Homœopathy

Nearly twenty years ago I went to the hairdressers. As part of the general fuss, the lady who was doing my hair used some kind of mint conditioner, which stung quite a bit. Maybe it's not related but a day or two later I came out in spots just below my hairline. To my dismay, they didn't stop there but proceeded to annex areas of my face further south. So began my adventure with acne rosacea.

I went to the GP, of course, who told me that there was nothing that could be done and that the affliction could last up to ten years before going away of its own accord.  Undeterred by this bad news, I tried all sorts of things to clear these horrid spots. I tried cleaning regimes, I bought creams, and I tried giving things up. Boy, did I try giving things up. Pretty much anything that people give up, I forsook. 

I gave up alcohol, bread, caffeine, sweets, dairy, you name it. I switched from dairy to goats' milk until my friend Neil's constant references to the "the hairy nipple" drove me back to cows' milk. Another friend recommended a nutritionist who had helped him with an illness he'd had, so despite the cost - thirty quid a session - I went along.

She was a nice lady (I can't remember her name) and she asked lots of incisive questions about my diet and eating habits. She advised me to eat small meals more often, including last thing at night and, over the weeks, recommended various costly pills and remedies. One, I remember, was a foul, green powder - derived from algae, maybe - which I had to mix with water and drink every morning. Curiously, I grew to like it.

Our sessions came to an end, though, after she sold me three homeopathic remedies. In my defence, I did raise my doubts about the whole business, but I was too polite to refuse the proffered cure. As I left, though, I knew I wouldn't be going back. The three small bottles of water remained untouched. I would try anything but I wasn't going to get involved in that nonsense.

Interestingly, almost everything I did try resulted in a short term improvement in my condition. On each occasion I thought Yes! This is it! (Thank God it wasn't the milk from the hairy nipple.) And that, of course, is the power of placebo. In clinical trials it's not unusual for the trial group receiving the placebo to show signs of recovery or, indeed, to recover completely. Such is the power of the mind and there should be some research into that. (Actually, I expect there is.)

So, in a less enlightened age, I can see why homeopathy was perceived to work; it simply encouraged the mind and body's own powerful healing mechanisms to come into play. The "remedies" acted as a trigger for processes that we don't yet understand. Hence the power of the witch doctor and medicine woman.

But I don't believe that homeopathy has any place in modern medicine, even the second division of 'complementary medicine'. 

Incidentally, I did finally get rid of the acne. A consultant who was treating Dan and Abi's mum asked me "Why don't you do something about your acne?" He wouldn't tell me what could be done when I protested that I'd been told it couldn't be cured but insisted I'd have to see a GP. I went to see a different one - obvs - who promptly prescribed a course of mild antibiotics and they cleared it in a matter of days.

Look, I nearly finished the post without mentioning that the first GP I saw was also a Creationist.