Anyone used homeopathy? Does it work?

[extraconfusedhelp]

I have PCOS and just went to see a homeopath today. She has given me something to take.

I just wanted to find out if anyone has been treated by a homeopath before? And how quickly the treatment worked?

rock- if you can prove conclusively that the illnesses you had were in fact cured by homeopathy- and not simply because you ( or the dogs) got better anyway, then I will believe you.

The placebo effect is actually known to work with conventional drugs in 30-35% of cases; that's huge!

if you add to that the effect of an hour of sympathetic time, and paying money so you want it to work, and a belief in the system anyway ( talking homeo here) then I bet it shoots up to 60-70%.

I think a more interesting debate would be: how much does our mind control our physical health?

Discuss..

And if you can do all that rockinhippy. Jmases Randi has a million bucks waitng for you!

sorry, seeker was to rockinhippy

seeker you would be alarmed to see that in France every single chemist sells homeopathic remedies, they're all idiots?

Expat - how do you reckon that homeopathy has been conclusievly disproven? That's simply not true. I would love to see the proof. I posted this link before but I'll post it again, there is actually a significant amount of well-done research in support of homeopathy:
www.britishhomeopathic.org/research/

As for everyone who keeps saying that plenty of stuff gets better on it's own given time, I can tell you that when I feel queasy or find myself running to the loo with an upset tummy, I can start to feel better pretty much immediately when I take the right remedy. You could maybe convince me that simply feeling queasy or not could be all in my mind, but you will not convince me that the placebo effect has the power to stop diarhhoea.

If you look into the history of homeopathy you will find that it was not founded by charlaitans or snake-charmers but by a physician who based his work on careful and extensive scientific research. He was tired of seeing his patients get worse or even die from the accepted practices of the day including bleeding and prescriptions with 20 or 30 ingredients becuase the chemists got paid by the ingredient. In 1813 during a cholera outbreak, nearly half of cholera victims being treated with the conventional medicine of the day died, whereas only 3% of patients treated homeopathically died. We think we know so much about how medicines work these days that it is really easy to dismiss things we don't fully understand.

By the way, I love Tim Minchin, but he's an entertainer not a doctor, so while I'll happily pay for front row tickets to his shows I'm not about to take medical advice from him.

Every single Boots in this country does too.

No, they aren't idiots - they are shrewd business people. It's the customers who are idiots!

ppeatfruit not idiots, businesses. in there to make money.

yogagirl then go on and claim the million

ppeatfruit - every Boots in the UK sells homeopathic remedies as well. That's not because the owners of Boots are idiots; it's because they know that there are enough idiots out there willing to buy the stuff and make them £££ for stocking it. That actually makes the owners of Boots brilliant business people - selling water and sugar for even more profit than Coca Cola manage.

x-posted with half a dozen other similarly minded people!

I just had a quick glance at your link yogagirl. I';ll look closer later. But the first thing that caught my eye was that 70% of people attending a Homeopathic hospital reported an improvement in their health. In a study conducted by the British Homeopathic Association.

Well, no shit, Sherlock!

The British Homeopathic Association is a charity by the way, not a business or a pharmaceutical company - they are not trying to sell anything, just promote education and research so not sure what your point is.

Yogagirl - no organisation or business can claim to have proven something unless they get it peer reviewed. The homeopathic association you link to have proven nothing - because their "research" methodology are flawed and don't stand up to inspection.

There are prizes (worth $1,000,000 in the US, and £10,000 in the UK alone) for proving homeopathy to peer-review standard. Even better, the person who did would probably win a Nobel prize. No one has come close.

A great quote comes to mind;

You can have your own opinion, but you can't have your own facts.

yogagirl - Placebo effect proven to treat stomach upsets

Does anyone actually bother READ the OP??? - Extraconfused asks I just wanted to find out if anyone has been treated by a homeopath before? And how quickly the treatment worked ?

I answered that question with MY experience of Homeopathy -

I didn't ask to get into yet ANOTHER debate on this subject, not did the OP - quite frankly I'm bored to tears of it - it has been done to death several times over - I stated my very valid argument on the last few threads & really CBA to do so again -

some don't believe, some do -some its worked for, others not - thats the only proven FACT I can see here

What I don't get is why some folk just can't read the OP & leave others to their own opinions, just because YOU don't believe, or Science doesn't yet exist to support something, doesn't make it impossible, not that those who do are "idiots" -

perhaps you should have a word with Aristotle or even Christopher Columbus on how perceptions & science change over time, & what was once seen as "idiotic" becomes the FACT of the future

IBS symptoms more likely in anxious people

"some its worked for, others not - thats the only proven FACT I can see here"

It's not. It's an opinion.

There is not one person on this thread who can say that they had a permanent problem that was alleviated by a homeopathic remedy.

Like I said, it's brilliant for tummy upsets, colds, bruises etc - because they go away on their own anyway.

Yogagirl - the homepathic organisation may be a charity, but they still have an agenda to push, and funding to get. Charities do tend to receive funding from somewhere, and normally need to prove to their funders that their work is worth financing!

And non-peer reviewed publications are never going to be evidence that something has worked.

OK. Is there anyone on here who has had a diagnosed acute and serious illness (that is not one that would get better on its own or one succeptible to counselling) cured permanently by homeopathy?

If you have, I am happy to help you claim the million quid thatt's waiting for you. I'll do it for - oh, 25%?

rock you really need to get your logic sorted before you post.

In order to answer the OP's post it is useful to have a debate.
I have tried homeopathy many times before- as well as TCM and acupuncture and herbalism.

I have never had any success with homeopathy.

Stop saying such silly things such as it works for some people and not others. The point is- as others have said- ther e is NO SCIENTIFIC PROOF it works.

Talk about banging your head.......

Talk about banging your head now that bit I can agree with

Not prepared to take my challenge, rockinhippy?

ppeatfruit - You've got it all wrong. People who buy homeopathy are the idiots. Those who sell it are clever business people.

I live in France, by the way, and have had this conversation with a few pharmacists. They don't believe it but will of course sell it to fools who want to spend money on homeopathy.

Checkmate ?Yogagirl - no organisation or business can claim to have proven something unless they get it peer reviewed. The homeopathic association you link to have proven nothing - because their "research" methodology are flawed and don't stand up to inspection.?
The link i posted is refering to research that has been published in peer reviewed journals such as the Lancet and the British Medical Journal. This includes over a hundred randomly controlled trials - the supposed 'gold standard' of research. On what basis are you saying the methodology is flawed? Have you actually looked at any of the research in question or did you make up your mind what you were going to say about it before you even clicked on the link?

Yogagirl - There is an outstanding $1 million reward for whoever proves that homeopathy works better than placebo. There have been many studies and not one has resulted in favor of homeopathy, which is why the reward is still outstanding.

So yes, homeopathy has been repeatedly proven to not work and it has never been proven to work better than placebo.