Comment by a_believer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by a_believer | Hacker News Reader

I am not a homeopath, studied science in school and college and I was against homeopathy as much as any of you are. But here are my experiences which have made a believer and a lay, part time practitioner for myself, my family and friends. I am also not knowledgeable enough to support basis of homeopathy and related things like water memory.

I am posting my experiences about acute issues where a cure is expected in a matter of hours or days so it is quite clear if the disease has run its course or the medicine has worked.

I have seen many infants and young kids get better immediately with the homeopathy use. I am not sure if the placebo effect can work on them.

For the last 10 years my whole family (and many friends) are exclusively using homeopathy. So I think even if it placebo effect it is worth having.

I know my limited experiences can't be a basis of any scientific proof. But the point I want to make is homeopathy works for me as "advertised" so I don't care what science or other people say about it.

Have a look at these and let me know what it can be? Can placebo effect be so strong?

1. I was travelling and had severe back pain which resulted from sweeting in sun and then immediately going into a chilled place. Pain killers for 3 days could not subside it. My host, a lay practitioner, gave me a single homeopathy medicine, Rhustox 200, which cured me like a miracle. Please note I was a non-believer and I took this medicine in the most desperate conditions (traveling, deadlines etc.)

This experience forced me to give a second thought and I started self-study and help from two homeopaths.

'Rhuxtox 200' is also a medicine for complaints from sprains and strains on body. Since then I have cured countless people for similar conditions.

2. Any pain from injury to soft tissues immediately subsides with 'Arnica 30' 1 or 2 doses in a matter of hour. Have given this medicine to people of all ages.

3. Cantheris 30 for burning in urine.

4. Belladona 30 for fever/head ache due to host sun or any pain/inflammation with redness of the affected part.

5. Cough. Phosphorus 30 cures most cases.

6. Most pains which aggravate with motion. Bryonia 30 helps.

7. General spasms/pains. Colocynthis 30 1 dose works miracle on kids as well as elders. Hardly need to give second dose.

You are not qualified, in any way, to determine what, if anything, had an effect on you or on other people. You are not capable of telling if your back pain, for example, was cured by homeopathy or had run its course. And this is why anecdotes are not considered evidence.

Anecdotes like yours are enough to warrant investigating to see if there is actually something going on. So people have - they have conducted trial and trial, and found homeopathy ineffective beyond any placebo effect.

It has no plausible mechanism by which it could work. It has no statistically significant effect when tested. It is dangerous and kills people. Hopefully you will wake up and realise this before you choose a homeopathic "remedy" for something serious and end up dead.

"You are not capable of telling if your back pain, for example, was cured by homeopathy or had run its course."

In my case, I may not be because it was for 3 days. But then I cured a large number of people for similar complaints within 1 day. Couple of weeks ago, I recommended Rhustox200 to a friend of a friend who had back pain for the last 1 year. This had started when he lifted a heavy object at that time. Rhuxtox faithfully cured him. Before that pain killers were temporary relief.

I am just narrating my positive experience for the last 10 years. And my point is that it works for me as it claims.

As I said in my comment, I have helped countless cases (fevers, pains etc) where relief was required within hours or days and I always got good results with homeopathy.

Homoepathy has cured, in my experience, really really serious cases in such a simple way that sometimes I just wonder what all this is; a placebo effect?

You say that homeopathy has cured many people. I believe you have stumbled upon one of the magical things in medicine: in acute cases of most diseases, people get recover. Even if we did nothing, most people would get better. Unfortunately, homeopathy is the clinical equivalent to nothing, so you are only observing people's natural history - not improving their outcome with your treatments. I urge you to very carefully consider if someone needs actual medical care in the future, and to refer appropriately.

" in acute cases of most diseases, people get recover. Even if we did nothing, most people would get better. "

I mentioned acute problems because results are more easily verifiable. Say you are having fever or allergy for last few hours and take a homoepathy medicine and get cured. Now you know that your disease runs its course in 3-7 days and has been obviously helped by homeopath.

Homeopathy is also good in chronic cases and I successfully help many people.

The problem with people that eschew science is that they no longer know how to even tell if what they're doing is actually working the way they think it is, or not.

> Couple of weeks ago, I recommended Rhustox200 to a friend of a friend who had back pain for the last 1 year. This had started when he lifted a heavy object at that time. Rhuxtox faithfully cured him. Before that pain killers were temporary relief.

What was the biological cause of the pain? Was it neuromuscular? Was it nervous system? Had there been any medical diagnosis of injury before the "treatment"? Any follow-up diagnosis? What was your follow-up? What is his subsequent range of motion? How much weight can he dead lift now? Has he taken any other treatments since? What was the timing between your "treatment" and any other treatments? Was his "cure" independently verified by anyone so that he didn't feel compelled to tell a friend-of-a-friend that it worked even if it didn't?

How many people have you "treated" that did not get better at all?

The maddening thing about saying that it might just all be "a placebo effect" is that that explanation implies that the treatment has actually worked, even in an indirect way, when in fact there's no evidence that it works at all.

This is pretty much the very example of cargo-cultism: taking magic pills and then trying to correlate positive effects with them.

"What was the biological cause of the pain? Was it neuromuscular? Was it nervous system? ....."

To use Rhuxtox, we only need to know (short version) if the ailment was caused by strain, overlifting, getting wet while perspiring. And it will work. I just mentioned one case but it has worked in many similar cases. In this particular case, the patient had stopped using pain killers because of side effects and he felt much better within first 3 days and after 1 week much better. Rhuxtox will keep working for him and if his complete recovery stops, he will get Rhuxtox 200 again or the next higher potency (Rhuxtox 1M).

"How many people have you "treated" that did not get better at all?"

This is an interesting point. Sometimes when I prescribe incorrect medicine (mostly because I was not careful enough taking symptoms, causes) the medicines does not work at all. Even though the patient is believer. For example if the abdomen pain is due to injury (Arnica 30 is correct medicine) and I give Colocynthis (for spasmodic pain), it won't work. Correcting the medicine will bring cure.

And there are times when I can't help people get better, mostly because I am not that good, though the patient has faithfully used medicine for quite some time. See place effect is not working here.

In such cases I recommend him to get consultation from professional homeopaths I know and he/she in fact gets better from someone with more knowledge. Placebos working again. Isn't it strange?

No, it isn't strange at all that placebos work if your definition of "works" just covers subjective experience. Comments like "I have seen many infants and young kids get better immediately with the homeopathy use. I am not sure if the placebo effect can work on them." show that you aren't aware of observer bias, for one.

How do you explain that the supposed effects of homeopathy evaporate like the morning dew once they're placed in the setting of a double-blind scientific experiment with proper (well, in this case more) placebo controls?

To me, one thing is sure for me. It works. Proved many many times for the last 10 years.

Now I am not really interested into running such tests mostly because I am not motivated enough (I am a programmer) and also because for myself I don't need any further proof for my own use.

For someone that's scientifically minded anecdotes like the ones you've described would actually count against the idea, not for it.

Why? Because human beings are very bad at intuitively interpreting information methodologically, this is why we have things like double-blind trials in the first place. It's very easy to subconsciously stack the odds in your own favor.

I'd encourage you to read up on James Randi and some of the people that compete for his million dollar challenge. Everyone that takes it is equally convinced (as you are) of their woo-woo ideas, and all of them are proven equally wrong.

You aren't immune from deluding yourself, and neither am I. Nobody is, that's why we have a process to factor human error out of the equation. It's called science.

In this case we aren't talking about some harmless and quaint idea. If you continue foistering homeopathy on your loved ones, there's a real possibility that the magical thinking will rub off on on them. And they'll subsequently neglect to seek real medical attention when they have a problem that can't be solved by a glass of water and a friendly smile.

There's a fantastic video online somewhere of a martial arts instructor that had built a practice out of some form of "energetic combat", where he would run around and wave his arms, and his students -- somehow convinced that it worked -- would helpfully fall over.

Then one day there was a challenge from a more traditional martial practitioner. The sensei was quite surprised when his unconvinced opponent did not fall down like he was supposed to.

And even more surprised when he got smacked in the face.

Unfortunately, rather than grapple with the realization that he had been practicing nonsense for years, IIRC he came up with some woo-woo excuse for why it didn't work that day, or on that opponent.

EDIT: Found it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEDaCIDvj6I

> I cured a large number of people for similar complaints

> my point is that it works for me as it claims.

My point is that you are entirely unqualified to tell what works, and you are going to end up hurting yourself or someone else.

"Works for me" is meaningless. It either works, or it doesn't. In homeopathy's case, it has been demonstrated time and again that it does nothing; it is indistinguishable from a placebo.

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