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physio
Can anyone recommend a physio? I am in spasm. An old football injury which comes back to punish me every so often.
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I think I've recommended him on here before somewhere.
http://www.stroudgreen.org/discussion/847/
I'd check out the evidence base for whatever therapy you choose, be it conventional or alternative, or it could just be a waste of cash.
If you look at the British Society of Osteopathy's website there is ample evidence that they're dimwits:
http://www.british-institute-of-osteopathy.org/traditional/Default.aspx#8%238
For instance they say
"There are no 'diseases' or 'cures' only obstructions to natural processes"
I'd say successfully cutting out all of someone's cancer is a cure.
"One very good example of this is the 1917 flu pandemic. The mortality rate at osteopathic hospitals in America using articulation to keep fluids moving and non-suppressive fever management to allow the cleaning crisis was ¼%!"
They think they can treat people with Flu by manipulating joints!
"Why randomised controlled trials (RCTs) don't work"
If to justify your practice you need to come up with daft criticisms of RCT's to explain why the RCTs suggest your practice is balls you really have lost the argument.
"The subject of vaccination is only controversial if you decide to believe the orthodox view because there is no scientific evidence that the practice has done anything to prevent, improve or eradicate any disease."
What about the eradication of small pox?!? Do they really expect us to believe that no vaccines work and it's all some big con by orthodox medicine?
"Germs are made by your body in an effort to clear up a messy environment. Once this has been achieved they will automatically disappear again. Proven several times in the last 150 years alone, and still not accepted in our world"
And we're expected to believe that our bodies make bacteria!!! ffs.
Do you really want to see someone why believes in that?
see: http://www.csp.org.uk/director/physiotherapyexplained/physio2u.cfm
3 in N8 though.
But did you ask your GP to refer you for physio? Why pay if you can get it for free?
" but I certainly can judge a type of medicine based on my own subjective experience. If it worked for me, then I consider it successful, end of"
hmmm, but how can you possibly say that the benefits you felt were as a result of the osteopathy, rather than due to the placebo effect or coincidence?
from a fortean/phenomenological point of view, personal anecdote is very important. accumulated corroborative testimony is (almost) all alternative therapies have to go on. indeed almost any topic of debate outside mainstream science - ufology, esp/psychic phenomena, cryptozoology etc - survive on anecdote and personal testimony above anything else.
/rant
" *yawn* "
Well I guess it must be boring if you find yourself involved in an argument where you have nothing intelligent to say.
@unaesthetic
"accumulated corroborative testimony is (almost) all alternative therapies have to go on"
But these are always going to be biased because no one is capable of being truly objective. Furthermore, most people don't even try to be objective but are quite happy to believe in things that they want to believe in. It's clearly wrong to recommend therapies of unproven effectiveness and little safety data to people because it may be a waste of time/money or worse; actually harmful.
Criticising a recommendation for an unproven, potentially dangerous (and expensive) alternative medical therapies is hardly pointless. If people weren't spreading these superstitions we wouldn't have homoeopaths treating AIDS and malaria or a resurgence in Measles. They'd be forced to either do some research to back up what they are saying or quit.
If you have any logical reason as to why no one should disagree with you then please let me know.
@unaesthetic
Who said it was 'all a pack of lies'? You seem determined to fight with a straw man. There may well be some benefits, but there may also be risks. Either way personal anecdote is not a good form of evidence because it is so subject to observer and recall bias.
As it goes I believe there to be some weak evidence for osteopathy in treating some low back pain although it's probably not better than conventional treatment. The evidence for it treating anything else successfully is sparse and doesn't (at least yet) support it's use. The current evidence for it's use in sacroiliac joint problems seems not existent.
If you have evidence otherwise I'll quite happily read it and may change my mind . I'm a skeptic but not blinkered.
and there is a lot to be said for the placebo effect. mere belief in the process of treatment has been proven (yes, by actual scientific method) to be effective. the healing process from any ailment is made up of three parts - the self-healing processes in the individual, the specific effects of any treatment provided, and the non-specific effect of the process of treatment and the presence of a therapist.
by the way, are you american? or do you spell sceptic with a k because your spell-checker tells you to? (this isn't meant as an insult, i have nothing at all against being from america, it's just that i noticed that sceptic is underlined on my screen but skeptic isn't)
"no alternative therapies have undergone the same testing as conventional ones"
Would you accept a new drug being given to patients without knowing it was safe because it hadn't "undergone the same testing"? Alternative medicine has been around a long time and is worth hundreds of millions of pounds; there is no excuse for them not having done any research. Homoeopathy for example has been reasonably well researched and it's not been shown to be any better than placebo.
"reported success rates are often close to those of "proven" treatments"
But you said they haven't undergone testing: how do you know what the success rates are? Or do you mean what they tell people?
"of course accepted medical practise could never be at fault…"
Who ever said it was perfect? Do two wrongs make a right?
"and there is a lot to be said for the placebo effect. "
There's also a lot to be said for not lying to patients. I have no objection to the placebo effect but if that's all you are offering then they should be told that. The patient should be able to trust whoever is treating them.
"by the way, are you american? or do you spell sceptic with a k"
No. I thought it was the other way round and that sKeptic was english. Google says the etymology is "from Gk. skeptikos". I'd be surprised if the yanks were closer to the original.
Surely it only works if you don't tell them.
For the record, neither unaesthetic nor I use alternative therapies. I made him go to yoga twice. He was not a happy bunny.
i said *reported* success rates, not double-blind-tested success rates. so yes, word of mouth, from patient to practitioner to patient.
i must remind you that my whole point is that these therapies ***should*** be properly and thoroughly tested, to see what bits work, which bits are hogwash, and where the coincidences, placebos and the bullshit occur. i believe that science does proceed according to a bias for already acceptable concepts, and i know that there is a lot of animosity for any outsider ideas in a lot of the scientific community. i'm positive that in amongst all the mumbo-jumbo, things are being done with beneficial outcomes, but are dismissed out of hand for being wrapped in said mumbo.
and my o.e.d. defines "skeptic" as: "US var. of SCEPTIC". there was a spelling reform in the usa (i think somewhere in the mid 19th century) to make their spellings more phonetic and simpler - hence the lack of diphthongs (color, armor, etc) - so the spelling could well have been changed to reflect the hard c sound...