Alternative Medicine

[The Drunk Girl]

Originally Posted by partofme

That's what I think of when somebody says alternative medicine. We have a couple natural remedy shops in my small town that sell crap to people that don't know better. I went into one just to check it out and they even had jewelry that you wear but can also dangle over medicine and if it swings above in in a certain direction and not the other than that means it's good. Pretty much it's works on the same principle as a Ouija board that is moved by the person or people touching it subconsciously. When I think of the things these places sell it reminds me of the old tonics and potions.

Yeah, instead of people going to a gyno they'll just pull out the ol' needle test to tell you what sex your baby is going to be and how many little critters you're going to pop out.

[partofme]

Originally Posted by The Drunk Girl

Yeah, instead of people going to a gyno they'll just pull out the ol' needle test to tell you what sex your baby is going to be and how many little critters you're going to pop out.

When Christie was pregnant I was amazed at how many people offered to do things like that and really took it seriously. Between people I worked with and she worked with and then her huge family it was probably a dozen people that insisted on the pencil over the wrist trick. They all said that they where never wrong yet they didn't all give the same answer and ended up mostly wrong in the results.

[The Drunk Girl]

Originally Posted by partofme

When Christie was pregnant I was amazed at how many people offered to do things like that and really took it seriously. Between people I worked with and she worked with and then her huge family it was probably a dozen people that insisted on the pencil over the wrist trick. They all said that they where never wrong yet they didn't all give the same answer and ended up mostly wrong in the results.

Well at least she got results. When they pulled the needle test on me it showed that I was barren. That's nice, huh?

[partofme]

Originally Posted by The Drunk Girl

Well at least she got results. When they pulled the needle test on me it showed that I was barren. That's nice, huh?

So when are you and Chet going to prove them wrong.

[The Drunk Girl]

Originally Posted by partofme

So when are you and Chet going to prove them wrong.

That's a good question

[The Drunk Girl]

...but he knew what he was getting into knowing that prior so he can't get too pissed if I don't have any

[Greendruid]

I think all of this needs to be referred back to our many threads (too many to have me go back and re-post them here) that concern the differing ideologies in place here. All of you who are opposed to anything but proven medical science have that position because you were raised to have that position. There are so many cultures around the world that have no concept of the scientific method and yet have developed very effective cures and methods of healing that would have you laughing.

If you hold the position that illness is only physiological and, thus, the same as disease, then you will always pooh-pooh alternative methods that stray from this model. The fact is, the world is filled with people and healers in other cultures who have no such model as their primary one and recognise a spiritual component, an emotional component, an ancestral component, a magical component, etc., to suffering illness. All of them are different and many of them are indeed much older than modern medicine. In fact, you probably owe your existence to an ancestor or two that was a patient of such a healer and was cured of their illness.

And before you bring up the survival rates card, in the end, we're all dead. What value is there to a life ended with struggling for a cure that doesn't exist. I watched my father die for seven weeks in a hopeless effort to cure him of something he was largely stoic about for several months leading up to his death. Our medical system needs more humanism and less medicalisation in my opinion. Our culture needs a better attitude towards illness and death.

[The Drunk Guy]

Originally Posted by Greendruid

I think all of this needs to be referred back to our many threads (too many to have me go back and re-post them here) that concern the differing ideologies in place here. All of you who are opposed to anything but proven medical science have that position because you were raised to have that position. There are so many cultures around the world that have no concept of the scientific method and yet have developed very effective cures and methods of healing that would have you laughing.

If you hold the position that illness is only physiological and, thus, the same as disease, then you will always pooh-pooh alternative methods that stray from this model. The fact is, the world is filled with people and healers in other cultures who have no such model as their primary one and recognise a spiritual component, an emotional component, an ancestral component, a magical component, etc., to suffering illness. All of them are different and many of them are indeed much older than modern medicine. In fact, you probably owe your existence to an ancestor or two that was a patient of such a healer and was cured of their illness.

And before you bring up the survival rates card, in the end, we're all dead. What value is there to a life ended with struggling for a cure that doesn't exist. I watched my father die for seven weeks in a hopeless effort to cure him of something he was largely stoic about for several months leading up to his death. Our medical system needs more humanism and less medicalisation in my opinion. Our culture needs a better attitude towards illness and death.

Do you have statistics or research reports on this?

[Dominick]

I'm with Greendruid on this. The current Western commercially driven reductionist approach to health is after all only some 70 years old. It's not like before that or elsewhere people were dropping down in the street two at a time on every corner.
In fact, many of the molecules that are now privatized and "patented" have been known to other cultures for centuries and occur naturally in the vegetation, especially in rainforests. The only difference is that in those other contexts the same molecule was not actually known or understood in the scientific sense and the treatment was therefore embellished by ritual. By criticizing or dismissing the ritual due to scepticism one forgets that it's not the ritual that does the healing (although it may well have a benefical additional impact but that's another story) but the molecule.
Alas I can't find the link anymore but there was a recent report on the BBC site that mentioned the extensive research that's been done in deciphering Mayan stelae to find out which plants exactly they depict and how they were being used by them. It would appear that the big pharmaceutical companies are much less sceptic about this than the general public.
Of course once they do decipher it, the previously freely available molecule will be patented, processed and packaged and cost you or the healthcare services 50 €. Which is what health is all about after all. At least today it is.

[partofme]

The thing is if I'm going to take the time to take part in these things or pay money to do them then I want some concrete evidence they work. I'm completely open to the idea there are alternatives out there that work but I'm not simply willing to take somebody's word for it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31190909/

And if these companies are trying to figure out these treatments then I'm happy to pay for them because presently I either do not have access to them or have no way of knowing which ones are really credible.