The difficulty with acupuncture is that there's no such thing as a "genuine practitioner". While your friend may have done wonderful things to you, that's not a study on the topic, and so far it's difficult to even perform double blind tests for a field of practice where none of the practicitioners can agree on the technique.dukkha wrote:I'm reticent to believe in acupuncture, but having had a friend fix some neck problems I'd had and also stop me sweating in under 10 seconds (just to prove he could), I have to say there's a certain validity to it. As with anything else, there's quacks and there's 'true believers' in all the fields (including western medicine... I've been offered Panadeine Forte and muscle relaxants by a doctor because I had a cold) and they cause more harm than good, but genuine practitioners are usually on at least vaguely solid ground.
If your friend can stop people sweating with any consistency, btw, I'd suggest he claim his million dollars.
Regardless - you might be justified in recommending people visit your friend for their neck pain, but you wouldn't be justified in recommending they get acupuncture from their nearest practitioner. The same goes for chiropractic treatment and nutritionists (although, seriously, I'm yet to hear of even 1 nutritionist without some serious screws loose).
As for being offered drugs irresponsibly for colds etc - doctors are people and can miss things, or behave unethically like anyone else. Particularly running a general practice, where you're starved for time and having to find the balance of giving each patient a thorough check and not falling too far behind time.
Fortunately, you were sensible enough (I'm sure) not to take codeine and muscle relaxants in a scenario where it'd be overkill. Certainly there are people who aren't that discerning, but that's more a matter of education than an issue of medicine itself.
In any line of work, dealing with people is the fuzzier and more difficult area. I shudder to think what it's like for doctors. Sure, there are lazy and stupid ones, but that's a problem with people, not science.
This is, curiously, the only reason homeopathy ever really caught on. When the practice was created out of whole cloth, accepted medicine at the time consisted of treatments that were often more lethal than the conditions they were meant to cure.Even herbal medicine, whilst a joke and a major problem in 3rd-world countries, generally has the benefit (in first-world countries) of not having the side-effects that many of our 'medicines' do (see: anti-depressants, ADD medication, etc).
Since, at its best, homeopathy does exactly nothing, people undergoing homeopathic treatments were better off than those undergoing "normal" treatment.
Further, there's nothing inherently wrong with ADD meds or anti-depressants. Misuse of anything is damaging. That's not a good enough reason (imo) to argue for a lack of treatment, rather than "getting it right".
That sucks, but again - there's nothing particularly wrong with medicine or science from this.Philondra wrote:I'm in the unique position of distrusting both medical AND alternative treatment for virtually anything.
This may or may not have to do with suffering from bipolar disorder and told by my doctor to "take a month of work", which did nothing but cause my bosses to hate me, send me into a death spiral of negativity from being shut-in, and gain 20 pounds.
Fuckers.
Alternative medicine is almost wholly unchecked and closed to serious study or criticism.