Comments on: Homeopathy – do you need it?

By: Melanie Reinhart

Melanie Reinhart — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 19:48:30 +0000

I have used homeopathy for about 45 years, successfully treating all manner of ailments, both mild and serious. The issue, I believe, is partly one of world view. The secular fundamentalism which so dominates our society, and which is held up by commercial vested interests, cannot possibly encompass homeopathy. This is because the world view from which I understand it to be operating is one which acknowledges the interconnectedness of all reality, and our interdependence on nature for our survival. I never go near an orthodox medical practitioner, unless I feel their skills are what is needed. Pharmaceutical medicines are made with an eye on the stock market, not from a true impulse of healing.

By: Mhairi

Mhairi — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:22:31 +0000

It’s not just a case of medical evidence versus anecdotal evidence, there is research showing the efficacy of homeopathy.

It can be helpful to remember the vast size of the pharmaceutical industry, who have a great deal to lose from wider acceptance of complementary and alternative remedies.

I use some remedies myself, but for as others have said, it’s important to get professional advice, after all you wouldn’t dose yourself with antibiotics

By: Jude Hannah

Jude Hannah — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:36:24 +0000

You wanted comments about homeopathic remedies that work… try aconite 6c or 30c if you think you are getting a cold. If you catch it right in the early stages, it often stops the cold coming on. Don’t just take one tablet and wait, take it every time you feel bad, until you forget to take it. That will be because you are feeling better!
Gelsemium has worked for me when I have flu like symptoms, the kind where you have shivers up and down your back. I had a bit of that winter vomiting bug this week and one Nux vomic 30c fixed it.
With period pains, pulsatilla works for me when I feel weepy and like I need a hug, but if I feel like I want the world to go away and leave me alone, Sepia seems to work better. I can get terribly sea sick. Cocculus is the one that works for me, but I have friends who do better with Tabbaccum or Petroleum in homeopathic potencies.
I have also given remedies to babies, and to my pets, with fabulous results. Now, you can’t tell me that is placebo effect! Even if it is placebo, can we discount how important that is? Plus what about the studies done on prescription anti-depressants? These show that there is very little more than a placebo effect going on there. The difference there is that the prescription drugs have side effects. I have never heard of anyone dying of homeopathic remedies. Have you? The trick with homeopathy is to find the similar remedy, the one that will work for YOUR specific symptoms. Just because you have taken something that hasn’t worked for you, doesn’t mean there isn’t a remedy that WILL work. That’s why it is important to see a homeopath, especially if you are dealing with chronic illness.

By: Michele

Michele — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:40:17 +0000

I have had successes with using Arnica especially when I was knocked down by a car. It helped with the shock and also stopped bruising.

My daughter once fell in P.E. at school when doing step exercises and smacked her front teeth on the step. My homeopath gave her arnica immediately and I believe that was why her teeth did not go black.

There are lots of incidents for which I have used homeopathic remedies, and wil continue to use them.

By: Jan Nevill

Jan Nevill — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:24:42 +0000

Love it or hate it there are very many devotees of homeopathy. I have no doubt that the argument will rage for decades if not centuries. As the wife of a sceptical GP I have been a user of homeopathy since long before I met him, initially to rid myself of the early signs of asthma (a family trait) and subsequently for many other things.
In recent years I have used it for my children. After years of trying methods prescribed by conventional medicine to ease my daughter’s awful travel sickness I eventually took her (against my husband’s wishes) to my homeopath who resolved the problem quickly and discreetly. For a few years thereafter she required something like an annual ‘top-up’ but has never suffered since. As the intensity of her travel sickness had not diminished or changed in any way during her conventional treatment there was no way that she could have ‘grown out of it’ over night. Since then my children have been successfully treated for many conditions from hay-fever to depression caused by bullying. I have also used homeopathy for a visiting teenager in the throes of a period related migraine after everything else had failed and had her dancing within half an hour of the remedy.

Although remaining a little sceptical and baffled my husband now has a profound respect for my homeopath and now sometimes refers patients to her. My children have a healthy regard for medicine of all kinds and use both systems according to their instinct or our advice.

Placebo is an immensely powerful aid in healing but what we cannot ignore are the cases where conventional medicine has not resulted in a healing or suspension of symptoms in young children but homeopathy has. Little ones do not distinguish between one set of tablets and another so there is something very powerful at work.

A part of me feels that the time that a homeopath gives to her/his patient is an enormous contributing factor, even and possibly particularly with young children. Nevertheless those tiny sugar coated pills certainly have some inexplicable efficacious effect.

I hope that someone somewhere realises that we cannot reduce everything to the controllable, and maybe conventional medicine would be better served looking at why conventional medicine doesn’t work for everyone?

Jan Nevill

By: Ann

Ann — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 09:59:51 +0000

“So many people find it helpful but the majority of experts question it’s use.”

Experts in what?
Experts in the medicine that does not stand up to scrutiny, but makes millions of £ & $ for the pharmacy companies.
If it didn’t hit their pockets, they might just want to catch up & not be stuck in Newtonian thinking.
I know homeopathy works.
How about a discussion of the Nocebo effect of allopathic medicines?

By: Linda

Linda — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 07:18:52 +0000

When our daughter was 10 days old she had terrible colic, I mean REALLY terrible. In desperation we called in our GP who prescribed a pink, thick gloopy stuff which she refused to swallow and then we found out it was banned in the US… we were worried.
A friend told us about homeopathic chamomile; a few drops on a spoon, 3 times a day.
She stopped screaming after the 2nd dose… you cannot tell me that it was ‘the placebo effect’ – she was 10 days old.
We continued giving chamomile and she had no more colic and no teething pain either. She still drinks chamomile tea every day.

By: Jill

Jill — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 06:57:16 +0000

Going back about 15 years ago I went for about 6 years with dodgy pap smears. Mild squaimas atypia culminating in the abnormal pap smear progressing to CN1 . I was working in a naturopathic/herbal medicine/chinese medicine/iridology clinic at the time as a receptionist. Being a bit of a frustrated doctor (I wanted to do medicine but never did) I asked my boss about trying a particular homeopathic remedy to bring my abnormal pap smears back to normal. I went on a course of Rekeweg R17 which is actually used for planter warts. I didn’t have any warts but did have the human papiloma virus. Anyway after taking the drops three times a day for a couple of months I returned to my gynaecologist for a 6 month check up and he said to me “you should go home and frame this result – it is totally normal. This was after 6 long years of abnormal pap smears!
I have been going on a two month course of Rekeweg R17 every year since and I have to say ALL of my pap smears are now totally normal. They have been normal for about 13 years. I know of several other ladies (through this clinic in Sydney, Australia) who have tried the same homeopathic drops for the same condition and even with more advanced abnormalities and they too now have normal pap smears. If you get the right homeopathic it will work. It works on the principal that “like treats like” in other words if you take a small amount of the ailment causing the problem then your body builds up its own immunity and fights the problem. The biggest problem is finding the correct homeopathic – I DID!

By: Christine

Christine — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:23:02 +0000

I was open minded about homeopathy as I went with some issues that just did not clear up but I liked and trusted my homeopath. I came to the conclusion that some things work for some and not for others as we are all different. Then one day I had a cat scratch on my index finger that went bad over a weekend. When I went to the chemist they dressed it and said I needed to go to the doctor for anti biotics and I would lose the fingernail. By now my finger was hard and purple. I did not want to take antibiotics and contacted my homeopath who gave me a remedy. Within a day the colour had gone down and within 2 it was virtually normal. I did not lose the nail and the chemist was amazed.