My friends page looked so empty without ONTD, it seriously freaked me out. I never realised how much I relied on those guys, I would have nothing relevent to talk to anybody about otherwise. Who wants to hear me talk about A-Level physics? Whereas everybody is interested in the Lady GaGa/Paris Hilton saga, even if the people I'm talking about it to hate them.

In other news, you may or may not know, I'm been pretty ill for about a month now, with complaints such as recurring tonsilitis. Antibiotics couldn't clear it entirely (and in fact aggravated the condition of my overall health). My mother sees a homeopath and she made an appointment for a phone consultation with her.

Now, as a rule, I oppose everything alternative and holistic therapy stands for. I'm a subscriber of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast, I totally stand behind what these guys are doing, if you're interested in scepticism and/or science check them out.

Not a lot of people understand what homeopathy is. I got the impression to start that it was basically eating vegetables and plant-based remedies, and I can understand plant-based remedies; modern medicine is based upon observations within the natural world, it's synthesised replications of plant and animal enzymes. I understand why people could potentially have a problem with synthetic drugs and want to use natural versions of them. But that's not what homeopathy is.

An overview: If you give a healthy person belladonna, they'll come up with symptoms similar to acute tonsilitis. When a person is suffering from acute tonsilitis, a homeopath will treat them with belladonna. Extremely dilute belladonna. In fact, some homeopathic remedies don't contain any of what it says on the bottle, they contain water with the "memory" of belladonna. This, apparently, will help the body heal itself and cure the underlying cause instead of (they claim) supressing the syptoms they way conventional medicine does.

It's actually been proven that echinacea doesn't work, but people still buy it. My mother still tries to give it to me whenever I have a cold. They proved scientifically that it doesn't work. Whenever I argue this with her, she blindly refuses to understand what that even means. They tested it, it makes no difference whether you take it or not. No mother, it doesn't work with you, you just think it does because you want to believe it.

So I was on the phone to the witch doctor homeopath (who, for starters, was trying to treat me for a medical condition over the phone) for about 45 minutes. She asked about the various symptoms, then she asked me to describe my personality to her. How would my friends describe me? What am I afraid of? What films do I like to watch?

I got off the phone to her. "It's a bit like a therapy session, isn't it?" beams my mother.

So I've been put on a hypoallergenic diet. This means no sugar, no dairy, no wheat, no yeast, no mushrooms, no red meat, no alcohol, no peanuts, no caffeine. You don't realise how difficult it is until you try. I can't eat toast. I can't eat a burger. I can't eat a sandwich. I can't eat pasta. I can't eat have a biscuit and a cup of coffee. I can't eat pizza. I can't have a gravy dinner. I can't eat coleslaw. For a month.

I can understand the probiotics (even though soya yoghurt is disgusting), I can almost understand the diet even if I can't forgive it. I've also got a couple of useless homeopathic pills to take (which are effectively worse than placebos because I'm not even expecting them to do anything).

But as I mentioned at the start, I've been ill for over a month now, and it's been adversely affecting my mood (the week I spent off college was a very dark week). So I'm getting desperate. Desperate enough to try these homeopathetic remedies. Cross your fingers for me.