Posts by Russell Brown
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Geez, I'm impressed that this has hit such a nerve amongst folk. All I did was ask a couple of questions.....and relativley politely I thought.
No Ross, you were rude and patronising.
You also seem to ignore anything (including the research I noted) that doesn't suit your beliefs. It's like you're typing with your hands over your ears -- which I'll grant is a good trick.
Me? I would have gone back to the Doc if it continued and asked a few more questions.
You're obviously so much cleverer than I am. But I suppose that's easier when you know how the story ends.
I suppose I could also note that when the GP did diagnose it, he sent me away with some fizzy sachets and told me I'd be fine. But really, it's not a detective story for you to piece together in pursuit of your point.
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Bear with me while I satisfy myself I'm not a fool ;-)
In the United States [Wiki], all the osteopaths are doctors -- about 10% of medical graduates graduate as a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, and their practice (almost invariably in primary care) can be hard to distinguish from a conventional one.
The manipulative therapy is falling out of fashion somewhat, and some practioners prefer to think of osteopathy as a "social movement" in medicine, which is certainly one of its charms.
We're more like the British model, both in the practice and its regulation. There, osteopathic practice is subject to its own act of Parliament and overseen by a professional governing body. The treatment isn't a general practice but focused on the manipulative therapy.
In Australia and New Zealand, practitioners must be government-registered. The Australian government mandated formal training in universities in the 1970s, which is why four institutions provide it there.
Oddly, it seems to me that the tension between conventional medicine and osteopathy is more pronounced in the US, where the governing body still seems to try and crack on that it's a separate branch of medicine -- as opposed to "allopathic" medicine -- rather than just a different approach to patient care or a useful complementary therapy.
Personally, if I went to an osteopath who started talking about "allopathic medicine" like he had some better mojo, I'd change my osteopath.
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Osteopathy seems to be in a similar place to acupuncture: the theoretical underpinnings are bonkers in scientific terms, but it appears to work, for some things. The British Medical Association published a study on that:
In 2000, the BMA report on Acupuncture: efficacy, safety and practice [Reference 8] considered the evidence base and reported that acupuncture appeared to be more effective than sham acupuncture or other control interventions for nausea and vomiting (most convincing for post-operative nausea in adults), and for back pain, dental pain and migraine. The evidence relating to osteoarthritis and neck pain to acupuncture was unclear. Acupuncture's role in recovery from stroke, and the treatment of tension headache, fibromyalgia and temporomandibular joint dysfunction was also uncertain. The report also commented that acupuncture appeared not to be superior to sham acupuncture for smoking cessation or weight loss.
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Both of you argue that Osteopaths should be recognised and my issue is that if they should be recognised then they should be recognised as specialists and only see patients that are referred by someone who has done a thorough diagnosis.
But are you going to apply the same requirements to, say anyone who practices massage, sports physio, etc? All those people take clients directly. You seem to think I went to my osteo because I had kidney stones. I went because I had back pain, and the treatment has eased that in the past.
The point being someone with kidney stones should not be being treated by an osteopath.
Which is why mine sent me to my GP when it became clear that what was happening wasn't just a back strain.
Russell's point is that his GP missed it and the osteopath diagnosed it correctly.
He didn't so much diagnose it -- not his job, clearly -- as discuss with me a few things that it could be, and send me back to the doctor. It was only relatively recently that the symptoms became frequent and acute, so I can't totally blame the GP for not getting first time around. I'll be more intent on getting every symptom discussed properly in future though ...
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You never responded to the example I gave you of my partner, anyhow.
He also skipped gaily past the part about how ACC and health insurance companies fund it ...
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Russell said: "It is quite widely accepted: ACC, private insurers etc -- and four universities in Australia offer clinical courses."
And London(?) University has a degree in Astrology. NZ Universities sell MBAs. Hmmmm.
Clearly Ross, I am not going to lure you into any second thoughts as to your judgement that I am a gullible fool, but here's a meta-analysis that found evidence to support the idea that osteopathic treatment reduced back pain, from the US National Institute of Healh website:
Results
Overall, OMT significantly reduced low back pain (effect size, -0.30; 95% confidence interval, -0.47 – -0.13; P = .001). Stratified analyses demonstrated significant pain reductions in trials of OMT vs active treatment or placebo control and OMT vs no treatment control. There were significant pain reductions with OMT regardless of whether trials were performed in the United Kingdom or the United States. Significant pain reductions were also observed during short-, intermediate-, and long-term follow-up.
Conclusion
OMT significantly reduces low back pain. The level of pain reduction is greater than expected from placebo effects alone and persists for at least three months. Additional research is warranted to elucidate mechanistically how OMT exerts its effects, to determine if OMT benefits are long lasting, and to assess the cost-effectiveness of OMT as a complementary treatment for low back pain.
And ...
Late News: Lets put "Rational Thought" into the primary school curriculum. Make it compulsory, test it and don't let anyone continue their education until they achieve a pass.
Do you think you could be any more patronising Ross? Is not possible that I actually derive benefit from the treatment, rather than simply being a dullard? And that I have thought about this? Or is it more important that you hold fast to your view than actually think about what I said?
I might also note that copped a link from the website of a "skeptic" who insists that anthropogenic climate change is a government hoax ...
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I don't want to be beating up on Ross, so it's probably worth noting that while the conventional medical research on osteopathy isn't white we might like it to be, it's not insignificant either. It's certainly enough to allow me to think I'm not imagining a benefit.
It is quite widely accepted: ACC, private insurers etc -- and four universities in Australia offer clinical courses. We're not talking about, say, colour therapy here.
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Actually OOS itself has been the cause of some controversy amongst the Skeptics.
Because the underlying mechanism of the distressing symptoms isn't properly understood, some Skeptics decided that it was therefore an hysterical affliction or a silly name for "cramp".
I had an email argument with Owen McShane, who was most insistent that my bout of it (which announced itself when my wrist suddenly went floppy while I was holding a cup of coffee over my keyboard) was indeed "cramp" (which does actually have a specific and quite different meaning in medicine).
Wiser heads held that it wasn't wise to dismiss a well-described phenomenon because its cause wasn't well understood.
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I'm with TroyHoward on this one Russell. For a free thinker like you I am rather surprised.
What staggers me is how lightly your correspondents have tiptoed over the fact that you were seeing a quack
Gee Ross, do you think I haven't done the thinking on that? I've even talked about it in a presentation to a Skeptics conference. I can't resolve it on a theoretical level, but on a practical level, it works for me.
I've been getting my back treated on and off by osteopaths for about 20 years. The sort I go to generally do pretty practical stuff -- if a massuer or physio did the same things you probably wouldn't bat an eyelid. In general, it's helped me with the kind of strains and injuries people get when they work at computers (although I've suffered from back strains and injuries since high school). I did try physio, but it didn't help me. There really aren't all that many conventional options for resolving chronic back pain, so I'm grateful to have had some joy in doing so.
I think a good Doc would have found it before the quack realised his "treatment" wasn't working too well.
If anything, it was the reverse. The first person to suggest kidney stones was the osteo.
Geez, what did it cost you for all those "My osteopath, Roydon, told me he shouldn't be treating me so often" visits?
Less than it might have, given that ACC covers about a third of the cost if there's an accident involved. Private insurers cover it too.
And if the osteo had been the new age shyster you asssume he is, wouldn't he have kept on treating me, rather than nagging me to go to the doctor because he realised it wasn't simply a recurrent back strain?
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Elvis Presley's daughter responds to former husband Michael Jackson's death, on her MySpace blog ... freaky.
Excerpts:
I can't recall the exact subject matter but he may have been questioning me about the circumstances of my Fathers Death.
At some point he paused, he stared at me very intensely and he stated with an almost calm certainty, "I am afraid that I am going to end up like him, the way he did."
I promptly tried to deter him from the idea, at which point he just shrugged his shoulders and nodded almost matter of fact as if to let me know, he knew what he knew and that was kind of that.
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I am going to say now what I have never said before because I want the truth out there for once.
Our relationship was not "a sham" as is being reported in the press. It was an unusual relationship yes, where two unusual people who did not live or know a "Normal life" found a connection, perhaps with some suspect timing on his part. Nonetheless, I do believe he loved me as much as he could love anyone and I loved him very much.
I wanted to "save him" I wanted to save him from the inevitable which is what has just happened.
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At that time, In trying to save him, I almost lost myself.
He was an incredibly dynamic force and power that was not to be underestimated.When he used it for something good, It was the best and when he used it for something bad, It was really, REALLY bad.
Mediocrity was not a concept that would even for a second enter Michael Jackson's being or actions.
I became very ill and emotionally/ spiritually exhausted in my quest to save him from certain self-destructive behavior and from the awful vampires and leeches he would always manage to magnetize around him.
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