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.

Actually I too dislike public money being spent on treatments where the scientific research and clinical into them has been inadequate.

Rescue Remedy is 27% Brandy according to their website.

I find Brandy often has quite a calming effect on me.

I think the placebo effect is amazing and I think we need to look more deeply at the human brains and just what it can achieve when it wants to.

I know from personal experience with workout pain that you can push through an amazing amount and make it hurt less by simply insisting to your body that that is the case. I used hypnobirthing for two pain free births by telling my body (quite firmly) that it didn't hurt, that it wasn't that bad. People can demonstrate the most astonishing physical achievements by using their mind to overpower what their bodies should really be able to achieve.

But that is a completely seperate thing from saying that water that actually contains virtually none of the 'active' ingredient can help.

But then, I'd include MMR in that list. Having been instructed to do so by the Cochrane review - an awful lot of people who don't have much truck with bollocks and woo.

Morloth, I agree very much with your last post and I think you are expressing things very well.

I have absolutely no belief in homeopathy whatsoever. However I have a very strong belief in the power of the placebo effect. Which makes me wish I knew rather less about how homeopathy is claimed to work than I do - it would be nice to have it as a treatment option, but there is no way the placebo effect would kick in given my levels of scepticism!

Though I did give my kids Chamomile teething powders when desperate - and had tried everything - but was privately laughing at myself all along, and really felt it was the sugar that made the difference. If I had been thinking more clearly and less sleep-deprived I would have tried with icing sugar first instead - cheaper!

The problem with claiming about the dishonesty of homeopathy is that it is probably the dishonesty, more than anything else at all, that makes it work.

sorry -- i mean the problem with complaining about the dishonesty..

Ignorance is bliss systemsaddict, there are so many things in the world I would be much happier not knowing!

So if my GP sends me to The Royal London Homeopathic Hospital (NHS), I should just tell him no thanks and that I don't believe in it?

He's the one with the medical degree so I'm not going to argue with him and presume I know better because I have seen a couple of television programmes about homeopathy.

Book in the library today - 'Homeopathy for Idiots'. Says it all really.

I don't want to believe in it,but having seen my small children,and sometimes animals,have dramatic reactions to it,I have to say that it can have an effect,even though I have no idea why,and that effect is clearly not the placebo,because small children and animals have no idea why they are having it.

I was given reiki (on the NHS) for PNA. I don't think it works but I felt fantastic after - who'd have thought that lying down on a couch listening to calming music would be good for anxiety!
My friends mum did reiki when we were at school - she did it on my friends sick gerbil - it died.

Valium: someone earlier up thread said lay people often shout "bollocks and woo" much more loudly than medics about the body's natural healing power.

Unquestioning faith in the white coat is behind much of the placebo effect, I suppose.

See sonearsofar's post -- that's the sort of thing. Know nothing, think you know it all.

helly melly read a few pages back and you will see were the placebo effect comes into play with young children and animals.

I can believe that GrendelsMum with ezcema.

Most of the things I have found to help with DS ezcema - have been stuff I've found out from other suffers. How to apply the cream to give most benefit, having something in the bath water, possibly triggers to avoid, excema clothing to stop inch scratch cycle ect.

All the GP did was prescribe creams and get dismissive even when he was so bad a referral on should have occurred. It took me researching to find a cream that suited as he reacts, as a lot of ezcema suffers do, to two common ingredients in these creams then some perseverance to get GP to prescribed an appropriate cream.

valium if my GP lost her mind and suggested homeopathy I would ask her to explain to me in medical terms exactly how it worked.

She can do that for any drug she recommends so presumably would be able to let me know exactly what it is that would help me.

hellymelly - there are two problems with your statement. Children and animals respond to any treatment. Not necessarily the treatment itself but the act of being treated (placebo effect) and they know they're being treated because of the way you behave around them. Secondly, animals and children do sometimes just get better so you have no evidence that their improvement is due to the treatment.

See now I disagree with you Morloth. My own doctor was not out of his mind, nor are many doctors who will use or prescribe homeopathy.

Interestingly enough, placebos have been shown to work even when the doctor says "I'm going to give you this pill which has no active ingredients whatsoever but some people find that it helps them".

So, theoretically you could benefit from homeopathy, even though you know it's only a placebo because you know that the placebo effect can make some people feel better.

Maybe they don't use it. Maybe their support is limited to prescription.

Still it's odd that some people suggest that the placebo effect should be taken out of the hands of homeopaths and put into the hands of GPs, to remove the element of dishonesty. It doesn't: it just transfers it.

Weleda make both homoeopathic and herbal preparations.
Their calendula nappy rash cream is fantastic - herbal. The base cream, I assume, is what does it.
Rose moisturiser - lovely - herbal.

Suzi: the element of "belief" is still there.

One study did this. Placebos were given. The message was "This is a placebo, but in a study it was shown to have an effect."

So a. you are introducing the element of belief and b. that belief is based on the earlier dishonesty of the previous study ie the blind placebo.

So could your GP explain to you how homeopathy actually worked or was it 'I don't know how it works but it just does?' cause that really isn't good enough in a medical person IMO.

I want them to tell me what they recommend and why they recommend it, if it is going to involve a drug I want to know what that drug does and how it does it, what the side effects etc.