Acupuncture and other traditional Chinese medicine news and discussion thread

https://twitter.com/user/status/1750248593347219528

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1750250251384914296



Thanks to @TheCanaryUK we have an easy way for everyone to complain to Ofcom via email. Enter a few details on a form in the article below and boosh.

For max visibility tweet the link at 8pm for ME awareness hour.

 

Yet another Mail article (24/1/2024)


'New twist in Dragons' Den 'fakery' storm as entrepreneur says she warned the BBC over woman accused of 'selling snake oil' when they also asked her to pitch her rival ear seeds product'


Excerpt:

'[Acupuncturist] Zoe Young, 47, from West Yorkshire, said that she was approached by the BBC to appear on the show, and told producers of her main competitor - Acu Seeds.

She warned them that Giselle Boxer, who got an offer from all six Dragons, was not a qualified acupuncturist and that ear seeds are not a cure for M.E.
.


'Speaking to FEMAIL Zoe said she was also approached [by Dragons Den].

'They encouraged me to apply,' they said.

'The questions they asked in the process were so lengthy and strict.

'They asked me what every placement on every ear map meant, really in depth questions.

'They asked me if I have any rivals and I told them about Acu Seeds.

'I told them that she didn't have any background in Traditional Chinese Medicine and that we were in litigation with them'.

'Zoe added that she warned producers was in legal action with Acu Seeds and slammed the show as 'very damaging' for ME sufferers and legitimate acupuncturists'.



https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/...u-1-c03n16wZbR2A0jL4KBt1MuTYaWNwNkvcMNmnmVs2Q

 

Yahoo News:

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/dragons-den-contestant-me-acu-seeds-162957806.html

 

Yahoo article:

'According to the NHS website, ME - also called chronic fatigue syndrome - is a long-term condition with a wide range of symptom including extreme tiredness.'


When we have had more press coverage on ME than in years, and which does not gaslight or smear us - why oh why do we still have the NHS Page dross dragging us down and trivialising our disease. .

 

To skip out of the weeds of the detail with this one, I'm going to randomly say what I would like to see happen.

I would like for the producers involved at the BBC to be required to meet with groups representing those who are most severe and to spend at least a day's worth of experiential time getting up close to how awful the condition actually can be at that level. My feeling is that those who allowed this must have a fundamental assumption the BPS nonsense is somewhat correct and playing with the condition as if it is just an augmented version of the 'wellness' and 'feeling a bit sub-par' for norms stuff is acceptable. I want them to see how unacceptable they are being.

And I'm surprised at the other dragons. I've watched for years so got a sense of them and their ethics, and like Neville from what I've seen of him elsewhere. I don't know Bartlett because I haven't watched DD recently.

I would like to see the other dragons meet with Action for ME and get an insight from the groups representing the more severe into how brutal an illness it is too.

And ask them all to read the Workwell information and meet @PhysiosforME so that they understand the connection of how people get worsened etc and how those who might 'seem OK' for a short time in front of them are still part of that spectrum and when they are ill are very ill, and are debilitated in a way that is hard to accommodate without eg being one of the more fortunate who gets it acutely at a point where they can rest completely for significant time like a year + (most can't because their supporters don't understand and couldn't make that without stress) and recover - I don't know how many they are.

These two interacting aspects of how much it has been deliberately minimised and trampled to be hidden and the horror we have to live under vs how the spectrum 'works' so that when people have been misled they can't see how the troped rhetoric misleads them into thinking someone can't have been that ill if they put themselves through hell holding down a job - well that would be a start.

They should already be then aware of the misinformation they might have believed and how if they imagine those with the illnes they have now had accurately described are talked about in the way the rumours have been established it would be akin to bullying for many of them as they scrabble trying to literally survive.

I'd then like to see what response those individuals who were producers or whatever part of the 'group effect' individually would like to then write or say as a reply, hopefully a grown-up one, afterwards.

I seem to remember a really good moment on the Wright Stuff a few years back when it was still on and Matthew Wright saying how serious the condition was and he'd had people seriously ill with it in the studio, as well as those who couldn't that he'd met and you can't help but wonder whether for these others 'having to face it' might stop people playing at it as if we are some sort of half-illness that games can be played with.

Just because some phoneys in the psychosomatic medical profession and allieds wanted to sell their wares doesn't mean we are an illness that really overlaps with the 'wellness-thing' - which I think is how a lot of the *insert name about those who live and work in certain places* like to frame the condition to pretend their behaviour is acceptable and polite rather than childish and bigoted to a very serious condition which those who live with it have been made incredibly vulnerable by very bad behaviour, and encouragement of bad behaviour towards us, by certain individuals.

I'd just like to see a stop, let's have a wake-up call and see the real problem here moment. Let's ask for this to be an education opportuntiy - but one led by real patients for once, and not the unkind, callous 'experts' who in the past got to talk over our voices.

It was frankly a bit weird given how much ethic discussion and all perception/brand type angles on these types of matters the BBC does for each programme that noone involved in those jobs ever clearly has been and met people with severe and very severe ME. I'm sure they'd have done so if it were Mysethenia Gravis/other condition and they didn't know what it was and needed to understand to contextualise and 'be appropriate in tone'. BUt they thought they knew/an unknown known for them

We can't have this seemingly annual trip out of people getting carried away bully-whilst-pretend-we-aren't-bullying nonsense from (and I know the type because I know people who work in these roles so know how deluded and carried away and switched-off to hear on the detail some are the 'yes I know' when you try to tell them) supposedly enthusiastic pretending they've good intentions people 'because we are a great topic that works for them' (in the framing they inaccurately think of the condition).

It all just feels so outdated, so like they'd be cringing even if it was from the 1990s behaviour like this for any other illness type disability approach. And yet I suspect they still don't get why 'because she seems happy'. So it's education and penny-drop that is what's needed. From people who are too carried away thinking they know it all so not hearing, and I don't know when that awful look in the mirror moment will come for that segment (whilst they can cuddle BPS/bigotry who tell them what they want to hear as it works for them instead).

And then maybe if these characters still want to carry on the way they do, they wouldn't have the support or 'others staying quiet and letting them' of the 'polite masses' and it's then up to them whether they find that its still a profitable thing for them to do or they might want to do it in a different way/change their angle.

I see that latter part as the other dragons who I had great respect for as being wise, ethical and would have looked into things properly so their reaction throwing me, and it feeling like the way the show operated had been changed to them being choreographed what to do rather than being their usual selves or getting swept along in the bystander effect - but maybe I'm wrong.

 

And it might be pushing it, but it shouldn't be let's then ask them all to sign our petition re Cochrane exercise review now it is at 10,000 as they are keen to begin to help

And the DecodeME deadline is end of Jan so they could read about that

We are a large number for whom a huge difference could be made if the grasp of bigotry stopping access to basics were loosened - given the nature of the codnition meaning we find energy-limiting a barrier to the normal processes anyway compared to even other conditions, to have the other stuff to battle on top of it...

Imagine what we would all be capable of offering if even something that just made life more liveable started happenning instead of all these wasted battles having to keep stopping baddies telling the world black is white after we've proven twenty-five times black is black. Along with research money always going to the right rather than undermining places and we start having clinics that can tell individuals what might help them and what wouldn't and people there who want to accurately and clinically observe it as scientific-minded clinicians.

And according to the programme it's an area they'd like to see progress in, so let's give them the information on what really is possible?

 

The Telegraph 24/1/2024

'BBC accused of letting Dragons’ Den entrepreneur make ‘unfounded health claims'

'Charity claims broadcaster recruited contestant to the show but failed to carry out necessary background checks on 'ear seeds' product'

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...en-accused-unfounded-health-claims-ear-seeds/

This is behind a paywall


Archived copy of the article.
https://archive.is/2024.01.25-01285...en-accused-unfounded-health-claims-ear-seeds/

.

 

Full Telegraph article

https://archive.is/2024.01.25-01285...en-accused-unfounded-health-claims-ear-seeds/

 

ITV This Morning programme will be discussing the Dragons Den Acu seeds saga today at 11am

https://www.itv.com/thismorning


ITV This Morning Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/ThisMorning



ITV This Morning Doctor/Presenter

"Morning, you incredible lot! I’ll be joining my amazing This Morning team for the #Health Item. See you over on ITVX from 10am onward #This Morning"

https://twitter.com/user/status/1750422110906818668




ITV This Morning Twitter
https://twitter.com/thismorning?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author


Dr Charles Shepherd said that a statement from the MEA will be read out but he was not invited onto the programme. So many uninformed are discussing this issue so an ME charity medical advisor should really have been invited to speak.

.

 

fingers crossed hey!

 

Dr Nighat Arif (ITV This Morning)

"I am SO sorry I did not get to fully discuss #ME #CFS and how debilitating it is. I was cut short mid-thought The perils of LIVE TV. I promise I will come back to it.

Here are the 2021 updated NICE Guidance
[gives the Link to NICE] "

https://twitter.com/user/status/1750487022307885108




And:
"It’s vital to note that Graded Exercise Program, has been removed from NICE It’s a Chronic condition with sadly no cure"

https://twitter.com/user/status/1750487026405712191


.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1750501078859133361

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zp9HQVgdRI

 

Daily Mail article from today

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/...ake-oil-ear-seeds-Kate-Moss-Cherie-Blair.html

Dr Alistair Miller is interviewed


So what can people with ME do to recover?
Cognitive behavioural therapy, also known as CBT, a type of psychotherapy, can help. The benefit is indirect, helping patients cope better with some of the symptoms. Painkillers like paracetamol or ibuprofen can improve discomfort. Sufferers are also encouraged to monitor their daily activities so they can work out the best way to use the energy they do have.

Some people with ME find that exercising helps with their symptoms, although too much can trigger what is known as post-exertional malaise – where mental or physical strain can make people’s symptoms worse.

Dr Miller says: ‘There’s no doubt the best approach is for people to push themselves a bit, but not too hard. It’s a compromise. What people need to do is exercise a bit but not to extremes.’

 

Dr Miller is desperately trying to still push exercise and CBT, whilst not contradicting the new NICE guidelines. It is unfortunate that the guidelines were dilute enough to allow the GET/CBT believers to continue in place with only minimal mental gymnastics.