Holistic Doctors, and medicine

The problem with "natural healing" and whatnot is that there is little to no way you can know if anything they are telling you is based in research, science, or anything rational. They take on the mantle of medical practice but do not live under the same strict standards of empiricism. The schools they attend are not like medical school and are often more like 13th grade. Many of the things they are taught in those places is either just flat out wrong or based upon woo-woo.Herbs may or may not help you, and there's little you can do to find out if they will except use yourself as a guinea pig. Lots of herbs are marketed for lots of maladies, but none of the companies who sell them have to demonstrate that they are safe nor effective for their intended use before selling them to you, so you're pretty much on your own as far as safety and efficacy goes.Homeopathy is total bunk. You can read about homeopathy here.Here are some good links for you to read to avoid quacks:http://www.quackwatch.org/07PoliticalActivities/WHC/02.html
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/avoid.html
Be Wary of "Alternative," "Complementary," and "Integrative" Health Methods | Quackwatch
http://www.quackwatch.org/...keryRelatedTopics/scivsalt.html
http://www.quackwatch.org/...keryRelatedTopics/altpsych.html
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/herbs.html

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There is no excuse, plain and simple. Or medical system should be set up in a way, where you can go to one building, and have all the test done, in order, to accommodate process of elimination.

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You mean like the socialized medicine they have in Canada and most of Europe?

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I don't know how that works, but it doesn't sound like what I would like to see. I don't think socialized medicine is the same thing as having all the tools at your disposal. You are describing what Hillary wanted to do.

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It works like this, Rat.Healthcare is paid for by everybody, through taxes. Everyone is covered. Healthcare becomes a public welfare issue instead of profit-driven. Costs go down because more people are getting preventative care and are generally healthier becasue they don't wait to go to the doctor because they can't afford it. The huge financial burden upon business is lifted, so more of their resources can go towards other things innovation, workers would probably see a bigger paycheck and investors would see a bigger dividend. Workers would be freer to leave a job they were not happy with becasue they would not fear losing their healthcare coverage, thus making businesses compete harder for people by offering better compensation. People would feel freer to start their own businesses because they wouldn't have to worry about healthcare costs. Large corporations would be less likely to outsource jobs overseas since the reason they do that is, in part, because they don't have to pay for healthcare for those workers.Since healthcare is no longer profit-driven, there would be a fairer geographic distribution of facilities and services; people in rural areas wouldn't have to drive for two hours to see a specialist as they now often have to, and there would no longer be the wastefulness of having 10 diagnostic MRI facilities in a few square miles of a wealthy urban area, as is often the case now.Healthcare would return to being patient-focused instead of insurance company profit-focused, so the cost of tests, treatments, and time spent with medical professionals would not be a consideration in the care you get, unlike today.Are these the "kooky" ideas you were referring to?

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And you think putting that responsibility into the hands of our government is a good idea?

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YES!...if it means that everybody gets very good care for an awful lot less money, as opposed to a few of us getting excellent care for a lot of money, a lot of us getting mediocre care for also a lot of money, and a significant minority of us getting poor to no care for (wait for it) also a lot of money.You trust the government, rather than the free market, to defend our borders, protect you from attack and help you during times of disaster through our socialized military and law enforcement, you know.Or maybe you think we should privatize the military and the police force, so that they are profit-driven, rather than public service-oriented? They would certainly become more efficient, but I'm not sure if their hearts would remain in the right place, you know?

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There would also be no choice of what doctor you are allowed to see.

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Don't be silly, of course you would have choice of what doctor to see.In fact, you would have MORE choice than you have currently. I can't just see any doctor I want, because they have to be in the list of doctors in my insurance plan. If I want to se a doctor not listed in my plan, I have to pay out of pocket.If everybody in the country was covered by our government, every doctor in the country would be equally available to all.Tell me, rat, did you actually bother to find out anything about what socialized medicine actually is before you rejected it, or did you just swallow all of the fear mongering of the insurance company lobbyists speaking through their right-wing legislators? All you've been doing is parrotting all of their negative (and inaccurate/false) soundbites.

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While this whole idea about letting the government control our health care sounds great (because I wish to see everyone have coverage) I wonder just how efficiently they would run it, and just what would it cost us in our already too high tax dollars. Are the middle class going to be supporting the country with this?

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Rat, this is not some bizzaro idea that nobody has ever tried, or some people tried and it hasn't worked.Most other industrialized countries, including Canada and most of Europe have socialized medicine and have for decades.More importantly, those countries have much healthier people and spend far less than we do for healthcare.

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I am already taxed up the ass. And being that we have a government that likes to spend $800 for toilet seats, I am not confident that it is a good idea.

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If your company didn't have to pay for your insurance, then they could pay you more in dollars or more vacation time or whatever.If everybody is covered, insurance companies wouldn't be hiking up your employer's rates to pay for the uninsured, which is what they do now.Tell me, do you think that the police force and the military should be privatized instead of remaining socialized?Why don't you educate yourself on what socialized medicine actually is and stop parroting back more right-wing soundbites?

All I can say, rat, is that each and every objection you have raised in this thread are exactly the (spurious) fearmongering soundbites the conservatives use every time someone starts talking about socialized healthcare.Also, if you agree that a socialized military and socialized police force can work, why are you so down on socialized healthcare, especially when you have admitted that you don't know anything about it?Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Take a guess.

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YOU CAN BEAT YOUR PROBLEMS.

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Buzsaw, how the hell can you possibly know that?You don't even know what's wrong with him, exactly, and if diet and exercise has any effect whatsoever on the problem.I mean, diet and exercise can't prevent or cure or have much, if any, effect upon a lot of medical problems.And, once someone has a problem, even if diet and exercise might have prevented it, changing habits after the problem developed is sometimes too little, too late.

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Stop enriching the fat cat pharms & meds and start getting better like I did.

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Oh, the irony.From your own link about Sinol, emphasis added by me: Your link isn't about how effective the product is, buz. It's all about the company's marketing strategy and how bright the future is for the sales. The link is a press release from the advertizing agency that handles the marketing campaign of Sinol, and it is a large account, selling in 15,000 mass market stores.If you object to "enriching fat-cat" big-business, then you probably shouldn't buy Sinol, either.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

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I do know what's wrong with him, madear. He's sick. His body is sick and needs wholistically healed. He needs what will help his whole imune system, rid his body of the congestion and give it the stuff it needs to fix itself.

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Not all medical problems can be fixed by the body "healing itself", buz.Many can't, in fact.Before western medicine, people often died at quite young ages because they would die of things like infections from cuts or influenza or complications from pregnancy and childbirth or scarlet fever or polio or the mumps or pneumonia.How does a body "heal itself" from cystic fibrosis, or lupus, or epilepsy, or Huntington's disease, or hemophelia, Tay-Sachs disease? Without modern medicine, people with these diseases would just suffer and die.

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......Says the closed minded skeptic who's not been there and who knows not what she's talking about.

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Personal experience is meaningless, buz, and I can read.I can read reality-based information, rather rely on "buz's little insular fantasy-world".That reality-based information is telling me that sometimes, bodies get jacked up so badly that the damage just can't be repaired. At least, not fully.Hell, I can look at both of my parents for examples of that.

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I use it and it works with no bad side effects. Have you?

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You've missed or avoided the point entirely, buz. I have no idea if Sinol works or not, and it doesn't matter at all to the point I made.You constantly disparage modern medicine and drug companies as being "big-business fat cats", and advise people to stop giving them their money.As if the fact that the companies are large is reason enough to not trust them.Well, clearly the company that sells Sinol is a big-time player, since they hired a sophisticated marketing firm to help them sell their product most effectively in 15,000 mass-market retailers.Your cited press release makes it clear that they believe that the marketing strategy will result in great sales and a lot of profits for the company.Why are you giving money to Sinol's "fat cat", big business profiteers who, with their slick marketing, seem to only be interested in making money?You can't have it both ways, buz. You can't criticize one big drug company for being interested in making money and give a pass to another big drug company that is interesated in making money just because you like what one of them makes and not the other.Or, perhaps you just conveniently forget that the people who make Sinol are in business in order to make as much profit as possible?

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They are packed in soybean oil which is'nt likely nutritionally as good as water but I suggested water packed ones for RR's conjestive ailment.

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Of course, sardines are very nutritious but they are also very high in sodium and people with hypertension or kidney problems shouldn't consume too many.Also, olive oil is one of the best oils to get any tinned fish packed in, not only for flavor but for all the other things olive oil is good for, like bad cholesterol-reduction and anti-inflamatory properties.

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You, or any study has no way of proving that peoples bodies cannot heal themselves.

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Of course it can.That kind of study is a very simple one to do.You get a random sampling of people with a particular problem.You divide them in thirds.Group One gets drugs designed to help manage their symptoms.Group Two group does what Dr. Buzsaw has been prescribing.Group Three gets no treatment.Record how the patients do.

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There could also be many people who just don't get those diseases, because they take care, and diet, and exercise.

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Rat, I chose that particular list of diseases becasue they all have one thing in common.They are all genetic diseases.People are born with them, and none of them have any known cure that doesn't involve major surgery, and that is only for a couple of them and even those don't always work.There are very helpful drugs that make their lives more tolerable and greatly reduce their symptoms. There's also lots of lifestyle things they can do, like having good nutrition and exercising, as you've mentioned, that will also help.But diet and exercise to cure Epilepsy or cystic fibrosis? Simply not possible.

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The herbs you take are likely doing some significant good.

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How can you possibly know this, buz???He's never even mentioned what herbs he is taking.

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I may be allergic to several things, or the problems I have might compounded by several factors. My sinuses are pretty raw right now.

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You could be experiencing a worse-than-normal allergic reaction this year, especially if your area has been getting a lot of rain this summer. there could be one or several new pollens or mold spores that you've never encountered before, or just a heck of a lot of one or more you are already allergic to.Remember also that we can develop more severe reactions and greater numbers of allergies as we get older. We can also cease being allergic to things.If it is pollen, you'll have to wait until the first frost to get much relief.

Oh, Mike.The reason anecdotal evidence is meaningless in science is that personal experience is extremely likely to be riddled with emotion and subjective impressions.A person "telling their story" is extremely likely to embellish, selectively remember, forget, be affected by a placebo, and otherwise get things wrong. People make things up because they want to please the researcher asking them how they feel, even.A blood or urine analyses simply aren't affected in this way, and are thus more reliable for telling us what is actually going on with the body.

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It is strange that when one is skeptical about taking herbs or vitamins, that when things start to clear up; we wonder was it the herbs and vitamins or did it just clear up on its own. We don't seem to say that when taking medicines. I wonder if the same comments were made when medicines were introduced to the skeptical.
We know when things don't clear up with medicines, herbs, or vitamins; but when things start to get better we aren't always sure what is doing the trick. Depends on where our trust lies.

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Depends upon what our trust is based upon, I would say.

It is complete crap. Pseudoscientific woo-woo bullshit quackery of the highest degree.Applied Kinesiology: Phony Muscle-Testing for "Allergies" and "Nutrient Deficiencies" | Quackwatch