[QUOTE=SenorBeef]
- it’s accepted as valid treatment in the NHS
[/QUOTE]
It’s accepted as a placebo. The doctors and scientists want it gone, it’s the politicians that have left funding in place.
Hmm. Now I feel slightly bad about grumbling when my wife wanted to put some arnica cream—which she’d brought from Brazil—on my foot when it was swollen. The package identified it as “homeopathic,” so naturally I assumed it was just a tube of plain petroleum jelly.
I would go further than that. EVERYONE I’ve ever met who “believes” in homeopathy has no idea what it really means, and thinks it’s the same thing as “natural or herbal remedy”.
I don’t understand people who pay for homeopathic medicines. Why don’t they just pour themselves a free glass of it from the sink?
I saw an argument once (anyone know where this was?) that concluded that if the homeopathic dilution and memory principles were literally true, it would mean that all water on the planet already held the memory of every homeopathic treatment.
Australia does not recognise homeopathy as a legitimate profession in the health professions. Anyone can call themselves such and there are no legal qualifications necessary to become one.
Efforts were made to recognise it as a profession in order to implement ethical standards and the like, but it seems to have been decided more damage will be done by apparently legitimising it than any harm mitigated by doing so.
Otara
I’ll second the notion that even health professionals can get caught up in the hype of absurd medical treatments. One of my nursing professors was very enthusiastic about ear candles :rolleyes:
Another time, when my sister and I were with my mom in the ER, a nurse told her sea salt wouldn’t raise her blood pressure no matter how much she used. When he left the room, I told her he was wrong, sea salt was salt.
If there ever are true homeopathic hospitals, I hope that the emergency rooms are like this.
[QUOTE=spark240]
I saw an argument once (anyone know where this was?) that concluded that if the homeopathic dilution and memory principles were literally true, it would mean that all water on the planet already held the memory of every homeopathic treatment.
[/QUOTE]
Homeopathic treatments would also hold the “memory” of other things as well, as sardonically noted in this poster.
About a year ago, there were news reports about how Billy Joel’s daughter Alexa tried to commit suicide. Certainly a serious event from a psychological point of view.
But if you read the details, you’d have seen that what she “overdosed” on was eight Traumeel tablets, which are homeopathic. So her overdose was basically eating the equivalent of a tablespoon of sugar.
James Randi takes entire bottles of homeopathic sleeping pills at a time to demonstrate the silliness.
If she’d really meant it, it’d be a teaspoon.
OP title says “nurse recommended” while your post says “usually for that they’ll tell you to get”. The latter suggests he/she was explaining the usual treatment prescribed by the MD, PA, ARNP or other professional licensed to prescribe. The former amounts to prescribing which is illegal according to most states’ Nurse Practice Acts.
While I agree that there’s a fair share of stupid in nursing, I’m offended by the stupidity assigned to ‘nurses’ when those ‘nurses’ are, in fact, medical assistants or certified nurse aides, and not Registered Nurses, or when their statements are misrepresented.
First of all, I’ve known a lot of nurses. They are as likely to be wackos as anybody, which is to say, quite likely. The same with medical doctors. An MD degree doesn’t preclude the possibility that someone will come up with some new and untried method that they think works for something, and in fact, sometimes it does work, and sometimes it doesn’t.
I had ear candles recommended to me by a doctor, who also indicated that for my problem, lit cigarettes might be just as effective. Seriously! (Um, no. It did not work. My problem was ear difficulties when coming down from altitude, including flying on airplanes.)
The thing about people who pay for homeopathic or any other treatment is, they believe it will work, and because they believe it, a significant portion of the time, it will work. Or they will think it worked. Which is just as good.
I envy these people. I don’t believe in anything, and nothing works, except Advil, which I take for everything. (Luckily I have infrequent and nonserious problems.)
Maybe her suicide attempt was actually a homeopathic means of achieving immortality.
First, an OP is only a few words, so you go for conciseness. You have the OP in which to describe the incident in more detail, which I did. So this is nitpicking at best.
Second, she had a name tag which read “registered nurse”.
[quote=“spark240, post:45, topic:556944”]
Even better, every homeopathic treatment that hasn’t been discovered yet is also in your tap water, so it should even be able to cure things nobody’s figured out yet.
Even betterer, homeopathic treatments that not only haven’t been discovered but don’t even exist are present–and present at ∞X dilution. Hard to beat impossible cures at infinite strength.
Being concise is no excuse for inaccuracy. It’s not nitpicking when it’s clarification of that inaccuracy which has legal implications.
Thank you for the clarification regarding her nametag.
Well duh - taking an incredibly low dose like a whole bottle-full isn’t going to prove anything. If he wanted to make a point he should try taking an excessively high dose. Maybe drop a pill in Lake Superior and then sip a thimblefull of the lake water?
BTW, my dentist prescribed me a little bottle of 30c “arnica” homeopathic sugar pills to “reduce swelling” after an implant operation. Kind of shook my faith in his professionalism.
Are you sure you’re remembering that correctly? I’ve never seen a nurse’s name tag that said anything beyond “RN” or added initials describing further education.
It would be a rare clinic that would pay an RN to do an MA’s or CNA’s work.