Homeopathy is a natural scientific system of medicine that attempts to treat the individual and, thereby, the pathology. You might come with one health issue in mind but the remedy strengthens and balances all the systems (nervous, endocrine, respiratory, cardiovascular) and those systems work to restore health.
Homeopathy defines health as more than simply lack of disease; it is the ability to express freedom from limitations on the mental, emotional and physical levels. It will free up the energy that was spent on illness to become more creative, vital and happy.
The remedies are made from herbs, minerals and animal products. They are nontoxic, have no side effects and are available at health food stores.
Homeopathy originated 200 years ago by a German Physician, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann. He wrote, "A single symptom is no more the whole disease than a single foot of the man". According to this philosophy, people with the same illness are often treated with different homeopathic remedies. Homeopathy is based on the discovery that a medicinal substance can cure the same problems it can cause by varying the dosage of that substance. Given to a healthy person in a suitable dose, it will eventually cause that person to experience symptoms. These symptoms will be specific to the particular substance taken. In other words each substance produces in the healthy person symptoms unique to that substance.
That same substance in an extremely tiny dose will remove just those symptoms it is capable of producing. The essence of homeopathy is whatever a medicine can cause in the way of symptoms that same substance can take away.
Homeopathy views illness as acute or chronic. Acute illness requires an immediate response, while chronic dis-ease is addressed constitutionally (our initial interview). The biggest difference between acute and constitutional care is in the time it takes to see results. In acute situations, changes can occur anywhere during the timeline of immediately to several days. In constitutional care, changes evolve more slowly over a period of weeks or months. Follow-up visits are crucial!
Often we seek complementary and alternative therapies because traditional medical treatments do not have a truly curative effect and the complaint continues to return. Earaches, colds and asthma are treated with drugs which temporarily relieve the symptoms. It may appear that at this point the complaint is an acute condition, but It is a chronic illness if it continues to reoccur.
Classical homeopathy seeks to remove the underlying weakness in the body which allows the symptoms to keep coming back. Homeopathic remedies stimulate the body's natural immune system in order to bring about a more vital state of health; this is what is meant by constitutional care. If the body has previously been exposed to recurrent treatments, suppressing symptoms rather than stimulating the immune system, homeopathy may take time to re-establish the body's own natural state of balance.
Homeopathy's ability to work is based upon the vitality of the immune system. The stronger the body is, the faster it will respond. This does not mean that homeopathy won't work for someone who has had a good deal of traditional medical treatment but that the response may be a bit slower. It is important to understand that your body will be responding to a very safe and subtle stimulus designed to help it regain its own strength and vitality and restore itself to a state of health.
If you are interested in learning more about homeopathy, here are some books you might like to look into.
Organon of Medicine by Samuel Hahnemann.
The Spirit of Homoeopathy* by Rajan Sankaran
Homeopathy - Medicine of the New Man by George Vithoulkas A Brief Study Course
in Homoeopathy* by Dr. Elizabeth Wright-Hubbard
*It is only in the U.S. that we drop the second "o" in homeopathy.