Homeopathy is properly regulated

Mark wrote:

@Pokay - And??? What you have told us is an anecdote, a story. Maybe everything you said is correct or maybe there was misdiagnosis or maybe you are a homeopath hoping to scam others.
http://www.medicinenet.com/prostatitis/articl... : What is prostatitis?
Prostatitis is the general term used to describe prostate inflammation (-itis). Because the term is so general, it does not adequately describe the range of abnormalities that can be associated with prostate inflammation. Therefore, four types of prostatitis are recognized.
What are the types and symptoms of prostatitis?
There are four types of prostatitis:
1) acute bacterial prostatitis
2) chronic bacterial prostatitis
3) chronic prostatitis without infection
4) asymptomatic inflammatory prostatitis
The last of these is treated as follows:
Treatment is not required for this type of prostatitis.
Therefore you may have suffered this form that progressed to its usual conclusion and taking homeopathy did nothing.
But as none of us can confirm anything you have written we are left with medical trials which show homeopathy does nothing when the trials are properly controlled.

What the heck is your problem? You obviously didn't read anything of what I wrote, you're all over these boards just to spout your contempt. What drives you? Did you have a loved one grossly overdose on some homeopathy? The only real danger it poses is to take away business from allopathic practice that can't offer the same results. I never said homeopathy was a substitute for allopathy, but neither does it work vice versa. Give credit where it's due.

My story is my story, I'm not a homeopath. I presented a true account of what is happening with me so that others can benefit from it. What alterior incentive/motive would I have to come here and post a BS story? Homeopaths are not starving that I can see, but if I were a starving homeopath I think I would blog on a local site, not international. Homeopaths don't have to engage in what you're doing in order to get business. The ones I know are too busy to waste time blogging anyway. What constructive things do you with *your* life if you're on here putting homeopathy down all the time?

I'm just thrilled beyond words that I didn't have to take my prostate out and that I don't have to wear my respirator anymore.

I know the four types of prostatitis thank you. Mine was/is #3. Why would my urologist suggest laser surgery if it were #1, 2 or 4? Get a clue dude, I'm getting my life back and that's priceless, in this toxic world.

My prostate was very symptomatic, I was risking sepsis for God's sakes, you think I was misdiagnosed?

Dark Mark wrote,
"Treatment is not required for this type of prostatitis.
Therefore you may have suffered this form that progressed to its usual conclusion and taking homeopathy did nothing."

Yea I suffered for 5 years straight and then coincidentally right after I started the homeopathy my frequency normalized significantly, and then followed by a better stream also.

Yea coincidence for sure. Pay attention here, I did *not* say I was cured, there was no "conclusion" yet. I am still dealing with abnormality but I'm in a very manageable state and hoping for eventual cure, I'm still in progress with the homeopathy. Sometimes it's a 'one two three and out' healing process but for chronic illness it's not easy; so far though it's priceless.

And speaking of money, only the first visit is expensive. After that, much is done by free phone consult with my homeopath. An office visit is only $85. In a year I've spent $360 for initial visit. And twice I've been back for a consult. Total for year was $520. And this year it's likely I won't need more than one or two visits. So what, another $160? Big deal. How many people are stuck paying hospital bills the rest of their lives?

Oh and on top of that, if you would have read my story you'd see prostatitis was not my only problem. I also have MCS and I used to get severe flank pain. Well my MCS became manageable and I never got another flank pain until I overdosed the remedy, which went away again after antidoting.

What are you gonna say next?

Oh and my homeopath is also an MD. I'm sure she's not the only allopath that has recognized the value of homeopathy. You think she's making more money with homeopathy? Hardly. At least there are some good people left.

Only five percent of BPH is bacterial. But protocol is two weeks of antibiotics, for everyone. Gotta love it...not.
Acute bacterial is usually no reason for surgery. Chronic bacterial I'm guessing may become a candidate for it. And chronic nonbacterial BPH definately can become a candidate, which is what I have. Mark suggests I had asymptomatic BPH after I said I couldn't urinate for almost two days straight many times over. Advice to Mark : don't pursue a career in the medical field.

I don't know if homeopathy can address a bacterial issue, but I'll find out.

Pokay wrote:

I don't know if homeopathy can address a bacterial issue, but I'll find out.

Homeopathy cannot address any issue beyond thirst as it is just water.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php...

The Role of Anecdotes in Science-Based Medicine
Published by Steven Novella

While attending a lecture by a naturopath at my institution I had the opportunity to ask the following question: given the extreme scientific implausibility of homeopathy, and the overall negative clinical evidence, why do you continue to prescribe homeopathic remedies? The answer, as much as my question, exposed a core difference between scientific and sectarian health care providers. She said,“Because I have seen it work in my practice.”

There it is. She and many other practitioners of dubious modalities are compelled by anecdotal experience while I am not.

An anecdote is a story – in the context of medicine it often relates to an individual’s experience with their disease or symptoms and their efforts to treat it. People generally find anecdotes highly compelling, while scientists are deeply suspicious of anecdotes. We are fond of saying that the plural of anecdote is anecdotes, not data. Why is this?


Humans are social storytelling animals – we instinctively learn by the experience of others. My friend ate that plant with the bright red berries and then became very ill – lesson: don’t eat from that plant. This is a type of heuristic, a mental shortcut that humans evolved in order to make quick and mostly accurate judgments about their environment. From an evolutionary point of view it is probably statistically advantageous just to avoid the plant with the red berries rather than conduct blinded experiments to see if it really was the plant that made your friend sick.

Further, the most compelling stories are our own. When we believe we have experienced something directly, it is difficult to impossible to convince us otherwise. It’s just the way humans are hardwired.

Understanding the world through stories was a good strategy in the environment of our evolutionary history but is far too flawed to deal with the complex world we live in today. In fact, the discipline of science developed as a tool to go beyond the efficient but flawed techniques we evolved. Perhaps, for example, your friend became ill because of the raw eggs he consumed earlier in the day, and the plant had nothing to do with it. Evolutionary pressures favored a more simplistic approach to nature, one that tended to assume that apparent patterns were real.

In today’s modern society we are confronted with a dizzying array of apparent patterns and using the simple rules of thumb we evolved to deal with them is not adequate. Whether or not a treatment works for a symptom or disease is a good example. Symptoms tend to vary over time, some may spontaneously remit, and our perceptions of symptoms are susceptible to a host of psychological factors. There are also numerous biological factors that may have an effect. If we are to make reliable decisions about the effects of specific interventions on symptoms and diseases we will need to do better than uncontrolled observation, or anecdotes.

The primary weakness of anecdotes as evidence is that they are not controlled. This opens them up to many hidden variables that could potentially affect the results. We therefore cannot make any reliable assumptions about which variable (for example a specific treatment) was responsible for any apparent improvement.

Here are some specific factors that make it difficult to impossible to reliably interpret anecdotal medical evidence:

Regression to the mean: This is a statistical phenomenon whereby any extreme variation is likely to be followed by a more average variation – by chance alone. Many diseases have variable or fluctuating symptoms – good days and bad days, or periods of exacerbation followed by periods of relative relief. If a person seeks out a treatment when their symptoms are severe, by chance alone this is likely to be followed by a period when the symptoms are not as severe.

Most illnesses are self-limiting: The old saying goes that if you don’t treat a cold it will last for seven days, and if you treat it it will last for a week. Most ailments get better or improve on their own, therefore most treatments will be followed by symptom resolution even if the treatment has no biological effect. More broadly, all illnesses have a natural history, a course they typically follow over time. In order to know if a treatment is affecting that course it has to be compared to patients who are not treated, or receive a different treatment.

Multiple treatments: Often people will try multiple treatments for a disease or ailment making it impossible to tell which treatment had a beneficial effect, if any. Multiple treatments may be taken all at once, or sequentially. For example, a person with a long term illness (but one destined to have a period of relative relief) tries treatment A without effect, then treatment B without effect, then treatment C which is followed by improvements in their symptoms. They then credit treatment C, recounting how multiple other treatments had failed. However, since the person was trying some new treatment most of the time at any point that their symptoms improved there would be a treatment they could credit with that improvement.

Dead men tell no tales (the problem of reporting bias): Cancer survivor groups do not contain people who died of their cancer. Those who die of a disease are not around to give their anecdotes. There is therefore a built in reporting bias. Also, those who feel they were helped by a treatment are much more likely to boast about it than those for whom there was no apparent benefit. People like to tell the tale of the miracle cure they found and had faith in, despite the skeptics and naysayers – but their vision paid off as the treatment worked for them. People have no motivation to recount their experience with the novel treatment that did not work. Further, patients who feel they are being helped by their doctor or practitioner are more likely to return. Those who feel the treatments are not working may not come back at all to report the treatment failure.

Confirmation bias: It is a well-described psychological phenomenon that we tend to seek out and remember information that confirmed what we already believe, or want to believe, and we avoid, forget, or explain away disconfirming evidence.

Vague outcome measures: Good clinical trials use objective outcome measures – those that are binary (like death or survival), quantitative (like a blood level), or are based upon a specific physical finding. Subjective symptoms do not make good outcome measures because they require that judgments be made, and that introduces yet another variable. Should you count those mild sniffles as having a cold? If you are taking a remedy that you think will help you avoid colds you may dismiss those sniffles and report (and even remember) that you did not get any colds while taking the treatment.

The Placebo Effect: The placebo effect is actually a host of many effects that give the appearance of a response to an inactive treatment. These factors include many of the things I listed above, but also other variables that may alter health outcomes or symptoms. See here for a more complete discussion.

The Fallibility of Human Memory: Medical students quickly learn that one of the biggest challenges in taking a medical history is that people are poor historians, which a polite way of saying that human memory is terrible. Anecdotes largely depend upon an individual’s memory of their illness and treatment. This introduces many new variables. There is, for example, a tendency for people to conflate different events in their memory into a single event, or to combine details from various events. There is also a tendency for details to evolve over time to make a story more clean and profound. So people may, in their memory, exaggerate the severity of their symptoms prior to treatment, exaggerate the response to the treatment, clean up the timeline of events so that improvement began very soon after a treatment (rather than before or long after), forget other treatments that were taken, distort what they were told by their various health care providers, etc. I have had countless opportunities to compare a patient’s memory of their illness and treatment to the documented medical records, and the correlation ranges from poor to completely wrong.

For these, and other reasons, scientists have learned not to trust anecdotal reports – or rather to have a realistic assessment of their reliability. This is why it always strikes me as profoundly naive when anyone presents anecdotal evidence as if it is compelling, or even argues that anecdotes should be relied upon as valid evidence.

We also have history to inform our opinions about anecdotes. Western practitioners relied upon the humoral theory of health and illness for thousands of years. Apparently thousands of years of anecdotal experience did not inform them that their treatments were worthless or harmful. Dr. Abrams became wealthy by selling a machine to diagnosis and treat ailments. His devices were widely used, with millions of people swearing by their effectiveness. It worked for them, and their experience was unshakable. When Abrams died it was discovered that his machines (previously protected from inspection) were filled with useless random machine parts. At the turn of the century radioactive tonics were popular, until prominent proponents began seeing the ill effects of radiation poisoning.

The point of these examples is that anecdotal evidence led many people to conclude that these interventions worked. They are useful examples because they are no longer accepted, humoral theory was replaced by scientific medicine, Abrams devices were dramatically exposed, and radiation therapy is directly harmful. But for treatments that are not directly harmful (and least not in an obvious way) or where there is no “man behind the curtain” to dramatically expose, all we have are the anecdotes – and clearly they are not reliable.

So you're saying placebo worked on my prostate which was ready to be removed by surgery? Call it whatever you want, it worked for me and it works for many people I know. Why should anyone care what anyone else says about it if it works? What's it to you? Why are you spending so much time fighting something that is helping people? No one is forcing these people to try it.

Anecdote my @$$.

You're either paid to be an annoying distraction or you are simply psychotic. What drives you?

Oh and not that it matters (since it works) but if it's placebo then explain the following. I once took a homeopathic remedy that I purchased on my own, not through the professional homeopath (this was before I went to see a professional). I thought I was taking the right amount and I was confident it was going to help me so if it was placebo I should have noticed favorable results if any. But it turns out I took way too much and in a matter of like 8 hours my prostate swelled my urethra shut and after not being able to wiz for over 24 hours I had to go get cathetered. How do you explain that, whizboy?

The remedy I chose for myself may not have worked on "the great Randi" because he was not suffering from a chronic illness that was specific to the remedy.

I will agree that over the counter homeopathic sleeping pills, like the greatly pompous Randi took, are probably a bunch of BS, but not necessarily. They might work on some people but the BS part is you can't just go and buy
issue-specific remedies and expect them to work, homeopathy is more complicated than what people are led to believe by the availability of homeopathic remedies to the public.

Mark wrote:

<quoted text>
Homeopathy cannot address any issue beyond thirst as it is just water.

Yet it does. My urologist couldn't do that for me with any of his "magic".

Here's one for ya. Why is it that "placebo" didn't work for me when I tried OTHER things? Other things like naturopathy? I had tons more faith in naturopathy actually because that was the first thing I tried. By the time I found out about homeopathy it was five years later and I was already convinced nothing out there was going to work.

Why aren't you out there attacking naturopathy? That is potentially more deadly than "nothing" isn't it? You have an agenda that's for sure.

I don't wanna sound like I'm bashing naturopathy, I wouldn't wanna stoop to Mark's level. Just that in my particular case and for whatever reason it didn't work. Again, give credit where it's due. I still believe naturopathy has value. There are ways to control many autoimmune diseases like diabetes and rheumatoid just thru diet restriction which would fall into the category of naturopathy. Many naturopaths have decent luck with adrenal fatigue using different cortisol injections.

Put it this way, I believe most people think that surgery and prescriptions should be the last resort. Yet so many rush right to the doctor and end up on methotrexate. If I had done that 6 years ago, I would be hopelessly dependent on methotrexate or something similar. All allopathy can do for autoimmune disease is attack/suppress the immune system with prescription drugs, or perform surgery.

I'll admit that allopathy has 'diabetes control' handled pretty nicely. You can't beat that. But if I were to acquire diabetes, my first choice, again, would be strict diet restriction, homeopathy (if there is a homeopathic option for diabetes), and naturopathy. If none of those succeed *then* of course I would go get insulin.

And sometimes people don't have a choice if they get severe onset. Just like you're not going to go to a homeopath for a heart attack.

If we combine all our faculties, concentrating on what works (not just what can be explained by science or what makes the most money), then we would really have something. But of course who can fight the money machine? Sad.

Pokay wrote:

I will agree that over the counter homeopathic sleeping pills, like the greatly pompous Randi took, are probably a bunch of BS, but not necessarily. They might work on some people but the BS part is you can't just go and buy
issue-specific remedies and expect them to work, homeopathy is more complicated than what people are led to believe by the availability of homeopathic remedies to the public.

This statement shows exactly how retarded homeopathy is. You get sick and then take homeopathy that may or may not work depending on who you are, who prescribed it, if you take too much or too little. Its all a crock that you have been suckered into. You have paid your money, invested your time and are now unwilling to admit your mistake. You are the Tom Cruise of homeopathy.