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

[Nightswimminginoldpants]

Homeopathy?

Feeling a bit vulnerable at the moment, so not sure if it’s clouding my view.

Dd is ill and I’m getting desperate. Have been talking to a homeopathist online, she is very intent that homeopathy will help my Dd get better.

Does it work?

Let me introduce you to this thingy called Google!

I’m so sorry your child is unwell. Please do not buy in to pseudoscience like homeopathy. It’s useless at best, harmful at worst.

Medicine that yields safe and verifiable results becomes conventional medicine – not alternative medicine.

The effectiveness of Homeopathy, which is an alternative medicine.

The NHS has ceased to fund homeopathy since 2017 and quite rightly so

It won’t work. That’s not to say you can’t try it but just don’t be expecting much, if any, effect if you do.

Oh OP.

Im so sorry you’re facing this, and I understand your desperation completely. But don’t waste your money. Homeopathy is a total con peddled by people happy to exploit those in vulnerable and in pain.

Doctor here. It is complete and utter nonsense.

My DD has PANS/Pandas and we used dr Gareth Morgan. She had antibiotics and ibuprofen and made vast improvements after numerous nhs diagnosis/ suggestions failed.

In my experience it works brilliantly, and can often work well when conventional medicine doesn't, BUT this is dependent on getting the exact right remedy and that can be tricky. It's important to work with a skilled homeopath.

I completely understand why people pooh-pooh it, I can't explain why it works, it shouldn't really, based on what we currently know. But I have had many good experiences over many years, including treating animals who didn't know they were getting any remedies. The fact it does work in my experience is good enough for me. I don't expect to convince any skeptics though - you do you!

As long as you keep up with any medical treatment, and can afford the consultation fee, then I think to me it seems reasonable to give it a go. What's the harm.

I do understand the desire to try absolutely everything for a struggling child. I remember the Feingold exclusion diet we tried for my ADHD son - it's very restrictive of everything it seems except sugar. It made no difference to him though there is some evidence it helps in some cases. We just did the Feingold diet on our own but there is a whole industry of flogging so called cures for ADHD and other conditions. The pine resin extract is a perennial favourite. I have finally realised that there is no easy to administer cure which will completely rewire his brain. Now if I hear of something that sounds promising besides standard ADHD medication, I just put the name in google along with the word scam. I am afraid there is nothing to suggest that homeopathy cures anything at all beyond some placebo effect.

It will do precisely nothing to help your child, and it is a huge con.

The principle behind homeopathy is that as you dilute a substance more it gets stronger

Stop and think about that for a minute and you'll realise that of course it's nonsense

@Nightswimminginoldpants I agree with the idea that you are feeling desperate and vulnerable and that is completely understandable. Please stick to proper medical advice and please also seek support for yourself. 🩷

Yeah please stick to dr's. Though my dr put me onto ours lol. I spent thousands trying to fix my youngest. At one point i'd stopped giving her the herbal stuff and at the appointment she said how great she'd improved from taking it. I knew then i'd been sucked in.

While herbal medicines may at least have some active ingredients in it few are rigorously tested, probably none tested or dosed with children in mind and none proven in PANS / PANDAS. There can be huge variation between products and concerns around unregulated and contaminated products.

I understand that you feel desperate it isn't ethical to experiment on a child with herbal medicines. Adding a whole load of untested plant based chemicals is unlikely to help and could potentially be harmful. It could interfere with diagnosis or symptoms or with conventional medicines. At least homeopathy (while it has no evidence and the pushy homeopath is likely a con) at least you aren't actually doing anything harmful, just wasting money!

Homeopathy is brilliant. Here in Mexico, it is highly respected and a lot of people use it.

I think sometimes it’s utter desperation rather than gullibility.

Homoeopathy worked wonders on my toddler son's eczema years ago. It cleared up his skin the way that steroid creams never could. I don't think it could be a placebo effect either, as I didn't tell him that what he was drinking was supposed to be medicine.
I was dubious about it before we started, but it worked. This is just personal experience, of course.

The harm is separating OP from her hard earned money in return for snake oil.

If homeopathy worked there would be studies proving its efficacy.

Who diagnosed pans/pandas? It's a very controversial diagnosis in that there's no real test for it. Most consultants I know consider it to be autism that is impacted by fevers etc while a child is ill. How old is your child? What does their doctor say about treatment etc?

Homeopathy is complete and utter money grabbing nonsense with no basis in reality, well done for being concerned and asking.

I can completely understand why you are feeing desperate and looking for a solution to help your DC and it makes me angry that people are prepared to exploit that by making cure claims. Homeopathy has been thoroughly debunked and has no value beyond placebo.

I’m not trying to make light of your search for help for your DC but I think this from Mitchell & Webb is a good sketch about Homeopathy

Quite. And once science had caught up and demonstrated that the ‘active’ is diluted so much that there is unlikely to be even one molecule left in each dose, the story shifted to “oh, but water has a memory”.

So water can remember the homeopathy “active” but conveniently forgets every other molecule it’s been in contact with since the beginning of time? Sure…

I tried homeopathy for severe anxiety. It did not help.
hypnotherapy helped a lot but not sure if it would be suitable for a child

You could try looking for a Functional Doctor who has some knowledge of PANDAS. Functional Medicine is just about what works - some of it is alternative and some is conventional medicine. Some alternative stuff has science behind it but not big money/funding. This does not include Homeopathy though - there really is no science behind it. None of the Functional medics I consulted took it seriously at all. Im so sorry your son is struggling though. It's horrible seeing someone you love suffer.

My experience is the same. It can be a good help but you need to find the right one and it’s not like paracetamol that you feel benefit from 20 mins later, it’s very gradual and one day you realise “Ive not had those symptoms for a while that’s strange oh yeah Im on that homeopathic medicine…”

Id suggest speaking to an acupuncturist.
That is a therapy which there is no doubt about it working. In china they use it all the time because it’s proven to work. You can feel different right away or it can take a few days. It’s about £60-£85 an hour here. Some GPs use it further limited things but I’d suggest a private therapist who dues it day in day out for your child, even if your gp dues it.

Depending on the type and thickness of needles used it can be totally painless. They treat babies to OAPs as age isn’t a problem.

Im currently seeing a jananese style acupuncturist after many years of regular Chinese ones (not sure the ‘correct’ name for the types).

It’s working really well for me. It can do things western medicine cannot. I’d suggest that rather than homeopathy for your child as it’ll be quicker. As long as your child can tell you if they have symptoms or you can notice the symptoms yourself so you can know whether or not things are improving.

I’ve used both homeopathy and acupuncture over the years due to western medicine being unable to treat my symptoms and have had most success from the acupuncture but homeopathy has benefits too if you can find the right homeopathic medication. Which isn’t easy. Can takes many false starts. Hence its reputation goes downhill. Plus Big Pharma doesnt like anything outwith it’s control.