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My ex decided she needed to take iodine while pregnant with my first kid. He was born with congenital hypothyroidism as a result. She also make me goto the witch doctors of various kinds over the years, none of which helped me. Regular medicine determined that I have a tumor on an adrenal gland, and after a year of testing I’m having the gland removed next month.
In Ukraine as a kid. The "not sure if these do anything but they didn't hurt" part:
1: My mom would regularly draw "iodine nets" on my skin when I was sick. I can't remember exactly what they were meant to do, something about sucking out whatever toxin was making me sick.
2: When I was young in Ukraine I got very very sick. I only remember bits and pieces - most memorable is it hurting to move and getting shots in my hand every day. I was in hospital and getting worse, and the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong. According to my mom they were injecting me with some kind of weird hormone based treatment, and when it did not seem to be helping she became worried about what it would do to me in the long term, so she took me out of the hospital against the wishes of doctors - she said the doctor was yelling after her that I was going to die if she took me out as she was leaving. She took me to an alternative medicine provider of some sort, who gave me shots and those little round pills you kind of see some alternative medicine providers use. I don't know which of those things worked, but I did end up getting better somehow.
3: This isn't really alternative medicine but more of a placebo effect. After the above ordeal my temperature would just not go down. I felt fine, but whenever they checked my temperature I would have a massive fever. My mom was checking my temp multiple times a day for weeks with zero change. My doctor suggested that my mom stop checking my temperature for two weeks. After two weeks, we checked again and my temperature was back to normal. It was decided that I was so used to being sick and having a fever that the process of checking my temperature would actually make me produce a real life fever.
4: This one is about my sister. She was born with some kind of..bad kidney problems or something of the sort. She had to take multiple trips to the emergency room, frequently. I don't know exactly what these attacks involved but it was bad. As a last resort my mom took her to a healer of some sort who gave her a special stone and did some kind of hand-healy thing. She apparently did not have an attack again. From memory I also got one of these stones, but a different one, but can't remember where it is now.
Ukraine, the "this was definitely a scam" part:
1. My mom took me to a lady who had me hold two metal rods connected with some kind of wire thing to a machine, and she would make different words show up on screen and then say if I was sensitive/allergic to those things or not. She guessed my strawberry allergy, but that's probably because my mom mentioned it. She also said I had "rakovie palochki", which freaked my mom out because it translates to "cancer sticks", but the lady said that was normal. I think she was a total scammer and apparently she disappeared a few years later...
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Sweden, my cat:
1. My kitten was extremely sick for a month. The vets had given up and said there was nothing more they could do. They let me take him home for his last night, I had an appointment booked to put him to sleep the next day at home - I didn't want him to die in the hospital. As a last resort I took him to a "holistic veterinarian" who performed acupuncture and gave various drops and such. I don't know if the acupuncture helped, but the next day my cat miraculously peed on his own for the first time in a month at home (his blockage was at the root of this problem, without peeing he would die and no amount of medicine or trying to manually express him had worked). I wouldn't credit the entire recovery to acupuncture, but as a last resort treatment I am glad I tried it.
2. At the same time as the above, on the train back from the holistic vet home, I happened to sit next to a lady who started asking about him. I was on the verge of tears at that point but explained to her what was happening. She asked if she could reach her hand in the carrier and pet him, and I said yes. My cat was so exhausted and miserable, both of us were, but he seemed to relax a little when she touched him. We ended up getting off at the same stop and before going in separate directions the lady said "I did some healing, it is up to him now. There is still hope - just take that cone off of him when you get home." (he was wearing post-surgery cone). I did as she said - he peed the next day.
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I should note that neither my mom nor I ever chose alternative medicine over traditional, scientifically-backed medicine. My mom from what I understand only used alternative treatments in conjunction with science-backed treatments or only as a last resort when normal medicine did not help. It was the same with my cat - he was in and out of traditional hospitals for a month. When those veterinarians said there were no more things left to try is when I began to explore more alternative routes.
If alternative medicine actually worked beyond anecdotes it would just be called medicine.
1. A practitioner gave me black seed oil to cure non-allergic rhinitis. Safe to say, it made things worse.
2. All the "alternative medicine" experts I know spend time criticizing the medical profession and malpractice more than peddling their own remedies. Similarly most experts in this area that I have met lack proper education in chemistry, biology, bio-chemistry etc. Even the qualified doctors I have met who practice "alternative medicine" were academically B players who lack knowledge about basic sciences but somehow made it through the system. I would like someone to corroborate me on this.
3. I have met a lot of people who claim their pain (back, joint etc) went away after cupping, acupuncture and the more modern varieties that use electric voltage. There seems to be enough anecdotal evidence for a serious scientific investigation in this area. The existing "theory" that practitioners give for its efficacy including "restoring energy balance in body via critical points" is obviously a pile of crap.
4. A lot of herbal supplements are nowadays labeled "homeopathic", even though the traditional "homeopathy" is based on a dilution principle which is hilariously in-effective. I am guessing that some of those herbal supplements tucked in the homeopathy shops might actually do cure a few minor ailments and that has accidentally given homeopathy a lease of life in the 21st century. Even though the authentic homeopathy drugs which employ dilution are practically useless.
1. Generalising acupuncture treatments is the same as saying ALL programmers are equal - there is a huge spectrum on the quality. Some people do protocols - same treatment for same disease, other people are much more inclined to do a personal treatment. There are also lots of different ways to do an acupuncture treatment. As for research, please check " Atlas Of Acupuncture" from Claudia Focks, it's full of references of studies about Chinese Medicine, with both good and bad results as well as criticism of study design.
2. On the clinic, it worked very well for chronic pain (eg: back pain) and for diseases that have some degree of unknown (due to psychosomatic disorder or alike). We had some patients that got "fixed" in a couple of sessions, others would just need a consultation every two weeks or so to maintain their health, and so on.
3. Acupuncture also works very well in tandem with Western medicine (eg: reduce side effects of some medicine/treatment), but where it really shines is for some diseases where Western medicine can't work that well - although this is easier if you're an accomplished practitioner - we had great results with fibromyalgia for example.
As an example, I started to develop back pain due to carrying my kid all day, I went to a Chinese herbal doctor who recommended me some herbs - I took them once and it went away for weeks. Eventually it came back because I still carry the kid though.
My teacher also have done countless diagnostics in which he correctly diagnosed some issues with his patients who were later confirmed with a Western medicine (under a different disease name).
If alternative medicine actually worked beyond anecdotes it would just be called medicine.
If you have an anecdote yourself please share. I'm not suggesting that it works beyond anecdotes, nor the opposite.
Yoga and massage are great for chronic anxiety and depression. Actually taking seriously the "your feelings live in your body, let yourself go where you feel" stuff while doing yoga / massage can be really emotionally cathartic.
My ex decided she needed to take iodine while pregnant with my first kid. He was born with congenital hypothyroidism as a result. She also make me goto the witch doctors of various kinds over the years, none of which helped me. Regular medicine determined that I have a tumor on an adrenal gland, and after a year of testing I’m having the gland removed next month.
How did you find the tumor ? Did you have any symptoms?
I was in the doc looking for some chemical assistance for having to deal with my ex. Was found to be diabetic, and was referred to a clinical pharmacist.
He was going over my stuff and saw the high bp, along with low potassium and suggested that it could be hyperaldoseronism. A couple of blood tests later suggested that this was the case, and the CT scan was ordered which found the tumor.
That was last year, next month I’m going in to have the gland and tumor removed.
Symptoms of hyper aldosteronism: * high bp * low serum K * inability to gain muscle (aldosterone is a testosterone antagonist) * lack of energy * lack of ability to concentrate * increased blood glucose
Probably more but this is what I experienced
If alternative medicine actually worked beyond anecdotes it would just be called medicine.
This is exactly the kind of comment I did not ask for. If you have an anecdote yourself please share. I'm not suggesting that it works beyond anecdotes, nor the opposite.
Anyway homeopathy is still a big thing here so when nothing else worked I decided to give it a try based on a very high recommendation from my parents.
Lo and behold that thing was gone within a week. I would have never dreamt it because homeopathy makes no sense with the medicine being diluted to hell and I'm guessing maybe the sugar pills acted as a placebo but not sure why the other regular medicine didn't have the same effect.
Also I had pain in my knees and 1 month of regular prayam took it away (was suggested Arthroscopy because MRI showed a tear in my medial miniscus or something. Pranayam fixed it and it was 10 years ago and I didn't even have the surgery too). Did take medicine for reducing uric acid though so not sure if that did the trick.
Well that's my personal experience. I guess my experience has been good with alt medicine.