Alternative medicine...

[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".

 

[Daverson]

It's the Placebo effect. You know the great thing about the Placebo effect? If you take the actual medicine, you not only get the benefits of the placebo effect, but the benefits of the actual medicine as well! It's the best of both worlds! =D

 

[Sethzard]

Things like traditional medicines are basically just modern medicines but less refined. Homeopathy is rubbish, if water genuinely had a memory then it would remember the bodies of the minimum of 9 people wt would pass through before reaching me and I really don't want that.

 

[OriginalLadders]

By definition alternative medicine 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?

Spoiler

Medicine.

EDIT: Also, this:

It's the Placebo effect. You know the great thing about the Placebo effect? If you take the actual medicine, you not only get the benefits of the placebo effect, but the benefits of the actual medicine as well! It's the best of both worlds! =D

 

[Sun Flash]

To paraphrase Dara O'Briain, at one point everything was "alternative medicine". The stuff that actually worked became "medicine".

So no. I think for the most part it's bull, or on par with sugar pills. Anything that does actually help can be found in more effective dosages at your pharmacy or on prescription.

 

[Lynx]

some of it is quackery and some of it might work.
just don,t use it when you have something live threatening (like cancer or AIDS).

This.


I do strive to be an open-minded person, but I am also very careful about fuzzy business like this. I've grown up all my life with a doctor for a dad, so I know that a lot of what is said about "alternative medicine" is complete poppycock. But of course, there's probably a lot of it that isn't. But I won't experiment.

 

[isometry]

Some effective medicines are classified as "alternative" because they aren't universal enough. For example, one day I had some cranberry juice and it cured a minor urinary tract infection that I didn't even know I had (I just suddenly felt fantastic, in that department). Only after it happened did I read that cranberry is an effective medicine for this, but I guess they've done studies and some people aren't helped by it, so it's still considered an alternative medicine, even though it worked as well for me as any course of antibiotics, etc.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

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.

You seem kind of touchy. If someone doubts you, reason with them, don't blow up and go off on a bizarre rant about how the media is teh evulz. There's a difference between verified, scientifically proven medicine, and something Fox news says? I don't really understand that part.

You notice how most herbal medicine promises to cure things that go away anyway? There's a reason for that.

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

Well, there's not really anything alternative about some of it, it's just been branded as such. There's no difference between taking some alternative medicines and taking a multi-vitamin or something.
Even if the alternative medicine doesn't work, there's been enough studies on the placebo effect to prove that if you think the medicine is working, you're more likely to get better on your own.

 

[elcher]

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

Why would it need to be proven? Well, to show it's not utter bullshit is one thought that occurs.

Also did you know you grow out of chronic bronchitis naturally? It doesn't need curing. Ouch, entire claim sunk...

Yeah no.

I had it since i was a child - to be honest i dont know the whole medical implications of it etc. but every time i woul get sick (and that means from the beginning of my kognitive awakening) i would get a bronchitis. It would not.go.away. Doctors in the west could treat the symptoms and make me "get healthy faster" but it would still mean me lying in my fucking bed for at least 3-5 days having trouble BREATHING (which is something absolutely retarded if you ever had to endure that).

After i drank some tea out of different stuff for around 1 year i was cured. I still get sick often, but i dont have trouble breathing and i sure as hell dont lie in my bed all day hoping for it to go away.

There is all the proof that i personally need - if thats placebo (wait what, how would that even work on my lungs??) then so be it.Like religion, i really dont care what or how you believe in things as long as you dont try to manically convince other people otherwise.

PS: I am not talking about vodoo or somesuch, personally i have no experience with any of that, but of an educated chinese medicine doctor that could and would consult you to a treatment of "drinking tea" (i am not going to explain as the whole claim would just get me torn up by this whole community of know-it-alls).

Really guys, start tolerating... heck everything more.

All of these "in my opinion (herp i dont have any proof either)XX YY is happening blergh a blergh" posts/users are making me sad and furious. Why add nothing of value to a discussion except your own opinion of stuff you know nothing about of?

 

[Esotera]

Alternative medicine is by definition not proved, so it's not really that bad if there are no actual treatments involved, as at worse it's generally a placebo, and at best it might actually give some benefit to the patient.

But what really pisses me off is when people reject actual medicine for quack treatments. In a world without homeopathy, Bob Marley would still be alive. The same goes for Jehovah's Witnesses who refuse blood transfusions for their children, and anybody else on the planet who has rejected sound medical advice from multiple professionals.

 

[Pyramid Head]

While dismissing the entire field would be narrow minded and indeed there is a lot of bias in the medical community towards folk remedies when anything that may work should be taken into consideration, there is a large amount of quackery and some skepticism is healthy in this topic, especially when some alternative cancer treatments literally involve taking cyanide. My general rule is that if a devoutly religious person suggests it, research it before taking up the offer. The stronger the medicine, the more cautious you should be.