What is Homeopathy & Warning Signs of Incompetent Homeopaths _{Page 5 of 8}

Alternative explanations for "cures" :

A variety of alternative explanations have been offered for how homeopathy, if the remedies themselves are ineffective, may appear to cure diseases or alleviate symptoms:

Unassisted natural healing - time and the body's ability to heal without assistance can eliminate many diseases of their own accord

Unrecognized treatments - an unrelated food, exercise, environmental agent or treatment for a different ailment, may have occurred

Regression toward the mean - since many diseases or conditions are cyclical, symptoms vary over time and patients tend to seek care when discomfort is greatest, they may feel better anyway but because the timing of the visit to the homeopath they attribute improvement to the remedy taken

Nonhomeopathic treatment - patients may also be getting nonhomeopathic care simultaneous with homeopathic treatment, and this is responsible for improvement though a portion or all of the improvement may be attributed to the remedy

Cessation of unpleasant treatment - often homeopaths recommend patients stop getting conventional treatment such as surgery or drugs, which can cause unpleasant side effects; improvements are attributed to homeopathy when the actual cause is the cessation of the treatment causing side effects in the first place

Lifestyle changes - homeopaths often recommend diet and exercise, as well as limitations in alcohol or coffee consumption and stress reduction, all of which can increase health and decrease symptoms

The placebo effect - the intensive consultation process and expectations for the homeopathic preparations can result in the release of endorphins or other body-effecting chemicals which alleviate pain or other symptoms, or otherwise affect an individual's biology

Psychological healing - the care, concern and reassurance provided by a homeopath as part of the consultation can assure the patient the symptoms are minor and easily treated, or alleviate tension that could exacerbate a preexisting condition. This can be particularly effective when physicians have limited time with the patient or are unable to provide a diagnosis or treatment.

Our posts are crossing one another. Go back and read all my posts once again. I too will do so.

We shall continue the discussion.

cures" :

A variety of alternative explanations have been offered for how homeopathy, if the remedies themselves are ineffective, may appear to cure diseases or alleviate symptoms:

Unassisted natural healing - time and the body's ability to heal without assistance can eliminate many diseases of their own accord

Unrecognized treatments - an unrelated food, exercise, environmental agent or treatment for a different ailment, may have occurred

Regression toward the mean - since many diseases or conditions are cyclical, symptoms vary over time and patients tend to seek care when discomfort is greatest, they may feel better anyway but because the timing of the visit to the homeopath they attribute improvement to the remedy taken

Nonhomeopathic treatment - patients may also be getting nonhomeopathic care simultaneous with homeopathic treatment, and this is responsible for improvement though a portion or all of the improvement may be attributed to the remedy

Cessation of unpleasant treatment - often homeopaths recommend patients stop getting conventional treatment such as surgery or drugs, which can cause unpleasant side effects; improvements are attributed to homeopathy when the actual cause is the cessation of the treatment causing side effects in the first place

Lifestyle changes - homeopaths often recommend diet and exercise, as well as limitations in alcohol or coffee consumption and stress reduction, all of which can increase health and decrease symptoms

The placebo effect - the intensive consultation process and expectations for the homeopathic preparations can result in the release of endorphins or other body-effecting chemicals which alleviate pain or other symptoms, or otherwise affect an individual's biology

Psychological healing - the care, concern and reassurance provided by a homeopath as part of the consultation can assure the patient the symptoms are minor and easily treated, or alleviate tension that could exacerbate a preexisting condition. This can be particularly effective when physicians have limited time with the patient or are unable to provide a diagnosis or treatment.
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Copied..

I copied your latest post for reference above.

Yes. All that is true. Assume for a second that a homeopath is doing all of the above through his so called pills and making the patient comfortable . That is what a patient basically wants..Relief from his symptoms without dangerous side effects.

Say the homeopath is able to convince the patient to believe that his pains are becoming less. Is it not better than taking pain killers that will eventually damage his kidneys.

I still say that we don't know how homeopathy works. May be it is doing all the above you are referring to.

If so, is it not a better therapy all approach?

But Homeopathy has no therapeutic value and can act like a Placebo.It only treats patients Psycologically and not physically.This is the problem with homeopathy.
[message edited by Rama2016 on Tue, 19 Jul 2016 17:52:08 UTC]

Thousands of patients (may be lacs) end up worsening their medical condition due to false but firm belief in homeopathy in India.Scores of such patients also die .The cases are either unreported or efforts to highlight them are gagged by powerful homeopathic lobby and blissfully ignorant government.Visit any super-speciality hospital in India and doctors would tell you about this pathetic and grim state of affairs where one pseudoscience is allowed to be practiced,not only practiced but also propagated, in utter disregard of concern for citizen's health.Infectious diseases which can easily be treated by antibiotic/anti-fungal/antiviral drugs become fatal with patients going to homeopathy who,though not always, doom them to catastrophe by denying them easy access to medications. Can-cers are allowed to grow and metastasize (disseminate to other parts of the body) by ineffective sweet pills. Shrewd attempts to weave homeopathy in System of Medicine are only signalling a looming disaster for health of the mankind.

Now I rest my case till you come back. Please don't copy and paste from some website. We are all aware of that propaganda. I can copy and paste from thousands of articles to prove homeopathy works. That doesn't take us anywhere.

I answered you point by point. Let us confine our discussion on our points, not some one else's.

To recap briefly

I told you why it is difficult to 'cure' your lichen planus. The steroids you are taking may seem to alleviate your symptoms, but you are heading towards more serious problems. A suppressed skin problem may lead to asthma to start with. Be cautious.

A competent homeopath too can bring relief to you, but may not cure you. It will take years, but at least there will be no progression of disease to higher levels.

2) You yourself told us how a cure/ symptom alleviation can happen without resorting to allopathy. If homeopathy is achieving the same at a fraction of cost, is it not better?

3) Please read my thread about suppression, and many many articles about homeopathy.

We will discuss further.

My opinions are the opinions given in the website.So, I don't feel it's wrong in posting it and I take it.

I am giving only valuable information about homeopathy and saying that it can't work.

It is a useful search by me in the website that shows how it appears to work.

Why does homeopathy sometimes appear to work?

There are dozens of reasons why homeopathy may appear to work for some individuals.

For example, people will often confuse correlation with causation. The human body has a very robust and amazingly intricate immune system, which is capable of fending off all sorts of nasty things all on its own. When someone starts to feel better shortly after taking a homeopathic remedy, they might assume that the remedy has hastened their recovery. Actually, there is no good reason to believe these two events are related. They may have recovered just as quickly without the homeopathic intervention.

Another example is what are known as placebo effects. This is where an inert substance, such as a sugar pill, can be shown to improve the condition of a patient simply because the patient expects it to. Someone using homeopathy may start to feel better because they expect to feel better, not because the homeopathy has actually done anything to cure them.

Scientists have devised a technique called the Randomised Controlled Trial, which corrects for errors in thinking, placebo effects and other biases. Through these trials, scientists have been able to reliably demonstrate that, when all sources of error are removed, homeopathy does not, in fact, work.

I have been repeatedly telling that homeopathy has limitations. In fact that is the case with modern medicine too. Can you tell how many terminally ill patients that spend Lakhs of rupees in a corporate hospital survive after five years?

Hardly 5 percent. Still for terminal cases that may be a better option. I don't think people are foolish enough to continue homeopathy if the situation worsens and become life threatening.

If the vitality of the patient is low, the homeopath can recognise this and refer the patient to a hospital. Modern medicine perhaps can add a few years to his life span, with a dererioated quality of life.

I already quoted Vithoulkus on this. Majority of homeopaths and patients know what to do in emergencies.

But that is no excuse to call for banning it. I will put it in a nutshell..

If your condition is life threatening go to a modern hospital.

If not go to a competent homeopath. If your condition doesn't improve/becomes worse go to a hospital. But choose a competent homeopath next time after proper research among colleagues, family, friends .

"Homeopathy may appear to work."

Fine. Continue with your homeopath as long as it happens. Lakhs of patients are simply doing that.

At a fraction of cost. With almost nil side effects.
[message edited by gavinimurthy on Tue, 19 Jul 2016 18:17:26 UTC]

gavinimurthy,

The problem with homeopathy is that it does'nt work at all and no one can make fool of me by saying that it works.It is really foolish to approach Homeopathy for any health conditions.It is only a waste of money as well as time.

Poor and ignorant people have a lot of faith in homeopathy without knowing what it is.It is Fa-ke.Scientific illiteracy among the people is mainly responsible for them to approach towards homepathy.

It's not what it says on the label :

Buy a vial of 30C homeopathic sulphur at your local pharmacy and one thing you can be sure you won't find in the bottle is any sulphur. You have significantly more chance of winning a triple rollover on the lottery than you have of finding even a single atom of sulphur in that tube; but the label still reads 'Sulphur'.

I am not trying to convince you. You gave me an opportunity to educate thousand of readers on what homeopathy can and can't do.

I remember a story.

Three blind people are exploring an elephant which is at stand still.

One said it is a log.(leg)

Another said it is moving like a fan.(ear).

The third said it is a snake.( Trunk)

A man with eyesight can only tell what it is.

Same is the case with homeopathy baiters. They rely on part hearsay information without knowing abcds of homeopathic philosophy.

Why are you even here?? This is a place for people who like homeopathy---go somewhere else where there are others who don't like it.
You are wasting our thread space and the energy of others to respond to your hatred and negativity.

We're all sorry you've had a bad experiece but you need to go now's there is really no point in you being on this website.

What you're doing is basically harassment.

Homeopathy can do nothing since it is useless.

Homeopathy is the antiscientific belief that infinitely diluted medicine in water can cure various ailments. It’s perhaps the most useless of all "alternative" medicines, since it clearly cannot work, does not work, and has been tested repeatedly and shown to be useless.

I have the right to my opinions.

I wrote for the people who comes here.Let them read it and decide on it.What's the problem ?

For one I am not illiterate. I hold a post graduate degree in science and technology. Many of the patients who take homeopathic treatment are well educated and belong to the upper strata of society.

Did you ever try to know the educational background of patients at a homeopathic dispensary? Do it and you will be surprised.

People are saving their money and more importantly their health by going to a homeopath.

Not the other way.

Though they are educated,they are still ignorant about homeopathy and they want something new for an approach.I mean an alternative treatment like homeopathy when conventional medicines fail.Only experience would teach them to not to approach homeopathy.

We all know sulphur 30 doesn't contain even a single molecule of element sulphur.

Incidentally atoms can't exist on their own. You can't find an atom of sulphur even in a lump. The smallest particle that can exist in material form is called a molecule. So much for your science knowledge.

Coming back to the material content of sulphur 30c, it is true that it doesn't contain even a single molecule of sulphur, but it has the imprint of the energy of sulphur in it, to say it in layman terms.

Seems Greek and Latin? Can't understand? That is why I told you to read basics at least before starting arguing.

Homeopathy is utter nonsense.It is not worth reading it.

One should see that giving one's opinion is not wrong.I have my opinions.

Now you are changing track and becoming self contradictory.

First you said illiterate people use homeopathy. Now you accept that majority of them are educated.

Now you say they are opting for homeopathy because conventional medicine failed them. You are accepting the truth that majority find conventional medicine(read allopathy) useless and are veering towards homeopathy. Why are you assuming that they didn't do their homework?

If they are sticking on to homeopathy, what is the inference?