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I just happened upon an article called  “Homeopathy For Pet Health” in the Spring 2008 issue (pdf) of Changing Times, a Christian fundamentalist newspaper in the New Orleans area.  Since it’s in PDF format, I can’t link to it directly, but it’s on page 22.

In case you don’t know how I feel about homeopathy, it’s a load of crap. It’s been shown time after time to the same effect as a placebo.  So why give it to your pets?  Here’s why:  you’re dumb.

Full Disclosure:  I used to work for the people who publish this newspaper, but I did not work directly on this particular newspaper.

I’ve decided not to pursue this further. The Ambra Grisia didn’t work, although the homeopath says that these things usually take between one and five months to work. Honestly, I’m just not that interested anymore. Sorry for being so anti-climatic, but well…we all knew it would end this way.

To help offset the shock of all this, here’s what an ant hill looks like if you fill it with plaster and have a business professional stand next to it:

Yesterday I got an envelope in the mail from my homeopath. The moment I’d been waiting weeks for: what substance did he send me?

Inside the envelope were two packets labeled “Ambra Grisea 200x”.

Yes. Ambergris. A perfumy substance from the digestive tract of the sperm whale. The preparation is definitely suited to my personality. Ambergris can be found floating in the sea, so its harvest doesn’t require the killing of a whale. So even though synthetic ambergris does exist, it’s possible that this is the real thing.

The Ambra Grisea in the envelopes were in a dry grain form, like sugar. Apparently, for homeopathic preparations, the ambergris is diluted with milk sugar, or lactose.

The hand-written instructions said to dissolve the first packet under my tongue 30 minutes before or after eating dinner and brushing my teeth. I chose after. It was hard to get all the little pellets under my tongue though, but I got most of them. The taste was very pleasant. It tasted like an artificial sweetener. I have to take the second dose this afternoon. So far I feel no effects, but I’ll wait it out and see what happens.

On Sunday I had my appointment with the homeopath. It wasn’t quite what I expected, but I really didn’t know what to expect. Out of respect I will not give his name. I will instead refer to him as Dr. Homey O’Path.

I spent an hour and a half there, mostly talking about myself, which I love to do. He wanted to know not only about the condition I wanted to try to treat, but a lot of things about my life and history: whether I got made fun of school, how my sinus infection makes me feel, what my interests are, etc. Ambulocetus even made it into the conversation, which pleases me.

Then he explained to me that his job now was to examine the notes he’d taken and decide what the best course of action would be. He showed me his software that would allow him to enter symptoms and return a list of suggested preparations, with extensive cross-referencing. I have to admit, I had a difficult time not chuckling when I saw that one of the symptoms was “Abandonment”, and that it was cross-referenced with “Forsaken”. There are actually homeopathic preparations for feelings of abandonment. I’d hate to be the guy that gets misdiagnosed as feeling abandoned when what he really needs is forsakenness medicine. But I digress.

So where do we go from here? In the next couple of days, Dr. O’Path will send me a homeopathic preparation, and I will take it and see how it goes. After that I may go back for a follow up. I have no expectations that this will work, and I made sure that Dr. O’Path knows this.

Overall, the appointment was a positive experience, mostly because I love talking about myself. And he had a small pot on his desk containing several cacti in Tahitian moon sand with a lamp directly over it. I like that kind of thing.

In preparation for my visit to the homeopath, I decided to look into what kinds of homeopathic products are out there. It’s pretty interesting.

When you look at these, keep in mind the basic tenet of homeopathy: The Law of Similars, or “like cures like”. If a substance gives a healthy person fever, it will actually cure a sick person suffering from fever if you dilute it in water, alcohol, or other liquid. The dilutions are usually one part active ingredient per 10^6 to 10^30 parts water.

So here we go. All three were found in the homeopathy sections of LifesVigor.com. I’m not even scratching the surface here.

Coffea Cruda -” a homeopathic remedy to help relieve insomnia, restlessness, and encourage restful sleep…Helps to reduce difficulty falling asleep.”

Ok, it’s coffee. Unroasted coffee. Yup. The 30X means that it’s one part coffee in 10^30 parts water, or one part coffee in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 parts water. First of all, does anyone honestly think this will do anything? Second, why would anyone spend money on this? It’s coffee and water!

Poison Oak/Poison Ivy Relief - “a safe and effective homeopathic remedy to ease the redness, itching and swelling associated with poison oak and poison ivy.”

So guess what this one’s made of! Poison mushroom, nuts, and poison ivy. Highly diluted of course.

Tabacum - “a homeopathic remedy for relieve from headache accompanied by nausea and dizziness, or vomiting.”

Yeah, it’s just tobacco. A very little bit of cigarettes apparently does the opposite of what a lot of cigarettes will do. Seriously, these things make fun of themselves! What do they need me for?

A few weeks ago my company held a “wellness” fair that included not only dentists and eye doctors, but a chiropractor, an acupuncturist, a hypnotist, and a homeopath. Of all those pseudosciences, homeopathy scares me the least by far. I had a pleasant conversation with the guy in which I revealed that I do not believe in homeopathy and he revealed that homeopathy cured him of a horrible ear infection. I mentioned that I would try it for free, and he informed me by email the next day that I won a free consultation, which includes the homeopathic remedy. I told him that if he can get rid of my chronic sinusitis, I’d be impressed.

I do not expect to be impressed.

The appointment is on February 3rd. I’ll let you know how it goes. I think this will be an interesting experience.

And for those not familiar with homeopathy, I think James Randi explains it best: