Blackops.

I didn't win anything buddy and you know it lol Although I wasn't too impressed with your 'natural remedies are also chemicals' argument, mate. If we go down that road we could end up saying that all things are made of atoms and therefore are identical, or we could go even deeper and could say that all matter in the universe is formed by consciousness and therefore all form is emptiness and emptiness is form

By 'natural over chemical' I'm saying (sloppily) that the less that's been done to the active medicinal ingredients from plants/herbs/roots whatever, the better. The more processed they are (the further removed they are from their natural state) the more chances of them being harmful or having side effects. And then there are those chemicals (most prescribed drugs) that were totally manufactured and have had nothing to with 'nature'.

It's just personal choice to lean toward the more 'natural' medicines for me (the most natural of course being healthy food) But for the record, I took some paracetamol yesterday


Richie,

You're are officially insane

But yeah, I did charge in to battle unprepared

Quote:

"you recieved pwnage"

No pride lost though, simply a lesson learned: train harder and use stronger ammo

And yes, Sifu's heart is indeed black... or maybe your belly is simply yellow....? (Ooooooohh!) I knew you wouldn't dive in and help me lol. Trying to get you to admit to certain beliefs on your forum... not gonna happen. But I reckon when we finally meet I'll get you to admit that you wear tinfoil hats! I know we will wear said hats together and talk in gravelly Texan accents whilst sipping pints.

BTW #1

Quote:

viruses are massive, like small floating ping pong balls that bounce off face masks

BTW #2 I am as one with the methane

Bollocks I wrote reply & then lost it.

Ritchie, thanks for the laugh, been chortling for 5 mins. Face mask, hmmm, make sure you wash your hands, these things cling. You didnt get any shots? Well, your a grownup, you can do what you want.

Sharif, The subject of natural medicine seems to a very emotive one for some people & as you worked in the industry I expect you have a lot of investment in it. I dont want to get into an arguement about it because I think I am right, & nothing you can say will sway me & I suspect you feel the same way on your stance.

But if I may....

Science takes herbal medicine, "natural" medicine and vigorously tests it through the medium of randomised control, double blind trials. & if it works to a significant degree, that cannot be explained by chance or other variables it gets to be called Medicine. Yaay!

For an example, let us take the drug Asprin. This is also called acetylsalicylic acid, & is found in nature in the Willow.

Unfortunately, you have to take quite a lot of willow for it to be as effective as a simple pill & in nature it comes bundled with a chemical that acts as an Emetic (a drug that induces vomiting)

Acetylsalicylic acid is truly a wonder drug. It works as an analgesic (reduces pain) it is antipyretic(reduces fever) & as an anti-inflammatory (reduces swelling), it also has an antiplatelet effect which is why it is used to thin blood and for the treatment of circulatory issues, like strokes, Heart attacks & thrombosis (blood clots).

Now for the downside of this "naturally" occuring wonder; It can cause Gastrointestinal ulcers, stomach bleeds & there are other links including tinnituus & Reyes Syndrome.

I now no longer have to get it from a tree, it comes in a handy pill form which is much more convenient for my medicine cabinet. It is the same chemical, do you see? Just packaged differently for ease of use.

I agree that pharmaceutical companies are not perfect. Like alternative health companies, they have an invested interest in profit. You just have to watch them & pay attention to the best available evidence.

One other thing, I am an english bloke, I rarely go to the doctor assuming that most problems will sort themselves on their own. And funnily enough I am right.

This phenomenon of getting better is known in medical parliance as regressing to the mean, i.e. I am normally well, so when I get sick, I will usually return to full health. if and when i dont, following a lot of moaning, I see a G.P.

* leans back, lights pipe, Puffs contentedly*

& who you calling old & crusty, Grannon!

Anyway, off to pop on the wireless........

All cool with me, Sharif please re-read my post about asprin, the desired effects & side effects are the same if it is in a herbal mixture or a little pill. It is the same substance mate! (hangs head & sighs.)

& for the other stuff, everything in moderation, including womens arse sizes. (no offence meant to the ladies present, blame Roadkill anyway, he found the picture)

Hopefully Ritchie, people will just put up with me, like staff at a nursing home with the more sprightly, senile residents.

Yeah man, the medicine is concentrated herbs, which makes it simply sliding scale of concetrated dose, the "either/or" paradigm set up by alternative/natural medicine advocates is fallacious as fook and reflects yet another layer of agenda sausage.

As they say here its "same same, only different"

except it aint that different, just concentrated ... and in my book, weaker dosage dont mean better!

Im down with relying on bodies natural healing process and taking nothing, no thing, not a thing ... as far as is possible.

But when you take, whats the difference between "alternative" and "western"? dosage only?

give me da higher dose and tested to bits drug laaaaa, why tease?


Dont think for one second alternative medicine isnt another slut to profit gaggging on satans sturdy sauasage and gargling liquid sterling and saying "please sir can I have some more?" whilst hastily wiping its greedy harlots mouth on the back of one grubby paw whilst using the other to stuff bank notes into its thong.

Its big big business and tosses the salad of beelzebub for cash rewards. Not as big as big pharma, but the lies are just as stinky. If not worse, all fluffed up in "we have the moral high ground" themed lingerie as it is. Oh the hypocrisy. Oh the wet newspaper.

Profit.

A cruel god that makes lying harlots of us all.


So yeah, swine flu eh.... pffft... thats a larf eh?



what stick to beat us with next eh?


I did enjoy the massive quiet standown by the media... MASSIVE quiet standown... from red clock timers on sky news updating us on the hour "number of reported cases is at 61" to... well... to fuck all....

yes, it just... erm.... um.... ahem... stopped.

But it wasnt a media hyped scare. No.

It wasnt.

It was all necessary, responsible journalism.

Oh god I just gagged.

Ritchie. Its a sick world, you have got to love it.

I take nothing without a massive pinch of salt these days.

The Media is'nt even one beast. Its thousands of feral little creatures, all fighting for market share & viewing figures, & they are prepared to claim anything & twist anything to make it attractive to the bovine audience, plonked in front of their Plasma God & get their viewing figures for the advertising revenue.

MMR Jab a prime example of poor reporting, hyping the panic initially followed by complete disinterest in informing the public of it's safety when the truth came out.

Swine flu, will be back on our screens just as soon as some small child with an immune defiency issue dies & its recorded as speculative cause of death. Then Plague, plague, plague.

I started to comment on this thread not because all the above is not true ( or in the swine flu example, extremely likely) but because I do grasp the realities of the risks & I felt that they should be acknowledged.

Want to learn something about the minds who run alternative health businesses?

One day when you have some time & anyone else who wants to know, do a little research on Holland & Barrett, shark cartiliage curing cancer & rare specie endangerment. Moral high ground? Profit obsessed morass, more like.

& dont get me started on Homeopathy treatments sold in Health food stores. Trade descriptions act , anyone.

Deep breath, deeeeep breath & relax.

Well, I was going to let this thread swim past me, especially after Richie's fart incantation on page 3 ... however I seem compelled to add a thought for no real good reason .....
I had measles, mumps and scarlet fever when I was a kid. Back in the day, parents would take their kids over to sick friend's houses to dose em young - normal practice. I never got whooping cough, and never caught chicken pox until I was 26 which was truly unpleasant, and made me wish I had had it as a kid.
I got polio, tetanus and small pox vaccines, and rubella later on .... no choices about those.
I got the Hep A and B jabs for Asia, but didn't fancy anything else.
For every day, I'm with Sharif on the benefits of herbal and holistic medicinals, and I do not believe it is just a dosage thing that separates them from Western medicine, IMO at least, though wherever there is profit to be made, especially from fear, I'll just say 2 words - Caveat Emptor, and this goes no less for health/herbal manufacturers as it does for pharmacutical mega corps.
I have had great success with many varieties of Chinese medicine - herbal and acupuncture, make my own '4 Thieves Tonic' for the winter months , and love those herbal sticky pads for strains and sprains.
I use Aspirin and Ibuprofen occasionally, but not Paracetemol, and avoid antibiotics like the plague (HAHAHA!). I also have never had a flu shot - don't like the idea.
Why did I/do I choose the way I do? Who the hell know! Am I right? Again, who the hell knows!! but it 'smells' right to me.
I suspect we are all somewhere between the 2 extremes and follow what works for us, and by the way, I had the swine flu a few weeks back - it's not that bad.

Maija, are you trying to get me to bite?


You & Sharif & anyone else is free to do with your money whatever you want, All I ask is that unsubstantiated claims about such treatment's efficacy are not made & purported to be fact.

I am off to bed.

Good night, sleep tight & dont let the bed bugs bite.

All I know is what works for me, nothing more.
If it works for me, it's 'fact' to me, if it does not seem to make a difference or makes me feel worse, then it doesn't work ... for me. No need for more substance than that.
Everything outside my direct experience is just information, some better, some worse - you pays your money, you takes your choice and all.
Of course, at some level, I am always choosing who and what to trust, but how it affects ME in an experiential sense, is the first time it becomes 'truth', or 'fact'.

the fact that it simply "works for you" works for me even within the paradigms of western medicine...

how so?

stay with me a sec





western medecine as opposed to eastern medecine is lacking something: preventitive medicine- modern western,it's way too weak on preventing disease and actively developing health and strength, part of which I believe comes down to belief and psychoneuroimmunology and an intimate connection with your state of health even when you are not sick

so believing you have a methodology, could be ayurvedic, chinese or even just intuited, doesnt matter, it reflects an awareness, a sensitivity to and a care for your health which IS part of preventitive medicine ... in my view

I also wont take antibiotics and I have to be twitching with pain to take a pain killer, because what will I do in post nuclear planet earth? thats all part of a health focussed belief system which could be absolute cobblers, but I BELIEVE Im stronger for it and modern western medecine has proven beyond doubt that belief affects health and healing

n'est-ce pas?

if by taking herbal remedies you are creating a stronger more self aware bond with yourself and your state then that is fine fine

Thats my view of what my chinese mates do when they put eggs on bruises, bananas on sprains, drink nasty herbal soups for colds etc etc I dont think any of that is actually "really" doing anything in any observable sense, but it makes them feel like they are doing something, gets back to old style culture and people draw strength from it, Chinese culture has always drawn strength from the old and the ancestral, what better way of getting back in touch with that when you feel sick than by taking the remedies that have been used down the generations for centuries
... and THAT is the healing bit

sort of a deliberate placibo (which is tricky because studies have shown that placibos can have observable reliable quantifiable effects... so are they then placibos? hasnt that made them real? my head hurts thinking about it )

did I say that right?

unfortunately, there are herbal and alternative vampires out there who simply peddle boooolshit to people who arent that bright... Im cast iron confident a Sharif or a Maija can sort wheat from chaff....

...its the um, less intelligent sheeps I worry for

Well I wondered if & when the placebo effect would rear its head. & I wondered if I would be the first to mention it.

Thank God the trained psychologist brought it up first.

I put it down to the power of the mind & regression to the mean.

If the power of belief makes a medicine work for you, should you then state categorically that it will work for all? & that, that supposition justifies its cost if you have to buy it? That is why we have clinical trials. To ascertain the truth.

Chinese medicine is interesting. Powdered rhino horn anyone, tigers testical?
But the problem is that a relatively insular country tied its medical & philosophical beliefs into one tight bundle.

Dissection of human cadavers was illegal in China for a very very very long time, (much like Britain & the rest of Europe before the enlightenment & rise of the scientific method. & yes I know this wasnt rescinded officially until fairly recently but from the 18th century onward it was broadly flaunted & has led to the success at treatment of western medicine today) & this meant that medical facts were drawn from observation of the external effects only.

The chinese were big on drawing allegories between the world around them as they viewed it & the internal human body. Which is why we have chi meridians, they mirror the great watercourses of china, bringing life to the land.

But dont take my word for it, please do a little research.

& yes, i said insular, they built a big f****** wall & didnt go outside it very often.

Matt, settle down