The anti woo thread.

[LetThereBeRock]

Can all those who don't believe in homeopathy,ghosts,talking to the dead,reading minds etc,please check in here?

There must be a few of us.

I feel as though I've logged onto allthingswoo.com rather than Mumsnet.com at the moment,and I'm not referring to this particuarly forum,but chat and AIBU?.

And if anyone says anything about how we should be openminded,I'm afraid I'll have to beat you to death with a a stick,one cut from an ash tree by the light of the first Summer moon of course.

You can get a physical reaction with TENS but you have to have the thing strapped on for literally hours and hours, repeatedly, and set at a particular level in terms of the pulse. It's something to do with endorphin production, no great mystique. But an epidural it ain't, so no great excitement there, unless you want to use it to get a legal high (surprised that's not promoted more, tbh).

Not bigheaded I don't think, just of big enough brain to process rational thought.

Personally, I like to prescribe stuff that works. I therefore do not prescribe Bach's rescue remedy. I do prescribe antibiotics and stuff. I will prescribe anything shown to be effective, but so far anything crystal healing based/homeopathic has not made it into that category.

"What I don't understand is if ghe population is growing how can we all have had past lives???"
That's a very good point - aren't there more people alive on the planet now that have been alive in total in the past ever? In which case it's impossible.

I thought TENS was about the smaller pain distracting you from the bigger pain, and allowing you to control the timing and intensity of the smaller pain...didn't think it was particularly woo. Psychological stuff isn't woo after all - the placebo effect is well documented and is shown to work.

ah Boffin that would be why they say it is most effective if you have it on from early labour onwards. I wonder how long the labour has to be for it to work.
I liked Tens myself - nothing like having an electric shock to distract you from the labour pain. But if someone were to tell me it was purely placebo in my case I wouldn't be at all surprised.
I think having a dial you can twiddle helps too. twiddly dials are good.

Oh, and if something has an actual effect on the body, actually makes a difference in any way then it is a drug .

It does not matter whether it is made in a test tube or grown in a greenhouse. And if it is a drug then it needs to be properly regulated, tested and possibly only available on prescription. if it doesn't really do anything
(ie not a drug) then it can be put on the shelf of Holland and Barrett.

That's not strictly true
Lots of things have an effect on the body - placebo effect, water, hormones, a sledgehammer...

and is paracetamol and other otc stuff not a drug?

she only said possibly only available on prescription. Thank goodness. I don't want the drug regulators in my garden digging up my feverfew plants.

I think we should talk about hopi ear candles. They are very funny.

but tht doesn't mean anything if we're talking about what constitues a drug!
(Sorry, just being pedantic)
I read about those ear candles in the BG book but had never heard of them before that - did people really use them? I'd have been too nervous about setting light to something so close to my face!

I found it quite relaxing actually. In fact I have a pair of Slendertone fat shorts and they have much the same relaxation effect.

I have spent a couple of years having consultant-led chronic pain treatment and TENS was there, along with opiates and anti-inflammatories and exercise. For me it has a similar effect to Oromorph, as long as I have it on for 5-7 hours minimum.

The problem with just putting it on in labour is that I think you have to acclimatise your body to expect it - I imagine my consultant would talk about pain gate theory and endorphins if I asked him about it.

Can we talk about woo bollocks in terms of treating pg women, or rather people who should know better refusing to treat them on spurious grounds? Dentists refusing to fill their teeth, defensive aromatherapy oil manufacturers peddling myths about practically everything being potentially abortofacient because they are too mean to test it all (FGS, don't you think every maternity ward in the country would be using this stuff to induce labour if it had any effect whatsoever?), ditsy mws telling people to take a couple of drops of Rescue Remedy for every possible ailment ...

'Can we talk about woo bollocks in terms of treating pg women, or rather people who should know better refusing to treat them on spurious grounds?'

Yes! I had some soap from Space NK that said you shouldn't use it when you were pregnant.

PMSLPMSL

Do they not know skin is not permeable or else we would melt in t'bath???????????????

When DD was dx terminal I was told not 'to give up on her', to 'be strong for her' etc etc.

I had spent two fucking years being strong for her and how DARE they suggest I was giving up on her!

So the woo merchants started coming out of the woodwork. Fuckers. Told the fuck right off and keep going. Tens of thousands of pounds worth of medicine couldnt cure her but water with a 'memory' would. These people who professed to be caring and healing terrified her (one crept in when I was out for half an hour).

BUT whilst she was ill I did discover the imporance of general well being IYSWIM. So aromatherapy and reki (nice smells and massage) colours (pretty lights in her room) stuff like that was really important and made a difference. But thats common sense, not mystical magic.

But hands up time, I am a Christian but the least evangelical one you will ever come across and I dont like any fuss.

DeVere
And aromatherapy and reiki etc is all very well as she enjoyed it

I used to live with a landlady whose job title was "Reiki healer"

Yeah thats what I thought. It didnt do any harm and the guy who did it never made claims of curing anyone (his own DS had died from cancer). But DD did find it relaxing and so did I.

Really really upsets me when people start flinging bloody wooish tripe at you when you have a sick child. FFS its hard enough fitting in the chemo and crap without bloody tinctures and standing on your head.

I have done Osteopathy with DS2 (he came to live with us at 8 weeks and had suffered severe neglect) though. I went to the charity clinic. He was such a poor little mite I was trying it and organic food. I was also doing lots of cuddling, singing and telling him I loved him though. All part of the same thing I thought.

I dont mind trying things that seem to have a practical element in them. I AM open minded and also up for a laugh.

I found the clinic absolutly lovely and very very postitive about DS whereas everywhere else was very negative. That is the main reason I went - it felt all nice

Once the founder came to see DS. He stood there with his arms outstreached and declared 'gather round, if you have tears to shed be prepared to shed them NOW' to the other therapists . I am a working class girl from Norf london and had never seen anything like it. I had to pretend I was overcome with emotion to hide the fact I was PMSL.

DS was oblivous

Did you know you can learn to Reiki yourself ??

Actually a quite like being smug . Can I be a know-it-all too? Welcome to the thread Appletrees! Please do stay as you are obviously much better than me. We need to learn from you.

And I think I was to marry David Mitchell. Not sure why... Love the link!

Devere I agree that anything that makes you feel better helps. I'm glad your daughter enjoyed her experiences, as you say it was all common sense.

Rofl to the tearful moment!

Me, DH & DS1 are all ill. It's a cold but the sort that makes you feel half-dead. Any suggestions for treatment? I'm thinking something involving chakras, perhaps auras, maybe a few drops of water homeopathic remedy? A, willing to be a guinea pig.

"Go on, then Appletrees, hit us with some wisdom and enlighten us poor deluded rational souls. What should we be believing in and why? With peer-reviewed evidence notes, please."

I'm almost embarrassed for you.

"Actually a quite like being smug . Can I be a know-it-all too? Welcome to the thread Appletrees! Please do stay as you are obviously much better than me. We need to learn from you."

Just the most ghastly wanky attitude.

Let people get on with it. Worse things happen at sea. All being stupid, on the edge of sanity. Just so puffed up and pompous. And predictable.

What makes you so much better than other people? So someone "gets better" with a bit of homeopathy. So what. So it's a placebo. So what? What is so inadequate about you that you need to point, laugh, sneer, put people down, guffaw about how clever you are and how insane they are..

Yes UQD -- that's immature. Get over it.

I mean, to actually say people "don't have enough of a brain to process thought" if they, say, buy a tube of arnica cream. How horrid and bumptious and self-righteous.

you seem awfully worked up, Appletrees. Do you have a financial interest in the woo industry?

Probably hasn't had her chakras aligned recently.