Homeopathy Papers

Before Starting Homeopathy, Read This!

homeopathy pebble in a stream
Written by Elaine Lewis

The remedy you need may not be in existence yet. You shouldn’t expect a single remedy to cure everything in this case all at once. The patient may be over-sensitive to homeopathic remedies and over-react to them. Patients often put off buying a homeopathy emergency kit with the excuse that they already “have homeopathy”

The more you know about homeopathy, the more successful your outcome will be!

The problem is that mainstream medicine has made us lazy.  We’re asked to do nothing but take the medicine, follow directions.  Other than that, our participation is not needed.  We come to a homeopath and expect the same thing.  Well, not so, as I will soon explain.   What I’ve done here is recount all the mistakes I’ve seen people make so that you will not become one of them!

First comes the disclaimer:  Homeopathy may not cure your case.  I know that should seem obvious, just like aspirin doesn’t cure every headache; but, people tend to cut orthodox medicine all the slack in the world when it fails, but not us!   So, why can homeopathy fail?  Here are some of the reasons:

1.  The remedy you need may not be in existence yet.  What I mean by that is, homeopathic remedies are mostly made out of plants and minerals. Think of all the plant species that exist in the world, do you think they’ve all been made into homeopathic remedies?  No, not even close.  I had a client once who developed a horrible rash from weeding her garden.  We tried all the logical plant remedies and they didn’t work!  “Make a remedy out of the weed!” I told her.  See, that weed was never made into a commercial homeopathic remedy but it was the only thing that cured that case.  And this is a perfect example of how we ask more of our patients than standard medicine does.  See my article “How To Make Your Own Remedy”, which is on my website: elaineLewis.hpathy.com.

2.  The patient may be over-sensitive to homeopathic remedies and over-react to them in just the same way that people can over-react to drugs.  There are a lot of environmentally sensitive/allergic people out there, and they over-react to just about everything.  These are people whose immune systems have been overwhelmed by poisons–pharmaceuticals, pesticides, mold, chemicals–and everything you try to do for them, it seems, just makes them worse!

3.  The patient may not appreciate that the homeopath needs different types of information than the doctor needs and may think our questions are mostly irrelevant and don’t bother answering them fully, if at all!  If we don’t get responsive and appropriate answers to our questions, we can’t help you!

4.  The patient may be too embarrassed to tell the whole truth when filling out the questionnaire.

5.  Patients often report that the remedy isn’t working when it actually is!  The problem lies in not knowing what to look for after a remedy is given.  For example, you give a child a remedy and he falls inexplicably right to sleep.  To us, that’s a cause for celebration because children often fall asleep after the right remedy!  To the parent, it’s a cause for alarm!  “What happened here?!  The child has fallen dead asleep from being wide awake a second ago!”  The next thing you know, the parent has taken the child to the hospital, the child gets drugs, and the case is lost!

6.  The patient gets discouraged when the first remedy fails and decides not to see you anymore.  Here’s a news flash: the first remedy failing happens a lot!  There’s a big adjustment period in the beginning of treatment with homeopathy, the patient may have withheld information, thinking it irrelevant; the practitioner may have failed to understand what was really bothering the patient in the first place.  Figure on giving homeopathy some time before deciding that it doesn’t work.

7.  The patient presents with numerous diagnoses, drug side-effects and chronic pathologies.  Such cases really require patience.  You shouldn’t expect a single remedy to cure everything in this case all at once.

8.  Auto-immune disease can be very hard to cure; everything seems to make the patient with auto-immune disease, or end-stage disease in general, worse; I’ve even carrot juice make them worse.  I’ve often said: The only thing that homeopathy can absolutely cure 100% of the time is an acute disease or injury.  Once you let a condition just sit and sit and alter it with suppressive drugs and toxic treatments like radiation and steroids, your possibility of cure becomes less and less certain.  

9.  Patients are often unwilling to change their life-styles or taper off the drugs that are causing their problems in the first place.

10.  Patients often put off buying a homeopathy emergency kit, with the excuse that they already “have remedies at home”; and invariably, they get sick, a cough, etc., and the homeopath says, “Take Spongia,” and the patient says, “I don’t have Spongia.  I’ll buy it tomorrow.”  Just because you need a remedy today, doesn’t mean you’ll need the same remedy tomorrow!  Cases change, they get worse.  There are some types of infections, like bladder infections, that turn on a dime from mild annoyances to complete emergencies!  Be prepared with a 50-remedy Emergency Kit, which nowadays can only be bought from Washington Homeopathics, as far as I know.

11. At the first sign of a relapse, instead of informing the homeopath, the patient assumes that the remedy has failed, homeopathy has failed, homeopathy can’t help, and goes right to the doctor and gets put back on drugs, when all that was needed was for the remedy to be repeated or the potency to be raised!  Relapses are not unusual, the need to adjust the potency and frequency of dose goes without saying.

12. And now the last, and maybe most troubling reason why homeopathy can fail is that all homeopaths are not equal.  In fact, in some countries, anyone can call himself a homeopath, or any doctor can claim to do homeopathy, or naturopaths who had only a smattering of homeopathy at naturopathic school feel entitled to prescribe homeopathic remedies much as they might prescribe herbs, and all of these types are capable of making homeopathy look really bad!  The public, of course, has no way of knowing that they’re not seeing a “real” homeopath!  Here’s an article you might want to read called “Shopping for a Homeopath”:

Shopping For A Homeopath

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The more our patients know about homeopathy, the better, for the simple reason that it’s better to have two people working on a case than one! 

To begin with, you have to be willing to buy a home remedy kit or we just won’t be able to manage your case properly!  You know, it’s like, your medical doctor assumes that his patients have certain things in their medicine cabinet: aspirin, tylenol, motrin, bandaids, cough syrup, nose drops and other things commonly associated with allopathic practice so that when he tells you to take an aspirin, he assumes you’re going to be able to do that, that you’re not going to say, “What’s an Aspirin?”  We would like to be able to make the same assumption!  When you call us and say, “I have a dry cough, it sounds like a seal barking,” I would like to be able to think that if I say, “Take Spongia 30C” you’ll be able to do that!  How can you work with a homeopath if you have no remedies?  But you would be surprised how many of my clients have no remedies besides the one I gave them!

It’s also important that you read my articles on case management, like this one and

“Homeopathy: Frequently Asked Questions”

Homeopathy: Frequently Asked Questions

And, as stated above, here’s the other thing you’ll need: A 30C or a 200C Emergency Kit which you can order from www.a2zhomeopathy.com and other places as well, I’m sure; and you’ll need an acute prescribing book to go with it.  In fact, most people have more than one acute prescribing book.  (P.S.  I’m sorry to report that a2zhomeopathy.com has gone out of business!  Now I can only recommend going to Washington Homeopathics for that Emergency Kit, click below.)

https://www.homeopathyworks.com/30c-200c-homeopathic-remedy-kit/

Some of you will say, “Can’t I just take Motrin or Tylenol?”  These “medicines” are palliative at best, they don’t cure; and in fact, they don’t even palliate very well!  Wouldn’t you prefer an absolute cure where you could say, “A few minutes ago I was sick, now I’m well!  It was a miracle!”  That’s what you get with homeopathy!

One acute prescribing book I recommend is: Homeopathy: an A to Z Home Handbook by Alan Schmukler, available at www.amazon.com

Rx drug use?  That just makes my job harder.  I not only have the complaint to worry about but the damage your drugs are causing, which could be immense!  The goal of any homeopath should be to get his patient off of drugs.  They’re addicting and make you worse.  According to JAMA, correctly prescribed Rx drugs cause over 100,000 deaths per year and literally millions of injuries and secondary diseases.  Here’s a typical scenario:  You go for your annual check-up.  Your blood pressure is slightly elevated, 140/85–and maybe only because you’re nervous about seeing your doctor.  Immediately you’re put on the full array of blood pressure medicines, drugs that can cause fainting, irregular heartbeat, low blood pressure, mineral loss, muscle cramps, frequent urination, dehydration, etc. for a minor issue that could have been cleared up with diet and exercise.  This panoply of prescriptions will be the beginning of a downward spiral in your health and well-being, it’s like when you hire an inept contractor for renovations and all of a sudden nothing in your house works anymore!    

Likewise, I’ve seen people whose whole lives have been ruined by the medical profession, and then the homeopath is suddenly expected to “fix” this all at once.  I had a client not too long ago whose entire case, everything that was wrong with her, including irregular heart beat and trouble breathing, was caused by the drugs she had been on–and this is more the rule than the exception.  The whole case!   

In general, the more drugs you’re on and have been on all your life, including vaccinations–which are drugs too– the less clear your treatment plan is.  By all rights, every case a homeopath sees should be an acute case–an injury, a virus, a case of bad food or water, where the remedy image is clear and easily identified.  In this way, no situation ever goes chronic.  This is the way homeopathy was meant to work, the way it does work; but unfortunately, the average case we see is a chronic case–a tangled web of pathologies.

Keep in mind that no drug can be stopped suddenly without putting your life in danger!  There’s gotta be something wrong with a healing method that you literally can’t stop!  It’s like those Chinese handcuffs, do you remember them as a kid?  They’re long, thin elastic tubes, you put your left index finger in one end and your right index finger in the other end, and you try to pull your fingers out but the more you pull, the more you’re stuck!  Or that Roach Motel?  “Bugs check in, but they don’t check out!”  You know, if your medical system is a Roach Motel?  Stay out of it!

I point this out to help you gain a perspective on your case and how much work is involved for the homeopath.  It’s almost as if, in order to get well, you have to forget everything you learned and believed about health and disease–because most of it is a lie!  Doctors are lying constantly because they need you to keep coming back to build their practice!  They say, “There’s no cure for that, you’ll have to be on this drug for the rest of your life!”  Or, “Nobody knows what causes this disease; it’s idiopathic.”  Self-serving lies for the sake of “practice-building”!

In fact, your mission is to do what Dr. Timothy Leary suggested over 40 years ago, namely: “Drop Out“!  Drop out of Pop Culture!  Popular culture has become lethal!  Correctly prescribed prescription drugs are now the 4th leading cause of death in America (JAMA, Apr.,1998) and convenience “food” is filled with addictive substances like sugar, MSG and other chemicals that actually cause the body to lose nutrients!  If I may set an example, almost nothing I buy is advertised on TV.  My laundry soap, dish liquid, shampoo, deodorant, skin lotion, food, etc., all come from either the health food store or the farmer’s market.  There is no “corporate” food or hair-care, etc. products here.  And the milk I buy?  Straight the way it comes from the cow: raw; unpasteurized.

You can buy unprocessed milk, also called “raw milk”, though admittedly it may take a little effort on your part. See www.RealMilk.com.  Milk was no more meant to be boiled (pasteurized) and homogenized than orange juice!  Why are people drinking boiled orange juice?  All bottled juice has been boiled and processed and bears no relationship to real juice!  Squeeze the oranges yourself, for heaven’s sake!  That’s the only way to have real orange juice.

When you pick up a food item and there are a hundred ingredients on the label that you can’t pronounce?  Don’t buy it!

Look at this label, I’ll show you a trick they use.  Notice the number-one ingredient is corn.  Do you know why it’s number-1?  Because if all the sugar hadn’t been added in different names, SUGAR would be the number-one ingredient in this food!  This is what they do, they divide up the sugar so the food item looks healthier than it really is!  The number two ingredient on this label is “sugar”.  The number three ingredient is “corn syrup” (aka, Sugar!) and on the fourth row, we have “fructose” (Sugar!).  Now, if you add all this sugar together, you can see that, clearly, sugar is the main ingredient in this product!  Can you imagine feeding your child sugar for breakfast?  “Wait darling, here’s your sugar!”  No one would do that!  But that’s what you are doing!  On top of that, there are artificial flavors, artificial colors and preservatives in there–a complete disgrace for something that wants to be called “food”!

Start reading labels.

Most people would be shocked to hear that a change in diet from processed food, like the cereal shown above, to whole foods (real foods), and a change from white flour products to whole grains, would make most of their health problems disappear!  Imagine that!

Now, to get back to homeopathy and mistakes patients make in managing their cases, I’ll just list a few:

1. “No, I didn’t wait to get your instructions, I followed the instructions on the remedy bottle!”

OMG!  The instructions on the remedy bottle don’t mean anything, just ignore them.  If you have a practitioner, you have to do what the practitioner says.  I had a client once whose baby had some health issue, and I told her to order Calc-carb, and she never told me when the remedy came in, she just started dosing from the directions on the bottle, and I only wanted the baby to have ONE dose; but, she was dosing like 3 times a day, and the baby got well, then got worse, and I said, “You overdosed him!”  “But that’s what the bottle said to do!” she said.

2. “I haven’t been in touch with you because the remedy stopped working.”

That means nothing!  It’s normal!  The potency only has to be raised periodically to keep the case moving.  Here is an example of this phenomenon, something I call:

Homeopathy As Orthodontia:

                                                                                    

When your teeth are crooked, you see an orthodontist who puts braces on them and tightens the wires slightly at each visit to move your teeth to a better position.  If he tightened them hard, all at once, the pain (“aggravation”) would be so severe that you would never want to see a homeopath/orthodontist ever again!  But, you must understand that your teeth are unwilling to be moved!  They may be crooked but they are USED to it and want to stay that way; so, they try to revert back to their original spot at every opportunity. 

It is at this point that the orthodontist has to twist the wires a little bit harder (“raise the potency”, so to speak) and now a constant battle ensues, a struggle between the teeth which want to revert back, and the orthodontist who wants them to move forward.  Even at the end of treatment, your orthodontist is so sure that your teeth are going to try to revert back that he fits you with a retainer so they won’t have the chance.

In homeopathic treatment, this kind of “push-pull” will be evident to you. You’ll say, “The remedy stopped working!”  No, no, it is simply time to “tighten the wires”– i.e., dose more often or raise the potency because your body is accustomed to its chronic disease and tries to keep relaxing into it.  It needs constant pushing going forward!  It’s like trying to get your child up on a Saturday morning, if you leave the room, he’s going to go right back to sleep!  You have to keep pushing!  It’s the same thing with dosing, if you don’t keep pushing the complaint to move, it will go right back to where it started!

Homeopathy As Riding a Bicycle:

Another metaphor for homeopathic case management is bike riding.  The idea is to get up to speed so you can coast, and by “coasting”, we mean stop dosing when you start feeling better, unless and until you start slowing down.  Try to keep from slowing down so much that you fall off and crash!  Who falls off?  People who know their case is relapsing but don’t redose!  But you can also fall off from too much dosing!  (Going too fast.)  You need to avoid both under-dosing and over-dosing.  Just like riding a bike, you need to find the balance in the middle, so that your case is always “coasting”.

Here’s how this is done. To manage a case, the remedy must be in water!  Drop a dry pellet or two into a small half-filled bottle of spring water.  A case cannot be managed if you can’t adjust the dose!  Certainly one way of adjusting is to add more water for sensitive patients who seem to aggravate from everything!  Lowering or raising the number of succussions is another way to adjust the dose. Taking just a sip instead of a swallow is another way.  Rote repetition of dry pellets will ultimately result in a “proving” or an aggravation! 

Case Management

So, as I said, to manage a case, you’re going to need to put the remedy in water.  Here’s a youtube video that demonstrates how this is done if you haven’t seen it already:

Put two pellets of your remedy into a half-filled bottle of water, begin with five succussions before each dose, take a dose/sip twice a day of the water assuming you’re on a low potency, like a 6C, in a chronic case, stop when you see a striking improvement or an aggravation.  If the aggravation is very bothersome, zap it (see “The Aggravation Zapper”)

https://hpathy.com/homeopathy-papers/the-aggravation-zapper/

and you will undoubtedly observe an improvement soon after that.

When the improvement starts to wane, redose; BUT, since the last dose caused an aggravaton, dilute it in more water this time, don’t dose directly from the bottle, pour a capful into a large disposable cup of water, stir lightly with a straw, and take a small sip, wait, make sure you don’t aggravate again.  The idea here is, through trial and error, to find a dosing schedule (frequency) and dosage size–amount of water you’re swallowing– that, without aggravating, moves the case forward, always repeat as soon as you see the beginning of a relapse, so that you’re always coasting and not crashing again and again, always having to start over from square-one.  Try to keep yourself from constantly bottoming out!

Changing the frequency of repetition, the amount of water, the number of succussions, going to the next potency when the one you’re on stops working, will keep the case moving– coasting. Remember, a striking improvement precludes any further dosing for as long as the improvement lasts.  If you’re improving dramatically and you’re still dosing, you’re going to crash!  Remember, these remedies cause what they cure–they’re double-edged swords!  If there’s nothing wrong with you, stop dosing and see if this improvement holds!  If it doesn’t hold, start dosing again.

***

3. “I haven’t been in touch with you because I got worse, and then this happened and then that happened, and then the other thing happened….”

OMG.  You must stay in touch with your homeopath!  Don’t let things get complicated!  If you let too much time go by, chances are you won’t even remember what went wrong and be able to present it in a coherent manner; plus, your homeopath won’t even remember who you are!

4. “I checked the Materia Medica and Belladonna sounded like a really good remedy for me so I took that, but I’ve been taking the remedy you gave me too….”

Yikes!  You can only take one remedy at a time!  Otherwise, we have no way of evaluating the results.  In every experiment, there can only be one independent variable!  If you think for some reason there’s a better remedy for you, tell your practitioner.  She may be able to explain why Belladonna isn’t for every fever.  Very often, a patient will look up a remedy in the Materia Medica and make a list of all the common symptoms and say, “This is just like me!  Belladonna has colds, I have a cold.  Belladonna has fevers, I have a fever.  Belladonna has sore throats, I have a sore throat!”  No!  This is not Belladonna!  Belladonna has a very specific KIND of cold!  The cold comes on suddenly, there is a high fever with dry heat radiating from the body but the hands and feet are cold; the pupils are dilated, the eyes are glassy.  These are the details that have to be matched to a remedy.

5. “I redosed because I figured I was relapsing because I got a rash.”

Don’t redose because something superficial happens!  We expect things like this to happen.  We expect discharges, aches, pains and skin eruptions after a remedy.  What we’re concerned about after a remedy is something we call “The Center Of The Case”.  The center of the case is your energy, your sleep, appetite, your disposition, your feeling of well-being, relaxation, your outlook, your restfulness.  After a remedy, we want to see an improvement here.  Your actual complaint MIGHT get worse for a time!  But if it’s the right remedy, you won’t even care!  You may even put it in exactly those words!  “I still have a headache, but I don’t care!”  “I didn’t get much sleep last night, but, oddly enough, I feel more rested than usual!”  Redose when you see a relapse in “the center of the case” only.

6. “Hi Elaine, remember me?  It’s Joe.  Yeah, I know, it’s been a long time; but…my remedy stopped working, what should I do now?  Help!!!!”

First of all, Joe, no one remembers who you are!  Your homeopath is now giving her full attention to the patient who is in front of her.  When you get in touch with your practitioner and you try to explain what went wrong, you have to recap your case!  The practitioner always needs to know what you’ve been doing and what has led up to the current situation you’re describing.  Your conversation should be in the form of a time-line: “First this happened, then that happened and then that happened.”  Everything has to be explained to the practitioner in chronological order.  If you’ve been taking remedies, don’t say, “I’ve been taking Pulsatilla.”  Say, “I’ve been taking Pulsatilla 30C in water every day, twice a day, with five succussions before each dose, one small sip.”  And then, for heaven’s sake, say what the result of that was!  

You have no idea how often people tell me that they took a remedy, and don’t tell me whether or not it worked!  What your practitioner is trying to find out is when Pulsatilla stopped working and why, or if it was even appropriate to be taking it once you knew you had the flu.  Don’t make it so hard for your practitioner to find these things out!  She needs chronology, dosing information and remedy results. 

As a matter of fact, when people come to me complaining that something new or different is happening in their case, and their inclination is to give me the case as they would tell it to a doctor, I always say, “Fill out the Acute Case Questionnaire,” which is on my website.  Why?  Because the questionnaire gives me a “complete case”.  I know it often seems like the homeopath should be able to figure out a remedy based on what you’re telling him or her, or perhaps you even did fill out the questionnaire a week or two ago; but now something new has happened, and in fact, the details you think are important or obvious or sufficient are only of use to a doctor–“I don’t feel well, my nose is running, my throat is sore, my legs hurt…and here are my labs.”  The homeopath can’t use any of that!  This kind of general information does not lead to a remedy.  The acute case questionnaire is on my website, please use it.

7. “Homeopathy is making me worse!”

My first thought is that you’re overdosing or the potency was too high.  My second thought is, you’re having “return of old symptoms”!   Ask yourself, “Is this an old symptom?”  We fully expect that your case is going to “roll back” the way it came!  You might find it literally “unwinding”!  If you have a “return of old symptoms”, this should be temporary and only last a short time. You should consider it a very good sign if you see this.  A client I had once with a very bad cold said, “I couldn’t believe it, it literally went back the way it came only in reverse order!”

8. “I’m feeling better, but, I’ve still got this and I’ve still got that…..”

You will most likely not get rid of everything all at once so just forget about it!  What we expect is that the Worst Thing in the case, or the last symptom in the case, will resolve first, and having so resolved, it will “move out” to a less threatening area and keep moving until it’s gone.  Keep in mind that in general, the first response to a correct remedy is a lifting of the spirits or a burst of energy.  If this happens to you, jump up and down for joy and don’t worry about whatever else may have happened or be happening in the case!

9. “I still have my chief complaint, homeopathy doesn’t work!”

People come with some cosmetic complaint, like moles, but it means a lot to them.  They don’t care that their constipation is gone, their anxiety is gone, their insomnia is gone!  I would call this a success!

We can’t pick the “diseases” we want to have gone.  We have no remedy for this or that disease.  We have remedies for the person, the whole person; in that sense, homeopathy is truly “holistic”!  My teacher, Robin Murphy, always says, “Don’t change a remedy that’s working for the patient ‘in general’ for one that appears to fit a local symptom!”  If you’ve got a remedy that’s helping you in general, stick with it!

Now, there are exceptions.  When a person has a life-threatening local symptom like asthma, you have to take the case of that.  But even the asthma will have a “whole” picture that goes with it; and your remedy will have to cover the whole state, including the mental/emotional concomitant that’s a part of it.

10. “I didn’t tell you I had the flu because that’s not what you’re treating me for.

Homeopathy is for everything!  Treating your flu helps to move your case forward.  Going to the doctor and getting antibiotics only moves your case backwards.

You’ve got to understand that conventional drugs are mischief-makers, toxic, rarely curative and are actually at war with your body!  Have you ever asked yourself what principle of healing modern medicine is operating under?  What are its laws?  Its law of cure?  We have no trouble answering that question: Homeopathy is based on the Law of Similars, Hering’s Law of Cure, and “the Minimum Dose”.  What’s modern medicine’s Law?  Do they have one?  If they were forced to answer, they would probably say, “We suppress symptoms.”  Are you happy with that?  Don’t you expect better?  Don’t you expect to be cured?  

There is no point in hiring a homeopath if you’re going to continually sabotage your immune system with suppressive drugs!  Don’t assume that homeopathy can’t help with your allergy or flu or injury or any aspect of ill-health that comes along during your treatment.

11. “I can’t understand why my constitutional remedy stopped working!  I raised the potency and it’s still not working!  Oh, by the way, I have a really bad migraine from a huge argument I got into with my husband!”

Do not keep taking your constitutional remedy if you’re having an acute ailment, injury or emotional upset!  The constitutional remedy, more than likely, bears no relation to the acute you’re having at all!  If you’ve been injured, you probably need Arnica, if you’re crying and sobbing you may need Ignatia and if you’re having a sinusitis attack you probably need Hydrastis or Kali bichromicum.  When your symptom picture changes, you have to change with it; this is another aspect of case management.  Stop taking your constitutional remedy if you have a virus, an emotional upset or an injury.  Call or email your homeopath and find out what remedy you should take for it, or consult your acute prescribing book if you can’t get a hold of your homeopath.

When the acute resolves, and if your chronic picture hasn’t changed, go back to your chronic remedy.  Sometimes I’ve actually seen the chronic case improve after an acute remedy; so, don’t just automatically go back to your chronic remedy, wait and see if the chronic complaint is still there.

Let me be quick to add, however, that, as I mentioned before, after a good constitutional remedy, you will find yourself feeling calm and at ease while at the same time possibly experiencing discharges, maybe aches and pains, skin eruptions and other symptoms which might make you start looking for an acute remedy when actually this is a part of the healing process, and you’ll know it because your mental state will have improved or something on a deeper level will have improved.  If that’s the case, no need to take a remedy.  As long as you feel the improvement in energy and relaxation, just ignore whatever else is taking place unless it can’t be ignored for some reason.

These new symptoms should go away soon on their own, they should be only temporary.

12. “I’ve decided to hold off on starting homeopathy because I’ve got some other health problems and I want to try to get them under control first.”

To a homeopath, this makes absolutely no sense because homeopathy is capable of curing whatever health problem you have, and without drugs, which is so important because they are so dangerous!

The more drugs you put yourself on to “treat” the various “conditions”, the more you worsen your health by becoming addicted to these drugs and creating secondary diseases caused by the side-effects which then are treated with even more drugs and the inevitable downward spiral begins.

But I should add that diagnosis in itself is a good thing.  Many different conditions all present with the same symptoms; so, there’s nothing like a diagnosis to help orient the homeopath in the right direction.  A diagnosis can be essential; so, for that, you shouldn’t hesitate to see a doctor.

13. “I’ve been on the remedy for two days now, three times a day, and I’m no better.”

A homeopath shouldn’t accept this statement at face value; always ask the patient, “What about mentally/emotionally, is there any change there?  What about your energy?  What about your sleep?”  A good percentage of the time the patient will say, “Oh yes!  There’s been a big change emotionally, much better, spirits much higher, sleep better too!”

See, they won’t tell you this unless you ask, they don’t think it matters, but to us it means everything, it means we found the right remedy–what could be more important than that?  In homeopathy, the complaint improves on the mental/emotional plane FIRST; so, getting this information is essential.  But too often when the patient says, “It didn’t work,” we just take his word for it and begin looking for another remedy.  That can be a big mistake.

14. “No, I didn’t refill the bottle with more water like you told me because I already refilled it once and there can’t possibly be anything left of any substance in it, so, I went back to the pellets.”

You did what?  OMG, is this ever a mistake!  People, please listen: the “water” is stronger than the pellets!  If you go back to the pills or pellets, you’re going backwards!  It’s like going from Extra Strength Tylenol to regular Tylenol, it’s a step backward!  I could explain how homeopathic remedies are made but it would only bore you.  Suffice it to say, they’re made in water, more and more water as the process goes on.  Don’t worry about the water!

“But there’s nothing in it!”

That’s not true.  There’s energy in it.  The energy of the substance that was originally dissolved in it.  You know that law of physics that says, “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed”?  You can’t dilute this energy away!   When your practitioner says to you, “Take your remedy in the 2nd, 3rd or even the 12th cup,” don’t worry, the remedy is still there!

15. “I have no idea what caused my complaint!”

Really?  Gee, that’s too bad. No, really!  I would encourage you to think very hard about this because if you can’t pin-point the cause of your complaint, I don’t care how good your homeopath is, your chances of cure will drop considerably!  Homeopathic prescriptions are often based on “etiology”–a fancy way of saying the “cause”.  So, give it some deep thought.

16. “I think homeopathy is really dangerous!”

You’ll hear this from people who have experienced an “aggravation” or a “proving”.  I always say: Homeopathy is like a car.  Cars are not dangerous, in and of themselves; it’s the driver that’s at issue.  Is he experienced?  Did he attend driving school?  Does he have a license?  A reckless driver can drive you right over a cliff!  A reckless prescriber can pretty much do the same thing!  But even so, despite having the best driver in the world, the unexplained and the unexpected can lurk just around the corner, we can’t make promises!

But you as a health care consumer should remember this:

Your practitioner should be willing to answer your questions, explain the remedy choice, the choice of potency, the dosing rationale, he should tell you the name and potency of your remedy, how the case will be approached and if you’re ever not satisfied with the results, get a better driver!

Maybe it doesn’t matter to you what the name of your remedy is.  You see, your practitioner might be afraid you’ll look it up and be influenced by all the symptoms the remedy has that you don’t have, causing you to conclude that this remedy can’t possibly be right.  But, if it’s important for you to know, tell your practitioner in the beginning, “It’s really important to me that I know the name of the remedy.”  If the practitioner says, “That’s not my policy,” I would find someone else, because it’s your body and you have a right to know what’s going in it and the homeopath should certainly be able to make a case for why he’s giving it to you.

However, I also know that there are patients who will interject that they cannot possibly be as “mean” as Lachesis; or, they’ll refuse to take Carcinosin because of what it’s made from and so on.  So you can hardly blame the homeopath for saying, “I don’t tell my clients what remedy they’re getting.”  However, I think if the client wants to know, you have to tell him, and let the chips fall where they may. 

To recap…

Articles that you should read:

  1. Frequently Asked Questions”  https://hpathy.com/homeopathy-papers/frequently-asked-questions/

    2.  “The Aggravation Zapper” https://hpathy.com/homeopathy-papers/the-aggravation-zapper/

    3.  “The Acute Case Questionnaire” which you’ll need to fill out if an acute occurrence should arise during the course of your treatment: https://hpathy.com/homeopathy-papers/a-flurry-of-questions-presenting-your-acute-case-to-a-homeopath/

    4.  “Food Fight!”  My articles on how the food you’re eating could be causing your disease, click below:

Food Fight!

Purchases:

Homeopathy: An A to Z Home Handbook by Alan Schmukler (www.amazon.com)

A 30C or 200C Emergency Kit from www.homeopathyworks.com.

Subscribe to:

The Hpathy.com free monthly e-zine, “Homeopathy For Everyone”:  hpathy.com

I hope this has helped you.  Good luck!

___________________________________________________

Elaine Lewis, DHom, CHom

Elaine takes online cases.  Visit her website: elaineLewis.hpathy.com or write to her at [email protected]  

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About the author

Elaine Lewis

Elaine Lewis, D.Hom., C.Hom.
Elaine is a passionate homeopath, helping people offline as well as online. Contact her at [email protected]
Elaine is a graduate of Robin Murphy's Hahnemann Academy of North America and author of many articles on homeopathy including her monthly feature in the Hpathy ezine, "The Quiz". Visit her website at:
https://elainelewis.hpathy.com/ and TheSilhouettes.org

21 Comments

  • I’m a skeptic trying to keep an open mind when it comes to homeopathy; I’ve no experience with the practice but the concept fascinates me. I’ve read a few of your articles today and I just wanted to let you know that for the first time its actually starting to make sense. Thank you for taking the time to write!

  • I have a question about making wet doses with pellets vs. purchasing the liquid remedy. Joe De Livera says this about using the liquid-in other words he says using the pellets to make a wet dose will result in a less effective remedy. I couldn’t really understand why even after I read his explanation which is this: “The Wet dose of any Homeopathic remedy is made as follows:

    Order the remedy in the Liquid pack in Alcohol, also referred to as Liquid Dilution in a bottle preferably with a dropper arrangement.
    Get a 500ml bottle of Spring Water from the nearest supermarket.
    Pour out about 3cm of water from the bottle to leave some airspace.
    Insert 3 drops of the remedy into the bottle and shake the bottle hard at least 6 times before you sip a capfull of the bottle or a large teaspoonful which is the dose.
    Shaking the bottle hard is homeopathic succussion and this enhances the effect of the remedy on the user.

    The reason why the Alcohol pack of any remedy is more effective than the dry pellets is because the pellets are activated by using the Ethanol product of which a few drops are inserted on the dry lactose pellets in the ratio of about 4 drops on 100 pellets. It will be seen that when 4 activated pellets are inserted into a 500ml bottle of spring water, the concentration of the original liquid Ethanol in which the remedy is carried cannot equate the 3 drops that I recommend.

    I have had instances where the patient’s ailment was not responding to the pellets but reacted positively as soon as the 3 drops of Ethanol were dropped into the same bottle which he had originally activated with the pellets.” This is the website this quote came from: http://www.joedelivera.com/?p=273 Does this make sense or is the solution made from the pellets just as potent? Thanks!

    • Roberta, a lot of people claim that one way of making a remedy is better than the other. Some say the remedies have to be hand-succussed; others, like Joe, say they have to be in liquid alcohol potencies; but, here’s the reality of the situation: Only the pellets are available in stores, and mostly only one brand at that–Boiron. Secondly, there are no Emergency Kits available in only liquid potencies! I am not aware of any, and imagine how big and cumbersome such a 50-remedy kit would be! So why even bother with such recommendations and warnings when they are so impractical and unrealistic. If pellets-in-water didn’t work, we’d all know it soon enough, it would become quite apparent. When a medicine doesn’t work, you figure it out in short order. I am, even right now as we speak, taking two remedies in water bottles–Penicillin 30C for an antibiotic rash (see the October Quiz), which is working and works every time I have to repeat it; and, Gunpowder 30C which I’m taking for a gum infection which is doing a good job. If liquid bottles in alcohol were essential, the whole profession would be in trouble! This doesn’t mean I doubt what Joe is saying. I have heard every story imaginable: The remedy in water didn’t work but the pellets did, only the hand-succussed remedy worked, and so on; and I don’t say these people are wrong or that their stories aren’t true; I’m only saying that we must be talking here about a very small minority of cases that this applies to.

  • One more question if you don’t mind. When we’ve made a wet dose solution, would it matter whether the dose taken from that is a teaspoon or a tablespoon? I mean, if homeopathy works on an energy level then why would a tablespoon of the solution be a bigger dose? Thanks a bunch!

    • First of all, please don’t say “teaspoon and tablespoon” because I don’t want people dosing with their good silverware! Once a remedy gets on something, it’s there for good–or how else does the remedy “stick” to the sugar pellets it’s dropped onto? It sticks to everything! For this reason, better to sip from the bottle or dose from the bottle cap. Isn’t that a better idea? Leave your glasses and spoons out of it. But, as to your question, yes, amount matters TO THE HYPERSENSITIVE PATIENT, not to the rest of us. Even though it’s just energy, yes, so true; but, you’ve experienced too much energy, haven’t you? You know they have those special power cords or strips that you plug your appliances into to protect them from “power surges”? So, apparently there is such a thing as “too much energy”, but especially for hypersensitive patients.

  • Thank you, you have been SO helpful. Ok, one more question then (I know I said that before), but I’ve read that chlorine can antidote a remedy, e.g. if you use unfiltered tap water to mix your dose. I know opinions vary about that, but if that were true, couldn’t you wash your tablespoon or teaspoon in a little bleach water to get rid of whatever remedy was on them? Disposable plastic didn’t exist when homeopathy was first started. I wonder what they did to give a wet dose. Thanks so much for your help!

  • I don’t know the answer regarding chlorine or bleach, I only know that remedies stick to things, that’s why they stick to the blank pellets. The remedy is ON the pellets, not IN them. Always use disposable items when working with remedies. When you’re finished with a remedy solution bottle, throw it away and start a new remedy with a new bottle.

  • Oh, ok. I didn’t know the remedy was only on the outside of the pellet. I thought it soaked through. Thanks again!

  • Sorry to be a pest, but another question occurred to me. I noticed that you are taking two remedies at the same time. I only need to know this as applies to acute situations, but can you take more than one remedy at a time for different conditions as long as they are not inimical or antidotes to each other? I’ve always read to only take one remedy at a time. For example, if one of my kids has had more than one acute thing wrong, I thought I could only hit one at a time. Thanks—–again. 🙂

  • Different etiologies require different remedies. In this day and age especially, people tend to have a million things wrong with them! Imagine having a bladder infection and an injury. You’re taking Sepia for your bladder infection when suddenly you burn yourself in the kitchen. What are you supposed to do, not treat the burn? Now on the other hand, let’s say you have a lot of chronic problems. I would say to the patient, “What’s the worst thing right now? What’s bothering you more than anything?” They might say, “My headache.” In that case, I would find out the details of the headache and give a remedy for that. Often you have to put their entire case into perspective for them. “Your entire case is nothing but drug side-effects!” you might conclude. “You have to slowly wean yourself off your drugs and they have to be replaced with nutrients, supplements, etc. and we may need to actually make remedies out of some of your drugs to undo the damage they’ve done.”

    • That makes sense. By the way, if you put aluminum foil on a burn right away and keep it there overnight (tape it on or whatever), it takes the pain away and usually by the next day the burn it almost 100% healed and will keep it from scarring. (Just in case I didn’t choose the right homeopathic burn remedy on the first try.) Also running HOT water over a burn right away helps it heal faster than running cold water on it (like cures like.) I found those on earthclinic.com . Thanks for all the info!

  • Hello, I am a new homeopathy enthusiast and I am very confused as to how the remedy changes once dissolved in water. The lady I’m learning homeopathy from (Joette Calabrese) says to take 4 pills as a dose but that it can also be dissolved in water.

    What difference then would it make if i take just 1 pill dry or dilute 1 pill in water?

    When diluting a pill in water, doesn’t that increase the potency of the remedy, the same way remedies are made into 30c, 200c, etc?

    How does succession work? How many times should I bang the bottle against my palm and should I change the number of times to treat a chronic condition?

    Thank you!

  • I am suffering from daibetes since last six months,urination loss of weight, vaginal ,& bodyitching, headache etc. pl suggest homeopaty remedy

  • Dear Elaine lewis thanks alot for your precious article
    i have passed my 1st year of DHMS plz recommend me some logical books on homeopathy to make my summer vacations useful

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