Does homeopathy work?

[arbitraryarsehole]

Interested in views from people who have had homeopathic treatments please. I'm open minded to alternative medicine but also don't want to waste my money if there is no benefit. Thanks 😊

The way it “works” is because the brain is amazing. If you believe it will work, it can work. Placebo is significant, as is feeling listened to and taken seriously.

Then there’s the money: studies consistently show that if you pay more for something, you experience it as “better” or more effective.

I’ve used homeopathy and it worked wonders for my hyperemesis in pregnancy. I was absolutely desperate for anything to try, I’d always favoured a rational approach.

But, looking back, as well as the magic beans she sold me, she gave me a lot of dietary advice, which kept my blood sugar steady so I had no more vomiting.

I stay away from the high strength homeopathic remedies though. Personally I find those quite dangerous.

You are probably referring to alternative/complimentary medicine when referring to high strength.

The point of homeopathy is that it is diluted to the point it doesn't and cannot work. Except as a placebo.

There is no such thing as high strength homeopathy.

The way it “works” is because the brain is amazing. If you believe it will work, it can work. Placebo is significant, as is feeling listened to and taken seriously
Then there’s the money: studies consistently show that if you pay more for something, you experience it as “better” or more effective

This and the explanation of 'placebo by proxy' are great examples of why people are fooled into thinking it actually does anything. It really doesn't but I guess, technically, it 'works' for those fooled into believing it does 🤷‍♀️

After listening to you carefully for an hour or so, a person in white coat and with diplomas on the wall says they know what's wrong with you, and how to fix it. Yes, quite likely that the sugar or water they give you will make you feel better.

I tried homeopathy once for ds. He was 18 months old and didn’t know anything about homeopathy.
He had the most peculiar reaction to it - having nightmares, looking wide awake but unable to reach him iyswim. It only happened on the two days I gave him that homeopathic remedy. Never happened before or after.

Now clearly the prescription wasn’t right for him p. But it did make me wonder.

I had some interesting ‘discussion’ with DH at the time. He was angry I had given ds that medication saying it was obviously unsafe all the whilst maintaining that homeopathy was just sugar and had no power at all…

For my asthma, instead of an inhaler we focused on what was triggering it and how it could be treated without an inhaler (using hot steam to open up my breathing etc). When I had illnesses like bronchitis then of course my mum took me to a normal GP - but i do credit my strong health as an adult to the fact i wasnt forever medicating 'symptoms' as a child. I rarely have eczema now (and when i do i know what triggers it) and never have asthma

Jesus, lots of people grow out of asthma. The airways mature and the body is better able to cope with the inflammation. This is a recognized phenomenon not attributed to steam inhalations and other woo medicine.

People who continue to have asthma into adulthood haven't achieved this through lack of steam inhalations and woo medicine.

This is the kind of shit which is pedalled when it comes to asthma, which encourages people not to take their necessary medications and leave them vulnerable to severe and life threatening attacks.

That’s true for all medications though, incl ‘real’ medications.

That’s true for all medications though, incl ‘real’ medications.

yes indeed, the behaviour of the practicioner has an effect in all cases. But real medication has to be better than placebo to get approved. Homeopathy has not been show to be better than placebo in studies.

Arnica cream works on bruises. I had a large round bruise and treated half with Weleda arnica cream to see if it made a difference - the side smeared with arnica cream once a day healed much faster. However, I'm sceptical about it in general, particularly the more individualised treatments.

Weleda arnica cream:Each 1g contains:
Tincture, equiv. dry: Arnica montana, flower 27mg; Arnica montana, root 3mg; Oil extract, equiv. dry: Arnica montana, flower 20mg.

That's herbal medicine, not homeopathy.

It's very important to know the difference between what is homeopathic and what is herbal. In the US I've seen branded concoctions labelled as homeopathy when they contain a combination of herbs and homeopathy.
If something is herbal it's important to be aware of that so that contra indications can be checked.

Homeopathy is utter bollocks.

Homeopathy is based on the idea that a highly diluted sample of something that causes the symptoms of a disease can be used to cure it.

Sea-water contains diluted samples of every know water-soluble substance, it also includes tiny amounts of elements like gold. Therefore a small glass of sea-water should cure every disease, including some yet to be discovered.

We could dis-band the NHS and just send everyone a bottle of sea-water to drink over a month, especially if it's near an outlet controlled by Southern Water.

Ah, but you left off the part where exactly ten firm strikes* against a hard object magically give the water a memory but only of the substance you want it to remember and not the other trace elements which are undoubtedly in there, despite the fact that anyone who could have proved a difference between a "homeopathic preparation" and just plain water in a laboratory at any time during the decades that James Randi's $1m bounty for proving the supernatural or "alternative" was posted would have walked away with the money. Spoiler alert, the bounty remains unclaimed.

*How the inventor of homeopathy knew it was exactly ten strikes and what to strike it against: still unknown. It's almost like he just made something vaguely plausible up, eh?

@ShiverOfSharks,
Does that mean if a patient accidently knocked their expensive Homeopathic medicine, it would loose it's power? How could they tell?

I've had successes and failures with it, as have my parents for themselves, as well as assorted dogs and horses. Maybe we are all idiots who believe in rubbish, maybe humans/scientists aren't meant to know about how everything in the world works! None of us would use it instead of conventional medicine but there have been instances when conventional medicine couldn't help and complementary treatment did.

I know what arnica is.

People saying arnica is homepathy don't actually understand what homeopathy is.

It is using the thing that triggers whatever the symptom is, diluting so much that nothing exists any more and telling people that the memory of the thing will allow the body to build up resistance to the thing, enabling the body to build up defences so that it can deal with the actual thing in larger amounts and resolve the thing.

Arnica is an actual herb used in tinctures and creams. Unless someone has a reaction to arnica that they are trying to overcome, it wouldn't be used in homeopathy.

Complementary medicine is medicine.

Homeopathy is not the same thing.

Presumably only if they knocked it in the special way, the right number of times.

That aspect of homeopathic preparation tends not to be stressed these days possibly because of how incredibly stupid it sounds. But it's true. That is literally what homeopaths are taught and claim to believe.

Everyone feels better when they take a placebo. Even when they know it's a placebo. Doctors have known that for literally centuries. There are cases in the medical literature of battlefield surgeons using saltwater in place of pain meds and anaesthesia because they had none, and their patients being absolutely fine. Cases of patients being told a drug did one thing when it actually did the opposite, and their bodies manifesting the gastric contractions that the drug they'd been given actually suppressed, because of their belief. But medical practitioners don't give placebos any more, because it's unethical.

Are there problems with the current setup of medicine in society? Yes. Are sugar pills and soft-brained waffle about "water having a memory", in defiance of the most basic laws of physics, the answer? Nope. Does it annoy me that here is actually an incredibly interesting and profound demonstration of the power of the mind over the body, and people would prefer to believe "but it made my cousin's eczema better, maybe we aren't meant to know everything"? Sadly, yes.

Placebo effect can work even if you know it's a placebo.

Our minds are amazing.

Right, I see I've just repeated what has already been said several times before. That'll teach me to RTFT.

The placebo effect is amazing as it does not require taking toxic substances but always used to dismiss the effect of alternative medicines. I had a neighbour who had huge faith in allopathic but the placebo effect didn't work for her with them, only apparently when she got a cure from another source.

Yes, because maybe her symptoms were going to get better anyway (regression to the mean) or maybe the practitioner said the right thing.

Did you know the colour of pills affects the efficacy? Widely proved that if you make pills for certain ailments in certain colours they work better. The mind is incredible. If a practitioner of mainstream medicine refuses to touch a pill 'because it's too strong' and gives it with tongs it becomes more effective. What they wear makes a difference.

We KNOW PTSD after trauma is partially caused by the beliefs at the time of the trauma. Causing physical symptoms. But when it's in reverse, suddenly that makes us foolish. It doesn't, it's just that the brain is incredibly important physically.

The placebo effect is amazing as it does not require taking toxic substances but always used to dismiss the effect of alternative medicines.

Not talking about alternative medicine in general, but homeopathy in particular - I think what people are saying is that there is no effect of homeopathy beyond that of the placebo. So the homeopathy remedies people take are no good in themseves; people could just as soon take sugar or water under the same conditions to get the same benefits.

Yes. Surely the definition of closed minded is to ignore all of the evidence and not change your mind?