What's your take on alternative or "complimentary" medicine?

Placebo works. Always has, always will.

I am skeptical.

I’m very interested in it.

Hi guys: I’d asked to please contribute from your positive or negative experiences. Thanks.

a lot of alternative medicine actually has a base in science.

Homeopathy, however, is a complete and utter sham.

@hookecho What makes you say that?

I don’t know if this counts but for my anxiety I often take Rescue Remedy. It doesn’t do much when I am in a serious downward spiral of fear, paranoia and panic but it does help for the moments when I simply need to take a breath and relax. Maybe it is all down to a placebo effect but so what if it helps.

I do struggle to understand why people insist on alternative medicine when it is a life or death situation and doctors are telling you that it isn’t working. I have read many cases of people dying due to insisting on only using alternative medicines and not prescriptions.

Most double blind studies of homeopathic cures fail to find any correlation at all. Part of the reason may be that the dilution is so weak that there are virtually only a few molecules of the substance being dispensed.

This is not to denigrate completely the idea that “like cures like”. There may be some empirical evidence which shows that that may sometimes be true.

@NewZen because the idea that something becomes more potent with repeated dilution is ludicrous?

I had the flu bad a couple years ago, and I bought some of that Oscillococcinum stuff. I wanted it to work, I really did. But it didn’t. Turns out, the dilution of that “medication” is 200C, which is 200 1:100 dilutions. Basically, all I was taking was sugar, which is really not what you want to eat when you have the flu. My limited experience has taught me: homeopathy is bunk.

@hookecho – Ludacris is a rapper/actor. Ludicrous means something is absurd. :-)

@pdworkin: I understood that all double-blind studies of homeopathy had failed to show any statistically significant correlation at all, which is to say that water doesn’t work as a cure for a disease, etc… This, sadly, does denigrate the idea that “like cures like” – scientifically (factually?) speaking, it doesn’t.

There’s a very interesting blog about the homeopathy experience here.

I’m agnostic on aromatherapy, as I know next to nothing about it. I’m agnostic on massage therapy, as I know next to nothing about it, although I know that a massage leaves me feeling good.

Feng Shui has a strong similarity to massage therapy in that it’s purely subjective in many ways, and any mystical explanations are surely bollocks. However, while it may not transform your life or make you rich, having a clean, tidy room has an effect on your mind – I hate a messy room, particularly a room for studying, and can’t study if the room’s a mess. Therefore, a tidy room is a successful room (for me, anyway). The same might be said of massage therapy – massage leaves you feeling good, and the physical contact (not to be underestimated – how great are hugs?) will likely have an effect.

Moreover, how you arrange your room will have an effect on you – something obvious by the natural light – if your desk looks out the window on to a park, expect to get distracted easily…

@hookecho—Playing the devil’s adv.; many people practice and use Homeopathic treatments and have great results. It’s been around for ages, though I’ve read different theories as to its potencey and effect.

How do you explain so many GP’s studying Homeopathy as well as Modern Med.?

How do you explain the positive results people have testified to?

Shall I cite some studies?

@NewZen: “shall I cite some studies?”

Yes please!

@the100thmonkey

@me: Yes…?

Pseudoscience.

– if your desk looks out the window on to a park, expect to get distracted easily…

That’s for sure. My dorm overlooks a plaza area with constant people going by. It’s very distracting!

@the100thmonkey It was a link.

The only link I see is the @<user> link that points straight back to my comment?

Click it – I made your nick a ink.

Generally, I am very skepitical. BUT, I do feel that medicine in the US ignores dietary needs. I see some change in this very recently. Finally mainstream MD’s are testing for vitamin D, B12 and others. My husband’s cousin has pancreatic cancer and is taking a “medication” from Cuba which is supposedly natural, but a standard of care given by MD’s in Cuba. She is also receiving medical treatment here in the US. She is doing much better than expected by the American doctors..so you have to wonder? I don’t know if the medication is also available in other countries, I just know it is not available in the US.

clicking doesn’t work – it just takes me to my previous post

Some got potential, some just relies on the placebo effect, which can still offer relief.

It helps you without harming you.
Hence, “complimentary”.
Benefit or no effect.

I said almost everything I had to say on the subject here, except to say that I know of no genre of medicine that compliments its patients. I believe you meant complementary.

woops! @Marina , I beleive you are right.
A slight slip.

@Marina : I’d just spotted that and thought I was going to be the first to the punchline…

Did you all see the interview with Suzanne Sommers on Larry King? As you know she is a big proponent of complimentary and alternative medicine. Her recent story about being diagnosed with cancer in many organs is unbelieveable! Not that I don’t believe it I do. You can’t make that stuff up. Larry had doctors on who agreed that many times chemo is used so a patient feels like they are “doing something” and may have little positive affect. Suzanne Sommers was clear to say that certain types of cancer even she would probably use chemo, because the success rates are so good, but for most cancers it isn’t the case.