To be horrified that you can get homepathic treatments on the NHS

[brightonlad]

It seems extraordinary that with the NHS experiencing major funding problems and people being turned down for treatments on the grounds of cost that we're paying for people to have this kind of therapy.
If you read the theory behind it it's obviously bogus and the results of all the trials that have been done have consistently shown it to be no better than placebo.
The only way to justify it that I can see is as a form of faith healing and I wouldn't expect my GP to tell me to see my Priest least of all make a generous donation to the roof fund.

It's not quite the correlation/causation thing, though. Isn't that more applicable to short-term ailments?

Sincitylover, you said 'I like to look at things holistically rather than single symptom. Your average GP is just not trained to look at symptoms in the round and connect them.'

This is just nonsense. The whole point of diagnosis in conventional medicine is to elicit all the patient's symptoms and make a differential diagnosis- i.e. working out a list of the conditions most likely to be causing the symptoms and then using further tests if necessary to come up with a diagnosis.

There is no conventional medical treatment for e.g. 'breathlessness' because the breathlessness could be caused by so many different things, such as asthma, heart failure, anaemia, pulmonary embolism etc, each requiring a totally different treatment.

I don't know much about homeopathy but I thought that one of the points is that it treats symptoms rather than the underlying condition.

Also, saying that homeopathy works due to the placebo effect is interesting but no reason to use it. All that implies is that the remedies work no better than placebo- if that was all that could be said for a conventional medicine it wouldn't do very well! And don't forget that a part of how conventional medicine works is via the placebo effect as well- they have a demonstrable therapeutic effect over and above the placebo effect.

No reason to use homeopathy when there is any underlying ill-health, no - but there is an argument for using it with the 'worried well' who gum up doctors' surgeries with their incessant badgering, when all they really want is for someone to pay attention to them. Homeopathy would work a treat in these circs, wouldn't it?

Unethical, obviously - unless you plastered disclaimers all over the place.

UQD - I'm one of those people who claim "recovery".

I'm also as cynical about the efficacy of whatever I was given. I'd definitely incline towards anything happening being some form of placebo effect.

I had/have a chronic condition - it's improved markedly, but hasn't gone away, pretty much in remission (sp?) for 15 years. I was the week after visiting the homeopath looking at a second bout of fairly serious surgery. I've never had to have that surgery.

So question - you or your wife, or one of your kids, a chronic condition, a 90% chance of surgery following week. Somebody offers you "sugar + water", says hey look there's a chance there'll be a placebo effect, it's happened with others. Would you go for it? Or would you say no it's quackery, and deny the possibility of there being some improvement?

Seriously not trolling, because as I said in an earlier post, and earlier in this post - I am as cynical - my bottom line however is that I didn't have that second lot of surgery - I don't care WHY I didn't have it.

The placebo effect is more complicated than 'give someone a sugar pill and they will feel better'. Can't remember the drug but one study showed if you give someone a fairly standard heavy duty drug for pain relief (not sure if it was morphine) and tell them that's what you are doing, you get the usual effect (incidentally works better for some people than others).

If you give it but DON'T tell them, it has much less of an effect. Even though this is a drug which is clearly biologically active.

All this anger over homeopathy kind of misses the point. Do patients get or feel better? If so, great. If not, don't try it again.

But it doesn't miss the point. Trials have shown that the patient doesn't get better with homeopathy- that's what is making people cross!

There are obviously all sort of things you can do to make very ill people "feel" more comfortable, even be convinced that they "feel better". The idea that they should all therefore be considered "medicine" is quite bizarre.

My dad is seriously ill from a stroke from which he will never recover. He still likes to watch the rugby on the BBC. It's very likely that this makes him "feel better" for a bit, although it doesn't actually improve him medically. That's not an argument for getting the Six Nations on the NHS.

So, UQD -- how do you rate acupuncture?

BUt my son DID get better!!! Twice!!!

He was onlt 18 months/ 2 years, so I guess he could have been doing thousands od other things that week to make his excema and cat allergy go away...

BTW People used to believe that surgery was quakery as well.

Just a thought

I think we're all arguing at cross-purposes here. I'm not saying that homeopathy is medicine. I'm just saying that there could be circumstances in which its very uselessness - apart from the placebo effect - would be useful.

I'm sorry to hear about your dad, but I'm guessing he's not the sort of guy who would try to use his GP as a counsellor or friend anyway. But (anecdotally) I get the impression that lots of GPs have to deal with loads of people who do try to use them in this way.

So I'm suggesting (not entirely seriously) a cheap method of providing these people with the attention they want (I don't mean this insultingly, most human beings need to feel attended to at one point or another) while freeing up the GPs to work with people whom they can actually help.

I've never had it. Don't know anyone who has. I'd have to read some evidence about it first.

It's simple not true to say 'trials show people don't get better with homeopathy'. Look up Cochrane. There aren't many trials but of those that do exist, some show positive results, a few show little result.

UQD - I've also said that I don't think my experience is an argument for having homeopathy on the NHS - I'd have to think long and hard about that one.

I didn't have excema or an allergy, I was almost certainly going in for surgery for a chronic condition - and I didn't "feel better", I went into remission, and I didn't have the surgery.

Just as interestingly - I had a flare up around two years ago - long story - tried the same tablets again - nothing, had to resort to large intake of corticosteroids, for things to die down.

I've not got a vested interest either way.

You didn't answer my question though

Okay, there aren't enough good quality trials showing that homeopathy has a demonstrable therapeutic effect (over the placebo effect) to make it sensible to offer on the NHS. If people want to spend their own money on it it's up to them.

Jemmm, does the flare-up and non-cure not sort of suggest to you that something else might have been going on the first time round?

Agree FM.

Do you think the NHS should be funding research?

Pruneurs

Depends... if you mean do I think something else happened first time that I was unaware of that may have had the effect other than the tablets. No I'm very confident, given how long I have had Crohn's disease, how it has effected me, my knowledge of the disease, and my experience at the time, that there was nothing else that could have contributed to the turn around.

I added the second attempt for balance and felt like I should be honest about both experiences.

But what happened first time was without doubt related to whatever I took - it had an effect, why, it had that effect I don't know.

I think edam answered the question, jemmm, by saying that the placebo effect is more complex than the way that question was phrased seemed to presume.

Jemm - just out of interest, when you say you tried the same tablets again after a flare-up, do you mean some you had left over from the first time? Or you bought the same remedies without seeing a homeopath?

I'm NOT a homeopath but as far as I know, the way it works is they take a history and prescribe according to that. So something that might have been right X years ago might not have been right more recently - presumably things have changed in your life over the intervening years, your symptoms have certainly been different and you have aged, etc. etc. etc. Maybe that's why it wasn't effective?

I am not arguing for it to be available on NHS.

All I know is when I knew I was physically unwell after having ds2, gps were quite dismissive and they don't always link symptoms and don't think holistically.

It turned out that my thyroid was underactive and also had anaemia and fibroids and did not just need counselling as one gp suggested.

Some of these conditions can be linked but I didn't see any evidence of that from any trained medical person I saw. My own research showed it.

But it took a long struggle to get there and whilst feeling very shitty hence turning to homeopathy.

It must be great to be so certain about everything, I just can't be like that especially over medical matters.

The question was phrased simplistically for the sake of argument - I wouldn't presume nor was I presuming that giving a tablet would automatically create a placebo effect. Nor would I presume to understand the placebo effect. Would anyone?

I also think that Edam nailed it here:

"All this anger over homeopathy kind of misses the point. Do patients get or feel better? If so, great. If not, don't try it again."

I did get better first time, I didn't second. Would I try again - why wouldn't I?

Edam - no went back to see the same homeopath.

Oh, well that ruins my theory then, darn it!

lol @ edam - sorry

In the true spirit of scientific enquiry, I shall abandon that hypothesis then. Um, anyone know where I can buy a second-hand hyopthesis round here?