acupuncture works, that isnt quackery.

it is a placebo - it is just a bit more powerful than your average placebo effect because it involves an invasive procedure and as it happens it is actually supposed to be good for lower back pain purely because that is an area that conventional medicine finds hard to treat - yes Im sure your friend did get some pain relief from it - in that sense it can be good - but it is still a placebo - it doesnt really matter where the needles go or how deep they go just the fact that the patient believes they are getting the treatment.

(some placebos work better than others, certain coluored sugar pills clear up stomach ulcers quicker than others, taking four sugar pills provides greater pain relief than taking two sugar pills etc... there is a doctor with a column in the guardian who writes pretty extensively about alternative medicine - same guy also exposed the fake doctor gillian mckeith)

If some quack says that he can relieve your pain relief by placing healing crystals along made up energy channels then most people will think they are nuts and dismiss it as the notion is far too barmy. Acupuncture is basically making similar claims re: made up energy channels when in reality real acupuncture has been show in trial to achieve the same effect as a random bloke sticking some needles in pretty much wherever he wants to so long as the patient isnt aware he/she is performing sham acupuncture the placebo effect is the same.

this is great for minor things like lower back pain as long as the people administering it realize it is a sham and just stick to areas where people havent had any success with conventional medicine they probably wont interfere with real medicine - problem is a lot of them believe in the stuff they are doing, spend years studying nonsense about things like chi energy etc.. and you end up with situations like in china where they convince people to use acupuncture during surgery.

it is a placebo - it is just a bit more powerful than your average placebo effect because it involves an invasive procedure and as it happens it is actually supposed to be good for lower back pain purely because that is an area that conventional medicine finds hard to treat - yes Im sure your friend did get some pain relief from it - in that sense it can be good - but it is still a placebo - it doesnt really matter where the needles go or how deep they go just the fact that the patient believes they are getting the treatment.

(some placebos work better than others, certain coluored sugar pills clear up stomach ulcers quicker than others, taking four sugar pills provides greater pain relief than taking two sugar pills etc... there is a doctor with a column in the guardian who writes pretty extensively about alternative medicine - same guy also exposed the fake doctor gillian mckeith)

If some quack says that he can relieve your pain relief by placing healing crystals along made up energy channels then most people will think they are nuts and dismiss it as the notion is far too barmy. Acupuncture is basically making similar claims re: made up energy channels when in reality real acupuncture has been show in trial to achieve the same effect as a random bloke sticking some needles in pretty much wherever he wants to so long as the patient isnt aware he/she is performing sham acupuncture the placebo effect is the same.

this is great for minor things like lower back pain as long as the people administering it realize it is a sham and just stick to areas where people havent had any success with conventional medicine they probably wont interfere with real medicine - problem is a lot of them believe in the stuff they are doing, spend years studying nonsense about things like chi energy etc.. and you end up with situations like in china where they convince people to use acupuncture during surgery.

Utter wank mate. Its been proven to work through releasing endorphins at least for painkilling. How they describe it and how it actually works may be two different things.