Look up nocebo. It happens more than you’d know.
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You forgot artisanal 
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I have often wondered about the vets prescribing herbal remedies for pets. Even if I could belief that these folk remedies were actually tested (which I can’t), there’s no way anyone was testing them on cats and dogs! “People in China (or wherever) have been doing this for a thousand years” is of dubious value, when you’re talking about subjective experiences highly susceptible to placebo effects. But I don’t believe people in China (or wherever) were administering this stuff to cats and asking them, “Do you feel less anxious or fatigued now?” and recording the results.
I realize I said the same thing twice. I’m that worked up.
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Auricular acupuncture is part of the Chinese tradition of acupuncture and dates back thousands of years. My wife regularly has this type of acupuncture from a Chinese-trained professional and she has found it very effective. From her own n=1 measurements, I can tell you that when she has this acupuncture done over the course of time her ear is being treated she sees a notable decrease in her blood pressure, a lowering of her resting heart rate and a significant improvement in her heart rate variability. She swears by this type of acupuncture as an antidote to stress. I hate to link to a Daily Mail article, but my wife is certainly not the only one to find this sort of practice extremely beneficial: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-405212/Ear-acupuncture-latest-celebrity-fad-does-work.html
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I would add that there are a TON of scientific papers confirming the effectiveness of auricular acupuncture, but the problem of course is that 99% of them are written in Chinese.
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It’s (just barely) worth noting that even if something is no better than a placebo, placebos still help sometimes, especially if the problem itself isn’t medically “real”, or can’t be treated.
When serious organisations appear to take things like acupuncture seriously, I tend to assume that while part of it is regular stupidity, it’s also a pragmatic recognition that, in order to use placebos as part of your toolkit, you need a durable backstory for the placebo.
If military medics routinely dispensed sugar pills labelled as “winklol-69”, then sooner or later their patients would figure it out and feel patronised. But some people really do believe in acupuncture, so if you’re desperate enough, you can tell yourself that maybe it will help with your shot-off legs.
You said it wrong…it should be
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What about Blue 88s instead?
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Oh Sweet Jesus…I’m posting this against my better judgment. I’m an acupuncturist…a pro-vaccine, detox diets are BS, GMOs are not scary, real ass medicine loving acupuncturist. I’m getting certified with this technique next month so I can offer a donation only group stress thing for vets once a week. I’m going to stick needles in ears and read short stories (because guided medication is too hippy). It’s my ethical and legal duty to refer folks to doctors when appropriate but if all someone needs is for a little stimulation of endorphins and what not with a few needles in a quite space, then really…don’t be a judgmental jerk…the more ways to care for vets the better.
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Then there should be no problem linking to the thousand-year-old Chinese manual describing it. Rather than the Daily Fail.
Good for you, sez I. Thank you for posting, and for the compassionate work you apparently do.
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Folks here are skeptical of acupuncture, although not so much of the classic “man swallowed by snake” story that’s been making the Internet rounds for decades…
Everyone I know personally who has been treated with acupuncture has been satisfied with the outcome, so I am skeptical of the skepticism.
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Um…there is a shit ton of old writings describing it but most are not translated. However, I don’t care about ancient writings…I’m more interested in a modern understanding of acupuncture. To dismiss that sticking needles in the body as having no effect is short sighted and biased. On the flip side, there are lots of poorly designed studies and a distraction with the semantics and dogma of oriental medicine.
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Me neither, but when someone invokes the Appeal to Ancient Chinese Wisdom, while the auricular-acupuncture scammers themselves insist that the technique only dates back 60 years, then I want to see the alleged sources.
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Would you or anyone else mind providing a quick summary of the differences between auricular-acupuncture and the regular kind? I could Google it, but maybe it would be useful to have the distinction spelled out right here in this conversation?
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The usual explanation for that is the ‘real’ acupuncture trials could not have been doing it properly, and were therefore actually sham acupuncture as well – the needles must have missed the meridians, due to an insufficiently-qualified technician. The needles have to be inserted by a True Scotsman.
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I had acupuncture many years ago when I had a tooth filled at the dentist. I was a skeptic but I figured I try my own “N of one” study and see what happpened. I felt some pressure, but no pain. Was it placebo effect? Maybe. But either way, it worked.
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I think you’ve fallen into the fallacy fallacy there.
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Bear Grylls uses knitting needles for [I]his[/I] placebo acupuncture.
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Needles into the ear take the place of needles into the body. Your ears serve as your own personal voodoo dolls. A needle into the ear will somehow remediate the flow of qi through the meridians of your head or torso or whatever. Because stem cells that’s why.
Auricular acupuncture is another form of the “homunculus reasoning” that gave the world ‘reflexology’ (all bodily ailments and injuries are writ small upon the soles of the feet, and can be remedied by foot massage); iridology (all bodily ailments and injuries are writ small upon the irises irides); and anusology (all bodily ailments and injuries are writ small upon NO WAIT I made that one up).
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