Professional Care |
When to Self-Treat Your Ailments and How to Know When Professional
Homeopathic Care is Needed
I encourage self-care for uncomplicated ailments like colds and flu
and injuries. In fact, when I teach introductory homeopathy classes,
I talk about a number of remedies that can be easily used at home,
such as allium cepa (for the common cold of sore, watery eyes and
watery, runny nose with the space below the nose sore), arnica (for
strains, sprains, bruises and physical trauma of all kinds) and
calendula (for open wounds, slow healing wounds, rashes, sunburn).
These are acute conditions, ailments that will get better whether or
not you do anything for them. So if you take the wrong remedy for a
few doses, you can't do much harm because you will get well
regardless of what you do.
Sorting out what to self-treat and when to seek professional
homeopathic care can be a bit of a challenge, however. I've worked
with people who have self-treated for ailments that should have been
treated professionally and they have disrupted their system with the
flawed use of remedies. A good example of this is the case at the
end of this page (an example of what not to do in self-treating).
To help you sort out when to self-treat and when to seek
professional help, here are seven primary indications when
professional homeopathic care is recommended:
1. Disease Prevention and Health Promotion:
A constitutional homeopathic remedy can help "tune up" a person on
many levels, mentally, physically and emotionally, to help them
experience vibrant health, energy and well being.
2. Genetic Disorders:
Although homeopathic remedies cannot heal genetic disorders,
patients with these problems who receive homeopathic care often
don't experience the various complications of their ailments as
often as people who do not pursue homeopathic care. Homeopathy can
reduce the impact of genetic disease on a person's health.
3. Preconception, pregnancy and postpartum:
Homeopathy helps both mom and baby. It can lead to quicker
conception, especially if both prospective parents receive
homeopathic treatment. It can reduce the chance of miscarriage,
remove the "common" symptoms of pregnancy (nausea, hemorrhoids and
heartburn) and promote a smooth, uncomplicated labor and delivery.
(As a side note, the babies born to moms who have received
homeopathic care from me are uniformly very calm, healthy, alert,
easy babies.)
4. Recurrent, Subtle Symptoms:
A person may not have any clearly diagnosable condition but may not
be as healthy as he or she could be. That person may have subtle,
vague and seemingly unrelated symptoms such as low energy, sore
throats, poor sleep, headaches, poor digestion, irritability, etc.
5. Serious Acute Symptoms:
While conventional medicine is effective in dealing with serious
acute symptoms such as injuries or fast moving infections, one can
often use homeopathy along side such health problems with great
results.
6. Recurrent Injuries:
This refers to situations were people re-injure themselves in the
same spot months or years after the initial injury. The person may
have an internal weakness that makes him or her susceptible to such
injuries. Not only can homeopathy provide deep healing of the injury
itself but it can also help remove that susceptibility to easy
injury.
7. Chronic Ailments:
Homeopathy is very useful and effective for most chronic diseases:
asthma, hormonal problems, depression and allergies are all
treatable with homeopathy. Many people with chronic diseases
eventually use homeopathy because conventional medications often
create side effects that are more difficult than the original
disease.
This Is An Example of What Not To Do In Self-Treating
K.A. called me in July to ask my advise on what to do with her
allergies. She said she had been "playing around with remedies" for
her seasonal allergies. At first she seemed to have found a remedy
that gave her some relief from her very severe allergies to birch
tree and other pollens. But she found that after taking that remedy
for a while it seemed to work less and less well. She started
taking the remedy more often, eventually taking a tube (containing
about 40 doses) every day. At that point the remedy was hardly
working at all, and in fact she said she thought she was getting
symptoms from taking the remedy so often. She asked me what she
should do.
I told her it sounded like that remedy was what we call "a close
remedy," it acted at first, but over time it became less and less
effective, which is typical for a close remedy. In cases like this,
taking the remedy more and more often will not help the remedy work
better. If the remedy is the right one, it will act. If it is a
close remedy, it will sort of act at first, then its effects will
taper off.
I suggested she not take any more of the remedy, in fact to leave
remedies completely alone for several months. After her system had
a chance to settle down from being so overdosed, we got together, I
found a very good remedy for her and she was able to cope with birch
and other tree pollen much better. As a side benefit, her digestion
improved, her extreme worry about her children eased and she felt
well enough to start a postgraduate program.
She still is doing well, usually she just needs a few doses of her
remedy at the beginning of spring.
Where K.A. went wrong was when she continued taking a remedy that
had worked, but was no longer working. She thought if she could
only take enough of the remedy, it would start working again. That
may be how some pharmaceutical drugs work, but it isn't at all how
homeopathic remedies work. |
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