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.

rockinhippy, by 'bad practitioners' do you mean those that say homoeopathy works?

Because of course no one who believed it was going to cure them would take other medicine would they.

I don't care about your beliefs as this is not something covered by faith, you might as well believe the sky is pink and rain is unicorn urine. You believe in something that is simply not true.

I think homeopathy uses the bodies natural ability to heal itself (by the long, nurturing consultation), there is also a placebo effect.

As a psychotherapist who only talks to people I am quite happy to go along with that.

Using only talking I have seen severely depressed people recover, alcoholics and drug addicts cope with their addictions and people in severely unhealthy relationships where they are being routinely abused move on from that.

What bothers me about the 'anti's' is that there seems to be an underlying current of "Man up, you're thick, get a grip". It is perfectly possible to 'believe' in homeopathy (and many other alternative treatments) by seeing them as helpful.

I don't believe in homeopathy in the sense that I believe that there is an actual effect caused by the water in itself but I see no harm in people believing it providing the following caveats:

1. that they are not being financially exploited
2. that they are able to still seek conventional medicine ie. they have a malleable enough personality structure that will allow them to seek efficacious remedies and they have no underlying mental health problems that prevent it

Whatever helps people get better, or helps them believe they are better is generally a good thing.

Placebo effect is freaking awesome. I used it very effectively on my DS1's growing pains.

He gets them every couple of months and I would give him Calpol and say 'here you go honey, this will make it better', then give his legs a rub and pop him back to bed saying to call me if they still hurt.

Did exactly the same thing but with some undiluted squash in the calpol bottle (strangely because someone on here suggested homeopathy) and it worked just as well. Because his Mum told him it would work, so it did.

pmsl at 'complimentary'.

LaurieFairyCake, the trouble is that homoeopathy breaks both of your rules doesn't it.

They could still seek conventional medicine, but if we allow people to go around pretending it is effective the victims will think it is safe to rely solely on the homoeopathy 'treatment'

So it became vitally important that each new generation gets to hear that homoeopathy is a lie.

Its not true for YOU winter it has worked for me & I've seen it work for others kids too - where medicine had failed - like you say desperate to try anything - using homeopathy changed their mind - so much so that they ended up studying & practising it themselves

& its not about belief as such, just as I said, the Science to actually prove it, against accepted means, may simply not yet exist, that doesn't make it bunkum, just not yet fully understood - & been able to disprove it in the way that has been done, doesn't tell me otherwise

Great tip Morloth!
If homeopathy is effective, why isn't there an homeopathic pill?

I am prepared to go out on a limb and say that there are no circumstances in which homeopathy will cure anything except a vague feeling of low self worth or a time limited condition.

And the reason why people think it's so good at curing time limited conditions is that they try everyting, nothing works and as a last resort they try homeopathy and hey presto, cure. Forgetting the fact that whatever it was was due to go away anyway.

You only have to look at the claims for Mulluscum cures to see the truth of this |
"It was awful. We tried everything for 18 months, and they just got worse and worse. In the end we were desperate - they were starting to get infected and to bleed, so we gave Madame Arkarti £1000 (just to cover her expenses, you know - she had to travel all the way from Islington) ans she gave us some pink cream and a bag of herbs to put under Hypolita's pillow, and do you know, two days later all the spots were gone!"

Yes, but it's not so much about whether future scientists will find that it works on some mad cellular level we don't yet understand etc etc etc, is it?

It's that proper, peer-reviewed studies prove that it works NO BETTER than placebo. I.e., no more effective than plain water or sugar pills.

Can't see point of believing in that.

onagar - on Radio5 live this morning they said that 90% of pharmaceutical drugs don't work for 75% of the population.

That's a lot of people getting better on their own

So if the majority of people get better on their own then anything that promotes that for them quicker is surely helpful.

There is nothing worse than chronic pain or recurring pain - unfortunately that leads people to then develop depression etc.

If homeopathy or any other complementary treatment hurried that process up (and prevented them developing other issues) then all to the good.

And can I just clarify something - the placebo effect is a good thing, not a negative thing only happening to thicko's

A surprising number of equestrians use homeopathy for horses and say it works.

Personally I'm in two minds. It either works or has a placebo effect - sometimes - and in either case I'm happy to take the benefit.

People who try and cure serious illnesses using homeopathy are dangerous idiots though and on a par with those nutters who let their offspring die of curable diseases because they're trying to heal them through prayer.

The placebo effect's a wonderful thing. But when it's marketted by big business and wrapped up in pseudo science it's damaging to society as a whole.

When I hear yet another mother explain how they strong-armed their reluctant GP into giving their toddler antibiotics for a cold, I rather wish that the GP was prescribing homeopathic pills. These would have the same effect on the child (i.e. bugger all), but won't impact on the efficacy of antibiotics for the people who actually need them.

The placebo affect is a good thing but there are ethical problems with doctors prescribing placebos.

Say you were suffering from an illness and the doc prescribed something that he said would help. Your illness gets worse and you end up with a permanent disability. If you found out that the doc had given you a placebo how would you feel?

I used to be taken to a homeopath as a child (for asthma). I had to take sugar pills phosphorous. I wasn't allowed to eat for AGES before hand. I hated it. I remember in the initial consultation being asked about my dreams. I made something up about dreaming I was on a bed of ice (as I was 8, and had no idea what I dreamed really). The bearded man nodded sagely and made a note of it.

One of the things that does get forgotten though is that a fair few conditions are at least partly psychosomatic. You can only claim that remedies must work entirely on biology if you believe in an absolute split between mind and body. And there's plenty of reputable science that shows such a split doesn't exist.

Hence there's a lot of potential value for remedies that work largely psychologically. For example when I was a teenager I used to suffer sometimes from horrible coughs that would go on for weeks, and which had no viral cause but rather were caused by stress. It caused me a lot of pain, didn't respond to any kind of antibiotic treatment (as it wasn't a virus) but was quickly, cheaply and effectively treatable using homeopathy.

I think it would be a very good idea for more studies to be made into the placebo effect, it really can be quite astonishing.

If you all know its just a placebo effect, it wont work for you now.
So homeopathy is pretty much off the table for many on this thread

Worked for my migraine after years of conventional treatment, don't know or care how, I'm just grateful to have a decent quality of life back. I would have tried almost anything and was probably the most cynical about homeopathy than all of the other treatments I tried but it worked the best so hooray!

LaurieFairyCake you were the one who posted 2 rules which had to be followed to make it acceptable. I just pointed out that they broke both of them. :)

I didn't hear the program, but I have doubts that those figures are what they appear to be. When you hear sweeping statements it's a good tip to ask them to spell it out. For example I would ask if that was 90% of the different kinds of drugs, 90% by weight? Perhaps by number of treatments?. 90% of drugs supplied by GP or including the other the counter medicines? if it includes the creams that stop you wrinkling I would think it was worse than 90%

Homoeopathy was dispensed by the NHS until we put a stop to it perhaps that counts in the figures?. (probably not as they can't past the tests and qualify as medicine)

Does it refer to antibiotics which have lost their effectiveness? Or antibiotics that were prescribed before it was established that the patient had a virus? We know that those would have no effect.

On the upside working at least you were given an homeopathic dose of phosphorus so all your teeth didn't fall out, given that there wasn't any actually in it.

I have some £5,000 Rolex watches for sale at only £19.99. If you believe they are Rolex they will make you feel just as proud as if you owned the real thing so I'm not doing anything wrong by lying to you.

If anything I am better than Harrods who refused to sell you one at a price you could afford. How else can ordinary people have such things? I am performing a public service and should get respect (as well as lots of money)

lol at Rolex

The programme this morning was on prescriptions and had nothing to do with homeopathy. It was the chief exec from Smithkline-Beecham who gave those stats.

I only mentioned it to say how many people got better with no intervention.

And rather oddly the placebo effect is just as powerful if you don't on the surface 'believe' it.