More on my bloody cold

[Drooper]

I took to reading the Torygraph [sniff] noticing that it had a timely article on the best ways to deal with cold/flu.

Warm Comfort for Winter (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml;sessionid=4N43YGRTD4AZZQFIQMFCM5WAVCBQY JVC?xml=/health/2005/01/04/hcold04.xml&pos=portal_puff1&_requestid=79479) (may need registration)

Here are some of the helpful suggestions:
"I have one word for people suffering from colds and flu: sleep. Research has shown that the only real thing to make a difference when recovering from these illnesses is tiredness.

Dr Graham Archard, vice-chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners

Top marks for the good doctor, but it means all I can do is wait it out.

But hang on, what about this:
"Getting rid of a cold is easy-peasy. Take a mixture of golden seal - a homoeopathic remedy which is antimicrobial and heals mucus membranes - and echinacea. Twenty drops of this tincture with one gram of vitamin C taken every one to four hours will make the cold feel better within a day or so.

Dr Eric Asher, senior academic at the Faculty of Homoeopathy and practitioner at the Third Space in London

Sounds great! But my colds normally clear up in "a day or two anyway. :(

[patnray]

Originally posted by Drooper
Sounds great! But my colds normally clear up in "a day or two anyway. :(
Exactly!

But isn't a diagnosis of "cold" or "flu" incompatible with the homeopathic belief that one only succumbs to the virus because your "vital energy" (or whatever they call it) is "unbalanced". Doesn't homeopathic theory require delineation of all symptoms so they can select the right "remedy" to restore your "balance" and not just to treat the virus?

Recently there has been a rash of TV ads for the homeopathic flu remedy ociniccoxinum (sp?). They never actually claim it cures the flu, just that it is "effective" and should be taken at the first sign of flu symptoms. No idea who is paying for the ads since they only mention the remedy name and not a manufacturer or marketer. But the ad always makes me think that they are violating the very principles they claim to adhere to since they are recommending it for a disease regardless of an individual's full complex of symptoms...

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by patnray
Recently there has been a rash of TV ads for the homeopathic flu remedy ociniccoxinum (sp?). They never actually claim it cures the flu, just that it is "effective" and should be taken at the first sign of flu symptoms. No idea who is paying for the ads since they only mention the remedy name and not a manufacturer or marketer. But the ad always makes me think that they are violating the very principles they claim to adhere to since they are recommending it for a disease regardless of an individual's full complex of symptoms... The True Story of Oscillococcinum (http://www.homeowatch.org/history/oscillo.html) is a lot of fun.

What you need to understand is that individualisation is essential to homoeopathy so that practitioners can have hour-long consultations with their "patients", make them feel special and cherished, and charge them through the nose for this. Also in order to reject any objective study of homoeopathic remedy effectiveness that can be represented as not incorporating sufficient individualisation and therefore not being valid homoeopathy.

And yet whenever any random surfer on a homoeopathy web site mentions a symptom or two, or a medical diagnosis (doesn't seem to matter which), this is the cue for homoeopaths to leap in with remedy suggestions aplenty, usually without asking a single supplementary question (especially if they are called Wim Pardaan). The multiplicity of remedy suggestions, and the suggestions that several remedies might be tried simultaneously, are not of course a violation of the homoeopathic law that only a single remedy should be essayed at a time, under the special dispensation allowing that bona fide homoeopathic adherents are allowed to do whatever they like.

Also, it is commonplace for pharmacies and health food shops to sell homoeopathic preparations directly to the public, with the most general of guidelines for use - or no guidelines at all in the UK, as that would breach the Medicines Act. This is allowable under the dispensation providing that there shall be no barrier to making as much money as possible from homoeopathy. And if anyone demurs, the correct rebuttal is "genus epidemicus".

The only rule seems to be that homoeopaths are allowed to do anything they please, but that any critical study shall be rejected as "not following proper homoeopathic principles" no matter how carefully the designers of the study have tried to do so, and no matter how many qualified and practising homoeopaths have approved the protocol in advance.

Rolfe.

[patnray]

Exactly. You say it so much more eloquently than I.

Thanks for the link. Oscillococcinum must be the ultimate homeopathic substance: a make believe remedy made from a make believe bacterium!