Homoeopathy for Health

Jill Ryan
UK Licenced Homoeopathic Practitioner
London, England

JillRyan4@aol.com

Homoeopathy is very much in the news at the moment and with good reason. Homoeopathy is a totally non-invasive and safe approach to healing which has been recognised and used as standard healthcare in many parts of the world for decades. There are no side effects associated with correctly used homoeopathic treatment.

Origins
Homoeopathy as we know it today is about 200 years old. Its founder was a German doctor, Samuel Hahnemann, who had the advantage of being both highly educated and an original thinker. Hahnemann became thoroughly disillusioned with the medical practices of the day and felt in all conscience that he could no longer continue working as a doctor.

To make a living he turned to translating medical text books and became intrigued when he came across the fact that the bark of the chinchona plant was useful for curing symptoms of malaria. Hahnemann pondered why this should be so and took a few drams of chinchona himself by way of an experiment. He was surprised to find that he developed the symptoms of malaria and started to formulate the theory that diseases can be treated using substances that cause similar symptoms in healthy people. Proving this theory was, of course, not without its dangers as it was impossible to know how much of the medicine was needed to produce curative symptoms and how much would be poisonous. Hahnemann started to dilute the medicines and found that the more dilute the substance, the greater the curative effect and the less risk there was of side effects. After even more experimentation he found that by shaking the medicine in water between dilutions, the curative effect became even greater and that side effects disappeared.

By closely observing the properties of these diluted substances, which we now call homoeopathic remedies, Hahnemann made another important discovery. This was that physical and emotional conditions are closely linked and prescriptions covering both states were the most successful.

Since these times homoeopathy has been tested in numerous clinical situations and we now have a unique system of medicine capable of treating the whole person without any undesirable side effects.

Chronic and acute illness
Homoeopaths divide illness into two sorts: chronic and acute. Chronic conditions are illnesses where the patient is unlikely to get better without medical help (for example, migraine headaches or recurrent panic attacks) and acute illnesses where the patient will either get better of his/her own accord or, in very extreme cases, die (for example influenzas or anxiety about a specific event).

A qualified homoeopath is the best person to treat chronic health conditions, but it is perfectly possible and safe to self-prescribe homoeopathic first aid remedies for acute conditions. Indeed, it is a wonderful way of learning about the powerful and rapid healing properties of homoeopathic remedies.

Self prescribe
In each edition of the Women in Law Newsletter I am going to write about a couple of homoeopathic remedies that you can use to treat acute conditions. The most important thing to remember when self-prescribing is that as soon as you start feeling better to stop taking the homoeopathic remedy and only start again if the symptoms return. In homoeopathic prescribing less definitely works better than more!

Arnica. Probably the best known homoeopathic remedy in the world, Arnica is a plant that grows wild in the mountains of Europe and Siberia. This is the first remedy to think of for any kind of injury or shock, either to the whole body or any part of it. The patient will feel sore and bruised and will have difficulty in getting comfortable - ‘even the bed feels too hard’. Arnica reduces swelling and inflammation and helps the body to heal. It is particularly useful after childbirth to reduce physical and emotional exhaustion and to help the body recover.

Arnica can be used for comparatively minor injuries, such as a child falling over and bruising her knee, to helping those involved in major accidents who may well be suffering shock as well as broken bones and soft tissue injury.

Recently arnica has been found to be useful for jet-lag. Take one arnica 30 before boarding the plane, one mid-way on your journey, and another upon reaching your destination.

Arnica is available in pill form and also arnica cream which can help to speed the curative process after bruising. However, arnica cream must not be applied to broken skin.

Ignatia. This is another very well known homoeoapthic remedy, but one which is primarily used to treat emotional states rather more than the physical. The remedy is made from the seeds of the St Ignatius bean plant which was first introduced into Europe from the Far East by Spanish Jesuits in the 17th century.

People needing ignatia are usually in an emotionally unstable state caused by grief or anxiety. The nervous system can be affected with spasms or tremors and the patient may find him or herself sighing and constantly swallowing. It is common to have a sensation of a lump in the throat that cannot be relieved by swallowing, but this sensation can be relieved by eating something solid. In fact, eating in general can temporarily help the emotional state and this ‘comfort eating’ can lead to large weight gain in a very short time. It is a very useful remedy for the initial stages of grief when the patient feels a great sense of loss and disappointment. Grief is a very deep emotion and is not just associated with the death of a loved one - for instance, many people feel deep grief about the ending of a relationship or the loss of some cherished ambition. In many cases there is an element of jealousy involved when somebody else has got something that you know will never be yours. Grief can be a hard emotion to recognise, but the physical and emotional symptoms will lead you to ignatia.

There is likely to be a lot of emotional changeability - crying one minute and laughing the next, anger followed by anxiety. Patients will often try to suppress these emotions and this is likely to lead to physical conditions such as digestive disorders or insomnia.

It is unlikely that one patient will have all the symptoms of ignatia, but it is usually easy to recognise the particular type of emotional distress.

Buy a homoepathic first aid kit
Women in Law has arranged for you to purchase homoeopathic first aid kits containing the remedies to be featured in future editions. These remedies are handmade by HELIOS, one of the leading UK homoeopathic pharmacies. These kits are a very economical way to purchase a quantity of useful homoeopathic first aid remedies.

These kits are unique and are ideal for newcomers as well as the more experienced users of homoeopathy. Each kit contains a range of remedies which are useful in treating the most common home ailments and many first aid situations.

The remedies are contined in 2 gram glass bottles, each holding approximately 35 doses in sucrose pillule form. Each kit comes with its own comprehensive, self-prescribing guide to help you in your selection of the most appropriate remedy, and is packaged in a sturdy polypropylene storage case.

A portion of the sales of these kits is given to support homeopathic projects and charities. Every effort will be made to dispatch your kit as promptly as possible.

Basic Kit: £26.95 plus £2.50 postage & packing in the UK and £5.00 elsewhere, contains 18 remedies covering the most common ailments and injuries.

Basic Plus Kit: £38.95 plus £2.50 postage & packing in the UK and £5.00 elsewhere, contains the basic 18 remedies plus a further 18 widely-used remedies.

Travellers Kit: £38.95 plus £2.50 postage & packing in the UK and £5.00 elsewhere, contains the basic 18 remedies plus a further 18 remedies for the frequent or long distance traveler.

Please send sterling cheques only for one or more kits to:

Jill Ryan, Lic.LCCH
Classical Licenced Homoeopath
147 Blythe Road
London W14 OHL
England