I don't have an all or nothing approach to my opinion but modern medicine would rather you die using its remedies than live by using what some physicians call "quackery".

Orthodox=the right or true doctrine
Heterodox=that other doctrine

So, it could mean you are right :p:

Have you ever used it?

My wife drank cranberry juice for two days after the first symptoms and it did nothing she could notice. It was only then that she called the doctor's office.

edit: And I thought that there were very few hoops to jump through. I don't see how it could be any more convenient. An oral history was taken over the phone instead of in person. I figured that's how a UTI is diagnosed since the infection is internal. Lab results take a day or two, and it's inhumane to make a patient wait that long before treatment. The doctor's office is 25 minutes away and the result would have been the same. I agree that antibiotics can be used too much and should only be used when needed, and I think this is one of the times they are needed. (We'd probably bash heads on this Nirvana, but I think antibiotics should be banned for animal use. Save them for humans.)

Most cranberry juice is high fructose corn syrup cocktail which just feeds bacteria. Real 100% cranberry juice or caps is effective for most people that I know that have taken this remedy. Not all things work for all people.

Why are there commercials promoting drugs and lawyer's commercials with class action lawsuits for the same drugs? Because people are the experiment and 'oopsy so sorry that did not work for you and now you have to wear a colostomy bag.' Natural remedies if not effective will not cause you permanent harm.

The savage truth is that most medical research is organized, paid for, commissioned or subsidized by the drug industry (and the food, tobacco and alcohol industries). This type of research is designed, quite simply, to find evidence showing a new product is of commercial value.

I hope this is not what they prescribed for your wife Z-Pak

FDA: Z-Pak Antibiotic Could Have A Deadly Side Effect

As CBS 2’s Dr. Max Gomez reported, azithromycin – known by the brand names Zithromax and Z-Pak – could cause fatal heart problems.

More than 40 million prescriptions a year are written for azithromycin, for everything from bronchitis to urinary tract and skin infections. But like all drugs, azithromycin has its side effects.

The FDA said one rare side effect could be lethal. It could cause an irregular heart rhythm that in some patients has caused sudden cardiac death.

LINK

babies and bathwater.

In a hive, the individual is not only unimportant, but effectively doesn't exist. Only the group exists.

Imagine for a moment there were no drugs as we know them. When a human gets sick either they live or they die, and presumably the gene pool gets stronger over time. Not treating the sick makes for a stronger, healthier hive. It also has other consequences, but for now I'm limiting to discussion to health of the hive, not individual cases of "Well, I wouldn't be alive." I doubt I would be alive today if not for medicine. I might have lived but maybe not for long.

Selfishly speaking, of course we want medicine of some form or other, but if we weren't self aware and only knew "the hive", any individual from the hive would be expendable. Even the queen. If she dies, a new queen takes her place.

I'm not promoting eugenics, I'm only pointing out what I think is a consequence of medicine. How does one make a trade-off? Is this good for me or good for everyone?

I may be out to lunch here, but it's something I think about, being a selfish person I'm glad I am alive and my friends are alive and my kids are alive and I'm glad I can take antibiotics when I get lyme disease.

I'm glad you weren't brutally murdered by ticks. [/demitrimartin]

I am glad there are antibiotics. Are they over prescribed? YES! Do some have side effects that can cause death? YES are the patients told? I don't think so who would take something if a DR said BTW this might make you well or it might cause you to have :

diarrhea that is watery or bloody;

headache with chest pain and severe dizziness, fainting, fast or pounding heartbeats;

cardiac arrest

Death
nausea, upper stomach pain, itching, loss of appetite, dark urine, clay-colored stools, jaundice (yellowing of the skin or eyes); or

severe skin reaction -- fever, sore throat, swelling in your face or tongue, burning in your eyes, skin pain, followed by a red or purple skin rash that spreads (especially in the face or upper body) and causes blistering and peeling.



mild diarrhea, vomiting, constipation;

stomach pain or upset;

dizziness, tired feeling, mild headache;

nervous feeling, sleep problems (insomnia);

vaginal itching or discharge;

mild rash or itching;

ringing in your ears, problems with hearing; or

decreased sense of taste or smell.



I would rather take something that may make you well but will not kill you or cause life altering defects. I would rather practice prevention and not need any drugs. Allot of medical conditions are self inflicted.

That is an extraordinarily dangerous assumption with which to approach any remedies, 'natural' or otherwise.

I've never had a UTI, but my individual experience is not meaningful.
Some people will take cranberry and feel better.
Some people will take cranberry and not feel better.
Some of the first group may have gotten better anyway without the treatment.
Some of the second group may have avoided feeling even worse by taking the treatment.
The only way to measure the actual effectiveness of the treatment is a double-blind study.
The NIH indicates that after first symptoms, it's probably too late for cranberry to help.
Not always the case, but mostly true. "No effects" implies "no side effects". If placebo effect is sufficient to cure what ails you (as it often is), then you've got a good chance with most alternative medicine. The problem is that you can't tell ahead of time which ailments can be placebo'ed away, and there is no method within alternative medicine to separate the treatments that are placebo from those which have real effects.

There are quacks in modern medicine, and there are quacks in alternative medicine. The fundamental difference that separates modern medicine out is that it actually has a goal, and a process, of eliminating its quacks. Its an often slow and imperfect process, and a process that will never be complete, but there are innumerable practices and practitioners that have been medically discredited.

Which alternative medicines have been "alternatively discredited"? Sometimes it appears that in alternative medicine, failing to succeed in a scientific study of a treatment is second only in prestige to refusing to conduct one.

Modern medicine = treat the symptoms

Alternative= cure the ailment

Nirvana's right in that we're a nation of junkies, looking for instant relief for every itch, real or imagined. Gladly provided by Big Pharma, a pill to treat, but they hope not cure, that itch, and gladly profiting from the placebo effect.
Doctors try to pick the right pill because patients demand the miracles promised on the TV every 30 seconds.

But that's only part of "Modern Medicine", and quickly forgotten when you hit a pole at 60mph, catch you shirt sleeve in the combine, or your arm goes numb and you can't breath.

Living healthier always makes sense, and nature provides a lot of help with little itches, although aspirin is a lot more convenient than chewing that Willow branch. After all, look how well it worked for the Indians.

And quacks...dear me. I have had way too much fucking experience of quackery.

(This isn't directed at anyone. I just needed to rant mindlessly.)

I am a healthy skeptic of modern medicine. If I didn't respect the institution and the practitioners (to say nothing of the negative externalities they operate with -- e.g., poor analytical statistics instruction, drug advertising and weak FDA), I wouldn't consider it at all.

That said, I treat everything my doctor tells me as a professional opinion, nothing more and nothing less. Doctors are people and thus have bad days on top of operating with incomplete information.

I know first hand how hard it can be to analyze software. You can always get visibility into any part of the system, given enough time--but even then you have to be careful to not confound the results (this happens all the time and it's hard to discern). Biological systems are much more complicated and do not yield to all of the analytical techniques I use everyday, no matter how much time and care you take.

Doctors are valuable in that they can diagnose your body as quickly and accurately as I can diagnose your code problems. Your local holistic "practitioner" is often just making shit up or relying on shit other people made up.

"It works for me" is anecdote, not data. Most novice programmers make this mistake and get a face full of pie when they use the excuse on customers, bosses or experienced developers. Even if you know hundreds of people who have made the same observation, you can't generalize without valid experiments. Sure, if it isn't going to hurt you, you can try it but you can't have any confidence that it will work. That's what experiments give you: x% confidence that your diagnosis is true and the solution will work in a given set of circumstances.

As an example, I manage my psychiatric illnesses on my own most of the time. However, when things get really bad and my usual coping mechanisms are failing, I see a professional and get therapy and meds to get over the rough spots. The professionals think what I do is super dangerous and that I should be on high doses of medication at all times. Medication that makes life not worth living; no sex, no enjoying food, no enthusiasm, no exercise sounds like a great way to live, right? For most of the population, however, the professional is right and their cocktails work.

tl; dr: ZOMG! Don't confuse individuals with statistics. Medicine is not an exact science. It is based on a lot of things, including professional experience and judgement (which may not easily be explicated).