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Oftentimes, people prefer natural treatments to conventional drugs or surgery, as some are anxious about various drug's side effects and others have concerns regarding the continued use of certain drugs.
Homeopathy is a medicinal system that involves treating the individual with highly diluted substances with the aim of triggering the body’s natural system of healing.
Homeopathic remedies seek to fuel the body's own healing mechanisms.
Homeopaths believe that any physical disease has a mental and emotional component. As such, a homeopathic diagnosis involves an analysis of physical symptoms (e.g., pain, fever), as well as the patient’s emotional and psychological state (e.g., anxiety, restlessness).
In addition, those who practice homeopathic medicine pay great attention to the patient' s constitution, which includes character traits such as creativity, intuitiveness, persistence, concentration and both physical and emotional stamina.
The appropriate homeopathic remedy takes all of these aspects into account. Therefore, individuality is the hallmark of homeopathic medicine, as diagnosis and remedy is uniquely personalized.
Homeopathy has been becoming more widely used worldwide for over 200 years. Homeopathy was pioneered by a German doctor, Samuel Hahnemann, who was shocked by many of the medical practices and treatments of the day, such as bloodletting and using poisons such as arsenic and mercury.
Dr. Hahnemann looked for a way to reduce the harmful side effects associated with these practices. Dr. Hahnemann found that giving smaller and smaller medicinal doses reduced toxicity, ultimately learning that the medicines appeared to be more effective the lower the dose.
Hahnemann is also considered to be a medical pioneer who worked tirelessly to improve medical science, reiterating that medicines be tested before use on patients.
Scientific evidence is mixed about the illnesses and conditions that respond well to homeopathic medicine. More controlled research is needed, as homeopathy appeared to be no better than placebo in some studies.
In other clinical studies, however, researchers believed they saw benefits from homeopathy. Preliminary research findings suggest that homeopathy may be helpful in treating childhood diarrhea, ear infection, asthma, allergies, colds and the flu, as well as symptoms of menopause (e.g., hot flashes, pain).
Some professional homeopaths specialize in treating grave illnesses (e.g., cancer, mental illness and autoimmune diseases) with homeopathic medicine. Whatever the case, be sure to communicate to your health care providers about the different therapies you are using (including homeopathic remedies), especially when it comes to life-threatening illnesses.
Sources:
Why Should Anyone Go To a Homeopathic Doctor? Web. www.emaxhealth.com. Accessed 30 Jan. 2012.
http://www.emaxhealth.com/60/633.html
Naturopathic Medicine. Web. www.emaxhealth.com. Accessed 30 Jan. 2012. http://www.naturopathic.org
What is Homeopathy? Web. www.umm.edu. Accessed 30 Jan. 2012. http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/homeopathy-000352.htm
Reviewed February 2, 2012
by Michele Blacksberg RN
Edited By Jessica Obert
Add a Comment51 Comments
No, you STILL have not shown the WHO report which states that homeopathy is the second mostly widely used system, only a media report claiming the same myth. Even though I've given you a link to their database. And as I predicted, the fact that you now know this to be untrue has not deterred you from spreading this untruth. And that is why you credibility currency is worthless.
Start backing up your ridiculous claims before your playing at doctors kills someone, if it hasn't already!
February 8, 2012 - 2:06pmThis Comment
Excuse me !!!! ........YOUR view of homeopathy is the fringe view. It's the view of a small but vocal group of pseudoskeptics who have been led to believe homeopathy doesn't work by people like The Amazing James Randi, professional magician, and Tracey Brown of Sense About Science. We all know James Randi. We know he is not a doctor, scientist, researcher or medical expert of any kind. Tracey Brown was a senior analyst of the Risk Analysis Unit of the public relations company Register Larkin. Register Larkin represents Big Pharma, multinational corporations and Big Oil. Tracey Brown was connected with "Living Marxism", the journal of the Revolutionary Communist Party. She is not a doctor, scientist, researcher or medical expert of any kind either.
For more on these two proponents of the use of chemicals and GMO foods who oppose all things natural including natural medicines and homeopathy see:
www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/disinformation-homeopathy_b_969627.html
Homeopathy, as I've already said, is the second most used system of medicine in the world today -- NOT the second most used system of alternative medicine -- with TCM being first. There are today upwards of 500 million homeopathic patients and 1/2 million practitioners. Most of those practitioners are M.D.'s who have become homeopaths because they recognize what it can do for their patients.
That is hardly a fringe view, and with that usage it is hardly an "alternative" or fringe system of medicine.
The evidence that is important in understanding the capabilities of any system of medicine are the results achieved clinically -- the results reported by patients and observed by physicians.
What you are trying to discredit here is a system of medicine you know nothing about and have never tried. Those of us who do know it and do use it are the people whose comments are worth paying attention to, don't you think?
February 8, 2012 - 10:10amThis Comment
Dana Ullman? Is that the best you can do.
Just a browse through the comments of that poor article exposes every flaw in detail. He won't even concede the simple problem of the dilution ratio.
And yes homeopathy is OUTSIDE medicine.
Although as already pointed out, that doesn't mean it doesn't work. Its 2 centuries of failure to provide evidence means it doesn't work.
And you have yet to provide evidence that WHO revealed the homeopathy is the second most widely used medicine. Or have you dropped WHO as your source and are just citing other who beleive it 'cos it sound good? Are just unable so concede when you've been caught lying?
February 8, 2012 - 11:30amThis Comment
Oh stop with the straw man arguments about dilution ratios. Your knowledge of Homeopathy is so poor that you have no clue that Homeopaths also precribe basic tinctures and remedies that are not ultradilutions. It's so apparent that you've been brainwashed by trashy pseudoskeptical websites that you're incapable of analysing anything for yourself. You know so little about actual Homeopathic practise it's pathetic.
February 8, 2012 - 2:31pmHomeopathy is a separate medical discipline that has stood the test of time. You're hardly the resource sensible patients will consult when considering this form of medicine.
This Comment
Oh and by the way, even if homeopathy really worked, my view of it is not the "fringe" view. That is why homeopathy us an alternative treatment. However I do not offer that as any kind of credit to my posts. That would be an appeal to popularity, and I don't subscribe to that as evidence.
February 8, 2012 - 8:20amThis Comment
***************sigh**************
I feel like we've taken a massive step backward.
As I've already pointed out, my opinion is not important, and you should certainly not take what I say as fact, but check that I am accurately reporting the evidence. And demostrate where I am misleading rather than stick your fingers nyour ears and say "no it isn't"
That is how I know that extraordinarymedicine is peddling untruths, by going to the source.(World Health Organisation in that case)
And again with the "If you do not wish to use Homeopathy it's your choice" Yes it is. If you wish to use it that's YOUR choice, And you might say that if you get better why should you care about studies. and maybe that's true. Except that comments on this very thread are advocating placebos for life-threatening conditions. If they truly beleive what they say then they are irrisponsible idiots, and if they knowing peddle sugar pills for serious conditionb then they're monsters.
February 8, 2012 - 3:56amThis Comment
extraordinarymedicine.org is a very well-researched and credible site so you are the one peddling untruths like the rest of the pseudoskeptical kooks who have no credibility with clinicians, the public, or anyone else. You're in the lunatic fringe, kiddo and don't realize it. You're delusional in thinking you're on some mission to supposedly protect the public who can think for themselves.
February 8, 2012 - 6:20amThis Comment
If that's what you think, show it! Anyone can name-call; back up your claims.
February 8, 2012 - 7:07amThis Comment
... in your opinion. What you are claiming to be fact is nothing more than opinion. If you do not wish to use Homeopathy it's your choice. Going on public forums to make false claims about research just makes you a public nuisance.
February 8, 2012 - 2:01amThis Comment
"Since you are admittedly not a clinician your notions are poor speculation."
By implictaion only a clinician can have anything other than poor speculation. Utter nonsense, what about, other researchers, physicists, chemists, mathemeticians and other scientific professionals?
And while we're at it how do you explain the massive leaning AWAY from homeopathy BY qualified clinicians. Those qualified medical practitioners who practice homeopathy are by an outstanding margin, the minority. So be more careful when playing the nonsensical appeal to authority game.
February 7, 2012 - 7:15amThis Comment