Phoenix Homeopathy

Deaths from medicines soar

As the modern pharmaceutical industry has grown, so deaths from conventional medicines have soared. According to a special report in The Independent newspaper, experts estimate that, at any one time, 5,600 UK hospital beds area occupied by patients suffering from drug reactions, at a cost to the NHS of over £450million a year.

We all know that orthodox medicines can be a life-saver, although they often help suppress the symptoms rather than tackling the real root cause of illness. But too often, for hard-pressed GPs with too many patients and too little time, they’re the first port of call, even before a proper diagnosis has been made.

A case of drugs before diagnosis

A member of my family recently developed severe menstrual problems and some double vision. Blood tests revealed that levels of one hormone were excessively high. From the clinical presentation, doctors were understandably convinced that she had a pituitary tumour, and strongly advised that she start taking Bromocriptine (Parlodel) straightaway, a heavy-duty drug used to treat Parkinson’s, with an enormous list of side effects (69% of patients taking the drug experienced some side-effects), including nausea, abnormal involuntary movement, hallucinations, confusion, dizziness, drowsiness, faintness/fainting, vomiting, asthenia, abdominal discomfort, visual disturbance, ataxia, insomnia, depression, hypotension, shortness of breath, constipation and vertigo. Nice.

Not wanting to risk upsetting her body chemistry unless and until she found out that this treatment was the only, and an essential, treatment option, and unwilling to take a drug like this on an unconfirmed diagnosis, she quite rightly insisted on an MRI scan to find the suspected tumour and confirm the diagnosis, first.

She had the scan, no tumour was found, and doctors now consider that the high hormone level is probably due to polycyctic ovary syndrome, meaning that Bromicriptinene would have been entirely the wrong drug for her to have taken, and she would have unneccesarily risked serious side-effects.

Find out if you’re at risk

Deaths from adverse reactions from suspected adverse reactions to prescription drugs has more than doubled in the past 10 years, so if you’re taking conventional medicines, especially if you’re taking more than one, or are elderly, make sure that you know what side-effects to look for and let your doctor know if you suspect your drugs are making you ill.

And if you’d like to discuss finding a natural way to get your body back into balance, contact Phoenix Homeopathy.

The latest copy of health store Holland & Barrett’s magazine Here’s Health asks “should homeopathy be available on the NHS?”. Faculty of Homeopathy member and reknowned homeopath Peter Fisher gives the ‘yes’ case, and homeopathy-sceptic Professor Michael Baum opposes it.

Readers are asked to vote on the issue.

Why not register your views?

The onslaught against homeopathy in some circles continues, with the news that health bosses at West Kent primary care trust (PCT) have recommended that NHS funding for their patients treated at the Tunbridge Wells homeopathic hospital be withdrawn. The hospital, one of five NHS homeopathic hospitals in the UK, currently treats around 1,000 patients a year, at a cost to the PCT of £160,000.

Spending £160 of NHS money per patient per year might sound a lot, but in healthcare spending terms, my view is that it’s likely to be good value, especially given the results patients reported from the treatment at a sister NHS homeopathic hospital. In 2005, the BBC reported that a study at the Bristol Homeopathic Hospital showed that over 70% of patients with chronic diseases reported positive changes after treatment.

More than 6,500 patients (with complaints as diverse as eczema, menopause and arthritis) took part in the six-year study. The biggest improvements were reported in children - in 89% of the cases of under 16s with asthma improvement was reported. Of the group 75% felt ‘better’ or ‘much better’, as did 68% of eczema patients under 16. This study has been criticised by sceptics of homeopathy, who argued that there was no control group, and that the results depended on patients themselves reporting how they felt after treatment.

Bear in mind, too, that (from my experience of private practice) most of the patients reporting improvements in the Bristol study will be people who have already exhausted conventional treatment options, and who have turned to homeopathy because they haven’t found conventional treatments helpful, or because they’ve found the side-effects unacceptable.

As I highlighted in my blog for Brighton’s Argus newspaper, a 2006 report by the Board of Science of the British Medical Association estimated that 250,000 people a year in the UK are admitted to hospital suffering harmful effects after taking medical drugs, at a cost to the NHS of about £466,000,000 (yes, that’s £466million) per year. Contrast this with the £160,000 cost of providing West Kent with homeopathic treatment options, take into account the excellent results reported by homeopathic patients in Bristol, and it’s easy to wonder why it’s homeopathy in the dock rather than medical drugs.

The problem for the West Kent PCT is that homeopathy doesn’t fit the accepted medical paradigm. But, as so many patients clearly feel that homeopathy helps their symptoms, it seems crazy to try to argue that the improvements they report are wrong.