What is homeopathy?
Homeopathy is a medical system based on the belief that the body can cure itself. Those who practice it use tiny amounts of natural substances, like plants and minerals. They believe these stimulate the healing process.
It was developed in the late 1700s in Germany. It’s common in many European countries,
Homeopathy is a system of natural health care that has been in worldwide use for over 200 years. Homeopathy treats each person as a unique individual with the aim of stimulating their own healing ability
A homeopath selects the most appropriate medicine based on the individual’s specific symptoms and personal level of health. It is recognized by the World Health Organization as the second largest therapeutic system in use in the world.
What conditions do homeopathy treat?
It’s used for a wide variety of health issues, including some chronic illnesses:
Allergies, migraines, depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, premenstrual syndrome
The underlying causes of disease were phenomena that he termed miasmas, and that homeopathic preparations addressed these.
The preparations are manufactured using a process of homeopathic dilution, in which a chosen substance is repeatedly diluted in alcohol or distilled water, each time with the containing vessel being bashed against an elastic material, commonly.
Homeopathy is not a plausible system of treatment, as its dogmas about how drugs, illness, the human body, liquids and solutions operate are contradicted by a wide range of discoveries across biology, psychology, physics and chemistry made in the two centuries since its invention.
Although some clinical trials produce positive results, multiple systematic reviews have indicated that this is because of chance, flawed research methods, and reporting bias. Continued homeopathic practice, despite the evidence that it does not work, has been criticized as unethical because it discourages the use of effective treatments. Homeopathic medicine views symptoms of illness as normal responses of the body as it attempts to regain health.
When homeopathy used
Homeopathy is used for an extremely wide range of health conditions. Many practitioners believe that homeopathy can help with any condition. Among the most common conditions that people seek homeopathic treatment for arasthma , ear infections, hay fever, mental health conditions, such as depression, stress, anxiety, allergies, such as food allergies, dermatitis (an allergic skin condition) arthritis and high blood pressure.
Some practitioners also claim that homeopathy can prevent malaria or other diseases. There is no evidence to support this and no scientifically plausible way that homeopathy can prevent diseases.
Why is homeopathy so popular?
Homeopathic treatment works with your body’s own healing powers to bring about health and wellbeing.
You are treated as an individual, not as a collection of disease labels.
Homeopathy treats all your symptoms at all levels of your being – spiritual, emotional, mental and physical and finds the ‘like cures like’ match for them.
Homeopathically prepared remedies, providing the minimum dose, are gentle, subtle and powerful. They are non-addictive, and not tested on animals.
Homeopathy is a complementary or alternative medicine (CAM). This means that homeopathy is different in important ways from treatments that are part of conventional Western medicine.
Homeopathy is based on the idea that “like cures like.”
That is, if a substance causes a symptom in a healthy person, giving the person a very small amount of the same substance may cure the illness.
The name homeopathy, coined by its originator, Samuel Hahnemann, is derived from the Greek words for ‘similar suffering’ referring to the ‘like cures like’ principle of healing.
Hahnemann was born in Germany two hundred and fifty years ago. At this time the old world-view was being renovated and traditional beliefs, many flimsily based upon superstition, were being increasingly subjected to the rigor of experimental scrutiny and assessment.
The practice of homeopathy is based upon science while its application is an art.
Homeopathy is founded on two principles that have occurred regularly
Throughout the history of medicine, both in eastern and western worlds.
The first principle of ‘like cures like’ can be looked at in several ways. One way is to assume that the body knows what it is doing and that symptoms are the body’s way of acting to overcome illness.
This healing response is automatic in living organisms; we term it the vital response.
The similar medicine acts as a stimulus to the natural vital response, giving it the information it needs to complete its healing work.
Since the initial action of the vital response plus the medicine is to increase the strength of the symptoms, this is our first indication of internal healing taking place, of diseases being cured from within – pushed outwards along the established routes of past and present symptoms.
Before the medicines are decided upon, their curative powers are discovered by testing them out on healthy human subjects and carefully noting emotional,
mental and physical changes.
This is termed a ‘proving’. This information constitutes the basis for ‘like cures like’, for a medicine’s unique symptom picture must match up with the individual’s unique expression of their disease, that is, the present and persisting symptoms of the disease.
The second principle, that only ‘the minimum dose’ should be employed is based upon the understanding that the stimulus of the medicine works from within the vitality and is not imposed from the outside.
Only enough is administered to initiate the healing process, which then carries on, driven by its own internal healing mission.
Homeopathic medicines given in minimum doses, while they do stimulate the body’s vital response, do not produce the gross side effects that are so often the pit-fall of conventional treatment.
It is based on a series of ideas developed in the 1790s by a German doctor called Samuel Hahnemann.
A central principle of the “treatment” is that “like cures like” – that a substance that causes certain symptoms can also help to remove those symptoms.
A second central principle is based around a process of dilution and shaking, called succession.
Practitioners believe that the more a substance is diluted in this way, the greater its power to treat symptoms. Many homeopathic remedies consist of substances that have been diluted many times in water until there is none or almost none of the original substance left.
Homeopathy is used to “treat” an extremely wide range of conditions, including physical conditions such as asthma and psychological conditions such as depression).
What should you expect if you try it
When you first see a homeopath they will usually ask you about any specific health conditions, but also about your general wellbeing, emotional state, lifestyle and diet.
Based on this, the homeopath will decide on the course of treatment, which most often takes the form of homeopathic remedies given as a pill, capsule or tincture.
Your homeopath may recommend that you attend one or more follow-up appointments so the effects of the remedy on your health can be assessed.
Is use of homeopathy safe?
Homeopathic remedies are generally safe and the risk of a serious adverse side effect arising from taking these remedies is thought to be small.
Some homeopathic remedies may contain substances that are not safe, or that interfere with the action of other medicines. It is of note, for example, that many homeopathic remedies are diluted to such an extent that there is unlikely to be a single molecule of the original substance remaining in the final remedy. In cases such as these, homeopathic remedies consist of nothing but water.
Some people who use homeopathy may see an improvement in their health condition due to a phenomenon known as the placebo effect.
How does homeopathy treatment for prostatitis and enlargements of prostate work?
Like doctors who use the “NPAT” Treatment Program for Prostatitis to look at and treat a patient’s whole-body health holistically,
Homeopathic physicians are trained to look at all aspects of a patient’s health. This may include his social, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. Exploring all these helps the practitioner determine the right homeopathic treatment for prostatitis that is best for the patient.
Homeopathic remedies contain just the essence of the original ingredient, which means there is no physical trace of it.
Homeopathy has many opponents who say this does not work. On the other side, proponents of homeopathy say that this essential essence is all that is needed to work. Still, others claim that the placebo effect is the effective part.
The danger of homeopathy
It’s important to understand homeopathic remedies should not replace conventional treatments for most medical conditions. There’s no evidence these substances have any effect.
If you use homeopathic remedies instead of conventional treatments backed by well-designed studies, you may end up sicker and worse off than you were from just the disease.
While many of these treatments are unlikely to be harmful when combined with conventional treatments, be sure to talk to your healthcare provider about them to make sure you’re staying safe.
Further information website of Homeopathy Association UK, US, Email to [email protected], Send text week days only from 3-6 pm to only WhatsApp 002207774469/3063333, Mr Suelle Nachif 7066607.
DR. H. AZADEH is a Senior Lecturer at the University of The Gambia, senior consultant in Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Clinical Director at Medicare Health Services.
