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Seriously. I always roll my eyes when somebody claims that acupuncture "doesn't work," because it's worked for me on multiple occasions. Typically, it comes fro

by grardb 9y ago

Seriously. I always roll my eyes when somebody claims that acupuncture "doesn't work," because it's worked for me on multiple occasions. Typically, it comes from people who have never tried it. A little over four years ago, I had a ton of shoulder pain. I went to two doctors, had an MRI scan, and was prescribed physical therapy. After all of that, I was still in pain, and neither of the doctors could figure out why, so I decided to try acupuncture for the first time. I went to Chinatown, got needles put in me, and got some electricity sent to my shoulder. I left the shop about 30 minutes later, and about 70% of my pain was gone. I woke up with next morning with only a tiny bit of pain left. The pain didn't come back, even after months. I eventually found a doctor who figured out what was wrong, and through a better round of physical therapy, I was able to eradicate my shoulder pain permanently. Maybe acupuncture didn't solve my problems completely, and of course it doesn't work for everything (e.g. weight loss, cancer, etc.), but to simply say that it "doesn't work" is ludicrous.

seanwilson 9y ago
Why after decades then has acupuncture not been shown to work in any rigorous high quality studies? It's not like it hasn't been studied and proper studies are significantly more reliable than acendotes.
- DanBC 9y ago
  That's incorrect. There are a couple of recent studies showing acupuncture is better than treatment as usual for some musculoskeletal problems. https://discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk/portal/article/4000672/acupuncture-shown-to-have-benefits-for-treatment-of-some-chronic-pain?utm_content=buffered7fb&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer https://discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk/portal/article/4000672/acupun... (On mobile, apologies for the weird URL). For lower back pain I think the advice is, after seeing a doctor, to start exercising.
  - seanwilson 9y ago
    Thanks for the link. I'm not claiming to be an expert so can you explain what the values here mean? How significant an improvement are these numbers and how do they compare to just doing nothing? > It had moderate effect compared with non-acupuncture care for musculoskeletal pain (standardised mean difference [SMD] 0.55, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.51 to 0.58), osteoarthritis (SMD 0.57, 95% CI 0.50 to 0.64) and headache (SMD 0.42, 95% CI 0.37 to 0.46). Also, the comparisons to acupuncture vs sham acupuncture...is this implying that acupunture has some validity (meridians etc.) or just that the sham wasn't convincing enough? Why would acupuncture perform better when meridians have no scientific plausibility? I've no doubt an elaborate procedure such as acupuncture produces a strong placebo effect but something that isn't better than a placebo shouldn't be considered as working in my opinion.
Hasknewbie 9y ago
Seriously. I always roll my eyes when somebody claims that acupuncture "does work," because the placebo effect worked for them on multiple occasions. Typically, it comes from people who don't want to admit they were cured by a placebo, otherwise it would work all the time, for everyone. There, fixed it for you.
- DanBC 9y ago
  Here's a link showing that placebo is better than placebo for some types of long term pain. https://discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk/portal/article/4000672/acupuncture-shown-to-have-benefits-for-treatment-of-some-chronic-pain?utm_content=buffered7fb&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer https://discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk/portal/article/4000672/acupun...
  - Hasknewbie 9y ago
    Not all meta-studies agree on this. But the real point in my opinion is this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19250001 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19250001 Acupuncture is a sham because sham acupuncture appears to do just as well. What matters is if you get stung by a real needle. All the acupuncture-specific things, like meridians, points, qi, are just tosh, which means pseudo-acupuncture can be performed by any nurse, and does not require a costly 'expert'. So "real acupuncture" is just, in fact, an unnecessary ornament that can be discarded. Having been raised by your average new-age / alternative medicine parents, and having believed and used these things until my mid-twenties, I'm not surprised that needles do have an effect. I am also not surprised it does not come from acupuncture proper. If you say 'having vague pain points stung by needles is better than placebo', then I would agree with you, but that's quite different than saying that acupuncture works.
    - DanBC 9y ago
      This more recent meta analysis shows that acupuncture has a statistically significant difference from sham acupuncture. You don't have to read the study, this point is made on the page I linked to.
Spooky23 9y ago
It "doesn't work" because it isn't repeatable or predictable. My wife has a similar story to yours... I had a zero effect experience with the same practitioner. Like chiropractic, there is "something" there, but it's mostly mild physical relief + belief/placebo effect. That's not necessarily a bad thing, especially for pain relief where the alternatives are pretty high impact (surgery, ineffective narcotics, other treatments that lose efficiency over time). The problem is there are practitioners who claim to cure cancer, etc, and there's no way for anyone to vet that.

by grardb 9y ago

seanwilson 9y ago

Why after decades then has acupuncture not been shown to work in any rigorous high quality studies? It's not like it hasn't been studied and proper studies are significantly more reliable than acendotes.

DanBC 9y ago
That's incorrect. There are a couple of recent studies showing acupuncture is better than treatment as usual for some musculoskeletal problems. https://discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk/portal/article/4000672/acupuncture-shown-to-have-benefits-for-treatment-of-some-chronic-pain?utm_content=buffered7fb&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer https://discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk/portal/article/4000672/acupun... (On mobile, apologies for the weird URL). For lower back pain I think the advice is, after seeing a doctor, to start exercising.
- seanwilson 9y ago
  Thanks for the link. I'm not claiming to be an expert so can you explain what the values here mean? How significant an improvement are these numbers and how do they compare to just doing nothing? > It had moderate effect compared with non-acupuncture care for musculoskeletal pain (standardised mean difference [SMD] 0.55, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.51 to 0.58), osteoarthritis (SMD 0.57, 95% CI 0.50 to 0.64) and headache (SMD 0.42, 95% CI 0.37 to 0.46). Also, the comparisons to acupuncture vs sham acupuncture...is this implying that acupunture has some validity (meridians etc.) or just that the sham wasn't convincing enough? Why would acupuncture perform better when meridians have no scientific plausibility? I've no doubt an elaborate procedure such as acupuncture produces a strong placebo effect but something that isn't better than a placebo shouldn't be considered as working in my opinion.

Hasknewbie 9y ago

Seriously. I always roll my eyes when somebody claims that acupuncture "does work," because the placebo effect worked for them on multiple occasions. Typically, it comes from people who don't want to admit they were cured by a placebo, otherwise it would work all the time, for everyone. There, fixed it for you.

DanBC 9y ago
Here's a link showing that placebo is better than placebo for some types of long term pain. https://discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk/portal/article/4000672/acupuncture-shown-to-have-benefits-for-treatment-of-some-chronic-pain?utm_content=buffered7fb&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer https://discover.dc.nihr.ac.uk/portal/article/4000672/acupun...
- Hasknewbie 9y ago
  Not all meta-studies agree on this. But the real point in my opinion is this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19250001 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19250001 Acupuncture is a sham because sham acupuncture appears to do just as well. What matters is if you get stung by a real needle. All the acupuncture-specific things, like meridians, points, qi, are just tosh, which means pseudo-acupuncture can be performed by any nurse, and does not require a costly 'expert'. So "real acupuncture" is just, in fact, an unnecessary ornament that can be discarded. Having been raised by your average new-age / alternative medicine parents, and having believed and used these things until my mid-twenties, I'm not surprised that needles do have an effect. I am also not surprised it does not come from acupuncture proper. If you say 'having vague pain points stung by needles is better than placebo', then I would agree with you, but that's quite different than saying that acupuncture works.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    This more recent meta analysis shows that acupuncture has a statistically significant difference from sham acupuncture. You don't have to read the study, this point is made on the page I linked to.

Spooky23 9y ago

It "doesn't work" because it isn't repeatable or predictable. My wife has a similar story to yours... I had a zero effect experience with the same practitioner. Like chiropractic, there is "something" there, but it's mostly mild physical relief + belief/placebo effect. That's not necessarily a bad thing, especially for pain relief where the alternatives are pretty high impact (surgery, ineffective narcotics, other treatments that lose efficiency over time). The problem is there are practitioners who claim to cure cancer, etc, and there's no way for anyone to vet that.