How Do You Feel About Acupuncture?

Ben,

It can be a very needling affair.

The art of acupuncture is scientific and should be viewed as is any medical treatment. Needles are placed at strategic places and do have a medical affect.

I had acupuncture treatment to assist with the afteraffects of my stroke ten years ago. It was prescribed and paid for under our medical care system in Canada. I can vouch for its effectiveness.

Cheers,

Jim

PS. I am not so sure about smoking. I think that anything that works in that department is a blessing. Opinion.

 

How do I feel about acupuncture? Well, I read Jim's response...from that I can safely say I get the point.

 

My father lost a leg many years ago, right after relations opened up with the PRC in the early 1970s. He had gangrene due to poor circulation from diabetes. At any rate, he was very weak and thought to be unable to stand regular anestesia (sp?). He had the leg removed and the docs used nothing more than acupuncture to deaden the pain in the procedure. This was done at a Veterans Administration Hospital by a visiting physician from the People's Repulic of China in 1974.

So, I will vouch for it being an effective treatment for pain. If you need it, and have a competent practioner, go for it.

 

I've visited the PRC a number of times. I can vouch for many of the practices called "traditional Chinese medicine". Practicioners in China have mapped the nervous system from the bottoms of the feet to the top of the head.

I have not experienced acupuncture but I have terrible headaches dissipated by an expertly applied foot massage.

BTW, I have also experienced the health benefits that come from the practice of Shaolin martial arts.

 

Nothing wrong with it. Besides I have a lot more faith in that than someone slapping me in the forehead and saying "be healed!"

 

Dr. Bob, you mentioned that your wife is a Naturopath. Does she also pratice 'homeopathy'? If so, does she have any problems with the concept of substances that are diluted past the point where molecules are no longer present? What is her take on the 'dilution' issue?

I am interested because I have had some intense discussions, ongoing for some time, with people close to me who advocate 'homeopathy'.

I would like to know what your wifes view is because I've been trying to find Christians who have any involvement with this type of alternative medicine. I've wondered how being a Christian may affect their understanding or handling of the controversial aspects of homeopathy, ie like cures like and dilution; these concepts present difficulty and to people who claim to have a more 'evidentiary' approach.

 

How do I "feel" about acupuncture? Rather pierced, I'd think . Talk about becoming more "holy"....

A agree with Dr Griffen who says:

...even if false religions use the terms, symbols or beliefs of Oriental medicine it does not make it evil. It is a great blessing and hopefully more and more people will look at alternative treatments.

I've never undergone acupuncture, but know several peolple who have been treated with acupuncture.

I'd like the whole "yen/yang" idea for westerners like this: I'm not into eastern religion, but I've used feng shui techniques in my home decor will very positive results. We westerners have often learned things from other cultures.

 

Acupuncturists claim that by inserting needles into the body, they can manipulate the flow of "chi," or life energy, which is supposed to flow through the body along pathways called "meridians."

In other words, acupuncture is based upon two false assumptions. One is pantheistic, Eastern philosophy. The other is that the root of disease is not organic, but lies in the obstruction of "chi." Why would somebody want to partake of a "medical" practice that gets it wrong at first principles?

 

Because it works!

Cheers,

Jim

 

I can't get too overly joyed by getting stuck with a needle at the doctor's office--much less a bunch of 'um all at the same time!! Some say that the needles send a message to the brain--well, needles always send the same message to my brain every time---OUCH!! I once had a doctor stick me with a needle in the back--"My soul and body, Doc! What'd you hit me with, a baseball bat??!

Your friend,
Blackbird

 

I can't get too overly joyed by getting stuck with a needle at the doctor's office--much less a bunch of 'um all at the same time!! Some say that the needles send a message to the brain--well, needles always send the same message to my brain every time---OUCH!! I once had a doctor stick me with a needle in the back--"My soul and body, Doc! What'd you hit me with, a baseball bat??!

Your friend,
Blackbird

 

Jim1999 said:

Because it works!

Really? According to the private nonprofit group the National Council Against Health Fraud, acupuncture has failed to prove itself any more effective than a placebo against any disease.

 

Five years ago, the scientists said that damage done to the brain by a stroke could not be reversed. Well, guess what? They are changing their tune.

Soje conventional therapist said I would never speak again. Guess what, It is hard to shut me up now.

Some conventional therapies did nothing for my lame hand. Guess what? With acupuncture treatments I can use my hand. Traditional physiotherapy was taking me nowhere and leaving me there.

I will go with what works, and praise God, thank you very much, It worked for me. I can't speak for others. Maybe it was placebo effect, but sometimes that is what works also.

Then, to say it was a placebo affect, is saying that my strokes didn't happen and I really had no brain damage. My hand only seemed paralyzed and once I got my thinking right it came around. My testimony will rest with Drs. Laing McFadzean, McDonald and McDonald of Tamworth, Newburgh and Kingston General.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Dr. Bob Griffin said:

Ransom and I have had this feud for a long time, so feel free to ignore him like I do.

Ah, yes. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

Remember, 50 years ago Chiropractors were so labeled as "quacks" and "frauds" and no insurance would cover them.

Chiropractors are still regarded as quacks and frauds. Like acupuncture, chiropractic is based upon a false assumption: that the basis of bodily disorder is misalignments (or subluxations in quack-speak) of the spinal column.

In the same category of quack medicine: iridology (diagnosis of disease through studying the iris of the eye) and reflexology (diagnosis of disease based on the massaging of parts of the feet supposedly corresponding to parts of the body).

Underlying all these practices is the very questionable premise that every part of the body has a corresponding part in one particular part of the body (depending on the practice in question).

Good marketing and human gullibility do not equal efficacy.

Same with nutrition

Plenty of credible information out there about nutrition, e.g. Canada's Food Guide. Common sense. No one needs a quack doctor to tell him how to eat or exercise, much less push supposedly essential herbal "supplements" nobody heard of ten years ago.

homeopathy

Another pseudo-medical practice based on a false or unproven premise: that by diluting potent ingredients, which produce similar symptoms to the disease diagnosed, to improbably infinitesimal amounts, the "energy" of the substances remains and can still heal.

Homeopathy has the dubious privilege of being the only quackery legally marketable as a drug. Too bad the FDA hasn't demanded that it be subjected to the same sorts of test as other pharmaceuticals. If they did, the practice wouldn't last long, at least legally.

Homeopathy poses an interesting question. If it works, how come there isn't a huge underground market in deadly and untraceable homeopathic poisons?

The body is electrical. Every cell has energy. Trace minerals and such actually allow this energy to flow in meridians through major organs (imagine it like veins/arteries only with energy not blood).

The so-called "meridians" in acupuncture do not correspond to any bodily structure. (The practice of acupuncture in fact pre-dates detailed knowledge of human physiology.)

This energy flow may then be enhanced or even blocked by the needles of acupuncture.

Now, you know an assertion like this demands evidence.

Since you were so kind as to provide a basic lesson in physics, let me return the favour. Energy is measurable. Therefore, if an "energy flow" is known to exist, to be enhanced, or to be blocked, then this flow can be measured.

By what means is this measurement accomplished, and in what quantities can it be observed to occur?

(1) Many insurance companies are beginning to support this preventive assessment. I see it every day, as patient's bills are paid.

Again, profitability does not equal efficacy.

(2) People are tired of the "same old same old" from the allopathic medical field and are looking for answers. Giving a person HOPE is an integral part of the healing process.

And if the hope being provided is a false hope based on confidence in a pseudo-medical practice that has no basis in fact, what then?

Incidentally, "allopathy" is nothing but an alternative-medicine buzzword. Simply put, it is an antonym to "homeopathy" (like cures like) and means medicine in which the drugs administered do not necessarily produce different effects in the patient than the disease.

THEY WORK.

Testimony does not equal evidence.

[ November 04, 2002, 03:41 PM: Message edited by: Ransom ]

 

Jim1999 said:

Five years ago, the scientists said that damage done to the brain by a stroke could not be reversed. Well, guess what? They are changing their tune.

and

Some conventional therapies did nothing for my lame hand. Guess what? With acupuncture treatments I can use my hand. Traditional physiotherapy was taking me nowhere and leaving me there.

Have you considered the possibility that you are committing the post hoc fallacy? You admit that medical knowledge has increased over the last five years, and that you partook in conventional therapies in addition to unconventional ones.

Could I not argue, with equal basis in fact, that it was the conventional medicine and the conventional therapy, plus some time to allow nature to take its course, that in fact contributed to your healing? That the acupuncture you had done was completely immaterial to the fact, and that you have rationalized that it was the efficacious therapy based on a closer perceived cause/effect relationship (as opposed to a de facto one)?

Then, to say it was a placebo affect, is saying that my strokes didn't happen and I really had no brain damage.

Um, no. The placebo effect does not deny the reality of injury or disease. It is an actual or perceived improvement in health not due to the placebo itself, but the subjective belief that the placebo is efficacious.

 

Acupuncture appears to work well in managing pain, because it affects the body's nervous system and pain receptors. Reputable universities and teaching hospitals are investigating it's abilities in these areas.

However, acupunctures language is still the language of mythology, ie meridians, energy, and chi.

Homeopathy, I don't think, works at all. Nerves and pain receptors are real, but solutions diluted till there is nothing are not real and contain, well, they contain nothing. And nothing does not do something, nothing does, well, it does nothing. Like cures like - nothing cures nothing, and it takes something to cure something. Allopathic is a meaningless word - made up - that conveys no meaning.

I've talked to a lot of people, and nobody appears to be honest about homeopathy's lack of ability to cure anything; all you get are arguments based upon alternative treatments in a very wide general sense (and some alternative treatments do work it appears and will eventually have a sensible language to describe their working, including limits on the extent of what they can do).

The more people I ask about homeopathy, the more the answers appear to all be the same with nobody addressing the lack of results. Even if you read the books that give homeopathy the most generous and liberal benefit of the doubt, the most that can be conceded to homeopathy is that it may be good for minor burns and possibly one or two other things-I can't recall. But this is about the furthest cry possible from the 'system' invented by Hahnneman (sp?).

Name one acute illness for which homeopathy, just by itself, can bring cure or relief. Nobody appears to be able. If homeopathy worked even to 1/10 the degree to which Hahnnemann said it could, would we not SEE it's effects despite a lack of theoretical understanding and despite a mechanism of operation that seems senseless? Of course we would; but of course we don't see curative effects.

This is what I think. I will continue to look for people who may be able to offer some evidence of it's effect.

[ November 04, 2002, 09:53 PM: Message edited by: Baptist Vine ]