In this material, 6 of the most popular questionable treatments. What are these methods, how much do they cost and why do they help someone. Homeopathy, physiotherapy, acupuncture – what kind of treatment you can safely refuse and not waste your money .. We explain complex things in short formats: medicine, health

6 treatments that don't work

Not all treatments that doctors may recommend have been proven to work. A rare patient was not prescribed Arbidol in the first wave of covid or was not prescribed a course of electrophoresis after a fracture.

Sometimes questionable methods seem to help. But in most cases, the placebo effect works or they are prescribed along with the main effective treatment. This means that such methods can be safely abandoned and, in some cases, save a lot of money. In this material – the most popular questionable methods of treatment and the costs associated with them.

💊 Homeopathy

What is it. Tablets, syrups, ointments and powders to treat anything, such as insomnia, SARS or diseases of the internal organs.

The active ingredient in homeopathic medicines is diluted so many times that nothing of the original medicine remains in the resulting tablet. It's like diluting a liter of freshly squeezed juice in a ton of water – there will be no taste, but you can write "juice drink" on the package. Such a meager amount of a medicinal substance cannot affect the body in any way.

Why does it help someone? The placebo effect works: if you take a pill, it should help.

How much can you save. The cost depends on the drug. For example: Edas-307M homeopathic syrup costs 236 R, Oscillococcinum granules – 1656 R, Traumeel S ointment – 1019 R

⚡️ Physiotherapy

What is it. Treatment with physical factors: heat, cold, current, color or sound. Physiotherapy includes electrophoresis, magnetotherapy, hydrotherapy, phototherapy, air ionization.

All these methods of treatment are included in the order of the Ministry of Health on guaranteed medical care, but in terms of evidence-based medicine, physiotherapy has no evidence of effectiveness and safety.

Why does it help someone? Almost always it is prescribed with the main treatment, which actually gives the result. For example, for rehabilitation after a fracture, a doctor may prescribe exercise and ultrasound. Just physical exercises will work, and ultrasound will be ineffective. We should not forget about the regenerative abilities of the body: the consequences of many injuries and diseases resolve themselves over time.

How much can you save. Consultation with a physiotherapist in Moscow – from 400 R. A course of 10 electrophoresis procedures – from 1300 R

👐 Manual therapy

What is it. Literally – "treatment by hands."The main difference from massage is that chiropractors work not only with muscles, but also with joints. They promise to relieve pain or increase mobility when it comes to rehabilitation after injuries.

In fact, the method is inefficient and unsafe. Even if the procedure is performed by a licensed chiropractor, one careless move can lead to a dislocation, fracture, or stroke.

Why does it help someone? As with physical therapy, manual therapy can be prescribed as an adjunct to the main treatment, which will actually give the result. Manual therapy alone can only relieve low back pain in adults if the pain lasts for more than six weeks.

How much can you save. The average price for one appointment with a chiropractor in Moscow is 3000 R

🦴 Osteopathy

What is it. The osteopath performs physical manipulations with his hands, similar to manual therapy or massage. The goals can be different: relieve a headache or pain in the back or joints, restore vision, cure a cold or any disease of the internal organs, such as gastritis.

There is no evidence that osteopathy cures the claimed diseases. More often, osteopathy is just stretching and a slight muscle pull that cannot cure gastritis or restore vision.

Why does it help someone? It is possible that doctors who position themselves as osteopaths actually use therapeutic massage. It can really help, but only for chronic and acute back pain.

How much can you save. Reception of an osteopath in Moscow – from 1000 to 16 500 R

🎎 Acupuncture

What is it. Acupuncture is a Chinese medicine procedure in which thin needles are inserted into specific points on the body. The method is based on the teaching that all health comes from the alignment of "vital qi". Needles remove its blockage or reduce excess, and the person is cured.

Reviews of scientific papers show that acupuncture is not effective in treating asthma, stroke, depression, and almost every other condition for which it is prescribed.

Why does it help someone? The method can reduce chronic headache, pain in the lower back, neck, knees. The placebo effect works: the pain decreases slightly when the patient believes that the needles will help.

How much can you save. The price of one session in Moscow is from 350 R

🩹 Kinesiology taping

What is it. Colored adhesive plasters that are glued to the body for pain in the back, shoulders and knees. Proponents of the method suggest that by tightening the skin like an accordion, the tape increases the flow of blood and lymph and relieves pain.

In evidence-based medicine, there are no studies that confirm the effectiveness of kinesio taping. Too many layers of tissue separate the tape on the skin from the muscles and ligaments for it to act on them and relieve pain.

Why does it help someone? Still the same placebo effect.In addition, teips are applied to those places where pain is felt. Human nature is such that we always want to touch or scratch this place – teips put pressure on the area of ​​pain, which makes it seem that the condition is improving.

How much can you save. The cost of taping in Moscow is from 200 to 9910 R depending on the zone

✉️ And how to be healthy, S-F?

Prices are current at the time of publication.

Go to the doctor. Our articles are written with love for evidence-based medicine. We refer to authoritative sources and go to doctors with a good reputation for comments. But remember: the responsibility for your health lies with you and your doctor. We don't write prescriptions, we make recommendations. Rely on our point of view or not – you decide.

Read more about questionable treatments:

Okay, people themselves go to homeopaths, etc. But, when a doctor in a regular clinic prescribes homeopathy, I want to scream obscenities. About physiotherapy, which is almost always given as a load, I am already silent. But at least you don’t have to pay for it (let’s omit the moment that we still pay for it through insurance fees). Especially children's doctors sin with this.

Dimitri haha. My mother wrote a complaint against me to the Moscow Health Department, because. I didn't want to put a child on an unproven videophone. You talk, talk, prescribe the drug of first choice according to all the recommendations, even according to the Russian Federation and uptodate, and then the parent writes a complaint that the doctor prescribes antidepressants. Although for all scientific articles "A" level of evidence.
You prove in another case that there is no need to treat, they go to another doctor, get their homeopathy, nootropics and physiotherapy. They write complaints that the doctor did not prescribe treatment. And he did not appoint unproven examinations.

Irina, are you being punished precisely for the fact of having a complaint, and not for violating the recommendations, if there was one? The insurance company is not involved in the proceedings, what should have been appointed as a disinterested third party expert?

Anastasia, where I worked, no one was punished for unfounded complaints. Just head. the department spends 15 minutes of time for unsubscribing to the depzdrav. It’s just that the fact of complaining is unpleasant and contributes to burnout.

Irina, sad situation. But thanks to you, humanity will quickly come to reasonable treatment. Some will resist, some won't. You're making it harder for patients to mistreat. Thank you for this, let's win!

Well, how about.
There is such a category of patients who "if a doctor did not prescribe pills during an illness, then he is a bad doctor" and somewhere nearby "prescribed cheap drugs – he wants to kill."
From here, the legs of many fuflomycins grow, which help exactly as much as everything would be fine without them. And most homeopaths.
Some doctors grow old and, forgetting about the reason for prescribing fuflomycins, focusing on the accumulated statistics, draw conclusions with the trap from the previous paragraph (it is actually difficult to resist such an "accumulated observational history").

And as for homeopaths, they are taught to communicate with patients. A doctor (specialist) can be a professional, but have mediocre communication skills, so they go to homeopaths.
For my taste, the main thing that a homeopath should be able to do is not to treat what he cannot cure and to send to specialists in such cases with a pendal.

Dmitry, once a veterinarian told me to STICK a homeopathic remedy for a cat. That is, torturing in vain))) In case of poisoning)) They coped with other prescribed drugs. Many are paid extra by all these "farm" companies.

>> Many are paid extra by all these "farm" companies
Tonica, I'm always interested in how this is implemented.
Here the doctor says to me, "treat yourself with bullshit." How will the pharmacy understand which doctor brought me during the sale? These are not homeopathic "pharmacies", where everything is strictly according to the prescription and nothing else.

Alexander, it is not the pharmacy that pays extra, but directly the manufacturing company of a particular drug. That's what medical representatives are for. It happens that you go to the doctor, and on his table there are all sorts of notebooks and pens with the symbols of some kind of medicine, that's all from this opera

Yes, but how exactly is it tracked that the doctor has prescribed a particular drug? And even more so – that a person bought it?

Veta are tracked by sales statistics in the nearest pharmacies.

Evgenia, the question remains – how to control the sale of the drug through a specific doctor? The answer is no legal way. The recipe indicates mn, in the recommendations mn with three trade names. Here, either write out recommendations on a separate special form, or demand a box of the drug from the patient, which in both cases is terribly pale. And pharmaceutical companies pay directly only to lecturers for promotional lectures. Medical representatives are just promoters with leaflets, in serious companies they are still well versed in clinical research and diseases, and basically their task is an endless reminder of themselves.

Eugenia indirectly pays extra for listening to the seminar and pays extra for recommending this different stuff.
And if a doctor's mind is clouded, then advertising in the media can cloud him in the same way. As well as the horoscope in the newspaper.

About notepads, yes, but the first thing a doctor does with these leaves, in my experience, is to cross out the advertisement and / or write on the back.

Tonica, by the way, which is funny, active ingredients are added to homeopathy for animals, because there is a lower level of control over drugs.

When homeopathy could not help me as a child, my mother began to take me to church and light candles. I would add religion as a separate category.

And in "acupuncture" you can add acupuncture bracelets.

Nikolay, candles help. But not in the church which. To another place.

Nikolai, and only seven candles in seven churches could help me, according to a doctor in a children's clinic

When my back hurt sharply and severely – so that I walked crooked on one side and could not straighten up – a chiropractor brought me out of this state.I could not take any painkillers (nursing mother), and after a session with a chiropractor, I was able to at least stand up straight.

In general, I tend to trust evidence-based medicine and not participate in dubious practices, so this case surprised me myself. Anticipating bewilderment: in general, I did not come to see a chiropractor, but a neurologist, who, in combination, turned out to be a chiropractor and offered such a method of treatment under given conditions.

Polina, support. There were terrible pains in the neck and head – due to scoliosis, the blood flow of the arteries slowed down. There is no pharmaceutical treatment. The course at the chiropractor literally saved, + after it I used a bandage and a corset.

Polina, right, because manual therapy is essentially a massage, and massage works.

Alexey, manual therapy is not massage).

Polina, I had an orthopedic chiropractor. He offered to straighten his back a little – the pain was wild, but it became easier. He said that it would not be for long and then everything would come back again, if I want to take a risk, I need to take a course. But I didn't risk it.

And another doctor also suggested manual therapy, only before that he said it was necessary to give a course of injections, which soften the bones so that the spine could be set with the hands. I was a teenager then and didn’t particularly feel that this was a game, everything was painted so well and the doctor. But she refused. Now I remember and terribly.

Polina, the chiropractor saved me too. And what else to treat the back, not with pills. It is very strange that this direction was included in the anti-rating

Polina, selectively put minuses here 🙂

Marina, the cold went away in 7 days, otherwise you could have been ill for a week?

Andrei, in most cases there are studies proving that this fuflomycin / electrophoresis does not help or sometimes even harms. Well, even in the absence of adequate research, your breakthrough method/drug must have at least some theoretical basis that describes the principle of its work from a scientific point of view. Many don't even have that. Scientists at least saw bacteria through a microscope, Pasteur and Koch built their theories not on the phases of the moon and fantasies about the memory of water, but on real convincing experiments

Well, thanks, after this article, the placebo will not work, but the thing is powerful (

Say, what's interesting is that there are studies that show that placebos work even when the person knows they took the placebo. Here is such an interesting brain) I learned this fact from Asya Kazantseva’s book “Someone is wrong on the Internet”, but it also googles perfectly if it’s not interesting to read the whole book

Ekaterina, but works weaker like

Tell me, the most powerful thing! but will work even harder!

Igor, expensive placebo helps better.

Anton, and blue pills are better than red ones! or vice versa)

Andrey, if "medicine always followed private doctors and individual enthusiasts", especially during the covid epidemic, now we would be vaccinated with ginger and lemon juice instead of a vaccine

Marina, you have a too simplified understanding of the human anatomy and psyche. And, apparently, the economy, since you are convinced that the quality of the product is somehow related to its market share. Here we can only recommend reading specialized literature, even if only from scientific pop. For example, a very cool book by Peter Talantov "0.05. Evidence-based medicine: from magic to the search for immortality." Everything is lined up. Alexei Vodovozov's books are also good and easy to read. In the field of pediatrics – Fedor Katasonova and his book "Fediatry". Well, at the end – Olga Kashubina – "How sick a doctor would be."
If you are too lazy to read, you can at least look for videos about evidence-based medicine on the same YouTube, there are a lot of them there. Including explanations why homeopathy does not work, and why it cannot work in principle. However, if you are a superstitious person, with not very pumped critical thinking, then all this, of course, is unlikely to convince you. Just because you don't want to change your mind)

It's sad when you show your parents studies, articles and scientific evidence from a million different sources, and they still believe in such heresy 🙁
Thank you, especially for the chiropractors, osteopaths and kinesio taping

Olga, very possibly. Firstly, atopic dermatitis, on average, manifests itself less often with age, i.e. This is largely a "childhood" disease. Children get sick more often than adults, and as they grow up and age in many adults, it doesn’t just go away on its own (although it does go away for some), but at least ceases to manifest itself. Not everyone, but many. It is possible that something similar happened in your case, and you made the famous cognitive error "after – therefore, due to." And if we talk about personal experience, then you will not deny the personal experience of those who tried homeopathy and did not find any effect? There are such people too.

In addition, on the same pubmed one can find many studies on the effectiveness of homeopathy, where we are not talking about a couple of dozen private opinions, but about professional studies of hundreds of thousands of people. And the conclusions are the same everywhere – the effectiveness does not exceed the placebo level. This is because you write about the credibility of research in such a way, as if it were only some kind of theoretical conjecture. But this is not so, living people are involved in the research. And it doesn't help them. How to deal with this fact?

Many years have passed since Aristotle first declared that the earth is round. During this time, a huge number of scientists, from different generations, independently of each other, managed to make sure that this is really so. Of course, I did not check it personally, but I do not feel any special need for this either, I trust scientific data. In the end, everything is impossible to check, life is not enough. We still have to trust many things without checking them. That is why I do not see the need to go to homeopaths, just as I do not see the need, for example, to make it rain with a ritual dance or a spell.After all, if I am a station – and the rain really goes – order to believe that I called it?)

Hadzhehsen, Sorry, and what prevents office plankton from working outside of work and get injuries?

Oleg, let's criticize constructively and respect our authors. Here are the Rules, we recommend reading: https://journal.tinkoff.ru/comments-roles/.

I'll stand a little about the protection of teypov: they work well as a "make-up tool" – the bruise goes faster, wrinkles are smoothed, etc. – But it is not forever, but temporarily.
Treat them to dislocate – really stupid and I did not hear someone doing this.

Vitaly, I am ready to accept reasonable, proven and not contradictory arguments, but let's talk to it. "All" – which is exactly what? Give references to these "all" studies) or did you really use the word "all" in the meaning "everything without exception"? That is, you really believe that "Everything without exception is a medical research – is misleading"? You yourself are not funny?)
There are research of poor-quality, conducted non-professional, or with intentional subtoping data. Only all this then does not have a relationship to evidential medicine. This is a hacktur. And this hacktur is revealed just correctly and conscientiously proven RCCs and metaenalys. I have not met any study conducted by unbiased, with compliance with allocardial standards, and reproduced by +/- with the same results, which visually, reasonably and convincingly demonstrate the effectiveness of homeopathy. Moreover, as far as I know, it has not met anyone. Although there are already thousands of such research. That is, in a practical sense – empty. Yes, and in the theoretical – it is enough to know chemistry at school level to understand why homeopathy simply cannot work. Since if it could, any water from the tap contains so many "active substances" (according to homeopathic criteria), that we will have to turn into mutants for a long time)

Wagon wave comments # amnemoglochetite

To me, tipping facilitated pain with inflammation of tendons. In principle, it is also effective as all sorts of warming / hopping masses are treated, but the pain is removed, the bloodstream is improved, due to the fact that the region was massaged.

Marina, after, does not mean

Vitaly, I did not say that I have a relation to science. True, I even know what it is, and how it is arranged.
It is easy to take cases of healing if a specific mechanism of the drug is described, and it is consistent with the laws of physics, chemistry, anatomy and biology. If, in the end, we can see the microscope and see what exactly, for example, makes an antibiotic with bacterium. That is, just see the sorry. Homeopaths either can not justify why their "medicine" acts, or their substantiations are not much different from medieval superstitions, completely contradict naturally scientific knowledge, and are not confirmed experimentally.
Above, I cited several references to studies that show that the effectiveness of homeopathy is at the placebo level. There are thousands of these links. But you, too, with the stubbornness of a sectarian, do not see these facts, but prefer to believe in single statements in the spirit of “it helped me,” which may well actually turn out to be a remission, a placebo effect, the effect of concomitant drugs, a change in lifestyle, self-recovery, and finally, just embellishment , or even lies, etc.
Did you read the fairy tale about the kolobok as a child? Surely you do not think that this is a real story – that bread can talk to animals, think, move independently in space, etc. And if a couple of dozen people tell you that they saw and personally communicated with the kolobok, will you also believe in its existence?
Finally, answer the question after all – how to relate to the results of studies (of which, let me remind you, there are not one or two, but thousands), in which millions of people took part over several decades, which were carried out by different scientists, in different countries, and the results which is that homeopathy does not work? How to deal with it?
How to explain that, despite the fact that homeopathy is a super-profitable business, and, accordingly, an excellent source of replenishment of the state treasury, and, as you assure, an effective method of treatment, many states do not include it in the insurance system (and those that used to include it, remove it from there), in some cases they are obliged to indicate on the packaging that the remedy is homeopathic and has no proven effectiveness, and they put other obstacles in the way of such a beneficial and useful phenomenon.
How to explain all these facts?

I dealt with one method of physiotherapy, there are quite a lot of articles and reviews in Western peer-reviewed publications showing its effectiveness. So it’s somehow wrong to collect everything one size fits all.

You just didn’t have normal osteopaths and reflexologists)

Elka, first of all, unfortunately we can't go back in time and not give this particular dog homeopathy to see if the lump heals on its own. Therefore, we need to at least take at least a couple of hundred sick dogs, divide them into groups and give homeopathy to one group, a placebo to another, and a really effective drug with proven effectiveness to the third. What comes out of this – you can read, for example, here, the truth is about cats – https://bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1136/vr.104007. Or, about cows: https://bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1136/vr.104555
Secondly – yes, animals, especially domesticated ones, have something like a placebo effect. The problem is that this effect is not well understood even in humans, so in animals even more so. However, some assumptions about its nature exist. Here, for example, more about the placebo effect in animals and just in the context of homeopathy. https://bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1136/vr.104278
In short, it's great that the dog's huge bump quickly healed, but what about hundreds of other facts that indicate that homeopathy does not work? After all, these facts are clearly more.And those facts where it allegedly works, it is quite possible to explain without resorting to obscure hypotheses.

People who write like, perhaps never stood on the edge of hopelessness, when official medicine breeds.

Well, what can I say?! During pregnancy suffered from back pain. I could not sleep on my back, and when you turn from one side, a wild pain was experiencing. It all started on the period of 14 weeks. I did not understand how I get out this pregnancy, if I can not sleep normally now. He came to a neurologist, and she "delighted me" even more, said that I could not have nothing yet, until I was talking. You can only yoga for pregnant women. Qigong seemed to be called. And osteopath, but they say it is expensive. On my good luck, I managed to knock osteopath through the DMS at work, because It is really expensive! Osteopath was at a private hospital, i.e. Is only pregnant. She looked at me, interviewed and sent to the couch. I lay on my back, and osteopath put one hand for me under the lower back, and the second under the foundation of the neck. I really didn't feel anything and already came home thought: "There is some kind of garbage! It's good that I didn't pay for." At that moment, forgetting, fluttered on the bed on the back. And already in flight remembered about the pain – climbed. What was my surprise, when I did not feel this pain on the landing on the bed! From the word completely! True, when turning from the sides, the pain remained. But for several sessions, pain gone! And in the intervals between the sessions, Osteopath appointed me a traumel to a sore place.
As osteopath I told me, she put a block on the back pain (did not cure, but blocked that I calmly could come up with pregnancy).
Summing up, I do not know how osteopaths do it. For me, this magic is in pure form.
This osteopath later helped my pregnant girlfriend with similar problems.
And I did not help with otloczinum. So this is not self-impact)))
After pregnancy, there was a survey, incl. MRI loaf, turned out to be a hernia in the sacral region. Very small, but because There are many nervous expirations, in the diagnosis, it was a hernia. Appointed physiotherapy and massage. Physio – the results did not give, but the massage therapist was from God! She did a massage without combat symptoms (I used to think that the more painful, the better the smears! 😅). But after the procedure, with this specialist, for an hour approximately felt, as the heat spinning around the spine. As at the reception at Osteopatha visited. On some day it was not, replaced by a man. So he shook my back so that one session just got into no all the achievements of that female masseur! 🤦♀️
There are good specialists in any sphere, and there is nothing. Therefore, it is not necessary to judge all one unsuccessful reception.
Also with preparations – there are which help and which do not help. And there is no homeopathy or not – this is not so important.