General concepts of homeopathy

• In Spain, 30% of the population has used homeopathic medicines at some time.
• Homeopathy has very low occurrence of side effects, adverse reactions, or interactions.
• Homeopathic medicines can be a good tandem with conventional ones to treat some diseases.

Definition

Classically, homeopathy has been defined as a "."

A modern definition, consistent with the consideration of homeopathic products as medicines and with the exercise of homeopathy by health professionals, would be "". Two aspects are distinguished in the definition:

• A therapeutic method that approaches patients in a comprehensive way, selecting drugs according to a characteristic examination of the patient and complementary to the conventional one. This is how it is decided which medications the patient will respond to best both to alleviate their symptoms and to balance their body.
• A specific pharmacology, that of homeopathic medicines, described in homeopathic pharmacopoeias and regulated in the same laws as the rest of medicines. For this reason, unlike “natural” herbal products, they are only dispensed in pharmacies and are subject to specific quality controls.

Scientific, academic and social reality To place in facts and figures the rise of homeopathy in Spain, it can be pointed out that currently a 30% of the population have used homeopathic medicines at some pointEither by prescription or by advice in one of the 13,000 pharmacies that work regularly with these drugs.

About 10,000 doctors from various specialties (mostly pediatricians and general practitioners) use homeopathic medicines in both the public and private sectors. In addition, we can find more than 1,000 consultations of doctors specializing in homeopathy, although there are many more doctors who have been trained for it.

The doctor who wishes can accredit his status as a homeopath by requesting his registration as such in his College of Physicians, which will become effective when it is verified that his merits exceed the scale established by the Collegiate Medical Organization.

Health professionals can access numerous short courses in homeopathy in the form of seminars to get to know it better and be able to apply it in certain therapeutic areas.

However, the training that allows a professional to specialize in homeopathy requires one to three years and is carried out both in private schools and in Professional Colleges and in different Universities (among others Salamanca, Navarra, Alcalá and Zaragoza, being able to find in the latter a chair of homeopathy).

The acceptance of homeopathy in scientific circles, although accompanied by controversy, also occurs when biomedical journals admit numerous research articles on the subject, both in laboratory, human and animal research.

Safe drugs The big advantage is the security, understood as the. This is confirmed by published scientific studies (see the chapter on scientific evidence), which confirm the clinical impression of homeopaths: their patients do not normally experience any kind of side effect, not even in the treatment of pregnant or lactating women, of children, patients taking other medications, or those whose liver or kidney systems are damaged.

Even so, it is mandatory to declare to the health authorities all the side effects that occur when using this type of medicine in order to study them, and it is necessary to take into account the excipients of the medicines and other substances that can sometimes accompany the active principles. homeopathic.

One more option in the medicine cabinet Homeopathic medicines can not only be supplemented with conventional ones, but often form a good tandem.

For example, a doctor who administers antibiotics for an ear infection can use homeopathic medicines so that it does not recur; in case of or high fever, if the homeopathic or conventional treatment does not manage to alleviate all the symptoms by themselves, they can be associated to achieve it; Sometimes there is no conventional pharmacological treatment and homeopathy is the only option before opting for surgery, as in children's skin mollusks; often in chronic diseases such as asthma or, homeopathic treatment can help reduce conventional medication thus avoiding some of its risks.

Frequent reasons for consultation The problems that are most frequently seen in the homeopath's office depend on the type of patient: in kids, recurrent infections (pharyngitis,, vegetations,), eating and sleeping problems and allergies; in mens, digestive and urological problems (prostate, stones); in women, the,, hot flashes, helps with childbirth, recurrent genital and urinary infections; in general, skin problems, migraines, rheumatic pain (, fibromyalgia, ankylosing spondylitis, etc.) and mood disturbances (anxiety and); in the serious and terminal illnesses, and in particular cancer, is often used to alleviate the side effects of and (nausea, burns, fatigue, mood).

INFORMATIVE NOTE

The contents included in this section offer information related to existing therapies explained by specialists with experience in the field with a merely informative objective. MAPFRE In no case does it intend to position itself on its suitability or expressly promote its use.