Puncturing the Acupuncture Myth

[Frederick Foresight]

It is only a 1500 year old practice but sure you don't have to accept facts.

That you think it's a 1,500-year-old practice tells me you don't much bother with facts. Rather than horsing around, did you even bother to read the article? Next time you require an anaesthetic for a dental procedure, tell the dentist to stick a pin in your ear or elbow or wherever, and let me know how it goes.

In any event, I said it works on the power of suggestion. Like any other placebo, it can "work" for some people complaining about some not-so-serious issues. But a placebo is still a placebo.

 

[Sprout]

That you think it's a 1,500-year-old practice tells me you don't much bother with facts. Rather than horsing around, did you even bother to read the article? Next time you require an anaesthetic for a dental procedure, tell the dentist to stick a pin in your ear or elbow or wherever, and let me know how it goes.

In any event, I said it works on the power of suggestion. Like any other placebo, it can "work" for some people complaining about some not-so-serious issues. But a placebo is still a placebo.

I did read the article and still have a different opinion based upon my experience. I don’t discount your POV and recognize that it is your truth.

As a counter-point to the power of the mind, there is much more to understand than to reduce it to a placebo/nocebo effect. I’ve personally experienced a number of ‘un-believable’ events - one simple example is fire-walking.

In terms of your challenge I might attempt it if I had something to prove but novacaine imho is one of the best developments in dentistry... ever.

The relief of pain and suffering has many avenues, each path appropriate to the one that follows it.

 

[Visaria]

So it's more accurate to say it might be placebo effect not a nocebo effect.

 

[Sprout]

So it's more accurate to say it might be placebo effect not a nocebo effect.

The title of the thread I interpret as more nocebo, the content within describing how acupuncture works being self-described as placebo.

 

[Frederick Foresight]

The title of the thread I interpret as more nocebo, the content within describing how acupuncture works being self-described as placebo.

Again, from the article:

...Guess what? It doesn’t matter where you put the needle. It doesn’t matter whether you use a needle at all. In the best controlled studies, only one thing mattered: whether the patients believed they were getting acupuncture. If they believed they got the real thing, they got better pain relief — whether they actually got acupuncture or not! If they got acupuncture but believed they didn’t, it didn’t work. If they didn’t get it but believed they did, it did work...

 

[Sprout]

For more recent experiments searching the medical literature for acupuncture: a bunch of findings that have nothing to do with people .
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/journals/

 

[spindr0]

Power of suggestion (placebo), in much the same way that hypnosis can be used on some people as an anaesthetic. Think you're a candidate? Give it a try the next time you need a root canal. Let us know how it goes.

A root canal is a bad test example because more often than not, the manifestation is a dental abscess observable on the x-ray and by that time, the nerve is dead. Dead nerve = No pain.

The real test would be getting a 'live' tooth drilled for a deep filling or a crown. In that vein, I know a few people who have done this. It's not a placebo effect or due to hypnosis or acupuncture. It's a simply that they have a very high tolerance for pain. They are the exception rather than the rule and it's totally true when the wife screams, "You have no feelings!"

 

[Pekelo]

But a placebo is still a placebo.

So how long the placebo effect will last with the guy's stomach surgery? You did see that he just walked off of the surgery table, right?

 

[Pekelo]

Again, from the article:

Quoting articles is good, believing your own eyes, much better. Now even American hospitals are using acupuncture during surgery but no, you just going to quote articles from the web...