Homeopathy for children?

[fraktious]

I know this might be a bit woo but does anyone else use homeopathic treatments for common childhood ailments? We have (magic) teething powders and I've laid in arnica in anticipation but I'm not sure what else people typically use homeopathy for.

Our GP is very pro homeopathy and I swear by it for many things, I know that it can be used for a whole range if things but I'm looking for anecdotes/advice on where it does work and where it doesn't. I'm not planning to treat him myself but any advice about when to ask for a homeopathic remedy would be welcome :)

Wow I'm shocked by some of the replies here and the number of people who seem to think they are qualified to make such a definitive statement as homeopathy does not work! How do you know? How can you possibly be 100% certain it doesn't work, just as someone can't be 100% certain it does work.

Fraktious - I think you're really lucky to have found a GP who is pro-homeopathy. I wish mine was! Both I and my 6 year old have been treated by a homeopath for various ailments. Obviously in the case of a serious or life-threatening illness I would consult a GP (with little confidence I have to say as, in my experience, they are pretty useless) and actually my homeopath will send me off to my GP if he thinks I need to go.

I am treated for urinary and kidney infections, repetitive strain injury and anxiety. My son is treated for hypermobility and weak muscles. I spent years trying to find a cure on the NHS for recurrent urinary and kidney infections. I was really quite poorly and for 2 years took antibiotics every day. As soon as I stopped the antibiotics I got ill again. In desparation at getting nowhere with the NHS I went to see a homeopath. I was so much better from the very first treatment and have now been completely cured for 5 years. Same story with my RSI. GP said nothing wrong. Rubbish, my whole arm was seized up, off course there was something wrong!! Homeopathic medicine is working really well and the RSI has disappeared altogether and only starts to come back when the medicine is wearing off. Exactly the same with my anxiety.

My little boy suffered for 3 years with hypermobility and severe pains in his legs, knees and feet. Two peadiatricians saw him and said there was nothing wrong with him. So frustrating! I took him to my homeopath (who incidentally used to be a GP) and he is now treating him very successfully.

Personally I wouldn't rule out homeopathy for any illness or condition. These days if I'm ill I go and see my homeopath first. He lets me know whether he thinks he can treat me or whether I should make an appointment with my GP.

It was quite interesting recently as I hadn't been feeling very well and I went to see my homeopath. Some of my symptoms were the same as those for an ovarian cyst or ovarian cancer so he told me to book an appointment with my GP for tests. Whilst I was sat in the GP waiting room I picked up a leaflet about ovarian cancer and sure enough all of the symptoms were things I was suffering from. I went in and listed the symptoms to my GP. I'd barely finished talking before she diagnosed irritable bowel syndrome??!!! Erm, I don't think so!! I had to point out to her that the symptoms were the same as ovarian cancer and ask that she arranged some tests. Lucky for her I wasn't suffering from ovarian cancer, but a scan did show a small cyst - which my homeopath treated me for and has now disappeared!

I think, as with anything, you have to be sensible and treat each situation individually. Sometimes traditional medicine may be most beneficial and sometimes homeopathic medicine may be. One thing I do know for sure though is that I would have more faith in a (good) homeopath than a GP any day!

How can you possibly be 100% certain it doesn't work

Because there is nothing in it.

HTH

We are qualified to make that determination. Anyone who understands THAT WATER HAS NO MEMORY can do that!

Homeopathic "medicine" cannot and never will be the right "medicine", because IT DOES NOT CONTAIN ANY SUBSTANCE OTHER THAN WATER AND SUGAR.

How can you not understand that very simple point? (And are you confusing homeopathy with herbal, or holistic, or some other word?)

And your homepath didn't cure an ovarian cyst or anything else, that is ridiculous.

Loopy:

Because homeopathic "remedies" are diluted to a degree where there isn't even one single molecule of the original substance left in them. Not even one!

The whole idea relies on water having a memory. But if it did, see my admittedly snaky post above, it would have tons of memories of all sorts of stuff - very likely including whatever you are actually meaning to take. Taking a little extra of a something you consume every day would hardly make a difference in these doses. It's absurd!

Also: my argument is hypothetical.

Water does not have a memory.

Hhhmm, we'll have to agree to disagree on this won't we! :-)

Certainly homeopathic medicine has been much more effective than anything several clueless GPs have prescribed.

If my GP said he or she was pro-homeopathy, well.... I would change GPs.

---

I did.

The first ped we ever had gave a me a list of SEVEN homeoquackery products to buy when I was on my knees due to round the clock breastfeeding of an insomniac baby.

I thought it was herbal medicine, but after two weeks of no change I turned to the web to find out how long the stuff should take to work and discivered I had spent 120,000 lire (about 60 ? in today's money) on fecking sugar pills and water.

That was two weeks supermarket budget.

The fecker had me waste money we didn't have to waste on utter bollocks and I could have cheefully strangled him for his paternalist attitude and fobbing me off with a placebo.

My baby is 11 now but the mere mention of homeoquackery raises my hackles even today cos I rember how duped I felt and how hard that month was to get through thanks to the massive hole made in our income.

This is what I'd love to see posted here:

I use homeopathy, you're telling me it's just water?!

Oh crap. Well I'll save my money from now on. Cheers.

It's funny you should say that projectbabyweight. I was that person a couple of years back, very earnest about homepathic stuff until a friend challenged me on it. I went off and did my own research and only then realised what a pile of bollocks it all is. Most of all I am ashamed and embarassed that I had taken sil's (who is a medically qualified paed) word for it that it somehow worked, without doing my own reading around the subject.

In our local sweetie shop they sell little bottles of what look like giant multicoloured homeopathic sugar pills. If one of the dc falls over and hurts themselves, I slip them a couple of these pills. Works wonders.

Okey dokey, go on then, enlighten me. What's your explanation of the fact that my little boy used to cry for several hours a night due to pains in his legs and this stopped as soon as he started homeopathic medicine. Also I know when the medicine is wearing off as the pains come back and he starts waking up crying again. He gets more medicine and they stop......

Afraid you'll have to think of something other than your placebo effect excuse as he didn't even know he was taking a medicine at first and I think you'll find a crucial element of the placebo effect is being aware you are taking a 'medicine'.

We don't need to explain it to you.

Whats your explanation for how water and sugar cured your child?

There is no published and reliable scientific evidence that shows homeopathy is any more effective than a placebo. This is not a surprise as homeopathy claims to work on the "law of similars" which has been shown to be wrong. Also, homeopathic treatments are so dilute that they contain no active ingredient, which means there is nothing to actually act on the body.

Add those together and anyone who thinks about the subject will conclude that homeopathy doesn't work. People who have posted on here may have anecdotal evidence showing that it has worked for one person but there are numerous reasons why someone may get better when taking a placebo. LoopyLucyLoo falls into that category.

Placebo effect works on you. You believe he is better = he believes he is better.

Or, maybe he just had growing pains that would have gone away on their own.

LoopyLucy - to be blunt, I think it is fantasy because no one has ever found anything wrong with either you or your son. And I would suggest you're a bit of a hypochondriac for thinking you have cancer when you don't as a result of a google search. I can only think that your belief in homoeopathy is reassuring to your son because there is no way on earth that it has cured him of anything.

You can tell me you've seen fairies at the end of your garden but that doesn't make them real.

LoopyLucyLoo - of course he knows he's getting "medicine" because you're giving it to hiim. You also know what you're giving him, which affects how you react to him. If you want to prove, or disprove, that it's working you'd need to do a double blind trial.

My DM and Dsis both believe in it, and they're both very intelligent though with little knowledge of chemistry. Also my MIL.

It bothered me as an outspoken teenager but not any more, except when they try and foist it on me despite knowing my opinion. I to be tactful!

But in a way it would be sad if they stopped believing in it, as it would take away something they think helps them...

Scary stuff though, when you read about children missing out on vital medicine.

Last thing, surely if the logic behind homeopathy worked it would mean all normal medicines shouldn't work?

Apologies Lucy - I see it was your homeopath who told you you might have ovarian cancer, not a google search. Point stands though.

You're kidding me right? My son stops screaming in pain at night just because I think he's better! Oh, if only things were that easy.

And I didn't say I thought I had cancer. I never thought I had cancer, but I was presenting the same symptoms as are listed on the NHS's own information leaflet (not Google).

See what's happening here is that none of you can come up with a sensible explanation of why it does work for us. And to suggest that there was nothing wrong with us in the first place - well you're definitely not qualified to make that statement! Perhaps some of you would like to insist my eyes aren't brown, I'm not allergic to nuts or I'm not left-handed?!

Not kidding you at all. We know that homeopathy doesn't work so unless you're giving him some other treatment it is the placebo effect that is stopping him screaming. It can be a very powerful thing so it's is entirely feasible that this is what's causing the improvement.

I have explained clearly why it works for you. I'm afraid you're blind to the obvious.

Again, no-one told me I might have cancer. Grrrr! I was simply presenting symptoms which could be markers and therefore it needed checking out. See - assumptions from you lot again when you don't have your facts straight!

"Last thing, surely if the logic behind homeopathy worked it would mean all normal medicines shouldn't work?"

If the logic behind homeopathy worked we wouldn't need medicine full stop.

There is no new water, it's been around longer than we have' apart from the stuff loxked away in millions of year old glaciers.

The water cycle means that over the last few million years our water has had loads of elements and compounds mixed into it and been diluted and rediltuted over and over again roughty, by battering against rocks, pebbles, roads etc as waves, in river cirrents or as rain dropping from an almighty great heigjt.

Based on the theory of homeopathy what come out of our taps should be such a repeated diltuion of so many millions of active ingrediantsmthat the result is so super poweful that we should restrict ourselves to just a few drops of H2O a day for fear of overdosing on "medicine".

But of course water memory only happens if you do the diluting in a workshop or fscotry and bang it about on special machines or a bible.

Profit margin apparenty being a required cataylst for the process to work.

The placebo effect works not just on children but on animals too, the people taking care of them behave differently because they know that there is some "medicine" being given.

See Clever Hans

This is why proper scientific trials are double-blind, neither the doctor nor the patient should know if they are getting the real medicine or the placebo.

LoopyLucy - I was going to say I respect your experience of what happens, but that seems a bit patronising!

I can't explain the series of events, but there are a few plausible theories.

In any case, I'm very glad there's a way your ds can feel better, sounds awful.

I think belief in homoepathy is like religious faith. You either believe it or you dont, because it cant be proved it works/doesnt work, like you cant prove or disprove the existence of God. (At least most people cant)

It is just more expensive as having Faith. But, quite possibly as dangerous as if your Faith is misplaced....