My Homeopathy Dilemma

I’ve always been skeptical about homeopathy.

Sorry. I know it’s not politically correct to say that, but it’s the truth. I can kind of see it on some energetic or metaphorical level—especially when I get all What The Bleep Do We Know about it, thinking about water that takes on the energy of words and all that, but then I inevitably think…”naaah.”

Homeopathy—if you’re not familiar with it—is a very old and traditional method of medicine that’s based upon the idea that you treat a disease with a tiny dilution of the same disease—kind of like a vaccination—except that the dilutions are so small that no method of scientific analysis ever invented can detect them. So the rap against homeopathy has always been that the treatments don’t contain any active ingredient that anyone can detect which is one reason that homeopathic remedies never fall on the wrong side of the FDA. The FDA essentially sees homeopathic medicine as water and doesn’t bother with it.

 

Now back to our story.

So I’m reading the other day about a new method of cancer detection that is about 98% accurate, beating any machine, any technology, any lab test currently in existence.

It’s called dogs.

I’m not talking about a code name for a new detection algorithm; I’m talking about animals.  Actual dogs. (Like the kind I live with, only better trained. Hopefully.)

There’s a canine medical training facility in California called In Situ where they’ve already trained over 50 dogs to detect more than six different cancers with eye-popping accuracy. Apparently, an MRI can tell you if you have a lump. But a dog can tell you if it’s cancer.

 

Pretty amazing, right?

You know how people who live with animals say things like, “He always knows when I’m sad!”?

They’re right—but how do you think dogs know that stuff? They’re smelling your hormones! Dogs can sense slight changes in the hormones we secrete when we’re stressed, sad, glad, mad and who knows what else. They have 300 million olfactory in their wet, kissable little noses.  We have 5 million.

 

All of which brings me back to homeopathy.

While I’m still skeptical, I’m also curious. If dogs can detect compounds at parts per trillion… which neither human nor measuring technology can do…Is it not possible that there are molecules in homeopathic remedies that we just can’t detect?

After all, the fact that dogs can sniff out stuff that humans can’t measure or see– and are verified as being 98 percent correct– means, by definition, that there’s something there.

Maybe there’s something there in homeopathic remedies too. Who knows?

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12 Comments

  1. Vinay

    Is worked for me, it removed warts from my head when the allopathic treatment was burning them. It works. Is not woodo.

  2. Gail

    We worked with a veterinarian (traditionally trained) who also is a reknown homeopathic vet. When ALL the vets here and in the surrounding areas told us our cat had a fatal disease (FIP), I found this vet (we live in Ohio, she lives in Washington state!), She worked with us by phone and email (and our vet agreed to help her with certain tests) using ALL homeopathy. She saved Pattycakes’ life and we had NINE more quality years with our sweet baby.

    We use it for many things, but our experience with Pattycakes was the most significant. We believe in it and have urged many people to learn about it and find a practitioner in their area. Well worth it!! When traditional medical care failed our kitty (by the way, she was 18 when she died), homeopathy saved her life.

  3. Frederica Huxley

    I understand your skepticism – I don’t understand how homeopathy can possibly work – but I have had it work too often to have it be a mere placebo or coincidence! Also, I have had great success with children and animals.

  4. Jim

    In High School, way back in 1954, I had a wart infestation on my hands, I went for cauterizations (burn-offs) that worked somewhat. Then, when there were just a few warts left, my doctor changed the whole deal. He told me that he was just going to cauterize the biggest one. This would be enough, he said, to cause the other warts to go away. And, IT WORKED!!!
    This is more likely a manifestation of the placebo effect…… I was told something would work, and as a result, it worked.. I now feel it was good understanding of healing on the part of the doctor. There are some guys better at healing than others, and there are probably reasons why that is true.

  5. Brenda

    Dr. Jonny, as always I appreciate your honesty and perspective. I had excellent and consistent results using homeopathy on my dogs and on my very young children ( way back when they were very young!) – all patients who were unable to explain their symptoms, rationalize actions, or psych themselves into recovery due to placebo effect. There is definitely something to it, whether it can be proven by current scientific methods or not.

  6. Dee

    OMGosh, me too! I thought the same about homeopathy. However, I added the eye-rolling whenever someone would talk about homeopathy. Then I got sick and everything we tried did not work…EXCEPT a homeopathic remedy. LOL…but…I was still not believing it. Then a friend’s dog was very ill over these past couple of years. They tried everything. They decided to try a homeopathic vet and BAM…their doggy is looking good and doing AH-MAZE-ING-LY… I don’t know the intricacies of how it all works, but I’m becoming a believer. Ciao!

  7. Elyn Aviva

    I know it doesn’t make scientific “sense”–but I have seen it work. Our classically trained homeopath was a skeptic until she used it successfully on her dog, who obviously wasn’t influenced by the placebo effect. I’ve had excellent results and use coffea cruda as a go-to homeopathic for getting to sleep without side effects. And you KNOW there’s something to them when you have a bad reaction to these 1 part in a trillion little sugar pellets. Happens rarely, but it can. Nothing to it? Don’t believe that!

  8. Amy

    My problem with homeopathy is that the tablets contain sugar. I can’t get past that.

  9. Lynn Bishop

    Thought you might find this 2012 article interesting at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3570304/ as it describes a possible model for how homeopathic remedies work through the action of “source and silica nanoparticles” that influence the body’s stress reactions and help the body to adapt to stressors. Rather technical and hard for me to understand, but it could be the a real step forward in researching how homeopathic remedies work. I personally have had two long-standing issues resolved entirely through the use of homeopathic remedies carefully prescribed by a classically-trained homeopath. Homeopathy works! By the way, homeopathic remedies are also available diluted in water/alcohol as well as in lactose sugar tablets.

  10. Marinko

    I am not a sceptic anymore.Problems with Low Core body temperature and Intrahepatic gallstones. Toxins,heavy metals and pesticides….
    Nux Vomica is diluted from Strychnine poison from India.I quess,they observed that this poison is stressing the liver . Nux Vomica 30 C is angagging my liver bile.
    But 200 C ( more diluted Nux Vomica,can man say poison?) ….I can only say Vauuu…….

  11. Solange Milan, LMFT, DAPA

    Those of us that have European roots (French, German, English) nearly always use homeopathic remedies because a) they work and b) no side effects and c) you take them for a very limited time as opposed to the rest of your life. Most French physicians are trained in homeopathics & use them as the first choice of treatment for the above reasons.
    My life was saved from my FOURTH bout of double pneumonia by switching to homeopathics after the first three pharmaceuticals only stopped it for 1-2 months. That was when I returned to my French roots & homeopathy 20 plus years ago. I’m now 78 and in perfect health.
    Give it a try, folks!