Understanding homeopathy

[Lisa Simpson]

I find that fasting has unpleasant side-effecs, such as, well, feelings of hunger and lowered blood sugar. And remember, just because something has been believed in for a long time it doesn't necessarily make it true. The other two don't sound like real treatments. They may well work as well as a placebo though.

Fasting gives me awful migraines. Meditation is good, if stress is your problem. "Will power healing" doesn't sound real to me either.

 

[Chris Haynes]

Oh, dear... it seems that in his efforts to "educate" us here in Randiland has left Murthy with a bad taste.

From http://www.hpathy.com/homeopathy/forum_posts.asp?TID=2646&PN=1 ...

Snoopy explains that we are "a bunch of pseudo intellectual sycophants on a religious crusade?"

To which Murthy replies:

No point in trying to convince a bunch of illogical,and indecent fellows,though they claim to be the most logical fellows on the earth.

And yet, he never once tried to answer ANY of my questions! I thought they were logical, and I really tried to be decent... I even apologized for posting an inappropriate set of questions at the beginning of this thread.

I am really put out.

 

[Kumar]

Fasting gives me awful migraines. Meditation is good, if stress is your problem. "Will power healing" doesn't sound real to me either.

Fasting in normal individuals may only be harmful if you are really defficient in body substances. But if substance/s are in excess or accumulated due to any physiological disorder, it can help. It is just awakening of body system which might had been previously sleeping due to unwillingness/acumulation. Anyway aggravations due to sudden exposures of those excesses/accumulations can be there due to awakening or sudden awakening effect which can go at later date & individual cured. I therefore sometimes think about insulin in IR candition.

Mojo,

The essence of survey/tests is to see 'cure' bot just effects/side effects. If other 2 types can show cure it is sufficient & if without other effects--it is better.

 

[Zep]

Mojo, Kumar REALLY has no idea whatsoever...

Or he DOES know what we are talking about and is desperately trying to redefine reality to avoid the obvious.

Or...

He's a troll extraordinaire.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Oh, dear... it seems that in his efforts to "educate" us here in Randiland has left Murthy with a bad taste.

" was particularly peeved at the way,they pass remarks on homeopaths,and try to belittle them."

Ah, how sweet. He wants us to respect them as equals.

I'm not sure he quite understood how utterly homeopathy is despised by us.

 

[Zep]

I think he was simply pissed off that his "grand rebuttals" and "incontrovertible arguments" hit us with all the force of a blown dandelion seed.

 

[Mojo]

Fasting in normal individuals may only be harmful if you are really defficient in body substances. But if substance/s are in excess or accumulated due to any physiological disorder, it can help.

This looks dangerously like allopathy.

 

[Carn]

" was particularly peeved at the way,they pass remarks on homeopaths,and try to belittle them."

Ah, how sweet. He wants us to respect them as equals.

I'm not sure he quite understood how utterly homeopathy is despised by us.

You(plural) should have treated him a bit softer, if you wanted him to stay.
He is not used to discussions(at least the ones with counterarguments) and was outnumbered. Ad "despising" to this and he quits.

They have all that unwritten codes of behaviour, because they are, as they would say it, "sensitive". They just cannot maintain a discussion with someone, who says directly or indirectly, they are stupid or is a bit rude.(big exception is Kumar, he has an excellent ability to get over insults, though he is technique is not the best one)

Which of course is a bit problematic, because sooner or later, sceptics try to tell them, they and all other homeopaths are unable to see the difference, between remedy effect, placebo effect and natural healing. That, they understand as "you are blind and stupid", where they name calling starts.

How can you tell someone without insult, that he is deluded, especially without him understanding "blind and stupid" or even "mentally ill"?

Carn

 

[Kumar]

Carn,

Because, I know things are still there in dark room of science.

 

[Carn]

Carn,

Because, I know things are still there in dark room of science.

AFAIK Bach, Gavinimurthy and Sarah also would agree to that, but they still quickly go away because they do not like the "athmosphere" here.
I suspect more, that you have a great ability to identify things, while reading a text, that would disturb your well being, and adjust your interpretation of them so, that your well being is not adversly affected.
Big disadvantage is that sometimes your interpretation change might cause you to miss some aspect. Therefore i think you should try to use that ability not so often, even if it might affect your well being a bit negatively(truth is sometimes not for free).


Carn

(To all: did i say it nicely?Is it still comprehensible?Or is it too euphemistic?)

 

[MRC_Hans]

Carn,

Because, I know things are still there in dark room of science.

Kumar, you haven't even got through the front door of science yet, so how do you propose to point out the "dark rooms"?

(Less euphemistic, Carn, but clearer ).

Hans

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

You(plural) should have treated him a bit softer, if you wanted him to stay.

How can you tell someone without insult, that he is deluded, especially without him understanding "blind and stupid" or even "mentally ill"?

Carn

Murthy had been handled fairly gently, but had got to the point they always get to of refusing to deal with the central issues while adopting a tone of moral and intellectual superiority that they have not earned. Exchanges with them, for me, have ended up being educational only in the sense of finding new ways of catching them out

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Don't believe me? Ask around - poster Rolfe will give you plenty of background on that situation! Ask her about Wim Padaan, the dimwitted, confused and angry vet!

Wim the Woo seems to have disappeared.

http://www.hpathy.com/homeopathy/forum_topics.asp?FID=3

Another example perhaps of someone in his hypomanic phase finally blowing up and vanishing.

Edited to add:

http://www.otherhealth.com/member.php?do=vcard&u=7150

 

[Anders W. Bonde]

Bump.

Why do the proponents of homeopathy always run away from their 'own' threads as soon as their claims are challenged?

COME BACK AND TAKE IT LIKE A MAN, GAVIN!

 

[JAK]

Bump.

Why do the proponents of homeopathy always run away from their 'own' threads as soon as their claims are challenged?

COME BACK AND TAKE IT LIKE A MAN, GAVIN!

Hmm ... looks like this thread has turned into a frenzy trying to flog Gavinimurthy and Kumar. And though they have not provided a robust defense of their ideas, I do not believe they are totally without merit. However, the attacks from the other camp do not appear to be pristine either.

Perhaps I can fill in for Gavin.

Let's start again. But let's be specific this time.

Aloe Vera has been used for over 4000 years to treat burns and other ailments. Does this constitute a homeopathic treatment?

Yes? No?

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Aloe Vera has been used for over 4000 years to treat burns and other ailments. Does this constitute a homeopathic treatment?

Yes? No?

By and large, no. It's a herbal remedy used in realistic pharmaceutical quantities. Some trials show benefits, some do not, but this is irrelevant to homeopathy.

 

[Anders W. Bonde]

JAK,

Welcome and thanks for picking up the thread.

The answer to your very straight-forward question is equally straight-forward: No.

The use of Aloe Vera against minor infections and irritations is supportable by scientific evidence as there are physiologically active ingredients in Aloe Vera - and in a lot of other plants, too. In fact, a lot of scientifically developed medicine is based on active ingredients stemming from plants - either refined and purified from naturally occuring ingredients, in order to control dosage, effect and side effects accurately, or synthesized versions of the same ingredients.

So - using Aloe Vera 'as is' may be termed 'herbalism' but there are measurable ingedients present and effects (or lack of) can be determined by physiological response. The problem with using 'raw' herbal remedies, as opposed to the refined or synthesized medical derivative, is the lack of efficient quality control - dosage of the active ingredient may vary enormously and other undesirable ingredients may be present in uncontrolled quantities, although I don't think Aloe Vera presents much of an issue in this respect.

Homeopathy, on the other hand, dilutes any ingredients into oblivion - and any ingredients that may have been in the so-called mother tincture will typically not be compatible with the physiological response that the homeopaths had hoped for.

Whether Aloe Vera performs as well as advertised by its purveyors I don't know, but it would be fairly easy to design effective studies to determine its efficacy - although I assume (not having Googled to do this post) that such studies have already been carried out.

If you found my tone with Gavinimurthy and Kumar (whose posts I don't respond to anymore, BTW, as I find it to be a futile exercise) to be of the 'flogging' kind it is due to my impatience with these people - they start a thread but do not respind to or learn from the debate that then ensues. It's jyst sooo frustrating - but also soooo predictable. If thier claims held water they could, and would, provide the evidence. They do neither. They just evade and spam. Makes you woder, doesn't it?

Edited to add: BSM beat me to it - again!

 

[Chris Haynes]

...Aloe Vera has been used for over 4000 years to treat burns and other ailments. Does this constitute a homeopathic treatment?

Yes? No?

No... Homeopathy has been around for only 200 years. See http://www.skepdic.com/homeo.html .

Read this http://www.homeopathyhome.com/reference/organon/30.html and tell us if homeopathy was able to distinguish between gonorrhea, syphilis or a yeast infection.

 

[JAK]

By and large, no. It's a herbal remedy used in realistic pharmaceutical quantities. Some trials show benefits, some do not, but this is irrelevant to homeopathy.

JAK,

Welcome and thanks for picking up the thread.

The answer to your very straight-forward question is equally straight-forward: No.

The use of Aloe Vera against minor infections and irritations is supportable by scientific evidence as there are physiologically active ingredients in Aloe Vera - and in a lot of other plants, too.
...
The problem with using 'raw' herbal remedies, as opposed to the refined or synthesized medical derivative, is the lack of efficient quality control - dosage of the active ingredient may vary enormously and other undesirable ingredients may be present in uncontrolled quantities, although I don't think Aloe Vera presents much of an issue in this respect.

Homeopathy, on the other hand, dilutes any ingredients into oblivion - and any ingredients that may have been in the so-called mother tincture will typically not be compatible with the physiological response that the homeopaths had hoped for.
...

Okay, the use of Aloe Vera for medical reasons does not fall into homeopathy. Further, Anders suggests the quality of the potion is important:

"dosage of the active ingredient may vary enormously and other undesirable ingredients may be present in uncontrolled quantities"

and that homeopaths dilute ingredients such that the

"tincture will typically not be compatible with the physiological response that the homeopaths had hoped for."

Pharmaceutical drugs in the U.S. (and likely many other countries) are manufactured to strict guidelines called Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). This is an easy upgrade for any potion (albeit expensive), and IMO should not be a defining criteria for what is and is not homeopathy.

The dilution, on the other hand, may be a criteria. A quick check of www.yourdictionary.com defines homeopathy as follows:

"A system for treating disease based on the administration of minute doses of a drug that in massive amounts produces symptoms in healthy individuals similar to those of the disease itself. "

Of course, this may not be an optimum definition. Yet, it does provide a starting point for discussion.

As I recall, drugs to treat venomous snake bites are derivatives of snake venom. The cure for small pox is derived from cow pox. I am reluctant to call these homeopathic cures.

Regarding effectiveness, all drugs approved by the U.S. FDA have two ratings: LD50 and ED50. LD50 is the lethal dosage for 50 percent of the test animals. ED50 is the effective dosage to garner the desired results in 50 percent of the test animals. (Obviously, the ED50 must be lower than the LD50 for approval.)

For those "potions" which do not kill any test critters, the FDA marks the potion as a food, not a drug.

Question: What is the criteria for separating homeopathic and allopathic remedies? Does food fall into one of these categories or another one? What category does Aloe Vera fall into? Are there other types of treatments to be considered in addition to these?

 

[JAK]

No... Homeopathy has been around for only 200 years. See http://www.skepdic.com/homeo.html .

Read this http://www.homeopathyhome.com/reference/organon/30.html and tell us if homeopathy was able to distinguish between gonorrhea, syphilis or a yeast infection.

Your first link was excellent. An improved definition came from it:

"Homeopathy might work in the sense of helping some people feel better some of the time. Homeopathy does not work, however, in the sense of explaining pathologies or their cures in a way which not only conforms with the data but which promises to lead us to a greater understanding of the nature of health and disease."

However, you are still focusing on the Organon homeopathic bible born in the early 1800s. Even so, this, too, may be a criteria. If the practitioner does not rely upon the Organon, can he or she still be considered a homeopath? What criteria over and above reliance upon the Organon constitutes homeopathy? Was homeopathy frozen in time 200 years ago??