Homeopathic Cures

Homeopathic cures is a hotly debated therapy. Homeopathy is widely practiced throughout the world. It is second in popular use only to conventional medicine. The remedies are registered as drugs and are manufactured legally in the U.S. as over-the-counter drugs according to the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia.

A brief look at the development and history of homeopathy will help explain why it is viewed with such skepticism.

A History of Homeopathy

The principles of homeopathy have been the foundation of medicine in India for over four thousand years. They were also recorded in Greek medical literature. Paracelsus, a 16th century physician and alchemist, stated that small doses of “what makes a man ill also cures him".

Samuel Hahnemann, an 18th century German physician, is credited as the founder of homeopathy as we know it today.

Distressed by the harmful medical treatments of his day, Hahnemann set out to find a better way to treat his patients.

Since treating disease with opposites didn't appear to be working, he decided to explore working with remedies called similars. This type of treatment was commonly used in German folk medicine during his lifetime.

Dr. Hahnemann named his system homeopathy, which means "similar suffering". He organized it into a structured approach and introduced the concept of provings.

Hahnemann noted that the toxic symptoms of some remedies were remarkably similar to the symptoms they were used for. For example, the symptoms of malaria were like those of quinine poisoning. Quinine is the cure for malaria.

To "prove" the remedies, Hahnemann or his volunteers took the substances in sub-toxic doses and recorded the symptoms they experienced. When he administered the remedy that induced the same symptoms as the illness, symptoms worsened as expected. Mental and emotional symptoms were considered just as important as physical symptoms.

Samuel Hahnemann believed that diseases represent a disturbance in the body's life force and its ability to heal itself. He believed that only a small stimulus is needed to begin the healing process. You have to first remove the cause before a healing can occur.

To counter this effect he began to precisely dilute the remedies, pounding the bottle thoroughly each time. This is called succussing or potentising the remedy. As expected, the symptoms improved. What surprised Dr. Hahnemann was that the therapeutic benefits increased with each dilution.

This led him to use very small doses, sometimes just one drop of the undiluted substance, to prevent additional suffering from using a similar remedy. This tiny dose still stimulated a healing response in the body. This became known as Minimum Dose.

Eventually Dr. Hahnemann started introducing even greater dilutions, called infinitesimal doses, so that no actual substance was left in the water, just the energetic imprint. Homeopaths believe that the greater the dilution, the more healing potential a remedy has. It is believed that the repeated potentizing transfers the subtle energetic properties of the substance to the water.

The Law of Similars and Homeopathic Treatments

This is the same idea as using modern day vaccines or allergy shots. The law of similars and minimum dose are two unwavering principles of homeopathic prescribing.

There has been some confusion that homeopathic treatments are about dilutions, the more the better. Although this has become a big part of how homeopathy is practiced, it is not the foundation of the system.

Again, the word itself means "similar suffering". The idea of using tiny doses was to reduce additional symptoms caused by using similars to the absolute minimum while still obtaining the desired therapeutic response.

Traditional Homeopathic Practitioners believe that you need to match one remedy to the individual based on a careful recording of symptoms, mental states, emotions and other information. Homeopathic treatments are based on the information gathered about these symptoms. The remedy for one person's headache could be very different than that of another.

It's not about treating the symptom, but the whole person. Very high dilutions are often used, (one thousand serial dilutions or more) and often only one dose is given. It is given time to work before deciding if another dose is needed or perhaps another remedy.

Obviously it is often difficult for an untrained person to determine the most appropriate remedy needed.

To make homeopathic cures accessible to everyone, manufacturers have introduced combination remedies. These are available in lower dilutions and are suitable for general symptoms of an illness or injury.

Combination and single remedies available to the general public range from 3X to 30C dilutions. 3x means a remedy was diluted 90% three times. There is still a tiny amount of substance present at this dilution.

Homeobotanical remedies are a 1.5x dilution so that both the homeopathic and physical benefits of these herbal formulas are accessible for healing.

From a vibrational energy healing perspective, homeopathic cures are carefully chosen so that the frequency of the substance is matched with the frequency of the illness. The energy is then transferred to the bioenergetic system.

The remedies are believed to primarily interact with the physical and biomagnetic fields of the body. They are drainage remedies. As they are assimilated, toxicity is removed and the illness is neutralized.

Do Homeopathic Cures Work?

Proponents of homeopathic treatments counter this by noting that there appears to be changes in hydrogen bonding in the water when the remedies are succussed or potentized. When dried, the crystal patterns appear significantly altered.

From my own limited experience with homeopathic cures I can't answer this question. I cannot say that I have ever noticed a change in symptoms from using them.

There are a few small studies that support homeopathy, and larger ones don't. The big question isn't necessarily with the concept of like cures like, but the amount of substance in a dose.

According to the chemist, Avogadro, once a remedy is diluted to 24x or 12c, there is only a 60% chance of one molecule of substance being present in a dose. Although Dr. Hahnemann did use a single drop of undiluted remedy on occasion, he eventually favored using 60x or 30c dilutions.

However homeopathic cures do or don't work, the goal has always to restore balance to the individual while first finding the cause and doing no harm. There is much to be said for that alone. Whether noted results are from the placebo effect or not still remains to be seen.

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