Cushing's disease: a new approach to therapy in equine and canine patients.

[QUOTE=Ghazzu;5008746]
I take it you can’t wrap your mind around the concept that there are veterinarians with training in homeopathy.[/QUOTE]
then they have training in two separate fields. it doesn’t somehow ‘make’ homeopathy a veterinary branch.

Personally, I find the basic principles of medicine to be independent of species.

then this directly contradicts your earlier statement about homeopathy and veterinary medicine

[QUOTE=M. O’Connor;5008757]
Exactly, Renn. I’m not seeing that ACTH as used in this study is especially “homeopathic,” leaving aside the notion of “standardized” homeopathy being somewhat of an oxymoron, in and of itself.[/QUOTE]
what would make it especially ‘homeopathic’ for you? HOw is a 30c remedy not homeopathic. Would 100c be more homeopathic?
What’s the scale of homeopathy less to more as you are defining it here now?

I’m also w/Ghazzu in not understanding why homeopathy (effective or otherwise) couldn’t be embraced and practiced by vets.

I guess it isn’t REAL homeopathy if it’s practiced by someone with a medical education? Odd…that crowd wanting it both ways (wants to be accepted by medical community, yet not vice versa).

Sure it could be practiced by vets. But that doesn’t make homeoopathy veterinary medicine. It makes the veterinarian a homeopath. And their medical education is immaterial, either they have the homeopathic education or they don’t.

Is the grammatical concept of “adjective” missing from your education?

I did not say it was.

then this directly contradicts your earlier statement about homeopathy and veterinary medicine

In your mind, perhaps.

Simple explanation of homeopathy: based on the Law Of Simillimum meaning that what a substance can cause, it can cure.

In Science, a LAW is something that can be repeatedly and consistently be observed. Like the Law of Gravity. Drop something on earth, every time, it goes to ground. That is a LAW. Homeopathy is simply some 19th century guy’s idea or THEORY. Calling it a law is a logical mistake that has been repeated so many times that its followers believe it to be true.

in potentized form
oh, you mean diluted to the point where the actual principle is not chemically detectable by even sophisticated gas chromotography? Potentized? This is a word invented by homepaths. It really means “please hand me your wallet so I can unleash its latent power.”

Disease = the name given to a group of like symptoms found in a group of individuals.

Wrong. does not have to be in a group of individuals. Medical SCIENCE knows there are many dis-eases that are unique to individuals and not found frequently enough to be a group. Technically, a disease is simply an abnormality of healthy functioning.

Allopathy = conventional medicine that treats the symptoms; not the individual.

Wrong again. Allopathy, another word invented by a homeopath in order to denigrate Scientific medicine, generally in order to get people to open their wallets. I daresay you have no medical school training and haven’t a clue what goes on in those 8 or more years. My medical school training taught me to ALWAYS consider the individual, as diseases can manifest in very different ways. In fact, it is more correct to say that homeopathy treats only symptoms, without looking for a cause or etiology or proper diagnosis.

Homeopathy = treats the individual who is presenting with peculiar symptoms observed in that individual alone.

Funny, this is exactly what most licenced medical doctors do! Usually more succesfully than homeopathy.

(perhaps part of the reason that double-blind studies cannot be done for homeopathic treatments since each individual responds to dis-ease and substance in a unique way.

Strange, then, that in Scientific medicine, where the same principle presumably holds, that individuals respond differently to diseases, double blind studies are succesfully done ALL THE TIME.

You know, I have nothing against people spending lots of money to buy shaken water in tiny bottles and pills made from crushed leaves and reaping any possible benefits. However, in my practice it is far more common for people to come to me after they have tried all these homeopathic, herbal and other remedies and NOT FOUND RELIEF.

I’ve studied homeopathy, and have two of them practicing in my office group. We get along fine. I am all for folks trying to optimize their health and not get sick. I am a firm believer in self healing, the power of the body and mind to heal themselves with or without a little help from me or anyone else. But the homeopaths in our office know where their limits are, have been educated in which cases symptoms need to be seen by an actual MD and are aware of the common sorts of effective treatments and when to refer on back to scientific medicine.

There is no doubt that Scientific medicine has its failings and does not help everyone in every case. There is also no doubt that the amount of study in scientific medicine outstrips that of homeopathy by several thousandfold or more and it is unwise to choose a relatively unstudied treatment (homeopathy)over one which has thousands of case and group and double blind studies to show its effectiveness, ( for example, pergolide), at least to start off.

[QUOTE=CatOnLap;5008881]
“please hand me your wallet so I can unleash its latent power.”

generally in order to get people to open their wallets. I daresay

You know, I have nothing against people spending lots of money to buy shaken water in tiny bottles [/QUOTE]

Have you ever looked at the price tag on a homeopathic remedy? Have you ever seen a rich homeopath? Are they the ones driving the expensive cars in your practice?

BTW, it is very easy to design a double blind study for homeopathic remedies.

You simply have a good homeopathic practitioner examine and prescribe for say, 1000 patients with signs of disease. Then you put in the double blind part- after the practitioner prescribes, the pharmacist prepares two sets of bottles- one with the prescribed homepathic remedy and one with plain tap water. The bottles must be number coded so the third person who dispenses them does not know which one is active and which one is not, and they are randomly given to the patients. The a separate observer will track the symptoms over time.

So simple, so elegant and I suspect the reason it is not being done is because the results turn out to be equivocal just as in the study the OP quoted, which had no control group, no placebo group and no comparison to accepted treatment. Which is why, of course, the OP’s quoted study would not make it through most good scientific journals.

[QUOTE=Androcles;5008890]
Have you ever looked at the price tag on a homeopathic remedy? Have you ever seen a rich homeopath? Are they the ones driving the expensive cars in your practice?[/QUOTE]
I am safe to say that both homepaths in my practice group drive more expensive cars than I do, have nicer homes in more expensive areas, because they are not regulated as to how much they can charge and did not have to pay for 12 years of university education. They are also allowed to sell the "drugs"they "prescribe"and have significant markup on them. Medical Doctors are considered to be in conflict of interest if they sell the drugs they prescribe.

The last bottle of shaken water I bought, oh excuse me, rescue remedy, was $14. That’s expensive for 100 ml of flavoured water. Even vodka is cheaper.

( oh and yes I know technically RR is a bach flower remedy, but the 30x hecla lava I looked at recently as sugested by the homeopath for my heel spur, was $21 for a week’s supply and special order at that)

So if it’s not veterinary, and it’s not medicine, and it’s not subject to the laws of nature, and it’s not subject to the rules of scientific testing, and the effect is not measurable with known methods, then what is it? Supernatural? Infranatural? Paranatural? Kind of fits the definition of “supernatural”, at least the way philosophers define it.

Which puts it squarely in the “belief” realm. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself, of course, but it’s not the same as the “knowable” realm, by definition. In which case there’s no point in subjecting it to scientific analysis. Waste of time. Might as well try analyzing the DNA on the Shroud of Turin and try to clone Jesus, or “proving” the existence of a deity by scientific measurements. Does not compute. Does not NEED to compute. Believers can believe, and just go from there. When believers feel the need to PROVE what is not provable, then everything gets confused. :no: Just leave it in the realm of belief. And if you won’t accept that, well, sorry, but you’ll have to cough up the science. Because things are either one or the other.

BTW, it is very easy to design a double blind study for homeopathic remedies.

Of course it is do-able, but not necessarily “easy”. There HAVE been randomized, double-blind, etc. trials of homeopathic remedies (someone linked one about dogs and thunderstorms somewhere on this thread) but most of them have failed utterly to show an effect above placebo. The ones that show “something” are generally plagued with poor design, poor controls, poor definition of endpoints . . . pointing out nothing more than how HARD it is, actually, to design a really robust, good quality, RDBPCT. (randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial)

Delta you and I are on the same page. Its easy for a trained researcher scientist to design the study. What is not easy, is to prove that homeopathy does anything more than a placebo would.

[QUOTE=CatOnLap;5008906]
I am safe to say that both homepaths in my practice group drive more expensive cars than I do, have nicer homes in more expensive areas, because they are not regulated as to how much they can charge and did not have to pay for 12 years of university education. They are also allowed to sell the "drugs"they "prescribe"and have significant markup on them. Medical Doctors are considered to be in conflict of interest if they sell the drugs they prescribe.

The last bottle of shaken water I bought, oh excuse me, rescue remedy, was $14. That’s expensive for 100 ml of flavoured water. Even vodka is cheaper.[/QUOTE]

Then you are in the extreme minority with your example. And you should have shopped around better since most homeopathic remedies are around $6 to $8, (comapared to the hundreds that pharmaceuticals cost) and more importantly you only take them for a few days or weeks at the most, unlike drugs which you have to keep taking. The sad fact is that conventional (‘allopathic’) medicine is simply out of reach of more and more Americans, who find themselves turning to homeopathy and other alternatives for affordable health care. That’s the fault of the medical system which had to be regulated by law to be forced to provide affordable care, not the fault of homeopaths. It’s just not the other way around. And if you want to find ‘made up’ words you need look no further than conventional medicine rife with thousands of them.

comapared to the hundreds that pharmaceuticals cost

90% of the drugs I use cost $4/month. Even less than a $6/bottle of homeopathic water! :slight_smile:

Homeopathy has it’s benefits as long as the person has mild issues.
Serious health issues are safer to treat through modern medicine.
As shown by the statistics of countries and areas that rely more heavily on homeopathic or herbals having extremely higher rates of serious illness, deaths and lower life expectancies.

     Homeopathy has it's benefits as long as  the person has mild issues

I do see your point, but will disagree on one level. A mild “issue” is still an issue, and if you’re stating that something mild goes away directly because of a homeopathic treatment, then you’re stating that they have a distinct, measurable effect. I’d argue, instead, that the perceived “benefits” in the case of homeopathy are generally in the realm of the unmeasurable and nebulous, the placebo, or the satisfaction of doing “something”. If there were other, more tangible “benefits”, they should still be measurable, provided the intervention followed the laws of nature/science.

I use the two terms sort of interchangeably there, as one defines the other. If it’s natural, it’s scientifically observable. If it isn’t, well, then it’s supernatural, quite literally. And then you’re on another whole topic. :slight_smile:

[QUOTE=caballus;5008596]
Potentization = series of dilution from 1X to 10M (C and M = roman numerals)
1C= 1 drop of substance to 100 drops of water; 2C = 1 drop of 1X/10,000 H20) ;3C = 1 drop of 2C/1,000,000,000 H20.[/QUOTE]

If the premise behind homeopathy was valid, then every single drop of water in the world would be the cure for every single disease known to man. Its blatantly ridiculous, ludicrous and a bunch of hogwash.

[QUOTE=Androcles;5008922]
Then you are in the extreme minority with your example. And you should have shopped around better since most homeopathic remedies are around $6 to $8, (comapared to the hundreds that pharmaceuticals cost) and more importantly you only take them for a few days or weeks at the most, unlike drugs which you have to keep taking. The sad fact is that conventional (‘allopathic’) medicine is simply out of reach of more and more Americans, who find themselves turning to homeopathy and other alternatives for affordable health care. That’s the fault of the medical system which had to be regulated by law to be forced to provide affordable care, not the fault of homeopaths. It’s just not the other way around. And if you want to find ‘made up’ words you need look no further than conventional medicine rife with thousands of them.[/QUOTE]

Homeopaths also do not have to purchase malpractice insurance. Most do not. If they get sued, they just declare bankruptcy and “oh well, sorry, you’re not gettin’ a dime, outta luck!”
Ask me how I know this.

Oh, my horse has Strangles gotta go put some strep equi into Lake Erie and stir it up with a big paddle and give him a sip.

Better yet, use those products that will heal you without even opening the container and using any of it.:cool:

Oh, about some 30+ years, someone gave me MSM, a new wonder supplement at that time, that was supposed to help with some serious arthritis in my fingers.
I was waiting for my Dr to check it out to see if it was safe to try.
By the time the Dr got back to me a few weeks later, the arthritis was practically cured.
Truly magic, I tell you.:stuck_out_tongue:

[QUOTE=Bluey;5009189]
Better yet, use those products that will heal you without even opening the container and using any of it.:cool:

Oh, about some 30+ years, someone gave me MSM, a new wonder supplement at that time, that was supposed to help with some serious arthritis in my fingers.
I was waiting for my Dr to check it out to see if it was safe to try.
By the time the Dr got back to me a few weeks later, the arthritis was practically cured.
Truly magic, I tell you.:p[/QUOTE]

And someone gave it to you, so it was free! Bonus for you!