If I had a nickel for every physician who told me a fairy tale.<p>I'm sure most of you know most of my run-ins with so-called "medicine" but I think I haven't shared the bone stimulator incident.<p>I fell while roller skating in 2006, and ended up with a clean, closed tib-fib fracture. Unfortunately it was resistant to healing, and eventually an atrophic non-union called for surgery. The reason it didn't knit back together is because the leg was displaced, and the idiots in charge didn't catch that (except my amazing PCP, who had no agency in the realm of orthopedics.) And this was on <i>Medicaid</i>, folks.<p>They put me on big calcium supplements; cool I guess. Then they said they wanted me to wear an "electronic bone stimulator" which sent mysterious RF pulses through my cast to "stimulate those osteoblasts and build up the bone!"<p>Of course this was a transparent fairy tale that only a fully-qualified quack can tell. What kind of idiot thinks RFI pulses will cause positive healing in the body, who knows. I mean logically, either the RF waves around us are passing harmlessly through our bodies at all times, or they are having mysterious effects on those bodies, for better or worse. They can't have it both ways.<p>I was incredulous, but it was free. I am sure that pockets were lined by the rental of what's probably a hideously expensive device (couple thousand, AFAICT, but most pages are in the mode of "if you have to ask, you can't afford it.")<p>It obviously didn't help. After my final surgery, the assistant surgeon phoned me to report that they had to hammer through a lot of calcium deposits to get the rod in there. In other words, my bone was building up fine, but in the wrong place. If only someone had noticed the displacement. If only someone would own up to the malpractice they perpetrated on me.<p>I was miserable for nine months. I sat alone at home and found a game to play. Unfortunately, the bone stimulator completely disrupted the modem connection and so it'd disconnect every time I tried to use them together. Lovely. Bravo, quackery.