Alternative medicine...

[Dags90]

I am actually a college student, and one of my internationally known professors told me about this. so ya jokes on you.

I may not have explained it as well as he did, but I think i got the gist across.

Yes, I have a reason to use one of my favorite image macros ever.

Spoiler: Spoiler for size.

You're not the only person who has been to college, and has had professors. More formally, what you're describing is a classical appeal to authority, applied quite fallaciously. My professor taught me that trick. Jokes on you.

 

[Stormz]

My mom is obsessed with this sort of thing. I can't say for sure if they work or not but I have had it a lot. I myself am a little skeptical to be honest. It seems like some of it may work.

 

[teebeeohh]

well not every alternative medicine is bullshit just because it didn't go through clinical trials but a lot of stuff is just...
for example homeopathy is pure and utter bullshit, there is one substance that's supposed to help that is sugar harvested on a specific night in 87 that's supposed to help with headaches. And don't forget that the whole thing works on the basis that water a memory.
Now my mom keeps saying that some homeopathic stuff helped me with my travel sickness when i was a kid but it only helped me because she gave it to me and said it would help.

 

[Powereaver]

It's naive quackery at best, and a concious attempt to fraudulously profit from the suffering of others at worst, and anything in between.

I'm not defending all non-European medical practices, some of it is a load of horse crap. I just don't like the idea that it's o.k. to ignore anything that didn't come from Europe.

Except that what you say is untrue from A to Z. It's bashed because it doesn't work, not because of where it's from. Not only does it not work, it hurts and occasionally kills people, and a great many species are on the endangered species list because of 'oriental medicine'.

I can also name you a specific example: bloodletting and prayer were both part of European 'medical practise' back in the day, if you can call it medical at all. Yet both were rigorously kicked out of medical science, despite of being European. How do you explain this if it's all about European vs non-European as you said?

I am actually a college student, and one of my internationally known professors told me about this. so ya jokes on you.

And who's that professor? What's his field of study?

if its one less trip under the knife or put on horrible drugs to fix something then ill do it... ive had a couple of things fixed by alternative medicine in the past and they were the same things that modern medicine had absolutely no idea how to fix or what they were.

Considering you would be the first succesfull cure ever in history by quackery, that just screams for an explanation and elaboration.

For years i had quite bad abdominal pains which i went to many a doctor for and had a few ultrasounds none of which showed up anything until mum heard about a woman out west who did alternative healing to cure ailments.. so we went out there and she basically did almost like firm massage around my stomach area and told me my stomach was resting on top of my liver and my liver had hardened by about 20% but the reason medicine didnt pick it up is because its not recognizable until it reaches about 80% so she continued the firm pressing around my stomach (which on a sidenote is very uncomfortable) but i havent had any problems in that area since. And the second problem she fixed was after i had an appendectomy for an acute case of appendicitis.. i had a lot of abcesses around my inner abs which had then healed against each other in my colon causing adhesions which was making my lower bowel quite uncomfortable so again she pushed around this time my lower bowel region and broke apart the adhesions in my colon and i havent had any problems since.

 

[Sunrider]

I don't blindly trust all "modern" medicine to be miracle cures, but from my experience with alternative medicine, I'd rather go for modern medicine. My sister is really into that stuff, and I would never EVER trust something she recommends. If she knew someone who called themself a shaman or something, she'd probably rather go there than to a normal doctor.

TL;DR: Fuck that shit.

 

[Dags90]

And the cynical part of me wonders if these big pharma companies wouldnt keep alternative medicine down to justify sales and high prices. Who the fuck would bother buying pills if it was common knowledge a certain plant found in Freds back garden was just as good a cure?

Are you talking about the pharmaceutical companies that took a nutritional supplement widely known to reduce triglyceride levels, fish oil, concentrated it and made it a prescription drug? And then did the same thing with another widely available supplement? (Vitamin B3) These things actually happened in the U.S., one of the world's largest pharmaceutical markets.

Fact of the matter is, pharmaceutical companies would love nothing more than to take effective herbal remedies and make them available by patented prescription. Beats having to cook them up from scratch.

 

[FarleShadow]

Alternative medicine is bullshit, but since it truly 'does no harm' (Or anything) then its quite safe to have around.

As far as I can figure it, its a placebo, you go for 'treatment', talk to a lovely person who does some mystical enchantment with their hands going 'whoooooo' and then you feel better.
You feel better because you did something proactive about your pain or whatever, they did something they're 100% convinced will work and as a result, it 'worked'.

My absolute favorite is the 'Ancient medicine' line, "its been around for thousands of years in Africa" they say. Well, says I, if it works, why are they clamouring for our antibiotics instead of dusting themselves with sage and thyme to cure their aids?

 

[Thedutchjelle]

Alternative medicine is a joke. In my opinion anyway. I trust scientifically tested and proven medicines better than some random stuff in a bottle anyday.

Student Biomedical Sciences myself, so I can't say I'm totally unbiased. But if "alternative medicines" work, you would expect this to show up in studies.

 

[Darh Abdomino]

I always applied the logic "they figured this works, so they use it" if it helps, fine, if not, I don't care. As long as no one tries acupuncture on me as a legitimate medical procedure, I've got no beef. As much as it pains me to use that phrase.

 

[elcher]

Terrible advice.

I have successfully used TCM to cure my chronic bronchitis and have seen multiple people fight Cancer for years when "modern" medicine considered them "dead within a month".

At this point of time in modern science we dont really understand the human body or how everything interacts with it. Chinese Medicine somehow does this through experience - and while some of it might (and probably does) not make any sense a lot of it has proven successful over millenia for Billions of people.

And this is coming from a native german that lived in china for a long time.

Dont always trust "modern" medicine.

I have two words in response to that; prove it.

Come on, prove it! You'd be the first person in the world to do it.

Until you actually do prove your claims, nobody should believe a single word of what you just said. And I'm not just saying that to be confrontational, I'm saying it because you just made a number of claims that require scientific evidence.

This is hilarious.
Why would i need to prove this to anyone? I dont get a bronchitis anymore everytime i get sick, thats enough proof to me and my whole family; i really dont care if you believe me or not since this is just some forum on some site - why do you people need a paper or "press proof" of what has happened and what "different" medicine is capable of when you often criticize other "press" (and i use quotation marks for a reason!) like "the sun" or "Fox news" for being liars/bad mouthers etc ?

Are you really so shallow to only believe what public education tells you? How about you go to china to a traditional chinese doctor and (bring a translator with you cause this might be tricky otherwise) ask the people in the PACKED waiting room if his treatment helps them or has helped anyone they know.

It has helped me and i am living proof - what more do you want?

PS: label me a troll if you like, gaming "discussion" boards are ridiculous nowadays anyway.

 

[AugustFall]

The placebo effect is incredibly powerful. Going through "modern medicine" you get the facts. They tell you what they know and what can be done as far as we are aware. Hope is low. However if a homeopath can offer hope in some form it can really help people. Seriously the placebo effect is underrated. It's crazy powerful.

 

[dj_8612]

To quote Tim Minchin "alternative medicine has either not been proved to work or has been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that has been proved to work? Medicine". That sums it up more or less

 

[Sight Unseen]

Homeopathy is pure bullshit as an alternative medicine.

Herbal remedies I think can sometimes be effective in some cases, and I think a lot of times that drugs are actually derived from the active ingredient of some herbal remedy, so in some cases they can be good.

Jusy FYI though that this is coming from pure speculation and no research on my part into herbal remedies, so I don't know for sure if they're effective or not.

 

[Navvan]

"Alternative medicine" is an umbrella term that covers so many things you can't really just say "Its all bullshit" or "It all works". Technically speaking most of modern medicinal drugs originated as "alternative medicine". Most drugs are isolated from plants and then later synthesized, or analogs of it are synthesized. This kinda undermines the whole "The pharmaceutical companies are just keeping alternative medicine repressed". That is to say while plants have medicinal properties they usually aren't in the concentration that make them effective, or they are too concentrated and deadly (particularly anti-cancer drugs).

All that said there are many things that I think are beneficial to some extent that are considered "alternative medicine".