Homeopathy is the second most popular medicine in the world. However, most people really do not know too much about Homeopathy. This article will help clear up some misconceptions associated with homeopathic medicine.
1) Homeopathic medicines are nothing more than sugar pill that contain no measurable substance.
Certain homeopathic medicines have no measurable substance. However, many remedies do have measurable substances. In medicine that is 24X or 12C has no measurable substance. However, some medicine potency such as 6X, 6C, 12X will have a measurable substance.
2) Homeopathy has never been successful in large scale well designed trials. Trials have only worked when homeopaths were doing the trials or poorly designed trials with quite a bit of author's bias.
Trials in Homeopathy is a very mixed bag. Sometimes people are looking at the wrong information source. Many skeptics will take successful trials and point out that when looking at larger trials in the study, homeopathy does not seem to work. Although, the conclusions of the authors were that homeopathy seems to works better than a placebo.
However, some trials that were successful were fairly large. Oscillococcinum trials were quite large and well designed but still yielded a positive result in shortening the flu duration. Similar studies with Osccillococcinum were replicated as well. The idea that homeopathic remedies have never been successful in a large scale well designed trial is not true.
3) Homeopathy should not be used to treat life threatening diseases.
Homeopathy can treat life threatening diseases with the help of a well trained homeopathic physician. Also, the general medical doctor and other specialists involved in treating the disease should be included on the treatment plan. Medical doctors should always be seen if you have a life threatening illness. Homeopathy can not cure all life threatening diseases.
Many people with life threatening diseases have fared well with Homeopathy. Homeopathy malaria trials show that in trials that homeopathic medicine worked as well as conventional medicine in treating people with malaria.
4) Homeopathy and modern medicine can not work together
Homeopathy can be quite complementary to modern medicine.Many patients under going chemotherapy have seen their side effects reduced when taking homeopathic remedies. Trials with reduction of cancer treatments provided encouraging results.
5) Homeopathy, Herbal, and Ayurvedic medicine are similar.
Homeopathy, Herbal and Ayurvedic are forms of alternative medicine but these forms of medicine are not similar in any other way. Homeopathy use diluted substances to treat patients. Every medicine has been diluted in water or alcohol.
Herbal medicine is medicine based on the use of plants. Ayurvedic is an ancient system of medicine started in India that operates with the theory that all materials of vegetable, animal, and mineral origin have some medicinal value.
Ayurvedic use these materials to treat patients. Ayurvedic and homeopathic medicines are used quite a bit in India so that creates some confusion in people thinking they are the same thing.
6) Homeopathy is slow to work
Acute conditions such as flu, colds, motion sickness and pain relief can be treated quickly using homeopathic medicines. Chronic conditions are slow to work because they are complicated to treat. Chronic conditions would be acne, eczema, irritable bowel syndrome and other conditions will take longer to treat.
7) Homeopathy is only for human use.
Actually, petmeds is one of the fastest growing use of homeopathic products. Homeopathy offers a safe and inexpensive way to treat your pet of acute conditions such as allergies, anxiety and joint stress relief.
8) You can get a book on Homeopathy and treat yourself.
This may be the case in acute conditions such as cold and flu. However, more complicated and chronic cases will require you to see a homeopathic doctor. Chronic cases involve generally taking quite a few remedies in the course of a treatment. A book can not tell you which homeopathic remedies to take and how much to take when your condition starts to improve or worsen.
9) Homeopathic remedies are not widely available.
This may have been true a few years ago. However, many remedies can be found pretty much all over the US. Walmart, CVS Pharmacy, Target and larger retailers carry combination homeopathic remedies for acute conditions such as cold and flu and insomnia.
Single remedies which homeopaths claim to work the best are not as readily available. These remedies can be found in health food stores, natural pharmacies or on the Internet. They are more specialized and generally most people taking single remedies have some homeopathic knowledge or a doctor has prescribed that medicine.
10) All homeopathic remedies work the same on all people.
Homeopathy works different on different people. Classical homeopathy treats different individuals with different remedies according to their personality type. One person may use one remedy to treat a illness, while another person would use a different remedy to treat the same illness.
Homeopathy assumes everyone is different so using the same remedy to treat everyone will not work according to Classical Homeopathy principals. Modern medicine generally gives everyone the same medicine for general conditions.
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