to wonder why dr's are so dismissive of "alternative" therapies?

[tialys]

For example - ds1 was a very difficult baby - he either cried or fed. He saw a cranial osteopath (as a last resort) when he was 5/6 months old. Within 2 days, he was a different baby. Dr's completely dismissed it as coincidence, as CO is completely untested and unresearched.
So 5 years down the line, it must have been another coincidence when ds2 underwent a similar miracle cure?

Another example - I've spent the last few months with terrible asthma - hospitalised 3 times, nothing the dr's did made any difference at all.
I've started having accupuncture (again as a last resort) and within 2 weeks, my asthma is better than it has been for years. Saw my dr, who said "ah good - looks like your steroid inhaler is finally doing its job" (I started it months before the astham attacks started ) and warned me away from charlatans like acupuncturists.

Why can't they accept that sometimes, alternative therapies can be more effective than giving more and more drugs to their patients?

40 billion? Can I ask where you got that figure from? And bearing in mind that if that's the worldwide spend, it probably includes the spend in China on er... Chinese medicine.

Dittany, he isn't the one who has been prattling unevidenced speculation to the Daily Mail.

Carmen - the £40 billion figure is from Trick or Treatment - Alternative Medicine on Trial, by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst.

A quick search of the internet suggests that the US alone spent nearly $34 billion on alternative medicine in 2007, so that figure doesn't seem too wild.

Yes, Dittany, hypothesising is an important part of science. And then you go away and do your research to find out whether your hypothesis holds up or not. Your first port of call is not the tabloids.

Oh, and ignorant attacks in the Guardian? Which in particular?

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'sham' acupuncture involves needles placed in points which are not thought to be traditional chinese acupuncture points.
however if you view acupuncture from a western medicine viewpoint with regards to dermatomes, myotomes and pain physiology then those non-points chosen will still have some effect. so I think that is why research has shown benefit from sham and real acupuncture.

I will reserve judgement on whether it works or not once i see some results from my own treatments.

"There is so far NO system that can ensure 100% that the body will not react to sham acupuncture"

I thought acupuncture was about sticking needles into the body to tap meridians. If you think that the meridians might still be tapped by not sticking in needles, then what's the point of it all?

Oh, and if treatment with acupuncture is better than nothing, but is merely a placebo, then is it worth forking out on expensive acupuncture treatment when you could get cheap conventional treatments which are proven to work due to active ingredients and aren't just a placebo? (Private is one thing, but funded by the NHS is another entirely).

Nevergoogled - some trials involving sham acupuncture involved telescopic needles which looked like they pierced the skin but didn't actually go in at all.

So it seems that you possibly don't need the needles in the right place and you don't need the needles to actually go in to get the same effect.

the feeling of having a needle in you is very obviously different so that seems an odd sham method.

i personally believe you don't have to have the chinese acupuncture points and meridians exactly as TCM would recommend.
Those meridians follow nerve pathways and some of the acupuncture points are trigger points for muscles which will have an effect on muscle relaxation. Like i say, Chi doesn't wash with me, but increased blood flow does.

there are perfectly good physiological reasons why acupuncture has an effect. sham or not.

Nevergoogled - the sham needles were designed so that the people receiving the telescopic needles as a test were convinced they were having the real treatment. The needle goes slightly into the skin so you get a localised pain, but doesn't break it.

If you don't need to access the pressure points exactly, and if you don't need to stick the needles in, then surely a tap, a scratch, a handshake would also have a therapeutic benefit.

a needle going slightly into the skin will cause a chemical effect at local level - a production of histamines, endorphins etc.

i think whether the needle goes deep or not depends entirely on what effect you are trying to achieve.

for some conditions that i treat, it is very difficult to have an effect on a deep trigger point, e.g piriformis muscle deep on the hip, through the buttocks, using trigger point massage, stretching, ultrasound etc. a 7cm needle can hit the points that other therapies cannot.

the NHS advocates the use of acupuncture for low back pain, the research is in favour for this. i think also for drug rehabilitation it is recommended.

admittedly not all conditions are researched fully, and i'm not convinced that a tennis elbow is improved because the heat has been dispelled through a wind channel etc etc

i think there is a place for it, and good research is required.

"good research is required."

Absolutely. And if it's on the NHS, a cost analysis. Merely having an effect is not good enough.

IF it does reduce pain, which research has shown it can for low back pain then a cost analysis would compare drug treatments with acupuncture.
Acupuncture may well work out cheaper in light of side effects of medication requiring further medication.

Not everybody responds to drugs the same, not everybody responds to acupuncture the same. That is why it is important to have options. Not some cheapest, most likely to be effective solution. That option will have no effect on some.

I work with doctors who use acupuncture and disagree with the OP that doctors are against it. That's not nearly true in my experience.

Anyway, I flounced from mumsnet and you lured me back in with this thread. Now i'm going to drag myself away and leave you all to it.

?it probably includes the spend in China on er... Chinese medicine?

Carmen, I think over there they just call it ?medicine?

Acupuncture is a very broad church, by the way. giraffe is quite correct to say that ?sham acupuncture? has proved to be just as effective as the real mccoy in some experiments and I have read about the same test that she describes.

Also I remain unconvinced about some of the grander claims that acupuncture practitioners occasionally make.

However I know that localised Western-style acupuncture ? which is not about tapping into the meridians but about highly targeted and specific treatment of particular joints ? can speed up the recovery from injury (either as a complement to ultrasound/interferential treatment or instead of it). And so do the dozens of patients I have successfully treated in this way.

Nevergoogle, had loads of success on tennis elbow, even cases which haven?t responded to other physiotherapeutical approaches.

I'm another person with a placebo asleep upstairs! After 13 months of trying to get pregnant, DD was conceived on my first month of acupuncture treatment. My waters broke with her 6 hours after having a treatment to get things moving along too. But I know all this is anecdotal. I'm currently having treatment to help conceive number 2 so I'm hoping for a similar result this time.

There is lots of evidence that acupuncture is a way of turning breech babies late in pregnancy. In fact I heard recently that in one country (I wish I could remember where) acupuncture is now the preferred NHS treatment as it has been found to be more effective than having an ECV. I'm not sure where this fits into the idea that acupuncture has a placebo effect.

I've also had experience of localised acupuncture on the NHS for neck pain and I have to say that did nothing for me. I've always been led to believe that acupuncture needles are very fine so as to cause no damage to tissues so I'm not sure how such tiny needles would stimulate blood flow and circulation in a way that could ease pain.

So far, I've spent £90 on 3 acupuncture sessions (I've spent, not the NHS)
In the last three or four months, I've had the equivalent of over £200 in prescription charges. (I have a pre-payment cert. which costs £104) Some of the drugs I have recieved cost over the £7.10 cost per prescription. None of these has made a toss of difference to my asthma.
I have no idea how I would put a price on 3 hospital stays - 2 for 1 night, 1 for 3 nights.
All the above has cost the tax-payer money (I hope I'm worth it)
Yet after 3 acupuncture treatments costing £90, my asthma symptoms have gone. I haven't taken ventolin in a week now - the first time that's happened in about 12 years!

Not all of the treatment involves penetrating needles, so I'm not convinced that anyone could perform pretend acupunture.

If what I'm experiencing is a placebo effect (and I really don't believe that is the case), well, so be it! It's working, and I'm saving you lovely people some money at the same time

haven't read all the responses, but:

1. Acupuncture. My mum has dreadful knee problems (rapid onset arthritis), which are having a knock-on effect on her hip, back and other leg (because of having to compensate for the pain). Her knee specialist has said she needs a knee replacement, but he won't do one now because she's too young (early 60s). He has instead referred her for acupuncture to help her manage the pain. We'll have to wait and see if it helps her.

1. Chiropractic. We have used a chiropractor with enormous success on our farm animals. A calf had a traumatic birth, wasn't thriving, vets couldn't suggest anything. Mum called in the chiropractor, and she did her thing on the calf's back and pelvis. The following morning the calf was out in the yard trying to run - it had never physically been able to run in the first three months of its life. From that point on it did nothing but thrive!

1. Aloe vera. So many successes we've experienced with this stuff, I can't list them all, but here are two. a) our ram got flystrike on his wedding tackle (fairly important for a ram) and the sheath of his wotsit got eaten away. Cue slapping on of large quantities of aloe vera gelly, and within 48 hours the sheath was TOTALLY healed. Vet couldn't believe it. b) Friend of my mum's burned her arm very badly refilling a lighter at her sink, lighter exploded in her hand. Hospital told her to keep it covered and dry for a fortnight- instead she took off the dressings and covered it in aloe vera. You would never know now that she had had third degree burns - her skin is completely healed. Incidentally, burns units are now starting to use aloe to help treat people because it's such marvellous stuff.

Some doctors are open to complementary therapies. I know lots of people for whom CO has been a lifesaver with their children, esp. when suffering from reflux. And the placebo effect doesn't work on animals.

Closer to home, I'm currently going for Bowen sessions to help my sacral/hip pain that I'm suffering again in this pregnancy. Only had one session so far, no idea if it's going to work or whether I might end up at a chiropractor (as recommended personally by my midwife!)

anyway, just my thoughts... :-)