Acupuncture

Bodywise on Bethnal Green Road are really good, they have a group clinic on Fridays and only charge £30 for the first visit then £20 for further treatment. Ask to see Margre (tel; 0208 9816938).

I've been going there for a couple of months now and its the only treatment I've tried that works well for chronic insomnia.

I've also had sessions for a sinus infection and also for a stiff neck and shoulders, it does certainly work but going once won't do much, its really something you have to go to a few times I think.

Hope this helps.

ive got a herniated disc and a slightly misaligned L5-L4. my osteopath stuck in a couple of pins in there every time i went to see him. this despite me telling him it doesnt do anything. he did say that it doesnt work for everyone but there are others that feel genuinely relieved of pain. dunno why i kept on allowing him to do it though. i think i just wanted to get my moneys worth.

I have had disc problems in my L5 for years (prolapsed from too much crazy bending in yoga originally), and osteopaths always made it worse to be honest. Especially any manipulation at all. Gentle exercise (swimming, pilates, cycling) and physio was the only thing that worked, for me at least.

Wow !

A very out of character response !

I'm never in character late on a Friday afternoon.

may I be the first to toss in a "did you feel a little prick"

p.s. available for weddings and crucifixions

it's defintely not like finding needles in a haystack...

@VV. dont think your point applies here. we know a lot more about the human body now compared to 2000yrs ago.

Of course we do but acupuncture is still around and of benefit to people. In my case, western medecine can't offer a cure or a comfortable solution so I tried acupuncture, it worked better than I expected so I continued. And if anything, it has been a much more rational experience than all my visits to the GP.

for me having some v thin needles stuck in some v stubborn/fucked up muscles is a hell of a lot more comfortable / natural than a 12 stone osteopath putting his full force on my bended knee and releasing the gases from my spine.....i done a fart, he crushed my balls and I screamed like a girl....stab me any day

I have had disc problems in my L5 for years (prolapsed from too much crazy bending in yoga originally), and osteopaths always made it worse to be honest. Especially any manipulation at all. Gentle exercise (swimming, pilates, cycling) and physio was the only thing that worked, for me at least.

i enjoyed the manipulation bit. to me, it gave instant relief. havent done anything special since ending my osteo treatment almost two yrs ago. ended it cos he told me to stop cycling.

back is starting to hurting again tho. due to crappy bed, bike polo and basketball. been meaning to, but really should do some pilates or some inner core exercises

+1 to acupuncture.
Helped relax my prolapsed disc in the worst stages.
Took cortisone injections to sort it properly though.
And i just undid all that waterskiing last week...

acupuncture has worked for me in the past (bad knees), but the best long-lasting remedy i've found is yoga for cyclists, preventive medicine that increases your core strength and flexibility at the same time.

i enjoyed the manipulation bit. to me, it gave instant relief. havent done anything special since ending my osteo treatment almost two yrs ago. ended it cos he told me to stop cycling.

back is starting to hurting again tho. due to crappy bed, bike polo and basketball. been meaning to, but really should do some pilates or some inner core exercises

Pilates is pretty dull. Does give you a flat tummy though, and definitely helps the lower back.

Climbing is good for your core strength, and all the folks with back problems should try kayaking or canoeing, both are good at building up your lumbars (the muscles in your lower back). +1 to yoga and pilates too.

I'm never in character late on a Friday afternoon.

Fucking bonkers Velocio, looks like people are tip-toeing around you.

good call, kayaked for the w/e last week and was amazed that back felt better rather than worse...went with a lumber support expecting pain....sad thing is the cycling is the worst thing for it.....doctor actually told me to stop

I did read his post again. Yeah, I was harsh, sorry for that.

I did read his post again. Yeah, I was harsh, sorry for that.

I want to see a photo of you kissing Tommy on the face with a caption that reads: "I am so sorry for the words I said, I love you Tommy, I love you like a daddy loves his baby child, that's how I love you".

I quite enjoyed acupuncture. It was a wierd but strangely relaxing feeling after a session.

However it did not quite help my symptoms. Worth trying IMO.

I don't think acupuncture is widely accepted as a good cure for fleas

I don't think acupuncture is widely accepted as a good cure for fleas

The results.

Must never.

be.

Visible.

I'll probably get shot down in flames here but, this is how I see it knowing people with difficult to treat ailments:

Western medecine: Very good with fixing mechancal type problems with the human body - say a knee reconstruction. amazing stuff, glad it's all possible.

Eastern/traditional medecine: very good with painfull/annoying ailments in areas western medicine struggles to treat. Example. My dad kept getting styes on his eyelids. 1 after the other. The doctor kept cutting them off. He's had about 5 or so removed, and on the 6th one his doctor said " you know, I've had one guy in here 35 times for this." My dad thought, there must be a better way. He went to see a naturopath, he said my dad's system was acidic and was causing the styes. My dad changed his diet as per the recommendations, hey presto, no more styes.

My mother has arthritis in her spine. The doctor just says take pain killers. She tried everything and in the end a naturopath recommended lifestyle changes - diet and exercise and various natural remedies. The pain is now managable.

Try to be a bit more open.

I suggest you watch this ....

YouTube - Open-mindedness

@ about 6 minutes 15 seconds explains my position on these things better than anything else.

Lucas, you are welcome to think that acupuncture is supernatural.

The point I was trying to make VeeVee if you would stop being so trite, is that wanting evidence before does not mean one is close minded.

I'll probably get shot down in flames here but, this is how I see it knowing people with difficult to treat ailments:

Western medecine: Very good with fixing mechancal type problems with the human body - say a knee reconstruction. amazing stuff, glad it's all possible.

Eastern/traditional medecine: very good with painfull/annoying ailments in areas western medicine struggles to treat. Example. My dad kept getting styes on his eyelids. 1 after the other. The doctor kept cutting them off. He's had about 5 or so removed, and on the 6th one his doctor said " you know, I've had one guy in here 35 times for this." My dad thought, there must be a better way. He went to see a naturopath, he said my dad's system was acidic and was causing the styes. My dad changed his diet as per the recommendations, hey presto, no more styes.

My mother has arthritis in her spine. The doctor just says take pain killers. She tried everything and in the end a naturopath recommended lifestyle changes - diet and exercise and various natural remedies. The pain is now managable.

I'd say CAM is now a lot more careful about grand claims to treat cancer etc, but that wasn't always the case - and there are still some practitioners of some treatments that do a lot of damage by making inflated claims about their efficacy, but let's not get into that.

CAM is very good at treating cyclic conditions, like chronic pain (stuff that gets worse for a while, then gets better for a while). Humans are very good at seeing patterns in random data. Just saying, like. Also, and perhaps more importantly, people seem to frequently misunderstand the words "no better than placebo". That doesn't mean "no clinically significant effect" - it just means "probably not doing what you think it is". The placebo effect is very powerful and useful. If it wasn't for ethical considerations about misleading patients, then it would be used a lot more in "Western" medicine (? Science is not a western enterprise btw, and it's only westerners who believe in "Eastern" medicine that use that term. I'd prefer to use EBM, instead).

Finally - and this is getting a bit tl;dr - but someone mentioned that Chinese remedies are 2000 years' old. Well, willowbark has been used to treat pain for much longer than that. By the 1800's doctors had realised that willowbark extract was the really interesting thing, and by 1850 or so somebody had isolated the active ingredient by reaction with acetyl chloride to form an orally-bioavailable solid, acetylsalicylic acid, or Aspirin. 150 years later and this has given rise to the class of NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) that includes ibuprofen. As well as pain management, NSAIDs are useful for lowering fever (Aspirin was used to treat the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918) and, at least while I was still in science (eyebrows might correct me) they were being investigated for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimers. They don't have to be injected and they don't make you sleepy.

We could also talk about digitalis, which has a very similar history, or the excitingly-named, excitingly-structured and excitingly-discovered Vancomycin, which is about the most powerful antibiotic we still have, and was isolated from a soil sample taken by a missionary from a jungle path in Borneo.

I just think it's easy and lazy to dismiss scientific advances, or take them for granted, without knowing much about what life is like without them (ask someone with arthritis about painkillers, since we're big on personal anecdotes in this thread). And it's easy to romanticise treatments from other parts of the world that may (or may not) have long and mysterious histories, without realising how open-minded science is. All that is required is that a treatment works. There is no "bias" there before the evidence has been sought.

wanting evidence before does not mean one is close minded.

+1

Relying on intuition and arguments from authority is a lot more close-minded.

You can be open-minded about the possibility that something you would like to be true, isn't.

I agree with that too but lucas has referred to acupuncture as mystical bullshit (on another thread). I didn't read that as someone being open-minded and wanting evidence.