Hi! 

My epic daughter Isla is off to do an Epic Swim event. Well actually we're both going swimming and in my head we'll be featuring on Swallows and Amazons (the remake at least) as we're swimming in the lake where parts of it were filmed. It should be a beautiful event - pictures to follow from our fab support crew.

If you'd like to sponsor her without reading the story you can do so here:
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/emcolley4

We've been swimming in the river locally probably for a month or so and she's like a little mermaid - I've been so impressed at how well she's done and am loving seeing her confidence grow in the water. There is nothing quite like being in the river as the birds fly over you, the fish jumping (if you're lucky you get to see the fish and the splash, second lucky just the splash and third lucky you hear it or someone in the group tells you), swimming across to the elderflower tree and smelling the flowers whilst treading water next to it. It's a great way to finish (or start, or middle) a day.

We decided to do it as a fundraiser for Homeopathy for Health in Africa who I've been involved with and passionate about fundraising for since I helped design and distribute their first calendar - in 2012 I think it was. There followed a Calendar Girls of Homeopathy calendar - that's a rarer edition ;) All sorts of fun was had and has been had since. They are a completely inspirational organisation and I'm constantly inspired and feel privileged to have done the bits I have to help. Isla has fundraised for them in the past - we did a Santa Run together and she set up and did a readathon by herself about 5 years ago. 

So this time we set up a fundraising page on Thursday morning 10am. As I write it's now Sunday morning, 7am and the page stands at £1540. She's surpassed what I thought was possible - and when I told her I thought perhaps we could get to £1000 (that was Isla's first suggested goal having raised £300 with her readathon and wanting to get more this time) she said we should go for £2k. No, let's play it safe I said and aim for 1. Well we did that in 48 hours. Amazing. The community support for the organisation and for what my daughter is doing has overwhelmed me. Thank you if you've already been a part of that. Everything, from £2 to £200 is hugely appreciated.

In two weeks time we'll be getting ready to check in for our swim so please help us get to £2000 - she would be so excited!! So I figure we only need 46 people to give £10 each. We can do that - right?

If you'd like to be one of them, the link is here:
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/emcolley4

THANK YOU!!

With love and gratitude, 

​Em x

Photo credit to the one and only Amber Rose Nolson. Amazing friend, mother, pilates instructor, and swimming buddy.

'I've just shared a blog post about the remedy belladonna which talks about the mystic dimension. Have a read here if you like. In my opinion anything Dr David Lilley reads is worth reading and enjoying. And if you can get to listen to him - then go. I love him.

So it got me thinking about the magic involved in what we do. For many years in our home we called remedies 'magic tablets'. For me, magic is all around me - the sunrise, the sunset, the unfurling of a petal, a leaf reaching towards the sun. Yes it can all be explained, reduced to scientific explanations - though then it feels slightly less magical to me. 

To be accepted are we to step away from the image of magic within homeopathy? One of the FAQs about Ananda More's film Magic Pills is why she would choose to put the word 'magic' in the title - why court the scorn we have endured for so long?! And yet this is mainly a question from the homeopathic community. The rest, many the general public, seem to either just accept the title - or find it intriguing and want to learn more. Many homeopaths that said, have come forwards and talked about how they've called homeopathic medicines 'magic pills' or 'magic tablets' within their own homes, and how their patients sometimes refer to them as these.

I have one client who tells people I'm a witch. Which is OK too, but likely calls for a whole different blog post about the origin of witches within our culture and suppression of the sacred feminine by a patriarchal society driving the natural healers underground. Another time.

So back to my question - do we reduce this medicine to reductionist terms, randomised controlled trials and lab work - or do we embrace the 'magic'? For me, in my ever curious, intrigued outlook on the world around me - I want to embrace it. 

I was asked yesterday to describe what homeopathy is - and did say I was so tired I might have to come back to it, but went on to give my definition from my heart instead of my overtired head. I explained how it is the most amazing thing I've ever encountered in life, the most life changing, beautiful way of working with people that I've found (or similar to that). It is like working with an ultimate truth. A universal truth, the core or centre of everything. And that, to me? Pretty magical actually. Not in the way of unicorns and fairies, in a beauty, a simplicity, an incredible life changing way.

The remedy pictures, the remedy provings, written many years ago with so many gems describing human behaviour and correlating still now with what you see in clinic. I do wonder if those who wish to suppress this have taken the time to read the philosophy, to sit with experienced practitioners working at the deepest level, to read the lectures on materia medica, to pore over the thousands and thousands of cured case notes, or just decided that it shouldn't work so it can't work.

I'll leave you with Camilla Sherr from Homeopathy for Health in Africa with her thoughts on homeopathy. For the record, I agree.

Yesterday, grumbling to myself in the car, I thought that anyone who says homeopathy has no side effects could come and have the intense pain in my neck that started less than 10 minutes after taking a remedy. Now, 17 hours on, it's there but less intense and it's definitely fading. It's similar to a pain I've had in the past and I'm quite excited that it could be a good sign of a great remedy reaction. A return of old symptoms can get us homeopaths quite excited. I know - perhaps I need to get out more ;)

But as to side effects. Surely, or at least my understanding, is that a side effect is anything that is an undesirable effect of the medicine, an unwanted result that occurs, or even perhaps just an unexpected result? I can't imagine my lovely new practitioner (not that she's new, she's been in practice over 30 years, but new to me) plotting to give me this as a primary goal. Which surely makes it - at least in conventional terms - a side effect.

I've long thought we shouldn't say that homeopathy has no side effects to our patients. Sometimes I see them, often I don't. And generally they're short limited - frequently a great sign you're on track with a well matched remedy. An aggravation, though perhaps unwanted by both client and practitioner, isn't necessarily a bad thing. I would say though to always get in touch with your homeopath if you're struggling - there can be ways to help you through it.

Sometimes I explain aggravations as if you're pushing on a spring: you push it a little further (aggravation) then the spring bounces back into it's freer shape and remains there for longer (amelioration). That said, plenty of times there may be no aggravation, or an unnoticed one and great improvement. So I'd say side effects are less frequent as the medicine is subtler in general, but they certainly exist - and can be a real pain in the neck.

All things pass.

With love, 

Em x

Oh pants. I've written a lovely thought provoking blog post after having watched this film - and managed to erase it all. So maybe I'll revisit it later on. For now, just to say I've just finished the film here. Definitely, definitely recommend, whichever side of the 'Dr Andrew Wakefield is...' side of the fence you find yourself on. Watch it.

I woke thinking about this this morning. Outside the box healthcare. What is outside the box healthcare?! Maybe it's because I'd watched a TEDx talk on outside the box marketing this week. Maybe it's because I'm reading Russell Brand's Revolution. Maybe it's an awareness that we're told what to think by the media all the time. And looking at who is funding that. Because what I see, experience, and hear from people certainly doesn't correlate with the opinions you're, we're fed about homeopathy, it does make me question other things. What if we're inside the box, being fed half truths, or even no truths. And lapping it up. What if we don't even know there's a box there?

Looking at who is funding the research is an interesting one. Coca cola reportedly funding a large scale study to show sugar wasn't a bad thing for us. The Dairy Council, McDonalds and several other milk orientated organisations funded a study last year that showed how beneficial milk was for us. Funny that. Milk from another species, that no other species does in nature, but we've set up the system to abuse and violate cows... now there's becoming a greater awareness we need studies sponsored by the people who have a vested interest to tell us that it'll help us.  Who sponsors the report that says a glass of prosecco a day is better than an hour in the gym?! Nice idea but still...

I'd never thought about it really in the past. Colin Campbell's book Whole was illuminating though and his explanations that there is no funding for whole food research but you can isolate nutrients - study away and discover what that can have benefits from. Is that the real world though? Not in my view - it's all about a beautiful interplay of vitamins and minerals together.

Similarly in homeopathy. Who will benefit (on a massive scale) from these medicines? Well, if they do what I think they do, there'll be greater health, so the individuals would do. Less strain on the NHS. Another benefit. But then less drugs bought. So who might benefit from homeopathy being less available? Thinking about that one for a moment it's not that hard to figure out the answer.

The Guardian used to share pro-homeopathy articles, and now won't do anything of the sort. So we are told what to think by the papers. But is that the truth? What if we stepped out of that, spoke to real people, with real health concerns and found out how they'd handled it. The Mail and The Sun seem more positive about natural healthcare and this article was published in You Magazine, though it took someone having a great experience with homeopathy - and connections - it appears - to get it written. Great to have it out there though.

Back to outside the box. Trying solutions we haven't used before... Desperation in each instance drove me to it - migraines that weren't going away, a horse's eye that we might just have cut out, and me being for want of a better word, a mess. So we'd been pretty stuck in that box. And didn't even know it. I'm proud of my parents stepping out of the box before the vegan trend got big (although timing makes no difference really, I'm just proud of them).  Taking pro-active, and not always easy, steps to improve their health naturally. At nearly 70 years old (ouch that feels old, let's start that again). At 67 and 68, on no medications, physically active daily and contented people. 

'We've always done this' doesn't seem to be good enough to me as a reason anymore. I ate meat for 30+ years, guzzled the painkillers like my sanity depended on them. It may have done. Time to step away from doing what I'm told. Getting out of the box healthcare suits me. Maybe when we realise there is a box, a way we've always been told we should do things so we accept them as normal and then step away from that, things will start to change. Until then, have a peek over or through the box and know there might be a different way to sit along what we've always done.

As I said recently, I don't eat my dog so I don't expect to eat a pig. I've been a breastfeeding mother for two years and I was lucky to not have my baby taken away from me. The happy cows bouncing around for Tesco's milk aisle? Less so sadly. And the bouncing would be really painful - I walked past grass-fed dairy cows yesterday that could barely walk - their over-swollen udders getting in the way of their leg's natural movement.

Lastly I think it's important to say that I'm happy to have conventional healthcare available to me, I think it can be lifesaving, but I also think it's incredibly shortsighted to think that that's the only way and to try to trample anything else. But if we're stuck inside the box I guess there's not a long view available.

Be skeptical but learn to listen.
The Fifth Agreement.

With love,

Em x

Revolution seems to be a bit of a theme for me. At the moment and in general. I'm currently reading (and loving it) Russell Brand's book of a similar title, but for some time I've mulled over starting a food based revolution - though more around acceptance and love of ourselves.

I was doing a talk on mindfulness a while ago for a lovely WI group and did the raisin meditation - or at least my version of it. Then I went into the toilets before I left and on the back of the door was a poster for slimming world which met in the same location I was in. That was a starting point, though it would be wrong for me to put it down to just that. Going into schools with healthy foods, making juices, smoothies, raw chocolates without sugar made me see there are other ways to do things, other ways to educate our kids. I'd thought it for a long time but taking it practically really helped. Parents came and told me for ages that their kids were eating more fresh fruit and veg after the mini workshop.

I wonder if what stops us is if we think it has to be big, that we have to make a serious impact? I would invite you to consider if you'll ever know what impact you make?

One positive comment, one word of encouragement? How do you know - how do you measure that? I think the best ones you can't. Not until ages later at least, then how do you measure how many people have been influenced because you smiled at someone and they decided to smile at... it goes on. The ripples on the pond. 

So back, briefly as I'm determined not to go on too much today - to the food revolution. What if we ate for love not loathing. We ate to nurture not suppress. We ate for joy not boredom. What if we took 2 minutes to appreciate our bodies for what they are. We may not like our _(insert body part)_ but how would we function without it?

I disliked my ears for many years - they stick out a bit if you've not noticed... and wished for them to be different. Then there's the legs - well it's OK now but years ago could I get trousers long enough?! The advent of Long Tall Sally was a major breakthrough in my teens. Gangly long legs... not a gift but a thing to torture me. So enough. Enough*. My legs are ace, they help me run, swim, sit and walk. Without them I'd not have been walking barefoot this morning through the field. My ears? Well my glasses would fall off for a start and I'd be back to being a blind little mole. I'd bet it's similar for anyone reading this - there are so many positives with whatever you've been wishing was different. Not the mole bit, but you get the drift.

If we ate from love, acted from love how different could it be?
I don't know - come start a (mini) revolution with me?

The mini revolution in my mind could be anything... putting out flowers in a unloved looking location, getting a cuppa for someone, smiling, a hug, a kind word. I've taken to drawing hopscotch thinking people might play more. Play more. Another blog to come. 

Have a fabulous and maybe even (mini) revolting day.

xxx

* Enough. Enough is my word of the moment. There's been enough time disliking, acting, living from fear. Enough. Time to step into your light and be. Listen and love. Enough BS. Enough.

PS My force of nature daughter is planning a sponsored swim with a £1k fundraising target... if you can sponsor her when we've got the link set up that would be AMAZING. Thank you!

Watching a video about David Bowie and the change, overcoming adversity and reinvention he undertook this morning inspired me to share a little of my story. I was 7 when I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I would be a vet. As I grew older this idea evolved further and by the time I was 17 I knew I wanted to be an equine acupuncturist, which meant I would study to be a vet, then study acupuncture (I don't think I was aware of specialist equine acupuncture courses back then and I was doing it the full way anyway). I realised, and recounting my story this weekend, I recalled the moment that I realised, that this was no longer my dream.

As I stood watching the vet, arm inserted to nearly shoulder, inside the horse, I realised that I was more interested in people. I was more interested in the owner than what was happening way up there. How was he responding, what was he thinking? So people it was to be. It was around the time I was filling in my UCAS form for university entries so it was a slightly interesting time to be making the decision to change, but change I did. It was the first time I remember feeling that passion, drive, knowing, burning excitement in my belly when I read the Psychology and Neuroscience prospectus at Manchester University. Other Psychology courses were interesting. But this was fascinating. Brains. Nerves. Interconnection. And the links between the two.

Friends of my parents tried to dissuade me. Being a vet would bring money, financial freedom, the good life. But I knew it wasn't for me. There was something different out there. I didn't know what it was, but knew this was the next step.

I went, worked hard and, aside from applying for information about homeopathy (I remember where I was reading that too - in my attic room where I stencilled the sunflowers and ivy), but realising I wasn't old enough (they wanted you to be 21 before you started studying), I didn't really know what I was going to do, really do with my life after uni. My dissertation supervisor encouraged me to look at doing a PhD, and whilst I was flattered and gave it an evening's thought, I realised that it wasn't the right path for me, so when the opportunity came to travel I did. Australia for a year. Good times. And some really tough times. Life I guess. Returning with a self esteem of 'pretty low' to 'could get lower' (and it would), I continued in the slightly 'what was I doing in that?!' relationship til finally realising enough was enough and left. I remember waiting in a stormy downpour, you know the ones, after the summer heat, for my sister to collect me so I could leave and get out of there.

It was from that place of what felt like rock bottom that I began my journey with homeopathy again - my mum thankfully pushed me to go as I was lacking motivation to do much (I must have been a bit of a nightmare and wouldn't leave the house by myself, I remember being so terrified one time I stood on a friend's doorstep and wet myself - it wasn't a fun time). I'd already used homeopathy for headaches and migraines, when, at 17 I'd ended up on beta blockers - which wasn't really ideal, and started the process of dealing with these more naturally. So I began to rebuild. I'd studied a diploma in reflexology, some Reiki whilst I'd done my degree, was always intrigued by essential oils, had done a degree in counselling and they were all interesting. But there was something, something just out of reach.

That, it turned out for me, was homeopathy. It connected so much. Like the neural networks we (well most of us at least) know so little about, the connections here too are immense. Looking at the world through a holistic lens instead of a reductionist one. Seeing how our behaviours can be shaped by our 'non-human song'. Seeing how one person will respond to a situation like this and seeing how another like that. Putting it together. Seeing the patterns in the people, in nature, in the world around us. Understanding we are nature, in so many ways more than we realise.

Thankfully my homeopath saw something (or maybe she just suggested homeopathy to everyone!) and suggested I might want to look deeper at what had brought me back to being able to go out again, to laugh again - to have full bladder control (or at least til after I was a parent ;) again). And so it began.

It wasn't easy. But it was amazing. And that fire? I felt that again. Studying alongside working full time, moving twice, getting married, having a baby, breastfeeding through College (she was just 17 days old when she was first in school), divorce, single parenting, actually the other way around, single parenting, divorce, moving again, with an increasing number of books and remedies! I supported us with work that made initially no sense to me, but each time taught me so much. I guess I did what I had to. As any mother does. And I realised through it, though I got taken off track several times, this, this is where my heart lies. This lights the passionate fire in my belly.

It's still not easy. I work hard and I don't get to make everyone better, though I would really like to. Looking through cases, it feels like around 70% of people get to much improved places. Maybe that's no longer needing medication they may have been on for years, not having chronic pain, migraines, headaches, constipation disappearing, depression or anxiety improving, sleep improving... or even just managing symptoms better. Getting through chemotherapy, radiotherapy with less symptoms than many, or helping their symptoms when they arise.

It still lights that fire. There is nothing like this stuff. For me. So I guess the moral of my story - if you've made it thus far, is if there's something that makes you feel this, go for it. Pursue the dream. Do the badly paid jobs that support you whilst you make it happen, keep going. Because you know what? It's amazing. Life is pretty awesome. And I think we get this one shot in this one body (that's a whole different blog..) but let's not be held back by someone saying there's more money elsewhere, that we should follow their dream. Go. Do. Live. Love.

With love,

​Em x

So I didn't realise there'd be a sequel, but here you go. It seems everyone has an opinion on homeopathy these days, and my current issue is that I feel many of these opinions have come from mainstream media. Which is interesting as this doesn't reflect my experience at all. Which makes me question mainstream media. I mean, you can't see people in front of you getting better then get told what you do doesn't, can't work and not question this stuff. It just doesn't add up.

Anyway, after having some lovely feedback about about part I, here's part II. I think I'll draw the line here, there's sunshine to appreciate and life to live.

So this one went as follows:

Them (in response to news of the judicial review): This is great news, the last the NHS needs is to waste taxpayers money on treatments that have a discredited evidence base. Let's hope NHS funded hospital chaplains are next.

Me: Of course I’m unsurprised at your comment, given our recent fascinating exchange. Many patients, who came to homeopathy out of desperation, having been through specialist referral to other units but not found help there sadly are the ones that are affected, and often they can’t afford to pay privately. So patient suffering doesn’t equate to great news for me. In the Bristol homeopathic hospital study, out of 6,500 patients (involving 23,000 or so appts), 70% reported improvements in their health after using homeopathy. 

I hope the recent discrediting of paracetamol based drugs and antidepressants may make people look further at these, but following the line of money I should think they’re fairly safe for a long time to come. People are seeking out alternatives to heavy drug based medicine, and it’s a growing trend. My clients don’t find me because I’ve spent millions on marketing, they find me because someone tells them that they got better using homeopathy, so they come and give it a go. The stories I hear aren’t from people who are deluded, delusional or stupid. They are from people who have tried other options (mostly via our NHS), maybe that was in the form of steroids, anti anxiety meds, antibiotics, antidepressants, painkillers etc and these treatments haven’t made the problem go away. This is medicine that’s failing people. Why would you need a lifetime of painkillers if they worked?! Constant antibiotics and still getting UTIs? Antidepressants for many years? Steroid creams to keep applying? Antihistamines daily?! We have a big problem and homeopathy, unpopular as it may be in mainstream medicine, can offer some seriously life changing help for people. For many things there are no options conventionally - molluscum for example, and yet I’ve seen them go within four days of the appropriate remedy being given. It’s not easy work, people are individuals and must be treated as so to help them at a deep level. Forever grateful to be doing it though.

Them: Oh dear. I guess I can see why the decision the NHS made has upset you, as it removes the 'legitimacy' of homeopathy and places it squarely with the other practices that have been discredited. I don't suppose the NHS did this lightly, having promoted homeopathy for quite some time and we have a Health Secretary who is a believer. I am genuinely pleased that the individuals you work with are feeling well, but let's be clear : whatever is working for them, it's highly, highly unlikely that it's purely down to the fact that water has a 'memory' and all that jazz. I've lost count of the patients who have been started on an anti depressant one day and reported feeling cured the next. The difference is that we will explore the logical fallacy, not embrace it.

Me: Just to say it's really lovely having you interact on my page here ****. Not only because more people get to see the information I share but because it makes me look closer at what I do. I would be fascinated to hear your explanations on how plants experience the placebo effect. To date, no one has adequately explained how babies and animals get better (and why conventional medicine, with all it's Wizard of Oz the Dr is God thing going on didn't help them but their eczema cleared up, digestive symptoms went and stopped omitted every feed), but maybe after all I or the vet was more charismatic and the placebo effect passed on through us (I'm not known for self flattery though :-/and actually if this is so then this is a whole new phenomena we should be highly excited about investigating IMHO). But plants in a triple blind RCT? Love to hear how those researchers influence those little seedlings.

Them: Well, obviously, it's not the placebo effect (unless Prince Charles was right all along) but there are plenty of other candidates; confirmation bias, self fulfilling prophecy, regression to the mean, etc - or possibly nothing. This is similar to the 'god of gaps' argument; if it isn't A, and you can't immediately prove why, then it must be B. I think you're be a little disingenuous when you talk about 'a whole new phenomena'. Homeopathy has had over 220 years to find a repeatable, testable and creditable method of proving how it works and has so far failed to convince anyone other than other homeopaths, as the recent decision by the NHS underlines. The seemingly endless litany of anecdotes just isn't cutting it.

Me: I'm fully aware we may as well be speaking different languages, so I guess we are unlikely to ever agree, which is fine. Seeing something in practice time after time (and yet it should be impossible if as you say the science is right) does make me curious though. Anecdotes may mean nothing to you but seeing my child recover from croup within 10 minutes from struggling to breathing normally is pretty remarkable to me. As a mother that meant a lot. Helping someone else's baby not need to be in hospital every month and no longer need antibiotics since they've been working with homeopathy? As a practitioner that'll do too.

As for 'homeopathy has had over 220 years etc' yes, I find that amazing too. Many of the remedies used then are still being used, and, for example belladonna in certain types of fever, pulsatilla for some ear infections where the symptoms fit. How many drugs have come and gone out of fashion over that time? And yet homeopathic medicines are still there. Interesting. Or maybe not to you. I think I mentioned before, following the funding for research, is useful to me. Many (sometimes overused) meds were researched by the companies who developed the drugs. So there's no bias there. And intriguingly how many of these drugs are then withdrawn. I also saw reference recently to that just 11% of over 3000 treatments evaluated have been proven to be beneficial. Commonly prescribed treatments. Not homeopathy. So I'm unsure too if there's a gold standard we're supposed to be aspiring to. My results certainly feel way better than that.

To conclude: If the information or studies referred to are use to you to forward, replicate, then do feel free. For many years I would be more concerned about people asking about homeopathy, or feel I had to defend it. I'm happy to say I've moved past that place and whilst I feel incredibly passionate about it, I am happy for people to have their own (sometimes very polarised opinions) and chat about my side of the argument. As the Five Agreements so wisely teaches us - be skeptical but learn to listen.

​With love, Em x

Be the light.

In response to a a friend's Facebook post, I commented about agrohomeopathy and mentioning how a colleague has used to great success, a friend of a friend commented...'Wow, water with added water. Genius'

I must have been in the mood for a bit of a debate as usually, particularly on twitter, I bless and block and decide I've far more interesting things to do with my life. Still this day I decided to engage. I swam last night and a friend told me how much she loved my responses, so, as we all seem to run into a bit of this here and there, and for some it's a scary element of doing our job, I thought I'd share it here. No one should be afraid of speaking their truth, especially when they are doing great work in the world. Debate is to be encouraged I believe, I definitely learn from it myself, even though at school the debating stuff we did made me cringe and I hated it. My work is better for explaining it, whether that be by teaching it to individuals in clinic, groups, giving talks, chatting with interesting parties about the potential of homeopathy or responding (occasionally!) to people like I did here.

So here goes our wee debate:
 
Me: it’s amazing what water can do, today I’ve seen periods regulated, anxiety hugely reduced, hair regrowing, pmt gone, hayfever managed better than with antihistamines. Oh and rheumatoid arthritis this morning with inflammatory markers down. I am quite in love with water by way of homeopathy. Still to try it with my plants...
 
Them: I suppose if you told people you were just giving them water the fair enough (a fool and his money, and all that). But to dress it up in some pseudo scientific oogly - boogly is just plain cruel. I sincerely hope that you don't encourage people to stop taking actual medication and rely on your nonsense . If so, then shame on you.
 
Me: Thanks ****, if you get a chance to see the film Magic Pills when it’s showing near to you I’d recommend it’s worth a watch. A trial of 2.3 million people in Cuba where vaccine scientists created a homeopathic medicine when they had no time to produce the conventional vaccine produced results which showed it to be very effective. There are countless research trials and I’ll not go on about them here (I’ve fun stuff to do, not go on about work - whilst I’m here tho, of course I don’t encourage people to stop taking actual medication... but plenty of ppl consult me as they don’t want to take medication with side effects, or the side effects are affecting their lives, or they wish to reduce them once they feel better), but if you’re genuinely interested then www.hri-research.org is worth a read. If not then I wish you well, joking aside re water, as far as I see it, it is an amazing substance that is barely understood (at least by me - you may be far ahead of me there) and many of the Water Research Conference films are available to watch on YouTube which I find fascinating, though largely way beyond my scientific understanding. Hoping too you watched this week’s The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs and saw the subsequent links regarding Dr David Healy and his research around actual real medicine and the lack of efficacy of the majority of antidepressant drugs. I’ll dig out a link from a real dr for you so you don’t have to take my word for it. With best wishes, Em
 
https://davidhealy.org/the-greatest-failure-in-what-used-to-be-called-medicine/
 
Them: thanks for the reply. I watched Magic Pills, another by the numbers scare story with very dubious referencing. As for David Healey - an advocate of ECT and insulin therapy? What strange bedfellows you keep. I take your point about things being beyond your scientific understanding (I'm not educated beyond degree level) but at least I know there is such a thing as science. And this is were homeopathy has always failed. There are plenty of individuals who claim it works, but no significant studies that explain how it works. Which is odd, because if it operates as you claim, it up ends a lot of what we know about the physical universe. So where are the Nobel prize winners homeopaths? Such works should surely be at the forefront of scientific research. But its not is it? The debate takes place here, and on the backwaters of the Internet. We could trade references all night. I could direct you to Bad Science by Ben Goldacre or the Enemies of Reason by Richard Dawkins. I'm afraid people like you who propagate such treatments but openly refuse to follow that up with actual scientific understanding belong to the 'gee whiz' school of therapy. And before you suggest we 'agree to disagree' I will quote Richard Dawkins : 'Just because there are two opposing schools of thought, it does not mean that the truth lies halfway between them. Some people are just plain wrong'
 
Me: What I most find intriguing is your patronising tone, I'm assuming you're a friend of ****'s and personally am happy to respect that people have different opinions, and am intrigued by your opinion that anyone outside of that can't be. Having worked with this for the last 11 years in practice, alongside Drs (of both the medic and PhD variety), with a degree in science myself, and seen some amazing things, I'm curious about the fact there may be things 'science', a constantly evolving process, is yet to discover.

The fact we can't explain aspirin fully still, and yet used it for 70 years up to 1971 whilst not understanding any mechanism of action, the fact we're unable to explain anaesthesia and the fact that they're recently discovered a drainage system for the brain that wasn't known about when I studied neuroscience - are those not fascinating and to be explored further and not merely written off? There are plenty of studies, there are also plenty of people who would rather it doesn't work as it's sort of inconvenient really.

My introduction to it was via our horse who had been diagnosed with an incurable recurrent eye disease and was on steroid injections into her eyelid and anti-inflammatory meds, which were adversely affecting her liver. From the real vet. So when the real vet suggested that we remove her eye to fix having to take the real medications that were affecting her, we looked at other routes and managed to find locally a real vet who had discovered that homeopathy added a valuable tool to his tool kit and came, treated her with 5 days of tablets and there was never again any eye disease. Of course our real vet (the first one) told us in was in remission and it could return at any time. It didn't for 12 years. Were we lucky? Perhaps so. Other people since I've talked to have removed one eye, some have then found the second eye developed it and then you have a dead horse. I don't know what happened after 12 years because then she broke her leg and was sadly put down.

Curious how you've watched Magic Pills, as the film is currently in community screenings and film festivals but there may have been screenings near to you, love to know more about which bits you take issue with as of course was fact checked many times. The Queen's Dr features on there discussing research but of course that can be discounted too. As for the gee whizz school, I'm open enough to know that the mechanism of action may be beyond me but I have enough friends and colleagues working on that stuff they'll be sure to tell me about it. Since we're on a plant thread here, I've colleagues seeing that different homeopathic medicines put on plants have effects and you can distinguish the one from the other. Surely that's interesting? A plant isn't going to be duped by our pseudo-science and parting a fool from it's money?!

Having been to research conferences in Rome and Malta and looking at heading to one in London this summer (https://thesciencetheevidence.co.uk) where 2 Nobel Prize winners are speaking who both support the theories behind homeopathy, I feel am open minded and aware there are realities and mechanisms beyond me. I'm very happy to see what I do in practice, babies getting better when conventional medicine failed them and parents seek me out as a last resort, adults after years on antidepressants using homeopathy (one example of Abby who sent me this short film - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xem8kjpPzmk) and actually feeling content and happy for the first time in their lives. This is real people, real lives and the lab work is interesting but what ''people like you'' may be doing is denying people a chance to find something that actually makes them better. Enough of the 'shame on you' business. Always happy for a respectful debate but patronising and insulting isn't my style. Have a great Sunday, Em

So there it ended, until they decided to have a chat on my Facebook work page. But that's for another day.

Do let me know what you think.

Hold your head up high, 

With love,

​Em x