[Closed] Homeopaths and a drug that has an effect

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Should've just handed out some glowsticks and [s]water[/s] powerful remedies and let them get on with it.

Sounds great apart from the cramps - orange juice would have fettled that.. 😉
Quick , someone link up the Northside song ...

Maybe having that many homeopathy practitioners in one place was the problem - they need to be diluted in with lots of non-deluded people?

wwaswas - like!

Some reports are saying that the drug was 2C-e..
According to yunki Jr - 'woaaah that's some seriously bizarre stuff.. Weird shit.. I wouldn't like to take that without knowing about it and I know what it is.. Woooaaah'

(imagine a hairier, dirtier version of young Keanu Reeves)

wwaswas - Member
Maybe having that many homeopathy practitioners in one place was the problem - they need to be diluted in with lots of non-deluded people?

Very, very good Sir

And the subtext here I guess is to discredit across the board the holistic approach to healing in favour of medical orthodoxy's central dogma ? .. Crack on with your trips to the doc's - I'm sure he's got just the pill for you . No sense in taking responsibility for one's own health and learning about one's body - Leave it to the experts right?

[i] Leave it to the experts right? [/i]

as long as they're not expert homeopaths I'll go with that.

wwaswas - Member
Maybe having that many homeopathy practitioners in one place was the problem - they need to be diluted in with lots of non-deluded people?

Possibly post of the week. Well done sir, well done.

If it was 2C-E then that's some strong stuff to be taking accidentally. Get the dose wrong and you'll be tripping balls for half a day.

[nelson from the simpsons] Ha Ha [/nelson]

+many wwaswas 🙂

And the subtext here I guess is to discredit across the board the holistic approach to healing in favour of medical orthodoxy's central dogma ?

I'll bite: go on then, what is "medical orthodoxy's central dogma"? As most doctors I know certainly take a holistic view of illness, when appropriate.

No sense in taking responsibility for one's own health and learning about one's body - Leave it to the experts right?

LOL.

My missus is in her final year as a Senior Registrar before she makes it to consultant.

So far she has spent 23 years of continual [i]"learning about one's body"[/i], in both academic and practical settings, with much of it specialised on just one sub-system.

But yeah, I'm sure I can reliably second guess her with half an hour's reading of unreviewed theories from random's on the internet. 🙄

noltae - Member

And the subtext here I guess is to discredit across the board the holistic approach to healing in favour of medical orthodoxy's central dogma ? ...

no, just laughing at homeopathy.

it's not clear from the article wether the tripsters were A) just feeling the effects of placebo (the 'drug' they'd take was homeopathic), or B) they really were on something fruity.

Crack on with your trips to the doc's - I'm sure he's got just the pill for you

Well if he is handing out E's then I am all for medical orthodoxy central dogma.

Anyway it was probably all just a big mistake.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/homeopathy-product-recalled-over-fears-it-may-contain-actual-medicine-9217206.html?fb_ref=Default

[i]Leave it to the experts right? [/i]

as long as they're not expert homeopaths I'll go with that.

Splendid!!!

I'll bite: go on then, what is "medical orthodoxy's central dogma"? As most doctors I know certainly take a holistic view of illness, when appropriate.

Sweet!! Which practice are you registered to????

I've been looking for a GP that understands the notion of a holistic approach for about the last 12 years and I'm yet to find one. In my experience they like to have a 5 minute chat, pick one prominent symptom you mention and the prescribe a pill and send you on your way for the next 2 years...

If the qualified Doctors of today are any better that homeopaths can someone please explain to my why the entire Westernised world is facing levels of chronic illness greater than at any other time in history? Oh yeah, and then there's the epidemic of mental illness that spreading from America like a plague?

devash - Member
If it was 2C-E then that's some strong stuff [s]to be taking accidentally[/s]. Get the dose [s]wrong[/s] right and you'll be tripping balls [s]for half a[/s] all day.

Jamz - Member

If the qualified Doctors of today are any better that homeopaths can someone please explain to my why the entire Westernised world is facing levels of chronic illness greater than at any other time in history?

1) homeopathy is a western invention.

2) diet, exercise and boredom.

[i] can someone please explain to my why the entire Westernised world is facing levels of chronic illness greater than at any other time in history?[/i]

Because people used to quickly die from chronic illnesses or secondary issues and now they live for a long time with a chronic illness and secondary issues?

yeah western medicine has been terrible for us all Jamz 🙄

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Oh, and look there's 6 times as many people living here now so one would expect a 'record level' of occurrence of pretty much all illnesses that we don't now inoculate against)?

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If the qualified Doctors of today are any better that homeopaths can someone please explain to my why the entire Westernised world is facing levels of chronic illness greater than at any other time in history?

[b]Statement 1[/b] - Because the average age of our nation is steadily increasing, due to advances in medicine.
[b]Statement 2 [/b]- As age increases, levels of chronic illness increase.
[b]Statement 3[/b] ... is fairly obvious given the above.

However, Scurvey and the Bubonic plague is at an all time low...

And the subtext here I guess is to discredit across the board the holistic approach to healing in favour of medical orthodoxy's central dogma ? .. Crack on with your trips to the doc's - I'm sure he's got just the pill for you . No sense in taking responsibility for one's own health and learning about one's body - Leave it to the experts right?

DrP

All we need to do is make sure that people never get the chance to suffer these pesky chronic diseases by catching people young and trying to treat their serious acute illnesses with homeopathy. That should fix the problem.

If the qualified Doctors of today are any better that homeopaths can someone please explain to my why the entire Westernised world is facing levels of chronic illness greater than at any other time in history? Oh yeah, and then there's the epidemic of mental illness that spreading from America like a plague?

Because people can now afford to see a Dr since the NHS was created? Pretty hard to be diagnosed with a disease when all you have to barter with is a Turnip.

Ditto a lot of 'western' diseases like cancer. Cancer got it's name because in the very late stages your skin could develop in a spiders web like pattern of tumours which resembled crabs, so it was usually diagnosed when you died. Hard to develop a chronic 'western' condition when you're dead.

I am not a doctor but from what I understand, most (I would assume all, but obv. I am not a doctor) people die. As they live longer before they die they have more time to get ill. And then eventually die from something.

From the subtext here I assume homeopathy users don't die (or at least they die at the same age they'd die in the 1800s thereby having less illnesses). But again. I am not a doctor.

p.s.
I am not a doctor

When was the last time you saw someone who has had an accident plead with bystanders ..... "AAAAAARRrrggghhh Help ! Call a Homeopath"

[i]"AAAAAARRrrggghhh Help ! Call a [s]Homeopath[/s]comedian - laughter's the best medicine" [/i]

😉

About time for that comedy video of "Homeopathic A&E", no?

When I broke my back, I didn't get any "holisticism" thrown in - they just, you know, fixed it. With some titanium and a few stitches.

Which was...

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Surely they could have thrown a scrap of your own back into a bath, had you drink it and you'd have not needed all the hardware?

And the subtext here I guess is to discredit across the board the holistic approach to healing in favour of medical orthodoxy's central dogma ? ...

Not at all. Do you have anything specific you'd like me to discredit for you, or are you just generalising?

"Holistic" is a bit misleading. I've been dealing with doctors and specialists second-hand for a few years now (my wife has a chronic condition or two) (aside from "being married to me" that is) and it's very, very rare to find one that "looks at the bigger picture." Health professionals, IME, are very focused on what they know and defer to others for anything else; this is both a benefit and a curse of being highly specialised. But to get someone to step back and go "well, you've got X, Y and Z so maybe these are related and actually the underlying cause of all this might be something else entirely" is incredibly difficult. At this level, I'd applaud a more "holistic" approach to healthcare in these sorts of cases.

However, "holistic" is also tied up in all manner of pseudo-scientific quackery; the flow of chi and the body's innate intelligence and all that pish. "Dogma" is inappropriate with reference to actual medicine, as dogma implies a tenet of a belief system. "Orthodox" medicine doesn't require belief, it'll work (or not) regardless of whether you believe in it (placebo effect notwithstanding).

Here's a prescription for noltae and Jamz
http://www.badscience.net/

What Cougar refers to is the concept of 'siloing of care' - that is separating out an person's conditions and illnesses into individaul 'problem lists'.
For all the merit they provide to healthcare, this is a flaw in care provided by specialist consultants.
Consultant heart - Mrs X needs this pill for condition Y
Consultant lung - Mrs X needs this pill for condition Z, which may increase the effect of the previous pill...

Despite mostly sitting on our backsides doing nothing (hey, NHS flappy bird champ South East here...) or failing to identify dismembered patients for the severity that they are, the idea of General Practice is that of being 'all encompassing' and actually seeing the bigger picture... stopping unnecessary meds, identifying prescribing/polypharmacy complications etc etc...

DrP

And the subtext here I guess is to discredit across the board the holistic approach to healing in favour of medical orthodoxy's central dogma ? .. Crack on with your trips to the doc's - I'm sure he's got just the pill for you . No sense in taking responsibility for one's own health and learning about one's body - Leave it to the experts right?

+1. Good post.

You're also in favour of learning about one's body cg? Unlike the homeopaths who would prefer it all to remain a mystery (but it works!)

You're also in favour of learning about one's body cg?

Yes, I've had to do that myself. It was preferable to ending my life.

the idea of General Practice is that of being 'all encompassing' and actually seeing the bigger picture

This is how it [i]should [/i]work, but unfortunately the quality of GPs does seem to vary wildly. For every GP we've seen who's actually had the ability (and time / inclination) to do that we must have seen half a dozen who were the medical equivalent of front line technical support.

Which to be fair is what's needed most of the time, you don't need a highly trained and experienced senior consultant to give you a couple of paracetamol for a headache. The problem arises when it's more complicated than that, and there doesn't appear to be any form of escalation route within General Practice itself; you've just got to keep going back until you get lucky, it's a lottery. The woman she's currently in the care of is absolutely brilliant, but my god we've seen some nobbers along the way.

You snipped my second sentence c.g. - in that case I am confused why you apparently seem to support a post which in the context of the rest of this thread would appear to be supportive of homeopathy, a practice which relies on obfuscation rather than knowledge.

Jamz - Member

can someone please explain to my why the entire Westernised world is facing levels of chronic illness greater than at any other time in history?

Either of my 2 chronic conditions would have killed me without relatively recent medical progress. Things like this mess up your stats something rotten.

With children who are in contact with multiple state agencies they hold regular multi-disciplinary meetings where they share information and try to arrive at a holistic view of what the child is experiencing/needs.

I can see the NHS adopting the same approach for 'complex' cases as being ultimately better for the patient and cheaper for the NHS?

dunno if anyone's not stated the screamingly obvious yet but I will in case not

Doctors are paid by the NHS and review available drugs, then prescribe them if they think you need them, and won't if they think you are ok
(it's not uncommon to hear 'I went to the doctor and he didn't give me the antibiotics/meds I think I need' from a care recipient)

Homeopaths are not employed by any central organisation, they buy the treatment and sell them to you.
try and find someone who went to the homeopath and wasn't offered a treatment because there was nothing wrong with them

I suspect part of the problem is that it can be difficult to distinguish complex cases with a significant psychiatric dimension from those which are organically complex (if you know what I mean- I am not a doctor). Trying to decide which agencies/departments are appropriate is what makes it tricky.

Sorry ed, but your post needs a little fixing:

[quote=edhornby ]Homeopaths are not employed by any central organisation, they buy the [s]treatment[/s] sugar pills and sell them to you.
try and find someone who went to the homeopath and wasn't offered a [s]treatment[/s] sugar pill because there was nothing wrong with them

Though to be completely fair, it's exactly the people who there is nothing wrong with (or a GP will not give any conventional medicine to, which includes those people with untreatable illnesses like a cold) who homeopathy works really well for.

The more I think about this, the more I'm thinking that the IT industry is a good analogy.

We have the first line techs who deal with day to day problems; password resets, PCs not powering up, phones that won't log in. If something system-wide breaks out they'll escalate the call to second line who might deal with an email server being down or some such. Second line might diagnose database corruption so pass it to a SQL specialist who will fix the database.

Later on it comes to light that this problem keeps occurring. That would then come to someone who can look at the bigger picture and work out that actually the reason the database keeps going south is due to a faulty motherboard or a badly configured backup job (this is essentially what I do). Once diagnosed, it'd then go to a hardware specialist or a telephony expert with the specific skillset to actually fix it.

In the medical world we still have those specialists, the people who know their area of expertise backwards. But the first / second / third line GP structure just doesn't exist. You'd just have to keep logging tickets until you happened to get an engineer with the wherewithall to go "hang on a minute, there's something more complicated going on here."

And of course, sometimes what people need is Customer Services, someone to go "there there, I know it's difficult but it'll get better soon." And for those cases we have complimentary "medicine."

You're suggesting that complimentary therapists tell people to turn it off an back on again?

great post.
probably just placebo effect

I can see the NHS adopting the same approach for 'complex' cases as being ultimately better for the patient and cheaper for the NHS?

Hence all the drive for 'proactive care' etc etc...

Anyways..

I'm off home.

Ski ya..

DrP

aracer:

You snipped my second sentence c.g. - in that case I am confused why you apparently seem to support a post which in the context of the rest of this thread would appear to be supportive of homeopathy, a practice which relies on obfuscation rather than knowledge.

I've never been to a homeopath so unable to comment, have you been to one? I would however say that there are knowledgeable alternative health practitioners.

That's almost certainly true. I don't doubt that there are knowledgeable scam artists, ghost hunters, fortune tellers, astrologers, mind readers and spirit mediums either.

Yawn... I really do try to avoid these posts, but like a lemming to the cliff

Closed minded people are fools 🙄

It's not closed mindedness- most people would be open to have their minds changed by any argument in favour of homeopathy that wasn't absolute [i]pish[/i]. But considering that its proponents can't even decide how it works between themselves, they're not really likely to convince anyone else.

Even cynics mostly accept homeopathy as a good placebo. Course, medicating with placebos is a bit morally ambiguous but something with no active ingredients in it is less harmful than some actual medicine.

Closed minded people are fools

They are indeed.

But not nearly as foolish as people whose minds are so open that they let any old nonsense in without any attempt at critical thinking.

But not nearly as foolish as people whose minds are so open that they let any old nonsense in without any attempt at critical thinking.

Anyone in particular Graham?

😉

I have a list.

Bet you're not the only one either!

Closed minded people are fools

Closed minded people are fools

You're confusing "closed minded" with "critical thinking." Don't feel bad, it's a common misapprehension amongst those who lack the latter.

There are of course exceptions but most scientifically-minded people are open-minded, they kind of have to be by definition. That's how science works, y'see, by people inviting others to prove them wrong.

If you aren't doing that, if you aren't taking on board what is being presented and analysing its merit but instead resorting to ad hominem comments because it's the best you've got, then you don't have an "open mind," rather you've made up your mind and simply don't like it when people disagree with you. Somewhat ironically, you could say this is pretty closed-minded thinking.

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For all the naysayers on this thread, it would't harm you to spend some time digesting the facts laid out here:

http://www.howdoeshomeopathywork.com

[quote=cinnamon_girl ]I've never been to a homeopath so unable to comment, have you been to one? I would however say that there are knowledgeable alternative health practitioners.

No, and I've never been to a witch doctor, or an alchemist either. Yes there probably are knowledgeable alternative health practitioners (depending on your definition of alternative - see steve's post just above), but they're not the ones claiming water has memory (though it's worse than that - currently reading Ben Goldacre's book, and he points out that they also expect you to believe that the water transfers it's memories to the sugar).