alternative therapies do is quite the opposite.

Clearlier wrote: »

Western medicine does a few things well but has limits.

On what basis do you make these claims?
What are the limits of Western medicine?
How do you know we have reached those limits?

Clearlier wrote: »

When those limits are reached it makes sense to explore alternative options.

I actually agree with you in this one!
If someone has a theory, bring it forward and lets test it!
No test? Not science.

Clearlier

It's important to note that as individuals we have to work with where medicine and alternative therapies are now - not where they might be in the future. So, when I say that anybody who claims to know everything about everything should be left well enough alone I'm talking about an interaction that you might have today. That western medicine may eventually using the scientific method get all the answers to everything is another argument. I've never heard anybody claim that they have them all today though.

That brings me on to the second part of my post that you quoted - that western medicine does some things well but has limits. A straightforward example is that western medicine deals very well with vaccinating against measles etc. but is somewhat less successful at preventing the common cold. You have already pointed out an historical inaccuracy within science (flat earth). An example within medicine is multiple sclerosis. As I've said already medicine as a discipline doesn't claim to have all the answers. There are limits to western medicine in the here and now.

Defining those limits is difficult and in practice it has to be done on a practitioner by practitioner basis (I no longer bring my son to see the GP that prescribes antibiotics for a cold....'just in case') but just because it's difficult doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to identify them. Indeed the best practitioners of western medicine know not just that their practice has limits but where those limits are. As you pointed out it's a part of western medicine that those limits are challenged all the time.

You say that alternative therapies practice the opposite of the scientific method. It's not that long since acupuncture was regarded as quackery by western medicine (many practitioners still do) yet you can do a masters in acupuncture in UCD now because it has been subjected to the scientific method. You might argue that it wasn't scientific before but it is now. I'd argue that acupuncture worked both before and after it was subjected to the scientific method of examination. Do you really think that there aren't any alternative therapies out there that will in time be subjected to the same process?

If you want to argue that some alternative therapies deliberately avoid scrutiny by science then I'm with you but I can't agree to tar all alternative therapies/medicine with the same brush.

robodonkey wrote: »

Western medicine uses the scientific method to validate it's claims.
That is, it tests itself, subjects itself to open peer review and continuously challenges its own beliefs. What is discovered and observed to be effective is maintained. What is not, is removed.

The Scientific method gives us our best guess with current knowledge.
It's been wrong before (flat earth anyone?), and will be wrong again, but it's our current best guess and open to challenge (in fact, it welcomes challenge).

What alternative therapies do is quite the opposite.



On what basis do you make these claims?
What are the limits of Western medicine?
How do you know we have reached those limits?


I actually agree with you in this one!
If someone has a theory, bring it forward and lets test it!
No test? Not science.

Zamboni

Clearlier wrote: »

It's not that long since acupuncture was regarded as quackery by western medicine (many practitioners still do) yet you can do a masters in acupuncture in UCD now because it has been subjected to the scientific method.

You can also do a masters in theology. It doesn't mean that there is a god.

Clearlier

Zamboni wrote: »

You can also do a masters in theology. It doesn't mean that there is a god.

Are you trying to imply that you don't accept the verdict of science on acupuncture?

Zamboni

Clearlier wrote: »

Are you trying to imply that you don't accept the verdict of science on acupuncture?

No. I don't have an opinion on acupuncture as it doesn't particularly interest me.

You said

Clearlier wrote: »

It's not that long since acupuncture was regarded as quackery by western medicine (many practitioners still do) yet you can do a masters in acupuncture in UCD now because it has been subjected to the scientific method.

Just because a university offers a course on a subject does not scientifically validate it.

mloc

Clearlier wrote: »

Are you trying to imply that you don't accept the verdict of science on acupuncture?

I don't. It's almost impossible to control for placebo effect in any study involving acupuncture.

Clearlier

Zamboni wrote: »

No. I don't have an opinion on acupuncture as it doesn't particularly interest me.

You said


Just because a university offers a course on a subject does not scientifically validate it.

You even included in my quote the bit where I said that it had been subjected to the scientific method. Was it not clear that the masters in UCD (only available to graduates of health care disciplines) example was showing how mainstream it was rather than an argument for it have been subjected to scientific scrutiny? It follows on from the point that western medicine is continually pushing it's boundaries, expanding it's limits and it now includes acupuncture. You can't argue that medicine uses scientifically valid practices and then say that one of its practices is not scientifically valid... at least not coherently.

Doug Cartel

Clearlier wrote: »

Was it not clear that the masters in UCD (only available to graduates of health care disciplines) example was showing how mainstream it was rather than an argument for it have been subjected to scientific scrutiny? It follows on from the point that western medicine is continually pushing it's boundaries, expanding it's limits and it now includes acupuncture.

This is not correct inference. UCD offering an acupuncture course is manly indicative that running post-grad courses like this is a nice little earner for academic institutions.

If you would like to read up on the effectiveness of acupuncture, there is a Cochrane collection on it's use for a wide range of ailments. Not much in the way of evidence of effectiveness though. Maybe in some treatment of pain symptoms, but nothing major. http://www.thecochranelibrary.com/details/collection/691705/Acupuncture-ancient-tradition-meets-modern-science.html

Clearlier

mloc wrote: »

I don't. It's almost impossible to control for placebo effect in any study involving acupuncture.

Now that's a reasonable argument. Maybe if you stuck wood in instead... :-)

How would you think it would fit in to the earlier assertion by somebody else that western medicine is scientific?

If there was something that couldn't be satisfactorily subject to the scientific method should western medicine ignore it? Should we as people ignore it?

By the by, I did have acupuncture a couple of times and I thought it was a complete waste of time for me. My argument is not about acupuncture.

mloc

Clearlier wrote: »

If there was something that couldn't be satisfactorily subject to the scientific method should western medicine ignore it? Should we as people ignore it?

Generally speaking, yes. Test it, properly and conclusively, and if it is not found to have effect, then ignore it and move on to something else.

robodonkey

Ok, so let's take back pain and IBS as two of the great success stories for Acupuncture (well, not really but lets play this out).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15838072

Conclusion: It has no effect on acute back pain, no better than "other therapies" for chronic back pain.

Would an acupuncturist entertain the possibility that the therapy works on chronic back pain due to physical manipulation and/or placebo rather than Chi manipulation? Or is it the Chi? How can that be tested?

If you say it is the Chi, then how do sham acupuncture Vs "real" acupuncture controlled trials stack up?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22488079

Conclusion:
Fake acupuncture (stick needles in the wrong places) is as good as real acupuncture (stick needles in the right places).

I know where I'd put my money.

Please point me at the trials/science backing up the assertion that acupuncture is scientifically proven (beyond placebo).

robodonkey

Clearlier wrote: »

If there was something that couldn't be satisfactorily subject to the scientific method should western medicine ignore it? Should we as people ignore it?

Yes, it's called falsification. It's the bedrock of good scientific enquiry.

If the theory is untestable, it can't be a good theory.

robodonkey

And just to note one other thing, good science and theorizing does not mean working only with our existent body of knowledge and building thereon.
Sometimes our best science comes from "crazy" thinking, thereafter subjected to the rigours of the scientific method.
I'm thinking theoretical anarchism here.....but sometimes the paradigm shift is necessary (flat earth example again...)
So no I don't believe we shield our eyes from possibilities, we simply take them and test them. All of them. keep the good ones that stack up and ditch the stuff that doesn't!

Clearlier

robodonkey wrote: »

Yes, it's called falsification. It's the bedrock of good scientific enquiry.

If the theory is untestable, it can't be a good theory.

It's usually called falsifiability and has been written about extensively by Karl Popper. At a very high level it essentially says that laws/rules can be deduced but not induced for a theory to be scientific. The statement "all swans are white" is a classic example of the fallibility of inductive reasoning (there are black swans). Astrology is the quintessential example of a science that had falsifiable theories which were proven to be incorrect and some of whose adherents then changed their stance so that their theories were unfalsifiable.

I should have clarified that when I said [...couldn't be satisfactorily subjected to the scientific method] I was referring to the difficulty in controlling for the placebo effect in acupuncture trials that mloc wrote about. I should instead have said [...where it isn't practical to subject it to the scientific method yet] e.g. Einstein's theory on relativity said that gravity caused light to bend. This is falsifiable but it took extraordinary conditions to actually test it. My statement was poorly written though and I can easily understand why I was misunderstood.

The more I think about it the less I think that western medicine is actually that scientific.

Take for example the subject under discussion which I was just trying to use as an example (but has clearly been discussed on this forum before). I don't buy Doug Cartel's assertion that UCD is just using acupuncture as a money making device. It's a well respected university offering it as a masters to health-care professionals. It's also far from being the only university offering such a course. At the very least it's responding to demand in the market place. That demand is being generated by practitioners of western medicine. It's availability is not limited to a couple of quackers who have lost the plot. In short I'm asserting that it is a part of western medicine.

That doesn't fit very well though with the following two assertions - western medicine is scientific and acupuncture is not scientific.

Assuming that you accept my assertion that acupuncture is a part of western medicine (and I understand that despite the evidence some might not) at least one of those statements is inaccurate.

Of course real life isn't really that black and white and we're so far away from the original point of the thread we could be in a different galaxy so let me bring it back to what I was originally saying which is that western medicine doesn't know everything. When it reaches its limits it's worth exploring what else is out there. A good rule of thumb is to avoid anybody who claims to have all the answers. I don't see those statements as being particularly controversial. I suspect that a significant minority of western medicine practitioners would agree with them.

theg81der

I was sick for a few years and when conventional medicine failed me I turned to alternative medicine of every kind. I found most did more harm than good and significantly would say anything to empty my pockets. This actually includes one actual medical doctor who is equally bad and very free with his prescription pad.
I do believe however that food cured me. When I eventually could eat barely anything without coming out in a rash and experiencing trouble breathing I adapted a detox diet for about 2 years mainly organic fruit and ved. I have had no recurrence of whatever had been wrong although continue to have some minor health issues.
I also found reiki worked which I certainly thought was rubbish before hand.

mloc

Clearlier wrote: »

That doesn't fit very well though with the following two assertions - western medicine is scientific and acupuncture is not scientific.

Assuming that you accept my assertion that acupuncture is a part of western medicine (and I understand that despite the evidence some might not) at least one of those statements is inaccurate.

Here the issue is one of semantics; what qualifies as western medicine? Homeopathy is widespread in the west but it is certainly not established in science, the same can be said with some forms of chiropathy. If we say "conventional medicine", it may more accurately define what we think of as medicine that is based on science and evidence.

robodonkey

Clearlier wrote: »

It's usually called falsifiability and has been written about extensively by Karl Popper.

I'm a bit rusty, it's been a while since I tried to keep my eyes open in that lecture

Clearlier

mloc wrote: »

Here the issue is one of semantics; what qualifies as western medicine? Homeopathy is widespread in the west but it is certainly not established in science, the same can be said with some forms of chiropathy. If we say "conventional medicine", it may more accurately define what we think of as medicine that is based on science and evidence.

It's a fair point that especially at the edges what is and isn't included isn't always clear. However in this particular case the masters in acupuncture that I referred to is aimed primarily at physiotherapists. I'd be surprised if many thought that physiotherapy was outside of western/conventional medicine but maybe I'm wrong.

opinion guy

Doug Cartel wrote: »

Maybe in some treatment of pain symptoms, but nothing major.

You think pain isn't a major symptom ?

Clearly you don't know very much about pain.

Mellor

Clearlier wrote: »

It's a fair point that especially at the edges what is and isn't included isn't always clear. However in this particular case the masters in acupuncture that I referred to is aimed primarily at physiotherapists. I'd be surprised if many thought that physiotherapy was outside of western/conventional medicine but maybe I'm wrong.

Being aimed at physios, a service offered by physios etc does not make it western. Even if is it they themselves are 100% within established/western medicine.

Basically, they are running a business. If their clients are interested in acupuncture, they are forced to keep up with other physios. It's basically serves an advertising function.

Personally, I'd like to try accupuncture. I don't believe in the Qi or median lines or that it can help non musculature issues. But I'd not be surprised if it could have a physical effect on the muscle, similar to trigger points, myofascial release. (I suppose this is dry needling and not accupuncture).
Above all, I think I'd like the sensation.

calfmuscle

Acupuncture is on the fringe of medicine at the minute, some doctors and physio's will use it. However it is generally reserved for chronic conditions that have not responded to other treatments.
It has been shown to have an analgesic affect in SOME people. These affects are not reproducible in all people. The fact the affects are not reproducible in all people makes many practitioners reluctant to use it.
However acupuncture (when done by a health professional!) is very safe, very cheap and has some positive affects in some people, so its use is justifiable to use on some people, even if the benefit is from nothing more than placebo. Reducing a persons pain is the main priority.
Most if not all health professionals will agree that they do not believe in meridians or chi etc The patients show the same improvement regardless of where the needles are positioned.

If you go to your gp or physio with a problem they will use all the treatments available to them to assist you. These treatments will be backed up with scientific evidence. That is not to say that the drug or therapy they give you is 100% affective, far from it! But they will know that 50% or 60% of people improve with these treatments. Health professionals are tightly regulated and are held accountable for their actions. They must stay up to date with the latest research and constantly undertake courses and in-service training through out their careers.

If you go to an alternative practitioner they are unregulated, they can claim anything they want. They will only offer their particular treatment, very often they have absolutely no medical training what so ever. Not even a first aid course. They can be advising you to take supplements or herbs that they without having any real understanding of their affects. In the case of chiropractors they can seriously damage your neck or spine with high velocity manipulations.
When seeing an alternative practitioner you are also leaving yourself at risk of misdiagnosis or non-diagnosis for something more serious. Unfortunately Steve Jobs of someone who was scammed with false promise and paid the price.

Sorry for the long post, I could go on but ill just leave it there.

Mack_1111

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0