Homeopathy treats the individual; it does not limit its treatment to the diagnosis of the illness alone. When you are ill, your illness has its own unique pattern of symptoms. You tend to develop or ‘catch’ certain illnesses, because of a particular pattern of imbalance within your system — one that is unique to your body, personality or temperament, emotions, genetics and environmental factors. This is one of the important tenets of homeopathy. It works on the percept that the mind and body are so powerfully linked that bodily, or physical, conditions cannot be successfully treated without understanding the person’s ‘individuality’ and ‘constitution.’
The interesting fact also is — people with the same illness, or diagnosis, would not need the same homeopathic remedy. There are dozens of homeopathic medicines, or remedies, for instance, for migraine. The migraine you present with will require a homeopathic remedy that ‘matches’ with your particular, or unique, pattern of symptoms. Your colleague’s migraine, on the other hand, will respond to an entirely different homeopathic remedy.
This principle is unique to homeopathy. The reason being our body functions with a sense of dynamic balance; it is this balance that helps direct all bodily functions in life. This is called homeostasis; in other words, keeping things static, or constant. When our immune defence, for instance, identifies a protein foreign, or microorganism, in the system, it produces antibodies to drive it out of transmission — much before it can cause harm. But, what happens when such self-regulating activities that take place without our knowledge, or are not tangible, go off-balance? It leads to illness states. Homeopathy, the medicine of vital balance, corrects such imbalances and restores health and wellness to its optimal level.
Healthy Change
People often ask whether or not homoeopathy can bring about a healthy change in certain health issues, such as allergies, asthma, skin disorders, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome [IBS], osteo- and rheumatoid arthritis, or any of over a hundred other illnesses. The answer is yes. This is because homeopathy works best when given for the symptom complex of the individual — not just the diagnosis of the illness.
Let us explain — you just don’t suffer from isolated and disconnected diseases. Everything in this world is interconnected. This is called ‘consilience’ — a word coined by noted biologist Dr Edward O Wilson, PhD. This applies to health and illness, no less. For example, high blood pressure could be worsened by anxiety. This could, in turn, trigger a skin, or tummy disorder.
A homeopathic physician will try to figure out the cause of such health issues — hypertension, atopic dermatitis [eczema], gastric ulcer, anxiety, or panic attacks, as complaints to be managed holistically, i.e., the sum of the whole and whole of the sum, not just parts. In other words, the larger disease portrait as represented by its combined symptom complex needs to be addressed. This is the pedestal that is used by your homeopathic physician to match a homeopathic remedy that corresponds to and with the idiosyncratic, or unique, symptom portrait, or the whole complex, including your personality, likes, dislikes, what makes your symptoms ‘better’ or ‘worse,’ among other things.
When the full extent of the body’s disease is treated, as homeopathy evidences, a full-healing response is triggered, leading to the resolution of all symptoms at the same time. How does this happen? Simple; also profound. The homeopathic remedy is the natural stimuli. The body responds to it and creates the healing effect.
Put simply, homeopathy can be employed to treat almost any illness state [except certain medical, or surgical emergencies, or ‘mechanical’ problems, such as heart attack, stroke, hernia etc.,] for which you would normally visit your hospital and specialist. More importantly, homeopaths can treat conditions that do not essentially fall into a particular ‘disease category.’ More so, for disorders such as chronic fatigue syndrome [CFS], IBS, or apparently indistinct disorders, which are not diagnosable either by way of lab tests, or clinical analysis, the mainstay of conventional [allopathic] treatment.
Everyday Health Issues
Just think of it — the everyday pressures of working life, job loss, parenthood, mid-life crises, retirement, and problems in relationships, marital discord, and other issues. They can affect our health in a variety of ways — and, they can be treated effectively with homeopathy. This is simply because homeopathy is mind-body medicine — it treats the mind, and also the body, because most of the illnesses that trouble us first start in the mind and slowly affect the body.
Homeopathy can usefully treat several acute conditions, such as:
- Insect bites, or stings
- Sprains, bruises and muscle strain
- Burns
- Coughs and colds
- Tonsillitis and adenoids [it can also help avoid surgery]
- Post-surgical pain and contusions
- Urinary bladder infections, such as cystitis, and prostatic problems
- Skin rashes, such as poison ivy, among others.
Homeopathic remedies can also decrease pain and shock on the way to the emergency room [ER], when such visits are needed.
Homeopathy can help patients heal, rather than simply manage, or suppress several chronic illnesses. Picture this — conventional medicine often finds it difficult to manage certain conditions diagnostically, in spite of advanced drug interventions and surgery. Some examples —
- Allergy, asthma and sinus disorders
- Autoimmune disorders, such as alopecia [hair loss]
- Digestive disorders, such as IBS; ulcers caused by Helicobacter pylori
- Skin diseases, such as atopic dermatitis [eczema] and psoriasis
- Joint disorders, such as arthritis
- Chronic fatigue
- Headaches, such as migraine
- Vertigo and other neurological disorders
- Women’s disorders, such as pre-menstrual syndrome [PMS], cystic ovaries, menopausal symptoms, nausea of pregnancy, and post-childbirth problems
- Disorders of children — right from imperfect assimilation, bedwetting to behavioural disorders, including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder [ADHD].
Emotional Illnesses
Certain emotional or psychiatric illnesses can be extremely devastating — more so, with the additional disadvantage of conventional drug-induced [iatrogenic] side-effects. Homeopathy can help people suffering from such conditions without side-effects:
- Depression and unresolved grief
- Generalised anxiety disorder and panic attacks
- Obsessive compulsive disorder [OCD]
- Weight disorders, including obesity
- Post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD]
- Bipolar disorders
- Eating disorders
- Sexual disorders in men and women
- Developmental and relationship problems.
Some psychiatrists report that people who are specifically seeking treatment for their psychiatric symptoms, or are ‘trapped’ at certain points in psychotherapy, or cognitive behavioural therapy [CBT], often find a well-prescribed homeopathic remedy speeding-up their progress — without side-effects. Homeopathy, they also surmise, could be helpful for patients with combined emotional and physical complaints, or when stress worsens their physical and emotional symptoms.
Since homeopathy treats the whole, the sum of the whole, not just the parts, systemic disorders like hypertension [high blood pressure] and diabetes, including allergies, often improve, along with the patients’ psychiatric, or emotional, issues.
