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?

No, the NHS does not provide or advocate homeopathy any more -
because there is NO evidence that it can treat anything -
OP please don’t get drawn in to false hope

Definitely believe the gut is involved, she has had almost constant constipation, gas etc since 3. We have had numerous gastro tests done, but apparently the Gi map should dig deeper 🙏
We were on probiotics but have stopped a while ago due to doing this test.
Please could you pm me, literally desperate for any help x

Homeopathy is a complete con.

How old is your child?
When did the symptoms first start?
What are her specific symptoms?

I have found homeopathy to be magically effective for my child. I didn’t expect it but it really helped him a lot. I’ve no idea what your child has or needs but I found that being open to alternatives helped me get better outcomes for myself and my kid than purely western medicine.

If it genuinely works it's contaminated with actual medicine, as many so called homeopathic remedies are, and that medication isn't being monitored. Or it's placebo. You want it to work so you think it does.

You are thinking of herbal medicine. I for example used some “self heal” from the garden to treat my daughter’s grazed knee yesterday because it has antiseptic and anti inflammatory properties. Many plant compounds form the basis of conventional medicines.

Homeothapy is based on some medieval hocus pocus and is literally the practice of selling WATER in sugar tablets with some silly notion that the water has memory. It cannot work beyond a placebo effect because it does not contain anything.

Yes I know but when it first opened and I was attending GOSH medical appointments with my child many years ago it was called something like the London Homeopathic Hospital. The point of my post is that I was very surprised to be attending a GOSH appointment at a homeopathic hospital. I had no idea such a thing existed and even more surprised about its association with GOSH.

Also licensed medicines have been produced to have a specific amount of active ingredient and are tested to ensure nothing harmful is used in the filler. I saw a urologist for a few years and he told me he’d seen lots and lots of young women with kidney problems from taking herbal remedies. Obviously not all are dangerous or contaminated, but I would spend more to buy from a reputable brand and I wouldn’t buy or accept accept anything that isn’t in original or labelled packaging (I once went to a Chinese herbalist who gave me some liquid in a brown unlabelled bottle and I was just supposed to trust that it was medicine). I was vulnerable and desperate for a cure which never came, now I’m very sceptical of quackery

The PP who said that homeopathy "treats the whole person" rather than the symptoms has hit the nail on the head. There can in many cases be a strong and measurable clinical effect of having someone listen sympathetically and seriously to your concerns and worries and say that they can help. In recurrent miscarriage, for example, just being referred to a recurrent miscarriage clinic increases the chance of having a baby, without any other intervention.

So for some situations homeopathy may appear to "work" , but it's not the substances that you have been given, which are of no clinical value whatsoever, it's the interpersonal interactions (or that the problem just got better on its own). The big danger comes when people eschew mainstream treatments in cases where this is going to cause them harm. Sometimes this won't matter, lots of things resolve on their own and no harm done by taking tiny sugar pills or sips of water. But some very serious things don't, obviously, even with sympathy and positive thinking.

"Herbal medicine" on the other hand, may have benefits in some cases, and indeed was the foundation of what we now know as pharmacotherapy. Lots of substances found in nature are similar to, or even the original basis of, highly effective modern manufactured medications (salicylic acid, St John's wort, digitalis, etc etc). For example, in some cases where antidepressants are causing problematic side effects St John's wort can be a gentler alternative. It's not as effective an antidepressant of course, but it can be better than nothing (combined, again, with positive interpersonal interactions). In communities where modern medicines are not available, using foxglove in cardiac disease and willow bark tea for pain is going to be better than nothing.

you are dangerous. please stop giving medical advice. science understands perfectly well that any benefit perceived from homeopathy is placebo.

Well I’ve learnt something today. I thought ‘homeopathy’ was just another word for herbal medicine. I’d never heard of this putting a drop of something in water and water memory nonsense. (Seems a few people on here also have the same confusion.)

PS just read the PP above about Chinese herbalists, yes, herbal medicines can be very harmful, as can other medicines. If you don't know for sure what's in the bottle, do not take it.

OP you will not get any sensible advice on here about homeopathy because most MNers have dismissed it without trying it. It's very widely used in many countries, often in countries where doctors use it alongside conventional medicine, eg France, Germany, Switzerland, India. It is very effective in animals (many farmers use it on livestock--much cheaper and more effective for some conditions than calling out the vet) and in babies, where of course the placebo effect doesn't apply as babies and animals don't know what they are taking and why.

However here in the UK we have a very strong pharmaceutical lobby that has long tried to discredit homeopathy, largely successfully.

The best people to talk to are those who have been helped or cured by homeopathy, when conventional medicine could not do a thing. Homeopathy kept me out of the grave when I came close to death and cured my allergies, which nothing else succeeded in doing. It is cheap and when it works, it's brilliant. I can't pretend it always works for everything and everyone, but it's worth trying if you are willing to give it a go and give it a little time and patience. If you have an open mind about the topic, you may find this film interesting: introducinghomeopathy.com/purchase/

There is nothing to know - other than that there is no evidence for the concept per se, nor for its efficacy.

have you had her checked for Lyme disease? I know very little about Pans/pandas, but i have seen cases in a few places where it turned out it was a tick bite, not everything else that caused it.

As others said, Homeopathy is snake oil, it does nothing.

There is some truth in Herbalism, as some herbal remedies do work, but like any medicine, it has to be the right thing for the right person.

The two aren't the same thing though.

Absolute rubbish.

@SirRaymondClench "Maybe it was the placebo effect with them too."

The placebo effect is documented in animals so yes it was. Or it was something that would have cleared up on its own anyway.

OP - homeopathy doesn't 'work' but the placebo effect is real and incredible (it works on animals, and even on people when they know it's not real medicine!).

Using homeopathic remedies won't harm your daughter provided that you use them as an additional to traditional medicine, and don't ignore conventional medical advice to focus on homeopathy only. The placebo effect means they might actually help. Do check on ingredients though, and be very careful about who you're consulting - your money would be better spent on a private pediatrician than on a homeopathic 'expert'. If anyone you are working with suggests that you should not be using conventional medicine, run away fast.

I'm sorry for how ill your DD is. It sounds horrible.

Lyme test next, just v expensive self funding everything, its so hard

Oh and to add - in some ways herbalism is more dangerous than homeopathy because there's not much regulation of herbal products and it's not just sugar water. That means that you're not necessarily getting good advice on how much of a particular ingredient is in a product, or the impact of taking that product with another (or a conventional medication). Most of the time if it works in herbal form, it's already been included in conventional medical products - because why wouldn't conventional medicine use something that works!

Of course, sometimes conventional medicine takes time to catch up and so there are herbal remedies that can help. Just be very careful because unlike homeopathy (which is sugar pills) your daughter will be taking active ingredients.

There is also a danger in taking herbal remedies with other medicine, if your doctor doesn't know and so can't advise on interactions. For example, several antihypertensives and antidepressants have a dangerous interaction with a substance in grapefruit juice. Grapefruit extract tablets or drops, easily available, are used by some as an antifungal or antibacterial.

Try Google?

Pandas mum here and respectfully disagree. They are not diagnosed speculatively, but through symptoms and rigorous blood tests. My child was a “classic” case who changed overnight and is 95% back to baseline with treatment and her condition is recognised and treated on the NHS.

It is so good to know that unlike the big pharma companies the homeopathic companies and practitioners are offering their services for free. Thank you for highlighting this kindness and spreading the news as I am sure many people have been put off trying homeopathy because they assumed that they would be paying through the nose for bottles of water to finance fancy offices and packaging.🙂

@NOresponsibility
The very first word in the OP is "homeopathy?". If you don't know what that is, no shame in that, lots of people don't, but if you are interested why not just look it up, rather than come on a thread about the topic to proclaim that you don't know what the topic is? (This always surprises me!). If I saw a thread that started with a word I didn't recognise and I wanted to know what it meant the first thing I would do would be to look up the word! Very simple.