Reddit reviews The Spark in the Machine: How the Science of Acupuncture Explains the Mysteries of Western Medicine

Man, I'd upvote this post ten times if I could. I wish you the best with your success, and have little doubt you'll have lots of it, even though you might get strange looks from the institutionalized MDs with whom you might work.

I'm confident you'll love the shit out of Kharrazian's book.

And it's funny you mention it, because I'll be doing acupuncture soon, hopefully in the next few weeks, but I'm thinking of trying a potassium medication my doc just prescribed given that my RBC (not my freaking CMP/serum levels -- another reason why I pull my hair out with the "average" doc, who could easily miss low magnesium or potassium because serum levels look good), given apparent hypokalemia judging by RBC levels (and a CMP/serum reduction in potassium by almost an entire freaking point over the last few years for whatever reason). On the note of acupuncture, this book looks fascinating (although judging by his responses on Goodreads, the author is a douche).

BTW (me again being totally humble and knowing that you know a shit more comprehensively than I do, medically speaking), have you ever read ol' boy's (nobody seems to hear about him anymore) Andrew Weil's Spontaneous Healing? He has a section which I'm sure you'd love where he distinguishes Eastern from Western medicine, saying the latter is almost neurotic on its emphasis on how the substance itself (void of all confounds) must by itself as an independent variable must by itself cause changes (dependent variables, whatever they are).

He says Western medicine pays way too little attention to the power of the body to heal itself if appropriately taken care of, a point that's missed by docs (at least twenty years ago when this book was written) who focus on the "substance only" approach mentioned in the last sentence. He also says the East doesn't lose its shit and actually supports the power of placebo -- which is actually ironic for the West, given that the power of at least SSRI (if not all) antidepressants appears to be with its placebo qualities (with plenty of ugly methodological unforgiveable acts committed by pharmaceutical companies to bloat up the seeming effect of their medication, such as by using "placebo washouts" or disregarding studies that show no or negative effects, etc.), seeing how only with severe depression do antidepressants outperform placebo, and placebo doesn't have, you know, a shitton of side effects.