Humbug in the Hospital

We all know that alternative medicine is Humbug with a capital "H." If you don't know that, you're probably jumping ahead in class here, so I suggest you do some reading on alternative medicine (homeopathy always provides a humorous topic for discussion) before we continue.

Now that it's just us skeptics here, we can safely discuss what's going on in our hospitals. I'm going to illustrate by example, and tell you about something that happened to my mother. We're going to start at tbe beginning, and go right up until the very moment at which I'm writing this. Not everything we'll encounter on this journey is humbug, but there's certainly a lot of it around.

You see, for just under twenty years, my mother has had problems with chronic pain. The diagnosis of more than one doctor has been: Fibromyalgia, a disease almost completely unheard of several years ago, and now everyone seems to be talking about it.

Symptoms of Fibromyalgia include widespread pain, sleep disorders, depression, numbness or tingling in the hands or feet, difficulty concentrating, mood swings, chest pain, dry eyes, dry skin, dry mouth, dizziness, anxiety, and the list goes on and on.

Doctors don't know what causes Fibromyalgia (there are those who consider "Fibromyalgia" simply a label given to a particular set of symptoms when the actual cause cannot be determined). One of the current theories receiving a degree of attention is that it might in fact be a mental disease, characterized by the hightened sensitivity to pain (and therefore, a lower pain threshold). Other theories on what causes fibromyalgia include: spinal injury, infection, or changes in muscle metabolism.

They're still doing the research and don't have answers, but it's interesting to note that doctors currently believe that fibromyalgia is not progressive. That is, it doesn't get worse over time. Store that bit of information away for later.

Just as doctors don't know what causes fibromyalgia, they don't know how to cure it. Intensity of symptoms vary widely between patients, but they never disappear completely. Treatment of fibromyalgia is more in the interest of minimizing the symptoms rather than actually curing the cause (future research, of course, could demonstrate what causes the disease and lead to changes in treatment--that's how science works).

The problem is that traditional (scientific) medicine can't cure it, so many patients seek treatment from alternative medicine. We'll briefly cover a few of the "treatments" my mother tried, but bear in mind that the purpose of this article is not to debunk these particular therapies, so my discussion of these in this article will not be conclusive.

Applied Kinesiology: First, know that this is not the same thing as academic kinesiology. Applied kinesiology is the sort of alternative medicine that if you ask ten practitioners for an explanations, you'd probably get ten different answers. The most popular form of AK involves pushing down on a patient's arm while he or she applies resistance. The idea is that this will test muscle strength under different conditions. This practice, however, has been demonstrated to be almost completely subjective. The practioner applies the test, analyzes the results, and prescribes treatment arbitrarily with no physical evidence to support his or her claims.

One of the applied kinesiologists my mother went to, let's call her Dr. Odd (not her real name, but I must hide her identity to protect the guilty--and to protect myself from a lawsuit) went so far as to test which herbal remedies would be appropriate by placing a sealed bottle of these herbal preparations on my mother's stomach while applying the "arm pulling" test. This was supposed to demonstrate which preparations had the right "energy."

It's interesting to note that the American Chiropractic Association considers AK a valid chiropractic methodology (indeed, one of the 15 most common techniques in the United States, with more than 40% of chiropractors practicing), while the Danish Chiropractic Association rejects AK. Chiropractors are free to practice this "medicine," they say, as long as it is made perfectly clear to the patient that it is alternative and not a part of Chiropractic Medicine. At least the Danish chiropractors have some decency...

Acupuncture: In ancient Chinese medicine, acupuncture (the act of inserting very fine needles into certain parts of a patient's body) was said to improve the Qi or Chi (energy) flow through the body's pathways or meridians. This has been fully debunked by proper science, but acupuncture is still practiced in Western medicine. Its claims are no longer the same, but the practice has changed little.

There is some evidence that acupuncture does have a positive effect, but the studies have been inconclusive and it may simple be a placebo effect. Fortunately, there is little risk from properly applied acupuncture. As long as the needles are sterile and inserted properly, there's almost no danger, unless you have particular medical conditions (bleeding conditions in particular).

Chiropractic care: While it probably seems mainstream today, chiropractors are bad news. I must start by saying that there are good chiropractors out there, who can actually help with certain problems, the vast majority are quacks (I can call them quacks without worrying about a lawsuit because I don't mention any names) who believe they can treat just about any problem by manipulating the spine.

It's true that chiropractic care might be able to help if you have a spinal condition (it may be able to help with certain muscular conditions). But chiropractors are manipulating your spine and moving your bones. Whenever you get into that sort of work, it's very easy to cause severe problems.

Remember when I said fibromyalgia is not progressive? Well my mother has been getting progressively worse for ten to fifteen years. I strongly believe it's the result of chiropractic malpractise.

Massage therapy: There's little harm to be done with massage therapy. There are also very few medical benefits. It's a great way to relax and feel good for a while, and that's all any reputable therapist will claim. Unfortunately there are a few who claim their massages have real medical benefits. They don't.

Reflexology: Reflexology is the idea that by stimulating the nerves in the foot, one can cure all sorts of diseases not related to the foot at all. This, too, has been thoroughly debunked by proper scientists.

Magnet therapy: Fortunately, my mother never really got into the magnet therapy. The theory is that the magnets can attract the iron in the blood (there's no science to support that or any other aspect of magnet therapy). Somewhere around the house, stuffed in the back of one of our closets, is a blanket with small magnets sewn into the fabric every few inches. As much as I love magnets and as much as I love blankets, that was a complete waste of money (and not particularly comfortable). The only good thing about magnet therapy.

Homeopathy: If there ever was a load of medical bullshit, homeopathy is the perfect example. The good news is that homeopathic preparations really can't do any harm. The bad news is they can't do anything at all (indeed, they can be harmful to the extent that people may use them instead of real medicine). The basic idea of homeopathy is to dilute a medicine to the point where it's no longer even present in the final product. But, they say, it will still retain efficacy.

I think that's a fair cross-section of alternative medicine (though my no means is it a complete list). Speaking from personal experience, and from research on medical science, I can safely say: alternative medicine is bullshit.

It is most unfortunate that this sort of humbug is infiltrating our hospitals. Most real doctors know what these things really are (and there's a damned good reason these doctors don't prescribe such treatments).

But it just about made my heart stop when I was at the hospital with my mother about a week ago. She'd finally gotten sick of the quacks and went in for surgery. Everything seemed to go well, but while she was in recovery, I was chatting with one of the nurses. The topic of alternative medicine came up (interestingly enough, I usually talk about alternative medicine when around medical professionals, tarot cards when around Wiccans, and debate evolution vs. creationism when around religious people).

With each new bit of quackery I mentioned, her answer was pretty much the same: "I don't know much about it, but a lot of people swear by it." In her case, I'm glad to report, she was very willing to listen to reason. For example, when I explained exactly what homeopaths do, she was surprised at how ridiculous it actually was. But this nurse seems to be an exception, rather than the rule. Most people who don't reject these alternative medicines seem to be strong believers who can't be convinced.

It's easy to see how these can appeal to the patients--they're desperate for relief, and willing to believe anything. It's also not difficult to see how nurses might fall into this trap. Nurses and other medical assistants aren't allowed to diagnose or treat patients according to the rules and regulations of traditional medicine. But homeopathy or theraputic touch? you don't even need a degree for those!

With these temptations in place, and with the tons and tons of pseudoscience out there, it's easy to get fooled. Sadly, there aren't enough people debunking these practices (there are more practitioners than skeptics, it seems), and more and more people are being sucked in.

And now, you don't even need to go to another location for alternative medicine. It's infiltrating our hospitals, and when people are in a mentally weak state, and in a location where they expect to find highly trained professionals to give them only the best advice, it's all too easy to mistake junk science for real science.