Facts or Hacks?

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ugofatcat

I appreciate those articles and I did learn some new things.

However, I do not see an issue with someone using acupuncture as a way to treat their back pain or other condition if they feel that it helps them and it is not harming them. If someone tells me they had so much back pain but started doing acupuncture and the pain went away, I am certainly not going to tell them that it’s a sham and quackery and that the only benefit is all in their head.

I understand the point you are trying to make is there is no benefit between the placebo and treatment. The point I am trying to make is that because people perceived their condition improved, it did, and isn’t that the whole goal of treatment? If someone really believes their condition improves, what would be the purpose of trying to convince someone it is quackery, their pain will come back and now we are back to square one? For this reason I don’t see acupuncture as quackery, yes I think a lot of the benefit is in someone’s head, but that doesn’t matter to me because as those studies you linked showed their conditions/pain improved. I can understand why you see it as quackery because there the placebo/treatment were so similar. We will have to agree to disagree.

I would take an issue with any chiropractor trying to sell expensive acupuncture treatments to people or harming someone with shoddy acupuncture. Unless a treatment is harming someone or bleeding them dry financially, I have no issue with people exploring alternative treatments if their current regime is not working.

I am also not surprised about the results in “Components of placebo effect: randomized controlled trial in patients with irritable bowel syndrome”. Health care professionals strive to develop a therapeutic relationship with their patients. If anything it should be a larger selling point for health care providers to treat patients with warmth, attention, and confidence because this is an easy intervention that will yield better outcomes.