It’s always lovely to get comments and feedback from happy customers and I had a great question from someone the other day about how best to find a remedy for a particular condition!
I’m sure the mum in question won’t mind me sharing an edited version of her question and my answer as I think it’s useful to explore our understanding of what homeopathy is and how it works.
We all love homeopathy and how well it works 🙂 and what would we do without it?
If you are not already familiar with homeopathy, maybe jump in by reading the What is Homeopathy? page as a starting point, then move onto the post below. There are many more posts in the blog on various aspects of how to use this amazing modality in your home for mild illnesses and minor injuries, aches and pains, etc, so have a wander through if you have time.
It’s great when we have small children with acute sickness, like coughs and colds or issues with teething, but sometimes we can get very focussed on fixing symptoms, ie mucous, rather than stepping back and looking at the bigger picture of the individual who is sick.
The best way to really get to grips with using homeopathy well is to learn the individual remedy pictures, because they represent the whole picture of a person, rather than focusing in on what remedy you need for a runny nose or a sore ear.
We treat the person in homeopathy, rather than the symptoms, and as you learn and understand you will find you get better results.
As homeopaths, even home prescribers, we love our books and let’s face it, what would we do if the internet went down and we needed some info right at that moment! Yes, it’s a simple thing to hop online and google a symptom and read the remedies that are indicated for that condition, but the better way is to study the remedies and to get to know and understand them.
I think of them as people I know well, who have a mental/emotional picture, physical symptoms and things that make them feel better and worse. You can also learn what foods they particularly like and what they don’t like. Once you understand this concept you will see that each person in your household likely fits one or two single remedies.
So what you’ll find as you learn about Pulsatilla, for example, is that it may fit a lot of things that one of your children is suffering from and will sort out sore ears, tummy upsets, period pain and emotions. Perhaps not all at the same time, although often there’s a bit of all of the above going on together!!
Each of the remedies you are likely to use in the home cover the mental, emotional and physical levels of the person who is sick. So in looking for a remedy for an ear infection, we actually also need to take into account things like how is the child behaving, what are their moods like and of course which ear is it and what is the pain like, for example.
What was happening before the ear ache came on, things like stress, upset in the family, difficult day at school etc, is useful to know and is what we call causation.
So often when I ask a patient “so what was happening in the days/weeks before” they will tell me a story of something that unbalanced them, pushed them off their centre and then they got sick. This goes for acute illness, as well as more chronic conditions. Very often we can take it back to an event or a series of events that tipped the scales of health. It doesn’t need to be major in your view, because some people are finely tuned.
Coming from this understanding of remedies being like people, we can begin to work out which remedy is going to work for little Tommy’s sore throat, cough, upset tummy or emotional meltdown. Often it’s the same remedy, as my patients often find out.
As you go along you will also come to understand that, depending on the person’s individual constitutional picture, you may need Calc carb or Silica to finish up a cold, and you’ll also learn when you need to reach out to your homeopath for help with something that’s not resolving with your home prescribing. Sometimes remedies which relate to the inherited family tendencies (asthma, allergies, warts, etc) are required to finish off a sickness, rebuilding the foundations of health and helping where your home prescribing has fallen short. These are going to be practitioner prescriptions not remedies that you would buy from an online store and know how to use.
Combination Remedies
Many single remedy prescribers are dismayed by combination remedies but they definitely have their place when people start out with homeopathy.
The reason we created the combination remedies at Elements of Health is that while single remedy prescribing is the ultimate aim, sometimes it’s hard in the middle of the night to pick a good remedy when you’re sleep deprived or maybe you just don’t have the remedy that’s indicated in the book or the internet is shut down and you don’t have access!
The combos are a generic mix of the most indicated remedies for a particular condition, so they are quite broad spectrum. They can be a great introduction to how well homeopathy can work and I would say they work 70-80% of the time. If they don’t work, generally it’s not about the combination not being good, it’s that the person you are treating needs something a little different, something that isn’t actually in the combo.
Many people start out with our combos and then progress to using single remedies as they figure out which of the remedies in the mix is the one that works. Personally, I don’t believe they work as a mix (we are working with energy here, not substance) but just one remedy in the mix fits the bigger picture. It takes the guess work out of things and can give you breathing space and sleep.
I’ve tended to write blogs about remedies for particular conditions to give an understanding of how many remedies can fit when you’re looking at remedies for a cough or cold. This will depend on what else is going on in the picture and you get better results once you look at this bigger pictures.
There is obviously a lot of information out there about remedies for particular conditions so it’s very easy to just google what you’re after and then buy the matching remedy from the store.
You can even look at the ingredient list of the combinations you have, if you’ve selected a single remedy you think fits but you don’t have it. I’ve been known to suggest Gastro combo for someone who messages about a headache just because it has the remedy that fits the headache symptoms in it, not because there is anything digestive about the case at all.
The longer you use homeopathy, the more you will understand and the more successful you will become.
I’ve used and love homeopathy for more than 40 years and don’t know what I’d do without it so I send best wishes on the journey to managing your family’s wellness and your own health.
About Melanie Creedy
Melanie Creedy is a Licentiate of the British School of Homeopathy in the UK and holds a Bachelor of Health Science in Homeopathy. She is a member of the Australian Homoeopathic Association. She was Vice President and Professional Development Coordinator of the Australian Homoeopathic Association from 2011 to 2015 and editor of the AHA National Newsletter from 2012 to 2020.
Melanie has used homeopathy since the mid-1980s and has been in practice since 1998. For many years she ran The Children’s Ear Clinic in Western Australia, but since her tree change to Tasmania, has a special interest in helping individuals manage their life and health through looking at a diagnosis or condition in relation to the symbolism of this unique picture. Armed with a range of remedies from the most common to the most unusual and esoteric, Melanie guides people to plumb the depths of their life and spiritual path with homeopathy to help them find insights, to understand and to heal.
Homeopathy is a traditional medicine. It may be used alongside conventional medicines, naturopathic prescriptions and other traditional treatments. Homoeopathic medicines have not been known to produce side effects and can be taken in conjunction with pharmaceutical medications as they are not contraindicated.
Our kits are suitable for the management of minor ailments and self-limiting illnesses and not for the home treatment of chronic, ongoing or serious conditions or named diseases. Use only as directed. Always read the label or information supplied. If symptoms persist see your health care practitioner.
For any ongoing chronic condition, it is important to be assessed or examined by your healthcare professional or specialist. Always seek medical advice in emergencies. The information provided in this blog does not constitute medical advice but is for information only. If in doubt as to the appropriateness of a suggestion or treatment seek advice from your homeopath.