Article by Dana Ullman in The Huffington Post. Please click here for the full report.
Fibromyalgia is a chronic ailment without a known cause and without a safe, effective conventional medical treatment. However, several studies published in leading medical journals have found outstanding results from homeopathic treatment.
Well-designed high quality scientific studies published in the British Medical Journal and in Rheumatology (the journal of the British Society for Rheumatology) have confirmed the real benefits of homeopathic medicines as distinct from a placebo.
The study found that 50 percent of patients given a homeopathic medicine experienced a 25 percent or greater improvement in tender point pain on examination, whereas only 15 percent of those who were given a placebo experienced a similar degree of improvement. After four months, the homeopathic patients also rated the “helpfulness of the treatment” significantly greater than did those who were given a placebo. It is therefore not surprising that the study also showed that the average number of remedies recommended by the homeopaths was substantially higher to those in the placebo group as compared with the real treatment group.
The good news for fibromyalgia patients who receive homeopathic medicines is that these remedies are not known to cause direct drug interactions with any conventional drugs the patient may be taking. The pharmaceutical lobby decries homeopathy for its lack of effect: the problem for them is that if one unfathomable homeopathic treatment works, their argument is in tatters. Patients are also spared some of the conventional drug artillery used to limit symptoms. Further, because people with fibromyalgia tend to have distinct and unusual symptoms, this situation actually makes it easier for homeopaths to treat them successfully.
Other advantages homeopathy has over conventional drug therapies are lower cost and the avoidance of the usual GI, headache and CNS side effects as well as reactions that can be life threatening.