Damned Alt-Med claims...

Magrat said:
From what I've read they've doubled down too. As tho deaths from the preventable disease somehow prove the disease shouldn't be prevented. :confused:
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Tough, the alt-med crowd have decided that alt-med is real. There is nothing you, I, or anyone else can do to stem this tidal wave of woo.
 
My mother is definitely not a skeptic, and tends to go in for all sorts of psychics and other woo - no chance of convincing her to re-evaluate those beliefs.

I'm glad though, that she seems to trust me when it comes to alternative medicine; at least mostly. She had trouble with her cholesterol medicine, as it was damaging her liver, and while looking for alternatives to switch to, she found "red rice" - told me about it, and I looked it up. It does actually lower cholesterol... but does so because it has the same chemical constituent that my mother's cholesterol medicine used.... the one that was causing problems with her liver.

Called her, and told her not to take the red rice, telling her that it's potency is based on the very same thing that was in the medicine she took earlier, that doesn't suit well with her. Thankfully she believed me. Found one cholesterol medicine that worked, and didn't cause problems, with the help of her doctor.

She's not unintelligent. She just hasn't ever been taught proper critical thinking skills. So she's relying on her common sense. And falling for all the confirmation bias that you fall for, if you aren't paying attention, and aware of the pitfalls, which makes it a dicey situation, whenever she encounters woo. I just try to get in early enough to dissuade her; like most people, if she gets in her head the idea that something works, it's really difficult to disabuse her of the notion.
 
angrysoba said:
A telecommunications company as well. Or at least they were. No idea if they still exist.
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They got taken over by Cable and Wireless - I know because my parents were with them in the early 1990s/late 1980s?
 
CORed said:
Yes, heroin is chemically modified (acetylated) morphine, so morphine good, heroin bad. :)
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Actually heroin is one of the most effective pain killers ever. The fact that hospitals can't use it for its intended purpose due to politics is criminal.
 
psionl0 said:
Actually heroin is one of the most effective pain killers ever. The fact that hospitals can't use it for its intended purpose due to politics is criminal.
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Indeed, my late husband was grinding his half-assed morphene and injecting it. We finally got him to hospice he died 6 hours later.
 
I got annoyed that I hadn't stumbled across the specific TV spot again, so I went a-Goolglin'...

I think this is the one, called "Nerve Pain Away" Topical Spray, and The Man had the truth of it... it's homeopathic. Of course. :rolleyes:

Nerve Pain Away TV ad Google search


The claimed main ingredient... hypericum perforatum...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypericum_perforatum


Known to the majority of us as... St John's wort.
A mild anti-inflammatory (with unclear anti-depressant effects).
---

When I first burst discs, some of the pinched nerves created a sensation in my left foot as though I were standing in fire, with a railroad spike driven up through the sole of my foot. Ouch, eh?

I'm fairly confidant applying even an actual effective anti-inflammatory to my foot, would have had zero effect on the nerve pain, originating as it did in my spine with direct transmission to my brain (ain't anatomy amazing).

Woot... Placebo Man to the rescue. :rolleyes:

Homeopathy for the... win? :confused:

:mad:
 
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Jim_MDP said:
Gack... never realized Vicodin was so potent. :eek:
No wonder I used it at about a third the prescribed rate.

Quick... someone get over here and break my leg, haven't had a scrip in years. :p
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It's all very weird. I suspect there is a healthy dollop of personal, individual response involved. Over the course of various medical misadventures, the only trippy drug I experienced was full on general anaesthetic. Otherwise, it appears that I feel no particular mental side effects. Why? I have no idea.

My most recent was a badly smashed ankle requiring surgery, pins, plates, etc. Afterwards, I was prescribed industrial painkillers. I might as well have been snorting skittles for all they did. I followed doctors orders for a whole day, and simply stopped.

For comparison, I have 3 siblings. Of the four of us, two will get all trippy and two will get all "Meh?" when taking such medication.
 
Jim_MDP said:
Gack... never realized Vicodin was so potent. :eek:
No wonder I used it at about a third the prescribed rate.

Quick... someone get over here and break my leg, haven't had a scrip in years. :p
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Vicodin is generally used for moderate (not severe) pain. Keep in mind: The reference strength is based on ORALLY administered morphine. The entire point of the mixture of opioid hydrocodone with acetaminophen is to reduce the amount of hydrocodone needed. There are other factors involved as well beyond equianalgesic strength - for example the speed at which analgesia occurs after administration or the relative amount of time the drug spends in system before being metabolized (cf half-life).
 
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Jim_MDP said:
"... and it's completely natural, so I don't have to worry about any side effects."

(I think it was something, something... nerve pain relief.)

:mad::mad::mad:

That just annoys the crap out of me. :(
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You shouldn't. The text is just an induced inference. The person speaking just don't feel like worrying about any side effects, in spite there are many (one can deduce from the sentence itself). They're probably glad the side effects are not listed in the package.

If Joe Public is so stupid to believe his bad understanding of that induced inference, it's his problem.

All those ads are made of carefully designed induced inferences, like that old one with an announcer saying "garcinia cambogia dissolves fat" while simultaneously a chubby silhouette is shown morphing into a slim one. If the public is so stupid as to think the voice is talking about the images, they deserve to be conned.

Explain how induced inferences work and all that crap lost its magic appeal. I gave a little "seminar" to my mother on this subject, decades ago, consisting in jumping into scene when I heard my mother complaining "how is it possible they allow them to say this" and telling why there wasn't anything wrong except on her mind. I quickly stop hearing those reactions from her. Would have her understood or just grew sick of my explanations? Today all her grandchildren have been vaccinated against induced inferences in TV adds, so I guess she learnt it a taught it in turn when taking care of the kids.

But, there's a question. Why on earth this has to be said once and again here, in a site devoted to scepticism? The topic surely should be part of the curricula in K-12 and first two years of college, and it isn't. But why HERE is so blatantly ignored to the point of thinking that "induced inference" is a rookie ESL mistake for "inductive inference" which has nothing to do with it, really.
 
aleCcowaN said:
You shouldn't. The text is just an induced inference. The person speaking just don't feel like worrying about any side effects, in spite there are many (one can deduce from the sentence itself). They're probably glad the side effects are not listed in the package.

If Joe Public is so stupid to believe his bad understanding of that induced inference, it's his problem.

All those ads are made of carefully designed induced inferences, like that old one with an announcer saying "garcinia cambogia dissolves fat" while simultaneously a chubby silhouette is shown morphing into a slim one. If the public is so stupid as to think the voice is talking about the images, they deserve to be conned.

Explain how induced inferences work and all that crap lost its magic appeal. I gave a little "seminar" to my mother on this subject, decades ago, consisting in jumping into scene when I heard my mother complaining "how is it possible they allow them to say this" and telling why there wasn't anything wrong except on her mind. I quickly stop hearing those reactions from her. Would have her understood or just grew sick of my explanations? Today all her grandchildren have been vaccinated against induced inferences in TV adds, so I guess she learnt it a taught it in turn when taking care of the kids.

But, there's a question. Why on earth this has to be said once and again here, in a site devoted to scepticism? The topic surely should be part of the curricula in K-12 and first two years of college, and it isn't. But why HERE is so blatantly ignored to the point of thinking that "induced inference" is a rookie ESL mistake for "inductive inference" which has nothing to do with it, really.
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I'm torn between enjoyment of the informative lecture, and annoyance at the tone of condescension.

Uh... thank you? :confused:


It was just a throwaway rant about the crap allowed in US marketing practices... that example is far from unusual, no industry or market sector is really free of it. :(

Perhaps if I had used a humorous approach instead, as you did in pointing out the dubious heritage claims of one of your countrymen. ;)
 
Jim_MDP said:
I'm torn between enjoyment of the informative lecture, and annoyance at the tone of condescension.
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That's the way it is with people who look down on everybody else.

We have laws against false and misleading advertising for a reason. If a manufacturer is able to avoid the requirements of drug advertising by a simple act of word smithing then that shouldn't be an opportunity to ridicule Joe Public and his "stupidity".
 
Jim_MDP said:
I'm torn between enjoyment of the informative lecture, and annoyance at the tone of condescension.

Uh... thank you? :confused:
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You're welcome ... I think ;)

It's exactly the fact that is typical what makes necessary a systemic approach. All those texts are carefully studied to bypass the laws again misleading and deceitful advertising, so there's just one defence left: teach the dudes how to fish.

To be pegged as an idiot, vulgar and the like is an efficient tool to "educate the sovereign (the People)". It Peru they had until recently the nasty habit of release themselves in the middle of the street. No campaign, no school, no ad and no fine would stop the scatological epidemics ... until mobile phones with camera came. A TV program started to screen the best videos about people soiling the cities and themselves in the doing, or making funny faces while pushing stool, and every day one video got a nice prize. In a few years the bad habit had stopped as nobody wanted to become the national laugh of the week. Now everybody do what they have to do: holding back, asking for directions to the nearest public restrooms or paying a coin for the cheapest soft drink in a bar so they can use their toilettes.

Jim_MDP said:
It was just a throwaway rant about the crap allowed in US marketing practices... that example is far from unusual, no industry or market sector is really free of it. :(
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That's exactly the reason you should teach how to fish, and doing it in a way no one would skip it. That includes accepting that few like to be illustrated, but everybody wants to avoid public shame. In schools, make it a contest of who brings the most ridiculous induced inference. Make the students watch TV and do their homework at the same time.

https://youtu.be/0ErKe36lHd0?t=230
 
Shadowdweller said:
The entire point of the mixture of opioid hydrocodone with acetaminophen is to reduce the amount of hydrocodone needed.
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IMO, the entire point was to market hydrocodone as a combination product, thereby allowing it to be regulated as a CIII drug (refills allowed; over-the-phone prescriptions OK). Now that anything with hydrocodone is Schedule II, the incentive to add other ingredients may be gone. Manufacturers were going in the direction of reducing the acetaminophen level because people were poisoning their livers by taking too much Vicodin.

I never thought much of acetaminophen as a painkiller - aspirin or other NSAIDs work better for me.

The ad where I heard "it's natural so it doesn't make me jittery" was for a weight-loss drug. Some combination of letters and numbers - R something or other. It's a dangerous line, but I'm not sure how to counter it. I have a girlfriend who likes Dr. Oz, and she gets annoyed if I query her too much on why she believes certain things.
 
Minoosh said:
IMO, the entire point was to market hydrocodone as a combination product, thereby allowing it to be regulated as a CIII drug (refills allowed; over-the-phone prescriptions OK). Now that anything with hydrocodone is Schedule II, the incentive to add other ingredients may be gone. Manufacturers were going in the direction of reducing the acetaminophen level because people were poisoning their livers by taking too much Vicodin.
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And you'd be very much mistaken. There is a fair body of research showing that mixed drugs like this correlate with decreased opioid consumption. Furthermore, opioids and NSAIDs / Non-opioid analgesics decrease nociception through different pathways. Multimodal pain relief is associated with better management outcomes.

Minoosh said:
I never thought much of acetaminophen as a painkiller - aspirin or other NSAIDs work better for me.
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In my personal experience, they're...slightly different. Acetaminophen for me personally is great for headaches...whereas I find ibuprofen better for muscular aches. YMMV. Acetaminophen IS considered weaker than Ibuprofen or Naproxen. But it also supposedly lacks some of the GI effects of COX-inhibitor NSAIDs. I'm not honestly sure why they tend to mix Acetaminophen instead of NSAIDs with opioids.
 
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abaddon said:
It's all very weird. I suspect there is a healthy dollop of personal, individual response involved. Over the course of various medical misadventures, the only trippy drug I experienced was full on general anaesthetic. Otherwise, it appears that I feel no particular mental side effects. Why? I have no idea.

My most recent was a badly smashed ankle requiring surgery, pins, plates, etc. Afterwards, I was prescribed industrial painkillers. I might as well have been snorting skittles for all they did. I followed doctors orders for a whole day, and simply stopped.

For comparison, I have 3 siblings. Of the four of us, two will get all trippy and two will get all "Meh?" when taking such medication.
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I have, IMO a very useful response to opioids: They dull the pain, and don't make me nauseous, but though I definitely feel the effects, I don't really get any euphoria, so I have absolutely no temptation to take them when I don't require pain relief. The one major downside for me is the way they gum up my bowels, which gives me additional incentive to get off of them as soon as the pain abates.
 
CORed said:
I have, IMO a very useful response to opioids: They dull the pain, and don't make me nauseous, but though I definitely feel the effects, I don't really get any euphoria, so I have absolutely no temptation to take them when I don't require pain relief. The one major downside for me is the way they gum up my bowels, which gives me additional incentive to get off of them as soon as the pain abates.
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There's the thing. I spent five or six extra days in the hospital having the contents of my GI system sucked out through my nose. Want to give me opioids? Give me stool softeners NOW!
 
Jim_MDP said:
A new-to-me TV ad caught my attention yesterday at the end when the testimonials section trotted out the old saw... "... and it's completely natural, so I don't have to worry about any side effects."...

(
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First the definition of Natural:

Definition of natural



"1:based on an inherent sense of right and wrong ·natural justice


2 a:being in accordance with or determined by nature·natural impulses

b:having or constituting a classification based on features existing in nature"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/natural

Completely natural : even fruit juice or mixed or processed fruit juices may not be completely natural. Side effects can always be possible depending on inherent sense of right and wrong for quality, quantity and need.
 
Kumar said:
First the definition of Natural:

Definition of natural



"1:based on an inherent sense of right and wrong ·natural justice


2 a:being in accordance with or determined by nature·natural impulses

b:having or constituting a classification based on features existing in nature"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/natural

Completely natural : even fruit juice or mixed or processed fruit juices may not be completely natural. Side effects can always be possible depending on inherent sense of right and wrong for quality, quantity and need.
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Maybe it's a language thing, so I'll give you the definition of their's that best fits what the "user testimonials" intended.

I'll even bold the most appropriate...

10 a :growing without human care; also :not cultivated natural prairie unbroken by the plow
b :existing in or produced by nature :not artificial natural turf natural curiosities
c :relating to or being natural food
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I originally had an issue thinking there's a high likelihood that anyone taking this crap is also on prescribed medications for pain or illness. Side effects from interactions are a VERY REAL CONCERN!

Homeopathic scam product or not, there may actually be some measure of St John's wort additives... so I can't even say there's no danger of interactions/side effects. :mad:

Your aside about fruit seems incoherently unrelated. :confused:
 
Jim_MDP said:
Maybe it's a language thing, so I'll give you the definition of their's that best fits what the "user testimonials" intended.

I'll even bold the most appropriate...




I originally had an issue thinking there's a high likelihood that anyone taking this crap is also on prescribed medications for pain or illness. Side effects from interactions are a VERY REAL CONCERN!

Homeopathic scam product or not, there may actually be some measure of St John's wort additives... so I can't even say there's no danger of interactions/side effects. :mad:

Your aside about fruit seems incoherently unrelated. :confused:
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Side effect shoud come with any unnatural or unnaturally used product esp in quantity, may it be unnatural on lower or upper side. Any processing, modifying or mixing of natural products, may dísqualify it to be stamped as completely natural. So can bring side effects. Obiously unless wé say, derived from natural products, so natural. Mistake.
 
Kumar said:
Side effect shoud come with any unnatural or unnaturally used product esp in quantity, may it be unnatural on lower or upper side. Any processing, modifying or mixing of natural products, may dísqualify it to be stamped as completely natural. So can bring side effects.
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Utter bollocks. Read your own definition of the word "natural"; you'll notice that at no point does it say "having only a single effect on the metabolism."

(Of course, we all know homeopathic remedies have no side effects; but that's because they have no effect on the metabolism.)

Dave
 
Magrat said:
Some of you might remember I have a basket load of health issues. In our homeschooling co-op there are a number of alt med fanatics who seem to have taken me as their pet project. I've been told the following will cure my traumatic spinal cord injury (in no particular order):

Ionic foot bath treatments (um...what?)

Chiropractor adjustments (my neurologist said he would kick me out of his practice if I went to one of these)

A raw vegan diet (I also have celiac and ibs...this would probably kill me)

Various homeopathic supplements including honey bee tincture (I'm allergic to bees)

Prayer (obviously)

Specially charged crystals that cost $500 a piece (I'm on social security...)

Meditation

The laying on of hands by various specialists (please don't touch me)

Etc...Etc...Etc...

Besides the fact that these people are homeschooling their children :boggled: it bothers me that so many people have so little comprehension of their bodies and medicine. Not to mention all the antivaxxers. Between me with low immunity from various health issues and a little boy in our co op now battling brain cancer, these antivaxxers are going to kill somebody. It isn't right.
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Try not to hurt these people too much - remember they can be harvested for replacement organs!!!!!!!
 
Dave Rogers said:
Utter bollocks. Read your own definition of the word "natural"; you'll notice that at no point does it say "having only a single effect on the metabolism."

Dave
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Sorry, I tried but could not understand above post.
Rest superfluous matter to me ignored.
 
Kumar said:
Sorry, I tried but could not understand above post.
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Nice gambit. Let me spell it out for you.

"Side effects" are effects of a substance other than the therapeutic effects claimed. For a substance to have no side effects, it must have only a single effect, that being the therapeutic effect claimed, or of course no effects whatsoever. Neither of these is implied by the term "natural," as you can see from the definition you posted. Your implication, therefore, that only processing, modification or mixing of natural ingredients can produce side effects, is utter rubbish.

I await your next misunderstanding with mild amusement.

Dave
 
Dave Rogers said:
Nice gambit. Let me spell it out for you.

"Side effects" are effects of a substance other than the therapeutic effects claimed. For a substance to have no side effects, it must have only a single effect, that being the therapeutic effect claimed, or of course no effects whatsoever. Neither of these is implied by the term "natural," as you can see from the definition you posted. Your implication, therefore, that only processing, modification or mixing of natural ingredients can produce side effects, is utter rubbish.

I await your next misunderstanding with mild amusement.

Dave
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Feel by taking completely natural and processod food. Apart from therapeutic effect, food effect is also there, which is completely naturally followed, should not have side effects.
 
Kumar said:
Feel by taking completely natural and processod food. Apart from therapeutic effect, food effect is also there, which is completely naturally followed, should not have side effects.
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Nuts are a natural and unprocessed food, yet eating them can be fatal for some people. That's one hell of a side effect.
 
Inherent sense of right or wrong is also definition of natural. For quality, quantity and necessity. Beings living naturally, have this sense, so existing.
 
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