Interferential current therapy via electroacupuncture: significant benefits / recovery from ME/CFS

[MeSci]

First I hear I wanna see a study, I wanna see a study, I wanna see a study, and then you say you have no time to read it - what am I to think of your sincerity? The next time someone requests a study, I will point them to your remark. Are you only interested in reading studies that agree with your belief system?

Why do you react so aggressively to a polite request? Like most of us here, I have limited time and energy and cannot read such large amounts of text in one sitting, let alone retain it. It would take me (and many others) a long time and all my mental energy to plough through it all, and I am struggling to make ends meet with a disability, as well as coping with everyday tasks.

You posted a huge body of info, which seems to cover a wide range of issues (and for which I thanked you for taking the trouble). I was just hoping you might be able to point me to one or two abstracts in my area of interest, which would probably also be of interest to others. If not, you could just say so.

 

[MeSci]

You are the best one to determine your area of interest. That is where you will find the most benefit for you. I have the same obstacles as you, mostly housebound, except for visits to the doctor who is two miles away. I have all my meals delivered by Meals on Wheels as I can only be on my feet for short periods, and have been ill since December 1990 with very little support from friends and/or family (most of my friends are sick too).

I'm sorry I can't provide THE ONE study that will make all the difference in the world to you. You keep asking for proof, proof, proof, but what's bothering you is the mental shift required to take this all in. I can't package it up and wrap a nice big ribbon around it. Exploration IS a lot of work. What step do you feel drawn to take? Therein lies your answer. Each of us has the means to explore on our own, at our own pace, to the things we are drawn to. That is the best path to take.

Thank you for the lecture.

 

[barbc56]

Here is another meta analysis which includes studies that have criteria that are closer to valid study design. Meta analysis is not the most helpful tool used to base conclusions. One reason being that the conclusion can vary depending upon the type of studies included.

Conclusion: Effectiveness could not be established with confidence for any condition studied. Taken as a group, reviews of clinical studies published since 1990 on the clinical efficacy of acupuncture do not support the notion that acupuncture is effective for any variety of conditions and cast doubt on efficacy for some specific conditions for which acupuncture has been reported as effective

.

The complete study which examines the literature for different medical conditions.

While people certainly have the right to their beliefs, the bottom line is that acupuncture can't be dressed up as a treatment that is scientifically based.

Barb

 

[liverock]

By the way, for those who believe that acupuncture originated China, that may not be true -- .

How it all actually began........................

 

[Sushi]

Note: the posts discussing Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chi, etc. have been moved here. Inevitably there will be some overlap between the two threads. Posts that were off topic to both threads have been deleted.

 

[biophile]

At first I was surprised that TENS/ICT and even electro-acupuncture allow currents as high as 100mA peak into a 500 ohm load, but then I read that they use brief pulses (250 microseconds or less), and/or high frequencies (several kilohertz).

 

[Hip]

@Hip, did you try the interferential current therapy with your hi fi equipment?

Not yet, but I'll get round to it at some point.

 

[xks201]

As someone who has read thousands of pub med studies I can assure you that the Asian studies liberally use the word cured. They don't use cdc definitions of anything. A cure in and of itself of cfs is questionable without serious follow up and differentiation of the patients that were cured in regards to changes in other variables resulting from or a priori. The way they design their studies is to basically prove the validity of Chinese medicine at all times. I've never even seen a Chinese study saying they failed to achieve their goal. For that reason I don't take it that seriously. Pumping electricity into the nervous system will stimulate anyone. The question is did these patients have the improvement needed basically to fix their broken alternators that would enable that electrical battery in their body to function or did it just give them basically a temporary fix that is required thorough constant electrical acupuncture even after the fact?

I am very excited about applying electrical impulses go but take all of their studied with a lot of grains of salt.

 

[kangaSue]

Nothing to do with interferential current but seeing as the discussion involves electroacupuncture, this study may be of interest to the group http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17078435 "The therapeutic effects of electroacupuncture and auricular-plaster in 32 cases of chronic fatigue syndrome"