10:23. My Personal Homeopathic Overdose

30 minutes later and everyone still seems OK!

The idea of a homeopathic "snake venom" remedy containing nothing, and then homeopaths vehemently denying it is "Snake Oil", even though in their Homeo-Verse it should supposedly evoke venom-effects…

…well, let's just say my meta-Unreality Filters are on overload.

I am tired of telling people on more credulous blogs that as well as being totally useless, homeopathic remedies don't spare animals – the lists of provings contain everything from alligators to pig embryo. A minor concern for the non-veggies, I know, but so many innocents think homeopathy is all-round beneficent it is often salutary to remind them that it has its basis in the frantic castings-around of humans to cure themselves, using and abusing anything that comes to hand.

Still alive? Me too. I bought sepia 30C because I liked the name and then discovered that it's for brunettes so it's handy I am one.

Mmmm sepia. i used to work in Venice. Everything is cooked in sepia. It does terrible things to the digestive system.

You are a fucking idiot- see if the docs can cure that

"I bought sepia 30C because I liked the name and then discovered that it's for brunettes…"

Does it cure them or attract them?

I agree that homeopathy doesn't work but it seems to me that the bit in the
article about »homeopathic provings« is not quite correct.

Homeopathic proving means that one takes not the homeopathic »remedy« but
whatever the remedy is derived of, and records the symptoms one experiences
after that. The homeopathic »principle« of »like cures like« then claims that
the stuff, when made into a homeopathic »remedy« according to the official
ritual, will cure these symptoms even if you have them from elsewhere.

If you take undiluted belladonna, which is quite poisonous, this will cause
you to experience a wide range of nasty symptoms including dilated pupils,
staggering, and rashes, and will eventually kill you. The homeopath says that
if you dilute belladonna enough (say, to 30C, which is 100 to the 30th power)
it will, in fact, *relieve* you from symptoms such as staggering and rashes.
(They are clever enough not to claim that it will bring you back from the
dead.)

The way this was established was because some intrepid volunteer once took
a (hopefully small) nibble of belladonna and wrote down everything they
experienced after that, so presumably belladonna 30C was declared to be good
against staggering and rashes. If, for whatever reason, the intrepid
volunteer had also experienced sneezing and smelly feet, then belladonna 30C
would have gone on the homeopathic books as good against those, too.

You would have thought so, wouldn't you Anonymous.

But no. Hahnemann was quite clear that provings should be done at a dilution of 30C.

§ 128 5th edition Organon

“The most recent observations have shown that medicinal substances, when taken in their crude state by the experimenter for the purpose of testing their peculiar effects, do not exhibit nearly the full amount of the powers that lie hidden in them which they do when they are taken for the same object in high dilutions potentized by proper trituration and succussion, by which simple operations the powers which in their crude state lay hidden, and, as it were, dormant, are developed and roused into activity to an incredible extent. In this manner we now find it best to investigate the medicinal powers even of such substances as are deemed weak, and the plan we adopt is to give to the experimenter, on an empty stomach, daily from four to six very small globules of the thirtieth potentized dilution of such a substance, moistened with a little water, and let him continue this for several days.”

Bonkers. Yes. But that is homeopathy.

Yesterday I took half a bottle of aconite 30C* and today I have a cold. Thus I have PROVEN!!!1!! that the symptoms of aconite poisoning are a stuffy nose, headache and generally feeling a bit crap. The paralysis and cardiac arrest observed when people have actually been poisoned with the stuff are just fabrications of scientists in the pay of the allopathy industry. Obviously.

* I'd have taken the whole bottle but the clicky bit kept jamming. Shoddy manufacturing standards.

Anonymous said…
"You are a fucking idiot- see if the docs can cure that"

Yet another persuasive argument from an articulate homeopathy supporter.

"Homeopathy … has its basis in the frantic castings-around of humans to cure themselves, using and abusing anything that comes to hand."

Beautifully expressed. And another great piece by le canard noir.

It's this sort of thing that we need more of: merciless picking apart of the homeopathic method.

Forget the trials. We don't consider random controlled trials of witchcraft or voodoo. We shouldn't consider them concerning homeopathy either.

First, they need to present a watertight method (quite literally), or at least propose a means of achieving one. Then we might be more interested in their results.

Finally, if anyone counters with argument such as "look, some things like aspirin took ages to work out, so science also uses things even though it doesn't know how they work" I would remind people that premier aspirin researchers such as Dreser, Collier and Piper did not go about proposing magic as the reason why aspirin works.

And of course, aspirin does actually work.

Conclusion from the press release of the Society of Homeopaths is that you should get an prescription and then ovedose on that medicine. Would be interresting to see what they come up with then. You should then of course have a real illness or you would be back to start.

Some day you will be burned at the stake…..

"Forget the trials. We don't consider random controlled trials of witchcraft or voodoo. We shouldn't consider them concerning homeopathy either."

Yes, it's time to stop.
Homoeopathy is not worthy of an RCT. They just give people like Dullman an excuse to keep posting the unreliable and discredited ones.
Enough already. It's time just to keep poking fun.

Should we now be worried about your excessive sugar consumption? 😉

It is funny how the homeopaths change track to its direct opposite depending on which audience they are speaking to at any given time.

Sometimes they want to show off how powerful homeopathy is, so they boast about provings and all the weird and wonderful things that happen when people take their sugar pills and it's all caused by the pills even car crashes outside the prover's house (I kid you not). At other times, homeopathy is so amazingly safe that no harm can ever occur. Except at other times again homeopathy has to be used with great caution because great harm can result from aggravations. Then again their pills don't need to be regulated and tested as drugs because they are completely safe. Except when they are used in healthy people as part of a proving: from Jeremy Sherr's book The Dynamics and Methodology of Homoeopathic Provings
"However it is true that a small number of provers do not emerge unscathed. Usually these sufferings do not last long, but on rare occasions I have known problems to last for months or even years"

Is homeopathy both the cause and cure of the whiplash readers must suffer when trying to follow what homeopaths say?

It's one thing to just make stuff up because none of it is anchored in reality, but one might wish they could at least keep their story straight and self-consistent.

….so… you so don't want to meet up and chat- you send me Quackers- I send you peace, love, understanding, respect and support.

Anonymous said: "Homeopathic proving means that one takes not the homeopathic »remedy« but whatever the remedy is derived of, and records the symptoms one experiences after that."

LCN said: "But no. Hahnemann was quite clear that provings should be done at a dilution of 30C."

If you want a more recent source for this try Kayne SB (2006), Homeopathic pharmacy: theory and practice, Elsevier Health Sciences, 2nd ed. p. 52:

"While, in the beginning, Hahnemann mainly used mother tinctures and low potencies for homeopathic provings, he later switched to centesimal dilutions (30C), and many of his followers did the same. most modern provings have been conducted with ultramolecular dilutions (>12C). It is highly unlikely that any original molecule is present in such medicines."

Anonymous's confusion is understandable, though, because homoeopaths appear rather unwilling to attract attention to this.

Have a look around the internet, and you'll find reports of 'provings'. Invariably they seem to use potentised remedies, almost always at 30C.

You clearly don't understand how homeopathy works. Of course an "overdose" won't hurt you! The whole point is that the *less* of an active ingredient you have in a homeopathic remedy, the *more* potent it becomes. Therefore, by taking too much you are actually make it less potent, and less likely to have any side effects.

Duh!

that must be why they instruct you to take not one but two tablets, and not once but twice a day, and not for one day but for several days.

….oh wait

I found the slightly horrible thing was that homoeopaths couldn’t even agree on what would happen if you did overdose (taking the wrong treatment in the right sort of doses, over days rather than all at once).

Imagine not knowing what can go wrong with your treatment, what kind of a butcher would that be?

“unless the remedy is a constitutional remedy”

These words are redundant, unless you have some good evidence to the contrary.

I am talking about SINGLE dosage Once.If you repeat the dosages over several days then you are doing it as per Homeopathic protocal.

I do have anectodal evidence(Personal one).Let us skip this since it is NOT good evidence.

I see you are taking lachesis, sulphur and belladonna simultaneously.

I would suggest taking them individually for a period of sevendays:one dose per day.

I would suggest startinging with other remedies 12x potency one dose perday for sevendays.Wait for a couple of days and then start the next one.

The usual stipulations like No alcohol for the entire period and avoiding coffee or tea near the dosage time.

le canard noir says

“homeopaths put their money where their mouth is and take the pills as I have suggested in my simple challenge”.

I fail to see rationality in this assertion.

Why Homeopaths should take Pills as YOU suggested?.

le canard noir says

“The fact that in 3 years, no-one has had the courage of their convictions to demonstrate the awesome powers of their sugar pills, speaks volumes.”

That speaks volumes about your exuberance.Nothing more.

Rtved, I see you have not chosen to address LCN’s point that he has followed the protocol guaranteed by one homeopath to produce an effect. We are well aware that homeopaths cannot agree on which protocol will produce a guaranteed effect. The only certainty is that each thinks he or she is correct and none of them comments that these discrepancies would be damn peculiar if homeopathy actually worked.

As LCN says, because homeopathy doesn’t work the protocols are all equivalent and produce the same size of biological effect- zero.

Does that help resolve the conundrum you set yourself?

LCN says

“What homeopathic ‘provers’ experience are just random symptoms – there is no evidence that homeopathic pills can induce any consistent symptoms in people”.

Right.Where did the Organon says Provers exhibit Consistent Syptoms across the board?.

BSM, I read the challenge.I think LCN is making Unsupported Presumptions.

Things are getting interesting.

We are talking about Provings here and NOT about the Mode of action on Patients.

Organon 129

If the effects that result from such a dose are but slight, a few more globules may be taken daily, until they become more distinct and stronger and the alterations of the health more conspicuous; for all persons are not effected by a medicine in an equally great degree; on the contrary, there is THERE IS A VAST VARIETY IN THIS RESPECT, so that sometimes an apparently weak individual may by scarcely at all affected by moderate doses of a medicine known to be of a powerful character, while he is strongly enough acted on by others of a much weaker kind. And, on the other hand, there are very robust persons who experience very considerable morbid symptoms from an apparently mild medicine, and only slighter symptoms from stronger drugs. Now, as this cannot be known beforehand, it is advisable to commence in every instance with a small dose of the drug and, where suitable and requisite, to increase the dose more and more from day to day.

Organon 129 says in clear and Unambigous terms Provings Vary from Person to person.It says for example:
quote

THERE IS A VAST VARIETY IN THIS RESPECT.

By the way, you are following a well-trodden path for fans of sugar pills.

Assertion 1: Homeopathic pills have strong and predictable biological effects.

Assertion 2: Homeopathic pills have fragile and utterly unpredictable therapeutic effects.

Assertion 1 is trotted out when trying to defend its therapeutic use.

Assertion 2 is trotted out when trying to defend homeopathy from scientific scrutiny and/or excuse its failures in controlled trials.

At the very least, homeopathy’s supporters are highly predictable.

Bugger! Switch the words “biological” and “therapeutic” in my statements of the assertions.

Thus;

Assertion 1: Homeopathic pills have strong and predictable therapeutic effects.

Assertion 2: Homeopathic pills have fragile and utterly unpredictable biological effects.

Assertion 1 is trotted out when trying to defend its therapeutic use.

Assertion 2 is trotted out when trying to defend homeopathy from scientific scrutiny and/or excuse its failures in controlled trials.

At the very least, homeopathy’s supporters are highly predictable.

“Who said that?.Atleast i am no saying it”

Oh, lordy, I see we have the usual reading comprehension problems to content with as well.

“Wrong.Predictabilty for homeopathic treatment is very less because of uncertainity in determining a match b/n provings and patient conditions.”

So, that would be you switching to Assertion 2 when challenged on the topic of Assertion 1.

“Homeopathic Pills are fragile.That is why they are prepared onsite for dispensing.”

Well, the alleged properties of the pills are protean. They are so sensitive they must not be touched by the bare hands of the person taking them. Yet they can survive utterly without practical limit if left alone in their bottle. Clearly the glass of those bottles renders the contents completely safe from the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. On the other hand, the bottles do not prevent breaches of the First Law. These permanent, immutable pills are allegedly capable of projecting their power onto pills in adjacent bottles. No practical limit is stated for their ability to reduce entropy in their surroundings.

I know none of this makes sense, but I don’t make this crap up. I leave that to homeopaths.

Your second statement is either untrue or meaningless. Obviously the pills have to be prepared at a “site” somewhere, but I don’t suppose you actually visit Boiron’s factory to collect your magic sugar. They are thus not prepared “onsite” if the site is the dispensing pharmacy.

Rtved

Can I suggestion that you just back away quietly from the holes you are digging here, put down your shovel and clamber out? Every statement you can possibly make in support of homeopathy will either be wrong or it can be contradicted by some source within the homeopathic world. Typically it will be both.

Mojo on February 18, 2011 at 1:27 pm

You’re moving the goalposts, Rtved. What was being talked about was homoeopaths taking their pills in order to identify the remedy, so the fact that a remedy might produce different degrees of symptom, or might take longer or more pills to produce its characteristic symptoms, does not matter as long as, as § 119 states,…

Mojo i am committed to discuss provings as specified in 129.129 is about Provings.

119 is about materials being distinct and different.It has to be read along with 129 regarding each Subject differing in their extent of responses.

For clarity Organon 129 is reproduced second time:

§ 129

If the effects that result from such a dose are but slight, a few more globules may be taken daily, until they become more distinct and stronger and the alterations of the health more conspicuous; FOR ALL PERSONS ARE NOT EFFECTED BY A MEDICINE IN AN EQUALLY GREAT DEGREE; on the contrary, there is a vast variety in this respect, so that sometimes an apparently weak individual may by scarcely at all affected by moderate doses of a medicine known to be of a powerful character, while he is strongly enough acted on by others of a much weaker kind. And, on the other hand, there are very robust persons who experience very considerable morbid symptoms from an apparently mild medicine, and only slighter symptoms from stronger drugs. Now, as this cannot be known beforehand, IT IS ADVISABLE TO COMMENCE IN EVERY INSTANCE WITH A SMALL DOSE OF THE DRUG AND, WHERE SUITABLE AND REQUISITE, TO INCREASE THE DOSE MORE AND MORE FROM DAY TO DAY.

It’s 2011 and we are engaged in a minute discussion of individual assertions from a 200-year old book.

Great!

Mojo on February 20, 2011 at 8:12 am

§ 129 says that the symptoms produced may vary in intensity, or take longer, and/or larger doses, to appear. It does not say that different symptoms will appear in different subjects..

RTVED:Good.That is some improvement from dismissing it as derail.

The Time lag for appearance of symptoms vary from person to person as per 129. And the Order of appearence also varies as per Refer Organon 134.

LCN and other such serious dudes better take a systematic approach in scrutinizing Homeopathic Provings.

Downing some “Homeopathic preparation” at one go and shouting Ooh lala the next Minute is not going to earn any credibility.

Rtved, you seem still not to have accepted that homeopaths have claimed that taking the pills as LCN has done will cause dramatic effects. Obviously, you claim these homeopaths were wrong. Its a familiar tactic. The No True Scotsman fallacy is a homeopathic favourite.

I see you have made no comment at all about LCN’s “Simple Challenge”. If you do not accept it is well-founded, what problem do you have with it and how would you solve it?

BSM

” homeopaths have claimed that taking the pills as LCN has done will cause dramatic effects”.

Dramatic effects are not uniform across people.

Homeopathic dilution method do cause effects that have no explanation scientifically.

If there are any serious researchers who are willing to take the risks i suggest the following preparations which i find to cause DRAMATIC effects in most of the people.

Natrum sulph 6x

kali phos 6x

“Homeopathic dilution method do cause effects that have no explanation scientifically.”

Cite some. We’ve seen no adequate evidence that this is true.

“Dramatic effects are not uniform across people.”
“If there are any serious researchers who are willing to take the risks i suggest the following preparations which i find to cause DRAMATIC effects in most of the people.”

What strategy would you propose to show any such effects if they are not consistent?

You seem to admit that the effects are not uniform then suggest again that a single-person will have impressive and convincing results. You can’t have it both ways.

Hey! Why don’t you drink a bottle of lachesis 1. I’m sure that’s just tap water.

Wow! I don’t know what you’ve been reading over there, but homeopathy works really well for me and heaps better than western medicine has ever done. I hope you find what you are looking for with more positive results whether it is western or naturopathic remedies. May I suggest Ignatia Amara 200 in an already “clean” body, free of coffee oils and mint? Best of health to you without, free of anger.

Lol… if you eat the whole bottle its ONE dose. To overdose you need much higher potencies.

Homoeopathy kept my psoriasis under control that allopathy could not cure for 15 years and does not have any clue how to address! Since seeing and experiencing is believing, I believe it works, no matter what the skeptics say. More research needs to done in this space.

You didn’t overdose you idiot. You would have to take a small amount every day for 2 months to “overdose” on it. It doesn’t work like pharmaceuticals. Nice try.