For this blog entry I've compiled information from different sources to help those who don't know much about homeopathy to understand more fully how it can cure illness. If you don’t want to read through this information but you’re still interested in hearing how homeopathy has helped people, scroll down to the bottom of this blog entry and go to “success stories and links”.
Brief
history:
Samuel Hahnemann was a German
physician 200 years ago. He ended up leaving his practice because he felt that
he was doing more harm than good with practices that they did back in the day
like bloodletting, poisonous doses of mercury and arsenic, etc. So, he went on
to translating medical and literary texts.
While he
was translating one of the texts by a physiologist named William Cullen, he was
taken aback by this author's claim that the bitter and astringent properties of
Peruvian bark, which contains quinine, was the reason it was so effective in
treating malaria. He decided to test the physiological effects of the Peruvian bark by taking small doses himself. Eventually his body did react. He ended up developing symptoms very similar to malaria. He wondered whether the curative power of Peruvian bark resulted from its ability to create symptoms similar to those of the disease.
He started studying the records of accidental poisonings from other common medicines from back then like mercury, arsenic, belladonna, etc. He would test these poisons on himself and other healthy people (in homeopathy this is called "proving"). In the process of doing this, he realized that these "medicines" caused symptoms similar to those of the illnesses that they were used to treat. Mercury was used to treat syphilis. The Mercury itself would cause syphilis-like ulcers in a healthy person. Arsenic and Belladonna were known to create certain types of fever and were given as medicines for fevers. So, this is where "homeopathy" was discovered.
This means 'let likes be cured
with likes'. Hahnemann made this Latin phrase popular within the homeopathic
community. This helped to describe his discovery that substances in small doses
stimulate the organisms to heal that which they cause in overdose. This really
was not something that was new to the world. In the fourth century B.C.,
Hippocrates wrote "Through the like, disease is produced, and through the
application of the like, it is cured."
Part of the similia concept has similarities in conventional
medicine as well. Radiation is a cancer treatment, though it can cause cancer.
Ritalin, a stimulant, is prescribed to children who are hyperactive or
have ADD. Gold is used to treat arthritis even though it can cause joint pain.
Even though these medical treatments suggest a homeopathic principle, none of
them obey the other laws of homeopathy. (Discussed later in this entry)Hahnemann recognized that although the body is great at healing itself, there are times when it is not always strong enough to complete the healing process. It often needs a catalyst to stimulate its defenses, especially in serious acute infectious diseases, chronic illnesses, etc. Hahnemann then developed a systematic method to help find the right catalyst for an individual by prescribing a substance that would imitate the body’s defenses. This would stimulate the body to heal itself.
When matching a remedy to the person, all angles need to be considered. That’s why there is not one blanket medicine for a specific disease. This is what makes homeopathy so unique and so powerful.
·
(already discussed above)
-The Law of Minimum Dose
·
This law states that extreme
dilution will make the healing powers of a substance more powerful and at the
same time it eliminates any possible side effects. When you start at the
conventional dose and increase dilution, the medicine will start to become less
powerful. But as the dilution keeps increasing, and below a threshold the
medicine starts to become potent again. (This was a bit difficult for me to
understand at first since we are so used to conventional medicine’s rule that less of something won’t work and more of something can cause an
overdose). Getting used to medicines that work with energy is no small task.
-The Single Medicine
·
This law states that no more than
one medicine will be given at a time. The homeopathic remedies you see in the store that
are a “combination” do not follow the basic laws and principles of homeopathy. In
the book “Everybody’s Guide to Homeopathic Medicines” the author says this “A
homeopath does not prescribe one medicine for a person’s headache, another for
her stomachache, and another for her depression. The use of a single medicine
is a basic principle of classical homeopathy. As we’ve said, the homeopath
assumes that, although a person may have numerous physical and psychological
symptoms, he or she has only one disease, an underlying susceptibility. Using
the one medicine right for that time in the person’s life, whether the
condition is acute or chronic, effectively stimulates the person’s natural
defense system, helps heal the current illness, and raises the general level of
health.”
-The Law of Potentized Dose
·
(Discussed below) Basically this
law has to do with how the remedies are made. Hahnemann found that just
diluting the substances was not good enough. They were not effective unless
they were shaken a specific way in between diluting.
Through a stroke of genius, he discovered what we call today serial dilution. He diluted smaller and smaller amounts of the substance with water and alcohol. Unlike normal serial dilutions he added what he called succussions at each dilution, striking the bottle firmly on a book one hundred times before the next dilution.
Provided the succussions were done, the medicine would still be active – even more so – and completely without side effects. This became known as the Law of the Minimum Dose.
The absence of side effects is not surprising. After dilution and succussion, chemically there are few or no molecules of the original substance remaining. This means the homeopathic remedy, at this stage of dilution, no longer has a chemical or pharmacological action. So what remains, if anything?
It is believed that the turbulence of the succussions imparts a memory of the original substance on the water molecules between each dilution and that what is left is information that is stored in the molecular arrangement of the water molecules. As an analogy, if you analyze a CD that you use in your computer, chemically you will find it is just plastic; but your computer is designed to read the physical information contained, in the same way we believe the body uptakes the information message contained in the homeopathic medicine. This is why homeopathy has been called physical medicine.
Because the body responds only to physical information in homeopathic medicine, if it is the wrong information, nothing happens; no harm is done; but drugs have effects through chemical action regardless. If it is the right information, the body learns how to remove the blocks that stop it from rebalancing. In homeopathy, it is the body's innate healing wisdom that cures, not the medicine, which is only a catalyst.”
My
toddler’s food allergies were cured with the use of homeopathy. All but one of
his food allergies remain which, according to his allergist, is now very mild. His
allergist told me to continue whatever it is that I’m doing because he has not
seen allergies go away so quickly. His soy allergy was fairly moderate and it
is so nice to not have to freak out now every time someone offers him a treat
while we’re out. We are going to continue to work with his digestive issues.
Books used for this blog:
Everybody's Guide to Homeopathic Medicines by Stephen Cummings, MD and Dana Ullman, MPH
The Complete Homeopathic Handbook by Miranda Castro
Also used a couple of quotes by Sheri Nakken
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