How much do you know about stocks? Don’t mess around with folk remedies

Author: Guo Donghong, attending physician, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University

Reviewer: Wang Jian, Chief Physician, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University

Femoral head necrosis is a headache! Everyone wants to find an effective treatment method, and many people are looking for various folk remedies, hoping that there will be a magical way to cure the disease in one go. However, there is a lot of mystery here! Some folk remedies may sound magical and make people full of hope, but in fact they have not been scientifically verified and may even contain potential safety hazards. We can't be fooled by those fancy statements, but must look at them from a scientific and rational perspective. You know, treating femoral head necrosis is not a simple matter, and you can't just find a folk remedy and use it on yourself.

1. Are folk remedies for treating femoral head necrosis reliable?

Let me give you an example. A person has a car with good performance. Suddenly one day, one of the tires was worn out and broke. He sent it to a 4S shop for repair. The repairman said, "Your tire is not easy to repair! But if you follow our method, it will not wear out again." The person asked what the method was. The repairman told him, "Go buy a truck, put the car on the truck, and drive the truck out every day. In this way, your car tire will not wear out." The friend was amused and confused after hearing this.

Figure 1 Copyright image, no permission to reprint

There are many informal medical institutions in the society that use similar methods to deceive patients. They even tell patients: "If you receive hip preservation treatment here, I guarantee that your femoral head will not collapse." They give patients a series of so-called "magic treatments" and then tell them to go home and lie down for 6 months, or continue to walk with crutches for 6 months, or even one or two years. In this way, the femoral head does not continue to deform, and patients feel that this treatment is really very effective.

Figure 2 Copyright image, no permission to reprint

In fact, this method is similar to a placebo. Even if no treatment is implemented, you are asked to drink boiled water every day, your activity time is strictly limited, and you are only asked to lie in bed, and your legs are no longer weight-bearing, the femoral head will not collapse. Do you think boiled water has a therapeutic effect? ​​Therefore, when the joints are rested and almost no longer weight-bearing, the necrotic area will not collapse. In fact, whether it is non-surgical treatment or surgical treatment, the treatment goal of femoral head necrosis is to restore normal joint function so that patients can return to normal work and life without lying down or using crutches. If a treatment method only makes people lie down or use crutches for a lifetime, then even if the disease does not progress, what is the point for the patient?

2. Why can some folk remedies and secret recipes "cure" femoral head necrosis?

Folk remedies and secret recipes are used in irregular hospitals to treat femoral head necrosis. The reasons why they can "cure" femoral head necrosis are as follows.

1. Diagnostic error: Diagnosing hip disease that does not cause femoral head collapse as femoral head necrosis (the most common cause).

2. The necrotic area is located in the non-weight-bearing area of ​​the femoral head (the posteromedial side of the femoral head): This type of femoral head necrosis causes a slower rate of femoral head collapse, or even no femoral head collapse occurs.

Figure 3 Copyright image, no permission to reprint

Mistakenly believed to be “cured”: During the follow-up of treatment, only the anterior-posterior X-ray of the hip joint was available, and the frog-shaped radiograph of the hip joint was missing, so the necrosis and collapse of the anterior femoral head could not be carefully observed. Due to the different observation angles, many necrotic areas were not observed, which led to the mistaken belief that the condition was “cured”.

Our definition of the effectiveness of disease treatment generally refers to the good treatment effect achieved by most people. If only a few cases achieve satisfactory treatment effect, in principle, there is no scientific evidence. The effectiveness of a few cases cannot prove that a certain treatment is effective, because even without treatment, there will be some cases with better prognosis results.