Homeopathy for Acute Ailments

Homeopathy is based upon the "like cures like" principle: a substance in it's crude form can cause certain symptoms, but in a diluted potentized form it can cure those same symptoms. Allopathic medicine on the other hand regularly presents new hypotheses concerning the cause and pathology of disease and the treatments are always changing.

Homeopathy takes into account the whole person and the totality of symptoms. If someone has a sore back or a throbbing headache for example, a homeopathic practitioner would not isolate that particular condition. The practitioner would look at the totality of the person's symptoms, the mental and physical manifestations of a particular complaint, such as what side the complaint is on, right or left, front or back. Is there a certain time of day when the complaint is better or worse? Are there things that make the patient feel better or worse? For example, does the patient feel better from heat or worse from cold and wet weather? Does the pain extend to anywhere else in the body? The mental aspects of a case are also important, like how the condition makes the person feel anxious or fearful. Is the pain out of proportion to the illness?

The homeopath also tends to pay particular attention to the more strange, rare and peculiar symptoms. For example, if a person has a fear of death while walking this would be considered a key note because it's not common.

A homeopathic practitioner has to research the case by referencing all the symptoms that came up during consultation from a book called a "repertory." This is a book that lists thousands of symptoms. Beside each symptom is one or more possible homeopathic remedies.

After the homeopath has referenced all the important symptoms of the case in the repertory, he then matches all the homeopathic remedies that appeared most frequently from the symptomology. By doing this the perfect remedy or "similimum" that will cure the case can be found.

Remedies are listed in a book called the Materia Medica. This book provides a thorough picture of the individual remedies. With this information the homeopath must also use his or her keen sense of observation to pick up on information not relayed verbally.

Having your case looked after by a qualified homeopathic practitioner is a rewarding experience. For those that have tried many different healing modalities for their ailments with limited success, homeopathy will surprise you.

Winning Combination

Chronic conditions (like arthritis and heart disease) are best treated by a professional homeopath. These conditions are those which have developed slowly and which, left untreated, will last forever.

Acute conditions are brief in duration and tend to be self limiting. These can be self-treated successfully. Homeopathy is quite safe when self-treating conditions such as colds and influenza or first aid injuries. If a person has an acute ailment such as a fever or cold, a combination remedy is formulated for that particular condition or ailment. Combination remedies usually contain two or more remedies and generally have the name of the condition listed right on the label, such as fever, PMS, cold and flu, sprains and bruises. Some companies offer well over 50 combinations. Combination remedies are formulated to take any sort of guess work out of homeopathy and make it easy to self treat.

If you had a fever, for example and depending on your constitutional make-up, you might not know whether you needed aconite, belladonna, bryonia, ipecacuanha or veratrum album. If you were to take a combination remedy that contained all these ingredients, and the remedy that you needed was in the formula, it would be that individual remedy that would work. This means, for example, that if your fever came on suddenly after exposure to cold dry winds, aconite in the formula would work for you. If your fever was associated with extreme heat and you were extremely flushed with redness, it would be belladonna that would work. If your fever was a painful continued fever with intermittent chill and great thirst, bryonia would work and so on.

Combination remedies are generally found in lower potencies such as a 6C or 3X dilution. They are safe for the whole family to use and the formula generally works on most of the common symptoms of a condition. For example the common symptoms of influenza might be diarrhea, aching all over the body, fever and fatigue. A combination remedy for the flu would be formulated for those common symptoms.

Homeopathy helps your body's vital force restore optimum health quite quickly, making you less susceptible to illness. They are readily available at most health food stores and are available in liquid, pellets or lactose tablets that dissolve rapidly on the tongue.