G'day fellow cat lovers,

I was wondering if anyone has tried homepathy remedies for their cat? I was under the firm belief that homeopathy is a PLACEBO and hence may only make you better because you believe it would because the remedies are little more than sugar tablets. That is until I heard that you can get homepathic remedies for your cat!! And they are cheap at a couple of bucks for a few doses. If it does work than it MUST be more than a placebo because the cat is unaware of what you just fed him/her and that it was supposed medicine.

Does anyone have any experience with it?

Whether it works for medical conditions I couldn't tell you and I'd never suggest anyone tried it in place of veterinary advice. It may well have an effect but self diagnosis is a dangerous game. If anyone did want to try it I'd only condone it after a proper diagnosis from a vet and never in place of proven treatment. I believe it can be useful as an addition, post op for example. It's certainly no worse than many of the non-prescription products which vets sell.

Now - behaviour issues. I've used it and seen it work wonders, real miracles. I don't know how, I don't know why but it can.

I don't have any experience of it, but I've heard that placebos sometimes do seem to work on pets. Maybe some of that is down to the carer's interpretation of the pet's symptoms (i.e it's the owner who is experiencing the placebo effect, not the pet), or maybe the animal responds to changes in the carer?

There's also the fact that things often do just get better on their own, so anything that you do when the condition is at its worst can seem to "work".

I think that homeopathic treatments are probably harmless in themselves as there isn't really any active ingredient in the water. I can see that they could become harmful when using them means that the cat doesn't get proper treatment (either because the owner uses them to replace a treatment that would have worked, or because the owner believes it's "working" while the cat isn't feeling a difference).

(This is just my opinion, from having considered using homeopathy for humans. I know some people have positive experiences of homeopathy, but I just don't see how it can work in the way that it's claimed to work.)

Having tried everything realistically possible to alleviate my cat Misi's stomatitis, we finally turned to a homoeopathic vet. I can say that she still has bad days and days where she really struggles to eat, but the overall picture is better than when she was on a constant round of antibiotics. The homoeopathy has lengthened the time between flare-ups. We're still tweaking the remedies a bit and it can be a long process in terms of finding exactly the right remedy, but from my personal point of view, I'd say it's definitely helped her.

And I also don't see how it works, either. To me, it's totally ridiculous, but having tried so many other things with only very limited success, we thought we'd try this, and it is slightly out-performing the other medicines we tried, on balance.

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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

I started to use homeopathy on my pets back in 2001. Merson got a very bad eye ulcer that the vet could not clear up despite 3 operations and numerous eye drops. The vet had started talking about removing the eye.

In desperation, I went on ye olde t'internet and did some rooting around. A recommendation came up for silicia & arnica. I got my hands on both and started to pop them down his neck.

The next vet visit showed that that ulcer was reducing and getting smaller. A subsequent visit, 2 weeks later, showed the ulcer had gone and my cat still had two eyes!!!

People can say what they like about placebo effects etc all they want - as far as I am concerned using it saved my cats eye and I use it regularly for many other things.

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Me too but I wouldn't be without my box of pills coated in 'water with a memory' - hard to justify such mumbo jumbo isn't it

Years ago I rescued a little 9 month old Persian kitten. She had been pushed from pillar to post, had a huge open wound on her side and was full of what I think was cat flu. Vets where I live now all insisted she be put to sleep. (I had just rescued her from that) So I went back to my roots and the old vet my family all had great faith in. He said the same and was quite nasty.

I researched all I could (no internet) and came up with George Macleod (this was back in the 80's). We had a long tel chat and he prescribed powders for her. Lots cheaper than vet's meds and altho she had them for a long time initially, gradually she could do without them and only had them for flare ups.

The vet reckons it was the "positive thinking" her installed in me - I'm not sure but my money is on the homeopathy.

My dear little "Emma" lived to 13

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"Life is mostly froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another’s trouble, Courage in your own”

My money's on both. Seen the film "Babe" where the farmer sings and dances around a poorly Babe? That was Misi this morning. She's had a miserable face for a couple of days and not been eating properly and today I'd had enough. A jolly song came on the radio and that was all the encouragement I needed. I danced around her, saying "up, up, up!!!", while she looked on in horror / disbelief. After that, she looked at me as if to say, "rrrright, okayyyy, mum" and went and stole Simba, my other cat's uneaten breakfast of a 6x5cm chunk of turkey and had a good chew on the quail leg he'd also left. So much for a sore mouth! She's now out on the landing keeping Simba company poking around the motorbike paniers and the plant...

__________________
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

Homeopathic remedies and even herbal and natural remedies have its Knockers, Homeopathic mostly though granted. There are a few things that make you wonder though. Homeopathic treatment of dogs involves diagnosis and treatment, which is only permitted by a qualified vet. Vets have to be trained and qualified. To achieve the qualification it takes a further 3 years of study after studying for 5 years to become a vet, so it is a pretty big commitment. Considering how much a conventional vet can make and how big a profit some make on the conventional medicines available, as oppossed to Homeopathic and natural medicines which is so much cheaper. would some go on and study further, if they didnt believe in it and there wasnt some merit in it? A vet who has only studied for 5 years your normal vet, cant dish out or reccomend hemeopathic or I think any natural or herbal remedies either.

Homeopathy was pioneered by Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) He was a german Physician who was disillusioned with the dangerous medical practices of his day dedicated his life to finding safe alternatives. Hemeopathy wasnt new though it was actually really pioneered by greek civilisations many many centuries earlier. (Interestingly enough wasnt Hippocrates the father of western medicine ancient greek and Docs still take the Hippocratic Oath)
Following Hahnemanns developement homeopathy grew throughout the 19th century into a major system of medicine and by the 1900s was actually taught in veterinary schools. Until 1966 if formed a big part of the PDSAs
treatments for sick animals and the PDSA trained its employees in homeopathy. Homeopathy declined between the word wars and in the veterinary profession in the 1960s. it revived again in the 1990s and many vets use it today either alone of complimentary with conventional drugs.

The principle is that any substance that can cause a specific set of symptoms in a healthy individual, when given to a patient displaying the symptoms at very small doses, stimulates the immune system to respond to the illness and either cure of settle the symptoms they are having.
Which If I remember rightly thats how all the vaccines work, a small does of the virus is given to stimulate the bodies immune system to fight the virus or disease.

Think Ive probably all sent you to sleep by now, although there is more stuff that I find quite interesting and hopefully someone else might.
Guess the question will always be ongoing has it got merits or just a load of tosh. Maybe its a case of dont knock it until you tried it.

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Very well said sled dog hotel. You didnt bore me at all

I think it's far more natural to have a slight dose of the illness to jog antibodies into action and probably far more accurate and less of a burden on the system.
I also wonder if much of the speculation and damning of homeopathy is down to wrong diagnosis and therefore failure to work. Harmless nonetheless.
Homeopathy from what I can see is a very fine art with lots of remedies covering a wide spectrum of symptoms and getting the combination right is crucial.
James Macleod spent ages listening to me and asking questions to try and determine the best for Emma and we tried a few remedies along the way.

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"Life is mostly froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another’s trouble, Courage in your own”