[sooyoo]

I'm sorry to sound negative, but what you are saying about this "clinic in Mexico" sounds too good to be true. And everybody knows that when something sounds too good to be true ...

More concretely, are you suggesting that US and European doctors are ignoring science about MS and just take the money? And the Mexican doctors at this clinic somehow magically have a cure which the rest of the world, at least the western world, ignores to ... enrich themselves?

Seriosly, this sounds very dubious. I'd caution the poster to get into fishy recommendations and blindly trust a stranger on the internet based on hope. Especially out of desperation.

And I find it deeply unethical to get the hopes up for somebody so desperate for a solution as the poster is. Their condition and outlook are bad enough, they don't need to be tricked on top of that. One of the huge red flags is the hush-hush "I'll send you a mail" Why this secrecy?

I urge you to either put evidence if your claims on the table or stop posting this kind of thing.

[alfor]

While I agree with you with my alarm bells, I found out too that our medical system is way more a money extraction machine than an health machine.

We are chronically deficient in infrared light, it’s killing people, it’s well researched yet there no pill for that: no money, no reach.

https://youtu.be/5YV_iKnzDRg

[refurb]

While I agree with you with my alarm bells, I found out too that our medical system is way more a money extraction machine than an health machine.

But that’s exactly what a lot of clinics doing stem cell therapy are doing themselves.

No evidence the therapy works but happy to accept you as a patient as long as you can fork over $100k.

[alfor]

True, if there is that amount of money involved they should have solid proof.

[Nomentatus]

If you know anything about the history of science generally, you know that most genuinely new research results are ignored for decades before being embraced. Simple ego suffices, greed isn't the usual reason for this. I agree that more openness would be good, but as seen here the amount of flak that can result is daunting. MS research over the last century is a particularly gasp-inducing litany of tunnel vision and refusal to try (or acknowledge) more than one narrow research approach at a time.

[sooyoo]

Being in empirical research myself, I'm well aware of the obstacles that new insights in science sometimes have to face.

It's rare though that the breakthrough comes via an obscure secret clinic in Mexico though which is only spread via "I'll email you".

[Nomentatus]

But it is not at all rare that such fly-by-night clinics grab someone's obscure result at third hand, rather randomly. They're a crap source of information, but not a disconfirmation.

Where there's an ick factor, or a safety factor, as with infecting oneself with worms to reduce allergies, the effect is perfectly real. The Mexican clinics are either are either ahead of their time or unsafe; ya just don't know which.

[sooyoo]

Yes, and it's closer to a 1:99 ratio than 50:50, making it pretty irresponsible to promote any if them here.

[Nomentatus]

I have a medical condition (highly comorbid with MS) for which I've tried, probably 1,000 or more approaches over decades. About ten of them worked (better together.) Three or four were key. Would recommend.

Some of the things that worked best would have sounded too ridiculous for any Mexican clinic to try to sell to anybody. In my position, I think you would have been glad for any new (and safe-ish) ideas to try out, too. I just wasn't interested in paying the fly-by-night clinics, I don't advise that. Openness (not of the wallet but the mind) worked very well for me. Just really, really slowly.

So I'm more of the "don't sit still" and "bring out the ideas," sort. 1/99 odds sounds damn good next to what I went through. So I don't mind people posting ideas here, it's an adult forum. Ish.

[alfor]

Did you try infrared light therapy? Did wonder for me, cost almost nothing, cured my eczema (quick visible result!)

[mush_room]

I understand it might not be relevant for MS, but could you share what worked?

[ryanackley]

Agree with you about the magical mexican clinic sounding a little too good to be true.

However, I can totally see doctors in the US and Europe ignoring or not knowing about the latest treatments for conditions. As I've aged and watched my parents age, We've dealt with several conditions where doctors have no idea and at some point they just think you're making it up. It feels like most doctors are just barely showing up to work mentally. If you don't fall within the dozen or so conditions/treatments they are familiar with they throw their hands up.

[hirvi74]

> If you don't fall within the dozen or so conditions/treatments they are familiar with they throw their hands up.

Absolutely true in my experience. They just throw various treatments at the wall and hope one sticks (though I find this more true for psychiatry than perhaps other fields of medicine).

I seriously think more people would benefit from a more holistic approach to medicine. I do not mean holistic in like woo-woo essential oils, but rather trying to treat all aliments as piece of a greater puzzle than each disease needing a different doctor per disease which never communicates with one another.

[mush_room]

Hey, I appreciate both of you; I wouldn't characterize the parent as unethical, he seems like a real person with a story, on the surface I have doubts it could work for me, but I won't rule it out, if only I had the financial means to try. You're not entirely wrong about your assessment, when I first got diagnosed I was quick to believe anything that would promise help, and even followed through with some (pricy and ineffective) treatments like CCSVI procedures (which were even discussed here on HN back in the day).

[sooyoo]

> but I won't rule it out, if only I had the financial means to try.

Here is the problem: OP doesn't have the time. In such a situation, even if you have the money, you can afford to try one or two things long term, maybe three if you are lucky. If those turn out to be nonsense, that's it, you're dead or paralyzed or demented. You can't afford some esoteric nonsense in the bush because some stranger on the internet recommended it and a sketchy website pushed it.

It's really sad that dubious actors are making a buck off of desperate patients and that's just as immoral as a dysfunctional health system.

[mush_room]

I am OP :). I really hope the future isn't so grim, I mean, to be honest it's me rejecting what is the most common outcome for people with MS, slow degradation. It pains me because just 3 years ago I was feeling so good, my brain was working great (due to a mix of circumstances, financial windfall, low stress, and pretty certainly a great mix of diet and exercise), I had so many product ideas and the energy to pursue them. Anyway, I digress... The thing is, as far as I know, no non-esoteric options provide what I'm seeking. As I've replied elsewhere, my initial intention was to collect (even very speculative) hints to future research and treatments that might do what current ones don't: restore, repair.

[sooyoo]

Oh I missed that, sorry. All the best to you!

[andrewmcwatters]

Could you not do this? Medical vacations are a thing—and for precisely this reason.

> More concretely, are you suggesting that US and European doctors are ignoring science about MS and just take the money? And the Mexican doctors at this clinic somehow magically have a cure which the rest of the world, at least the western world, ignores to ... enrich themselves?

I guess you’re too young to have experienced having or to have known someone having an ailment that had a wide variety of ways it was understood and treated.

What a disgustingly rude post.

Maybe you don’t have the experience, but emphatically yes, doctors in the US at least WILL take your money without knowing how to alleviate your issues.

Do you not know how copays work? Do you think physicians say, “Oh, sorry this is beyond my expertise. Here’s a refund for your time.”

No. They’re getting paid.

I know it sounds crazy but there’s this phenomenon in life where people have different abilities and knowledge. It has nothing to do with what nation you live in either.

> One of the huge red flags is the hush-hush "I'll send you a mail" Why this secrecy?

Yuck. Like a preteen who can’t handle a private conversation.

[insane_dreamer]

This is a highly controversial topic, but I would be cautious about dismissing the OP out of hand simply because it's not in the US/EU.

The medical system in the US wholly rejects non-pharmacological remedies, primarily because Pharma has a stranglehold on the medical profession, but also because such remedies are not easily reproducible in clinical trials (which are incredibly expensive and have to be funded by someone, ergo, Pharma). That's not to say that homeopathic remedies all work, but the body is an extremely complex system with a great deal of variance from person to person. There are non-pharmacological remedies that have worked for certain people where pharmacological remedies failed, and the results can't always be scientifically explained. There's also a plenty of times that they don't work. And there's plenty of quackery. But to say that the US medical system has monopoly on medical knowledge would be foolish. (One example is that ketamine is slowly becoming accepted as a positive tool in treating certain mental health conditions, whereas for decades you had to go to some "clinic in Mexico" to find a doctor who could prescribe it to you.)

[diceduckmonk]

> I'm sorry to sound negative, but what you are saying about this "clinic in Mexico" sounds too good to be true. And everybody knows that when something sounds too good to be true ... More concretely, are you suggesting that US and European doctors are ignoring science about MS and just take the money? And the Mexican doctors at this clinic somehow magically have a cure which the rest of the world, at least the western world, ignores to ... enrich themselves?

I’m assuming you aren’t aware of the Dallas Buyers Club.

[AutumnCurtain]

Dallas Buyers' Club was a thing because of governmental/societal prejudice against HIV/AIDS victims which itself stemmed from Christian bigotry towards gay people

[Kye]

In that case society and government were widely opposed to helping and considered the plague a positive and much-deserved thing. There isn't the same level of stigma around MS.