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Homeopathic History

Denice Moffat

What is a Homeopathic Remedy?

Homeopathic History in a nutshell. . .

YouTube Video with Dr. Moffat on How to Use Homeopathics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVKRoWJqHm8

A homeopathic remedy is an extremely diluted dose of a mineral, animal, or chemical which stimulates the body to react to it by excreting that same thing out of the body or balancing the body in some way. Just like medications, they are tools to help heal the body. Real healing involves working through the physical, emotional, mental, Spiritual and environmental issues as well as to learn how they affect you and how to manage them to create balance.

The word homeopathy means “Like cures like”. In the late 1700’s Dr. Samuel Hahnemann found that any substance which can cause symptoms when given to a healthy person can help to heal those who are experiencing similar symptoms. Because of this discovery, he left his practice of bloodletting and giving large doses of mercury, arsenic and the other often harmful medical practices that were in vogue to study this fascinating area. Can you imagine being a patient back in those times?

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Now, here is the interesting part. By studying the records of accidental poisonings from other commonly used medicines such as mercury, arsenic, belladonna and silver nitrate and by testing poisons on himself, Hahnemann discovered what homeopathic remedy and dose of these substances would cure the symptom.

Dr. Hahnemann was the first to recommend giving medicinal drugs to healthy people to assess the medicine’s physiological properties. These were called “provings”. Careful observations were made of the symptoms in all categories in a methodic way. This is why each homeopathic remedy is divided up by body system or part, emotions, dreams, etc. Results of these provings are compiled in a book called the Materia Medica .

Three Homeopathic History Laws of Cure

A German homeopath, Costantine Hering, who emigrated to the United States in the 1830’s discovered that the body heals from the inside (mental/emotional) out (physical symptoms). This is known as Hering’s first law of cure.

The second law of cure is that as healing progresses, symptoms appear and disappear in reverse order of their original chronological order of appearance. Especially with chronic disease, homeopaths have observed patients briefly re-experience symptoms from past conditions, even if those conditions occurred many years before.

The third law of cure is that healing progressed from the upper to the lower parts of the body.

That’s why you’ll hear me tell you as you progress and still have symptoms on your legs that are annoying (or whatever) that this is good and that the body heals from the inside out, from head to foot and in reverse order of when the symptoms started.

As a person heals, it is common to have a temporary flaring of the symptoms. These may last a few hours to a few days and are welcomed if there is deeper healing or the symptoms are better further up on the body. Occasionally, the healing of the body does not follow Hering’s three laws. But, if true healing is occurring, the patient feels stronger and better in spite of the temporary aggravation and by using this information we can track the healing process. For more information on this concept, see my handout on The Healing Crisis.

Homeopathic remedies are made by a series of dilutions called potentization. The medicine or substance is first made soluble in some way, then one part of it is taken and diluted with 99 parts of water or alcohol (or sometimes vinegar). This solution is shaken vigorously against a firm surface or the hand (hand-successed) 100 times. This makes a 1X potency.

The process is then repeated again and again and again to make even more dilute preparations. Commonly we use low potency homeopathic dilutions in our practice (6x, 10x, 30X, or 100x). The more dilute the substance, the more potent it becomes. Weird, huh?

The interesting thing about homeopathic remedies is that the lower doses work on physical symptoms of the body whereas the higher doses (more diluted) work on the emotional aspects of the disease. This is why a combination homeopathic remedy will often have dilutions in different potencies all mixed together.

These lower homeopathic dilutions take longer to work on the body (weeks to a month or two). The most diluted homeopathic remedies (C and M dilutions) often will shift the body very quickly so these need to be given under very careful supervision and only for a few days.

How safe are homeopathic remedies?

Very safe. Often new clients who have never used homeopathic remedies will freak out when they read the ingredients on the bottle because it lists all the chemicals they are allergic to! But in actuality there is just the vibration of those chemicals that has imprinted onto the water and alcohol that the client will be taking. This is all so metaphysical. Very hard for a person in the medical field to comprehend.

Click this link to learn more about homeopathic remedies and how to take them:

Later in history, doctors would get together regularly to have drug parties to test the effects and dosages of medicines, anesthetics and pain killers. Sometimes the doctors would get addicted to the medicines they were testing. Progress is progress. Give thanks to these people for what they have done.

So, putting this into practical form here’s an example:

Let’s say you were just stung by a bee and your arm swells up. If we immediately gave you a dose of the homeopathic preparation called Bee Sting Venom (known as Apis mellifora), the body would recognize and respond to the venom in the bee sting very quickly and flush it out of the system through the excretory pathways of the body (usually the urine. Within minutes the swelling would stop and go down. Often the pain will go away quickly as well. It’s like a natural Epi-pen. Cool, huh?

Some homeopathic remedies are used as single remedies (like Rhus tox. for poison ivy, or Ignatia for grief, or Chamomila for certain types of headaches), and some homeopathic remedies are used in combination (for instance, we have products that will resolve viral or bacterial infections, one for sick building syndrome, one for sexually transmitted diseases and so on). There are so many homeopathic remedies available. Custom homeopathic remedies can be made to theoretically take out just about anything that gets into your body and is causing a problem.

A traditional homeopath will spend up to an entire day trying to find just the right one homeopathic remedy to take to help your symptoms. This dose will be high potency (1M or more).  Non-traditional homeopaths will prescribe weaker combinations of homeopathic remedies to be taken for a few days to a few months. If you study homeopathy at all you may find that traditional and non-traditional practitioners often disagree.

Such is life in the fast lane of healing. It will be up to you to decide what types of practitioners you’ll want to work with. It’s really OK to work with one person and then switch to another practitioner later on. We all have our gifts and insights which are all beneficial in your healing process. You are the ultimate filter. No single practitioner will have all the answers for you. Healing is a journey.

At our practice I prefer to use the weaker homeopathic potencies as it is rare that a proving actually occurs. I muscle test to see which combination of remedies vibrate with your body’s energy, and also muscle test how many drops to take per day. Usually a remedy will be taken for 4-12 weeks.

If you think you are proving a homeopathic remedy, call your practitioner and/or make yourself a cup of strong coffee and down it. The coffee inactivates the remedy so that adverse symptoms from the homeopathic are neutralized.

Homeopathic remedies come in several forms. Usually they are in the form of a tiny sugar pill or in an alcohol base. Sometimes they are preserved in a vinegar base. Since blood type O and A people don’t react to vinegar well and vinegar does not preserve for as long a period of time as alcohol or sucrose, I don’t carry any vinegar-based preparations.

Reference: Materia Medica

Example of a Homeopathic Remedy.

Helpful Links and References on Using Homeopathy:

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