When conventional medicine has failed to treat something and subsequently Altmed has helped why is it placebo?

Question

One thing I keep hearing/reading from the anti-altmed lobby is 'Alt-med is very good at bringing out the placebo effect'.

Many people who try alt-med have actually been through the conventional medical system and found that it didn't help them so then went on to try alternatives which have gone on to help them.

So these people all got better because they believed they would but for some reason didn't believe they would when an allopthic physician treated them?

Are there any studies showing efficacy of altmed treatment after a placebo washout?

Answer 1

I so agree with you Lightning!

I give you my examples:

I met a person who had a bad case of sciatica. Note that it was not a client coming to me with hopes and expectations and he was extremely sceptical to alternative stuff, but since it was free, why not?  For a year and a half he had been to physiotherapists and chiropractors who helped for about a week, then the pain came back.

He was so bad that he could not walk 5 meters without horrible pain, almost impossible to get in and out of the car and impossible to sleep in his bed at night. He spend the night sitting in the sofa as comfortably as he could.

After several unsuccessful visits to his doctor with referrals to said chiropractors, prescriptions for painkillers etc., the doctor gave up and scheduled an operation as the only thing that would help.

I am a kinesiologist and offered to help him in the hope of avoiding that operation. After the first session he felt a lot better and the improvement lasted. One month later I gave him another session and while I was working with him he felt (in his own words) "his leg straighten and the pain went away".

That was more than a year and a half ago and he has been perfectly OK since. Was that placebo?

I have plenty of cases like this - like the 19 year old boy who had had rhumatisms for 10 years, never could take part in physical education, never could play football.

One single session with me and he was totally pain-free. A year later when I asked his mother, he was still pain-free and enjoying life like never before.

Placebo? Those people never got any pills, nor plant remedies, nor supplements from me. Nothing to eat nor drink. All was done via muscle testing and working with the muscles themselves, rubbing acupuncture points or reflex areas on the head and body.

Placebo? You tell me ...

Your last question: Yes there are parallel studies conducted in Denmark since 1995 where cancer patients (no less!) can choose whether they want conventional medicine or alternative methods. The methods studied are homeopathy, naturopathy and kinesiology. The results are conclusive: there are just as many positive results in all four cases (conventional med + the 3 alternatives). Isn't that interesting?

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Another thing:

It would be nice not to use the term "Alternative medicine" anymore. There is only one medicine, and it is the conventional one. We use "alternative health methods" and do not want to be mixed up with the medical profession. There is nothing medical in what we do, thank God!

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It doesn't help the general public, Lightning, nor does it "help" anyone. People will continue to believe what they want, and that's just fine. It would be nice if all practiced a little "Live and let live" instead of jumping at each others' throats.

Answer 2

Because it would be close to impossible for the allopathic community to recognise the power of nature in place where their synthetic chemical failed.

So the easy way out is "aah, it's just a placebo".

The fact, that placebo works only for about 10 to 15 people, out of one

hundred is obviously not crossing their minds.

And the natural remedy "placebo" worked, while the chemical one didn't??

Placebo is  placebo after all. It takes no favorites.

Answer 3

Darren you're right mate,

how ever much evidence you show them they always just say "yeah but my dog had cancer and got cured"

you can't get them to admit the flaws of anecdotal evidence because that's all they have. if they give any ground on that then their whole world crumbles.  

Answer 4

Firstly, I would like to quote a latin proverb:

"condemnant quod non intellegunt"

- They condemn because they don't understand.

Many western doctors (myself included) have spent years studying a system of medicine and have mastered it.  Therefore, it is harder for us to grasp other systems of medicine, or to even consider that there ARE other systems of medicine.

Also, the paradigm is different.  In western medicine, we were always taught that things should be explained down to the molecular level.  In Chinese medicine (which I practice also), the philosophy is: hey, you can't argue with what works.

The fact that non-believers consider it placebo actually subliminally says two things: it says that even the doubters acknowledge that people feel better after the treatment.  If it doesn't work, then it can't be placebo effect!  Second: it shows that the person believes that there is no rational explanation for the effect other than it's in the patient's head.  He grudgingly acknowledges the relief felt by the patient but does not hold it to the same standard as "scientific" care, utterly ignoring the fact that if the healing was due to merely placebo effect then ANY sort of medicine, whether western or eastern, would have an effect.

Side note: a lot of the effects of acupuncture and herbs have been studied in Japan and Australia and the US, so it's no longer just "placebo".

Some studies on back pain (can't find my copies at the moment) have compared acupuncture for back pain to no treatment and to sham acupuncture.  The sham acupuncture can consist of making the patient THINK he is being needled using special fake needles, OR putting needles in non-acupuncture points.

The study I remember said that fake-acupuncture-point sham acupuncture also had an effect better than no treatment, but was not as good as "real" acupuncture.

Many skeptics said that that proves that acupuncture is just placebo effect, since putting needles anywhere can have a relief effect.  However, they fail to realize that putting needles anywhere was better than pretending to insert needles but fooling the patient into thinking otherwise.

Ultimately, the judge is the patient: does he feel better? Is he healthier?

Edit:  A follow up question to this should be: why is is that closed-minded people are so eager to talk about evidence when it supports them yet ignores evidence that supports the opposite position?  There are TONS of research, at least about acupuncture (I am an M.D., an assistant professor in my country's state university med school and an acupuncturist, so I'm biased towards acupuncture research) that is available for perusal.  Acupuncture.com.au has posted several studies, many more than just anecdotal.

Oh and by the way, why are people so biased against "anectodal" evidence.  Didn't Edward Jenner develop his cowpox innoculation technique based on anectodes from his patients?  True, while anectodal evidence is on the lowest level, it should not be totally ignored.

Answer 5

There is no evidence (beyond anecdotal, which is next to meaningless) that quackery does help in the situations you describe.

Once we have repeated success stories from double blinded, randomized, controlled trials, then we will credit homeopathy etc. with success.

Until then, it is simply quackery.

Lightning: why bother repeating your dull anecdotes over and over and over? You've been told time after time why scientists and other logical people find these stories meaningless.

Either you want science and medicine's approval, in which case come up with scientific evidence.

Or you don't care what we think, in which case stop whining that we don't share your delusions.

Answer 6

They are not necessarily willing to ever accept that complementary/alternative medicine works anyway with or without the studies? after all some conventional medical practitioners probably see us as the competition. One of my clients tried conventional medicine for nearly two years for blocked sinuses with no positive outcome, she then came to me for help i then worked on the sinus areas on the feet and after three treatments her sinuses streamed and cleared and i had a client who was very very happy.

I totally agree with you.

Answer 7

It all depends what the condition is, and wether the condition is brought on as a symptom of hypochondria.

If its a genuine condition, and the condition goes using altmed, then the studies are wrong- Altmed is not a placebo.

If the patient is a hypochondriac, then the credibility of altmed could be brought under duress.

At the end of the day, I cannot "Belive" my Asthma to go away, nor can I think up in my head that I have asthma. If Altmed were to cure my asthma, which is a genuine condition, then YES. it does work.

Answer 8

........Probably because Allopathic Practitioners can't stand to be proved wrong.