Allergies—Challenge for Twenty First Century Homeopathy

Presented at the April 2022 Immune Summit of the UK Society of Homeopaths

 “Some persons are apt to faint from smell of roses and to fall into many other morbid and sometimes dangerous states from partaking of mussels, crabs, and fish roe, or from touching the leaves of some kinds of sumach.”

—S. Hahnemann, Organon 117.

Allergies are systemic disorders that make the sufferer susceptible to certain triggers with a wide range of clinical reactions. Many of these triggers can be identified with diagnostic tests and some cannot. Many triggers are natural.

For example, common syndromes such allergic respiratory congestion or rhinitis, often called hay fever, with nasal discharge, sneezing, eye irritation and lachrymation, are usually reactions to natural allergens. Other common allergic reactions include the widespread syndrome of spasmodic constriction of the bronchial tubes, known as asthma.

The triggers for asthma are similar to those of hay fever such as pollen from trees and grasses, mold, dust, animal hair, animal dander and others. These occur only in susceptible individuals while other more fortunate people remain unaffected.

Natural allergens can also cause symptoms in some of allergic dermatitis with skin symptoms like hives and blisters that follow contact or even mere proximity to certain plants, such as poison sumac or poison ivy. Most of these plants are not common in Europe but very common in the US. Especially in the southern US, ordinary outdoor activities give ample opportunity to test your homeopathic knowledge for allergies.

Then, there are the allergic reactions to insect bites and stings, mosquito bites, spider bites, tick bites, skin mites, and many others. The susceptibility to these varies widely from person to person, and this is one of the most fascinating things about allergies: One person can die from a single bee sting, while others might not even get localized swelling from the same. So, the condition of being “allergic” to something appears to be a state of health or a condition of the whole organism.

Furthermore, some allergies clearly run in families. Research conducted on allergies has confirmed a genetic component, suggesting that some allergies can be hereditary. Genetic factors for developing food allergies have been observed in several studies.

In addition to the above environmental allergies we see more and more food allergies. You may know people that have had local or systemic allergic reactions to ingesting certain foods. Apparently, food allergies are increasing in frequency.

What causes allergies? Noted allergologist and author of You are what you ate, Sherry Rogers MD, believes allergies are the result of metabolic cul-de-sacs from toxins that block the normal metabolic pathways in our bodies. But does this account for all allergies?

Some allergies appear to develop as a result of triggers that somehow change our state of immune health. In some people, allergies gradually increase along with general sensitivity. Old age or “depletion of cortisols” are often mentioned in the literature as factors in developing allergies.

Recently a friend named Lisa, a woman in her late thirties, ate at a restaurant for Valentine’s Day. What promised to be a lovely evening was followed by a hasty trip to the ER because of an apparent systemic reaction to the shrimp she ate. She had never had such a reaction to shrimp before. The specialists were unable to diagnose any known allergy to shrimp. Was she reacting to another ingredient in the meal?

Events such as this have caused many to question the whole theoretical basis of allergology. Many have found it is a good idea to carefully study the content or exact ingredients of the foods they eat. In the US, we have an advantage that all ingredients of processed foods must by law be listed on the label.

This seems to be especially important for those with food allergies, and especially with commercially processed food purchased in the store.

However, when it comes to restaurant food the ingredients are rarely disclosed.

In the United States, at least, there is no legislation that requires restaurants to disclose all their ingredients. It is largely an issue of “caviat emptor—buyer beware!” People with food allergies are usually limited to eating at home.

After taking Lisa’s acute case, I came to the conclusion that she was reacting to the common pollutant of seafood—mercury. Shrimp is not one of the high-mercury content seafoods, unlike tuna fish. However, Lisa had a history of an adverse reactions to a flu shot. Some flu shots contain up to 30mcg of mercury in form of thimerosal.

Lisa had possibly become sensitized to mercury during that event. She quickly recovered from her acute symptoms with low potencies of Dr. Hahnemann’s chief mercury antidote, Hepar sulphur calcareum, which, in a way, may have confirmed my hypothesis, because her symptoms did not fit those of Hepar at all.

This leads me right into the topic of the selection of acute remedies for allergic reactions. It is really no different from any other urgent care prescribing. As in all acute cases, it is important not to lose sight of the forest for the trees.

The most important homeopathic considerations in selecting any remedy for an acute case, including cases of asthma, hay fever, or contact dermatitis, are the general symptoms. So, you ask questions like, “since this reaction started, how have you been feeling in general?” or more specific, “have you been thirsty or not thirsty, warm or chilly, what makes it worse or better, is this worse of better from getting warm or chilly, outdoors or indoors, etc?

So if you have general weakness, with sneezing, and not thirsty, it could mean Gelsemium, whereas weakness, sneezing and thirsty could require, say, Natrum muriaticum. In non-thirsty cases, you have a choice between several common acute remedies, Gels., Puls, Apis, Bell., etc.

In hives, or itching eruptions, chilly and thirsty could mean Rhus-tox, especially if the victim is thirsty for milk. On the other hand, if a victim is not thirsty and worse from heat, it might mean Apis and so on. By the way, why is such an important general symptom “thirstlessness” not listed under “general symptoms” in our Complete Repertory? Instead, it is found under stomach! Thirst is neither a condition nor a function of the stomach.

It helps to consider what types of allergic reaction you are dealing with: Hayfever remedies abound, but do not forget: Aralia, Naphtalinum, and Limulus. For asthma, look at Arsenicum, Ipecac, Eucaluptus, Chlorum, and Nat sulph.

Contact dermatitis with hives may also be helped by Antipyrinum, Copainum, and Fragaria. In common cases of mold and dust allergies, especially if there is wheezing, remedies like Blatta, Kali-bi and Nat- sulph should be considered. Lycopodium has been a most successful remedy for general chronic tendency to react to mold.

Natrum muriaticum is a wonderful remedy for patients becoming hypersensitive to everything they love like chocolate, etc. Animal hair allergies have responded well to Ant-tart, Gallium, Kali-ars, and Sulph. If it is a cat allergy, Arsenicum has often provided relief.

In dog hair allergies, I have tried Haliaethus lycocapitus without much success. I have done better with a combination of dog hair mix. Dust allergies sometimes respond to acute treatment of Brom., Hep. and Puls. and are often relieved permanently with chronic treatment of Ars. Sil. or Sulph.

Another important consideration during acute case taking is the fact that we cannot simply switch randomly from one remedy to the next. Each remedy has its specific interactions. And it has its relative duration. This you could look up in Gibson Miller’s charts.

Vermuellen’s Concordant has one of the most complete references on interactions or “relations”, and so has my Oncology Materia Medica. Some remedies follow well, while others do not. Some are inimical to each other. You need to know these and what to do in that case.

And what do you do when you have overlooked an interaction problem, when you realize you have aggravated a case, by choosing, say, Rhus tox after Apis? Or after giving Caust, and you now needed Phos.? You have to know your “inimicals” and their homeopathic antidotes like the back of your hand.

I wrote about such a situation, published in the American Homeopath, entitled Prelude to Surgery. Or, what if you encounter as case of a yellow jacket sting with symptoms resembling Apis, on top of a severe dermatitis reaction to poison ivy resembling Rhus-tox.?

I recommend you study my article carefully. In food allergies, it is not always the natural ingredients but the unnatural ones that are the culprit, such as preservatives or pollutants, as possibly in Lisa’s case, or perhaps chemical poisons that are involved in the production and processing of food.

This was possibly also the cause in the swelling the lady in Prelude to Surgery had encountered — a surgery, which by the way, homeopathy could prevent. But it looked like the situation was started with a serious allergic-type swelling of the fingers, possibly after eating in a Chinese restaurant. Sometimes you need to proceed like a detective in these acute cases. And you need to have a scientific rather than a dogmatic mind.

Here is another case for a detective: Elaine, a highly sensitive woman ate a new brand of yoghurt and promptly developed symptoms of anxiety with ravenous hunger. Under different circumstances, this would have probably led to a referral to a psychiatrist, had she not been one of my students.

After she called me and told me of her symptoms, I immediately suspected that she was suffering from iodine sensitivity. She confirmed that she had never been able to take iodized multivitamins without adverse reactions. Arsenicum album quickly antidoted the reaction, which was followed by a prolonged course of treatment with Iodum for the existing chronic iodine allergy.

Curious where the iodine could have come from, I had consulted with a client of mine who had a dairy farm and who confirmed that dairy farmers commonly wash the cows’ udders with a solution of iodine.

I once personally witnessed a tragedy in the making waiting in line at a steakhouse, where I was eating lunch, when an individual who had partaken from a salad bar suddenly collapsed after what appeared to be an adverse reaction to something in the salad.

It turned out the gentleman had an allergy to sodium metabisulfite and other sulfite-based preservatives, which are commonly used in the US in commercial salad bars. I was later told by the manager of the steakhouse that the victim died on the way to the hospital.

For some people, an innocent glass of red wine containing natural sulfites can be a death sentence! There are natural sulfites in wine, and additionally, sodium metabisulfite is commonly added to many California wines. Restaurants can be dangerous places!

Even the conventional medical treatment of choice for anaphylactic reactions, while often lifesaving, does not always work; it can have devastating effects on some individuals, especially those with drug allergies. Apparently, drug allergies are a common cause of death in United States hospitals.

The CEO of a major global pharmaceutical company stated recently that drug allergies and sensitivities are becoming a more and more serious problem for the industry. Anyone who has ever worked in an ER knows that this is, indeed, the case.

Not all people respond the same to a drug. This is also true for injected vaccines. The US CDC reports a relatively high incidence of allergic reactions to standard childhood vaccines, some of them systemic and life-threatening.

We should also learn about the difference in sensitivity to homeopathic medicines.

I have written about this too. I will briefly discuss the solution to this. Hahnemann recommended the olfactory dose be tried first in these cases, then additional dilutions of the potency without further potentizing—in other words, without succussing the mixture. Only gently stirring the solution after each step of dilution will do. This would be impossible if you were only taking globules, so, for acute cases, except for the first dose, we need the water potencies.

I have reports from some highly sensitive persons who had adverse reactions to sniffed doses of q-potencies. I recently worked with a young man named Jean from Belgium. Jean got anxiety attacks and chills every time he took the remedy Arsenicum.

And a patient from Mexico, Carlos, had tried classical homeopathy several times before, and it always failed, because every time previously he’d developed proving symptoms of whatever remedy he took. But after I had explained to him how to make further dilutions of that potency, Carlos found out he could take his remedy in 800 dilution cups. Likewise, Jean discovered he needed to dilute his remedy to 900 cups.

I have a list with probably several hundred cured cases and not all of allergies, but of a wide variety of disorders, each of them accomplished with more than fifty dosage cups of additional dilution. Theses cures support the observation that persons who were too sensitive and developed the proving symptoms from the standard globules could be cured, even after they had “flunked out” of standard homeopathy.

By taking the remedy with olfactory doses with additional dilutions they discovered this could be accomplished by increasing the dilution dramatically. They were cured, not only from their diagnosed conditions, but also from their hypersensitivity to homeopathic remedies!

I am currently working with a British attorney, a woman who was reacting to any remedy in the regular dose, and it took weeks to recover each time she had tried it. She recently reported she took Pulsatilla by the olfactory route in a liquid dose diluted in a series of 96 dosage cups and had a wonderful positive response.

These are exponential dilutions, without succussions! You may read up in the Organon on this method proposed by Hahnemann, except going to these extremes by trial and error to suit the highly sensitive patient.  I recommend my latest translation of this section in the Concise Organon (aphor. 248, p. 110).

I pioneered this method for these sufferers of preparing seemingly extreme exponential dilutions that suit the patient through additional steps of dilution, without increasing the potency through succussion. (For more information on how to obtain my tutorials including The Sensitive Patient, please call our clinic at 001-619-741-5795 during business hours EST).

Another common allergic reaction, the vaccine allergies are often-discussed these days. I remember the case of a mother from Tennessee who called my office about an allergic reaction her eleven-year-old son had to his two-year childhood vaccines. The parents stopped all vaccines after that. However, a few years later, the couple ended up divorcing. During the child custody proceedings, the father’s attorney advanced the mother’s concern over vaccines as cause to prove she was not suitable as a mother.

The judge ordered the boy be taken straight to the health department and vaccinated. Predictably, this was followed by another serious anaphylactic reaction that required emergency medical treatment and follow up treatment in the ICU!

For cases like this, and perhaps for all, homeopathic immunization would be the safest course of action to protect against infectious diseases. If you wish to learn more about this method, please feel free to consult my latest book on the subject.

This brings me to another often-discussed subject in homeopathic circles: the state of health or that of the vital force. I hinted above that the general state of health of an individual was possibly responsible for some extreme allergic reactions.

The expression “state of health” is, admittedly, about as blurry as the term “State of the Union” in American politics.  However, nevertheless, it is meaningful to homeopaths that see the difference between the sick and healthy state every day as a result of treatment.

According to the Hahnemannian definition of health, health is the predictable result of extinguishing of all signs and symptoms of a disease with a suitable (homeopathic) remedy. But what about persons who feel basically healthy, who are fit, young and seemingly have no signs or symptoms of any disorder and still get serious anaphylactic reactions?

Unless they have reason to believe that this can be changed, they would not likely even seek treatment. This is unfortunately very common. The symptoms of the typical allergic individual only occur, when there is a trigger. Doesn’t this constitute impaired health?

Of course, as homeopaths, we know there are latent states, lopsided or “defective” disorders, where no symptoms are manifest! Surprisingly, in his Organon, Hahnemann described exactly that state of healthy persons with certain “idiosyncrasies” that under certain circumstances predisposed the sufferers to serious hypersensitivity reactions to certain foods and plants, even without exhibiting any other signs of illness:

 “Some persons are apt to faint from smell of roses and to fall into many other morbid and sometimes dangerous states from partaking of mussels, crabs, and fish roe, or from touching the leaves of some kinds of sumach.”

Does this description not remind you of cases of the typical environmental allergies we have presented above? As it turns out, Hahnemann was of the opinion that these individuals are, in fact, basically healthy, and he thought that they were even the ideal candidates for becoming volunteer subjects for our homeopathic provings or pathogenetic trials!

Some prominent homeopaths have theorized that allergies and hypersensitivities are encountered in persons suffering from a “tuberculous miasms” that had to be eradicated. No doubt, many people do suffer from such a derangement.

And yet, there are many allergic individuals who do not show any such tuberculous signs or characteristics. Some homeopaths have pointed to the allergic condition as seen in persons afflicted with the “sycotic misam”. This may well be the case. However many do not!

Chronic Psora is also being blamed for allergic characteristics, and, indeed, it is often the antipsoric remedies that resolve stubborn chronic allergy cases. However, not all!  What about the modern miasms? Some theorize that for these, homeopathic treatment might reduce their hypersensitivity. I hope it works for their sake.

But what if they tell these people to take a single globule because they don’t understand that for some sensitive patients, a single globule of a homeopathically suitable remedy could send them straight to the ER?

Carlos or Jean, for example, could not be treated of these miasms using the single dose globule routinely given with the standard regular wait and watch high-centesimal-potency method. They needed the milder q-potencies in extreme dilutions!

The only task we have as investigating homeopaths is to prove our theories by getting results! If you can show that your method works, I invite you to write about it and publish it. Homeopathic science is a constant dialogue, or at least it should be, although sometimes it has been more like heated discussions, alternating with total silence. Are we proceeding like scientists in homeopathy? We should be at least open to investigate through experimentation.

Not all sickness is caused by underlying emotional derangements. Sometimes a person’s emotional derangement is the result of the sickness! Remember, I am saying this as a trained former psychotherapist! Having said this, there is no doubt that emotional states can play a significant role in allergies.

Fear and anxiety are common among sufferers, sometimes justified, as the reactions can be quite scary. That’s why Acon., Staph., Ignatia, etc. can be very helpful in certain acute allergic reactions and maybe a constant companion for chronic allergy sufferers or highly sensitive persons during their treatment.

In my paper on the cancer published in the The American Homeopath, Vol 16, 2010. I noted that persons suffering from this diathesis are also apt to being highly physically sensitive in a very general way. I pointed out that this state could be the result of an accumulation of poisons, and that more and more people are suffering from this affliction. In other words, our modern miasms may be generated by cortisone, ionizing radiation and glyphosate rather than by microbes.

They form the blockages or injuries to the metabolic functions that Dr. Sherry Rogers talked about. These miasms are caused by chemical compounds or perhaps a single toxin interfering with our bodies’ proper functioning, including their protective response against harmful microbes.

Let us take, for example, one common indoor pollutant present in almost every single household—formaldehyde. Formaldehyde gas is inhaled and once in the body can block its ability to process or break down certain common protein foods into ordinary aldehydes, such as from eggs, and suddenly we have a serious problem.

This is an example of an aldehyde metabolism cul de sac or blockage in metabolizing aldehydes. This causes the immune system to kick in and even form antibodies against that food. This then leads to an egg allergy.

There appears to be a connection between toxicity from multiple chemicals in the body, and the systemic condition multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS), causing adverse or allergic reactions to many chemicals such as to the odor of a big box store, and the condition of generalized allergies, which can cause the individual to develop immune reactions even to common natural substances.

In my article on the cancer diathesis, I pointed to the natural tendency of the immune system to try to solve a problem in the body, when it has become overwhelmed by generalized chemical overload to prevent the next stage of degeneration, which, should the hypersensitive phase fail, would be cancer. You see, instead of thinking of the body as a set of mechanistic reactions we ought to think of it as teleological life-preserving operating system.

This sensitivity stage is part of an evolutionary protective mechanism, in the sense of a reverse of Hering’s Law, from a healthier more sensitive, irritable state to the less sensitive or insensitive/asymptomatic cancerous state. In this sensitive state, the immune system begins to manufacture antibodies to all sorts of natural and unnatural compounds, including found in common foods.

A similar situation seems to be present when living bodies are exposed to pulsed high-frequency microwave radiation, such as from Wifi or cell phone technology. Which is now for most people, all the time, and everywhere they go! This constant overload of microwave exposure seems to lead to electromagnetic hypersensitivity and allergic-like symptoms resembling in some patients the symptom picture of allergic dermatitis.

For example, one woman installed a wifi system in her office, and the next day developed hives all over her body. They did not disappear until she had the wifi uninstalled. By the way, one study on ionizing radiation used for telecommunication has found that those with symptoms from that type of radiation have a lower risk to developing cancer.

This might indicate that there is an adaptive function at work. Many studies on toxicological phenomena show that the body can adapt to serious, even life-threatening toxins by being exposed first in minute doses. We are talking about a universal principle of toxicology here—possibly a way the organism can adapt to remain healthy or return to health, known as hormesis. There clearly is a relationship between allergy and toxicity, and the body’s failure to adapt versus adaptation at a cost—allergies!

This also matches our clinical observations in homeopathy. Often the very same medicines are needed to treat cases of intoxication and allergic reactions, precisely because the symptoms resemble each other. So, food allergy cases often present very much like food poisoning. Radiation sensitivity can present like radiation poisoning.

The chronic health effects seen from electromagnetic non-ionizing radiation have been thoroughly studied for decades by the US NAVY, by Soviet Russia, and by numerous universities in the US and elsewhere, and long before cell phone technology was introduced. The studies predicted that non-ionizing radiation could have serious consequences for all persons, not only those susceptible.

I recall the case of a nineteen-year-old patient who was seeking help from me in person, coming to my door with his mother instead of calling, because he was so sensitive to even mild electrical fields from an ordinary line phone that could cause intense discomfort. The mother and son ended up camping out in the middle of a nearby wild life reserve because that was the only place where he could feel comfortable.

Clarke reports on the case of an electrician who as a result of mercury intoxication was unable to continue his occupation because he suffered from an extreme sensitivity to the electrical field.

To summarize, in addition to the typical and common seasonal allergies already known to homeopaths at the time of Hahnemann, and for which we have many common remedies in our materia medica, we now are also facing numerous chemical allergies so bizarre that afflicted individuals simple no longer have anyone to turn to except homeopaths.

But especially those homeopaths that understand the serious problem of sensitivity! These unfortunate afflicted souls, unless they join the Amish, simply have no place to hide any more in our industrial society.

We no longer live in the idyllic horse and buggy days of Hahnemannian times, when natural contagious diseases made up the majority of all acute and chronic disorders and could quickly matched with a similar medicine that in many cases cure with a single dose. Today, the majority of disorders are due to insidious toxic factors like radiation, chemicals and medical drugs, and it is also those that are responsible for most allergic reactions.

Even from the Hahnemannian viewpoint, today’s allergic and hypersensitivity reactions are clearly special cases of sickness. And special disorders require special solutions. I have gone into details as to the several variations of sensitivity, and my solutions to this are discussed in detail in one of my tutorials called The Sensitive Patient.

This includes the special measures in our Organon already mentioned above but many more. I pioneered a systematic method to expand these dilutions to an extreme degree, much beyond what was suggested in the Organon. With this I have been able relieve many highly sensitive individuals from their chronic conditions gently and permanently.

These methods should be investigated scientifically, because they may represent the only medical solution left for mankind if this trend continues.
We already have quite a few scientific studies of the standard homeopathic treatment that show homeopathy works against various allergic reactions, especially for the acute or symptomatic treatment of allergic rhinitis.

As I have pointed out in another of my papers published in the American Homeopath, Vol 23, 2017, on the scientific evidence on tautopathy, many of our scientific studies that found efficacy of homeopathic treatment of allergies were actually “isopathic” or “tautopathic” studies, not homeopathic ones!

Dana Ullman, in his excellent 2010 Review of Homeopathic Research in the Treatment of Respiratory Allergies, concluded that “no studies have evaluated the efficacy of long-term homeopathic constitutional treatment.” According to Ullman a number of clinical trials were conducted that evaluated the efficacy of certain homeopathic medicines for treating various acute allergy symptoms.

I personally find the lack of studies on the constitutional approach unfortunate, though understandable, because they are difficult to design. Constitutional treatment is difficult to define and to standardize to fit into the standard parameters of scientific studies.

As we have seen, not only do the majority of studies on homeopathic treatment of allergies actually investigate isopathy using homeopathic potencies, but also even in our record of published cases we are hard-pressed to find many published purely “homeopathic” cases that have relieved chronic allergies.

BTW, regarding the difference of the terms “tautopathic” and “isopathic”, please refer to my first paper on the subject. In my talk today, I am using the two terms interchangeably.

In my review of Tautopathic Treatment During the Classical Era of Homeopathy, The American Homeopath, vol 17, 2011, I quoted WA Dewey, M. D., of Ann Arbor, Michigan, in his book Essentials of Homeopathic Therapeutics, in which he reported on the use of the tautopathic method among his colleagues for the treatment of allergies.

According to Dewey, in the 1870’s, homeopaths treated food allergies with the potentized foods, reporting many apparent cures:

And I quote:

“Dr. Samuel Swan, and Dr. Thomas Wildes of New York and Dr. P. P. Wells of Brooklyn and many others in the latter “seventies” reported many cases of supersensitiveness to various foods, among which was a case where common garden celery when eaten produced itching, changing locality frequently and other disagreeable symptoms. Apium graveolens (Celery) in a high potency removed the condition and permitted the patient to ever afterwards eat celery with no untoward effects.

People exist who cannot eat strawberries. These susceptible individuals suffer from urticarial rashes, sometimes difficulty in breathing as if a weight were on the chest. Potentized Fragaria vesca relieved at once. This was first advocated perhaps by Dr. W. P. Wesselhoeft of Boston and amply verified by Drs. Swan, and Wells.

The writer used it successfully in a case having similar symptoms whenever strawberries, of which she was most fond, were eaten. Fragaria vesca in a high potency not only removed the condition, but so completely that the patient was ever after able to eat strawberries without symptoms for the remainder of her life, which ended some 30 years subsequent.

There are numerous cases of over susceptibility to Apis poisoning which is remedied by taking Apis mellifica in minimum doses. Bee keepers and those who handle bees are rendered immune, and do not mind or suffer from bee stings, nor do they produce swellings or edema when the person is thus immunized.”

Apparently, some patients recovered permanently from tautopathic treatment alone, and no additional treatments such as “constitutional treatment” were mentioned. What is true about foods also apparently works for pollen and all sorts of other allergies. Many of our best hay fever remedies are prepared from known allergens, such as Ambrosia, Arundo, Arum triphyllum, Euphrasia, Gelsemium, Sabadilla, Solidago, Wyethia and many others.

And many of our asthma remedies are prepared from allergens. This not only includes plant medicines but also the cockroach Blatta orientalis, and halogens like bromine and chlorine, which are known to cause asthmatic reactions.

In urgent care situations, the selection is sometimes greatly alleviated by using the isopathic method. I have seen many quick cures of acute asthma attacks in children who could not partake in swimming in a chlorinated pool, and even their chronic asthma, cured with doses of Chlorum repeated over months.

What I have shown for cancer remedies in the Oncology Materia Medica, is true for our allergy remedies: the quality of proving experiments of some of our best allergy remedies still varies widely. Some are thoroughly proven, such as Gelsemium, while for others we cannot find any provings at all (such as in Fragaria vesca).

These remedies are used simply on clinical observations and sometimes on tautopathic indications! But in spite of the advantages of the tautopathic method, we must resort to the homeopathic method in cases when the triggering allergen is not known. In these cases, the symptoms of the acute attack are the most reliable indications for the selection of a remedy.

Dewey also acknowledged the use of constitutional characteristics or constitutional type for remedy selection in chronic treatment of allergies. I myself have seen this work many times, and I have also seen even more dismal failures.  Dewey in his chapter declared the action of the tautopathic medicine is simply homeopathic! He pointed out that many foods that can cause disease are already in our material medica, and some have even been proven.

I myself have counted 86 food remedies in Boericke alone.

Quoting Dewey:

“In 1867 Adolf Lippe had a case of chronic poisoning by cane sugar (in other words a super sensitiveness to this substance). He removed it completely by Saccharum officinalis. (Hahn. Mo. Oct. 1867.) A case of quininism cured by Cinchona sulphuricum in high potency. (Organon Vol. iii p. 208.)

The susceptibility to parsley can be cured by Petroselinum 30C, says Dr. James W. Ward, one of our best and most careful observers. Asthma from eating scallops cured by Pectens jacobaeus, which in a high potency cured permanently.

Asthma due to susceptibility to the proteid substance in eggs, cured by repeated doses of Egg White. (Boericke’s Materia Medica p. 491). I have personally cured many cases of hay fever due to the rag-weed by Ambrosia artemisiaefolia in potency. The pharmaceutical houses of today are making much capital out of the pollen extracts of the various hay fever producing plants.

The hypersensitiveness to Rhus poisoning has been removed many times by the use of Rhus toxicodendron, and why it does not relieve in all cases is simply owing to a difference in sensitiveness in different people and to the many varieties of the plant. It has been clinically observed that allergic persons are less susceptible to contagious and infectious diseases. (Ward.)”

Dr. Dewey did not see much of a difference between homeopathic cures and isopathic cures, or, for that matter, isopathic treatment for the prevention of infectious diseases, a subject he covers elsewhere in his book. Like many others, he felt that once all of these agents have been proven, it will become evident that the action of all isopathic treatment is simply homeopathic:

“A study of epidemic remedies, which physicians have often reported will be explained along similar paths, also constitutional remedies, and it will be found that SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURANTUR is the law of all curative medicine.”

He was of the opinion that isopathic (and tautopathic) treatment was homeopathy, so long as it was done in potency—plain and simple. He quoted Swan:

“Isopathy would give raw cucumbers to a person made sick by eating cucumbers and would make him worse. Homeopathy would give him Cucumis in a high potency and not only cure the patient but also enable him to eat cucumbers with no untoward symptoms.”

This position avoided the controversy surrounding the isopathic method. I showed in my paper on Tautopathy during the Classical Era of Homeopathy that this has caused some American Homeopathic teaching institutions and professional organizations to dismiss their professors and students of homeopathy on dogmatic grounds.

I also showed that the real controversy was about the method of selection of the remedy, not really on the remedy’s efficacy or its action. This distinction was also made by the Scottish homeopathic physician J. Compton Burnett in his famous remark:

“I maintain that choosing the remedies according to the totality of the symptoms is only one way of finding the right remedy; and, moreover, sometimes totally inadequate. You may find the right remedy once in a way according to the old doctrine of signatures; and, even though so found, it acts homeopathically; the way of choosing is poor and crude, but it is a way. You may find the right remedy by organ-testing after the manner of Paracelsus, and the remedy acts homeopathically although found that way. You may find the right remedy purely hypothetically, after the manner of Von Grauvogl and Schüssler, the mode of action remains the same, i.e., homeopathic…

and now, please pay attention:

You may use dynamized salt — Natrum muriaticum — to cure marine cachexia, sea side neuralgia, sea-side headache, and the like, and still the action of the remedy is homeopathic.”

I myself, in the absence of having a homeopathic emergency kit available, have followed Dr Clarke’s advice and taken unpotentized grains of salt and saved the day in many a yellow jacket or wasp sting. This tried and true home remedy can remove all pain and swelling quickly. Of course, it helps only the acute condition and yes, I would quite prefer to use Apis mellifica.

Homeopathic treatment of acute allergic reactions can save lives. I spend considerable time outdoors and have treated hundreds of acute cases of allergic reactions to natural allergens like plant and insect allergies, localized swelling and discomfort from insect bites and stings, more or less severe cases of contact dermatitis, numerous and multiple cases of asthmatic crises and many cases of anaphylaxis. I can attest to the efficacy of both—the homeopathic and the tautopathic method. This is true for chemical and drug allergies in addition to the standard natural allergies.

A middle-aged fellow came to office one day, and by the time he sat down on his desk, he had broken out all over with an itchy red rash that quickly spread all over this body. He had seen a truck parked outside the office that looked like it carried a tank of herbicide spray, so he reasoned this may have had something to do with this sickness.

He confronted his boss about it and was told, yes, they did spray an herbicide. By now he was feeling absolutely livid over his skin reactions and at the same time was on the verge of going into anaphylactic shock. He ran to his car, but instead of going to the ER, while he drove home he called my office, and over the phone after quickly reviewing his symptoms, I recommended he try Rhust-t from his wife’s home remedy kit.

He called back an hour later and reported he felt much better. He took the remedy as recommended in “plussed” liquid doses every hour or so, and by the next day, he was back to normal. However, three weeks later, he developed all sorts of other unpleasant symptoms. I asked him if he could find out what the poison was, and he did. So we sent him the 30C potency of Telar XP Bayer, and over the next month he recovered from all his chronic symptoms, simply with the tautopathic treatment of the acute reaction.

Or the case of a teenager who went to his dentist to get his new braces attached. He had an apparent anaphylactic reaction to the adhesive they used, and the dentist called an ambulance. However, the boy’s mother did not want the epinephrine treatment offered by the EMT for him, and drove him straight to my office.

I received a call, “we are on our way to you with an emergency! John’s choking from increased swelling in his throat, and he has difficulty breathing, and we are right around the corner from your office!”

My assistant and I rushed down to the parking lot and were waiting for them with several potencies of Apis on hand. By the time they arrived the young man had turned blue in the face, his tongue was so swollen he could hardly breathe. The first dose was a globule of the Apis 30C, and he took a deep breath. This was followed in five minutes by a globule of the 200C. He now looked relieved and said he was feeling better. I looked at my assistant and saw she had turned pale. A trained EMT, she said, “I could think of only one thing: epinephrine, epinephrine, epinephrine…” But Apis had saved the day!

I had a middle-aged client with an allergy to sesame seeds, with regular signs and symptoms. He would eat at a restaurant and react even to salad dressing containing sesame oil. This was usually followed by a hasty trip to the ER and a week or so of recovery from epinephrine treatment.

After carefully evaluating his symptoms, I chose Apis, and from then on he carried a small vial with Apis globules in his pocket. Whenever he had a reaction to sesame seed, he placed one of them under his tongue and soon felt relief—much more relief that he ever got from the epipen!

However, to cure his chronic allergy required recurrent doses of Natrum muriaticum and simultaneous desensitization against sesame seeds with a remedy I prepared myself through potentization of crushed seeds, because I could not find it in any of the common pharmacies. Usually, we get our pharmacodes from Helios and Ainsworths because the US pharmacies are prevented by the FDA from marketing or selling anything other what is listed in the HPUS.

Homeopathic remedies have also worked for me in many cases also as preventives of anaphylaxis. I once attended an outdoor wedding, and during the ceremony, there was a loud scream of a woman’s voice followed by calls for my name. I moved towards the commotion and was told, a little girl Sara who had a bee allergy and gets anaphylactic reactions to bee stings had just got stung on her finger.

“We forgot our epipen”, sighed the mother. “I am told you have something to help?” I explained, it was a homeopathic remedy and walked calmly to my car, got my travel kit out and gave her a pellet of Apis 30C. The girl took it, calmed down, and within five minutes, her mother declared in amazement, “it’s working.” I waited another ten minutes, by then she said, “I can’t believe it, Sara is fine. By now, I would be scrambling to get to the ER!”

These are just a few of hundreds of examples, when a homeopathic remedy quickly resolved or prevented acute systemic allergic reactions. And not all cases responded to Apis. Some cases of anaphylaxis required the use of Camph., Carbolicum acidum, Carb-v., Torul., Vespa crabro and others. I could tell you similar experiences with asthmatic attacks. I will now read to you a few testimonials from clients on our website of successful allergy treatment:

5 years ago I was unable to be around grass or hay without extreme itching and wheezing. Today we stacked 200 bales of hay into the barn. I am so thankful for homeopathy!”

Linda Nowack
USA

Thank you, thank you, thank you…the addition of the Rhus Tox was very effective…48 hrs now and all I have left is a bit of puffiness and slight redness…it really worked great….homeopathy is so much fun when you get the correct remedy…….thanks again, you guys are super!

Pam M.
Jacksonville, NC

I now mostly use the Mueller Method protocol for chronic treatment, which is based on Hahnemannian principles incorporating modern medical science. I use a systematic tautopathic pretreatment (reverse chronological tautopathy) for all chronic treatment, to remove latent obstacles to cure produced by suppressive drugs.

Virtually everyone in the US grows up with these suppressive drugs. I can report that simply removing obstacles to cure, meaning the secondary and long-term effects of cortisone, steroids, antihistamines, decongestants, and antibiotics in reverse chronological order can work wonders in permanently removing people’s allergies. This is done in alternation with ordinary chronic remedies.

As part of the regular chronic treatment of allergies I would like to briefly mention the homeopathic desensitization method with the tautopathic agents. For more detailed information please consult my paper on scientific evidence on tautopathy.

This is typically done over a period of several months with repeated doses in increasing potencies of the potentized substance associated with the allergic reaction. Please note, I did not say, the allergen identified during a blood or skin test! The remedy is identified by observation of what triggers the allergy and its syndrome, as in the case of, say, the chlorine allergy or a gluten allergy.

Conclusion: I would like to conclude by sharing with you a personal observation: I have seen success in curing general allergic tendencies from certain simple, very common, well-proven polychrests in our materia medica.

There is one such common remedy I would like to mention that has cured more chronic hay fevers than any other. Catherine Coulter once told me, every British person will need it sooner or later. Many sufferers who took it have been completely cured from the chronic tendency to seasonal allergies and hay fever, after following a regular protocol of Hahnemannian “plussed” doses in ascending potencies every ten days, for a period of two or more years. Usually by the third season, the allergy is gone. The remedy is—Natrum muriaticum.

So, if you have been under constitutional treatment with some exotic new remedy for longer than two years, and still suffer from chronic hay fever, you may want to try this. You won’t be disappointed.  THANK YOU.