Is it a con or can it help my sick child?

@SirRaymondClench "Maybe it was the placebo effect with them too."

The placebo effect is documented in animals so yes it was. Or it was something that would have cleared up on its own anyway.

Absolute rubbish.

have you had her checked for Lyme disease? I know very little about Pans/pandas, but i have seen cases in a few places where it turned out it was a tick bite, not everything else that caused it.

As others said, Homeopathy is snake oil, it does nothing.

There is some truth in Herbalism, as some herbal remedies do work, but like any medicine, it has to be the right thing for the right person.

The two aren't the same thing though.

There is nothing to know - other than that there is no evidence for the concept per se, nor for its efficacy.

OP you will not get any sensible advice on here about homeopathy because most MNers have dismissed it without trying it. It's very widely used in many countries, often in countries where doctors use it alongside conventional medicine, eg France, Germany, Switzerland, India. It is very effective in animals (many farmers use it on livestock--much cheaper and more effective for some conditions than calling out the vet) and in babies, where of course the placebo effect doesn't apply as babies and animals don't know what they are taking and why.

However here in the UK we have a very strong pharmaceutical lobby that has long tried to discredit homeopathy, largely successfully.

The best people to talk to are those who have been helped or cured by homeopathy, when conventional medicine could not do a thing. Homeopathy kept me out of the grave when I came close to death and cured my allergies, which nothing else succeeded in doing. It is cheap and when it works, it's brilliant. I can't pretend it always works for everything and everyone, but it's worth trying if you are willing to give it a go and give it a little time and patience. If you have an open mind about the topic, you may find this film interesting: introducinghomeopathy.com/purchase/

PS just read the PP above about Chinese herbalists, yes, herbal medicines can be very harmful, as can other medicines. If you don't know for sure what's in the bottle, do not take it.

Well I’ve learnt something today. I thought ‘homeopathy’ was just another word for herbal medicine. I’d never heard of this putting a drop of something in water and water memory nonsense. (Seems a few people on here also have the same confusion.)

you are dangerous. please stop giving medical advice. science understands perfectly well that any benefit perceived from homeopathy is placebo.

The PP who said that homeopathy "treats the whole person" rather than the symptoms has hit the nail on the head. There can in many cases be a strong and measurable clinical effect of having someone listen sympathetically and seriously to your concerns and worries and say that they can help. In recurrent miscarriage, for example, just being referred to a recurrent miscarriage clinic increases the chance of having a baby, without any other intervention.

So for some situations homeopathy may appear to "work" , but it's not the substances that you have been given, which are of no clinical value whatsoever, it's the interpersonal interactions (or that the problem just got better on its own). The big danger comes when people eschew mainstream treatments in cases where this is going to cause them harm. Sometimes this won't matter, lots of things resolve on their own and no harm done by taking tiny sugar pills or sips of water. But some very serious things don't, obviously, even with sympathy and positive thinking.

"Herbal medicine" on the other hand, may have benefits in some cases, and indeed was the foundation of what we now know as pharmacotherapy. Lots of substances found in nature are similar to, or even the original basis of, highly effective modern manufactured medications (salicylic acid, St John's wort, digitalis, etc etc). For example, in some cases where antidepressants are causing problematic side effects St John's wort can be a gentler alternative. It's not as effective an antidepressant of course, but it can be better than nothing (combined, again, with positive interpersonal interactions). In communities where modern medicines are not available, using foxglove in cardiac disease and willow bark tea for pain is going to be better than nothing.

Also licensed medicines have been produced to have a specific amount of active ingredient and are tested to ensure nothing harmful is used in the filler. I saw a urologist for a few years and he told me he’d seen lots and lots of young women with kidney problems from taking herbal remedies. Obviously not all are dangerous or contaminated, but I would spend more to buy from a reputable brand and I wouldn’t buy or accept accept anything that isn’t in original or labelled packaging (I once went to a Chinese herbalist who gave me some liquid in a brown unlabelled bottle and I was just supposed to trust that it was medicine). I was vulnerable and desperate for a cure which never came, now I’m very sceptical of quackery

Yes I know but when it first opened and I was attending GOSH medical appointments with my child many years ago it was called something like the London Homeopathic Hospital. The point of my post is that I was very surprised to be attending a GOSH appointment at a homeopathic hospital. I had no idea such a thing existed and even more surprised about its association with GOSH.

You are thinking of herbal medicine. I for example used some “self heal” from the garden to treat my daughter’s grazed knee yesterday because it has antiseptic and anti inflammatory properties. Many plant compounds form the basis of conventional medicines.

Homeothapy is based on some medieval hocus pocus and is literally the practice of selling WATER in sugar tablets with some silly notion that the water has memory. It cannot work beyond a placebo effect because it does not contain anything.

If it genuinely works it's contaminated with actual medicine, as many so called homeopathic remedies are, and that medication isn't being monitored. Or it's placebo. You want it to work so you think it does.

I have found homeopathy to be magically effective for my child. I didn’t expect it but it really helped him a lot. I’ve no idea what your child has or needs but I found that being open to alternatives helped me get better outcomes for myself and my kid than purely western medicine.

Homeopathy is a complete con.

How old is your child?
When did the symptoms first start?
What are her specific symptoms?

No, the NHS does not provide or advocate homeopathy any more -
because there is NO evidence that it can treat anything -
OP please don’t get drawn in to false hope

I'm not an expert on GI mapping, but I've read mixed things about them. The people in favour say you can learn if there are harmful bacteria, parasites etc. The people against say they're not that accurate yet, and have a high rate of false positives and could lead to treatment of things which aren't an issue.

A common sign of gut issues is recurring bloating, diarrhoea, constipation etc., which you can try and tackle with diet with or without further testing. Also, it's worth thinking about the home environment, if there are any major stressors or causes of anxiety as these are also bad for the immune system.

And yes to ask for a blood test to test if B12 pills are improving her levels or not.

Sorry to hear about your child OP.

Don't know if this has been suggested already, as haven't read the whole thing, but it might be worth looking into fasting. Obviously done properly, and not for weight loss. There is some really interesting research about fasting and various autoimmune diseases. The "Zoe" podcast on if, offers a good introduction.

As for homeopathy, it's a placebo, which can be helpful in itself (for your daughter). May be cheaper ways of doing it though, depending on what the woman is charging x

i haven’t seen anyone arguing against all alternative medicines, healthy eating, gut biome, herbal remedies, massages can all help.

Magic water can’t. Unless it is the placebo effect, which is incredibly powerful.

This is a very ignorant comment. The remedies are not given as water. Do you actually know anything about homeopathy?

Because the “active ingredient” has been diluted, shaken, diluted again. The theory is the more dilute the more effective the medicine.

But it is so dilute that they is often none of the original “ingredient” left. So is just water. That somehow holds on to the memory of the ingredient it was dosed with.

How this happens is completely unknown. Why the water doesn’t hold on to the memory of anything else it has come into contact with is also unknown.

This magic water is then mixed with sugar/ neutral power to make into tablets. How this contamination of the magic water doesn’t affect it is also unexplained.

Double blind trials have shown it has NO effect. As it can’t because it is entirely nonsense.

It isn’t the cost of the tablets alone that is the problem it is the consultation. Plus the false hope.

This suggests you don't know what homeopathy is. So please tell us what you believe it to be ans which illnesses it "cured".

Please listen to those of us saying that improving your child's gut health may work. You may have ignored my last post because mumsnet temporarily hid it, possibly because I named a specific product.

Repeat antibiotics harm the gut and your gut biome is important. If you are having a gi mat test next week maybe hold of until after that but then I would strongly encourage you not just to look at diet but to give her either pre or pro biotics.

What exactly are her symptoms apart from repeat infections that are not responding to antibiotics?