Chinese and Alternative Medicine for Sleep Apnoea

[C-PAP]

Interesting about snake oil …

More interestingly, we use actual snake oil here - well, snake venom, in topical creams, such as viperosol, which comes from Hungary. Works just fine for muscle strains and the like.

Ahem DocWils, I hope that snake oil/venom has been randomly double blind tested and approved but I'll take your word - works just fine is a good testimony. Where can I get some

[C-PAP]

There’s a place for a loving hand on the brow, or a grandmother’s cure, or some special snake oil. These things are complimentary to the inhuman and often failing science of western medicine. We’re human and the human and artistic side of things is our beauty and what we also respond to. In fact we respond best to love and not so much white coats and high tech medicine. One without the other is like a dodo, an extinct bird.

[me50]

I have a friend that is diabetic and swears by agave and splenda, two things I will NEVER use. My friend swears by both of them and says it doesn't raise the blood sugar but neither one is very healthy, IMHO.

We are going to try the yacon syrup because it seems to be better than anything else with the exception of what the experts say and that is stevia which I cannot stand the taste of. Yacon syrup that we purchased is not highly processed and supposedly has a lot of benefits for diabetics, bones, cholesterol and other things as well. Is it true? Who knows for sure as a lot of things have been deemed safe that was later determined unsafe and pulled from the market place.

Things that can help a lot of people, IMHO, like the socks for neuropathy that has electrodes that help with the circulation and other things (again, so it has been said) but the FDA hasn't approved it (it has been used in Canada for 20 years I have been told....again, who knows if it is accurate or not) and the insurance companies will not pay for it. Just like with Mongo's diabetic supplies that medicare has cut the qty he can get without paying out of pocket for the rest or compression stockings that are a whole lot less expensive than surgery, amputations, etc. but medicare/insurance companies apparently aren't concerned with those things. It is kind of like car manufacturers that find a defect in a make/model of a car and they decide how likely it is to cause injury or death or both and based on that information, they decide whether to issue a recall or not. Catch 22.

[archangle]

Things that can help a lot of people, IMHO, like the socks for neuropathy that has electrodes that help with the circulation and other things (again, so it has been said) but the FDA hasn't approved it (it has been used in Canada for 20 years I have been told....again, who knows if it is accurate or not) and the insurance companies will not pay for it.

There are a lot of things that are approved in some countries that are outright quackery. Sometimes, insurance will even pay for them.

For instance, homeopathy is legal in the US. It even has its own special rules and protections in the FDA act because an influential congressman was a quack. Note: it's still there 78 years later because our congress is too stupid and corrupt to take homeopathy out of the drug code.

The US also allows a lot of quack herbal and "natural" drugs disguised as dietary supplements. They make all kinds of false claims, but get away with it because they have the label that says "This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease." i.e. "All the stuff we just told you is a lie, but this makes it legal."

The US and other countries also do have some things that are probably effective but aren't allowed, sometimes for political reasons or because no one was willing to spend the money to get them approved.

However, let's not forget we also allow a lot of things to be approved that turn out to be ineffective or outright dangerous. I suspect one of these days, we're going to have something like the Thalidomide disaster but much worse.

I suspect we're also going to have some sort of disaster with some unapproved "natural" or herbal cure that has some hidden side effect long term.

"Approval" and studies are no guarantee. However, all drugs have some risks, especially the ones that actually do something. The ones that have been properly tested are a heck of a lot safer than the untested ones. Also a lot more likely to actually help.

[Mosquitobait]

My cousin lived in China for 25 years. He says acupuncture has been taken to the realm of snake oil. It does work, but is not a cure-all. I had success with acupunture in the early 80s to stop chronic ear pain. The theory was that even though the cause of the pain was gone, the nerve endings were stuck in a loop. All I can say is that after 8 years of chronic pain and codeine, the pain stopped. Had no more pain until recently and that is due to a current health issue (several decades later).

Could it help with sleep apnea? I suppose it is possible, but not for most. As an earlier poster mentioned, he talked to a acupuncturist who uses a cpap himself.