Homeopathy versus allopathy

[Epsilon0]

This is a spin-off thread.

The issue of homeopathy versus allopathy was originally touched upon in the thread Treatment ain't for the poors but as @GoodPersonEffed remarked, it was unfair to hijack that discussion.

I will keep this as simple and as short as possible in my first post: if I have an open fracture, a burst appendix, type 1 diabetes, breast cancer or some bacterial infection, please don't tell me my body will cure itself with positive thoughts, arnica tea or sea-salt gargle.

My stance is quite clear: I don't see Homeopaths without boarders curing cleft palates, AIDS or fighting the Corona outbreak.

There's a reason we no longer go to the village witch when we have health problems and that's because medicine is a science and homeopathy has no scientific basis.


(This is obviously a very complex issues and I know people tend to have strong views on the matter. I hope we can keep this civil.)

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

There is plenty about allopathic medicine to bash, but with only one exception below, I cannot compare it to homeopathy. I think there are times when nature has created a remedy that allopathic doctors are unaware of. Doctors nowadays seem to think if it can't be treated with a pharmaceutical or a scalpel, it can't be treated at all. But often the issue is the limited lens through which a doctor views a problem, especially specialists.

Personal cases in point:

I had lower back pain for almost 30 years. I convinced a doctor to give me an X-ray, and it turns out I had a massive area of soft-tissue calcification, that is, I had at some point received a blow, and the muscle responded by developing bony growths.

The doctor said nothing could be done about it. I took the x-rays to a physical therapist, and she did four or so treatments with ultrasound to break up the calcium deposits. It worked.

I have had a hump below my neck since my late teens. I mentioned it to my gynecologist, she tested me for Hashimoto's disease, I did not have it. The same physical therapist did ultrasound on the hump. It went down some, and I had some relief of burning trapezius pain. More on that in a bit.

I had a lifelong mild limp and awkward gait. A podiatrist said one leg was longer than the other and prescribed uncomfortable orthotics. The same physical therapist said no, my hips were misaligned. She taught me exercises to align my hips as well as to retrain my gait, and I had some improvement.

In the past year, I discovered by watching YouTube videos that I have crossed posture syndrome. I was born with a congenital anterior pelvic tilt, a swayback. I now understand that this is what caused gait issues, as well as the counter-balancing forward head tilt that created the hump. I followed a physical therapy regimen of exercises and stretches to correct both, activating dormant muscles and relaxing the muscles that had taken over the work of the correct muscles. I have the best posture of my life, no more lower back pain, less neck and shoulder pain, significantly reduced hump, and a smoother gait. It is a work in progress, but there has been major progress. Even my awesome physical therapist missed that one.

In only one instance has homeopathy served me over allopathy. I used to see an allopathic nurse practitioner for general health issues. I had a painful sinus infection with a lump of mucus stuck high up in my nose. Rather than treat it with a prescription nose spray or pill, she recommended I use a neti pot with a solution of salts and purified water, and while it seriously burned the first time, it and the infection quickly cleared, and I learned how to use the neti pot as a preventative measure as well as a treatment.

As far as allopathic doctors relying too heavily on pharmaceuticals, that is exacerbated in the States, where doctors are treated to free fancy dinners by pharmaceutical reps where they are shown videos and given literature (I've been to one of those dinners with a friend who was a psychiatric nurse practitioner), or given free samples of new meds to give to patients, which saves the patients money from having to buy a prescription medication until that one becomes mainstream. Prescription-only pharmaceuticals are advertised on television commercials, in magazines, and on billboards. Health insurance companies pay bonuses to doctors for the number of vaccines they convince patients to accept. Allopathy is industry, and doctors are humans who can be bought, or can be limited by the lenses offered by their educations and specialties.

@Epsilon0, wow. You have a lot of major issues to deal with. I have such compassion and would send you a hug if I weren't worried it would hurt you.

May I offer just a little bit of humor? It's no wonder you aren't cured, you're supposed to gargle the arnica tea, not drink it. I now of course look forward to your immediate recovery.

And I do love the bitingly sarcastic Homeopaths without Borders play on words!

Thank you for creating this thread so I could respond as I wanted to on the other one.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I confess I tried homeopathy once. I didn't mean to! I had been referred to have acupuncture when I moved town and the chap did some weird stuff with bottles of water and a beeping machine instead. He made lots of encouraging noises of interest and in one session even put magnets down my trousers. I did all of this with an open mind. However, it was clearly bollocks.
I dumped him and it actually felt like dumping someone for real. The look on his face at out last session was one of profound hurt.

I also tried acupuncture. That was interesting. I couldn't really decide if it was beneficial but it was certainly interesting.

And hypnotherapy too! I had to lie down and say whatever popped into my head, but to a particular formula/way of thinking. I couldn't do it. I thought all sorts of weird things all at once and no one thought occupied my head that I could describe in the narrative formula he was demanding. I also censored all my words because hey, that's what you do. It's like trying to 'not think of an elephant'. See?
I broke up with him again because I just thought it was a crock. I liked the idea of suggestion but I just couldn't think in the terms he expected of me.

Western medicine is broken. It's excellent at specific things with a nail on fix. It's shit at anything 'functional' or any systemic 'syndrome'. Run when you here those words because all you get is tick box diagnoses based on flow charts and care pathways. In the UK GPs are only have ten minutes to talk about ONE symptom. So if you have a complex condition you are encouraged to make multiple appointments. However, at my GP you are not allowed to make multiple appointments. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaaaa!

And specialists in secondary care don't talk to each other, so you can forget about complex conditions with co-morbidities. They operate a 'that's what I've told you, take it or leave it' policy. Next.

If you are looking for an integration between physical health and mental health, forget it. We are not treated as people, but rather as symptoms, and only then symptoms with an easy answer. Which is medication, surgery or counselling. No other options.

Our NHS has grown up piecemeal from a bunch of cottage hospitals. We are lucky in the UK to have free medical care at the point of contact, though it's ofc not without its flaws due to money and resources and a burgeoning population. Many of the dedicated staff make a gargantuan effort to make a difference. But the attitude sucks. It's distinctly non-holistic and treats symptoms not people. When a GP is prescribing Prozac for grief, you know the system is broken (yes that happened to me). If there was more integration and a more intelligent and joined up way of treating patients, maybe there wouldn't be so much pressure on the broken system. Work smarter, not harder.

Ooooops bit of a rant there still, point made.

 

[Final Escape]

It's true that the stuff you are afflicted with can not be cured quickly with natural medicine. I'm not sure what causes some of those things to go wrong like appendix rupture. Breast cancer could have been caused by years of exposure to flouride although depending on where u live some places don't fluoridate. I know they fluoridate everything in the US. You actually should buy a reverse osmosis filter for your water that u drink or cook with and a shower filter for your shower ideally. The flouride goes into the skin, it's absorbed through the mist from the shower, the vapor. Lack of iodine in your diet increases risk of cancer bc the flouride in the water inhibits whatever iodine can get to your organs that comes from certain foods. A good iodine supplement can be found on amazon called lugols iodine or Alex Jones sells nascent iodine it's sweet tasting and easy to ingest. Buy non flouride toothpaste at natural food stores. We are told flouride is good for u, yes maybe the naturally occurring calcium flouride but not the sodium flouride that they add into the drinking water and we have no say in this. Besides the appendix I'll bet the other issues could be treated naturally. It's easier to knock out bacterial infections with antibiotics but overuse of antibiotics is not good either as people build resistance.

 

[Epsilon0]

@GoodPersonEffed

Two stars and a wish :-)

Star

Health insurance companies pay bonuses to doctors for the number of vaccines they convince patients to accept. Allopathy is industry, and doctors are humans who can be bought, or can be limited by the lenses offered by their educations and specialties.

I am in total agreement with you here. Pharmaceutical companies are big businesses, their chief goal is profit. That alone is proof that ethical boundaries are likely crossed. Doctors do the best they can, depending on their personal moral codes and views on their role as health care providers, as well as their professional training.

Star

But often the issue is the limited lens through which a doctor views a problem, especially specialists.

I could not agree more. This is particularly sad for people who complex health problems, or patients like me with invisible illnesses. Depending on which specialist one visits, one get different diagnosis. Each specialist seems to think they are right, because they focus on their area of expertise.


Wish

I think anectodal or personal experiences are not convincing arguments in favour of either allopathy or homeopathy. The question should be: which approach to medicine is based on scientific methods and which is not?

I don't think there's a big pharma conspiracy against homeopathy. I refuse to believe all doctors are brainwashed or privy to some big conspiracy. If homeopathic remedies really did work, they would be turned into big pharma homeopathic medicine, branded, marketed and turned into a gold mine.

PS:

@Epsilon0, wow. You have a lot of major issues to deal with.

Those were just examples, I do not suffer from any of those afflictions.

 

[yetme]

This is a spin-off thread.

The issue of homeopathy versus allopathy was originally touched upon in the thread Treatment ain't for the poors but as @GoodPersonEffed remarked, it was unfair to hijack that discussion.

I will keep this as simple and as short as possible in my first post: if I have an open fracture, a burst appendix, type 1 diabetes, breast cancer or some bacterial infection, please don't tell me my body will cure itself with positive thoughts, arnica tea or sea-salt gargle.

My stance is quite clear: I don't see Homeopaths without boarders curing cleft palates, AIDS or fighting the Corona outbreak.

There's a reason we no longer go to the village witch when we have health problems and that's because medicine is a science and homeopathy has no scientific basis.


(This is obviously a very complex issues and I know people tend to have strong views on the matter. I hope we can keep this civil.)

Agree.
But in some cases when orthodox medicine fails people are just desperately trying every possibility to get better. Unfortunately that happened to me too. I've been fighting for my life for 3 years now and I'm slowly falling into the abyss. Nothing worked so far... chemo didn't work, experimental protocols didn't work, clinical trial drugs didn't work, so nither did herbs, witch medicine, fasting, homeopathy... life just fucking sucks.

 

[Epsilon0]

I confess I tried homeopathy once. I didn't mean to! I had been referred to have acupuncture when I moved town and the chap did some weird stuff with bottles of water and a beeping machine instead. He made lots of encouraging noises of interest and in one session even put magnets down my trousers. I did all of this with an open mind. However, it was clearly bollocks.
I dumped him and it actually felt like dumping someone for real. The look on his face at out last session was one of profound hurt.

I also tried acupuncture. That was interesting. I couldn't really decide if it was beneficial but it was certainly interesting.

And hypnotherapy too! I had to lie down and say whatever popped into my head, but to a particular formula/way of thinking. I couldn't do it. I thought all sorts of weird things all at once and no one thought occupied my head that I could describe in the narrative formula he was demanding. I also censored all my words because hey, that's what you do. It's like trying to 'not think of an elephant'. See?
I broke up with him again because I just thought it was a crock. I liked the idea of suggestion but I just couldn't think in the terms he expected of me.

Western medicine is broken. It's excellent at specific things with a nail on fix. It's shit at anything 'functional' or any systemic 'syndrome'. Run when you here those words because all you get is tick box diagnoses based on flow charts and care pathways. In the UK GPs are only have ten minutes to talk about ONE symptom. So if you have a complex condition you are encouraged to make multiple appointments. However, at my GP you are not allowed to make multiple appointments. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaaaa!

And specialists in secondary care don't talk to each other, so you can forget about complex conditions with co-morbidities. They operate a 'that's what I've told you, take it or leave it' policy. Next.

If you are looking for an integration between physical health and mental health, forget it. We are not treated as people, but rather as symptoms, and only then symptoms with an easy answer. Which is medication, surgery or counselling. No other options.

Our NHS has grown up piecemeal from a bunch of cottage hospitals. We are lucky in the UK to have free medical care at the point of contact, though it's ofc not without its flaws due to money and resources and a burgeoning population. Many of the dedicated staff make a gargantuan effort to make a difference. But the attitude sucks. It's distinctly non-holistic and treats symptoms not people. When a GP is prescribing Prozac for grief, you know the system is broken (yes that happened to me). If there was more integration and a more intelligent and joined up way of treating patients, maybe there wouldn't be so much pressure on the broken system. Work smarter, not harder.

Ooooops bit of a rant there still, point made.

Western medicine (or rather Western society as a whole) is broken, but the scientific principles that lie at the basis of medicine are not.

I tried accupuncture once when I was hospitalized for severe pain. They put some needles in my head.

I also received some morphine prior to the accupuncture, and fell asleep with the needles in my scalp.

So, I can't really tell if it worked or not. But, if I were to bet, my money is on the morphine :-)

 

[Kattt]

The ideal universal/affordable medicine is broken because it doesn't benefit rich people