Let’s talk about homeopathy…
In my last blog, I described my journey to homeopathy and some homeopathic theories. (you can read it here) I would like to continue sharing some thoughts about homeopathy.
After the theory of ‘soil’, another mainstream theory that has a different interpretation within homeopathic treatment is the chemical theory. In the mainstream approach, medicines are used to work against blood readings which means if something is too low, they induce it or if the blood marker is too high, they try to reduce it. But again, logically thinking if you try to push the body in the opposite direction, how is it going to react?
In many cases, the body is going to work by pushing it back. In homeopathy, we look at why the actual state occurs and what is the root cause of for example low thyroid hormones or iron levels.
In more complicated causation like in a case of high blood pressure, it is not enough to just lower it down using medicines, neither allopathic nor homeopathic. High blood pressure indicates that our body demonstrates some kind of imbalance by elevating blood pressure and when forced by medicines to lower it down it would push back. We can see that when doctors need to increase the dose of hypertensive medicines or add another agent where often the root cause of the problem has not been detected or addressed.
Root cause- how to find it?
So, the main difference between homeopathy and allopathy (mainstream medicine) is looking for a root cause of the health imbalance and not just trying to fix it artificially which often only helps temporarily.
In the case of high blood pressure, from a homeopathic perspective, I would be interested in the condition of the adrenal glands and liver of the patient, her/his stress levels, and their origin as well as the quality of sleep. Also, any emotional events like a deep shock that could be recent or from some time ago.
Of course, also other general physical and emotional symptoms as well as unusual things that changed in that person at a similar time. The founder of the homeopathic college, which I completed, kept telling us that 10 minutes of meditation a day can be more effective to lower blood pressure than any medications! And also without side effects;)
Physical or emotional?
The next important aspect of homeopathic treatment would be a question: What can be the root cause of physical states? I would put them in two main groups, external and internal which are quite obvious.
Some of the external factors I have already mentioned before, like food and what is closely related to it, and any type of toxicity we might be exposed to. Toxicity is not only from food but also from other everyday products we may use. Just to mention a few of them, products we use to wash our bodies, clean our houses or treat our hair, nails, and …teeth. You will find more information about toxicity and food in my next blogs.
Within internal factors, homeopathy focuses its attention on our emotional state which can be recent or from many years ago, like emotional traumas from the past. Traumas to the body can be physical or emotional and we may not be able to see a direct link with our current states but it does exist and it is a role of a homeopath to recognize those as they present within the patient.
A good comparison is that treating homeopathically a person is like peeling an onion from layers and the number of those depends on all sorts of trauma that a person had and how deep they got suppressed… Yes, it may sound a bit vague but at the end of the day, every individual is different, so it is a homeopathic approach to every single case. You can check this video on what is chronic prescribing.
Going deeper
One of the emotional states which are hard for everyone is grief. In many cultures, death is not something that might be present in life or something pleasant to talk about.
However, life and death are inseparable as much as it may sound pathetic, which at the same time does not change the difficulty to go through the grieving process when it comes to our loved ones…
Like every emotional state is different for each of us, as well as homeopathic remedies to relieve it, because your way of expressing the emotion of sadness is different from that of other people. One person closes himself and stops eating, another cries and needs conversation, and another cries in secret, or feels strong anger …
So as many variations of the state there are different possible homeopathic remedies that we can use. As with many emotional states, it is different for each of us, as well as homeopathic remedies, help with it. In the state of grief or other emotional imbalances, it is important to “do something” to help our mind to deal with emotions. (You can Check this video to see what is important to help with homeopathy in an acute state.)
By “do something” I mean many things, from simple talk through meditation, Bach flower remedies (they work on emotional states) and homeopathy or some other holistic therapy. Emotions that our mind cannot deal with often get suppressed to reappear after some time in our physical body in a form of sickness. Many diseases have origin in the emotional states or are better to say most of them have an emotional factor that has its input… During homeopathic consultations, we try to recognise those links and choose the most similar homeopathic remedies to stimulate the vital force of self-healing in the patients.
Homeopathic laws and methods
You may ask what similar homeopathic remedies mean. “Law of similium” (Like cures like) is one of the principles of homeopathy which in simple words means taking into consideration the emotional and physical symptoms of an individual to select homeopathic remedies or remedies that in a healthy individual induced those symptoms.
Yes, to answer your next question homeopathic remedies are tested on healthy individuals in the process called “homeopathic proving” to know what physical and emotional symptoms they cause, because then they can be used in people presenting these symptoms.
Like cures, the rule says if something causes the symptoms presented in the patient, giving such a remedy in homeopathic form can give a signal to the body to take care of the symptoms.
To illustrate that, cutting onions may cause our tears to flow and our noses to itch or even start running. A similar presentation of symptoms we get in some people who suffer from seasonal hay fever- running, itchy nose, and streaming eyes and for that presentation Allium Cepa (onion) in homeopathic form can be a great relief. (You can check the video on What is homeopathy?)
It brings me to the other important homeopathic observation that something that directly caused our symptoms let’s say a coffee – raises blood pressure, agitation or in some cases tachycardia and racing thoughts then coffee- Coffea cruda in the homeopathic form can relieve us from these symptoms. I can already hear people saying coffee does nothing to me and I drink it every day 3 or 4… then try to stop your habit for a day and see what happens- unexplained headache, irritability, and tiredness. For those symptoms also homeopathic Coffea cruda can give some relief as well as for sleeplessness from coffee or wine overuse… This matching approach based on direct causation is called a therapeutic method which is just one of many possible methods used in the search for homeopathic remedies.
Several symptoms presented by the patient may match more than one remedy and most of the time it has more complicated causation than a cup of coffee if you know what I mean. That is why in practical homeopathy we treat the whole picture of a person on different levels using multi-method prescribing. On another hand, classical homeopathy still to this day gives one remedy and uses a wait-and-see approach whereby more progressive practical school moves to seeing 21st-century patients as more fragmented and requiring some support on multiple levels.
Conclusion
Homeopathy is such a vast subject that needs time to sink in. That is why I do not feel I want to write much more at this stage so let’s say there will be a part two of this subject in the future.
As homeopathy requires time to be processed and understood because it does not happen immediately, I will take a little pause here… Healing is an art, and let me not overdo it. Let’s talk about homeopathy!