So you've heard a bit about homeopathy. Maybe you've been treated by a homeopath, or been using it for years. Or maybe you have no idea where to start. Here are my tips for all things homeopathy.
TYPES OF HOMEOPATH AND HOMEOPATHY
In short, there are classical homeopaths and practical homeopaths, and everything in between. Classical Homeopaths generally select one remedy at a time, based on a logical set of medical principles, and then select one remedy based on your entire case - you as a whole person - and not just on one symptom or organ. Practical homeopaths tend to treat specific symptoms and systems of the body, or use a range of remedies at once, to cover several bases.
There is no right or wrong - and ideally you will find a professionally qualified homeopath, who has completed the standard four year advanced diploma or licentiate, as well as regular continued professional development.
I refer to myself as a 'classically trained homeopath with a modern approach to healing', meaning that I have the full holistic training behind me, but the modern tools and CPD to select the most appropriate solution for your individual situation. Sometimes that will be a fully classical approach, and sometimes I will prescribe a detox method, an organ remedy or a couple of remedies to take on different days. Personally, I do not dish out long lists of remedies as it is vital for your healing that we can see exactly what is working, in order to get your health back on track as smoothy as possible.
ACUTES AND CHRONICS
You might hear homeopaths talk about acute symptoms and chronic symptoms. To keep this brief, acutes tend to include new symptoms of a few days or weeks, where you can clearly pinpoint the time and reason you got unwell, such as a cold, flu, virus, UTI, injury, ear ache, childhood illness such as chickenpox, a stomach bug, toothache, surgery recovery etc. Treating these with homeopathy is fairly simple, thus avoiding, where appropriate, antibiotics, antipyretics such as Calpol, tylenol and paracetamol, anti-inflammatories like Nurofen, and other acute medication from the pharmacy or doctor.
Many of these conventional treatments work by suppressing the symptoms, rather than allowing the body to overcome them naturally. The body often then attempts to express the symptoms again, and again, and again - trying to overcome the issue, rather than block it. This is why we get repeat infections, when we don't get to the root cause of the problem.
Chronic symptoms are longer lasting, deeper symptoms that are more complex in nature, or have ben around for a while and become more serious. They usually result from either ignoring or suppressing acute symptoms repeatedly, as above. The acute expression of illness gives up trying, and the body produces more severe symptoms. This is why eczema treated with steroid creams may eventually surpass, but can come back as asthma. Chronic symptoms should not be feared - for they are just the body's intelligent response to a problem, and innate way of keeping you alive - hence even auto-immune symptoms and extreme allergies are the bodies survival mechanism.
Take the cliche example of the cave man running from a sabre tooth tiger. His blood pressure goes up and he becomes hyper alert, in order to run fast and prioritise his survival. In that moment, his digestion, fertility, hair growth, liver and kidney function, skin healing, cognitive function etc - all pause, as they are not needed in this 'acute dash for life!' But in our modern lifestyles, we often ignore the acute signs of stress, and before we know it, we have entered a long term chronic adrenal stress, where other systems of our body are not working properly, and we develop chronic symptoms.
You can often treat acute symptoms yourself - with a bit of practice, trial and error, and learning the ropes. The rest of this article will focus on how to do that. Sometimes, it takes a few remedies in succession as the symptoms change from say painful sinuses, to thick stringy mucus, and then maybe a common cold. And sometimes, one remedy does the job well. Sometimes, a combination of remedies can work well acutely - eg hypericum and calendula for a bad cut, or bellis perennis with arnica for post-surgery healing of deep tissue.
INDIVIDUAL REMEDIES, WHERE TO GET THEM, AND IN WHICH POTENCY
The best selection of remedies come from homeopathic pharmacies such as Helios, Ainsworths, Nelsons and Homeoforce, who provide next day delivery as standard, and who offer basic advice over the phone. You will need to select a bottle size (the smallest is 2 gram and 4 gram), a pill size (I usually go for number 6 pills - which are about 2mm wide), and a potency eg 12c, 30c, 200c etc. Which potency you will need is probably the trickiest concept for beginners to learn, but as a guide, the home remedy kits come with 30c potencies, for most minor ailments, and the travel first aid kit comes with 200c for 'very' acute things like d&v abroad, tropical bites and reactions etc. For an acute, you can't go too far wrong with either 30c (a bit more gentle) or 200c (a little more pokey!).
You can also buy the main first aid remedies in many high street health food shops, and on Amazon, often under the Nelsons or Weleda brand.
There are also some combination remedies online, such as Helios ABC (arnica, belladonna, chamomilla) which is great for childhood fevers and ear aches etc, Helios stress relief, hay fever, sleep aid etc
And finally, the homeopathic pharmacies also sell creams for topical application of arnica, hypercal (hypericum and calendula), graphites (for dry skin), hamamelis (for piles) and other varieties.
You can also buy tissue salts - which put very simply, are a sort of homeopathic-strength mineral support to the body for either general health, or specific symptoms, eg colds, anxiety, growing pains, dental problems etc. I sometimes take all 12 tissue salts in one - which is a commonly sold 'single' remedy - if I am feeling run down, particularly busy, or know that I am neglecting my health a bit. Yes, even us homeopaths don't always practice what we preach!
REMEDY KITS
My top tip is to get yourself a remedy kit that includes all of the main acute remedies that you might need to keep you and your family healthy. The best kit is the Ainsworth 42 Essential Kit, as it contains the most and best selection of remedies, but Helios do an 18 remedy kit if you are on a budget. The 42 kit costs £60, and I guarantee you will get your money's worth out of it pretty quickly. I have not needed anything from a pharmacy (apart from blister plasters) since I have owned this kit = so no more prescriptions, no more visits to the late pharmacy - and not to mention the convenience and relief of having all this at your finger tips. I take it abroad with me, treat the dog with it, treat friends and family, and even avoided major surgery when all I had was my trusty remedy kit with me!
It has saved me a fortune in cost, time, stress - and long term health.
Some of the kits you have to buy over the phone, as licensing laws prevent them being advertised or sold online. The staff at the major pharmacies are really friendly and happy to help advise you on what you need.
BOOKS, APPS, WEBSITES, COURSES AND GUIDES
Learning and knowing what remedy to give is the final bit of the jigsaw, and you can do this using a whole host of resources, as per the subheading above.
The remedy kits above come with a mini remedy guide - comprising both of the two main tools that we use to prescribe: A repertory (rep) and a materia medica (matmed). The 'Rep' list symptoms and tells you which remedies you can give. The matmed lists remedies in more detail and what symptoms they can be used for.
My top tip beginners' guide books to get a hold of are:
Miranda Castro - Complete Homeopathy Handbook
Misha Norland - Get Well Soon
Marcus Fernandez - The Home Prescriber Guide
Vivienne Rawnsley - Pictorial Guide to Homeopathy
There is a great beginners course on the CHE (Centre for Homeopathic Education) website, that is regularly offered for free - sign up to their updates to hear about it.
There are apps that can help you pick a remedy, and finally there are some great acute guides online - which you can find by just googling the likes of 'homeopathy for flu' or 'homeopathy for insect bites' etc. They will talk you through about 5-10 remedies that you might use - and help you decide which one to try first. I will be creating my own guides soon - which you will find in this blog.
THE HOMEOPATHY HANGOUT PODCAST BY EUGENIE KRUGER
I love this podcast, and it is also loved by patients and homeopaths alike. It is aimed at users of homeopathy, to inspire and teach them about homeopathy. Each episode starts about 2 minutes in. Listen to it here.
There are currently over 300 episodes, and too many to seriously remember which are the best! But here are a few of my top recommendations to start you off:
Episode 1 with Amy Lansky - NASA scientist turned homeopath - FAB episode!
Then, episodes: 5, 6, 7, 12, 18, 19, 21, 33, 34, 41, 52, 53, 100, 115, 120, 211 and the Homeopathy Awareness Week episodes.
And if you have pets - episodes 88, 133, 140, 150, 165, 292.
There are some other great homeopathy podcasts too - you'll find them via a basic search
HOW TO DOSE
Learning how many pills to give and when will come to you quite quickly. Homeopathy is a safe form of natural medicine and so you cannot cause harm by taking too many - but there is no need to take many. Once you start to feel an improvement, you can stop taking them and let your body do the rest.
As a rule of thumb, always take just one pill at a time. And repeat it intermittently, until you start to feel better, and then wait. How often to repeat depends on the severity of the symptoms. I once injured my wrist so severely that I took arnica every 30 seconds for a few minutes, then every 5 minutes, and eventually hourly for a few hours. What I thought might have been a badly smashed up wrist, possibly with life long issues, turned out to have not a single bruise. If it wasn't for having my friend there to witness it, no one would have believed that it happened! As a result, I got zero sympathy! (The only reason not to use homeopathy!) If you have a raging fever or throbbing headache, you might take a remedy a bit more often than for a slow cold, or a dull ache. Typically, you might repeat the same remedy 3-4 times to see if you get some improvement in symptoms. And if not, have another think and consider a different remedy. For example a stringy yellow mucus cold might need pulsatilla or kali bich - depending on specific details of your symptoms. And there are quite a few remedies for a dry cough, depending if it is worse lying down, or makes you wheeze, or croup, or hold you chest to cough, or even raise a leg off the ground with each hack!
HOW DID I GET STARTED USING REMEDIES?
Growing up, we only had the Nelson's Guide to Homeopathy - for humans, and the one for dogs. They were only a few pages thick but covered everything we ever needed - pre-internet, and without knowing any homeopaths nearby.
We had a few common remedies from the local health food shop: We had Arnica, Rhus tux, Ruta grav, Belladonna and maybe Pulsatilla and I think that was it. Thats all we had, and thats all we needed. (It was the 80s, we grew up with dirt behind our nails and ate home grown food. We didn't really get sick). We did find a homeopath when I was about ten - for a chronic cough. One single remedy sorted that out, never to return.
And the next time I needed homeopathy, was in my 30s. And before I knew it, I was reading books about it, buying my first remedy kit, and signing my life savings away to study it professionally. Watch out - it'll get you too if you're not careful!
What I love is that you can do all this without the need for the internet, or expensive books and medications. You can start small, get a very basic guide, with the same info that has been out there since the 1790s, and it will work. The Nelsons Guide we had in the early 80s contains the EXACT same info that the basic first aid homeopathy guides contain to this day. So don't worry about getting latest editions!
SMALL TIP ON ORDERING REMEDIES
A lot of the homeopathic pharmacies sell the core range of remedies in little 2 gram bottles that also go into their remedy kits. So, whether you have one kit, or not - you can always order a few of that at a time, to start your collection.
So if you are not ready to buy a kit (but honestly, you won't regret getting one) you could order 2g bottles of say, arnica, aconite, belladonna, hypericum, pulsatilla and rhus tox, and start from there. This is just an example. Then build up your collection as you go.
A QUICK PLUG FOR HOMEOPATHIC PAIN KILLER - TRAUMEEL
Although I am a classical homeopath, I do love this 100% homeopathic combination remedy called Traumeel, which you can buy as pills, drops or cream, and which is ideal for all sorts of injuries, aches and pains. Individual remedies typically work best - when you know exactly what to give. But when you're injured or have pain, a headache, trapped nerve etc and potentially not thinking your clearest, this is a bullet proof remedy to take. I recently gave it to a traditional healer in Sri Lanka who could not resolve his own knee pain from a nearly amputated leg a year earlier. He took Traumeel and said it was the first time he has felt completely pain free since the injury. I used it for myself when I was in agony with a trapped nerve, and could not think straight, let alone move enough to get my remedy kit out and start trying different remedies.
It costs about £10 for a pot of 50 pills, and you will be glad you had it on hand. And remember, by taking a homeopathic pain killer, you are not suppressing or ignoring the root cause. You are triggering the body to alleviate and treat the underlying cause, meaning better long term health and prognosis, without side affects or harshness on the stomach and gut. You can get it on Amazon or from the homeopathic pharmacies.
FREE HOMEOPATHY AT HOME GUIDE
Sign up to my FREE Homeopathy at Home Guide on my homepage to see which 12 remedies I recommend you start off with, and why. It will teach you the basics of those remedies, and what they can be used for - ideal in home emergencies and acute situations.
Tag: homeopathy for beginners
Lucy Reynolds BSc PDHom Adv
Homeopathic Practitioner
Homeopathy online and in Morpeth, Northumberland, UK
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