Risks of Homeopathy

Homeopathic remedies are extremely safe and have no harmful side effects.  There is a risk of homeopathy medicine when needed therapies and/or diagnostic tests are excluded. In this case, a Homeopathy remedy and conventional medicine may be used hand in hand.

Two barriers that raise the risks of homeopathy:

• Time and patience are needed to find the right homeopathic remedy for your symptoms.  This process may take longer than using conventional medicine. Unfortunately, there is no standard remedy to cure every symptom. 
• The remedy must be matched to your particular symptom, where it occurs, what brings it on, what aggravates it and other symptoms you experience.
• If the remedy is not one of 30 or so commonly used and readily available, it may be difficult to obtain.

After starting a homeopathic remedy, some patients feel worse for a brief period of time.  This is interpreted as the body temporarily stimulating symptoms while it makes an effort to restore health.  A treatment should stop when a symptom clears up.  Otherwise the treatment may produce a recurrence of the symptom.

Risks of homeopathy can include liquid remedies that contain alcohol and are permitted to have higher levels of alcohol than conventional drugs for adults.  Some consumers may be concerned.  However, no adverse effects from the alcohol levels have been reported in Homeopathy literature or to the Food and Drug Administration.

If you are considering using a homeopathic remedy and currently take a conventional drug, consult with your healthcare provider.  Though Homeopathic remedies are not known to interfere with conventional drugs, each case should be handled on an individual basis.  If you have more than one provider, discuss with each one.

Other risks of homeopathy include:

• Reports of the sale of over the counter homeopathic drugs
• Lack of tamper-resistant packaging
• Improper labeling
• Products that contain vitamins or plants not listed in homeopathic references but are promoted as homeopathic
• Labeling is too vague.  For example:  “treats gastrointestinal disorders” is too general.  This could include a wide variety of conditions
• Though homeopathic remedies often contain only water and/or alcohol, in rare cases the original ingredients is present at detectable levels causing a risk of homeopathy treatment.  One report showed an unusually undiluted solution allegedly caused a small percentage of users to lose their sense of smell.  There were 340 cases settled out of court.
• In 1938 the U.S. Congress passed a law declaring homeopathic remedies be regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the same manner as over the counter drugs (non prescriptions).  Although new over the counter and conventional drugs must under go through testing and review for safety by the FDA, this requirement does not apply to homeopathic remedies.