To ask whether or not people here believe in homeopathy?

[DaisyLovesMetronidazole]

I don't at all.

However, I'm not out for a bunfight!

Just curious, as was surprised by the response of a certain group to this question today.

I'm a big fan of homeopathy. It's an inherently safe and cheap way of using the placebo effect. It enables GPs to outsource the bollocks to someone who believes it so they don't have to lie, all they have to say is "I know some people get very good results for X by using homeopathy" which is of course true.
For some complaints a well-administered placebo is your best and cheapest option.

Homeopathic alternatives to eg vaccination are nasty and dangerous though.

turtle have you tried waiting to see how long a bruise heals without Arnica?

The key words there turtle are 'seems to', your bruise will heal anyway, many variables will affect the rate, you are taking homeopathic crap, you wouldn't do that if you didn't want to believe it worked would you?

Hence it seems your bruise is getting better because of the arnica.

Turtle - my DD2 also had a patch of eczema - we'd been using all sorts of creams but it wasn't shifting. We recently started letting her have jelly sweeties - and her eczema has gone! Are jelly sweeties a cure for eczema too????

Turtle - with the excema it's either regression to the mean (aka you got lucky) or everything we know about basic chemistry is wrong.

ginmakesitallok at the jelly sweeties, quick open a 'practice' and market them - you could make a fortune!

I think haribo have already got the market cracked...

I don't 'believe in' homoeopathy because there is literally nothing to believe in. It has never been shown to have any therapeutic effect in any trial beyond that of placebo.

Most ailments clear up within a few weeks anyway. You have X for a few weeks, you begin to get worried about it not clearing up, you go to a homoeopath and a few days later it is gone. This is coincidence but your brain loves associations. It's a powerful and well-known phenomenon.

'Can't do any harm' is one argument for leaving it alone, but when you support a lie in that way, you are also supporting the consequences of stupid and desperate people using homoeopathic 'vaccines' or 'cancer treatments', which makes it rather more than harmless in my view. There's no point in saying that that viewpoint is patronising crap and people can decide for themselves - of course they can decide for themselves but health authorities have a duty to regulate all sorts of healthcare and 'alternative healthcare' where they see the potential for harm, and while people are pushing homoeopathic malaria treatments, there is clearly the potential for harm.

jaggythistle Oooop. Thanks.
I've never tried homeopathy then so will keep my mind open. I would certainly try it.

Do you understand what homeopathy is bonkers?

It is bullshit.

I believe in the placebo effect and the power of the mind.

I do not believe in all the woo shite that has been made up around it to con people out of their money.

Or homeopathy, as it's otherwise known.

I think better chemistry/biology education in schools would've knocked this on the head.

But I also wish the placebo effect could be investigated in much more detail, it appears to be quite powerful.

There is literally nothing in it.

Often people get confused between homeopathy (nothing in it, so can't do any good or harm beyond placebo) and herbal medicine (has plants in it, can do good or harm beyond placebo, can also interact/interfere with other medicine).

I am a believer in the placebo effect but I worry that if I spend money on homeopathy I am funding people who lie and say that homeopathy is more than a placebo and who would recommend homeopathy over medicine that has been proven to actually work.

What's the harm?

It's rather scary that there are people out there who use it instead of anti-malaria drugs when going on holiday to malarial areas with children. I recently bought a book about travelling with toddlers and was appalled to see that this was mentioned and NOT in a "for goodness sake don't do this, protect your child properly" way.

No, rockhippy, you've used it and got better. The two are not necessarily linked. Did you read the posts above that explained why that is

& equally Ayerobot you could of taken my other line used it with no results at all & argued that I wasn't using it properly, had a closed mind etc etc - but that doesn't fit with your own views does it, which suggests nothing more than a very closed mind

its all about perspective, you obviously don't believe in it & thats fine, but looking back into history & there are many many things that weren't generally believed to be fact, purely because the science didn't yet exist to prove otherwise - if everyone took your stance & kept such a closed mind, demanding only proven fact, rather than personal experience & having an OPEN mind - then perhaps we might very well, amongst many other things be still all believing that the world is flat???

FTR I've found homeopathy most useful for hayfever - that doesn't get better, just comes & goes according to personal allergens, & homeopathy helped were nothing else did, still does - I didn't actually believe it would, so no placebo effect - just a pleasant surprise :)

my Uncles severe hayfever also responded well to homeopathy, he's a very educated man, & like you saw no scientific base for it & thought it was a load of old hocus pocus - funny then that it worked for him too :)

IMPE it seems to work best with Kids & pets, they have no expectations as to whether it will or not, so the placebo theory hardly has much foundation there??

but disbelieving is fine, it may well just not work for you, IME it doesn't seem to work for everyone/thing, but I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to force & others to see my way, just because your personal experience, or lack of it differs -

Personally I find a closed mind is a very sad thing indeed:(

Rockinhippy, I think people stopped believing the Earth was flat because people proved it wasn't, didn't they? With science and things.

Nobody ever thought the world was flat. Look out of your window, Can you see Africa? Then a moments thought about it tells you the earth curves. Stars and seas help further. You don't need anything other than a pair of eyes to know the earth is not flat.

Homeopathy has killed people, when they have shunned medicine that could have cured them. People have died of cancer, of infection, of asthma...children too, by letting woo-peddler con artists treat them and recommend not going to actual doctors.

exactly stillfrazled but before the science, means of travel, or people brave & knowledgable enough to just believe enough to forge ahead & prove it - the idea that the world was other than flat was also seen as Bunkum

so maybe as so many DO believe it works for them, the reason that it cannot be proven by science, is not that it is placebo, bunkum, hocuspocus etc etc - just simply that the scientific means doesn't yet exist to prove it

its DISPROVED by science, not unexplained and therefore open to interpretation, By accepting homeopathy you need to throw out all principles of physics, so I hope you're ready to float away from a lack of gravity?

Not sure how you can defend homeopathy by saying it works by placebo effect when those selling it claim it does not.

They claim it works by a special kind of magical law which only they understand and which is beyond all science. Then they take all your money.

As for all this 'some believe and some don't' nonsense that is religion not medicine. Why not go all the way and buy a ticket to Lourdes. (which also works only with illnesses that get better on their own)

You need to take look at your history books winter

& if people have died as a result of homeopathy, its not the art that has killed them, but a bad practitioner, giving bad advice, (its a COMPLIMENTARY therapy)

• just as there are Doctors who don't get it right & people die as a result too

I have my beliefs & you have yours, thats fine, I'm not trying to change your mind - don't expect to change mine :)

No its a load of rubbish, placebo effect only (which of course fails when you suspect the placebo). Still I have been so desperate about a neurotic dogthat I bought rescue remedy, knowing that the alchohol base would put it off.
Inthe absence of a proper cure,people will try anything.

People can die as a result of homeopathy if they are stupid enough - and the seller unethical enough - to use it for a serious illness INSTEAD of proper medicine.