Category Archives: debunkery

Confusing the benefits of salty and non-salty baths

By Paul Ingraham | Published: September 3, 2010
I’m on holiday for a couple weeks at the moment, so updates will be slow for a couple weeks. But of course I never truly stop working entirely … A recent email exchange with a reader inspired this small piece, which is really more about critical thinking and cognitive distortion than Epsom salts. In this case, [...]
Also posted in contrast hydrotherapy, epsom, hydrotherapy, pain, placebo, self-treatment | Leave a comment

“I’ve tried to interpret the findings of the best physiologists and translate them into sound practices. That’s made me a radical.”

By Paul Ingraham | Published: August 26, 2010
David Moorcroft was about as flexible as a 2×4, but it didn’t keep him from winning a lot of races. Reader Jennifer M. found this great passage from an excellent 1983 Sports Illustrated article about David Moorcroft, a British middle and long distance runner and 5,000 metres world record holder. It’s a splendid addition to my stretching [...]
Also posted in evidence-based medicine, self-treatment, strain, stretching | Leave a comment

WARNING! Traumeel contains .00000000000000001% pure death!

By Paul Ingraham | Published: June 22, 2010
Alexa Ray Joel, somehow still with us after trying to kill herself with an unbelievably teensy dosage of arnica and other herbs. I could not make this up. Truth really is stranger than fiction — and funnier, too! Back in December, Billy Joel’s daughter Alexa Ray tried to kill herself, probably because she heard “Piano Man” one too [...]
Also posted in traumeel | Leave a comment

The three most common words in massage therapy are pointless

By Paul Ingraham | Published: June 15, 2010
The pointless words are: “You’re really tight!” A simple science experiment published in Journal of Pain clearly shows (finally!) that muscle hardness correlates (very!) badly with muscle sensitivity. Read the article.
Also posted in massage, massage therapy | Leave a comment

New article: Should You Drink Water After Massage?

By Paul Ingraham | Published: June 3, 2010
After getting this question from a reader for about the bazillionth time, I decided it was finally time to write an article about it. A little salamander sass is included at no extra charge, as usual. Should You Drink Water After Massage? Only if you’re thirsty!
Also posted in detoxification, hydrotherapy, massage, massage therapy, nutrition, self-massage | Leave a comment

Hypocrazy! I reserve the right to critisize even though I also mak mistaks the sometimes

By Paul Ingraham | Published: May 8, 2010
Sometimes I criticize poor quality writing as a corollary of poor quality thinking in the world of therapy, because it’s alarmingly common. Many deluded and fraudulent purveyors of bogus treatments are often incoherent when they try to ’splain themselves. People out there in on the interwebs often write to scold me for this — how dare [...]
Also posted in humour | Leave a comment

Out of the Park: my new Traumeel article jumps to prominence in Google search results practically overnight

By Paul Ingraham | Published: April 13, 2010
It’s World Homeopathy Awareness Week (WHAW)! Homeopaths are once again holding a week-long publicity campaign to raise awareness for their practice … and many consumer rights activists are also committed to raising a different sort of awareness of homeopathy. So what a happy coincidence that Dr. Harriet Hall, the The SkepDoc, recently let me know that [...]
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Science experiment shows that massage actually interferes with lactic acid removal

By Paul Ingraham | Published: March 26, 2010
One of the classic claims of massage therapy is that it can help you by flushing “toxins” and metabolic wastes from your muscles, especially the most famous one: lactic acid. This is not a difficult thing to test — the principle is science-fair simple, just compare metabolic waste products with and without massage involved — [...]
Also posted in massage, massage therapy, research | Leave a comment

New short article about “psoas work”

By Paul Ingraham | Published: March 23, 2010
Manipulation of the psoas major muscle is over-rated: it just isn’t needed for most people, most of the time. Psoas, So What? Massage therapy for the psoas major and iliacus (iliopsoas) muscles is not that big a deal
Also posted in anatomy, low back pain, manual therapy, massage, treatment | Leave a comment

Your chronic pain may not have a solution

By Paul Ingraham | Published: January 16, 2010
Recently a reader asked for my opinion on a website about a miracle cure for some serious, chronic muscle pain — one of the most common kinds of requests I get. It was one of the most extreme example of a too-good-to-be-true cure I have seen in a while, and that’s saying something. I’ve been [...]
Also posted in manual therapy, massage therapy, quackery, treatment | Leave a comment