Would you include `Rescue Remedy` with homeopathic treatments? I know several people who have used it and say it works. I personally don`t `get` Bach flower treatment or aromatherapy for that matter, but I`d be willing to give it a go if I thought it would help. After all - what harm could it do?

I think it would be foolish to discount anything that can't be proven to be ineffective - especially if it's safe and has no side effects. Many of today's conventional treatments are known to be harmful, often treating symptoms and disregading cause. Holistic approaches at least set out with the right goal in mind. There are circumstances where I'll try well researched alternative therapies before subjecting my dog to conventional treatments that are known to do harm.

I wouldn't be happy with a vet that wasn't intelligent enough to realise that 'not proven to work' is a world apart from 'proven not to work'. With regard to homeopathic treatments my vets comment was "when I see the devestating effect on someone with a peanut allergy when they come in contact with a washed cooking utensil that previously came into contact with nuts I realise that we simply don't know enough about the workings of the immune system to conclude that tiny concentrations of substances can't have a significant effect on the human body".

So 'proven' conventional treatments have serious question marks over them. If we want to help allergic dogs all we have at our disposal is a bunch of unproven alternative treatments. Some people report miracle cures where all else has failed. If we don't understand why something is working it's hard to devise an appropriate test to reproduce results. An open minded conventional vet can be a real help in guiding you towards the treatments that show most promise.

I wouldn't be happy to use a holistic vet simply because I feel that you can't put complete faith in something that's not even close to being proven to work. Some people do get good results with them though - and it could even be because they're staying away from the harmful conventional treatments that are feeding their condition!

A trial of homeopathic remedies has found that they appear to work against some allergies - but experts can not work out why.

Homeopathy has traditionally been pooh-poohed by most mainstream doctors, but a series of intriguing research results suggests they may have some positive effect in some conditions.

In the latest study, conducted by doctors at Glasgow University, patients with allergic "hayfever-like" symptoms were tested.

Half were given a homeopathic remedy, based on extracts from various allergy-causing substances.

These had been heavily diluted in water 30 times - meaning, on mathematical probability, there was virtually no chance that even a single molecule of the allergens remained in the liquid.

The other half were given simply a placebo - although, because of the dilution, the chemical formula of the two liquids appeared to be identical.

However, the patients given the homeopathy experienced a significant improvement in their nasal symptoms - their noses were far clearer.

On average, the homeopathy patients were 22% better, the placebo group 2.5% better.

Better than steriods

The results with the homepathy are roughly similar to those a doctor might expect to achieve with a steroid nasal spray.

However, homeopathy appears to have no side-effects whatsoever.

Interestingly, more patients in the homeopathy group found their symptoms got worse when they initially started treatment.

Dr Peter Fisher, clinical director of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, said: "It's getting very difficult to argue that homeopathy has no effect.

"There are now quite a few studies which have suggested this. There is no doubt that there has been a lot of progress.

"We think that large studies now need to be done, but it is hard to attract funding because few people take it seriously."

Although he concedes that there is little evidence to back any theories of how homeopathy works, he said that medicine had often benefited from effects that were significant, but could not be fully explained.

Normal medical thinking needs medicines to have a detectable active ingredient causing an effect in the body.

However, the huge dilution of homepathic remedies means that the possibility of a molecule of any sort forming this ingredient is virtually impossible.

Homeopaths theorise that the earlier presence of the molecules - prior to dilution, somehow change the physical properties of the liquid. This, however, has not been proven.

Ziva - do you have a link to the three studies you mention please? I'd be interested to read the papers.

To dismiss homeopathy is, effectively, dismissing the findings of all clinical trials.

As I said in my last post on this thread, Dr David Reilly, M.D of Glasgow Medical University (elected to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, with one of Britain’s highest medical honors), found during the course of three properly conducted clinical trials that homeopathy works. Period.

As for the contention that people who have found it works "must have got better from some other cause" is rather convenient, isn't it?

It's the equivalent of saying that people who get better on conventional medicine must have got better from some other cause. After all, the evidence of cure all comes from the same clinical trials.

Homeopathy, however, is only as good as the physician prescribing. The way it works is to match a medicine precisely to all the symptoms. If the physician has missed a symptom, or is not the best at matching 'like for like' then homeopathy will fail. As with everything, there are the best, and then there are the also rans. If you use homeopathy, you have to be sure you are using the very best physician.

Conversely, get the symptom match wrong, and the medicine will not affect the body because the medicine is purely a 'healing energy' that stimulates the body to repair itself. It's not like a vaccine that physically creates the disease, nor is like conventional medicine with side effects, so if the healing energy it provides is the wrong one, there will be no effect.

I actually feel the majority of posts here are commenting on something that they haven't even investigated properly, so how can you comment so vehemently?