4 ms·

Now I'm curious. What did you intend to write? Your post gives equal credence to herbal pseudoscience and modern medicine and, in context, questions whether ant

by saulrh 8y ago

Now I'm curious. What did you intend to write? Your post gives equal credence to herbal pseudoscience and modern medicine and, in context, questions whether antibiotics were worth it. Yes, I should probably find a way to condemn luddite fatalism and anti-intellectualism without pointing out that they are species-wide suicide, exactly as irrational as the personal version and exactly as unacceptable to push for. Maybe I should have simply downvoted you, flagged your post, and hoped nobody saw it. I'll even apologize; I am sorry. That said, honestly, "disagree" is entirely too weak a word for my perspective on the beliefs your comment helps people believe. I'm going to contest moloch-worship and naturopathy and luddism even when they're unintentional. When they show up on Facebook and Reddit they end with twentysomething mommies deciding not to vaccinate their babies and assaulting Waymo safety personnel. And, well, my real audience are those potential antivaxxers and bucketed crabs, so logos is actively counterproductive and I'm stuck with ethos and pathos, neither of which are anything like good faith. :/

DoreenMichele 8y ago
I was diagnosed in my mid thirties with atypical cystic fibrosis. By the time I was diagnosed, I was at death's door. My specialist informed me that people like me don't get well, that symptom management is the name of the game. I informed him that it might be true that I would spend the rest of my life fighting off the next infection, but this one had to go as it was killing me. He physically took a step back as if I had slapped him. He also began scheduling me fewer appointments as I got healthier while expressing zero curiosity as to how I was accomplishing that. I've spent time around antivaxxers. Many of them have legitimate reasons for pursuing alternative medicine. Those reasons are rooted in being failed by conventional medicine. Some of those folks gave me useful information after doctors dismissively wrote me off for dead. There's a lot of information out there on the importance of gut microbes and even how body chemistry fosters biofilm which promotes antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance is potentially reversible. I had an infection that the doctors never ID'd that was not responding to antibiotics. I went through multiple rounds of antibiotics, some of which had side effects like "kills some percentage of people." I saw zero improvement. I came up with my own hypothesis as to what was going on, ran it past a friend who happened to be a doctor and he said it wasn't crazy talk. Within two weeks, my condition stabilized and I began gradually improving after talking doctors into giving me certain antibiotics and pursuing specific therapies. Antibiotic resistance tends to be fostered in developing countries that lack adequate water and sewer infrastructure. There is also research out there on failure to thrive and stunting that I've looked at. Stunting has a component of "probably infection related." Some kids don't respond to simply giving them more food. You also need to add probiotics and address the hygiene issues. The gut is home to about 70 to 80 percent of the immune cells in our body. So digestion, nutrition, diet, fasting, etc all can have significant impact on immune health and how the body handles infection. It's possible to use spices, like cinnamon and oregano, to help fight infection. There's a lot more to it and it's a complicated topic. Also, lots of folks believe I'm insane and telling tall tales, because a former homemaker can't possibly understand anything about health that doctors and scientists can't figure out, no. So, have a nice day. This is probably a pointless discussion for various reasons.
- saulrh 8y ago
  talking doctors into giving me certain antibiotics a former homemaker can't possibly understand anything about health that doctors and scientists can't figure out, no. sigh. Publish a case study. Please. I beg you. The people that went into the "people don't get better from this" statistic did not just all lay down and die. I guarantee you they went home and searched for a cure the same way you did. But they aren't here and you are. Normally I'd say you were lucky, but you claim a testable hypothesis that made sense to an MD and then worked. And you seem rational enough that I don't think you'd be giving "specific therapies" so much credit if they hadn't made the difference. And you know what we call alternative medicine with testable hypotheses that made sense to an MD and were then proven to work? "Medicine". We went back to leeches and maggots and poop transplants because someone proved that they work. But someone had to prove it. Someone had to brainstorm the principled explanation, someone had to write it down, someone had to add it to the standard, indexed, well-known and searchable body of knowledge. Because there are not enough doctors in the world for them to spend hundreds of hours researching each edge case when they're already massively overworked by the hour per kid it takes to stave off MMR and tetanus and pertussis. It needs to be indexed and searchable, it needs to be in the knowledge base, it needs to be standard. Getting better from things that "people don't get better from" is by definition novel. Solving something that's common enough to have statistics is similarly valuable. A doctor friend's name will get you past the bigots and a publication will be worth his time. You claim a hypothesis, a principled explanation, and a measure of peer review, so you're good on the fundamentals. If you lead with a technical root-cause analysis and reveal your "specific therapies" with a dramatic flourish you'll even turn the "tall tales" into bonus points for creativity and some word-of-mouth publicity. Your case is entirely publishable. So prove me wrong. Please. "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be destroyed by the truth." Publish it. Save the lives of all the future people that'll get something that "people don't get better from". If you're right about cinnamon and oregano, contribute some good hard evidence and help bring general beliefs into better alignment with reality, which'll save more lives than just the people that share your exact epidemiology. Strike that "alternative" off the medicine that healed you. I'd damn sure like to live forever and any claim that reproduces can help me do that. Bring everyone up to your level instead of sneering down your nose while handing the antivaxxers ammunition.

by saulrh 8y ago

DoreenMichele 8y ago

I was diagnosed in my mid thirties with atypical cystic fibrosis. By the time I was diagnosed, I was at death's door. My specialist informed me that people like me don't get well, that symptom management is the name of the game. I informed him that it might be true that I would spend the rest of my life fighting off the next infection, but this one had to go as it was killing me. He physically took a step back as if I had slapped him. He also began scheduling me fewer appointments as I got healthier while expressing zero curiosity as to how I was accomplishing that. I've spent time around antivaxxers. Many of them have legitimate reasons for pursuing alternative medicine. Those reasons are rooted in being failed by conventional medicine. Some of those folks gave me useful information after doctors dismissively wrote me off for dead. There's a lot of information out there on the importance of gut microbes and even how body chemistry fosters biofilm which promotes antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance is potentially reversible. I had an infection that the doctors never ID'd that was not responding to antibiotics. I went through multiple rounds of antibiotics, some of which had side effects like "kills some percentage of people." I saw zero improvement. I came up with my own hypothesis as to what was going on, ran it past a friend who happened to be a doctor and he said it wasn't crazy talk. Within two weeks, my condition stabilized and I began gradually improving after talking doctors into giving me certain antibiotics and pursuing specific therapies. Antibiotic resistance tends to be fostered in developing countries that lack adequate water and sewer infrastructure. There is also research out there on failure to thrive and stunting that I've looked at. Stunting has a component of "probably infection related." Some kids don't respond to simply giving them more food. You also need to add probiotics and address the hygiene issues. The gut is home to about 70 to 80 percent of the immune cells in our body. So digestion, nutrition, diet, fasting, etc all can have significant impact on immune health and how the body handles infection. It's possible to use spices, like cinnamon and oregano, to help fight infection. There's a lot more to it and it's a complicated topic. Also, lots of folks believe I'm insane and telling tall tales, because a former homemaker can't possibly understand anything about health that doctors and scientists can't figure out, no. So, have a nice day. This is probably a pointless discussion for various reasons.

saulrh 8y ago
talking doctors into giving me certain antibiotics a former homemaker can't possibly understand anything about health that doctors and scientists can't figure out, no. sigh. Publish a case study. Please. I beg you. The people that went into the "people don't get better from this" statistic did not just all lay down and die. I guarantee you they went home and searched for a cure the same way you did. But they aren't here and you are. Normally I'd say you were lucky, but you claim a testable hypothesis that made sense to an MD and then worked. And you seem rational enough that I don't think you'd be giving "specific therapies" so much credit if they hadn't made the difference. And you know what we call alternative medicine with testable hypotheses that made sense to an MD and were then proven to work? "Medicine". We went back to leeches and maggots and poop transplants because someone proved that they work. But someone had to prove it. Someone had to brainstorm the principled explanation, someone had to write it down, someone had to add it to the standard, indexed, well-known and searchable body of knowledge. Because there are not enough doctors in the world for them to spend hundreds of hours researching each edge case when they're already massively overworked by the hour per kid it takes to stave off MMR and tetanus and pertussis. It needs to be indexed and searchable, it needs to be in the knowledge base, it needs to be standard. Getting better from things that "people don't get better from" is by definition novel. Solving something that's common enough to have statistics is similarly valuable. A doctor friend's name will get you past the bigots and a publication will be worth his time. You claim a hypothesis, a principled explanation, and a measure of peer review, so you're good on the fundamentals. If you lead with a technical root-cause analysis and reveal your "specific therapies" with a dramatic flourish you'll even turn the "tall tales" into bonus points for creativity and some word-of-mouth publicity. Your case is entirely publishable. So prove me wrong. Please. "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be destroyed by the truth." Publish it. Save the lives of all the future people that'll get something that "people don't get better from". If you're right about cinnamon and oregano, contribute some good hard evidence and help bring general beliefs into better alignment with reality, which'll save more lives than just the people that share your exact epidemiology. Strike that "alternative" off the medicine that healed you. I'd damn sure like to live forever and any claim that reproduces can help me do that. Bring everyone up to your level instead of sneering down your nose while handing the antivaxxers ammunition.