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Homeopathy... it's implausible!

2011-05-10T19:49:00.000+01:00

Denouncing homeopathy as 'implausible', is akin to denouncing a self-help CD provided by a counsellor as merely plastic and metal, and therefore useless.

Many people turn to homeopathy having tried a conventional route first. Why didn't the placebo response work then? They believed in the conventional approach prior to the alternative route.

I read an article today, claiming that homeopathy is "dangerous and wasteful" - On what grounds is homeopathy 'wasteful'?

Surely, since homeopathy is relatively cheap, it actually saves the NHS money as people rely on costly pharmaceuticals less.

Homeopathy is not dangerous. Some of the practitioners can be. Would you ban cars for driving into people or the drivers? Cars and drivers can be useful too.

Educate well, those people who want to practice homeopathy. Regulate it appropriately, and integrate it, to save the NHS money... and save our beautiful NHS!

The Witch Hunt

2010-05-26T15:54:00.001+01:00

The reason homoeopathy is hounded by the pharmaceutical industry boils down to two fundamental issues:

Homoeopathy works
You can't patent a homoeopathic medicine

Is homoeopathy cost-effective?

2009-04-08T22:36:00.005+01:00

In 2005 the results of an investigation by leading economist Christopher Smallwood were published. He took a fresh and independent look at the contribution which complementary therapies can potentially make to the delivery of healthcare in the UK.

Having considered evidence from the literature, in practice and case studies he concluded that if only 4% of GPs were to offer homoeopathy as a major frontline approach to treatment, a saving of £190 million would result. Savings achieved by the use of homoeopathy largely relate to reduced drug bills in certain clinical areas.

A series of small studies demonstrate the potential in this area. For example in a 500-patient survey at the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital, 72% of patients with skin complaints reported being able to stop or reduce their conventional medication. Swayne (1992) conducted a study of the prescription costs of 22 doctors and found that, on average, practices with GPs using homoeopathy prescribed 12% fewer items of medication (including conventional and homoeopathic) per patient than other practices in the area. If this figure was extrapolated to a national level the number of items would be reduced by 41.5 million.

"No hot drink works faster!"

2009-03-19T12:42:00.002Z

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Quite a claim.
...Or is it?
I hear these claims quite a lot at the moment when medications are being advertised.
It's easy to jump to the conclusion that this is the fastest working hot drink.
However, this isn't the claim.
The claim is NO HOT DRINK works faster, i.e. If you have no hot drink, it'll work faster.
Genius!
Hence they can get away with such claims.
Listen out for them, there's loads!
I can't wait for "no anti-ageing cream works faster!" or "no medicine can get you better quicker!"

Vested Interest

2008-10-03T17:37:00.002+01:00

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The Pharmaceutical industry makes huge amounts of money.

For it to continue to make huge amounts of money, we have to continue to take their medicines.

So, what do you think the medicines are prescribed to do?

When you pay to see me, what are you paying for?

A consultation.

I don't make any money on my medicines.
In fact, I include them in the consultation fees.

When you get better you don't need to see me anymore or even take the medicines, you tell people, they notice the difference and more people come to see me.

That's how I make a living.

I don't make a killing.

Cure?

2008-08-04T11:04:00.001+01:00

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What is a medicine supposed to do?
Why are homoeopathic medicines also called remedies?
What is a remedy?
A remedy is a solution, to rectify or to remove something undesirable.
One of the main attractions for homoeopathy is that it has a definition of cure.
This is the goal by which all prescriptions should be based...

"The highest ideal of cure is rapid, gentle and permanent restoration of the health, or removal and anihilation of the disease in this whole extent, in the shortest, most reliable and most harmless way on easily comprehensive principles."
from: The Organon of Medicine, Sixth Edition, Samuel Hahnemann

Do you feel that conventional medicines are prescribed to do this?

Motivation

2008-07-15T12:34:00.000+01:00

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Failure is an attitude, not an outcome.

Most of us think of failure as a reason to give up. Can you imagine what would happen if parents treated their children like failures when they were learning to walk? Have you ever seen a parent say to their child that fell over whilst taking their first steps, "Oh well, I guess you'll never be a walker."

After Thomas Edison's 700th unsuccessful attempt to invent the electric light bulb, he was asked, "How does it feel to have failed 700 times?" He responded, " I haven't failed 700 times... I haven't failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated all those ways that will not work, I'll find the way that will work."

... and he did.

If you're one of those people who thinks of themselves as a failure, not succeeding, or just not reaching your true potential then I can help.

A well-prescribed homoeopathic remedy will help you see your challenges and hurdles differently. By altering the attitude, it helps you change the outcome.

How valuable is your health?

2008-07-15T12:26:00.000+01:00

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Which do you feel is more expensive...

Getting well?

... or staying ill?

Homoeopathy - The Last Resort

2008-06-03T08:48:00.000+01:00

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Have you ever heard someone say when they've found something that they'd lost that it was the last place they'd think of looking?

We know there's a simple explanation for this -

You don't carry on looking for something once you've found it, do you?

People often regard homoeopathy as the last resort. In fact there's a medical nemonic - T.E.E.T.H - Tried Everything Else, Try Homoeopathy!

But... The reason homoeopathy is the last resort is the same as when you've found something that you've lost...

Once you've found health and healing, why would you need to look any further?

Placebo

2008-04-10T15:59:00.000+01:00

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Patients do get better with homoeopathy. Its sceptics site the placebo effect as the reason for its favourable response.

So…

What is it about the placebo effect that means that patients get better when they have homoeopathic treatment but haven’t via a conventional route?

There's none so blind as those that don't want to see

2008-03-02T13:27:00.000Z

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On Saturday 2nd February, at Neal’s Yard Remedies in Covent Garden, I dropped a whole tray of homoeopathic remedies in their vials on the floor, two of which smashed leaving small round balls rolling around on the floor. It was 1 vial of Arnica 30c and 1 vial of Arsenicum 6c that has smashed and I was asked if I’d be able to salvage them. Ethically, they couldn’t be sold but they couldn’t be put into the staff box either because, as was pointed out to me, the tablets look the same and some would argue, are the same! I disputed this, but was asked a challenging question - "Well, how would you find out which ones which then?" I replied - "Unfortunately, we’d have to take the tablets and see what happens to find out which one’s which."

I was told that was cheating. Later that day, in a twist of karmic fate, my challenger dropped a shoe box full of CDs, most of which are unlabelled duplicates of our originals (as they get scratched quite quickly and we can return to the original for new copies!) So, I wryly asked, "How are you gonna tell which CD’s which? If you gave them to a chemist to analyse they’d say they were all the same - Same amount of acrylic, same amount of silver, same mass. How you gonna find out which one’s which?" She replied "I’ll just put them in the CD player, der!"

"But that’s cheating!" I grinned. To a chemist, one CD is the same as the next. We need to hear a CD to unleash its music and evoke a response. The digital information as 1s and 0s burnt onto the silver through the acrylic are read and processed into movement of airwaves that replicate the original sounds. It vibrates the air that then vibrates our eardrum. We then convert that vibration, once again, into an electrical signal for our brain to interpret. How you interpret that CD may be wildly different to me. You may enjoy ABBA, I may not. But remember, to the chemist, all CDs are the same. When I prescribe a homoeopathic medicine, I’m interested in how you interpret it. I know that you’ll be susceptible to responding to the medicine as you’ve produced symptoms that mimic what the remedy does to a healthy person. Yet, to a chemist all homoeopathic medicines are the same.

So, if you can’t see something, does that mean it’s not there?

Sound Investment?

2007-12-02T14:43:00.000Z

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Homoeopathic hospitals in the UK are faced with closure as they are deemed an unnecessary drain on NHS resources...

Imagine you’re the shareholder of a large pharmaceutical company...

You’ve invested in that company and therefore in the pharmaceutical industry.

Naturally, you’d like some good returns on your investment. In the 2006 top 20 companies highest returns on assets there are 4 pharmaceutical companies

So, if you were developing medicines how would YOU generate the maximum amount of revenue?

The medicines would have to be exclusive to the company that developed them for the longest possible time

The medicines would have to be expensive as well as exclusive

You would want the medicines to be given to as many people as possible

You would want the medicines to be taken for the longest possible time, for the rest of someone’s life if at all possible

You would want them to be given as young as possible especially if someone is to take it for the rest of their life

You would want any side-effects of the medicines to be treatable by medicines that your company also makes

You would want to make medicines that people take, even if they have no symptoms so as to ‘prevent’ illness

11 million people in the UK take a cholesterol-lowering drug called Lipitor, which is a statin. This brings in £12billion each year for Pfizer that makes it.

So, hopefully, you can see why it's paramount to the pharmaceutical industry that homoeopathy is proven not to work.

What's also apparent, is that if homoeopathy doesn't work, why do they need to knock it?

Immunisation anomalies

2007-09-03T09:53:00.000+01:00

Some of you may already know that I’m of scientific stock and assess problems from an analytical point of view. It’s taken a while for me to incorporate my intuition and hunches into my practice and indeed my everyday life.

Now, vaccination theory and our immunisation programme are alleged to be based on sound scientific evidence. However, some of the theory and execution of the programme does appear to have gaping holes in it…

When a child is given a series of vaccination injections it is expected that the child will produce a mild fever as a sign of an appropriate response of their immune system. So, why is Calpol routinely recommended to be administered to reduce the expected response? Does it reduce the ‘favourable’ effect of the vaccination? Or worse still, does it increase the likelihood of an unfavourable outcome?

Although this isn’t an anomaly, I find it just rude… Vaccination comes from the word vaccinia, which is Latin for cow. This stems from Edward Jenner’s use of cowpox to deal with smallpox. But don’t you think that referring to mass immunisation of people as herd immunity is taking it a little too far?

Smallpox is quite an interesting one actually… Have you heard anyone say “… well, vaccines have eradicated smallpox”? In England, free smallpox vaccines were introduced in 1840 and made compulsory in 1853. Between 1857 and 1859 there were 14,244 deaths from smallpox. After a population rise of 7%, the death rate rose by 40.8% to 20,059 between 1863 and 1865. In 1867, evaders of the vaccine were prosecuted, so very few were unvaccinated. After a population rise of 9%, the death rate rose by 123% to 44, 840 between 1870 and 1872. So, this evidence indicates that the smallpox vaccine increased the severity and incidence of smallpox when all other illness (that at the time had no vaccine) were on the decline.

Ever heard of scarlet fever? Ever seen any one with it? At the beginning of the 1900s, scarlet fever accounted for the most deaths amongst the childhood diseases, and yet this disease declined in the same manner as measles, whooping cough, tetanus, diphtheria and TB. Ever heard of a scarlet fever vaccine? There isn’t one. If one had been introduced, would we still be using it?

Tetanus is virtually unheard of in developed countries. It is estimated that 40% of the UK population doesn’t have an up-to-date vaccine of tetanus. In the building industry, where one may expect the incidence of tetanus to be higher due to nature of injuries sustained at work, there is no tetanus. Isn’t it plausible that we may actually have natural immunity that prevents such an illness from taking hold?

As a physiologist, I learned that about 80% of immune system is on the outside. Very crudely, we are a hollow tube from mouth to… the other end. Our lungs and skin are also ‘outside’ (in the sense that they directly touch the outside world). Our body keeps things out it doesn’t want and utilises the things it does want. So, when we are naturally dealing with immunological challenges, we first deal with it at this level… So why do we by pass all this part of our immune system and inject? Does an unnatural exposure produce an unnatural response? Well, vaccines don’t produce an immunity in the same way as natural exposure to a disease.

Furthermore, just because you’re exposed to something, doesn’t mean you're going to develop symptoms from it. I’ve been exposed to people with TB and not ‘caught it’ (I’m not vaccinated against TB… My GP said it didn’t work). A particular person for whom I’ve been exposed to who had TB was also vaccinated against it! Whoa!

So, they had TB antibodies… and got TB. It is assumed that if you have antibodies to a disease you are protected against it. Here in the UK, measles vaccine, part of the MMR vaccine, is quoted as being 90% effective. This translates as 90% of the recipients will produce ‘necessary’ antibody levels. There is no definition of immunity derived from a certain level of antibodies.

…and finally… Since vaccines don’t produce a lifelong immunity, when will adults need their next MMR booster so they don’t get these illnesses as adults?

When we are unwell

2007-08-10T17:12:00.000+01:00

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Our body throws out symptoms as a reaction
Our body is trying to heal itself
When a doctor prescribes a medicine, they wait to see what the medicine does
When a homoeopath prescribes a medicine, we wait to see what the person does
We concentrate on the reaction of the patient and not the action of the medicine
Surely, it's better to promote the healing process of your body rather than to hinder it?

How sick are you?

2007-05-25T12:40:00.000+01:00

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What illnesses did you have as a baby or child?

What illnesses do you have now?

Most of the babies and children I see are brought to me for help with skin complaints such as eczema, yet I see this much rarely as a presenting complaint in adults.

How have your previous illnesses been treated?

How are your illnesses treated now?

Eczema, if it's pretty bad, is treated with medicines such as hydrocortisone. This is a steroid and produces its effects by reducing the immune system. The idea is that your skin is over-responding, so to cure it, the immune system is suppressed so that it no longer reacts excessively.

Often, when the treatment is stopped, the symptoms return. This is because the underlying reason as to why your body is producing these symptoms hasn't been addressed by suppressing them. My parents were told I'd grow out of eczema. Superficially, I did. My skin was much better by the time I was about seven. The reality isn't quite so clean cut...

Rather than my skin expressing my over-sensitive immune system, my lungs were doing it instead in the form of asthma. However, as far as the dermatologist was concerned, I was cured.
Eczema and asthma are genetically, and immunologically related. Basically, asthma is eczema of the lungs. Which is more serious? To have eczema or asthma? Unless you've had both you might find it difficult to choose. I'd sooner have eczema because it's a more superficial disorder. Actually, given the choice I'd have neither thank you very much! Thankfully, I'm free of both of them now.

So, where am I heading with this...

Much fewer adults come to me to help them deal with eczema. Eczema is much less common in adults than it is in children, largely because you've 'grown out of it'... or more likely, it's been pushed inwards by the medicines that were used to treat it.

When you have homoeopathic treatment, what was suppressed, can become healed.

Since homoeopathic treatment works with your body, promoting your body's own healing processes, it pushes what was suppressed, back out again, so you get better from inside out!

Essentially, it helps you to be stronger.

This process, where your symptoms go from inside to outside as you get better is called
Hering's Law of Cure.

Dr Constantine Hering 1800 – 1880
Born in Germany
Hering was asked by his superior (who was too busy!) to write a book on homoeopathic heresy. On reading about homoeopathy, Hering was converted!

Hering's Law of Cure states that:

Cure takes place from -

inside to out (ie from deep organs to one's nearer the surface)
in the reverse order of their appearance
and from the top to the bottom of your body.

It therefore stands to reason that:

Progressing illness takes place from -
outside to inside
and from the bottom to the top of your body (ie ascending)

These wise words of Hering provide a very useful tool in practice in ascertaining whether you are getting better or worse with your treatment...

so...

How sick are you?

Is Homoeopathy, a science or an art?

2007-05-25T12:25:00.000+01:00

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…or indeed neither… or both?

David Colquhoun Professor of Pharmacology University College London has a bee in his bonnet over this one...

Science degrees without the science

SUMMARY: Some UK universities offer science degrees in complementary medicine. David Colquhoun argues that these are not science but anti-science, and asks who is to blame.
David Colquhoun, Nature 446, 373 - 374 (22 Mar 2007)

This also appeared in The Guardian on the same day headlined:
Homeopathy science degrees 'gobbledygook'

The full article in The Guardian can be found at
http://education.guardian.co.uk/chooseadegree/story/0,,2040111,00.html

I suppose it’s important to first define science and art

Science: systemic study and knowledge of natural or physical phenomena; any branch of study concerned with observed material facts. Collins Gem English Dictionary 1983 edition.

Art: skill; human skill as opposed to nature, creative skill in painting, poetry, music etc.; any of the works produced thus; profession, craft, knack, contrivance, cunning, trick; system of rules – pl. certain branches of learning, languages, history etc., as distinct from natural science. Collins Gem English Dictionary 1983 edition.

My academic route to becoming a homoeopath was as follows –

Physics, Chemistry and Biology A-Level (all grade C)
Physiology and Pharmacology BSc, (Joint Honours), 2:1 from King’s College, University of London.

It’s interesting that when we learned physiology, we studied cells, tissues, organs, systems and then the whole organism and how the systems interact with each other, yet when we learned pharmacology we learned about crude medicines and how those affect lots of systems of the body, producing many side-effects - to the final years where we studied smaller and smaller aspects of receptors – how to block them, get them to stay open for longer.

As pharmacologists go, I wasn’t bad… I had research that I’d carried out, published in the British Journal of Pharmacology (Hay AJ Hamburger M Hostettmann K Hoult JR Toxic inhibition of smooth muscle contractility by plant-derived sesquiterpenescaused by their chemically reactive alpha- methylenebutyrolactone functions.In: Br J Pharmacol (1994 May) 112(1):9-12ISSN: 0007-1188)

…but I moved on…

I then studied homoeopathy at The College of Homoeopathy’s 3 year full-time vocational qualification leading to a Licentiate of The College of Homoeopathy (LCH) and subsequent registration with The Society of Homeopaths (RSHom).

Pharmacology – is that a science or an art? Well, it’s a science I hear you cry. My Rang and Dale’s pharmacology text book initially fuelled my curious mind by describing homoeopathy as ‘absurd’.

Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homoeopathy introduced his equivalent of clinical trials to pharmacology and then homoeopathy at a time when drilling into people’s skull’s, blood letting and the wide use of mercury or quicksilver were commonplace. I’m lead to believe that the term quackery actually comes from the widespread use of quicksilver in medicine when it was found to be pretty bad at healing people but some still practiced using it.

Unwittingly, two comments from a renowned pharmacologist, Dr Clive Page, now Professor Clive Page, an expert in allergies and asthma, fuelled yet more research into homoeopathic thinking by asking - “Why do you never find a person with asthma and eczema that’s getting worse at the same time?”

I don’t know whether he had the answer to this question or not, but pretty much all practicing homoeopaths I know would be able to answer this.

The next cracker he came out with was – “Why do we have fever…It’s our body’s defence… It’s our fight back. It’s our immune system fighting back.” I’d like to add, someone who’s dead with an infection won’t have a fever. He then posed what happens when we take an aspirin to reduce that fever… “you prolong the infection, you’re reducing your body’s fight back. Your body produced that fever as a defence to the infection.” – pure genius.

I feel he’d have made a great homoeopath!

Homoeopathy works with that fight back to health, our fight back is unique to each person, hence the homoeopathic medicine needs to be unique too…

Is that science or art?

Have you considered when someone is vaccinated, especially in children, it’s commonplace to give Calpol soon after that vaccination to reduce the mild fever that is produced. How does that affect the reaction your child has to the vaccine?

– is the application of Calpol after a vaccination science or art?

How a homoeopathic medicine is made from a substance and tested before use is science as defined above.

How that medicine is manufactured is science.

How we elicit symptoms from a client is essentially an art, although it is a skill learnt from observing expert homoeopaths, so it is learnt in a scientific way but perhaps not practiced thus.

Now, here’s something I’d like you to consider…

I have homoeopathic medicines made from sulphur, a snake venom, a daisy, the spit of a rabid dog and one made from gold.

Which one do you think is the most expensive?

Which one would I be likely to prescribe if I had a budget on my medicines that I prescribe?

What would happen if I was encouraged by the people who made sulphur to prescribe more of it?

Is that science or art?

Have a look at the definitions if you need to remind yourself :o)

You may be surprised to learn that in homoeopathy, the sulphur, the snake venom, the daisy, the rabid dog spit and the one made from gold all cost the same.

You may also be surprised to hear they are made by a pharmacist following a scientific procedure… and to be honest, if you wanted to buy a homoeopathic medicine, would you buy it from a chemist shop or an art shop?

My consultations include the price of homoeopathic medicines so it doesn’t influence what is given.

I am never encouraged to prescribe another homoeopathic medicine over another, apart from the principle that it’s the most appropriate one for healing the client as decided by myself and often the client too.

I read about new homoeopathic medicines in homoeopathic journals. This does influence me but this isn’t advertised to me, and the person who submits the articles aren’t paid, neither at the point it is submitted nor do they receive commission when I purchase the homoeopathic medicine for my clients.

Is that science or art?

In my heart of hearts, it doesn’t matter to me whether homoeopathy is classified as an art or science. I studied homoeopathy on a course that was dedicated to homoeopathy, neither BSc nor BA, it was a vocational qualification.

I practice homoeopathy to help people get well again. I do this through my consultations and homoeopathic medicines.

So, if you were going offer homoeopathy at a university, which faculty would you put it in?

The difference between "must" and "will"

2007-05-25T11:56:00.000+01:00

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How many times have you said to someone,

"We must keep in touch." ?

How many times have you said to yourself,

"I must paint that wall."
"I must start that book I've always wanted to write."
"I must change my job."
"I must start a pension fund."
"I must stop smoking."
"I must tidy up."
"I must start using my camera."
"I must change that shirt I got for Christmas for the next size up."
"I must eat less and exercise more." ?

How many times did you do what you said you must do?

Wouldn't you be more likely to achieve those goals if you substitute must for will ?

"We will keep in touch."
"I will paint that wall."
"I will start that book I've always wanted to write."
"I will change my job."
"I will start a pension fund."
"I will stop smoking."
"I will tidy up."
"I will start using my camera."
"I will change that shirt I got for Christmas for the next size up."
"I will eat less and exercise more."

By changing that one word, the energy of your intent has changed.
Your sentence has been potentised.

If you have trouble changing your 'must' into 'will', a homoeopathically prescribed medicine will help you achieve this... and then your goals.

To view more visit www.homeopathical.com