New Age/Natural/Holistic Healing: Discuss!

[distracts]

I wrote up a post and thought I posted it but I guess I didn't? I've mentioned on here several times that the vast majority of my family is composed of doctors, people in other medical positions, and people in other science professions (the remainder are in nonprofits and social advocacy - and one artist). So that right there should tell you a lot about what I think.

BUT. One thing that was always stressed in my family is that science doesn't know everything. And that bodies and brains are complicated and full of stuff that we don't know about and interconnected in ways we don't understand. I have suffered from really bad anxiety for most of my life. I have seen a number of doctors for this and been prescribed a lot of drugs for it and most of them didn't work too well or had negative side-effects that were worse than the initial problem. Guess what fixed it? A diet change. I cut refined sugars out of my diet entirely (I've always eaten relatively healthily but I've also always been a fan of dessert). And my anxiety is at a manageable level if I do that (still far higher than normal people's anxiety levels, but not debilitating). Now, it WAS a doctor who suggested this to me. But it was my cousin, who has the same thing, and he explained it all to me but this was years ago and I've forgotten the exact stuff. But NO ONE I had an appointment with ever asked about my diet or thought about it - not the GP, not the psychiatrists, no one.

I also think a lot of stuff that is considered "folk" remedies actually has a decent amount of scientific evidence for it but that just isn't well-known. For instance, neem oil is considered kind of a magic voodoo oil but has well-documented antibacterial and antifungal properties, which is why it helps to heal a lot of skin conditions (it's also an abortifacent, so please don't use it if you are or are attempting to become pregnant). It's also apparently the very effective at killing head lice. It's considered a "natural" remedy because it's not recommended by western doctors, but you can easily find studies about it. I know some people who swear by neem for their acne, which would suggest that an antibiotic would also help them, but not everyone can necessarily get to a dermatologist or afford the prescriptions.

I also have done biofeedback for my TMJ. Biofeedback sounded to me like a bunch of malarkey but, you know what, it's apparently actually not! Before doing biofeedback, I had no idea how to relax my jaw muscles. Like, I had possibly never relaxed them in my life, lol. But they hooked me up to all the sensors and I had to do a bunch of exercises and it really does help you become aware of what you're doing with your muscles and breathing and how that affects the rest of you (which, scientifically, it does). I have always been very cold, and the temperature sensors hooked up to my fingers usually register them and just a few degrees above room temperature. But when I do visualization exercises of warming my fingers in front of a fire, I can raise the temperature to 90 degrees. That's so bizarre to me but the biofeedback specialist had all sorts of good explanations about what your body is unconsciously doing to cause that to happen. So that whole experience was very interesting.

So, once again, I think bodies and brains are complicated and interconnected in ways that aren't always well understood by science. And I think the "natural" and "holistic" remedies that actually do work are usually hitting on some intersection that science doesn't know about. I also think there is a lot of variation in people and that medicine is only set up to deal with a certain amount of it. Because we don't know and understand everything about everything yet. *shrug*

With that said, I would never in a million years go to a chiropractor or a holistic healer. I have gotten acupressure before because I know someone who does it, so why the heck not. Just felt kind of like a bizarre massage and made me feel as much better as a bizarre massage would.

 

[distracts]

in a society that values rat poison as a heart medicine [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin ]I find it hard to discount some alternative health remedies.

You can also die from drinking too much water, but that doesn't mean water is bad. *shrug* Botox causes paralysis, which is why it's used as a cosmetic treatment and to help people suffering from disorders involving muscles that won't relax (TMJ, lazy eye sometimes, etc). A lot of things that create beneficial effects in small, targeted doses create horrible effects in large, untargeted doses, or doses targeted to the wrong place.

so many 'folk' remedy ingredients are being appropriated and patented by western pharmaceutical companies.

This is how medicine works. This is how medicine has always worked. It finds stuff that fixes something, fine-tunes it, and then sells a safer and more refined version. Willow bark is not only the basis for aspirin, it is the basis for salicylic acid, which promotes skin turnover and helps, idk, basically exfoliate pores from the inside, and is a very good kind of exfoliation for the skin and helps treat/prevent acne by helping pores unclog and then remain unclogged (this is why crushing up aspiring and making a paste can work to treat acne, though idk why you wouldn't just buy a salicylic acid product instead). That's just... how medicine works. All the medicines are based on something.

 

[movie zombie]

ladies, don't get your panties in a wad because someone thinks differently and has found something that works for her.
I admit I came to this rather late as my mother who is now 90 certainly has been using alternative type "medicines" that she grew up with for more years than I have; in fact, I was resistant until I was in my 30's and began reading re antibiotic overuse....however, I do draw the line at chiropractors which she and her mother [died age 92] when alive put great confidence in because I honestly I don't see them as much more useful than a massage.

we each do our own research and make our own decisions.
I use standardized doses from reputable companies.
again, my husband doesn't chew on bark when he has a headache and when I use feverfew for the same I don't go out and chew a leaf.

and while I do appreciate your point of view and agree that modern medical science has certainly evolved, sometimes the whole is better than its parts.

each to their own and I certainly won't attack you for your insistence that only modern medical practices are the cure all for everything. it certainly didn't help me with my allergies/upper respiratory issues and in fact put me at risk re antibiotic overuse.

again, each to their own and with that comes the responsibility for researching whatever medical practice one follows and taking responsibility for one's own decisions.

now if only I could find an alternative for that colonoscopy I've scheduled for December..........however, it is really one of the more useful western medical diagnostic tools and i'm glad we have it.

 

[maccers]

Thank you to everyone for the continued discussion. I've found it very eye-opening and enjoyable. I love seeing the diversity in health practices that people find effective and what people are comfortable and familiar with. It's a great reminder that my world view isn't held by everyone.

For movie zombie and distracts, I have a genuine question: what steers you away from chiropractic? What are your impressions of chiropractic? For me, chiropractic has been a life changer, the frequency and severity of my migraines has been drastically reduced in a way that medication has never been able to solve. As such, chiro is a 'normal' health practice for me to consider when dealing with a health issue.

 

[movie zombie]

I acknowledge that in some cases chiropractic is a very good thing for some people.
however, my grandmother thought it was a flu remedy....
now, admittedly, if she felt better afterward then it was a good thing.
I can't discount that.

I have considered it for myself at one time but luckily found a great old fashioned physical therapist [not one of the modern sports types] that I saw for several years[frozen rotator cuff] and I think some of her work could be classified as massage therapy with a bit of chiro thrown in.

maccers, i'm all for what works for a person and i'm glad this works for you.

my mother swears by it now even though she used to ridicule her mother for it....so there is hope for me, too!?

my mother has found relief for neck, shoulder, and back issues with her ongoing chiro practitioner.
sometimes, though, I think she slips into thinking it is a magic fix-all as did her mother: perhaps it is an age thing?

yes, I appear to be as close minded re chiro as many are re acupuncture, herbs, etc....but compared to my husband i'm chiro positive!
I also think it also is true that as all drs are not created, not all chiros are created equal.
again, glad you're getting relief!

 

[JaneSmith]

A placebo effect in children and animals is more likely to be the same placebo response in the child that we see in adults +/- the Hawthorne effect in the parent. Same Hawthorne effect for the owner of the pet.
"The Hawthorne effect (also referred to as the observer effect) refers to a phenomenon whereby individuals improve or modify an aspect of their behavior in response to their awareness of being observed."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
Also, giving a sick child or pet something they believe will work can make a person report positive effects through motivated reasoning and confirmation bias.

Here is a link to a vet with several articles on vet acupuncture:
"And in the case of our pets, it is very likely that the placebo benefits of acupuncture accrue only to us, and that while we feel as if we have helped our pets, we really have not. It is in this misconception, more than the rare physical injuries associated with acupuncture, that the real risk in this treatment methods lies."
http://skeptvet.com/Blog/category/acupuncture/


The placebo effect, or more accurately, the placebo response, is what happens when a benign or inert substance or interaction is given to a person, and they use that as an impetus to imagine they are slightly better. There is nothing wrong with a little care and attention making a person feel a bit better, but there is everything wrong with thinking that there is an actual physiological change happening, or worse, marketing that inert substance or interaction as a treatment that causes a physiological change.
When something is rigorously tested and performs no better than placebo, it means it doesn't work.
Reiki, acupuncture, homeopathy, subluxation chiropractic, et al, all perform no better than placebo and show no evidence of causing any physiological changes. Also, we have to consider prior probability when testing hypotheses.
Before testing whether something has an effect in the body, we must first determine if the treatment itself is plausible. Because, in testing reiki to see if reiki works, we are already begging the question. We are presupposing that reiki exists. Like I said earlier, the laws underlying the physics of everyday life are completely understood. There is no evidence for the physics of a soul, or universal life energy, or the ground of all being, or whatever you wish to call it.

If there was compelling evidence for such an energy, and it could be manipulated to heal as in reiki treatment, I would accept this as being true. I would be surprised! But, if there were multiple rigorous studies conducted in multiple centres with clinically significant results of physiologic effects, plus consensus from physicists that such an energy exists with 5 sigma certainty and fits with the Standard Model, I would be satisfied that it was an actual part of our natural world.
I do not find faith to be a virtue. I do not have a closed mind just because I do not accept things unevidenced.

Modern medicine has a history of dubious and harmful treatments, the thing is, modern medicine uses science and evidence to check and improve on itself. That which is harmful or ineffective is discarded. The same cannot be said for alt med.
Modern medicine is far from perfect, science can be a slow grind, but in the end it is self-correcting.

Science as a body of knowledge does not know everything. But that doesn't mean you get to fill in the gaps with whatever nice hypothesis you feel like.
Science as a method is the only way we have to compile empirical evidence and test hypotheses in a way that overcomes our innate biases.



Maccers, please don't let a chiropractor crack your neck.

... we can state clearly that, although rare, VAD (Vertebral artery dissection) is associated with CMT (Cervical Manipulative Therapy). There is a very plausible mechanism for injury, and it is clearly known that even mild trauma can cause VAD.
Further, there are numerous case reports of young healthy patients developing symptoms of VAD, including stroke, shortly after their CMT, sometimes immediately. It is true that none of this proves a causal connection, because we can’t do randomized trials (although prospective trials would be helpful). But this is true in the same way that we can’t prove smoking causes lung cancer, we only have an association. When we have a clear association with multiples lines of evidence suggesting the most likely causal explanation, and that explanation points to a medical risk, then I think it is reasonable to act on that risk.
We recommend that patients do not smoke. We should also recommend that they do not have CMT, especially high cervical manipulation and forceful manipulation. Medicine is a game of risk vs benefit, and so considering the risk is not enough. What is the benefit of CMT for the specific conditions it is used to treat? The evidence for the benefit of CMT is less than the evidence that it causes VAD. A Cochrane review of CMT for neck pain and headache concluded:

"Done alone, manipulation and/or mobilization were not beneficial; when compared to one another, neither was superior."

So CMT does not work, but perhaps may have some benefit when added to medical management, and even then it is no better than the gentler mobilization. Therefore, since CMT (if it works at all) is not superior to mobilization, and may involve a rare but serious risk of VAD and stroke, it seems to me it is unethical to perform CMT for neck pain or headache rather than mobilization.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-statement-on-cervical-manipulation-and-dissections/#more-32911

You are probably better off seeing a physio.

 

[smitcompton]

Hi,

Thanks Jane for your clear discussion and explanations. I appreciate it.

Annette