• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Homeopathy and other things.....

golden

Senior Member
Messages
1,831
Another common mistake with using homeopathy is the expectation that any given remedy is "for" something specific, and therefore limited. This comes from the reductionism mentality in the current medical system, where a drug is developed "for" something and marketed in that way only. Interesting that later on, "off-label" uses are "discovered."

When I was abruptly dumped out of my second husband's life over this illness, I spent months in emotional shock and grief. I consumed two or three bottles of Pulsatilla over that time period, doing my best to not break down in tears at work. Pulsatilla helped balance the underlying emotions very well. It was a total surprise to me to finally read the label indication on other brands: "Colds with runny nose."

From an energy medicine viewpoint, a whole-body viewpoint, that is interesting indeed.


Sorry for your loss :(

I have come to call this type of Homeopath:

Allopathic Homeopathy.

There are quite a few different branches of it now.

Many years ago I read The Healing Power of Illness which I think supported a panacea remedy. And found Homeopathy quite possibly to be a root cause treatment unlike Alternative Allopathy - treating the symptoms.
 

Wayne

Senior Member
Messages
4,300
Location
Ashland, Oregon
With 85% of Allopathic medicine having NO SCIENTIFIC evidence to support it (from the BMJ itself)... I get slightly disgruntled at the constant attacks The Homeopathic Community receives... I welcome healthy skepticism and enquiry, but this is not what this is.

Dufresne, GracieJ, Golden, thanks for your great posts. Much appreciated! :thumbsup:
 

Iquitos

Senior Member
Messages
513
Location
Colorado
...

... Laws of physcis don't allow it to be true, even if all those experiments haven't been done. And they have been done and shown that homeopathy has same effectivness as placebo.
I used to think like you do until I began to understand quantum physics. Actually, quantum physics explains why homeopathy CAN work. It's the holographic effect. A part of the original transmits its properties to the whole hologram.

Another way to see it is to understand that once a particle has a certain effect, particles that were with it at the time it received its properties retain the same properties no matter how distant they are or become.

Watch "What the *bleep* Do We Know?" and it will explain some of this to you if you are truly interested in the truth.

Those scientists who have sought to "prove" homeopathy doesn't work were trying to do just that: prove it doesn't work. That's called bias. They were not looking for the truth, but were looking to confirm what they already believed to be true.
 

Dufresne

almost there...
Messages
1,039
Location
Laurentians, Quebec
The best results I have received from Homeopathy have been with my Animals. Including ones that have been written off as hopeless cases by allopathic Vets and one kitten who a Vet wanted to remove an eye and also would probably not survive the operation - but we had to try...

Try I did. I ignored the advice, went to the best Homeopathic Vet in the country, and kitten is now a fully healthy Cat with two purrfect eyes!

My Homeopathic Vet specialises in cases that have been through the drug mill and chucked on the scrap heap - and so on top of an illness, they also deal with drug damage. Its amazing they get any positive results let alone 90% improvements in their patients.

I especially like those Allopathic Medics who have spent a big proportion as Doctors or Vets and then learn new and better ways and become holistic.

With 85% of Allopathic medicine having NO SCIENTIFIC evidence to support it (from the BMJ itself)...

I get slightly disgruntled at the constant attacks The Homeopathic Community receives.

I welcome healthy skepticism and enquiry, but this is not what this is.


I had an aging dog with arthritis improve greatly using a homeopathic. She only lasted another year but her quality of life was easily doubled. I know I’ll probably get slaughtered by Tally for quantifying the quality of life of a dog but I put it out there. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

Healthy skepticism it is not. I’m tempted to say I believe James Randi even knows his position on this issue is crap. As I understand it he’s baulked on at least one well organized study designed to test the matter. He takes his pick of the challenges, all of which are really goofy, and then lets it be known that no one has been able to collect the million dollar prize. I’ve no position on the paranormal, psychics, and such, but with homeopathy I do. I don’t believe in a God that comes down to answer prayers, giving us a hand in the fight for survival, but I’m not about to go to church and promulgate my beliefs. I wonder about those that would try to set us straight: does it make them feel strong and rational to side with the bully on the block, or are they just trying to mess up our placebo effect?
 

Wayne

Senior Member
Messages
4,300
Location
Ashland, Oregon
I’m tempted to say I believe James Randi even knows his position on this issue is crap. As I understand it he’s baulked on at least one well organized study designed to test the matter. He takes his pick of the challenges, all of which are really goofy, and then lets it be known that no one has been able to collect the million dollar prize.

Thanks again for your posts Dufresne. Your above comments reflect just one example of literally zillions of how "scientific medicine" is filled with dirty money and dirty politics. Yes, there's great science being done in conventional medical research, but it takes somewhat of a sleuth to discern whether resulting conclusions are based on credible science or not. Reams have been written about similar insidious politics in the whole Lyme issue, not to mention the whole ME/CFS issue.
 

Dufresne

almost there...
Messages
1,039
Location
Laurentians, Quebec
Hey Wayne, you’re welcome. I love being on the underdog team when I know we’re right and there’s an injustice that needs to be righted. It will be such a vindication when it does come.

Any developments in your homeopathic and rifing treatments?

I tried Desbio’s borrelia 10 M series and didn’t experience any die-off. I’m thinking the high dilution may have just not resonated with me and my critters. I would have started with a lesser dilution but they didn’t have them in stock. As I reported many months ago the C128 did, but I couldn’t continue with it because of something else it was doing. The compounded remedies often have this potential complication. Zapping massively exacerbated my EHS so I think rifing is off limits for me. I’m considering picking up a PE-1 biophoton machine and treating for Lyme and co-infections using that. The anecdotes I’ve read are almost all positive. I’ll keep you posted.
 

Seewell

Senior Member
Messages
234
+1 for homeopathy working.I tryed it for HHV6, and some others.
It bowled me over, & i felt awful.Took me weeks to recover.
So i know from this there is value in homeopathy.
 
Messages
13,774
I don’t believe in a God that comes down to answer prayers, giving us a hand in the fight for survival, but I’m not about to go to church and promulgate my beliefs. I wonder about those that would try to set us straight: does it make them feel strong and rational to side with the bully on the block, or are they just trying to mess up our placebo effect?

I don't think it should be about individuals in that way.

I want people to try to point out when they think I'm wrong, because they might be right, and I might have an opportunity to learn something.

I think that the evidence is powerfully against any significant likelihood that homeopathic treatments are more effective than placebo. The history of it's development, the results we've seen from trials, the implausibility of it's proposed mechanism of action all serve to undermine claims of efficacy. I don't think that this reflects poorly upon anyone who has found homeopathy helpful though, or mean that I have reason to be proud of my scepticism (although I am more critical of those who have made money from homeopathy, even assuming that they were genuinely trying to be helpful, as I think that they did have a responsibility to look carefully at the evidence, and inform their clients of it prior to taking their money).

I can understand people feeling that homeopathy is unfairly picked upon because it's an easy target, and I think that there's some truth to that. But there is a reason as to why it's an easy target. The argument is so one-sided that it can be appealing to those who like to puff themselves up with a bit of a bullying mentality. I don't like that, but this doesn't mean that there is any evidence that homeopathy is more effective than placebo.

As for 'messing up' your placebo affect - there is some danger there. I think that the truth, and treating people respectfully and honestly is more important than concerns like that. Also, I increasingly, I think that much of what we think of as the placebo effect is really just reporting bias, and that placebo is of little to no real long-term value to patients.

I don't like barging in to every homeopathy thread to endlessly repeat my concerns about homeopathy, just as I would not arrange a methodical tour of local churches. But if I'm in a room where someone is saying something which I think is not true, I will try to explain why it is that I disagree.
 

golden

Senior Member
Messages
1,831
Can I raise the issue of:

Placebo Ingredients.

It seems common to think of a Placebo as 'a sugar pill' used in Drug Trials to test the efficiacy of The Drug.

However this is far from the truth.

The ingredients of placebo is highly guarded with most Drug Companies point blank refusing to disclose knowledge.

There is all sorts in them, Aluminium and other poisons.

I cant find the best links that I trust as they are on my broken computer....

but here is a link:

http://www.healthiertalk.com/placebo-pills-more-just-sugar-027
 
Messages
10,157
Can I raise the issue of:

Placebo Ingredients.

It seems common to think of a Placebo as 'a sugar pill' used in Drug Trials to test the efficiacy of The Drug.

However this is far from the truth.

The ingredients of placebo is highly guarded with most Drug Companies point blank refusing to disclose knowledge.

There is all sorts in them, Aluminium and other poisons.

I cant find the best links that I trust as they are on my broken computer....

but here is a link:

http://www.healthiertalk.com/placebo-pills-more-just-sugar-027

I think it's important to acknowledge that 'placebos' used clinical trials could be considered as not being inert because there is no such thing as a purely inert ingredient. Things like powders, coloring, binding agents could possibly have a biological effect but it's not likely the have any significant biological effects. You wouldn't want to use a 'sugar' pill as a placebo related to diabetes. It would be important to avoid certain types of fillers depending on what is being studied. Sometimes 'active' placebo's are used to mimic side-effects.

I think for transparency all research that uses placebo's should publish the ingredients in the placebos. I don't think placebo ingredients are actually a 'highly guarded' secret. Is there evidence for this?

Also, I don't really see anywhere that drug companies are putting aluminum and all sorts of poisons in their placebos. Is there any evidence for this?

Generally, we don't hear about the massive number of failed drug trials where the effect is no better than placebo because the pharmaceutical companies don't like to discuss all their failed studies.

Here is a very interesting article -- Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why.
 
Messages
15,786
I think for transparency all research that uses placebo's should publish the ingredients in the placebos. I don't think placebo ingredients are actually a 'highly guarded' secret. Is there evidence for this?
Placebo is one of the things I look for when reading research ... thus far, I think it's always been described in detail that I've seen.
 

golden

Senior Member
Messages
1,831
Kina

If you google Aliminium placebos etc.. you should come across a wide variety of sources - which you would have to pick and choose from to meet your own Evidence criteria. There are some Allopathic Doctors in this mix.

Its difficult without a computer.


@thread

I always found this snippet interesting from a homeopathic skeptic determined to prove scientifically that homeopathy was a nonsense - she didnt quite get the results she was after! ( I realise it does NOT 'prove' Homeopathy is for real - but its still interesting - found in New Scientist 13 weird things)

" 4 Belfast homeopathy results
MADELEINE Ennis
, a pharmacologist at Queen's University, Belfast, was the scourge of homeopathy. She railed against its claims that a chemical remedy could be diluted to the point where a sample was unlikely to contain a single molecule of anything but water, and yet still have a healing effect. Until, that is, she set out to prove once and for all that homeopathy was bunkum.
In her most recent paper, Ennis describes how her team looked at the effects of ultra-dilute solutions of histamine on human white blood cells involved in inflammation. These "basophils" release histamine when the cells are under attack. Once released, the histamine stops them releasing any more. The study, replicated in four different labs, found that homeopathic solutions - so dilute that they probably didn't contain a single histamine molecule - worked just like histamine. Ennis might not be happy with the homeopaths' claims, but she admits that an effect cannot be ruled out.
So how could it happen? Homeopaths prepare their remedies by dissolving things like charcoal, deadly nightshade or spider venom in ethanol, and then diluting this "mother tincture" in water again and again. No matter what the level of dilution, homeopaths claim, the original remedy leaves some kind of imprint on the water molecules. Thus, however dilute the solution becomes, it is still imbued with the properties of the remedy.
You can understand why Ennis remains sceptical. And it remains true that no homeopathic remedy has ever been shown to work in a large randomised placebo-controlled clinical trial. But the Belfast study ("Inflammation Research", vol 53, p 181
) suggests that something is going on. "We are," Ennis says in her paper, "unable to explain our findings and are reporting them to encourage others to investigate this phenomenon." If the results turn out to be real, she says, the implications are profound: we may have to rewrite physics and chemistry."
 

Wayne

Senior Member
Messages
4,300
Location
Ashland, Oregon
Can I raise the issue of: Placebo Ingredients.

Hi Golden, very interesting about placebo ingredients. --- One thing that I remain perplexed about is why there is virtually no attention paid to a "reverse placebo" effect. Isn't the accepted definition of placebo focused on those taking the "sugar pills", but get better anyway despite there being no medication involved? Why wouldn't this apply to those taking "real medications" as well, and perhaps even more so? With so many medications creating VERY noticeable "side effects", wouldn't somebody experiencing a side effect easily discern they're actually taking a "real medication", and increase the likelihood of experiencing a placebo effect? And yet I don't believe I've ever seen this phenomenon or possibility discussed.
 
Messages
10,157
Kina

If you google Aliminium placebos etc.. you should come across a wide variety of sources - which you would have to pick and choose from to meet your own Evidence criteria. There are some Allopathic Doctors in this mix.

Its difficult without a computer.


@thread

I always found this snippet interesting from a homeopathic skeptic determined to prove scientifically that homeopathy was a nonsense - she didnt quite get the results she was after! ( I realise it does NOT 'prove' Homeopathy is for real - but its still interesting - found in New Scientist 13 weird things)

" 4 Belfast homeopathy results
MADELEINE Ennis
, a pharmacologist at Queen's University, Belfast, was the scourge of homeopathy. She railed against its claims that a chemical remedy could be diluted to the point where a sample was unlikely to contain a single molecule of anything but water, and yet still have a healing effect. Until, that is, she set out to prove once and for all that homeopathy was bunkum.
In her most recent paper, Ennis describes how her team looked at the effects of ultra-dilute solutions of histamine on human white blood cells involved in inflammation. These "basophils" release histamine when the cells are under attack. Once released, the histamine stops them releasing any more. The study, replicated in four different labs, found that homeopathic solutions - so dilute that they probably didn't contain a single histamine molecule - worked just like histamine. Ennis might not be happy with the homeopaths' claims, but she admits that an effect cannot be ruled out.
So how could it happen? Homeopaths prepare their remedies by dissolving things like charcoal, deadly nightshade or spider venom in ethanol, and then diluting this "mother tincture" in water again and again. No matter what the level of dilution, homeopaths claim, the original remedy leaves some kind of imprint on the water molecules. Thus, however dilute the solution becomes, it is still imbued with the properties of the remedy.
You can understand why Ennis remains sceptical. And it remains true that no homeopathic remedy has ever been shown to work in a large randomised placebo-controlled clinical trial. But the Belfast study ("Inflammation Research", vol 53, p 181
) suggests that something is going on. "We are," Ennis says in her paper, "unable to explain our findings and are reporting them to encourage others to investigate this phenomenon." If the results turn out to be real, she says, the implications are profound: we may have to rewrite physics and chemistry."

I see lots of information about where aluminum containing adjuvants were used in Gardasil trials but I certainly don't see where this kind of thing is rampant and I don't see any evidence that Big Pharma is consistently poisoning research subjects with placebo's. The point I think is that drug companies should be very vigilant and make sure the ingredients in placebos do not cause any side effects to confound the results. The ingredients of placebos should be published for transparency and replication purposes.

I think the human brain is a marvelous and misunderstood part of our body which is why I enjoy reading information about the 'placebo effect'.
 

golden

Senior Member
Messages
1,831
Hi Golden, very interesting about placebo ingredients. --- One thing that I remain perplexed about is why there is virtually no attention paid to a "reverse placebo" effect. Isn't the accepted definition of placebo focused on those taking the "sugar pills", but get better anyway despite there being no medication involved? Why wouldn't this apply to those taking "real medications" as well, and perhaps even more so? With so many medications creating VERY noticeable "side effects", wouldn't somebody experiencing a side effect easily discern they're actually taking a "real medication", and increase the likelihood of experiencing a placebo effect? And yet I don't believe I've ever seen this phenomenon or possibility discussed.


http://www.uncommonhelp.me/articles/antidepressants-dirty-little-secret/

This article talks about when patients 'break blind'

I would call your 'reverse placebo effect' a 'boost placebo effect' because the patients 'break blind' work out they are taking the 'real' medication and give it a 'boost' ha ha :)

In this link however it raises the issue of needing 1) real medication
2) placebo and 3) doing nothing.

Now, as you say, people widely think the placebo is inert.

In fact some placebos try to replicate side effects of drugs and contain a host of active and sometimes poisonous ingredients. - Called 'Active Placebo'

perhaps this was to counter the 'boost placebo'....


Then there is nocebo and 'honest placebo effect' where patients are given a placebo and told it is a placebo - and still yielded positive results.


Kina, have you read the research about the unconscious placebo...you may like that too. It is interesting. you're right.
 

Dufresne

almost there...
Messages
1,039
Location
Laurentians, Quebec
Kina
But the Belfast study ("Inflammation Research", vol 53, p 181
) suggests that something is going on. "We are," Ennis says in her paper, "unable to explain our findings and are reporting them to encourage others to investigate this phenomenon." If the results turn out to be real, she says, the implications are profound: we may have to rewrite physics and chemistry."

This is exactly what I would conclude from the Montagnier study: it begs further investigation. To ignore findings like this is asinine; scientific Ludditism.
 

Dufresne

almost there...
Messages
1,039
Location
Laurentians, Quebec
I don't think it should be about individuals in that way.

I want people to try to point out when they think I'm wrong, because they might be right, and I might have an opportunity to learn something.

I agree with you, Esther, and I appreciate you weighing in in a respectful tone. I just think it’s a bit of a drag when a thread gets highjacked by politics (and I recognize I’m a party to this, but I didn’t start it). Imagine every thread on our forum here contained ‘members’ posting things like this: “There is no biomarker for ME/CFS and the majority of physicians believe it’s a made up, waste basket diagnosis for malingerers and hysterics. We need those precious research dollars to go into real diseases.” I think the vast majority of users of homeopathy know it goes against today’s science. So what’s the point of bringing it up? Nine times out of ten it’s not a good one.
 
Messages
13,774
I agree with you, Esther, and I appreciate you weighing in in a respectful tone. I just think it’s a bit of a drag when a thread gets highjacked by politics (and I recognize I’m a party to this, but I didn’t start it). Imagine every thread on our forum here contained ‘members’ posting things like this: “There is no biomarker for ME/CFS and the majority of physicians believe it’s a made up, waste basket diagnosis for malingerers and hysterics. We need those precious research dollars to go into real diseases.” I think the vast majority of users of homeopathy know it goes against today’s science. So what’s the point of bringing it up? Nine times out of ten it’s not a good one.

I'm a bit torn about the value of posting sceptical comments in threads about homeopathy. As you say, most people already realise that it's not an approach to medicine supported by science, and as a society, we tend to tread softly around religious and spiritual beliefs.

One thing with homeopathy is that people are spending money on it, making life decisions based on an expectation that homeopathic treatments will lead to improvements in health, etc. One of the big problems I have with psychosocial approaches to CFS is the dishonest way in which they are over-promoted, the false hope they engender, the false claims of expertise that people make money from, and the harm this causes. Homeopathy is much less likely to be imposed upon patients, but I still have concern that homeopathy is routinely sold to patients in a misleading way.

I've probably said my piece here though. I've posted about my concerns with homeopathy elsewhere, and there is little reason to repeat myself. Best of luck to everyone.