Quote Originally Posted by Jimbo View Post
In 2004 I had a very bad case of "tennis" or "pitcher's" elbow. I had it for over a couple weeks. A friend of mine who is a very experienced acupuncturist came back visiting, and offered to give me a free session (he brings his needles when he travels). The session took maybe 30 to 40 minutes. By the next morning, it was completely gone, and never came back.
Awesome

That was my first acupuncture session, and it worked the first time. And although I was hopeful it would work, I also had some inner doubts that it would. So it wasn't power of suggestion. But the important thing is that it worked, and I did NOT need to be injected with cortisone or any other harmful drugs. Will it always work that quickly with one session? No. But the fact is that it can and does work.
I think accupuncture is also one of those things where not everyone is equally qualified.

Are there some good accupucturists? Sure!

Are there some nutjobs who are just trying to capitalize on the fact that some people want accupuncture? Absolutely.

Same thing with chiropractic (another scammy practice). There are some good chiropractors. Most of them are just salesmen and chiropractic isn't even a science; it's a bunch of woo.

Back to accupuncture. Can it cure some things? Yeah, probably in some cases.

Is it a secret mystic cure-all that Western medicine wants to keep down? Of course not. Are the people who think this is the case? Yes.

Eastern and Western medicine have their places. You cannot single out Eastern only as quack medicine. The number of people who die each year as a result of mistakes by Western medical doctors alone is catastrophic.
Agreed. But it's unrelated to the efficacy of Chinese medicine.

On a related note, be your own advocate. If the dr gives you drugs, research them for interactions because even tho the docs and pharmacists are supposed to do this, sometimes things slip through the cracks.

If you're supposed to have something removed, take a magic marker and write "wrong one" on the other side. There are stories of doctors amputating the wrong limb and stuff, which is tragic.

Trust doctors, but verify what they tell you. Know what you are taking and why. Know how it works.

Doctors are human. Humans make mistakes.

Research and attempt to authenticate anything anyone tells you for that matter. Like if they say they are protecting themselves with qi, but it actually seems more like physics and stage tricks, don't just believe them at face value