4 ms·

I definitely do. It's the reason I'm able to walk again. I was confined to my bed for over 3 months, not able to move my legs. Immediately after my first tre

by dylanz 17y ago

I definitely do. It's the reason I'm able to walk again. I was confined to my bed for over 3 months, not able to move my legs. Immediately after my first treatment of acupuncture, feeling came back to my foot, and I was able to move my left leg again. A month after the treatment, I was able to walk again (albeit, dragging my foot like a zombie). At that point, I did Bikram's Yoga for about 6 months with weekly acupuncture, and was back to normal. It was that, or get a costly spinal surgery which had a high percentage of failure in my particular case.

radu_floricica 17y ago
This still doesn't rule out the placebo effect, which is real and not at all negligible in some case. I think we shouldn't be so quick to exclude it from "real" medicine. As long as it works on a fair percentage or patients, I say use it and the less drugs the better.
- gcheong 17y ago
  It also doesn't rule out coincidence. People often just get better for no other reason than their body's natural healing process. Maybe the acupuncture had a placebo effect here. Maybe it had a "real" effect. Maybe, coincidentally, his body just happen to heal at the same moment the treatment was administered.
  - dylanz 17y ago
    Most definitely not in my case. She was a "very" expensive acupuncturist, her entire life was devoted to the practice, as was her father and mothers. She also gave me a few (horrible tasting) medicines as well. I literally couldn't move my legs for "3" months. Oh, I wish I could have. Having your excrement taken away from your bed by friends isn't my idea of fun. Anytime I tried to move my legs, I would scream out in pain. My dad works at the local hospital in radiology, so I got VIP CAT and MRI. It was a very bad injury, and one of the best back surgeons in the state of California told me I wasn't going to walk normally again. What did I do after I got better? I started practicing Qi Gong / Tai Qi / Gung Fu, 6 days a week. Color me sold on the ways of the east.
    - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
      Expensive placebos work better than cheap ones, and pretending to do acupuncture creates more placebo effect than giving people sugar pills: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-05-20 http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-05-20

by dylanz 17y ago

radu_floricica 17y ago

This still doesn't rule out the placebo effect, which is real and not at all negligible in some case. I think we shouldn't be so quick to exclude it from "real" medicine. As long as it works on a fair percentage or patients, I say use it and the less drugs the better.

gcheong 17y ago
It also doesn't rule out coincidence. People often just get better for no other reason than their body's natural healing process. Maybe the acupuncture had a placebo effect here. Maybe it had a "real" effect. Maybe, coincidentally, his body just happen to heal at the same moment the treatment was administered.
- dylanz 17y ago
  Most definitely not in my case. She was a "very" expensive acupuncturist, her entire life was devoted to the practice, as was her father and mothers. She also gave me a few (horrible tasting) medicines as well. I literally couldn't move my legs for "3" months. Oh, I wish I could have. Having your excrement taken away from your bed by friends isn't my idea of fun. Anytime I tried to move my legs, I would scream out in pain. My dad works at the local hospital in radiology, so I got VIP CAT and MRI. It was a very bad injury, and one of the best back surgeons in the state of California told me I wasn't going to walk normally again. What did I do after I got better? I started practicing Qi Gong / Tai Qi / Gung Fu, 6 days a week. Color me sold on the ways of the east.
  - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
    Expensive placebos work better than cheap ones, and pretending to do acupuncture creates more placebo effect than giving people sugar pills: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-05-20 http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-05-20