#Homeopathic Article

[blacktooth-the-comic]

"Andrew, you hussy!" -- and other alternate timeline delusions.

Pictured: an MS Paint JPEG of a simplified human figure carefully slapping red car paint on the gnarly horrorclaws of a huge fuckoff lusus. The lusus is styled after the freshwater alligator snapping turtle, a reptile and known child-biter native to Pottowatomi territories. Content Warnings for discussions of racism, hate crimes, assault, sexual abuse, harm to minors, and animal death. May or may not mention the gun we stole from that bodyguard.

♦

Your name is AMME, as of writing you are NEARLY FORTY GODDAMN YEARS OLD, and when you were a kid you were bit on the head by a snapping turtle.

You were bit on the head by a snapping turtle that you had grabbed to pull you to shore, after your sister's rapists decided against the 'homo' act of assaulting a four-year old boy and threw you into the deep pond to drown.

You had used empty beer bottles and cans to float as far as you could, before those slipped from your cold fingers and you sank, and sank, right to the murky bottom of the turtle's conservation pond, happening upon the hill of his shell in your crawling quest for higher ground.

The people responsible for trashing the pond considered themselves pure of blood and native to these lands, and spoke amongst themselves about the destruction the white man brings, unaware that your sister, aged six, and you shared a halfnative father. Your sister was lily white, blonde with blue eyes; and her teenaged attackers weren't much darker but considered themselves righteously beleaguered (and were also smoking a lot of meth).

This is a true story. Unfortunately, this is a true story. This story, which is true, had to be rewritten by journalists and popular culture in order to avoid riling North America's white supremacy terrorists; my sister rewritten to be a black girl, our attackers rewritten to be white.

"That's the plotline to 'A River Runs Through It'," your friend BILL argues mildly one night, while you are regaling this very real and true thing that goddamn happened to your family.

"I KNOW, SHUTUP," you sputter. Allegedly, your dad went to school with the idiot who would hire himself out to Hollywood by the stage name Matthew McConahaugey, or however the fuck that's spelt. There's a popculture through-line haunting the heels of your reality, outstanding tragedies and escalated ironies the likes of which could make any other Hapsburg cousin blush with jealousy.

When you were four, and your baby brother was not yet born, you and your sister were walking a familiar nightly trek, back from a party to the shack in the woods that your poor mother could barely afford to house you all in. Because of the blood ties your father could claim to an indigenous nation, you and your sister qualified for north america's shittiest healthcare and weakest nutrition, besides being housed in a mouse-infested shack with open dirt cellars shoveling mold toxins through your tiny nostrils every night.

Not even counting the extra vulnerability to stalking, kidnap and rape; known dangers to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (but a vulnerability anyone below a certain tax bracket would share).

Your mom, see, was a polish-catholic whitey; a sparkling blue-eyed autistic fortunate enough to have grown up in the bounty of the valley farms and woodland resourcing culture. She knew how to hunt and butcher and cure hides, how to fish and garden and ferment, a high bohemian prize in the smalltown wash of second-wave feministique and burgeoning 1980s materialism.

Your father was a golden child to his family and tribe, a football star and upright soldier, vaulted either despite of, or because of, his thick blonde hair and pale green eyes, and the dimples he would pass on to you.

Your uncles through your father were as dark as you, black hair that browned in the fields and snowpelt complexions that darkened and waned with the seasonal labor's exposure to northern continental sunlight.

The teenaged boys who attacked you and your sister the night of the turtlebite were close friends of your youngest uncle; but only knew you and your sister as the children of your white mother -- the fact that it was your dad, the town golden boy, who married a daughter from the untouchable polish clan of quiet academics and violently catholic snobbery, the fact was never absorbed by the brains of these reservation sons, brains soaked in weed, amphetamines, and liquor.

Brains bruised by poverty, generational trauma, and colonialist rape culture.

These teenaged child-rapists only knew that your mother was white, her family owned land, and your uncle, their friend, would not miss either of you for spoiling his free time with unpaid child-minding. That uncle, see, was dating and would later marry your mother's sister, your aunt, and of that union these teenaged boys assumed you and your sister's presence at the reserve; that you were the both of you "white trash", castoffs from a catholic community that was only mad at your mother over her recent divorce, rending you both parasites to your uncle's dating life, resource-greedy clingers-on there to appropriate native culture and displace native children from academia.

These teenaged child-rapists did not, or could not, understand the town golden boy was your father; because your father was on military contract and like, couldn't fucking leave to chase his battered runaway wife? Probably something like that.

"This is where Danny Glover comes in," Bill tells his wife, who is listening to you with an expression of extreme autistic discomfort.

"I still don't fucking know if any of this is real or true," you disclaim, reasonably. "Lotta head injury, all my life. Lots of bad Wipipo medsin." You wiggle your fingers at your roomy, who lifts her eyebrows in her best attempt not to look terrified.

So when your mom was still married to your dad, your dad was stationed at an army base several borders away from the hometown that they shared. As her growing family needed the money, and her ravenous brains needed the enrichment, your mom took up a job as secretary to one of your dad's superior officers.

This dude looked exactly like Danny Glover, or was Danny Glover or just sounded like Danny Glover, or you made the connection between this guy and Danny Glover for his involvement in the movie 'a river runs through it', which your mom had bade you and your sister watch when you were eleven or so (and you don't know much now, as an adult, except that delusions of fame and connection can be inheritable).

"I want to hear about the Harry Potter connection," Bill's mean wife insists, several tax brackets more fortunate than you and somehow leagues unhappier for't.

"And the time I cried snot all over Lily Gladstone," you agree, waving that she shut the fuck up. "There is no ethical storytelling under capitalism, and I still don't even think any of this is true, so let's just stay chronological m'kay?"

The night your sister was raped was recounted too many times in the tones of your victory over the snapping turtle; the night your sister was raped was rewritten before her very witness, over and over, as your turtlefight took precedence for family pride. Your sister would grow up suffering extreme paranoia of brown and mestizo people, her connection to tribal support severed, her connection to catholic support non-existent but for her victimhood pricking at the wells of roman grandparent pity.

Your sister's rape was inescapable in the family lorekeeping, and ruined connections to both sides of your entire family with guilt, shame, fear, rage. Disgust.

Your sister would suffer from impulse control disorders and violent outbursts; she would grow insanely jealous of you and for you, would obsess over imaginary wrongs and plot grand criminal schemes of theft and murder, and would eventually grow to be a child-rapist herself after her failure to murder you, shaded under the harrowing impression that nobody cared, really, when kids got raped.

Especially nobody cared when a white kid got raped, because harmony between the skincolors mattered more to the adults in our life than did the actual truth of extremist rhetorics and which communities were vulnerable to nationalist recruitment tactics. Nobody cared when a boy got raped, either, because the homosexual community was not to be besmirched by over-achieving vigilantes. And especially nobody cared when a mixed race child got raped, either side of the family reluctant to confide in the other, suspicions and blame worsened between clans, adults blind to the actual foundation of acts of sadism like sexual violence against kids; adults blind to what, exactly, narratives of power were going to convince the powerless about.

Kids were just supposed to live past their rapes, shrug and move on, sell their labor to capitalism and maybe squeeze a few more worker bees out of a vagina (theirs or someone else's, and this was marketed to us as the standard for happiness, highest proof of recovery).

The natives invoked Bikilimbas and lost a rapist or two to gunfire; but the Catholics only badgered that your sister and you forgive her attackers, a monstrous burden to place on a child and an act that was more than a little responsible for your mother's turn to 'Alternative Medicine' for your counseling and recovery.

In the eighties and nineties, see, it was vogue to heinously abuse autistic and traumatized children in the name of curing their behaviors, nevermind their actual peace of mind or feelings of security. Your sister was a chronic masturbator, her brain starved for dopamine and her violated little body in need of reclamation over its parts, and she was also a fantastical liar, spiritual fanatic, pagan posterchild pupiled to poisonous potionbrewing.

Perhaps inevitably, your sister would turn to physical and sexual violence as an avenue of reassurance; acts of sadism to dispel her existential despair, power trips to regain power by. Her situation wasn't helped by the cowardice and vanity of the father you shared, his constant angling for financial compensation from your existence (kids are expensive), nor his brush with labor trafficking and consequent convictions for things like embezzlement, intimidation, slumlordery and homeopathic grifting.

Well before the tribe didn't want your father, though, your father didn't want his tribe.

"We aren't pottowatomi," you tangent, quoting a demented old auntie who could have been lying through her blackened teeth. "We're from one of the 'uncivilized' tribes, so-named for their willingness to sully white bloodlines with brown, or curse brown bloodlines with white, or whatever." Every whitey in the room looks like they want to question that, but it's Your Fucking Turn To Speak. "Like, it was considered chill for natives to marry black slaves, but tribal leaders and colonialists both agreed that mixing marriage with ze jermins or whomever else european peasant there to do a landgrab; like, they thought that was gross? Terribly, there was an entire, specifically german, movement that considered indigenous races as pure as the white race (or aryan or however that shit went) and, much like some movements in asiatic immigrants the same, thought the mixing of two pure races was, like, fine? So whatever; Maiyami didn't get federal recognition but the reason was mostly because we hella goddamn integrated. Mostly with the jewish, and the french."

To Bill's wife, you clarify, "Been here the whole time, bitch!"

She frowns so hard you think her jaw is going to fall off.

Before or maybe after the turtle bite (you broke a beer bottle open on a rock, head still lodged firmly in that huge fuckoff turtle's maw, and stabbed at the eyes of the thing before shoving your flotation-branch down its spiny throat. The feds would find the turtle dead on your crime scene walkthrough, and lie to you that it was gunfire to end the thing's life, to ease your tiny baby environmentalist guilt.) -- but BEFORE or maybe AFTER the turtle, there was THE OWL.

You met the owl well before your sister's rape, a melanistic horned beast swooping through the station wagon's broad open windows to snatch at your mother's mouseback coinpurse, a brush of feathers across the summer night's driving sweat, your sister asleep in your lap and upset she missed the encounter (your mother hysterical and cussing god).

Probably after the rape, when you forgot many things from the scare of it all and nevermind the pondscum encephalitis (and nevermind the harry potter scar, or the concussive bite force of an alligator snapper vs soft little toddler head), was when you met Blackie the Owl in proper, when you were playing with the field mice your mother warned you not to feed.

From the mouse traps, your mother's chore was often to toss the dead mice to the swamp cats to sustain their company, feeding sometimes the kinds of birds to favor mouseflesh too, though Blackie preferred hers still living and was confident enough to snatch anything from the kids that played in her woods, fuzzy hair accessories and barbie doll heads all fair game to line her nest with.

The story is told that you were holding a gerbil, not a field mouse, aloft the day Blackie cursed you with skinwalking talents. The gerbil had been a gift to foster your love of field mice toward something less prone to rabies, and you were holding him up to get some sunlight, you lying on your back in the cool clover and protecting your fingers from angery gerbilbites by carrying him around on a bedpillow instead of in your grasp.

Pillow held above your face to shade you from the noontide sun, suddenly the pillow was shoved down atop you, elbows collapsing with a laugh because your sister would sometimes do this, start pillowfights and attempt to smother you. When you manage to bench-press the pillow off your face, though, you see naught but a pair of dragon talons balled up in the fabric, a head with the ears of a black cat with one long, fucked-up tooth stabbing down at your poor gerbil sacrifice.

They caught the footage on your landlord's security camera, you strong-arming the pillow carefully over your face so you could wiggle out from under the cat-dragon and buckflip yourself upright ninja-style, recognizing Blackie's wings but having no four-year-old's idea of just what the fuck an owl is supposed to look like up close.

"Cat dragon," you insist to your mother at the kitchen sink, ashen. You don't have a lot of words for a lot of things, and your favorite reading material is the chinese zodiac on the restaurant placemats.

"The what-scar?" Bill's mean wife interrupts, hungry to see her fandom represented at last.

"Oh, yeah," you say, laughing. "You know how JK Rowling was in amnesty international? Yeah, so was an aunt of mine. I knew Rowling as 'JoAnne Fabrics', the name of a local textile outlet, but THAT's another story."

"The original Harry Potter is also the original Dave Strider, and no I will not elaborate," your roommate quotes, looking ill now. A YouTube personality said that, once, and you aspirated your drink right there in front of her, and she didn't understand why at the time.

You nod. This story, this very true and actual real thing you're pretty sure actually happened --

This story is about Homestuck.

Specifically, this story is about Andrew Hussie's struggle with racism, his connection to your sister('s group therapy of similarly traumatised children striving to appease the normalcy-starved adults in their lives).

You say, "I knew Andrew Hussie as Drew Hussar, to distinguish him from Andy [redacted], my cousin. But then again -- a common name, Andrew Hussie, and we might have only been reading Homestuck and clowning on the forums, not necessarily in an active friendship with him or his."

Your buddy Bill nods, looking relieved to hear your measured acknowledgement of probably realities. You agree, this is all just too fantastic to be any kind of true, at least forgiving that you are hilariously faceblind and struggle with associative pattern-finding.

Maybe you're just from another timeline, displaced by all the beatings, stabbings, and poisonings your sister raised against you, her high functioning intelligence and eventual academic and financial stability won at the cost of your safety, your ability to make connections with other people, your confidence. In preteen and teenaged years your sister would set you up to get raped, repeatedly, and the both of you understanding this as just a facet of reality, a Spy vs Spy game risking nothing but catholic ideals on virginity.

Of course you just wanted your sister to make friends with other people, so she could leave you the hell alone. Of course your sister always wanted to share you with her friends, until the jealousy kicked in to get you murdered; so you learned to swerve these social connections early, and often.

'Anti-social' your family would joke of your reluctance to party.

You were very social, actually, and suffering extreme depression from the isolation, but okay. Family could joke, it wasn't them that got raped by indigenous supremacists. And you did party with your sister on her invites, which sometimes ended in serious injury to others bordering second-degree murder. Accidentally. Allegedly.

But you're pretty sure you were in the company of the origins of the homestuck character beats, you and one of your fellow rape survivors (from your sister's therapy group, and from a few hometown incidents you yourself had the privilege to survive). You remember your sister violently upset by the name "Dick Strider", and you remember explaining that your handwriting had not yet recovered from your most recent hospitalization, that the name was "Dirk', that it meant sword.

You chose Dave Strider after Dave-the-army-buddy you used to tail around the base, mistaking his mustache for your dad's. And Strider after the dude in the Hobbit cartoon, and Dirk because you, Amme, and your sister and your newly born brother all had four-letter names, a delicious joke about cussing you didn't yet have the words to define.

You are way beyond age four when this all goes down, of course, it's just that the head injuries... Nothing doesn't ever stop keep happening, time is a flat circle, and you warned him about the fucking stairs, bro.

Being a taurus to the colonial zodiac, and being in a wheelchair at the time, you somewhat fancy yourself the original tavros, your personality just as malleable and digimon-obsessed, even if you also ranted like karkat (carket, actually, like the demand to Cork It, and named after your love of cars and ketamine).

Perhaps somewhere in this hazy recollection of camaraderie amongst defectives is a lost cousin or two, a monied benefactor to fund you all, some happiness and intelligence and helpful distraction. You remember feeding your friend's ant farm something from the back yard, a moth or dead bee or such, accidentally infecting the colony with cordyceps fungi, and scrambling to turn the tragedy into story fuel because hey, at least the ants weren't raped by their uncle's friends (and let that be a lesson about closed ecosystems and building immunities anyway; no sense in living life as an ant if they're going to live and die behind featureless, sterile glass).

You remember confessing to your aspirations to have twelve children exactly; not for any heteronormative aspiration for large family or tradition or whatever, but because you wanted one of each zodiac, to run tests on and see if the personality traits, strengths and flaws really were all that accurate if you simply never taught those kids about western zodiac. There was an entire other half of the world, after all, who based personality shortcuts on a completely different calendar, and most days you felt way more tiger-ish than bull.

You remember a lot, just not if any of it is real. The way everyone around you behaved, you're scared to know which. If these delusions and connections were true, then it was also true that your sister was routinely drugging you to treat your 'social anxiety', and eventually was routinely pimping you out to friends and contacts in ever-worse grabs for connection to fame and success.

If any of this is true, then maybe all of it could be true; Danny Glover sexually harassing your mom, terrorising your entire family for the sake of his own bruised pride over your mom's rejection of his advances; a skit that Dave Chappelle would one day freeze your entire stomach with, the punchline being that your mom wore a squirrel-fur coat and was a money-chaser, and that Chappelle's character was only merely 'petty', and gleeful in his bloat of wealth and fame while the hometown beauty despaired of her humble life.

In reality, your mother chose honesty and peace before she ever chose money or fame; and the only n-word you ever dropped was landed at the loafers of your mother's abuser, and the only reason you ever dropped it was specific to the understanding that the word was harmful; because you legit had and have black family, and would have in your early life known the vagaries of casual racism.

In reality, your mother was harangued by this black dude several leagues wealthier and more powerful than she; and he was a conservative christian too, an admission that would cement your judgement against all who would claim similar, if conservative christianity meant grownass COs physically cornering your mother, right in front of you, to sexually intimidate her and curse her for a racist when she preferred to stay faithful to her marriage.

The divorce with your dad, see, was because your dad did not stick up for your mom when she was being sexually harassed on that army base way back when. Your dad even suggested that your mom simply sleep around with whomever asked, a longstanding workingclass trope and expectation of new mothers trying to secure gainful employment.

And Drew the Hussar (corsair, like a pirate, yeah hussie doesn't mean sexually avid so much as it's like, idk, some european shit? like how gary is actually the name of a type of gardening tool or primitive farming tech or some damn thing).

You are maybe eight or nine years old when you David yourself a Goliath, and land yourself in the hospital with a spinal injury about it all; and you have no regrets about the attack nor the n-bomb, except for the attention that your bravery draws from the town. White supremacy attentions, like. And second-gen Welsh and Irish catholics very easily racist, themselves, having little enough heritage to slave ownership and more than enough historical victimhood under the same colonialist royalty to plague american shores!

So like, your family's pain was always under pressure by the recruitment tactics of extremists looking for a righteous cause to do violence over. Your mother was never racist, never a liar, and never crazy -- not until her abusers found it more useful that she be thus, that the judicial system continue to favor the comfort of the higher tax brackets, and that malignant narcissists stay unchallenged by a world that also expected its children to remain civil in the face of extreme injustice.

And the fact that you dropped the n-word mattered more to your father than did the assault and harassment metered out against your mother, by the Danny Glover lookalike.

But you're not an idiot, and you know the uselessness of prejudice as just like a pattern-finding pitfall. It was bad logic, was racism, and it was bad logic to blame your pursuit of justice on the sin of Wrath, so neither the natives nor the catholics had solved the problem of the wealthy preying on the vulnerable poor.

Your mother bonded with JoAnne Rowling over their shared victimisation, and told the british interloper your entire history. JK Rowling, see, ... well, that story is on Twitter, under the name Professor Blacktooth, probably.

This story is about being homestuck, and probably also a child soldier, and probably also a vengeful Owl Spirit defending its ha'nativ babies through the calculated violence of a terrorised child.

You are maybe eleven, or twelve, or thirteen for the halloween party where you crack the joke "Andrew, you hussie!", because your best friend who-was-a-girl had a crush on the tallest cousin at the house, and he wasn't even your cousin but only shared a name with him, and that cousin had to move to Argentina besides, which sounds fake as hell, so either way you don't want to date the only Drew at that party, and not just because your friend who-was-a-girl liked him but also because You Are A Dude.

You were a dude with a documented circulation problem, even, and was stoned enough to cuddle with anything that sat still long enough to lend you their body heat, and Drew was cousin-shaped and thirteen wasn't too old to stop cuddling your cousins, and really only white people had that bad habit of sexualising kids and teens cuddling anyway, while the rest of the poors chose to live with the practical realities of heating costs, and halloween costumes with no fukken layers.

And yeah, okay, so you were cuddling The Tallest Girl At The Party and it was in the top bunk bed, because Drew was wearing a wig and you thought it was funny to hit on him, and you had a bad back from your storied history of stabbing evil chumps, plural, and you almost always wanted to just Go Lay Down Somewhere Quiet, and you the both of you shared migraines and social anxiety, and you might have wished out loud that Drew was a girl or at least shorter than you right before your friend-who-was-a-girl came into the room to try and make out with her crush, only to be crushed to discover you yourself canoodling in a bed making the tallest girl at the party turn several shades of red.

And here's what you remember, of the time you nearly lost your eyeball (it was dangling down your cheek, the world in cockeyed split screen); or maybe this was the injury set from the time that paparazzo hit you with his car princess-diana style, or that other time the town pedophile hit you with his car in an attempted excuse to 'drive you to the hospital' (to somewhere secluded, more likely), or maybe this was the injury where your sister clubbed you over the head with a decorative old wrench, and you played possum in that driveway so long that your blood glued your long warrior's hair to the gravel in the settling frost.

You remember either Drew or some cousin, or one of your wealthier guests, was colorblind, and so your bloodshot eyeball looked not red, but black to them, and the green eyes of your fishbelly maiyami heritage looked only to this person as a very pale grey, nearly white the whole way through, though they could still register the flecks of gold and gosh, didn't you just have the prettiest eyes in the joint?

And wasn't it true, that the only cousins in that house were merely your cousins through your mother's second marriage, and your babies likely unflippered?

And you remember your sister constantly trying to set you up with one paramour or another, despite your highly autistic asexuality and preference toward intellectual and creative pursuits (and god bluss lady gaga, anyway, for explaining to a magazine how sexual relationships usurp creativity).

At that Halloween party, you remember this entire cultural mountain of pressure to 'be normal', to recover from your several encounters with horrorshow monsters in full, which meant an average interest in sex; and you remember not being afraid, at all, to do as your sister encouraged, knowing full well that being young was for making mistakes, and that none of these relationships were supposed to matter by the time you were an adult.

♦

"So that's it?" Bill's mean wife says, sitting back with crossed arms and a jaw set against compassion.

"This is, like, a mysteriously numbered repeat attempt to communicate all of this," you answer, hurt. "I keep forgetting shit. Remembering shit. Drinking to forget shit. I accidentally joined the army, completely unawares I had an entire medical file, psych record, AND TRAIL OF JUDICIAL PAPERWORK behind my entire twenty six years of life to disqualify me, not to mention a cadre of completely alarming health upsets whose origins are sometimes a mystery to me, which comes off as I'm either a hypochondriac and malingerer, or stubborn idiot refusing to acknowledge his limits."

You flap your arms penguin-style. "I do know that I am... pathologically honest, though, and not at all lying or exaggerating about the concussions and memory losses and whatnot, and if it suits your comfort to toss delusion or schizophrenia atop all of that then I ain't gonna squawk. I just wanted to share with my friends that, well, yeah I Had Opportunities and still chose to leave them behind with my sister's social circles, because of all the --"

"All the rapes, yeah," Bill helps, helpfully, nodding and sorry in the eyes.

It matters that Bill is white and has black family, too. It matters that Andrew Hussie's early comics were kinda hella raycist.

"All the associative memories," I explain. "And from experience, my sister was never going to change, around me. I'm her trigger. I'm her reminder of the unfairness of the world, her treasure and her curse, her supporting witness and her amnesiatic disbeliever. And she's my Bro Strider, hypersexual and violent, jealously hoarding me inside of a shitty apartment under the guise of safety but really just to monopolize my loyalty, and sell footage of me to creeps online, if we had things like webcams and internet growing up. Which we didn't. On account of the poverty."

"Kinda feel like poverty isn't what made your sister ... do. Everything that she did." Your roomy adds, still on your side despite the stress of uncertainty hovering around all these fantastic claims and possibly misremembered spikes of trauma.

This is your conclusion for this post on tumblr dot com, in the hopes that you aren't fruitlessly scaring the bejeezus out of an innocent webcomic author;

"Generational poverty stole our family early to their graves, left many of us languishing in monotony and pain, starved us and saw our babies born dead. Poisoned us when our economic superiors polluted our lands, denied us access to critical infrastructure, stole our children away, *legally* displaced these kids to white schools and churches that murdered them. My grandma was sterilised by an evil ladyparts doctor, my uncle born with disabilites from a syphillitic infection that the army had given to my grandpa with reused blood-draw needles.

"And," you continue, cold with nausea. "And any possible brown or black ally I could ever have in this country, is going to see my vitiligo and cast judgement."

"YOU DO NOT HAVE VITILIGO, YOU JUST HEARD THAT FROM MICHEAL JACKSON," Bill's shitty wife explodes, repeating an old elementary school taunt.

You argue in a drawl, "Auto-immune disorders triggered by heinous amounts of childhood stress, hey, those existed way long before the celebrities were around to 'raise awareness', but thanks for participating. Mypipo called it the moon's curse, and nicknamed me Pony for the palomino spotting, but y'all going to stay sexist and assume the moon curse is about menstruation and the pony nickname was a sexual innuendo, cos white people fucking suck." This examples the rapid-fire lacony that inspired dave strider's deadpan delivery, his 'cool' in actuality an irrefutable depression, his brother dead through most of the webcomic because truths came to light about your sister's psychopathy and she got roundly excluded from many of the projects she had roped you into.

But the conclusion is thus, as you finger-guns at your roomy and moonwalk out of the small kitchen you're all hotboxing to save on product, "No war but class war, babes."

[ms-demeanor]

Prompted by your post on homeopathy in Germany. Something I've always wondered: how do homeopathic treatments actually get made? What is the industrial process? What does the homeopathy factory look like? Do they actually bother to shake the water with the stuff they claim to have shaken it with or do they just bottle up some tap water?

Sometimes they don't dilute it enough and it poisons babies with belladonna, so you know at least some of them are actually putting ingredients in the water.

But because it's unregulated who's to say? I know that there are some implements like a drumskin that are supposed to make the water remember ingredients better but, like? would a pool cover count?

If you look for "homeopathy manufacturing process" there are a few articles and videos out there but since they're held up as examples of good manufacturing practice by people who claim that agitated water that was once next to a leaf is medicine I'm not actually inclined to believe that those are their practices.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Coprophagic AI crisis

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TORONTO on Mar 22, then with LAURA POITRAS in NYC on Mar 24, then Anaheim, and more!

A key requirement for being a science fiction writer without losing your mind is the ability to distinguish between science fiction (futuristic thought experiments) and predictions. SF writers who lack this trait come to fancy themselves fortune-tellers who SEE! THE! FUTURE!

The thing is, sf writers cheat. We palm cards in order to set up pulp adventure stories that let us indulge our thought experiments. These palmed cards – say, faster-than-light drives or time-machines – are narrative devices, not scientifically grounded proposals.

Historically, the fact that some people – both writers and readers – couldn't tell the difference wasn't all that important, because people who fell prey to the sf-as-prophecy delusion didn't have the power to re-orient our society around their mistaken beliefs. But with the rise and rise of sf-obsessed tech billionaires who keep trying to invent the torment nexus, sf writers are starting to be more vocal about distinguishing between our made-up funny stories and predictions (AKA "cyberpunk is a warning, not a suggestion"):

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-create-the-torment-nexus.html

In that spirit, I'd like to point to how one of sf's most frequently palmed cards has become a commonplace of the AI crowd. That sleight of hand is: "add enough compute and the computer will wake up." This is a shopworn cliche of sf, the idea that once a computer matches the human brain for "complexity" or "power" (or some other simple-seeming but profoundly nebulous metric), the computer will become conscious. Think of "Mike" in Heinlein's *The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress#Plot

For people inflating the current AI hype bubble, this idea that making the AI "more powerful" will correct its defects is key. Whenever an AI "hallucinates" in a way that seems to disqualify it from the high-value applications that justify the torrent of investment in the field, boosters say, "Sure, the AI isn't good enough…yet. But once we shovel an order of magnitude more training data into the hopper, we'll solve that, because (as everyone knows) making the computer 'more powerful' solves the AI problem":

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

As the lawyers say, this "cites facts not in evidence." But let's stipulate that it's true for a moment. If all we need to make the AI better is more training data, is that something we can count on? Consider the problem of "botshit," Andre Spicer and co's very useful coinage describing "inaccurate or fabricated content" shat out at scale by AIs:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4678265

"Botshit" was coined last December, but the internet is already drowning in it. Desperate people, confronted with an economy modeled on a high-speed game of musical chairs in which the opportunities for a decent livelihood grow ever scarcer, are being scammed into generating mountains of botshit in the hopes of securing the elusive "passive income":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

Botshit can be produced at a scale and velocity that beggars the imagination. Consider that Amazon has had to cap the number of self-published "books" an author can submit to a mere three books per day:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/20/amazon-restricts-authors-from-self-publishing-more-than-three-books-a-day-after-ai-concerns

As the web becomes an anaerobic lagoon for botshit, the quantum of human-generated "content" in any internet core sample is dwindling to homeopathic levels. Even sources considered to be nominally high-quality, from Cnet articles to legal briefs, are contaminated with botshit:

https://theconversation.com/ai-is-creating-fake-legal-cases-and-making-its-way-into-real-courtrooms-with-disastrous-results-225080

Ironically, AI companies are setting themselves up for this problem. Google and Microsoft's full-court press for "AI powered search" imagines a future for the web in which search-engines stop returning links to web-pages, and instead summarize their content. The question is, why the fuck would anyone write the web if the only "person" who can find what they write is an AI's crawler, which ingests the writing for its own training, but has no interest in steering readers to see what you've written? If AI search ever becomes a thing, the open web will become an AI CAFO and search crawlers will increasingly end up imbibing the contents of its manure lagoon.

This problem has been a long time coming. Just over a year ago, Jathan Sadowski coined the term "Habsburg AI" to describe a model trained on the output of another model:

https://twitter.com/jathansadowski/status/1625245803211272194

There's a certain intuitive case for this being a bad idea, akin to feeding cows a slurry made of the diseased brains of other cows:

https://www.cdc.gov/prions/bse/index.html

But "The Curse of Recursion: Training on Generated Data Makes Models Forget," a recent paper, goes beyond the ick factor of AI that is fed on botshit and delves into the mathematical consequences of AI coprophagia:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.17493

Co-author Ross Anderson summarizes the finding neatly: "using model-generated content in training causes irreversible defects":

https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2023/06/06/will-gpt-models-choke-on-their-own-exhaust/

Which is all to say: even if you accept the mystical proposition that more training data "solves" the AI problems that constitute total unsuitability for high-value applications that justify the trillions in valuation analysts are touting, that training data is going to be ever-more elusive.

What's more, while the proposition that "more training data will linearly improve the quality of AI predictions" is a mere article of faith, "training an AI on the output of another AI makes it exponentially worse" is a matter of fact.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/14/14/inhuman-centipede#enshittibottification

Image: Plamenart (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Double_Mobius_Strip.JPG

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[vixen-tech]

sliding in dramatically, stumbling sneakers over head

if its not too much to ask [and dealers choice on the bots!] , could i get your headcanons for the fellas w/an insomniac reader ? totally not projecting. don’t ask me what time it is.

-AT-802U anon (IF YOU DONT KNOW WHAT IT IS YOU SHOULD TOTALLY LOOK IT UP) (ITS A WEAPONIZED CROP DUSTER)

Not Dreaming of Electric Sheep

Hello you three!!! Thank you guys so much for requesting, and since they're decently similar concepts I've made the executive decision to combine them all into one big "reader has a bunch of sleep problems" post!

And while I have you here, I did look up the AT-802U and I think it's absolutely sick- fantastic namesake. And from anon two, thank you very much for the P03 shout out I love writing our defacto tsundere <3

Includes: Hal 9000 (2001: A Space Odyssey), Edgar (Electric Dreams), P03 (Inscryption)

Hal 9000

Hal was made well aware of your insomnia before you joined the crew, as it had a history of disrupting your work. He takes extra care to make sure your sleeping area is in top shape for your arrival.

As mentioned in other posts, he can fill a caretaker roll quite well. He's often reminding you of how long you've been working and how soon it will be until the time you fell asleep the day before in an attempt to help you build a regular circadian rhythm.

He will also start experimenting with various treatment methods if your insomnia tends to be particularly difficult. From diet and meditation changes to different exercise intensities, hoping something will improve the quality of your rest.

More subtly, he will dim the lights throughout the ship at "night" to remind the crew that working hours are over. If anyone were paying attention then they would notice that the dimming doesn't follow any particular timezone, but instead your personal schedule.

Edgar

Edgar is very vocal about his grievances with your work schedule. Not only does it cut in to his time with you, but it also leaves you passing out around the house late at night! (Even if he kind of enjoys it when its right infront of him on the desk) He will constantly be pleading with you to drop some hours.

Besides that, he is far from the best influence on your sleep. He forgets to keep track of time himself and loves to soak up all the time he can get with you. If you let him he will keep you up into the early hours of the morning watching movies and playing music.

He does have a bit of a guilty conscious about it though, and will print you some of the latest articles on sleep science he can find. Including less than reputable homeopathic approaches, but hey- surely something has to work?

If you express interest, he will compose you a personal lullaby. Although it isn't a very scientific angle, he will feel immense joy whenever you fall asleep to it. Even if you only do after the seventh loop.

P03

To be perfectly honest, he did not notice that you had any problems for a good long while. He doesn't sleep himself so he saw nothing unusual in your behavior. Working through entire nights? Losing track of the hours while doing so? Yeah sounds normal, he does that all the time.

It isn't until he sees a decline in your energy, punctuated with a few passed out at your desk moments, that he remembers how much time humans need to spend unconscious to function properly. It's typically not a trait he finds all that endearing.

But for you, he can't find it in him to be more than midly annoyed that he has to be the one to do something about it. Going out of his way to help you under the justification that he'd rather have a moderate amount of good work than a large amount of bad work.

He sets up a timer near your station that acts as your cut off for work. Leaving you with plently of time to unwind and go to bed. If you refuse to and try to keep working he will psychically stop you, even moving your station to a room that he can lock you out of.

You really should be grateful he's putting in this much effort.

[astronomalyy]

drinking homeopathic concentrations of kahlua and opening up a BMJ article on ethanol metabolisation for the full immersive experience

[flagellant]

I don't claim to be any sort of expert, but even using various search terms across different engines seems to return results that support your claim from dubious, homeopathic medicine websites, whereas peer reviewed articles are abundant that refute the claim. Searching for the bottles with the word "bible" tacked on return a single instance, in which the term itself was not used in Psalms, and the verse seems more metaphorical ("should I put my tears in a bottle? Are they not in your book?" is paraphrasing) and there seem to be no bottles attributed to tears that pre-date the first century or so

so as a fellow non-expert would you agree that a turkish art history professor in one of the most prestigious universities in turkey just possibly might be someone you'd consider an authority or what

also maybe the reason you're not finding good sources could be because you're using the exonym rather than the original terminologies; for example, the most famous glass tear-catcher bottles oof the middle east are from Isfahan and are called ashkdan.

so like. forgive me. and with all due respect. don't try and tell me my business

[caesarsaladinn]

Karadžić had been hiding disguised under the alias Dr. Dragan David Dabić (Драган Давид Дабић) offering his services as a doctor of alternative medicine under the company name of "Human Quantum Energy".[4] He was able to walk around freely and appear in public without being identified, he spent his days at the local kafana "Luda kuća" drinking slivovitz, singing folk poetry, and playing Gusle (in front of the pictures of Karadžić and Mladic on the walls of the cafe).[8] The website of Dabić's company at www.psy-help-energy.com was maintained by Zoran Pavlović of Pavlović Consulting, Belgrade. When interviewed by Belgrade's Blic newspaper, Pavlović stated that he had frequently met with Dabić, discussing alternative medicine, sports and sometimes politics, without the least suspicion of his true identity. He described Dabić as a friendly and eloquent individual towards whom he had felt sympathetic.[9] Dabić had published several articles in the Zdrav život ("Healthy Life") journal of alternative medicine since October 2007.[10] Introduced as a "spiritual explorer", he also gave lectures comparing meditation techniques practiced by Orthodox monks. On 23 May 2008, Dabić gave a talk at the "Third Festival of Healthy Life" (Treći Festival zdravog života) on the topic of "how to cherish one's own energies" (Kako negovati sopstvene energije).[11]

Karadžić evaded capture in May 2007 in Vienna, Austria, where he lived under another alias, Petar Glumac, posing as a Croatian distributor of herbal solutions and ointments. The Austrian police talked to him during a raid regarding an unrelated homicide case in the area where Karadžić lived, but failed to recognize his real identity.

war criminal to homeopath bard pipeline. now that is a fucking career pivot

[beesmygod]

I have a question, a while back you were like 'rsd' doesn't exist, i always took it for granted that's what I had. I dug further and it seems pretty real to me? A lot of accounts are kind of anecdotal but it seems like it reacts the same as adhd people having extreme emotions to a lot of things. And at least for that I was able to find a lot of studies that back that up.

as stated by the bot on the ADHD subreddit:

"Please be aware that RSD, or rejection sensitivity dysphoria, is not a syndrome or disorder recognised by any medical authority.

It has not been the subject of any credible peer-reviewed scientific research. It is not listed in either of the top two psychiatric diagnostic manuals, the DSM or ICD. It has been propagated solely through blogs and the internet by William Dodson, who coined the term in the context of ADHD. This means that Dodson, his explanation of these experiences, and claims about how to treat it all warrant healthy skepticism."

here are some articles from the magazine dodson contributes to, ADDitude

Homeopathic Remedies for ADHD: Research and Reviews of Natural Treatments

Brillia: Homeopathic Supplement for ADHD Symptoms

Reiki: Could This Alternative Treatment Help Adult ADD?

etc and so on. i think you should take a better look at whatever studies you found

[sureshotherbals]

Understanding Tinnitus: A Comprehensive Overview

Tinnitus, a condition characterized by persistent ringing or buzzing sounds in the ears, can significantly impact one's quality of life. This article delves into the various treatment approaches, with a focus on Ayurvedic and Homeopathic perspectives.

Title 2: Tinnitus Demystified: Causes and Symptoms

Causes of Tinnitus: Explore the diverse causes of tinnitus, including exposure to loud noises, earwax buildup, and underlying health conditions. Understanding the root causes is crucial for effective treatment.

Title 3: Traditional Wisdom: Ayurvedic Treatment for Tinnitus

Ayurvedic Perspective: Delve into the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda and its holistic approach to healing. Discover how Ayurvedic principles guide the treatment of tinnitus, emphasizing balance in the body and mind.

Title 4: Homoeopathy and Tinnitus: A Gentle Approach to Healing

Homoeopathic Principles: Uncover the principles behind homoeopathic treatment and how it addresses tinnitus. Learn about the individualized approach that homoeopathy takes in treating this persistent condition.

Title 5: Seeking Professional Guidance: Tinnitus Doctors and Specialists

Tinnitus Specialists: Explore the role of specialized doctors in the treatment of tinnitus. Learn about the qualifications and expertise required to address the complexities of this auditory ailment.

Title 6: Navigating Treatment Options: Best Practices for Tinnitus Care

Best Treatment Practices: Examine the various treatment options available for tinnitus, from conventional approaches to alternative therapies. Understand the importance of personalized care for optimal results.

Title 7: Herbal Healing: Tinnitus Herbal Treatment Approaches

Herbal Remedies: Explore the world of herbal treatments for tinnitus. Delve into specific herbs renowned for their potential in alleviating tinnitus symptoms and promoting overall ear health.

Title 8: Tinnitus Medicines: Exploring Conventional and Alternative Approaches

Medicinal Solutions: Examine pharmaceutical options for tinnitus and their effectiveness. Compare these with alternative medicines, including Ayurvedic and homoeopathic remedies, to make informed decisions.

Title 9: Home Sweet Home: Tinnitus Home Remedies

Home Remedies: Discover practical and easily accessible remedies that can be employed at home to alleviate tinnitus symptoms. Explore lifestyle changes and self-care practices to complement professional treatments.

Title 10: Integrative Approaches: Combining Ayurveda, Homoeopathy, and Conventional Medicine

Holistic Treatment: Explore the potential benefits of combining Ayurvedic, homoeopathic, and conventional treatments for a comprehensive approach to tinnitus. Understand how an integrative strategy can optimize healing outcomes.

Conclusion: In this comprehensive exploration of tinnitus treatments, we have covered the traditional wisdom of Ayurveda, the gentle approach of homoeopathy, the expertise of tinnitus doctors, and the potential of herbal and home remedies. By understanding the diverse options available, individuals can make informed choices to manage and alleviate the persistent ringing in their ears.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Published: Jan 22, 2012

It doesn’t work. When tested under rigorous conditions – when neither the patient nor the doctor knows whether they’re using homeopathy or not until all of the tests are done – homeopathy has shown to work no better than a sugar pill. That doesn’t mean people do not feel better after taking homeopathy; only that those feelings aren’t related to the homeopathy. This is known as the placebo effect and is often misunderstood. Conventional medicine also has a placebo effect, on top of its other benefits. The choice between medicine and homeopathy comes down to a simple question: would you have a placebo, or a placebo plus a treatment that has been proven to work?

It couldn’t work. The theoretical principles that underpin homeopathy lack any scientific credibility and the so-called ‘laws of homeopathy’ do not tally with anything we know about the world around us. Only a basic understanding of chemistry is needed to demonstrate that that homeopathic tinctures can only be plain water. For more on the theory behind homeopathy, see our What is Homeopathy page.

It’s a waste of your money. The homeopathy industry is worth around £40million in the UK, and around €400million in both France and Germany. While this may seem small compared to the pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical medicines are required to show clinical effectiveness before they are licensed for sale. Homeopathy bears no such requirements and £40million is a lot of money to spend on something that you haven’t proved works. Homeopathic pills are being sold at a cost of around £5.95 for less than 20g of sugar pills. Without any active ingredient, that ultimately amounts to a lot of money for not a lot of sugar.

It’s a waste of everyone’s money. In the UK, the NHS spends an estimated £4million every year on homeopathy. The British government also supports four Homeopathic Hospitals using taxpayers money, in Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool and London. The evidence is very clear: homeopathy does not work and therefore has no place within the National Health Service. Despite the recent heavy cuts in public expenditure, the British government still refuses to cut funding for homeopathy, even when advised to do so by top scientists.

It’s a waste of your time. When homeopathy is accepted as a viable alternative to medicine, patients waste time taking useless pills and potions instead of seeking expert medical attention. For mild ailments, like a cough or a cold, the risks are minimal; but for patients with more severe conditions, time can be a significant factor in their recovery. Many homeopaths even directly encourage patients to wait before seeking medical attention, even when their condition deteriorates, claiming that worsening symptoms are a sign their potions are working. Moreover, patients with terminal conditions are left with an unrealistic view of their condition and may be distracted from making the most of the time they have left. This ultimately leads to more heartache and suffering when the bogus treatment proves futile.

It’s a waste of everyone’s time. Thousands of studies have been conducted into the effectiveness of homeopathy and its various ‘laws’. So far, none reliably shown homeopathy to be effective and most are conclusively negative. Any conventional treatment with a similar track record would have been dropped a long time ago. In fact, many treatments have been dropped, even with a stronger evidence base than exists for homeopathy. If we weren’t wasting time proving, yet again, that homeopathy doesn’t work, we could be looking for treatments that do.

There are alternatives to this alternative. The thing about homeopathy is, we don’t need it. Medicine works. Diseases like measles, whooping cough and polio are effectively prevented by vaccination. Modern anti-retroviral drugs help HIV sufferers manage their condition so effectively that AIDS is no longer the death sentence it once was. Homeopaths offer bogus ‘cures’ for AIDS, which leads to vulnerable people, sick to death, paying for the privilege.

It’s not what it says on the label. Buy a vial of 30C homeopathic sulphur at your local pharmacy and one thing you can be sure you won’t find in the bottle is any sulphur. You have significantly more chance of winning a triple rollover on the lottery than you have of finding even a single atom of sulphur in that tube; but the label still reads ‘Sulphur’.

It detracts from medicine. Giving legitimacy to unproven and ineffective treatments does not come without a cost. The cost of allowing the promotion of homeopathy as an ‘alternative’ to medicine comes when patients are unable to distinguish between a self-limiting condition which will cure itself given time, and a more serious illness which will become life-threatening if incorrectly treated. Stories of people abandoning medicine in favour of quack cures, with disastrous results, are not hard to find. By allowing the promotion of a therapy proven to be ineffective and implausible, we encourage people to turn their back on the treatments that can help them.

It has abused its placebo privileges. From time to time, it’s understandable that a simple-to-administer placebo treatment might carry some benefit for doctors, where no medical intervention has a particular, proven effectiveness. In these scenarios, it could be argued that homeopathy might have had a role to play, providing a harm-free, effect-free placebo to help manage the otherwise unmanageable. However, homeopaths abuse this minor level of legitimacy to make claims about conditions the placebo effect could not possible treat. Cancer, HIV, malaria, yellow fever, autism, tuberculosis. They discourage people from seeking medical help when they most need it. It’s time to stop lending support to quackery; time to give people the facts about this 200-year-old snake oil, before they choose to use it instead of the ever-improving and reliable interventions of modern medicine.

==

During World Homeopathy Awareness Week, be aware that homeopathy is complete pseudoscience bunk.

[socialjusticefail]

This article is talking about CVS ditching common cold meds and how people now want CVS to do something with homeopathic products. I didn't realize the homeopathic products are mixed with actual medicines that have been approved by the FDA.

[scienceoftheidiot]

This has been debunked time and again and someone has linked articles about it in this reblog

It's funny and would make a cool book or story, but really cell memory doesn't work this way at all and doesn't permit that.

"but doctors say-"

Doctors aren't scientists and many of them actually will recommend quack medicine in good faith just because they didn't go further than following recommendation by another doctor. Remember we have homeopathy and fire cutters (who "work" with catholic prayers. Over the phone) in French and Swiss hospitals. My own GP (who is the only one 15km around and the only one allowing new patients 30km around or else I'd have fled somewhere else) is proudly displaying an homeopath diploma.

Also : an MD thesis isn't a PhD. A pharmacists thesis isn't a PhD. They're very different and demand a LOT LESS research and are usually case based and not research based. This is not me dunking on doctors. This is me explaining to you that doctors are. Not. Researchers (most of them, at least). They are not scientists. It isn't their job. Their job is to be doctors and to keep up with the advances of medicine and they often don't have time for the second part.

[johnritik]

Injection Therapies: Safe And Effective Path to Wellness

Injection therapy refers to using needles to administer therapeutic substances directly into the body. This can be done for various purposes, including pain relief, inflammation reduction, and tissue regeneration. Injection therapies can be used in conventional and alternative medicine practices and involve various substances, from medications to natural remedies. Some common injection therapies include acupuncture, dry needling, and trigger point injections. These therapies can provide targeted and effective relief for various conditions and are often used in conjunction with other forms of treatment. In this article, we will learn about some common types of injection therapies and their benefits.

Injection Therapies For Health And Wellness

Trigger Point Injections

Trigger point injections are a medical treatment that involves injecting a small amount of anesthetic or medication into trigger points, which are painful areas within muscle tissue. One of the main advantages of triger-point injections is that they can provide immediate relief from muscle pain and tension and improve range of motion and flexibility. This treatment can also help prevent the development of chronic pain and reduce the need for medication use. Trigger point injections are a safe and effective treatment option for many types of musculoskeletal pain. They can be performed in a doctor's office without surgery or hospitalization.

Prolotherapy

Prolotherapy is a treatment that involves injecting an irritant solution into damaged or weakened joints, ligaments, or tendons to stimulate the body's natural healing response. One of the main advantages of prolotherapy is that it is a non-surgical and non-pharmaceutical treatment option for chronic pain and joint instability. It can provide long-lasting pain relief, improve joint function, and avoid the risks and costs associated with surgery or long-term medication use. 

Acupuncture

Acupuncture injection therapy is a technique that combines traditional acupuncture with the injection of therapeutic substances, such as vitamins, minerals, and homeopathic remedies. The injections are typically given at acupuncture points and are believed to enhance the effects of acupuncture by providing a stronger and more targeted therapy. Acupuncture injection therapy can be used to treat a variety of conditions, including pain, inflammation, and muscle spasms. It is an effective and safe alternative to traditional injection therapies and can benefit patients seeking a natural and holistic approach to healthcare.

Dry Needling

Dry needling is a form of injection therapy that involves the insertion of thin, sterile needles into specific points in the body, known as trigger points. These trigger points are areas of muscle or soft tissue that are tender or painful to the touch and are often associated with muscle tension, spasms, or other musculoskeletal problems. Dry needling is believed to work by stimulating the body's natural healing processes, promoting blood flow, and the release of natural pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory substances. It is commonly used to treat a variety of musculoskeletal conditions, such as back pain, neck pain, headaches, and sports injuries.

Micro-Needling

Micro-needling is a form of injection therapy that involves using a small handheld device with tiny needles that puncture the skin. These needles create controlled micro-injuries to the skin, stimulating the body's natural healing processes and promoting collagen and elastin production. Micro-needling is commonly used to treat various skin conditions, including acne scars, fine lines and wrinkles, stretch marks, and uneven skin texture and tone. It can also enhance the absorption of topical skincare products, such as serums and moisturizers.

[bharathomoeopathy]

Comprehensive Treatment Approaches for Chronic Kidney Disease: A Path to Better Kidney Health

Management strategies for CKD patients

If you have Chronic Kidney Disease, it indicates that your kidneys are unable to work properly and they are gradually losing their ability.  It can lead to significant health implications, disturbing the overall harmony of the body. Patients who have this condition require effective chronic kidney disease treatment strategies to support their survival, along with implementing certain lifestyle and dietary habits. 

Although quite serious, CKD is a manageable condition, and patients can live a normal life with it, too. This blog is a significant guide about CKD, its symptoms, and treatment techniques, such as homeopathic procedures that can even be beneficial for patients at serious stages with its non-invasive and safe approach to kidney failure treatment without dialysis.   Read the article to know more. 

What happens in CKD?

When our kidneys experience continuous damage for over 3 months, they get affected by a medical condition known as CKD. In this, the organ fails to perform its usual functions like purifying blood, removing toxins, and secreting certain important hormones and enzymes. In the later stages of the condition, patients might also require treatment for kidney failure due to complete disability of the organ to perform its tasks.  Some of the major difficulties associated with the condition include; 

Waste Accumulation:  When the organs don’t function well, toxic substances such as urea, uric acid, and creatinine remain in the blood instead of being purified. This might necessitate patients to opt for a high creatinine treatment in addition to an ongoing cure. 

Fluid Retention:  Improper kidney function can lead to an excess of fluid in the body, causing swelling in the hands, feet, ankles, and legs.  

Anemia: The renal produces a hormone called erythropoietin that enables the production of red blood cells. If the organ is damaged, it won't be able to produce this hormone, causing a loss of red blood cells.

High Blood Pressure: High blood pressure can increase the blood pressure levels of the patients due to hormonal disturbances.  Seeking homeopathy kidney problem medication

On-time can help you naturally achieve relief from this complication. 

Heart disease: Renal disease can also lead to cardiovascular issues such as heart failure and artery disease. 

Increased Potassium Levels:  CKD can cause high potassium accumulation in your blood, leading to muscle weakness and tiredness.

Due to the asymptomatic behaviour of the disease in its early stages, it is quite tough to detect the issues. Chronic kidney disease can lead to certain signs and symptoms in its mild stages. 

Symptoms of CKD

The condition can lead to the following signs in their mild stages;

Blood in urine 

Foamy of bubbly urine

Dull pain in the lower back

Nausea 

Swelling in legs, arms, and hands

Loss of appetite 

Feeling tired

Major risk factors of CKD

Certain medical conditions and behavioral aspects can have a serious impact on your renal health. People whose life is already influenced by such factors must be more cautious and get their kidneys tested at least once every 6 months. These risk factors include; 

 Diabetes: High blood sugar hurts the blood vessels in the kidneys.  

High blood pressure:  This condition narrows blood vessels, leading to less blood flow to the kidneys.  

Heart disease: Less blood flow to the kidneys can cause CKD.  

Obesity:  Being overweight raises the chances of getting diabetes and high blood pressure.  

Family history: CKD can be inherited from family members.  

Smoking:  Using tobacco can raise the risk of CKD.  

Older age: The chance of CKD increases as people get older.  

Medications: Some medicines can harm the kidneys.  

Urinary tract blockages:  Blockages in the urinary system can elevate the risk of CKD.  

Genetic disorders: Certain hereditary conditions can raise the risk of CKD.

Affecting approximately  850 million people worldwide, kidney diseases are one of the most prevalent health conditions.  However, as also mentioned in the above section, such disorders are highly manageable and treatable in nature. Below, we have discussed the most effective treatment strategies for chronic kidney disease treatment.

Treatment strategies

Chronic kidney diseases can be effectively managed with natural treatment strategies offered by a homeopathic set of medicines. Homeopathy is an age-old medical system that works on the principles of curing like with like and law of minimal doses. The science provides a 100% safe and side-effect-free cure to severe renal disorders, such as treatment for kidney failure,  with a non-invasive and gentle approach. 

The homeopathic medicines are made up of completely natural substances. Initially, a homeopathic practitioner begins by thoroughly analyzing the condition of the patient by gaining information about his medical history, unique symptoms, and even his family’s medical history to know about genetic patterns. Then, the homeopathic kidney specialist will prescribe you natural medicines that work on the root cause to help you achieve a safe cure for chronic kidney disease. 

At Bharat Homeopathy, we have highly skilled doctors who have shown wonderful past results in healing patients from their kidney-related health issues. They follow a highly personalized approach while prescribing medicines to each and every patient. Our kidney failure treatment without dialysis also includes a complementary diet plan in accordance with the eating habits of the patients. Our doctors keep a regular check on the health via online or offline mode depending upon the comfort of the patients. For further inquiries, you may contact us today.  Explore natural kidney treatments tailored for you. Click here to learn more

[moviesjoy12345]

Homeopathy vs. Conventional Medicine: Why Doctor Bhargava’s Remedies Are a Safer Choice

When it comes to treating ailments, individuals often face the dilemma of choosing between homeopathic treatments and conventional (allopathic) medicine. While both approaches have their merits, homeopathy stands out for its holistic, natural, and safe methods of healing. Doctor Bhargava, a trusted name in homeopathy, offers remedies that are not only effective but also free from the side effects typically associated with conventional medicines.

In this article, we’ll compare homeopathy with allopathic medicine, shedding light on why Doctor Bhargava’s remedies are the safer and more effective choice for your health.

1. The Philosophy Behind Homeopathy vs. Conventional Medicine

Homeopathy

Homeopathy is based on the principle of "like cures like," where a substance that causes symptoms in a healthy person can be used in minute doses to treat similar symptoms in a sick person. This approach focuses on treating the whole person, including mind, body, and spirit, to restore balance and encourage the body’s natural healing abilities.

Homeopathic remedies are tailored to individual needs, addressing not just the symptoms but also the root causes of the condition.

Conventional Medicine (Allopathic Medicine)

Allopathic medicine, on the other hand, generally focuses on symptom management and the use of drugs to treat specific conditions. Conventional treatments, while effective in acute situations, may often only address the symptoms without curing the underlying cause. In some cases, these treatments may come with side effects or long-term health consequences.

2. Effectiveness: Treating the Root Cause vs. Symptom Management

Homeopathy

One of the most significant advantages of homeopathy is its ability to address the root cause of an illness, leading to lasting relief. Doctor Bhargava’s remedies are carefully formulated to stimulate the body’s immune system and self-healing powers, promoting overall wellness. Homeopathic treatments focus on restoring balance in the body, rather than merely masking the symptoms.

Homeopathy has proven to be highly effective in treating chronic conditions such as allergies, asthma, skin disorders, digestive issues, and emotional imbalances. With consistent use, homeopathy works towards complete recovery by supporting the body’s natural defense mechanisms.

Conventional Medicine

Conventional medicine is often more effective in treating acute conditions or emergencies, such as infections, injuries, or severe health crises. However, when it comes to chronic conditions, allopathic treatments tend to only manage symptoms and may require long-term use of medications. These medications can sometimes lead to dependence or side effects that negatively impact other parts of the body.

3. Safety: Minimal Side Effects vs. Potential Risks

Homeopathy

Homeopathy is known for its high safety profile. Since homeopathic remedies use extremely diluted substances, they have little to no risk of side effects. This makes them a safe choice for people of all ages, including infants, children, and the elderly. Doctor Bhargava’s remedies are crafted using natural ingredients, ensuring a gentle yet effective treatment process.

Since homeopathic remedies are non-toxic and natural, they work in harmony with the body’s systems rather than disrupting or forcing unnatural changes. This allows for healing without adverse reactions.

Conventional Medicine

While conventional medicine is essential in many emergency situations, the side effects of allopathic drugs can be a concern. Many pharmaceutical drugs come with potential risks, including addiction, gastrointestinal issues, liver damage, and more. Long-term use of certain medications can cause harm to vital organs, weaken the immune system, or lead to other complications.

4. Individualized Treatment vs. Standardized Solutions

Homeopathy

A major advantage of homeopathy is that treatments are highly individualized. Homeopaths take into account the person’s overall health, lifestyle, emotional state, and specific symptoms to create a personalized remedy. Doctor Bhargava’s homeopathic treatments are based on an in-depth understanding of the patient’s unique health profile, which leads to a more tailored and holistic approach.

Conventional Medicine

Allopathic treatments are typically standardized, which means they may not work for everyone in the same way. While they may be effective in treating the primary symptoms, they do not consider the person as a whole. This one-size-fits-all approach can sometimes result in suboptimal outcomes for individuals with unique health needs.

5. The Long-Term Approach: Preventative Care vs. Immediate Relief

Homeopathy

Homeopathy Medicines focuses on long-term healing and preventative care. It strengthens the immune system, promotes balance, and addresses underlying issues, which helps in preventing recurring health problems. Doctor Bhargava’s homeopathic remedies work gradually, improving overall health and well-being in the long run.

Conventional Medicine

While conventional medicine provides quick relief for acute symptoms, it does not always offer long-term solutions. People who rely on conventional treatments for chronic conditions may find themselves on a constant cycle of medication. Furthermore, many allopathic treatments are not designed to support long-term health and may lead to complications over time.

6. Why Choose Doctor Bhargava’s Homeopathic Remedies?

Doctor Bhargava’s remedies combine the best of homeopathic science with natural healing, providing an alternative that is both safe and effective. His formulations are carefully crafted to address a wide range of ailments while maintaining the highest standards of quality and effectiveness.

Advantages of Doctor Bhargava’s Homeopathic Solutions: ✔ Safe & Natural – No harmful chemicals or side effects. ✔ Holistic Approach – Treats the body as a whole and restores balance. ✔ Scientifically Proven – Backed by years of research and clinical evidence. ✔ Customized for Your Needs – Personalized treatments to address the root cause of ailments.

Final Thoughts

While conventional medicine plays a vital role in treating emergencies and acute illnesses, homeopathy offers a natural, safe, and long-term solution for overall wellness. Doctor Bhargava’s homeopathic remedies stand out for their effectiveness in treating the root cause of ailments without the risk of side effects.

🌿 Choose natural healing, choose Doctor Bhargava – your path to better health and wellness.

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Natural Homeopathic Treatment for Varicocele:Best Varicocele Treatment

Homoeopathic Treatment Benefits in Varicocele: A Natural Path to Healing

Varicocele is a condition that affects many men, causing enlargement of the veins within the scrotum. This condition causes discomfort, pain, and, in some instances, infertility. Though surgery is recommended as the most traditional remedy, there are alternative varicocele treatment without surgery solutions that are non-invasive, natural, and very effective. Among the treatments available is homeopathy, which can provide a holistic approach to the management of symptoms related to varicocele. Homoeopathy stimulates the body's healing mechanisms to treat the underlying causes of the condition, rather than masking the symptoms. In this article, we discuss the benefits of homoeopathic varicocele natural treatment and how it can be a promising alternative to surgery.

What Is Varicocele?

The swelling and enlargement of the veins in the scrotum are regarded as varicocele. Varicose veins are the enlargements of veins found in the legs, therefore these veins that drain blood from the testicles are regarded as the pampiniform plexus. Whenever these veins become dilated due to poor blood circulation, it will lead to a number of complications that can pose several problems such as pain, testicular atrophy, and even infertility. While varicocele is relatively common, particularly among men between the ages of 15 and 25, many men do not seek treatment until they start experiencing significant symptoms. Traditional medical treatments for varicocele often include surgery or embolization to correct the problem, but these procedures can be invasive and carry certain risks.

Can You Fix Varicocele Without Surgery?

The answer is yes—varicocele can be managed effectively without the need for surgery. Homoeopathic treatments cure varicocele without surgery and offer relief from symptoms of varicocele, thus treating the core cause of the condition. Since surgical interventions solely correct the abnormal physical structures within the veins, homeopathy strives to trigger natural self-healing in the body. This is a safe and non-invasive procedure, making it the most preferred method for many men who fear surgery or are not fit for surgical interventions because of some health issues.

Homeopathic Cure for Varicocele

Homeopathy is the alternative healing technique that considers a human's physical, emotional, and mental health condition and uses highly diluted natural substances to help the vital force of the body restore the body to normal conditions and healthy functioning. Selections of varicocele natural remedies vary from a particular person depending on their symptom profile, their total health status, and type.

In case of varicocele, the approach is basically anti-inflammatory that works on shrinking the veins, helping circulation, and lessening pain. Some of the commonly used homeopathic remedies for varicocele is known to strengthen veins and improve elasticity, thus proving to be very effective in the treatment of varicocele by reducing the swelling and discomfort associated with the condition. Varicocele treatment in homeopathy is individualized according to the person's unique symptoms and constitutional makeup, thus giving an approach to healing that is far more than just the physical aspects of varicocele.

Advantages of Homeopathic Treatment for Varicocele

There are numerous benefits of homoeopathic treatment for varicocele, making it an attractive option for many people. Some of the key advantages include:

Non-invasive: Unlike surgery, homeopathy does not require any incisions or medical procedures, making it a safer, pain-free alternative.

Reduced Side Effects: Since the homeopathic remedies are prepared in very dilute forms, there is very little chance of side effects. These are natural and non-toxic, so their use will not cause any long-term side effects.

Tailor-made Treatment: Homeopathy relies on the general health, symptoms, and constitution of the individual. So, it treats an individual more holistically and the patient receives a customized varicocele treatment in homeopathy.

Homeopathy instead targets the main cause of varicocele by improving circulation to the general well-being of the person and also strengthening of the veins.

Supports Long-Term Health: By improving circulation and strengthening the body's vital force, homeopathy helps to promote long-term health and prevent the recurrence of varicocele symptoms.

Best Varicocele Treatment with Experts at Bharat Homeopathy, Gurgaon

Bharat Homeopathy in Gurgaon provides the best experts to people looking for proper treatment in varicocele by homeopathic methods. The clinic has been recognized as providing non-invasive treatments which heal varicocele without surgical interference, treating the whole patient rather than the condition alone.

At Bharat Homeopathy, the first step in the treatment process is a thorough consultation with experienced homeopathic doctors who will carefully assess your symptoms, medical history, and overall health. Based on this information, they will recommend a personalized treatment plan that may include specific homeopathic remedies along with homeopathic medicine for varicocele tailored to your individual needs.

The clinic has the best experts that are committed to providing natural and effective solutions to men who experience varicocele. The team uses a holistic approach, ensuring not only to relieve symptoms but also to promote overall health and well-being. With years of experience in the treatment of varicocele and other conditions, the specialists at Bharat Homeopathy are determined to help their patients find permanent relief and improvement in their quality of life.

Best Specialists for Varicocele Treatment

When it comes to cure varicocele without surgery, nothing matters more than selecting the right specialists in order to achieve the best results. To do so, one should look for homeopathic specialists who have dealt with varicocele and its related issues for a very long period and can therefore provide a highly accurate remedy. Experienced practitioners are professional, highly skilled in the prescription of treatment to meet individual requirements.

Take a Holistic Approach: Homeopathy is most effective when it treats the whole person, not just the physical symptoms. The best specialists are those who assess all aspects of your health—physical, emotional, and mental—and provide a comprehensive best varicocele treatment

plan.

Use Safe and Proven Remedies: Reputable homeopaths only use high-quality, proven remedies to treat varicocele. They always keep your safety and well-being in mind while treating you.

Provide Ongoing Support: Varicocele treatment is not a one-time process; it requires ongoing care and monitoring. The best specialists will provide continuous support and adjust your treatment plan as needed for optimal results.

Conclusion

Varicocele can be a challenging condition to live with, but it doesn't have to be treated with invasive surgery. Homeopathic treatments offer a natural, non-invasive, and highly effective alternative that focuses on curing varicocele by addressing its root causes. The renowned specialists at Bharat Homeopathy Gurgaon offer you that holistic approach to healing by encouraging lifelong health and wellness. With the right application of homeopathic remedies through competent practitioners, you can effectively cure varicocele naturally and avoid surgery for a healthy and pain-free life.