Russ hold on a bit....while there are quacks out there and I've heard of some real nutty ones, don't let that detract from the bits of other treatments that help....notice the word help, not cure. Generally these are for more palliative relief.

With that said about 3 years ago I would have written the same post you did. I flew down to Brisbane Australia to give a lecture series and my back was in a knot. I took muscle relaxers, painkillers and it didn't help., I could barely walk. A friend of mine drove me to her acupuncturist, now I was going with the attitude that this cannot help, but what the heck.

Short story, 40 minutes later my back was 98% better, just a little stiff. For a few more hours from the muscle spasms....that event did make me rethink my point of view. As they say the proof is in the pudding. Can acupuncture cure all...nope, I doubt it but it can help a lot of things..

China, where lots of the "alternative" medical theories come from including acupuncture had a life expectancy of about 35 up to 1960. At that time, the Chinese government decided to adopt Western Medicine (drugs, germ theory, and modern medical science) Within 10 years the life expectancy was at 60 and now it is at 75.

So when you think about the success of "traditional" medicine, remember it didn't work for the country where it originated.
Most of these alternative medicines tap into the placebo effect or into our desire to want to do something and unwillingness to admit we are easily duped and the amount of folks out there who are willing to get rich off of our gullibility.

Credulity is not a virtue!

There is a place for both types of medicines and therapies. MD Anderson offers acupuncture, massage, meditation, qigong classes on herbs and teas and many others.

Your right Russ, that's exactly why the 2 modalities can work side by side, there is no doubt that western medicine is key in disease managment and eradication, having a helping hand through another treatment modality is a great thing.

In your description of Chinese life expectancy your forgetting 2 VERY important points though....nutrition and hygiene.

According to the World Health Organization 64% of the fatalities and illnesses in China pre 1971 were due to preventable diseases due malnutrition and a lack of understanding of the risks of human waste, often the same water that was used for drinking and cooking was also used for washing and a repository for human waste.

The communist goverment at that time was working and starving its people literally to death. I would be carefull drawing a conclusion about eastern medical treatments and life expectancy in China during that period. Other very significant factors were involved.

Joe

The thing about having a disease like Myasthenia, in which the symptoms can be so variable (depending on the person and depending on the circumstances that day) we have to be careful of what we do and things we ingest, because some things will have a negative effect, and then some things do help. And then, as people have said in previous comments, even after you start the medication there's still a lot of waiting for it to start working, and that is difficult. So, of course we should remain aware that our neurologist who specializes in MG (if they're a good one) and our conventional medications and treatments are really the things that will make us better (hopefully! Unless they don't work for you...which, for some people, they just don't).

But, as we all have probably noticed, our symptoms generally are exacerbated by stress and improve when we are happy or relaxed, so anything we can do to make ourselves feel better will...make us feel better. (I know some people have beliefs about positive thought aiding in healing and I don't know much about that. But if you decide to do something like get a massage once a month just because it makes you temporarily feel better and relaxed; "feeling better" is a real and important thing and you should do whatever works for you...even if it's just the placebo effect. The placebo effect is real too. :) And that makes this crappy situation easier to deal with. So take precaution when you try something new like acupuncture or massage, just in case it exacerbates your symptoms or makes you too relaxed.

I had PT very briefly in the hospital, but didn't continue it. It seems we myasthenics can loose muscle tone very quickly, so exercising with a physical therapist who understands MG would probably be helpful to someone who would like to regain some strength. I have not tried acupuncture, but one time I did get a very gentle massage and that made me feel better for hours afterwards, in the same way that taking a nap would make me feel better (though I know many people feel worse after a massage). My favorite method of self-medication is exercise; lots of walking, and running when I can.

Annie, I hope you continue to get better!

Maybe we can learn from Japan. Their life expectancy is #1. The US is #34

I recommend going to a voodoo doctor and have the pins stuck in a doll--then we won't be susceptible to infections from the puncture wounds, or better yet, go to a tattoo artist and get something to show from the skin punctures ;-)

Evidence based research should be the standard, but therapies that are not traditional should be allowed to be tested. To exclude potential therapies from testing based on a perception that they are "alternative" is introducing a bias in the research from its inception! Don't get me wrong, I appreciate antibiotics as much as the next guy with strep throat, but I acknowledge that plain old black elderberry can do more than Tamiflu can to knock influenza out of man. :)

Acupuncture has been tested and works only on the subjective Ailments.

Russ you may want to look into the 13 year study that Harvard Medical School went through. They worked with over 800 accredited practitioners performing double blind studies that looked at whether acupuncture was a placebo or real affect. Hands down study group after study group came up with the same answer ....acupuncture works as an adjunctive therapy.

This has been peer reviewed by the NEJM, AMA, NIH and National Academy of Sciences. You'll have to forgive me I'm just a lowly physicist at MIT, but I do feel our neighbors down the river know a thing or so about western medicine, so when they have performed a study this in depth and have come up with a highly repeatable result, I tend to believe them. Mind you Harvard has been at the leading edge of western medicine for well over 100 years.

Some reading if you would like the facts...not just some quick snappy retorts or ill informed rhetoric.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/relieving-pain-with-acupuncture

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23338773

http://www.aana.com/newsandjournal/documents/p361-370.pdf

http://nccam.nih.gov/health/acupuncture/acupuncture-for-pain.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14625973

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2642987/

Take care



Joe

Sham acupuncture is equally effective. If you want a rational review search with terms skeptic and acupuncture. http://skepdic.com/acupuncture.html

Ok interesting article Russ, but that's one persons opinion not a well regulated and designed medical study. I can find thousands of such opinions on the net, I try to find the facts when I can. Facts in science or medicine are those that go through rigorous tests and trials and peer review while publishing all of the details of the study. These usually start with phase 1 and phase 2 trials and if proven viable at those stages continue to more complete studies.

Mind you one bit of that article that is quite true, the placebo effect is very real and guess what used by doctors and nurses each and every day to help the treatment or medication work better. The professionals know that of they can convince the patient or at least be encouraging that a particularly treatment or medicine will work better

The last studies I read on that topic show that the placebo effect runs at about an average of 32%, not bad since various medicines we take readily have efficacy rates lower than that. The power of the human mind is incredible. Couple that with proven treatments with high efficacy rates you can provide the patient with quality care and relief.

Russ another red flag in that article was that he is jumping from topic to topic and not looking into the actual study he is quoting or any comparative studies. I just looked up 3 of the 4 studies quoted and none of them were double blind studies, they were not repeated and the sample size in each case was quite small one of them with 12 participants and the other 22.

The slightly larger one looked at the efficacy of acupuncture in IVF success in achieving pregnancy, that had 97 participants who were told what the studies goals were. IVF is a separate and highly risky procedure that I can't find any recognized data for and current practitioners do not recognize acupuncture as a treatment for IVF

Basically the writer of this article is picking and choosing essentially small case studies not regulated trials and selling that as fact, unfortunately there is a lot of that type of non-science out there

What I see in that article is opinion based journalism not any data or relevance that can be considered scientific by western medicine standards.

Joe

Even IF acupuncture was all placebo, if it was effective, who cares?

We do all sorts of things in life to make us happy, religion included. Lifestyles can be placebo effect.

I see plenty of articles out there with a search of "acupuncture and myasthenia gravis." Try that...

Some people may have insurance coverage for it. Why not try unless something bad associated.