Words: Dr Amy L LANSKY
Occasionally, I get a question from someone who is new to homeopathy and is nervous about embarking upon treatment. For example, I recently got this inquiry: “I just saw a new doctor [MD] who practices homeopathy almost entirely. I’m trying to learn what it is all about. I’ve read homeopathy can be harmful and can cause problems, and I’ve read it can heal. I don’t know what to do. I’ve been ill for almost seven years with crazy symptoms and now they think I have multiple sclerosis [MS], with environmental sensitivities and food allergies, etc. If a homeopathy remedy makes me worse, can my body repair the damage?”
It’s natural that someone suffering from such a serious problem is anxious about embarking upon a form of treatment that is new to them. Of course, homeopathy is older than any form of conventional medicine being practiced today. Its record of success goes back over 200 years. Nevertheless, there are many complexities that must be addressed in answering this question fairly.
Powerful & Toxic Drugs
First of all, there is no doubt that conventional medical drugs are far, far more dangerous than any homeopathic remedy [In the case of MS drugs, for example, they can be very powerful and toxic].
A simple round of antibiotics can leave many people with permanent problems. As anyone who has listened closely to commercials on TV knows, taking a recommended antidepressant, or anti-histamine, can lead to organ failure and even death. Even aspirin has led to irreparable damage.
In so many ways, the tactics used by the media [funded by Big Pharma] to scare people away from homeopathy go way beyond ‘the pot calling the kettle black.’ They are downright ludicrous. For the most part, the warnings of the past about homeopathic treatment have been of the form, “It’s placebo — there’s nothing in those pills,” and “The danger of homeopathy is that the patient might postpone correct treatment.”
Now that patients are more aware of the dangers of conventional medicine, the attacks have escalated, trying to claim that remedies actually DO have something in them that can harm you. Usually, the writers, or speakers, who make these claims know absolutely nothing about homeopathic remedies. Perhaps, they have read a label on a remedy that mentions a toxin like ‘Belladonna’ or ‘Arsenic,’ but they don’t realise that the remedies are so diluted that, even if you took a whole bottle’s worth [or, more], you wouldn’t likely get a single molecule of Belladonna, or Arsenic. The patient wouldn’t be ingesting a dose that, from a material standpoint, could harm even a baby.
Not Homeopathy. They May Be Herbal Remedies
It should also be known that many claims about the dangers of homeopathic remedies are actually about herbal medicines. It is unfortunately true that the term ‘homeopathy’ is still used as a synonym for all alternative forms of medicine, especially herbalism.
As I write in my book, Impossible Cure, there is no real relationship between herbalism and homeopathy. Both may be made from the same plants [though homeopathic remedies can be made from anything — including minerals and animal substances], but herbal tinctures are material doses that contain the actual substance of the originating plants. In contrast, almost every homeopathic remedy has been diluted to the point that just a molecule remains.
Nevertheless, I would also be lying if I said that this means homeopathic remedies are harmless nothings. If they were, they would have no effect whatsoever. The truth is homeopathic remedies can be so much more powerful than any herbal remedy, or conventional drug.
I would probably need to rewrite half of Impossible Cure in this article to explain why this is the case, but let me try to allay fears about homeopathy with a few quick points.
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I have never heard of anyone who has been permanently harmed by a homeopathic remedy. Yes, remedies can trigger strong symptoms [usually an aggravation of the patient’s pre-existing symptoms], but I have never heard of a remedy causing a disease, or permanent change, to an organ. Don’t forget, the very definition of the word ‘homeopathy’ is similar suffering. The precise symptoms that a remedy can cause are the ones it can cure. That’s why it might trigger a temporary aggravation of the symptoms the remedy was prescribed for.
Thus, for example [and, I know of a case exactly like this], a person experiencing an aggravation from a remedy might feel troublesome heart palpitations for a day, but when they run to the doctor to have it checked out, there is nothing wrong with their heart. If troublesome symptoms arise from taking a remedy, they usually go away after stopping the remedy. It might take a few days, or even a few weeks, but eventually they stop. If all else fails, anti-doting the remedy with something like a menthol rub often works. If not, then [in my personal experience] giving a new, more correct, remedy ends the problem.
It is important to understand that, unlike conventional medicines, homeopathic remedies do not operate like chemical agents that force the body to do something. Instead, they act like energetic stimuli that enable the body to repair itself. That said, there are practitioners, out there, who don’t really appreciate the power of homeopathic remedies. They view them more as supplements, or apply them like conventional drugs, giving them too frequently, or in too high a potency. The patient will know this is the case, however, if they start feeling consistently worse, not better, and the homeopath does not respond to these symptoms appropriately by modifying the dosing, or remedy. There is an easy solution to this problem: stop the remedy and find another homeopath.
Not Vitamins
Similarly, everyone should realise that remedies are not vitamins to be taken on a daily basis [the only exception is the use of LM water dosing that can be done more frequently, but even then, the frequency of dosing must be individualised to the patient’s response]. The result of too frequent dosing will most likely be a ‘proving’ of the remedy — where the person starts developing the symptoms that the remedy can cause. I know someone who experienced this. She was, on her own, taking a remedy nightly for sleep, but could not understand why she was also developing the sensation of bugs crawling on her skin. The answer was easy — she was taking too much of the remedy and developing another symptom that the remedy could cause [and, therefore, also a symptom that the remedy had the potential to cure]. Stopping the remedy [or, taking it much less frequently, or in a lower potency] was the answer. Better yet, the answer would have been to seek treatment from a good homeopath, instead of treating oneself.
I hope this petite article allays many fears and clears up many misunderstandings about homeopathic treatment. The best way to understand homeopathy, however, is to read Impossible Cure. It will clear up most fears, answer most questions, and really give the reader a well-rounded knowledge of homeopathic philosophy, science, and experience [except for what remedies to take for what ailments]. It is even used as a first-year text in many homeopathy schools.
Homeopathy: Activated Self-Healing
Parents who write to me often ask a question of the following form: “Will homeopathy help -X- if my homeopath is treating my child for -Y-?” [Usually, -Y- is autism.]
This question is rooted in a confusion most of us have between allopathic and homeopathic medicine. A conventional doctor [and, even many holistic doctors] will give you one medicine for -X-, another for -Y-, etc. However, the way homeopathy works is really fundamentally different. Reading my book, Impossible Cure, especially Chapter 4, will help you to understand this better.
Your homeopath is not picking a remedy just for your child’s autism [or -Y-]. They are picking a remedy that matches your child. The idea is that if it is homeopathic — i.e., matching your child’s overall state well — it will enable them to heal as best they can. If that means healing from -X-, it will. If it means casting off vaccination damage, it means that. If it means sleeping better to gain strength, it will do that. If it means the brain, or the gut, is repairing itself, it will do that.
In other words, homeopathy helps your body to heal itself. The body has its own deepest [and, often unknowable] wisdom about how it can best heal itself and in what order. Homeopathic rule of thumb, like ‘Hering’s Law of Cure,’ gives us some guidelines about what this usually looks like — from the most serious internal symptoms [including mental/emotional symptoms] outwards towards less significant symptoms that are less life-threatening to the organism. In other words, homeopathy doesn’t attack a specific ailment, or chemical, or body part, like conventional drugs, or even supplements try to do. Instead, it enables the body to heal itself.
There are, of course, certain remedies that tend to affect certain symptoms, or ailments, more than others, and they can be useful for them. But, the best, deepest forms of healing are the kinds that are accomplished by a homeopathic remedy that simply matches the individual state of the patient, no matter what their disease may be. That remedy, thereafter, triggers a process of healing in the patient that can be truly and deeply curative. It isn’t a patch; it’s a transformation, from the inside out.
- To buy a copy of Dr Lansky’s book, Impossible Cure: Amazon India/Amazon US
