Homoeopathy is harmless?

[Rolfe]

I know we've had threads on this before, but this post that appeared today in OtherHealth is pretty nasty.
http://www.otherhealth.com/showthread.php?t=6381

Quote:

I have had eczema since birth. I have a family history of eczema/asthma. Used steriod creams my whole life as well as steroid inhailers for my once severe asthma. ....

I have been seeing my Homeopath for a year now, since seeing her I have stopped all steroid inhalers and also stopped the steroid creams which has brought the disease to the surface and is really showing its true colors! I never knew how bad my eczema/disease really was until I stopped using the supressive creams!

So it has been a year now and the eczema had worsened ten fold. In the last 3 months even, it is now on every limb and part of my body and it seems to keep spreading faster and faster. I am told it is moving the way in which scabies moves. This is taking over my life! I am constantly scratching.. I scratch to the point where I take off chunks of skin on a daily basis. This makes even showering, washing and the application of anything to my skin painful and more irritating. I cannot sleep. Whenever I am out and about or at work I am often asked about it - which makes trying to forget about it impossible. I have had to quit my job as I cannot concentrate on anything or even function properly. I dont see friends, family.. I dont leave the house now unless I have to. I am depressed and even having suicidal feelings from this.

And she's still asking if the homoeopathy will work!

Rolfe.

[kmortis]

Ya know, if the anti-homeopathy poster was more intelligable, they may have made a better case.

[Rolfe]

Oh, he's a nasty piece of work. I saw some of his other posts, and he's an abusive troll.

Rolfe.

[MRC_Hans]

So, what should I reply? (I'm not too clear on steroids and eczema)

I suppose the steroids are indeed for suppression, but .....

Yeah, that "anti homeopathy" fella is a nut. With friends like that, nobody needs enemies. In fact, I don't think he is an anti-homeopath. Probably one of the homeopaths trying to give skeptics a bad name, they are quite capable of that.

Hans

Hans

[Asolepius]

This is the central tragedy. The victims are the last to complain. It makes me think again about informed consent, and the capacity to give consent. Surely if someone has willingly suffered unnecessarily for a year, that demonstrates diminished capacity? A common verdict on suicides is that `the balance of his/her mind was disturbed'. This is not a medical diagnosis, but it's good enough for the lawyers to accept that there was diminished capacity. A good example arose last year, when 2 dcotors were suspended by the GMC for using dietary therapy on seriously ill cancer patients. Not one of these very sick patients complained - it was only the GP of one of them who did so. It should be easier to protect the vulnerable.

[MRC_Hans]

I think informed consent is better, and not only marginally. The victims of woos are told: "This works". People asked to give informed consent are (or at least should be) told: "You can choose to participate, there are so and so risks, and so and so benefits". I think that is a great difference, because even if the patient is not capable of making a choice based on understanding of the options, at least they are made aware that they make a choice.

Hans

[Rolfe]

The steroids control the symptoms. What's wrong with that? Why is it necessary to use negative words like "suppress"? Yes, they can have side-effects, which is why they aren't on sale like sweeties and they need to be used carefully, but in cases like this the risk of side-effects is preferable to the severe disease.

What we are now seeing is the uncontrolled, untreated symptoms. She needs to go back on the steroids. Sugar pills are contraindicated.

Rolfe.

[John Jackson]

Quote:

My Homeopath said it would take at least 2 years for my type of case to get better

So the homeopath is quite happy to go on treating this young woman despite her obvious suffering. Or is it just a major league “healing crisis”?

I think that the young woman has come to realise that homeopathy isn’t working, and she’s suffering too much to wait for the condition to wane enough so that the homeopath can take the credit for improving it. I hope so anyway.

We tend to hear the anecdotes when a remission occurs whilst the patient is on homeopathy. I wonder how many cases there are like this one that we don’t hear about.

As water or sugar pills the remedies are perceived as benign. When used in place of real treatment however, they certainly are not harmless. Look at the physical and emotional trauma in this case.

This woman has mentioned suicidal feelings. What is it these quacks say about spiritual and emotional wellbeing?

[Soapy Sam]

I can't help wondering who "String Theory" might be. A "scientific"user name and a remarkably sane post. Someone we know maybe?

Asolepius- re your comment that doing nothing for a year implies diminished responsibility- I think you may both underestimate the faith that people have in "doctors" of whatever persuasion and the speed (or absence thereof) with which NHS mills grind. Take my own case. I had a follow up appointment with a urologist scheduled next week, December 7th. Due to work schedule changes beyond my control, it became apparent four weeks ago that I could not make it, as I would be abroad.
The sixteenth was the first date I could make. I called the hospital at the start of November to reschedule. Their earliest spot was June 16th 2006.

This is far from a unique experience. Someone can easily lose a year waiting for feedback from the NHS.
If the NHS was selling cars, would they be BMWs or Wartburgs? And how long would you have to wait to buy one?

There are reasons people turn to CAM. One of them is that they feel they are doing something positive, now.

[MRC_Hans]

Originally Posted by Rolfe

The steroids control the symptoms. What's wrong with that? Why is it necessary to use negative words like "suppress"? Yes, they can have side-effects, which is why they aren't on sale like sweeties and they need to be used carefully, but in cases like this the risk of side-effects is preferable to the severe disease.

What we are now seeing is the uncontrolled, untreated symptoms. She needs to go back on the steroids. Sugar pills are contraindicated.

Rolfe.

What's wrong with that? My dear, it's allopathic suppression! Another example of how all alopathic drugs only are able to suppress a disease, never cure it, and at the cost of severe side-effects. This is a good example of how bad allopathy is; all the suppressed illness over all those years are now coming out of this poor woman, and it needs to come out before the gentle and harmless effect of the homeopathic treatment can set in.
Etc. yada, yada, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. .........

Hans

[kmortis]

Originally Posted by MRC_Hans

What's wrong with that? My dear, it's allopathic suppression! Another example of how all alopathic drugs only are able to suppress a disease, never cure it, and at the cost of severe side-effects. This is a good example of how bad allopathy is; all the suppressed illness over all those years are now coming out of this poor woman, and it needs to come out before the gentle and harmless effect of the homeopathic treatment can set in.
Etc. yada, yada, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. .........

Hans

Hans,
Part of me desperatly wants your description to be a farce. A joke. This part of me reels at the thought that people would actually think like that.

Then I sober up and I realize that there are plenty that would think just like that. It makes me sick. I wonder if homeopathy has a cure for illnesses caused by hearing tales of homeopathic treatments?

[kmortis]

Hans,
Just read your response over there...

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I see Kumar has gone back there to spend more time with his family

[Darat]

I see Sarah-I is still following this forum, wonder if she will ever come back with any evidence for her last allegations on this forum?

[Rolfe]

Originally Posted by kmortis

Hans,
Just read your response over there...

Yes, but that idiot NHCoraHSarah is busy telling the poor woman that she has to take it very slowly with homoeopathy.... Oh yes, she does pay some lip service to the possibility of going back on the steroids, but the post is basically encouragement to go on leaving the condition untreated.

It's criminal.

Rolfe.

[Mojo]

Originally Posted by Darat

I see Sarah-I is still following this forum, wonder if she will ever come back with any evidence for her last allegations on this forum?

Or to provide the "full explanation of homeopathy" she claims she gives to all her clients when they turn up for their initial consultation...

[kmortis]

Originally Posted by Rolfe

Yes, but that idiot NHCoraHSarah is busy telling the poor woman that she has to take it very slowly with homoeopathy.... Oh yes, she does pay some lip service to the possibility of going back on the steroids, but the post is basically encouragement to go on leaving the condition untreated.

It's criminal.

Rolfe.

Yeah, I saw that too. I just felt that the good should be praised. Too little of it gets heard.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Rolfe

Yes, but that idiot NHCoraHSarah is busy telling the poor woman that she has to take it very slowly with homoeopathy.... Oh yes, she does pay some lip service to the possibility of going back on the steroids, but the post is basically encouragement to go on leaving the condition untreated.

It's criminal.

Rolfe.

Well of course they have to get the person back onto steroids, without that there won't be any improvement and therfore they won't be able to make a claim that the homoeopathy has worked.

(And yes that is cynical but at least it isn't as callously cynical as the homeopaths suggesting to go back on steroids.)

[Jas]

How come it's always 'toxins coming out' if you're taking a woo treatment, and 'your body reacting badly', if it's a standard medical treatment?

[kmortis]

Originally Posted by Jas

How come it's always 'toxins coming out' if you're taking a woo treatment, and 'your body reacting badly', if it's a standard medical treatment?

For the same reason that you are a stubborn, bullheaded bi**h, whereas I just stick to my principles.

you are an arrogant wench; I am sure of myself.

We always make ourselves look better in our own eyes.

[geni]

Originally Posted by Jas

How come it's always 'toxins coming out' if you're taking a woo treatment, and 'your body reacting badly', if it's a standard medical treatment?

Because on a certian level real medicine has a tendancy for honestly.

[Fat Bottom Gurl]

Originally Posted by geni

Because on a certian level real medicine has a tendancy for honestly.

No, No Geni - it's because evil allopath not only suppresses symptoms, it actually pushes them deeper into the body so they will reveal themselves in some other form donchano! When you stop that evil medicine, all the suppression comes leaking up to the surface in the form of snot, pus - whatever. You don't want that "dis-ease" wallowing around deep in your body!

Homeopathy is kind of like the "reveal" at the end of a reality show. Stop the real medicines and the real ailment reveals itself!

Deb

[malha111]

Those evil real doctors who really can cure… eh… suppress symptoms.

Well, I'm new to this forum (as an active poster) and I'll just take this thread as a chance for me to express my disgust for those quacks. You sickens me, homeopaths!

[Asolepius]

Originally Posted by Soapy Sam

Asolepius- re your comment that doing nothing for a year implies diminished responsibility- I think you may both underestimate the faith that people have in "doctors" of whatever persuasion and the speed (or absence thereof) with which NHS mills grind. Take my own case. I had a follow up appointment with a urologist scheduled next week, December 7th. Due to work schedule changes beyond my control, it became apparent four weeks ago that I could not make it, as I would be abroad.
The sixteenth was the first date I could make. I called the hospital at the start of November to reschedule. Their earliest spot was June 16th 2006.

This is far from a unique experience. Someone can easily lose a year waiting for feedback from the NHS.
If the NHS was selling cars, would they be BMWs or Wartburgs? And how long would you have to wait to buy one?

There are reasons people turn to CAM. One of them is that they feel they are doing something positive, now.

No, there's a fundamental difference here. This patient gave up effective treatment in favour of something that does nothing. They were not waiting for effective treatment. You didn't have a choice, they did. It's an example of psychological programming.

[Psi Baba]

Originally Posted by Darat

Well of course they have to get the person back onto steroids, without that there won't be any improvement and therfore they won't be able to make a claim that the homoeopathy has worked.

(And yes that is cynical but at least it isn't as callously cynical as the homeopaths suggesting to go back on steroids.)

Darat, that wasn't cynical at all. Sarah-I actually said as much:

Quote:

There is no harm at all in going back to using your conventional creams if your eczema is totally out of control. If you are then given the correct LM remedy, then it can work through the steroids.

It's exactly as you said, when the condition improves, it's the homeopathy that did it, not the evil steroids.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Originally Posted by Darat

Well of course they have to get the person back onto steroids, without that there won't be any improvement and therfore they won't be able to make a claim that the homoeopathy has worked.

(And yes that is cynical but at least it isn't as callously cynical as the homeopaths suggesting to go back on steroids.)

No, I think you'll find that homeopathy works very well with steroids. in fact it works best if you don't tell the patient you're using steroids.

http://www.vetpath.co.uk/voodoo/vettimes5.html#edwards1

BTW, isn't NHCoraHSarah just about the worst of a bad bunch?

[Flange Desire]

Being a glutton for punishment, I have just registered and started yet another thread over there at otherhealth - 'Effectiveness and evidence'.

I suppose one gets a little tired after banging ones head against the brick wall of ignorance, over and over again.

[Ducky]

That thread makes me sick to my stomach.

Homeopaths piss me off. They all "play" doctor, but honestly, the first time any of them faced cancer you can f***ing bet they'd be in an oncologists' office in a heartbeat.

If Sarah-I is following this forum, then maybe we should bump the thread asking for her to address her libelous statements regarding Quackwatch.

[Blue Bubble]

Originally Posted by Flange Desire

Being a glutton for punishment, I have just registered and started yet another thread over there at otherhealth - 'Effectiveness and evidence'.

Psychic Prediction: you will very soon be banned from "otherhealth".

I am banned for daring to ask similar questions (and I, too, remained polite throughout).

So when it does happen, I can say "Welcome to the Club".

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Badly Shaved Monkey

No, I think you'll find that homeopathy works very well with steroids. in fact it works best if you don't tell the patient you're using steroids.

http://www.vetpath.co.uk/voodoo/vettimes5.html#edwards1

BTW, isn't NHCoraHSarah just about the worst of a bad bunch?

That was just a misunderstanding he was just using a steroid as a convenient base for the effective homeopathic remedy. He'd probably added an anti-steroid homeopathic ingredient to stop the steroid being effective. Therefore any improvement has to have been down to the homeopathic remedy.

[Mojo]

Originally Posted by Flange Desire

Being a glutton for punishment, I have just registered and started yet another thread over there at otherhealth - 'Effectiveness and evidence'.

I suppose one gets a little tired after banging ones head against the brick wall of ignorance, over and over again.

I see that cellsalts is in the running for the coveted Woo of the Week award again with that quotation from his "scrapebook" (sic).

Wow!

[Rolfe]

Melissa, I know you're reading this, and I hope you'll think about it sensibly. I'm not going to register again on Otherhealth because it's pointless trying to help people there when the admins simply delete posts they don't like and ban the posters. If you'd like to come over here, we could all speak freely, but I'll say this for you anyway.

Quote:

I basically want someone to tell me whether homeopathy will work for me?

That's easy, I'm afraid. No, it won't.

Homoeopathy doesn't "work" for anyone, because the remedies are nothing but sugar pills marketed with a nice line in pseudoscience. The clever bit is that homoeopaths have a system of ready-made explanations to cover anything that happens, so the distress you're currently experiencing might be an aggravation, or it might be the chronically-suppressed disease coming to the surface, or you might even be proving the remedy you're taking, according to a homoeopath. However, what you're really experiencing is your untreated condition in its natural form. What you see, when a patient takes a homoeopathic remedy and nothing else, is the untreated disease pattern.

It's a fact that many conditions clear up on their own, or at least go through periods of remission. This allows homoeopaths to make many claims of success. But when you examine the circumstances, there is never any reason to believe that the sugar pill that was given had any influence on the course of events.

It may be that your condition will improve, at least to some extent, as you enter mature adulthood. But it doesn't seem to be doing that now. What you have to decide is whether you want to treat it or leave it untreated.

Any preparation capable of having a medicinal effect is capable of having unwanted effects. This is particularly true of steroids. In a severe and chronic case such as yours, it becomes a balancing act to try to achieve the best control of the symptoms while minimising the side-effects. It's quite true, that, if the disease is mild, one might decide that it's preferable to leave it untreated rather than expose the patient to the risk of side-effects. However, with severe disease come hard choices. Thinning skin and so on, as you described, are not good. However, untreated eczema that leaves you feeling suicidal is not good either.

Achieving a "cure" that leaves you well and off all medication is indeed a false hope that many alternative therapists will offer you. That doesn't mean they're necessarily consciously lying to you. Many believe their own stories, because the narrative that allows anything that happens to be explained in terms of the remedy "working" will reinforce their belief systems. And when their patients have mild or self-limiting conditions, or are mostly hypochondriacs, then everyone may get along very well indeed. However, when a patient like yourself comes along, who is really ill, the phenomenon of someone "dropping off the face of the earth" is not uncommon. But in some ways that behaviour is better than what you're currently experiencing, which is active encouragement to persist in the non-treatment of your condition with sugar pills. That's what "being there for you" amounts to.

It's a hard choice. Go on not treating your condition and hope it gets better on its own, which is the bald truth of what homoeopathy does, or go back to the real doctors for some real treatment, which might well have side-effects you won't like.

I agree with some of the posters on Otherhealth. You do need to have your case re-evaluated. But not by a homoeopath, by a dermatologist. There may be an outside chance that you've been misdiagnosed. But nobody will be able to determine that on an Internet forum, you need to be seen. By a specialist. More probably, the diagnosis is correct, but what you need is your medication sorting out, with an honest dialogue between you and your consultant to determine what level of side-effects you're prepared to tolerate for what degree of benefit. Also, there may be more modern drugs other than steroids which could be tried.

You say you live in Australia, which is a developed first-world country, and you should have access to good-quality modern healthcare. You need to take advantage of that, and to find a specialist who will have a grown-up discussion with you about what is actually possible, and give you some choices about how you manage your condition.

Standard disclaimer. I am not a doctor. In fact I am a vet, and I want to tell you about why I became so sickened by homoeopathy.

There was a dog, a Bearded Collie, let's call him Gareth. He had an ear infection. Dogs get ear infections all the time, and at first this one was little different from many others. However, his owners "believed" in alternative medicine, and they went to a vet who believed the same way. Gareth was treated with many different homoeopathic remedies over the following three years (and more). The condition waxed and waned over the following months, and every time he seemed a bit better everyone was so happy that the homoeopathy was "working". Also, they were rather prone to declaring that he was better, when in fact the objective notes suggested that he wasn't. But always he relapsed again, and the vet would write the word "Hering?" on the clinical notes, that is Hering's law of cure, which basically suggests that getting worse is a prelude to getting better.

The notes were heart-rending, with frequent descriptions of the poor dog crying in pain all night (or "squeaking", which made it sound less bad). The owners seemed to think it was a virtue to deny him pain relief unless he was in obvious severe pain, and all the vet gave them for that was aspirin, which isn't much use in the dog anyway.

Over the three years things got inexorably worse, with the infection spreading over most of the dog's face, and then on to the rest of his body especially his hind legs. The vet decided it was "natural" to leave all this unclipped and uncleaned, so that the infection festered under mats of pus-soaked hair. Gareth started to lose a lot of weight, and was obviously suffering horribly.

In the end things were brought to a head by a raid by the RSPCA. Gareth was taken to a veterinary hospital, where the dermatology specialists tried their best to help him. Unfortunately, things had just gone too far. When he was found one night banging his head obsessively against his kennel wall, even though he was already on the maximum dose of morphine, the decision was taken to put him to sleep.

I never saw Gareth in "person", but I read all three years worth of clinical notes written by the homoeopathic vet, and I saw photographs. Frankly, it was disgusting. To any unbiassed observer, it was obvious that the homoeopathic treatment had no effect whatsoever - which is hardly surprising, because as I said the remedies are nothing but sugar pills. Nobody can ever say what "might have happened", but that disaster started off as an ordinary case of otitis externa, which ordinary antibiotics and so on clear up every day of the week. In my own mind, I'm sure that if Gareth had been treated sensibly with orthodox medication that problem would have been better in a month.

Homoeopaths make their money and their reputations from the fact that most patients presenting to a doctor or a vet are going to recover or improve anyway. It's when you come across a case where real medicine is really needed (which is less often than you might think!) that they really show their true colours.

Gareth was a dog, but you are a human being. It was bad enough to think of Gareth suffering like that, but to think of what you are going through simply breaks my heart. Please, don't go the way of the poor dog. Understand that the delusions of the sugar-pill-merchants are not for people who are really ill, and go and speak to a good doctor.

Rolfe.

[Oleron]

Rolfe,



Posting at otherhealth has opened my eyes to the homeopath's world. I was moved to post there after reading your OP (as my altogether cooler alter-ego 'string theory'). I don't know if it did any good -only melissa can say but all we can do is present the truth (like your excellent post) and hope someone listens.

[Blue Bubble]

Rolfe,

(there should be a smilie for clapping but with a frown) but oh, so sad (both cases).

I swear if I ever meet Sarah-I in real-life, I'll succuss her, and succuss her, and succuss her until ...

[Mojo]

Originally Posted by Rolfe

Homoeopaths make their money and their reputations from the fact that most patients presenting to a doctor or a vet are going to recover or improve anyway.

And if not, the patient can always move on to another homoeopath and start again there, thus getting them out of the first homoeopath's hair. I notice that that is what Sarah seems to be suggesting to Melissa in that thread.

[Rolfe]

For the record, I should say that although the homoeopathic vet who "treated" Gareth was the subject of a criminal prosecution for causing unnecessary suffering, he was acquitted. The judge informed him that he could hold his head high without a stain on his character.

This is why I (and BSM and the rest of the Voodoo Society) are so vehemently opposed to the tolerance of homoeopathy within the profession, especially by the RCVS. The vet concerned was able to put together a remarkably convincing case that homoeopathy was a respectable and accepted mainstream medical treatment, by (falsely, but convincingly) claiming to be an RCVS Recognised Specialist in homoeopathy, and listing books and articles that he had written, and the veterinary homoeopathic societies he was secretary of, and he even had a statement from David Reilly of the Glasgow Homoeopathic Hospital which said that homoeopathy was proper medicine and worked sort of like vaccination, by using tiny doses to stimulate an immune response. In my opinion it was these claims to medical respectability that were mainly responsible for his acquittal, as it then became possible to claim that he had treated the dog properly, but unfortunately as we all know sometimes patients fail to respond.

The truth is that homoeopathy is nothing but sugar-pill-peddling, and the medical and veterinary establishments know this perfectly well. Unfortunately homoeopathy got its knees under the table of real medicine back before we understood that quite as well as we do now, and the power and influence of the homoeopathic lobby has so far succeeded in retaining a semi-detached place in the professions.

I hope we may be seeing the beginning of the end of professional acceptance of such irrational methodologies, which may at least make it more difficult for their proponents to pretend that what they're doing has some sort of scientific respectability.

Rolfe.

[John Jackson]

The only thing I would like to add for Melissa, or indeed anyone considering using homeopathy, is to look up the theory behind it.

Homeopathy is easily explained in layman’s terms, and the theory of it is quite obviously ludicrous. When skeptics talk about the remedies being “water or sugar pills”, it’s not a pejorative turn of phrase: it is quite literally true.

It may also help to find out how ineffective treatments appear to work.

Homeopaths fall for these errors all of the time, yet it’s not too difficult for anyone to understand the fallacies.

[MRC_Hans]

Good post, Rolfe. Almost brought tears to my eyes. I sincerely hope Melissa reads it and understands it.

Hans

[Rolfe]

Sigh. A new post on Melissa's thread from "Dillweed".

Quote:

.... At any rate, it took about a year for the eczema to respond, but I believe that was because it took her that long to find the right remedy, a very new and unusual one. Then it just took a single dose. So, unless the homeopath believes there are other issues that need to be resolved prior to the eczema, I don't think it *has* to take a couple of years. Have you made progress in any other others? That could be a good sign.

I hope this gives you some incentive to keep trying homeopathy. In the past year I have had to repeat the remedy 3 or 4 times, but only a single 200C dose and then it completely disappears again for at least a few months. I don't know if that would count as a "cure", but it is indeed a miracle....

Well, bully for Dillweed. It's nice that his mild eczema resolved untreated, without the need for steroids. But to use this good-luck-story to try to influence poor Melissa, who is really suffering, away from actual medication, is just irresponsible.

Rolfe.

[John Jackson]

Perhaps Dillweed should look up the regressive fallacy.