My usual vet has just started training in homoeopathy and as part of her studies, she's learning about diet as well. She was previously sceptical about my raw-feeding, but went along with it. Now she asks me for tips! She did recommend some homoeopathic remedies but it was all a bit haphazard because she wasn't trained. We picked an (already trained) different holistic vet to help with Misi's mouth and our first consultation lasted a good 2 hours. The vet went through every aspect of Misi's health, history and personality and then took a day to study it and recommend remedies. She sent the prescription over in an email! In Italy, you can only buy homoeopathic remedies from the pharmacy. You don't need a prescription for the majority, but not just anyone can sell them. Why's that then, if it's supposed to be totally ineffectual??

__________________
http://catscanjump.blogspot.com

Wendy, mum to:
Simba von Wurzbachtal, Turkish Van, born Austria, 5/9/10

RIP
Tarka, 1989 - 2008 my gentle Phileas Fogg
Bruno, 2008 - 2010 taken too soon my darling boy
Misi, 1993 - 25/3/2012 My brave, beautiful tabby

It could be very true, Homeopathic rememdies can be purchased easily, even boots do a range. It may list general well known uses, and you may hit lucky and its the right one, or if its the wrong one and doesnt work people would think load of rubbish. You can get two remedies seemingly for one thing one may work and another may not.

In Dogs Rhus Tox is useful for arthritic and tendon complaints where lameness improves after a few paces, but worsens after a long walk.
Then there is Ruta Grav also usefull for ligament damage, epecially back injuries, similar to Rhus Tox, but can often work when Rhus tox fails.
Like you said a homeopath can give a combination too, for the specific symptoms. So can be a lot more involved for it to truly work.
Its often not just the pain problem etc. but how and why it occured and plays out. Unlike say a paracetomol thats for pain in general.

__________________

Homeopathic / holistic medicine treats the cause and the whole body whereas conventional medicine treats the symptoms. How many of us here have taken their pet to the vet and given a remedy for the sympton (eg: runny poo so given something to stop it) but in actual fact it turned out that the runny poo was only a sympton of something more serious? (This IS only an example btw)

That is why Misi, it took over a day for you to get feedback from your holistic vet with treatment - because the 'examination' is much more thorough and many other aspects are taken into account.

I think, for many people, they look on homeopathy as being either/ or - in other words homeopathy OR conventional. I personally believe that the two can, and should, work together to give far better results in the long run.

__________________
.

Urgh!!! I NEVER buy any of my remedies from Boots.

I get vitamins and the like from Holland & Barrett.

For my proper homeopathic remedies (high strength Arnica, Rhus Tox, Silicia etc) I buy them from a company who makes them to order so I know that they are good quality. Yes, it is a bit more expensive but good quality often is.

__________________
.

Bit nore interesting food for thought, read it quite awhile ago and my brain seems to store data in note form only lately, and I have to check to fill in the bits inbetween so had to dig the article out.

Apparently the government has ordered a clamp down on alternative veterinary medicines. They say that some herbal and veterinary medicines are claiming medical benefits without scientific proof.

A spokesman from the VMD, Veterinary Medicines Directorate said some of these products are claiming to be effective and safe an no scientific evidence has been presented to us to show they are. Animal owners have a right to know if a product does what it claims. The hit list includes homeopathic nosodes, neutraceuticals and herbal liquids,powders and pellets sold as herbal wormers.

Some figures given in the article were quite interesting as regards to conventional drugs that have been tested and proven safe. Apparently 8% of all hospital admissions in the US are due to adverse reactions to synthetic drugs, sont sound a lot 8% but thats a minimum of 2,000,000, at least 100,000 are said to die from them a year, apparently the figures are a conservative estimate but means 3 times as many people are killed in the US of approved pharmaceutical drugs as are killed by drunk drivers. The US National Poison control centre the article says doesnt even have a category in the database for adverse reactions to herbs.

The VMD say manufacturers and sellers are not allowed to make claims about nutrients and herbs unless scientific evidence is presented to the VMD. This doesnt mean their not allowed to make claims unless these claims can be backed up by science. Their saying no one can make claims unless they present the science to them and are granted official licences by them and these according to the article cost tens of thousands.

Another thing thats mentioned in the article is that apparently the pharmaceutical industry cannot patent a natural plant or nutirient (presumeably especially one thats being used already in natural medicine or homeopathy), to "patent" it you have to "alter" it. Natural and alternative practioners want Natural products, and without a "patent" making it exclusive then I may be sceptical but wouldnt that mean there was no financial gain in it for each individual pharmacceutical company. So also why would they want to spend thousands researching and testing a product when they wouldnt or couldnt make anything from it as they couldnt make a patent and theirs exclusively.

Another thing the article mentions and I know is fact as I noticed the difference on doing some checking on some veterinary medicines at various times myself. In the US everything has to be passed by the FDA Food and drug administration, here it is the VMD. NOAH is the trade body representing
veterinary pharmaceutical companies and the datasheets that go in with the licensed drugs approved by the VMD. There are usually different details for the same drugs depending on if its stateside or UK. In fact even looking up manufacturers information leaflets on line, it often states for UK patients only
and the US has a different leaflet. Ive even found US dont pass for some uses but the UK does.

Apparently too and apparently the author of the article was advised by a senior politician, the VMD is an independant body and the government cannot over rule it. Now the VMD announced that the government was making the clampdown on natural products, but if the government cannot over rule the VMD makes you wonder. It also mentions the licensing body is funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Conspiracy theory? seems very odd.

__________________

Thank you for your interesting posts on the subject. I just wanted to pick out this part - as I understand it, the difference with homeopathic medicines is that they are so dilute that there might not even be any molecules of the original substance left (the idea is that the water retains a memory of the substance which has touched it). The original substance can't have an effect in the way that vaccines have an effect, because there may be none of it in the medicine.

I can understand how herbal medicines can work in the same way as conventional medicines (and often the conventional medicines are derived form herbal medicines anyway), but it's the dilution of homeopathic medicines which puzzles me. There doesn't seem to be anything there to work (at least not in the way that vaccines work).

I dunnoo...As someone has said it is how vaccines work (in a round about way, relying on the bodies own immune system to mount a respone).

But, I took one of my cats to a homeopathic vet as he gets bad dermatitis, and I didn't want to rely on steroids which are the only thing which helps him. But his skin got worse on the homeopathic treatment, the homeopathic vet wanted to keep trying and change the treatments, but I opted to put him back on steroids before it became an issue of animal welfare.

I have no issue with people using homeopathy to compliment traditional medicine, and it some cases it does seem to help, but I do take issue where people are blindly led to keep trying something which is clearly not working just because it's 'natural'.

I think it's misleading of homeopaths to claim that it works in the same way as vaccines, though. With a vaccine you are giving a dose of something, even if it's a small dose. With homeopathy, you might not be giving anything at all, because the dilutions can be so extreme.

Homeopathy is said to treat the patient as a whole rather then just the disease symptoms, its a method of healing which employs the use of tiny enerrgised doses of plant mineral or animal extracts to stimulate the bodies
ability to heal itself. I actually made the comparison to how a vaccine works, you get a small amount of the virus either killed or modified live vaccine to get the body to make antibodies in response. Just personally made sense to me that I could see how it could work in a similar way.
Like I said its got its knockers and its got people who say alternative medicine has helped where conventional ones havent. Not saying anyone should use it or anyone shouldnt. But for every argument that says its a load of tosh as I said, theres ones that swear its worked, and other thought provoking things to make you wonder why someone would study another 3 years if they didnt believe in it or think it worked plus other examples ive used. If we closed our minds to everything and accepted everything we were told as gospel just because someone said it was so, then likely no progress would ever be made or nothing new discovered. As Morpheus said to neo in the Matrix, Free your mind. Just because we dont fully understand things doesnt mean its impossible.

__________________

Like you said though you dont have experience of it, some people have and they say its helped/worked where other things didnt.

Regarding Homeopaths claiming that it worked in the same way as vaccines
it was actually me that made the comparison that I could see if a small dose of a disease stimulated the immune system to work, maybe there would be the same reaction.

__________________