Alternative Reality

Alternative medicine is rubbish, says Francis Hourican. The only thing it will permanently affect is your wallet.

One of the colour supplements just ran an article on the miracle of osteopathy. You know the kind of thing – despairing family, failed by mainstream medicine, turns to osteopathy. After just two sessions – miracle! – ailing child is completely cured and hasn’t given a minute’s trouble since. If you didn’t read the article, you’ve read a hundred like it – for osteopathy substitute acupuncture, reiki, craniosacral therapy, ayuverdic massage, tuning fork therapy, whatever.

Returning to the article in question: “We increase fluid circulation in the skull and down the spine and aid the circulation of blood and lymphatics,” explains the osteopath. What? She’s actually manipulating spinal fluid! Her gentle fingers are working through hard bone (in a non-invasive kind of way) getting the fluid to swish about.

It sounds a little dangerous, but we’d love to know how it’s done. Unfortunately we’re not told. It’s the kind of feel-good story, big on happy, smiling photos and short on science, that has victims of this rubbish tearing our hair out.

I have used CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) in one form or another since the age of three. Over the years I’ve tried homeopathy, aromatherapy, ear candling, acupuncture and herbal supplements in an attempt to find a cure for several chronic ailments, including asthma, eczema and bronchitis.

In my view, they don’t work. None of them work.

In 2001 I fell seriously ill. I got out of bed one morning to find my head spinning so much I could hardly stand. It seemed like a bad flu but wouldn’t go away. A month later I was still dragging myself around, dark rings under eyes, glands swollen, head drooping. I was listless, melancholic and bitchy. After a year it was clear this wasn’t going away. I began to panic – in a listless kind of way.

Nobody was using the word, but I had ME, a debilitating illness usually triggered by a virus such as glandular fever. It is diagnosed by default – when they’ve ruled out everything else and you still feel dreadful, they call it ME. Doctors haven’t a clue how to treat it, so many of them dismiss it as psychosomatic.
It became clear that the GPs had nothing up their sleeves except antibiotics and more antibiotics (which were having no effect), so when I heard about an acupuncturist who was getting great results, I seized on it.

My first consultation was heartening. The acupuncturist listened carefully, in perfect stillness.
“Can you help me?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, nodding matter-of-factly and staring at me in silence.

I was slightly thrown. I’d expected some kind of diagnosis. But then I had not yet read The Book. Sold to me then and there by my acupuncturist, The Book would apparently answer all questions. Written by an eminent professor, The Book boiled all ill-health down to “imbalance.” When your ‘chi’, or life force, is out of balance, illness takes hold. Only through the exceptional sensitivity of the acupuncturist can your particular imbalance be divined and the natural flow of your chi restored. 

After just one session I felt I was already regaining balance. I was buzzing, euphoric. Not only had my symptoms cleared up but I felt strangely happy and at peace. Overnight I became a convert. I went about with a spring in my step, extolling acupuncture to anyone who’d listen.

Why did more people not know of this miraculous cure? It was my mission to bring acupuncture to the suffering – perhaps even become an acupuncturist myself. I flattered myself that I had the sensitivity – sure, I was useless at chemistry, biology and all the subjects required to get into pre-med, but, by God, everywhere I looked I could see imbalances! Clear as day.

I bought a huge book called Chinese Medicine but it couldn’t tell me all I wanted to know – who found out that there were 12 meridians in the body, each linked to a vital organ? My acupuncturist simply said that it came about because Chinese soldiers in battle began to notice how good they felt after being struck with spears, or something like that… But no matter. I felt a million dollars and this was just the beginning! A few more months and I’d be unstoppable. I’d conquer the world!

A week later, I crashed. I couldn’t get out of bed – except to see my acupuncturist. I dragged myself in. “How are you – in yourself?” she asked, looking significant. “I’m dreadful” I replied. “I haven’t been out of bed for a week.” She concluded, with some satisfaction, “Law of Cure.” I’d read about the Law of Cure in The Book. It meant that I was going to get worse before I got better. It was a good sign. A proof that all those toxins were being expunged. Don’t panic if you feel worse – it’s a good sign. Of course if you get better without getting worse, that’s also a good sign. Everything’s a good sign.

Law of Cure seemed to go on and on. I kept waiting for the upturn, the moment of absolution. My acupuncturist gave me charts to fill in. I had to make a daily entry: date, hours of sleep, how am I feeling morning, how am I feeling evening, energy score out of ten. I filled them in meticulously, ever vigilant for signs of recovery. Reading over them now, they look like the final entries in the log book of a ghost ship: “May 2nd. Chesty, groggy, frustrated – but feel it may be working itself out of system.” A week later: “May 8th. Will I ever get out of bed?”

I’d report my energy scores to my acupuncturist. “Three,” I’d say, trying to shock her. But she was unfazed: “Oh! That’s good.” She developed a strong hold over me. After sternly vetoing a blood test (“unnecessary”), she dispensed advice on how to deal with my mother, who was distraught and hostile to acupuncture: “Turn your body at right angles to your mother when she is arguing with you, place a protective hand over your breast, and surround yourself psychologically with white light.”

But try as we might, the acupuncturist and I couldn’t get that initial, glorious honeymoon period back. Even extreme measures such as sticking needles in my eyeballs and fingertips failed to get a reading on the Richter scale – it was like putting a dead cat under a defibrillator. I was deathly, sluggish, and living in dread of a needle in the perineum (the area between anus and groin). I had heard rumours of this on the grapevine – it was for really serious cases. The thought of arriving for treatment and being informed that it was the perineum today brought me out in a cold sweat.

I hoped that through willpower, I might start to improve. My charts reflected this. From my honest initial energy score of three, I was defiantly entering five or even six every other day. But people around me couldn’t see a change. After several months I had to admit that nothing much was happening.

Next up was a nutritionist. She looked more ill than I did, and spoke in that irritating, soothing tone peculiar to people who work in health-food shops. I learnt that the problem was in fact candida – bad bacteria running rife in my gut and spreading through my body like wildfire. (I did have candida but learned later that it is a symptom of ME, not the cause.)

I had to cut out bread, yeast, sugar, flour, alcohol, pasta, white rice, cereals, cheese, milk, eggs, butter. Meat was alright, but not mustard. That left a cheerless diet of brown rice, rice milk, millet (birdfood) and quinoa (a seed-like cereal taken by the Incas). Then there were the supplements: grapefruit seed extract, plant sterols, garlic capsules. We’d starve the candida and then blitz it with the antibacterial supplements. “You’re going to feel great,” said the nutritionist, but not like she meant it.

The diet did starve the candida. It also starved me. Three weeks later I had lost a stone, was gaunt and hollow-eyed and could think of nothing but food. I felt like an anorexic, controlling each mouthful. I was obsessed with fighting candida, and combed the Internet for products. There was no shortage of stuff – Probio5, Pau d’Arco, Caprylic acid, yew tree, olive leaf.

I discovered that 85% of Americans have candida, and most of them don’t even know it! Of course there was a disclaimer at the end of each product (“Not intended to treat, cure, or prevent any disease”) but what did that matter? That was just a legal formality. Look at the testimonies: “Since I started the grapefruit seed extract I feel I have finally got my life back. Now I go up and down the stairs several times a day and have even started playing the piano again. Thank you for this supplement!” enthuses John from Oregon.

It gave me a sense of empowerment to take ownership of my health. It was a full-time job and costly too, what with all the vitamins, supplements and specially sourced food. I couldn’t say I felt better – I was nauseous most of the time, but my nutritionist told me that was a good sign (the bacteria were dying off!). But there was a catch – you can’t actually get rid of candida. Like the war on terror, it can’t be rooted out, just kept under tight control. Which meant more supplements…

Thus I found myself surrounded on all sides by modern day mountebanks, defined by Dr. Johnson as a “doctor who mounts a bench in the market, and boasts his infallible remedies and cures.”
So how to spot a mountebank? They go by many names: acupuncturist, aromatherapist, cranial osteopath, chiropractor, crystal therapist.

One of the most popular refuges for mountebanks – and arguably the most contentious – is homeopathy. In June an English academic decided to offer a prize of £10,000 to anyone who could provide verifiable evidence that it works. His view is that homeopathy, “in which patients are offered absurdly dilute solutions of various substances, is of no use whatsoever.”

In her new book, Suckers: How Alternative Medicine makes Fools of Us All, Rose Shapiro notes the ten characteristics of every branch of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)

The Ten Characteristics of Complementary and Alternative Medicine

• There will be a disclaimer.
• It will be holistic (claiming to treat the whole you).
• Feeling worse will be a good sign.
• It will be based on centuries or millennia old wisdom and the method will not have changed over time, unlike conventional medicine which is constantly refining.
• It will flatter you, make you feel special.
• It will be supported by extravagant testimonials.
• A powerful establishment will be said to be suppressing it.
• It will sound too good to be true.
• It will not be used in a crisis (no one turns to alternative medicine for
a broken leg, appendicitis or a
heart attack).
• There will be no empirical evidence that it works. This, despite over $1 billion already having been spent on research into CAM.

Alternative medicine devotees are unperturbed by any of this – indeed science has almost become a dirty word for them. A trip to an acupuncturist or a cranial therapist is a lifestyle choice. And anyway, they think, it’s non-invasive. It’s difficult to know exactly what non-invasive means, but it’s definitely safe.
Except it isn’t.

Chiropractic medicine, for example, is so integrated that it comes as a surprise to learn not only that it’s CAM. In my view it’s downright dangerous.

Consider the case of Laurie Jean Mathiason, who suffered a massive stroke minutes after having her neck cracked by a chiropractor. As she was wheeled out to the ambulance the chiropractor muttered it was a “one in a million chance,” but in fact Canadian researchers found that stroke victims are five times more likely than controls to have visited a chiropractor in the week before their stroke. As a doctor said to Laurie Jean’s mother, “Never let those buggers touch you above the shoulders.”

Even worse are the alternative practitioners operating within the ‘cancer industry.’ Last month Clare GP Paschal Carmody was brought to trial by the families of three of his former patients who say he promised them a miracle cure for cancer through Photodynamic Therapy, an unproven alternative procedure. He was found not guilty of six charges of obtaining money by deception; the jury could not decide on the remaining 11 charges, and the case will be brought before the court again at the end of this month.

In the US, Shapiro cites cases of cancer sufferers being persuaded to stop chemotherapy and part with large sums for a more ‘holistic’ treatment. Paul McNamara paid $44,000 (€28,000) for his wife to undergo the ‘Rana System,’ a nutritional approach to beating cancer, which includes energy-zapping devices, Zen Chi massages, magnetic pulsers, coffee enemas, ozone therapy and thermal imaging. To no effect, of course.
It was the evangelical aspect of CAM that bugged me most.

Admittedly, mainstream GPs didn’t do me much good either. I found doctors bored and unhelpful. When I failed to respond to treatment, they decided that my illness was psychosomatic – the default diagnosis of an arrogant profession. It is cruel to tell an ill person that the problem is in their mind, and it’s this attitude that drives the sick into the arms of CAM. But I’d still take doctors, in their disinterest and cruelty, over the dangerously misplaced confidence of CAM quacks.

Very few alternative therapists will admit they can’t help. For a start, they need patients since the market is increasingly competitive. But worse, I believe they’re too complacent to admit that they don’t know what’s wrong, or that there are illnesses to which herbs and chi won’t respond.

Take the list of conditions they claim they can treat: asthma, acne, bronchitis, herpes, ME, learning difficulties, migraine, varicose veins, etc. Most doctors admit they have no idea how to cure ME, so how can someone with an internet correspondence course think they’ve cracked it?

The acupuncture did help me – for about a week. I now know that was because sticking needles in you releases endorphins. You get the same buzz from a tattoo. But it won’t cure anything.
For sick people in desperate need of help, someone who waltzes in with complete confidence is a liability.

A sick person will brush aside the lack of evidence and believe what they want to, or need to. The testimonials presented as evidence on every single alternative therapy website or pamphlet are meaningless. Even if they’re not actually made up, you can’t trust a sick person’s evidence. John from Oregon may indeed feel like he has “finally got his life back,” but that’s because he’s grasping at straws.

The good news is that I eventually found something which helped, but it wasn’t in the world of CAM. It was at the cutting edge of mainstream medicine – immunology. A four-year course of allergy shots didn’t cure me, but it gave me great relief, in which time my body returned to more or less its former health. I’m lucky – I had the emotional and financial support to keep looking for help.

But as Tom Kindlon of the ME Association of Ireland says, “Many ME sufferers have no money left because they’ve spent it all on alternative medicine.”

Suckers: How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools of Us All by Rose Shapiro is out now. Harvill Secker, €18

Comments

[Paddy]

Any chance somebody can post more info on ...."the cutting edge of mainstream medicine – immunology. A four-year course of allergy shots" referred to?

BTW - just for the sake of balance in my experience "Conventional Medicine(CM)" is no better than CAM when it comes to ME/CFS, but it sure costs far more, not to mention the insult "that it's all in your head" when CM fails!

[Patrick]

Paddy,

You say Conventional Medicine(CM) costs more than CAM (complementary and alternative medicine). I'm not sure how you can say this. People can spend a large amount on either.

There are innumerable CAM treatments out there so people can easily spend lots of money if they start going down that direction. Of course, any one CAM treatment can cost a lot if one goes regularly e.g. weekly/fortnightly.

Also theoretically conventional medicine will be paid for either by the State or health insurance companies. Or conventional medicine expenses can be claimed back by tax. This option generally doesn't apply to CAM.

Ooh! Battle of the Paddys! Get a room.

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