Alternative Medicine
Alternative Medicine is something stupid people use before they die. It is also known as Complementary Medicine, which is ironic because it is hard to say anything complimentary about it. And it'll show up on your bill.
The logic of it is, there exist miracles that break all known laws of physics. It is possible to connect with these miracles by doing some retarded ritual. This is such a failsafe idea that performing "medical treatments" with these rituals is worth devoting your life to. The whole field is populated by dirty hippies and cognac'd up Asians who still aren't sure that modern medicine isn't a scam. It is often called "Holistic Healing" and can involve anything from over-exuberant chiropractor work to poking yourself with sharp things then lighting them on fire. Practitioners often claim the weird torture they wish to exact on you will cure nearly everything wrong with you, but it will never work. Often enough they also get charged with practicing medicine without a license when one of their retarded clients gets sick or dies. The practitioners themselves are a testament to the stupidity of their clientele. They have copious facial hair (regardless of gender) and liked to wear hideous multicolored clothing which they believe imparts upon them a sort of mysticism; whereas in reality they look like they dyed curtains with skittles and used it for a muumuu.
Alternative Medicine should not be confused with Alternative History or Alternative Science because it is totally true and in no way a scam to get your money.
Placebo
Many studies have been done on alternative medicine, and the shittiest ones often result in some dubious correlation between holding a gem and losing a cough. It is generally agreed that this is due to the placebo effect.
The placebo effect is something that psychologists believe is absolute proof that humans are retards. The general principle is that, if you tell someone something will make them feel better, because they're gullible, they'll feel better afterwards. Give a bunch of kids some alcohol-free beer and they'll get drunk on it.
The placebo effect is very important when analyzing real drugs, but it's a shame science had to discover it, because loads of charlatans have made loads of money by offering people placebos. The larger scams will be discussed below.
Gallery of Hilarity
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Oprah hasbloodchicken grease on her hands. -
Rakey -
A message to all consumers. -
The hippies are here! -
You are now under my command... -
Acupuncture in action. -
Organic Acupuncture -
Darts
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You gotta be kidding! Your back still hurts? -
Why homeopathy is such a bargain. -
Hips n' tits -
Become a miracle worker in 48 hours. -
Feng Shui -
It's not just for people anymore! Applying pressure to your dog's paw will bring it back from the dead - CPR is just a placebo, after all.
Homeopathy
Homeopathy was discovered over 200 years ago, before anyone knew anything about anything. Its success was related to the fact that a medicine that did nothing was better for you than the other medicines you got in those days, like mercury and lead, or even bleeding.
The only intelligent thing about homeopathy is how it is spelled. It works under the principle of "like cures like", where chemicals that cause the symptoms you're suffering from are the cure to your ailment. Therefore, if you're suffering from insomnia, caffeine is the answer, and if you're a narcoleptic, then sleeping pills should sort you out. This is almost similar to vaccination, except that vaccination makes sense and works.
Because this is so laughable, homeopaths invented a new piece of stupid to go alongside it. Allegedly, these cures become more effective the more diluted they are. They believe this so much, they often dilute things past Avagadro's constant - 1 part in every 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 - by which point there are likely zero molecules of the active substance still present; indeed there are more molecules of your family's urine in the water by this point.
Therefore, homeopathy is the practice of taking none of the thing that made you sick. Some countries, like the UK, provide this on their national health system, and thousands of hours of research have gone in to showing that this stupid idea is stupid.
Whenever you encounter someone who buys into Homeopathic cures, you should give them the Homeopathic Challenge. Tell them to induce severe Alcohol Poisoning by chugging an entire bottle of Everclear (a 190 proof grain spirit) in one go. They should then place 1 drop of Everclear in a liter of distilled water, mix it up, and dilute it down further as necessary. If Homeopathy really works, this solution should cure the Alcohol Poisoning and save the guys life. Obviously drinking an entire liter of such potent liquor will mean death without medical treatment, so you can use this to entice the retard to prove once and for all Homeopathy works. At this point, they could come to their senses. If not, there is a chance they will actually try and do this, causing them to become an hero. Either way, you win.
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Too confusing? Ask James Randi here.
Homeopath is also the name for a gay psycho.
Reflexology
Reflexology is the alternative medicine practiced by foot fetishists. The principle of this load of horseshit is that your foot is connected to everywhere else on your body, and if you poke someone's big toe they won't get a headache. This is such flagrant shit the only possible reason it can exist is because there are too many fetish-website-webmasters about and they've swamped that particular market.
—Reflexologist | ||
Chiropractic
Chiropracty Chiropractic works under the assumption that the spine is magical (like the foot) and by manipulating the spine, all sorts of diseases can be cured. Most people agree that only the ailment known as a 'bad back' is worth going to a chiropractor for, but many will insist that anything from heart disease to cradlecap can be cured by a wriggling of your spine. This is supposed to trigger the body's "innate intelligence" (I'm not kidding).
Many chiropractors find a peculiar joy in twisting the spines of developing infants. Needless to say, this is a good idea, and provides a valuable, later life alternative to abortion
Incidentally, the American (sorry, CANADIAN) quack who invented chiropractic also named it. He came up with the name by combining two Greek words together in an attempt to sound smart. Maybe he should have LEARNT TO ENGLISH before he tried moving on to Greek, the idiot, since he created a noun that sounds like an adjective.
Most chiropractors are failed doctors who went to out of the country medical schools like Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and were unable to become certified in the United States, or they went to a diploma mill like Life University, where the only prerequisites for matriculation are cash and a pulse.
They like to claim that they took the same boards as doctors and that they actually have more experience in medicine than say, a medical doctor. Because chiro school gives accreditation based on "hours" rather than, you know, credits, they claim that they take 5200 "hours" of classes compared to the 4800 "hours" for med school. You know, as oppose to 4 years of pre-med, 4 years of med school, 2 years internships, up to 12 years residency, and 1+ years in fellowship. Yup, chiropractors have so much more experience.
Doctors and chiropractors hate each other. Chirofags will try to point out that doctors want to eat your soul and kill 250,000 people a year with prescription meds. Since they need to lrn2statistics, they don't realize that most of those deaths were ODs and people being too stupid to read the directions. Once you point this out, they'll tell you that 580,000 people die in hospitals each year. Besides the fact that these jingoistic idiots think America is the only country in the world (it is,) this is 580,000 out of 300 million people, which amounts to about .075% of all doctor visits. Zero-rate biases ahoy!
Crystal Healing Meth
Crystal Healing Meth is some New Age bullshit about how crystals have magic powers, bestowed on them by Mother Earth, and if you hold special crystal smoke in your lungs then they'll cure your cancer. The principle is "if you stand within 5 feet of this coloured rock, it will aid your health for no apparent reason". It is, however, fortunate that crystals do not have curative powers; as anyone who believes they do will avoid actual medical treatment and thus die faster. People honestly spend years and years studying this stuff, but all it takes is 15 minutes seconds of thinking to realize it's a load of shit. If you believe in this, you should go kill yourself.
Reiki Healing
Reiki is an ancient practice, discovered long ago in 1922 by someone who hadn't eaten for weeks. It's like crystal healing, but without the crystals. Just put your hands over someone's body and CHANNEL YOUR ENERGY.
Because England is a place devoid of religion but full of idiots, Reiki has managed to find its way on to their NHS. As has homeopathy. Fuck off Newton and Darwin, we don't like you any more. Dawkins too, but mostly because he's a cunt.
Apitherapy
Apitherapy translates to the treatment of an ailment with bee products, such as honey, pollen, and royal jelly. But that's all boring as shit; the real fucktardery comes with the use of bee venom as a treatment in Apitherapy. The venom is injected directly into the problem area from a real, live, pissed off bee. Hippies and idiots claim that bee venom can help arthritis, bursitis, tendinitis, dissolving scar tissue (e.g. keloids), and Herpes.
All the new-age faggots out there are rubbing their swollen beecocks raw over this "therapy". They think it's the next big thing, the new cure for MS and other diseases. Well, think again, Commie scum! We have a testimonial from a REAL doctor!
—Dr. Rudy S. | ||
Hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy works especially well on the incredibly gullible. An old woman will talk to you in a calming voice and tell you to close your eyes. By this point, you should be completely conscious of what is happening to you, but since you've shelled over your money, you're particularly suggestible. When the woman tells you "you are going to never want to smoke again", your "hypnotized" mind thinks "I've spent a lot of money on this crap, I better stop smoking."
It's not just mental problems like addiction that hypnotherapy can cure, of course. Google hard enough and you'll find cancer and psoriasis.
Hypnotherapy is as much use as an angry man shouting at you to "stop smoking" and "stop being such a big pussy".
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is the ancient Chinese practice of sticking needles into your skin. Don't you feel better already?
Some argue that because Chinese medicine predates modern medicine by thousands of years, the Chinese should surely know what they are talking about as they are far more experienced. This same experience also tells them to install metal pipes in the gallbladders of bears in order to collect bile. And this process FUCKING HURTS for the bear.
What does this have to do with acupuncture? Simply put, they believe that if sticking sharp objects into animals is part of their medicinal heritage, they see no problem with sticking needles into humans.
If you like facts in your lulz, people report pain relief when they undergo acupuncture. However, the Chinese spent millennia deciding what places to put the needles in, and the West took twenty minutes to find out that this doesn't matter and you can put the pins anywhere for the same effect. Apparently if someone is sticking pins in your skin, you forget about your sore ankle. It's like cutting, really: create pain to take your mind off another pain.
Psychic Surgery
Andy Kaufman proved he wasn't as much of a genius as we all thought, when he went to a "psychic surgeon" to cure his cancer. Psychic surgery is a lot like a gory magic show, except with sloppier sleight-of-hand.
It's obviously impossible for any practitioner to actually believe this works, since they are doing magic tricks and must be very concious of this. A reasonable person could state that 100% of the people who do this have something very fundamentally wrong with their morality.
What is also particularly bad about this alternative medicine is, it appeals specifically to people who are GOING TO FUCKING DIE and should consider getting REAL SURGERY. Followed by brain surgery.
Magnets
Apparently, sleeping on magnets is a cure-all. A moment's thought will convince you that if magnetic fields really did affect the flow of your chi or whatever, then handling or even being near a rare-earth magnet would kill you more or less instantly. Many medicines are poisonous and dangerous precisely because they actually do something to your body. Asprin. Digitalis. Magnets, on the other hand, are completely safe and they grant you immortality.
Even more lulzworthy is the fact that those wearable magnets they sell you are often built like refrigerator magnets, having alternate strips of polarity. The purpose of this is to reduce the extent of the magnetic field. That's why fridge magnets fall off the fridge if they are lifted even a little way from the metal.
Rule of thumb: if it won't wipe your credit card, it sure as hell won't realign your chi.
Better than conventional medicine?
People tend to prefer going to alternative medicine practitioners than regular doctors. Apparently, being given diluted water by an idiot, having sexy women put crystals on your forehead, or getting a foot massage is nicer than sitting in a waiting room before being given some antibiotics and getting told you're going to die.
Apparently doctors can learn from alternative medicine. If they spend about half an hour talking to their patients, don't examine their bodies, don't perform tests, and pull bullshit cures out of their asses, then people would enjoy the experience a lot more and would have a more effective placebo effect. And that's what we want out of medical science - some good fucking placebos. Fuck off, doctors, you useless cunts.
One of the advantages that alternative medicines have over conventional drugs is that there are no side effects. This of course is because they have no effects whatsoever.
The Good News
There is an upside to alternative medicine: only stupid people believe this shit. These people would rather have their feet stabbed with crystal needles than see a real doctor. These people - these so very stupid people - will die soon. Another win for the Darwin Awards.
See also
- Steve Jobs, one of alternative medicine's greatest success stories.
- James Randi
- Fallacious Reasoning
- Hippies
- Kittens The ultimate alternative medicine
- New Age
- Peyote The REAL ultimate alternative medicine
- Pain (Physical)
- Pseudoscience
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Alternative Medicine is part of a series on Visit the Truth Portal for complete coverage. |
| Featured article August 7 & 8, 2013 | ||
| Preceded by Skullgirls |
Alternative Medicine | Succeeded by SysOp |
| Featured article September 1, 2009 | ||
| Preceded by BokuChan |
Alternative Medicine | Succeeded by Plush Pedobear |