Traditional Chinese "Medicine" - Acupuncture

Paramite Pie

TheChizler wrote: »

Or even that you just grew out of it?...

:rolleyes:

Grew out of it? (I find that quite insulting... I'm not naive. If my acne hadn't come back we could've considered that option)

It cleared up my acne for 2 years but it's coming back now and I plan to get a repeat session for accupuncture. I will not grow out of this until I'm in my 40s judging by my relatives.

My mum had acne into her 40s and so did two of my uncles. I went for accupuncture at the age of 24.. this is adult acne (though it started in my teens) so theirs nothing to grow out of!

Gumbi wrote: »

Err, please tell me you're being sarcastic? Assuming your story is accurate, what's to say it's not confirmation bias?

My story is accurate, acne runs in the family. It's something that can still flare up (i'm 26 now) and I will probably struggle with it for decades to come according to my dermatologist. I will never be cured but I can certainly manage the condition.

I fail to see how it's confirmation bias? I'm just saying it seemed to treat my acne and that I don't know how it works but other treatments weren't as sucessful. When I tried roaccutane (the most powerful treatment known) my acne was back within a few months. I was told that it would cure my condition permanently.

Zombrex wrote: »

Again why do you think this was the acupuncture?

There were no other variables to consider. Nothing else had changed, not my diet nor did I try any treatments. I think it was the herbs they brewed for me as it gave me the ****s alot. Not sure how much effect the needles had but it was relaxing and since stress can aggravate acne the needles may have helped in that way.

The acne stayed away for 2 years which is the longest ever and while I was on it my complexion was nothing short of stunning.

I simply don't think this was a placebo effect since I've tried the real stuff too.

Waking-Dreams wrote: »

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking “after this, therefore because of this” but don't be fooled by it.

It's easy to be skeptic too. I don't believe in "Chi" but somehow this treatment was effective for me. More so than what my dermatologist could do back when I was 18. Your link was irrelevant to my case in my opinion. I had previously given up on treatments for a long time and that had done nothing. I never claimed this was a miracle cure but for the duration of my treatment I had flawless skin. I was in good condition for a long time after but the acne eventually came back after 2 years (although not as bad).

It helped me manage my condition better than pills which had many side effects like nose bleeds, dry skin, mood swings and risked damaging my liver.

TheChizler

Paramite Pie wrote: »

:rolleyes:

Grew out of it? (I find that quite insulting... I'm not naive. If my acne hadn't come back we could've considered that option)

It cleared up my acne for 2 years but it's coming back now and I plan to get a repeat session for accupuncture. I will not grow out of this until I'm in my 40s judging by my relatives.

We can only go on what you tell us, please don't berate me for not knowing that it came back, you didn't say that before now. I fail to see how it's insulting, and I'm sorry if you feel that way, but acne is highly coincident with adolescence, and you did grow out of that.

Paramite Pie

TheChizler wrote: »

We can only go on what you tell us, please don't berate me for not knowing that it came back, you didn't say that before now. I fail to see how it's insulting, and I'm sorry if you feel that way, but acne is highly coincident with adolescence, and you did grow out of that.

I am sorry for that, but if I had thought I had possibly grown out of it then I probably wouldn't have posted in this thread. It just seems like such an obvious thing, and I wouldn't have over-looked that even if it had never come back.

All those replies asking if I was being sarcastic or instantly shooting down my experience (despite myself being the only person in the thread thus far with first-hand experience of the subject) just got to me. My apologies.:o

I understand acupuncture should be regarded with skepticism but some people were acting as if I had simply pulled the story out of thin air with nothing to back it up. I honestly felt like you guys were all berating me and I was just feeling defensive.

Gumbi

Paramite Pie wrote: »

I am sorry for that, but if I had thought I had possibly grown out of it then I probably wouldn't have posted in this thread. It just seems like such an obvious thing, and I wouldn't have over-looked that.

All those replies asking if I was being sarcastic or instantly shooting down my experience (despite myself being the only person in the thread thus far with first-hand experience of the subject) just got to me. My apologies.:o

I understand acupuncture should be regarded with skepticism but some people were acting as if I had simply pulled the story out of thin air with nothing to back it up. I honestly felt like you guys were all berating me.

Nobody acted like you pulled it out of thin air. Indeed, I assumed you were telling the truth.

Waking-Dreams

Paramite Pete, what are your thoughts on the fact that in many studies “sham” acupuncture seems to produce the same results as “real” acupuncture? As Ben Goldacre once commented on such a study:

There was no statistically signficant difference between proper, genuine ancient wisdom acupuncture, and fake, “bung a needle in, anywhere you fancy, with a bit of theatrical ceremony” acupuncture.

(Source: http://www.badscience.net/2007/09/542/#more-542)

You said: “Not sure how much effect the needles had but it was relaxing and since stress can aggravate acne the needles may have helped in that way”.

So perhaps it was just seeking any alternative treatment which offers relaxation and de-stressing that could have done it, no? I’m just genuinely curious why you are defending acupuncture when you openly admit you don’t believe in Chi, etc. but after trying it you think it banished your acne for some time.

Your acne may have diminished after the treatment but like I said earlier, how do you know it was the needles and not just the act of going to receive any alternative treatment?

18AD

A recent article that may be of interest.

http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/14249/20130314/reveal-acupuncture-stress-hormones-zusanli.htm

SebBerkovich

18AD wrote: »

A recent article that may be of interest.

http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/14249/20130314/reveal-acupuncture-stress-hormones-zusanli.htm

Dr. Ladan Eshkevari, who published the study has also published 4 other studies proving various benefits of acupuncture. She also happens to be a certified acupuncturist.

I'm not completely dismissing the research based on this, but i think there's the possibility that she may have an unfair interest in this study's positive conclusions.

....ALSO the study was part funded by the (absurdly named) National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. This is an agency that has been "studying" alternative medicine so intensely since they formed 1991 that they've e neither succeeded in demonstrating the efficacy of a single alternative method, nor declared any alternative medicine treatment ineffective.

Akrasia

Paramite Pie wrote: »

:rolleyes:

Grew out of it? (I find that quite insulting... I'm not naive. If my acne hadn't come back we could've considered that option)

It cleared up my acne for 2 years but it's coming back now and I plan to get a repeat session for accupuncture. I will not grow out of this until I'm in my 40s judging by my relatives.

My mum had acne into her 40s and so did two of my uncles. I went for accupuncture at the age of 24.. this is adult acne (though it started in my teens) so theirs nothing to grow out of!



My story is accurate, acne runs in the family. It's something that can still flare up (i'm 26 now) and I will probably struggle with it for decades to come according to my dermatologist. I will never be cured but I can certainly manage the condition.

I fail to see how it's confirmation bias? I'm just saying it seemed to treat my acne and that I don't know how it works but other treatments weren't as sucessful. When I tried roaccutane (the most powerful treatment known) my acne was back within a few months. I was told that it would cure my condition permanently.



There were no other variables to consider. Nothing else had changed, not my diet nor did I try any treatments. I think it was the herbs they brewed for me as it gave me the ****s alot. Not sure how much effect the needles had but it was relaxing and since stress can aggravate acne the needles may have helped in that way.

The acne stayed away for 2 years which is the longest ever and while I was on it my complexion was nothing short of stunning.

I simply don't think this was a placebo effect since I've tried the real stuff too.



It's easy to be skeptic too. I don't believe in "Chi" but somehow this treatment was effective for me. More so than what my dermatologist could do back when I was 18. Your link was irrelevant to my case in my opinion. I had previously given up on treatments for a long time and that had done nothing. I never claimed this was a miracle cure but for the duration of my treatment I had flawless skin. I was in good condition for a long time after but the acne eventually came back after 2 years (although not as bad).

It helped me manage my condition better than pills which had many side effects like nose bleeds, dry skin, mood swings and risked damaging my liver.

'In my experience' is the worst way to evaluate medical efficacy
Even for very experienced GPs or specialists, relying on your own observations in your own experience is a terrible way of coming to a reliable conclusion about what treatments work best.

The thing about illness is that we have our own immune system which is constantly working away and effecting our health.

When we choose one course of treatment for a condition, the treatment could be either
A) effective
detrimental
C) no effect

At the same time, our immune response to the condition is also having an effect and is either,
A) worsening the symptoms (sometimes the immune response to a condition can cause adverse symptoms either as part of the cure, or as an auto-immune disease)
Overcoming the condition and reducing symptoms
C) Not having any effect

For individual cases, sometimes the treatment works, sometimes the treatment is actually delaying recovery, and sometimes the treatment does nothing and any recovery is due to the natural immune response and the treatment is not necessary

If the persons symptoms improve during or following a course of treatment, the human instinct to find patterns and causes/effects will link the improvement to the last treatment the person was given but the only way to be sure that the treatment is the cause of the improvement is to undertake clinical studies involving large numbers of people, properly blinded and with controlled samples (ensuring that the control groups are all of similar demographic and with similar medical histories)

It is the case with all 'alternative treatments' where there is no plausible scientific basis (like reike, acupuncture, homeopathy etc) when it comes to meta-analysis of the studies carried out, the smaller and more poorly controlled studies show the highest variation (ie, some studies show the 'treatments' perform better than placebo while others show little or no difference) but as a rule, when the studies are better, with larger samples and better controls, the results always show that the 'alternative treatments' perform no better than placebo.

Individual cases are absolutely not reliable ways of judging medical efficacy, that kind of thinking just leads to superstition and voodoo medicine where people just try to re-create the conditions under which someone recovered from an illness before, without any understanding of what caused the disease or how the cure actually works.

We're in the 21st century now, it's time to bin all this superstitious rubbish.

And chinese medicine needs to cop onto itself big time, It is so unbelievably sad and pathetic that some of the most incredible animals on our planet are at risk of extinction because of the demand for their body parts as ingredients in their magic potions. It's the 21st century!!s.

Genghiz Cohen

Akrasia wrote: »

And chinese medicine needs to cop onto itself big time, It is so unbelievably sad and pathetic that some of the most incredible animals on our planet are at risk of extinction because of the demand for their body parts as ingredients in their magic potions. It's the 21st century!!s.

If only they just killed the animals.

The keep bears alive to harvest their bile. They keep a hole open with a metal frame into their gut to make the harvest easier.

I saw reports of a mother bear who had one of the harnesses, smother her baby and then run headfirst into a wall, killing herself.

Zombrex

Paramite Pie wrote: »

There were no other variables to consider. Nothing else had changed, not my diet nor did I try any treatments.

Not to sound snotty, but it seems rather implausible that you would actually know that to be the case, unless you were in some scientifically controlled study, and even then.

More plausible is that you didn't notice anything else change. But that is not the same as nothing else changing. For a start you wouldn't know if something changed internally, and you would only notice an external change that was matched a pattern that you would notice. Each day the human mind observes and discards thousands of pieces of information that the brain considered insignificant. These don't register with us and do not form significant memories. We cannot then go back over our experiences and picking out significant events after the fact because by definition we only remember them if we consider them significant at the time.

This is why scientists take a lot of steps to, and a large large population group, when studying the effects of medicine, because you cannot reliably ask a patient if medicine X worked or did anything.

This isn't a slight on you, no one could do that. You would have to know before hand what was significant enough to record before you experienced it.

King Mob

Akrasia wrote: »

And chinese medicine needs to cop onto itself big time, It is so unbelievably sad and pathetic that some of the most incredible animals on our planet are at risk of extinction because of the demand for their body parts as ingredients in their magic potions. It's the 21st century!!s.

Related:
http://www.thejournal.ie/rhino-horns-stolen-national-museum-dublin-874748-Apr2013/?utm_source=shortlink