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The goal of homeopathic treatment

At the homeopathic doctor’s clinic, typically in homeopathy, patients have a lengthy first visit. During this time, the homeopathic doctor conducts an in-depth review of the individual’s health status, their temperament, personality, sentiments and sensibilities. This is used to guide the selection of a homeopathic remedy.

This is supplemented by follow-up visits, where treated individuals report how they are responding to the remedy. This will help the doctor arrive at decisions about further treatment. In traditional or classical homeopathy, only one remedy is administered at any given time.

In a clinic consultation, your homeopathic doctor will also conduct a physical examination. He will look into your drug history — the medicines you are taking or have been taking — followed by past history, family history, laboratory and diagnostic tests.

Express your feelings

You may not be used to talking to your conventional doctor about your feelings or problems in your personal life. For a homeopathic doctor, as you would have seen or experienced, your emotions, likes and dislikes, including idiosyncrasies, matter the most.

It may not always be possible for your homeopathic doctor to ‘tap into’ or ‘vet’ everything you’d have said during a previous consultation, albeit he would have recorded your case meticulously. Most homeopathic doctors will be able to tell whether or not you are feeling stressed, anxious or upset just by looking at you.

It is important to be open with them, if you are having any emotionally-driven feelings. There is no need for you to hide behind the mask. It always helps to be open, because homeopathy is mind and body, holistic medicine. For it to work well and effectively, this connect in health and illness is as important as your symptoms.

When you speak openly, your homeopathic doctor will be able to figure out whether there are any underlying causes for your illness. If your symptoms aren’t triggered by such factors or possibilities, he will be able to address your health concerns, based on the nature of your unique, individualistic symptoms.

Your homeopathic doctor may also suggest ways and means to improve your physical, psychological or emotional health, while treating you as one whole — not just the sum of the parts. This is precisely the reason why one is treated, effectively and safely, with individualised homeopathic medicines, and counselled about lifestyle and dietary changes.

The patient, not just the illness

This needs to be emphasised again. Homeopathy treats the individual; it does not just limit its treatment to the diagnosis of an illness. When you are ill, your illness has its own unique pattern of symptoms. You will tend to get those illnesses that result from a particular pattern of imbalance with your vital force or immune system — one that is unique to your personal temperament and environmental factors.

Yet, the interesting fact is that people with the same illness or diagnosis will not need the same homeopathic remedy. There are dozens of homeopathic medicines, for instance, for hyperacidity. The hyperacidity you present will require a homeopathic medicine that matches your particular pattern of symptoms. Your colleague’s hyperacidity, on the other hand, will respond to an entirely different homeopathic remedy.

For instance, the flu you are suffering from could have resulted after exposure to sudden cold, dry winds. This may be followed by high fever. To your surprise though, one of your cheeks is pale and the other red. You sneeze violently, your nose runs like a drainage pipe, and you have a nagging, dry, croupy cough. You feel totally restless. Your mouth is extremely dry and you can’t fill your thirst. The more you drink, the thirstier you will be. You also, at the same time, feel chilled to the hilt. This is individualistic — it’s unlike the flu symptoms one of your friends may have. So, you will, according to homeopathy, need HeparSulphuricum.

Each of us, likewise, experiences certain states that may limit us in some way. Staphysagria, a homeopathic medicine, is useful for people who are deeply depressed and angry, with self-destructive tendencies — the trigger being emotional distress or shame experienced during childhood (Hahnemann thought of childhood trauma or experiences long before Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was born).

This may provoke individuals to feel intense anger, but also a number of physical ailments such as allergies, joint pains and sensitivity to light. It is through the understanding of such states that professional homeopaths are able to treat your body, mind and emotions simultaneously — in other words, help the ‘self-correcting’ vital force or immunity overcome illnesses, safely, gently and effectively.

A common cold, to cull another example, when treated with homeopathy, can boost your immune defences to a totally new level. In so doing, you’ll be able to overcome several micro-organic or viral incursions of daily life on your own.

However, there are certain conditions like advanced cancer, tuberculosis and schizophrenia. Here, the primary aim of homeopathic treatment should be to make patients comfortable by alleviating pain, agitation, depression and suffering.

There is, of course, nothing better than giving your immune defences the push to fight on their own. The immune system is far smarter than we think — it is a quick learner. Homeopathy knows this best — it gives a gentle thrust to the immune system and helps it to correct itself during illnesses and, in doing so, helps us to achieve optimal health and well-being.

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