Crash Course in Homeopathy

Justin is doing so much better! The homeopathic dose wore off around Sunday night, after a week, so we redosed him last night. It is amazing the changes I have been seeing- I didn't realize what I've been missing all this time, and the Out of Sync Child helped me put my finger on it.

As far as homeopathy here's how it works... Homeopathy is based on the principle that like cures like. Allopathic medicine is based on suppression of symptoms. Say you have congestive heart failure. You go to the doc, he says, Ok, here are your problems, take these four drugs. The problem with allopathic medicine is that it suppresses symptoms, and sometimes symptoms come out later in other systems. For example, many kids with exzema (which is usually an expression of food allergies) are treated with topical creams, which suppresses the symptoms in a superficial system, the skin. Usually any eruption on the skin is the body getting rid of toxins. Many of these children develop asthma a few months or years later, because the symptoms have been suppressed, and go deeper into the body, according to homeopaths.


Homeopathic remedies are made of minerals, inorganic compounds, foods, anything you can think of. They are diluted to the hundreth or millionth degree, and then "proven" by a test subject. When the test subject takes a dose of the remedy, the reaction or symptoms that come out are recorded. The remedies are proven again and again so a clear picture can be established as to what symptoms come out when it is taken. With homeopathy, instead of having a one size fits all treatment for ailments, the homeopath takes a thorough history of the person's prenatal and birth events, health history, personality traits, food preferences, sleep habits, and acute or chronic illness, and matches all of those traits with a remedy's symptoms and traits.

Sometimes, like in Justin's case, there is more than one remedy that matches. For kids there are several, because their personalities are just developing and coming out. Sulfur is used for autistic children and works well, but it didn't work for Justin. Or I should say it peeled off a layer of illness so we could see more clearly what we were dealing with. That is the other thing about homeopathy- sometimes in order to treat something chronic, you have to treat the superficial problems first in order to get to the chronic problem. It is a little bit like peeling an onion. Lycopodium seems to be his remedy at the moment, but it may change as he grows.

Another thing about homeopathy- Hahnemann wrote several volumes on the subject, and his 6th edition was the last published before he died. Most naturopaths and alternative practitioners use the 5th edition, but there are several important changes in the 6th. He found at the end of his life that dry dosing was suppressing symptoms and causing aggravations (flare up of symptoms of the chronic or acute problem). So he developed a system of dosing in water, which is used by most qualified homeopaths today. When someone is re-dosed, the water solution is sucussed, or redistributed by hitting the bottle against the palm, which further dilutes the substance.

So in essence you give a test dose first, to see how the person reacts. Then if that helps, you give another smaller dose, and keep increasing the dilution, or decreasing the dose, until the body is able to take over the work of the remedy. The remedy works because it mimics the problem the body is having, so the body works out the remedy and gets rid of the problem at the same time. This is kind of similar to the body having the flu, and working really hard to get rid of it. Fever and chills are the body's way of driving the virus out, so if you can induce a flu-like illness with homeopathy, you can get rid of the flu that way. That is an example with acute illness, but it is more related to what happens with chronic problems.

You will see many people going to Whole Foods or the health food store and getting remedies for acute problems. Homeopaths call this first-aid. It is usually OK to do dry dosing with first-aid and repeat the dose. With a chronic problem the dosing is in water and is on a different schedule. I'm still learning about first-aid so I'll share what I learn when I finish the class. The key is to find a qualified and competent homeopath to treat a chronic problem. When people try to self-medicate they can get into trouble.

Edith, the homeopath I have been consulting with, works with Dr. Luc, the homeopathy guru of our times. She's one of his students. I consider myself lucky (now) that I got in with her, as she's found the right remedy. I had serious doubts at first because of the Sulfur and the way he reacted to it. But homeopathy is cheap, as is dietary intervention, and it works wonders when applied correctly.

I was first introduced to homeopathy with Hyland's teething tablets, which were a godsend for my colicky babies and when they were cutting teeth. I guess it has just gone from there. I also have learned (the hard way) that the naturopath I was seeing was dosing J incorrectly with Thuja to get rid of the vaccine problem, because she was dry dosing and doing it over and over again for weeks. That may have actually suppressed part of the problem, and brought out the dairy allergy after he had the flu. She also advocated using a lot of herbs for treatment, which suppresses symptoms instead of helping them.

The problem with the flu is that it can make the immune system work so hard that it leaves other problems unchecked, which is what I think happened with Justin.

To be continued...