Reiki

[Fanatic]

Has anyone tried Reiki? Could you tell me a little bit about it?

DollyDowser's link again.

Just in case anyone failed to read it the first time around.

The question of research funding is an extremely pertinent one, but I have been too busy nursing my many wounds throughout this thread to raise it.

I can only go from my personal experience with alternative therapies, and those of my Mum. We have had various chronic conditions completely allieviated by homeopathy: Mum used to have chronic, recurrent cystitis and thrush and they both disappeared completely with homeopathic treatment. I had horrendous breast pain which my gp was at a loss as to how to treat, but that also cleared up completely with homeopathic treatment. Ditto for my first daughter's colic. That's my proof for me that homeopathy works (if administered by a fully trained and skilled practitioner.) It's cool that others are convinced that it doesn't work. And I don't believe for a second that someone being nice to me, or me lying still or taking sugar pills would have cleared up all those conditions. Each to their own. Clearly the scientific evidence isn't there. That's widely known. But as someone else said earlier in the thread 'to the non-believer no proof is enough, to the believer no proof is necessary'.

I have a number of friends who are breast cancer survivors who are huge fans of Breast Cancer Haven, which has that whole page I linked to, about reiki healing.

I think you are right, madmomma, that to the non-believer no proof is enough.

Madmomma- how do you explain the fact that homeopathy performs no better than placebo in all double blind trials?

And as for the conclusion in the oncology nursing study- I find it hard to believe that any properly trained scientist said-

"There is growing evidence that energy therapies have a positive effect on symptoms associated with cancer. While there is need for further research, it is clear that an appreciation for the value of research methods beyond the randomized control trial is important."

I can't get into PubMed to get any more info, though. Can you?

This is another PubMed link, albeit rather an old one. But it promises a review of current findings (as of 2008, though).

Actually, this article in the Wall Street Journal]] is worth a look.

Aren't the Wall Street Journal mad fact-checkers?

Nobody has ever said on this thread that reiki isn't comforting, relaxing and must feel fantastic if you have been undergoing aggressive medical treatment.

All I -and I think others - are objecting to is calling it "healing" in relation to actual physical illnesses. Oh, and talking about life forces and energies.

Having a PhD does not mean you're not stupid.

Using Reiki does not mean you are stupid.

No. But thinking it has any effect beyond placebo and saying that it harnesses mysterious powersi of the universe unknown to science might well.

seekerI can't explain it. That's what I'm saying. Viewed scientifically, homeopathy doesn't work. But I have experienced it working first hand, so this leads me to believe that it is a worthwhile treatment.

Do you seriously think that if any CAM could be proved to work , the big pharmaceutical companies wouldn't be in there making millions out of them?

After all loads of people are making loads of money out of them already and they don't work- the only thing that' s stopping Big Pharma cashing in is a bit of evidence!

It's not healing in a medical sense. I get the whole healing for the soul thing, and I think reiki could would wonders on that.

However we had a trained reiki give us treatments (and stones) for renal failure and cystic fibrosis. Needless to say we didn't give up our conventional treatments as both DS and DH would be dead by now.

But I do believe it could work alongside other medicine, I just won't forgo science for reiki at the moment.

I'd they called it healing for the soul that would be fine too. But they don't. They call it healing.

Well that was one of my objections to it if I'm honest. That, and our reiki healer (who was also a colleague) actually advised forgoing conventional treatment to let the reiki work. DH would have lasted a week. DS a year or two, but i found that really unsafe and actually dangerous, given each of their respective medical conditions.

I was happy to use reiki in conjunction with pharmaceutical medicine, but the reiki held quite poor views on such treatments and wouldn't do this whilst we were using medicines. This did alter my view, which is a shame.

My post was in response to seeker btw.

Sciencelover - we are happy to try anything that improves the quality of life for DS. But I don't think this is pharmaceutical issue v nature. I think they should be able to work together. I would probably favour chemicals instead of 'natural resources' because hundreds of years of natural remedies didn't work in cases of renal failure or cystic fibrosis. CF patients had a life expectancy of 5 years before the intervention of medicine. Renal failure patients had just weeks if they were lucky.

I hate the snobbery of those who are relatively healthy, to others who aren't and have to rely on conventional medicine. Trust me, I would give my own life to make DS better - yet I have to rely on constant streams of antibioitics, nebulisers, physio and medication etc etc, to keep him going. It is certainly not what I would choose and I have studied alternative medicines (which I'd rather not debate here). None of them were quite as good as what the NHS could provide. What I would like is for it not to be a pharmaceutical vs nature theme, but I would like them to work together to provide as much healing as possible for genuinely very sick people.

"It's not cost effective to study the more natural solutions. It makes no business sense to spend millions studying the effectiveness of a medication or practice when you know you'll never be able to earn the money back.

I suspect that there are a lot of good alternative medicine solutions that will never be adequately studied because the monetary cost outweighs the monetary benefit."

Really? You think that big business wouldn't be falling over itself to patent simple, side effect free effective alternatives to pharmaceutical medicine?

reindeerbollocksthat is outrageous, and I'm not surprised it put you off reiki! Conventional medicine is bloody wonderful, and if I was seriously ill it would be doctors I wanted, without a doubt. However I do think complementary/alternative therapies can be brilliant for ailments. Often much better than medicines, and with less side effects.