Homoeopathy

Thanks for that bags, the article confirmed everything I believed about homeopathic remedies.

Here is some good information and comment

I thought the sketch was good. I have always called it quackery but I know people who swear by it. My sister did but she has been healthier since she allowed the Doctor to give her anti-coagulants and beta blockers.

Love the sketch when.

I can only repeat what I have read and seen on TV in Germany where homeopathy has a 200 year old tradition. Animals realise when they are ill that someone has taken notice of them and is wanting to help them.

As to babies I can quote from my daughter who is a midwife with her own practice and whose job it is to check on newborn babies during the first 2 months of their life. Babies arrive with a completely unspoilt human condition. They have never had medication and are a blank sheet regarding homeopathy which works well on them.

With us 'oldies' homeopathy has to compete with the after effects or side effects of all the meds we have taken in our lives.

Perhaps we have to accept that we don't or can't know everything about the human body. All those scientists with their tests have got to get their docterates somehow and there are thousands of them and finding an original subject to study is not easy.

The important thing is to check the credentials of any complementary practitioners. Make sure they are registered with a body that regulates them. There are plenty of 'quacks' who just want to make money out of vulnerable people and this discredits the genuine practitioners.

Just to repeat something I've already posted - how does the placebo effect work on small babies or animals?

I have dfficulty in believing in Homeopathic remedies, but I do believe in the placebo effect. This is often quoted as if a trial had been a failure, but it shows that the body has self healing properties which have been allowed to develop. Seen like that, anything which helps people feel better is OK.
Even having doctors who take the time to really talk to their patients and relieve them of their worries about their health seems to work, no matter what they prescribe.
That is what a natural healers or homeopaths do. Talk to the patient.
Homeopaths should know that in cases of cancer etc they have to forward their patients to a doctor. Unfortunately a lot of people have not been helped by years of 'normal' medical practice and many have been harmed by it.
If you find homeopathy works for you, go along with it and forget the scientists. I am lucky in as much as acupuncture works for me and if the relief I get is just the placebo effect, then I'll settle for that and feel grateful

There's a very funny sketch on homeopathy by Mitchell and Webb, which is on TouTube.

Here's the transcript:

amtiskaw.co.uk/homeopathic-a&e.html

Actually Jess the human body is capable of curing itself in certain circumstances. But I take your point about really serious conditions especially when it involves 'quack' therapists.

I do have to cite however the cases of a friend who went to a Chinese type therapist after having his symptoms dismissed by a GP. This therapist told him his symptoms sounded serious and possibly suggested bowel cancer and referred him back to the GP. He did indeed have bowel cancer which had mestastisized to his liver. He need radical surgery and was lucky to survive.

There are people who believe homeopathic remedies work, and people who don't. Whereas conventional medicine sets out that drugs can of themselves 'cure' some diseases, homeopathy has a different premise which proposes that its remedies promote or maximise the body's own ability to heal itself.

It's up to individuals what they choose to believe. I have had good results from homeopathy but I would consult a homeopathic practitioner rather than pick up a remedy from Holland and Barrett.

You might get some relief of symptoms due to placebo effect. It cannot possibly cure anything because it is just water or if a pill, just sugar. It was an idea dreamed up by a German doctor in the days when the alternative was a lot of blood letting which often killed the patient.
The real danger of these alternatives is that people my "try them" for really serious conditions for which there are effective modern treatments and that homeopaths and other "alternative therapists" do not, if consulted by such people, have the training to know when to back off and send people packing, to speak to their GP.

Arnica cream, gel etc is not homeopathic. The chemist gave good advice.

There was a TV programme recently on this topic and it does appear to be the case that if you believe something will work you can get relief.

I have several friends who believe in the homeopathic remedies, and although one or two of them have in due course resorted to conventional medicine they on the whole seem to be quite healthy. I do think that if you believe something is helping you feel well again, then that is half the battle. Interestingly my close friend recently had a minor stroke (enough to keep her hospitalised for a week) and is consequently on Warfarin. She had a nasty fall, resulting in bruising, and is a great believer in Arnica. She was fortunately wise enough to ask the pharmacist if using this would be o.k in view of the Warfarin treatment, and was told it would be very unwise.

High potency and homeopathy sounds like a contradiction in terms. Surely the whole basis of homeopathy is that the solution of the "active" ingredient is diluted with water to such an extreme agree that no trace of it remains except in the water's "memory".

Just by way of a P.S. The homeopaths that I have been to were qualified GPs as well as homeopaths. My first acupuncturist is also a 'conventional' physio working in a Surrey hospital and uses whichever treatment he deems appropriate.

As I have problems with many prescription drugs, I have used homeopathy from time to time.

As with 'conventional' drugs, sometimes homeopathic remedies worked and sometimes they didn't. On two occasions, having been told by consultants that I would need surgery, I took homeopathic remedies that worked and the surgery was not necessary. Once could be regarded as coincidence, but twice??

Another time, my mother (who was in her eighties) fell down a full flight of stairs at a hotel. She took a very high potency Arnica and the bruising was minimal.

I'm very openminded about complementary medicines. What works for one person may not work for another.

Acupuncture has helped me hugely, as has cranial osteopathy.

Culag My argument regarding the placebo effect is that then surely homeopathic remedies would always work, whereas they sometimes don't. Also, how would the placebo effect work with babies and animals? Perhaps science hasn't yet discovered whatever it is that makes homeopathy work, but will in the future.

It will be interesting to read other posters' views on this!

Having had a conventional science background, I cannot see how it can work.

If it does, maybe it's something to do with the placebo effect.

www.homeopathyawarenessweek.org

A friend of my aunt is a great believer and buys all sorts of homeopathic drugs costing her a fortune but she eventually resorts to conventional medicine, drugs or surgery. I personally am a non believer.