Well, my evidence re: acupuncture is anecdotal, but it involves animals. I'm not sure to what degree a placebo effect occurs in animals, because I'm not sure to what degree they have expectations in regard to their treatment. I think they do sometimes - a small percentage of the time - understand that something is being done to help them. I think the majority of the time they tolerate treatment because they trust their owners, not because they understand its benefits. And some of them just plain don't tolerate treatment, and have to be physically restrained. We have owners report that their pet feels better after acupuncture, but this does rely on owner (i.e., human) perception . . maybe they see improvement because they expect to see improvement? I think to say definitively one way or another you'd have to use measurable variables, i.e. increased food consumption, duration of activity, etc, to judge actual pain relief. To my knowledge no such study has been done . . but I'm tentatively of the belief that it can work (again, for some patients), mostly because I've had success controlling migraines with similar distract-the-nerves techniques (application of a cooling agent to pressure points around the head). I still want my Advil, but the menthol oil stuff really does help and I didn't think that it would.
I suppose the best way to sum up my view of "alternative" medicine is that I do, generally, trust traditional western medicine (with a grain of salt and a tendency to question the doctor so that I do understand what's being done and have some assurance that he-or-she knows what he's/she's doing) first and foremost, but I'm reluctant to dismiss a therapy on account of it having not yet been proven effective, where there is anecdotal evidence suggesting it may be, and provided the possible or probable side effects don't wildly outweigh the potential benefits. Innovation occurs because someone tries something they don't know will work - and also, conversely, if people have been doing XYZ for centuries only knowing that it works and not knowing why, that still IS evidence. Not proof, but evidence. IMO where you get in trouble is when people who AREN'T party to generations of folk wisdom read one article on the internet and suddenly decide they're an herbalist, and start screwing with things without benefit of ANY kind of knowledge, either scientific or traditional.
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Date: 2010-05-28 02:10 am (UTC)I suppose the best way to sum up my view of "alternative" medicine is that I do, generally, trust traditional western medicine (with a grain of salt and a tendency to question the doctor so that I do understand what's being done and have some assurance that he-or-she knows what he's/she's doing) first and foremost, but I'm reluctant to dismiss a therapy on account of it having not yet been proven effective, where there is anecdotal evidence suggesting it may be, and provided the possible or probable side effects don't wildly outweigh the potential benefits. Innovation occurs because someone tries something they don't know will work - and also, conversely, if people have been doing XYZ for centuries only knowing that it works and not knowing why, that still IS evidence. Not proof, but evidence. IMO where you get in trouble is when people who AREN'T party to generations of folk wisdom read one article on the internet and suddenly decide they're an herbalist, and start screwing with things without benefit of ANY kind of knowledge, either scientific or traditional.