Perhaps you should be more sure of the definition of a word before you apply it to yourself. Massage therapy is considered part of alternative or complementary medicine, not homeopathic medicine. Homeopathy is specifically the use of highly dilute solutions to treat various health problems. Homeopathic medicine is a type of alternative/complementary medicine, but not all alternative medicines are homeopathy. Now, in regards to many of the other commenters — while I agree that homeopathic remedies are a highly dubious and scientifically unverified (real science, mind you — following clear, repeatable methodologies and subject to stringent peer review), there is no need to be so zealous in your decrying of it. The same can be said for the other side. No one wants to hear what you say if you call them stupid, ignorant, blind, or closed-minded first. A little mutual respect goes a long way...

Fair enough, but how can you respect this sort of drivel? Particularly when some people actually believe it, and forgo real medicine in favour of a placebo that can't possibly cure their ailment? Does that sort of scam deserve respect? It's idiocy that's actually doing harm to gullible people. Surely that's worthy of scorn, if anything is.

There is no science in homeopathy. It doesn't work. It's nonsense. If you take an active ingredient and dilute it with water so many times that there isn't a single molecule of that ingredient left, it's just water. That's science. Magical water memory effects are not science.

They don't. They can't. The whole premise is ridiculous. It's just water or sugar. Honestly, it can't possibly work. There's nothing in it. Not a single molecule of active ingredient. Just read the Wikipedia page to get an idea of the premise, and how ludicrous it is.

ah wikipedia, now thats a good source for proving/disproving something. Aside from that if homeopathy works for someone then why tell them it doesn't? you don't know what was treated by these remedies. As for the dilution thing I thought homeopathic stuff was made from base ingreadients like zinc and achiccianea (how the F@@! do you spell that) instead of the harsher chemical based medication but i was thinking of alternative medicine. Isn't the dilution idea the same as vaccination. They give us a dead strain of measles and in most cases we never catch it. It that is the principle then how can homeopathy not work?

That analogy is so utterly ridiculous I am actually momentarily flabbergasted for how to respond to it, but here we go. Consciously simplifying this a bit: The immune system, when it encounters hostile bacteria, makes a "record" of it and starts to produce antibodies tailored to fight this particular invasive organism. That is the principle behind immunizations. It's also why diseases with very very low mutation rates, like chicken pox, tend to be one-time things - you're exposed once, you have a full army of antibodies adapted for it next time it comes around. So, a "sample" of a hostile organism is all your body needs to start adapting its immune response Homeopathy, however, relies around taking something that MIGHT help fight diseases (and might not, but that in and of itself is a separate topic completely), putting a tiny sample of it in a huge amount of water, then selling the rest of that water - because according to this theory, water "remembers" material it encounters (this has never been proven). Even if your dose DID happen to contain a single molecule of the 'cure' instead of just being water with nothing else in it, and even if the material in question WERE a good cure/treatment for what's ailing you, then you run aground of the fact that one or two molecules of the material aren't going to be enough to make a difference. The immune system doesn't go "Oh! I bet this is a cure!" and start synthesizing the material. It is not the same thing as antibody manufacture. And experiments HAVE demonstrated that, yes, the less of a treatment material you use, the less effective it is. For one example of the experiments demonstrating this, check out DOI 10.1111/1539-6924.00331.

Since Levvy addressed the ridiculous claim that homeopathy is the same as vaccination, I'll settle for saying that Wikipedia doesn't in any way prove or disprove things, but it does explain the premise of homeopathy. If you can still take it seriously after reading the description of the premise of this alternative "medicine" then there's no hope for you at all. If you're concerned about the validity of Wikipedia's description of the premise of homeopathy, use any other source you like. The premise is the same; i.e. complete nonsense.