Posted by gary g (209.187.112.11) on August 13, 1999 at 14:51:14:
In Reply to: acupuncture & herbs posted by Dave on August 12, 1999 at 21:44:10:
remembering lots of posts about accupuncture
many said it helped
many said it made it worse
many said it had no effect whatever
that leads ME to conclude it has no effect whatever
you say you broke a cluster with massage and chiropractry
this is POSSIBLE
(most anything is)
I say that because I can't disprove it
but I AM highly skeptical
by all means - I would encourage anybody to try anything that MAKES SENSE to them based on their own understanding of their own case of CH
BUT we should all try to discipline our conclusions a bit......
the variability of CH patterns is so pronounced that one apparent relief mechanism is NOT a demonstration of efficacy
I've seen posting after posting after posting where people proclaim they have just stopped a cluster with after 60-80 clusters, 28 years, and trying just about everything going, I can assure you, it is VERY COMMON for a cluster endtime to be completely coincidental with an attempted therapy the only proof is if you wait 'til next cluster, hit the therapy and it works, then repeat that a few times when you've stopped a cluster SEVERAL TIMES with the same therapy and no other concurrent attempts, you have something of substance to report for the sake of people depending on the info we all share here though this will help many people avoid all kinds of wild goose chases that can be very painful and costly, as well as clutter up the anecdotal med lit with all sorts of smoke signals NOT an attack on ANY therapy method
PLEASE don't claim results until you have REPEATED them consistently at different times - this is the only way to validly make such a claim
rather a CAUTION about the practice of drawing general conclusions on one event