I bought on October the 5th, 2005, an homeopathic drug for my sinus problem. The product is made by the pharmaceutical firm Hyland. However, what good you could have gained by using this product is counterbalaced by the a false claim from the pharmaceutical firm that made it and I want the public and my patients to know it.
"...Homeopathy is different from conventional medicine because the philosophy of conventional medicine defines health as a lack of syptoms (If a drug dries up a runny nose and your cold is gone, you are healthy.) The philosophy of homeopathy defines health as a lack of disease. (If we get rid of the source of the runny nose, the body is absent of disease and you are healthy.)"
This claim is a misconception (it is also found in En Carta Encyclopedia). The drugs used in conventional medicine, for example, are far more potent than the drugs used in homeopathic medicine; therefore, the drugs used in conventional medicine are more capable to get the organism rid of the source of its disease, they can eradicate it while the homeopathic drug can only alleviate the symptoms. It is just the contrary of the claim of Hyland.
Conventional medicine also has a preventive branch that works very well and very specifically with vaccination, medical assistance in counseling, regular control or check up, for example, that does not have homeopathic medicine. This branch goes well beyond simply the cure of symptoms.
In the American Heritage Dictionary, homeopathy is defined as "a system for treating disease based on the administration of minute doses of a drug that in massive amounts produces symptoms in healthy individuals similar to those of the disease." Therefore, homeopathy deals only with symptoms not with the cause of an illness since by provoking the apparition of a symptom it teachs the organism at reacting unspecifically to its apparition. That can only work for mild illness. Homepathy lacks also, in the same way, specificity in dealing with diseases and, in many cases, fail to treat them.
In my experience with homeopathic drugs, I have hoped that homeopathy would work well in preventing illness due to stress and would even work better in this field than conventional medicine, but it was mostly deceptive. I most instances, I had to cut the posology that came with the medication and, even after that, have experienced side or undesirable effects. Giving priority to drugs over physiological means to prevent illnesses is also a dangerous trend to follow since it make those people who tend to overdo dependent of a drug or of drugs, in general. In the preventive branch of conventional medicine, stress is better deallt with counseling about nutrition, rest and exercice, all physiologic and natural means that are, from a medical point of view, more desirable than the artificial means of taking a drug. Conventional medicine used artificial means only when all natural means fail. It cannot be said the same for homeopathic medicine. I found also that some preparation of homeopathic drugs sold over the counter may be as well, if not more, toxic as many preparations of conventional drugs, (and it was the case for the Hyland's sinus drug I bought yesterday which made me feel sick), or, in any case, homeopathic medicine is doing more harm than conventional medicine.
To understand the mechanisms of diseases, conventional medicine uses a more analytic, rational and scientific approach than homeopathic medicine which uses a more global, philosophical and even mythical one. Finally, modern trends and advance in conventional medicine, particularly in the field of "genetic engeneering" (dealing mostly with DNA technology) and "stem cell research" (dealing with primordial or embryonic tissue), tend to overshadow the old and overaged (vetusal) concepts of homeopathic medicine and may soon strangle the later which will be extinct.