The Basic Principles of Homeopathy
Without a doubt, this is the most important chapter in this book. In it, you’ll learn what homeopathy is and how it differs from conventional Western, or allopathic, medicine. I’d wager you’re probably just looking to learn about a few homeopathic remedies so you can help your children, and I promise that you’ll find such information in these pages. Yet homeopathy differs enormously from conventional medicine. So before you can set out on a course of homeopathic healing, you need to understand a few significant details. Otherwise you may be as astonished and disbelieving as Tim’s parents were.
As happens frequently in my homeopathic practice, I saw Tim after his parents had already tried every single conventional approach offered to them by dermatologists. Tim was thirteen and he had an awful case of eczema. Lesions had spread all over his body, most looking like various stages of poison ivy, and they were, as Tim put it, “very ugly.” The itching was enormous. Luckily, he only had a few marks on his face.
Tim and his parents felt devastated. This good-looking, intelligent boy couldn’t socialize, as he was afraid that other kids would make fun of him. He avoided going to the beach, swimming in the pool, or playing sports. After all, what if another student saw his embarrassing lesions while he was changing in the locker room? His parents were also concerned that the eczema wouldn’t get better no matter what they did. They’d heard from dermatologists that kids usually “outgrow” eczema. But it hadn’t happened so far.
As far as homeopathy is concerned, the severity of skin lesions doesn’t matter as long as the patient is otherwise healthy. In our initial consultation, I determined that Tim was. I therefore knew I simply had to find the correct remedy. One dose of that exact remedy would probably take care of everything. Of course, this was easy for me to say. The parents told me honestly that if not for the utter failure of conventional treatments, including steroids, they would never have considered bringing their son to a homeopath. In the end, they only came because a mutual friend recommended me as trustworthy.
After taking a look at Tim’s lesions, I conducted a full homeopathic interview. The questions I asked were seemingly strange. I was mostly interested in what made his rash feel better or worse, and in what made Tim different from other people. I wanted to know his eating and sleeping habits and about his relationship with the weather, animals, and people. I needed to understand what made this particular child with eczema different from everyone else with the same diagnosis. In addition, I needed to match the set of symptoms that Tim was then exhibiting with the set of symptoms that had been triggered in healthy volunteers by a homeopathic substance during initial research that was conducted to understand its curative properties. That’s how a homeopath carefully picks a remedy.
After about an hour and a half, I made a decision. I gave Tim a 200C dose of a homeopathic remedy called Rhus toxicodendron. He dissolved the sugary pellet under his tongue and told me he liked its sweetness. I explained to his parents that I’d given him a preparation of poison ivy that had been diluted 10400 (that is, 10 to the four hundredth power) times. Tim’s father was a chemist. He said, “That’s crazy. Nothing diluted this much can work.” He was also surprised that I wanted Tim to take a pill only once. Both parents seemed disappointed that there was nothing else I was willing to offer. Nevertheless they didn’t have a choice.
I asked Tim’s parents to wait six to eight weeks and then come in for a follow-up appointment. Two months later, they brought Tim back. The rash was gone! Tim was so happy that he decided to become a homeopath when he grew up. They reported that about five days after taking the Rhus, Tim complained of an increased rash and itching. But a few days later, the itching subsided and the lesions started to disappear. The skin on the upper parts of his body healed first, and then the rash completely went away.
Interestingly, not all cases of eczema would have responded to Rhus. To the contrary, I’ve successfully prescribed many other remedies for the same skin condition. In homeopathy, we treat the individual patient rather than suppress the symptoms of a disease. Like Tim, his parents were thrilled with the results of homeopathy. But they still wondered if we should give Tim more of the remedy, just to make sure he would be fine in the future. I explained to them that it wasn’t necessary or even useful. He was cured.
What Is Homeopathy?
Homeopathy is a medical approach that’s defined by the principle of similars: “like cures like.” Its practitioners use small quantities of highly diluted substances that in larger quantities would provoke the same symptoms they intend to cure. In the case of Tim, for instance, we employed heavily diluted poison ivy to heal an itchy skin rash. The idea is to give the body’s own healing process a tiny boost. All forms of medicine that don’t follow this principle are considered allopathy.
In homeopathy, we appreciate symptoms as being the language in which the body speaks to us. They show us that the body is struggling to externalize the potential damage that a deep-seated illness could do at the body’s core. If we’re seeing various external symptoms, we can be fairly certain that deep damage hasn’t been done yet. If these stop, we can assume that either the individual is cured or the illness has reached deeper to the core level. In allopathy, symptoms are viewed as being the illness, rather than as an attempt to heal, which is why conventional doctors believe they must be suppressed. By contrast, homeopathy views the body’s expression of symptoms as a healthy mechanism. For this reason, homeopaths treat a patient’s set of symptoms with remedies that would cause a similar set of symptoms if taken in sufficient quantity by a healthy person. Like cures like.
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