What is Homeopathy?

What is Homeopathy

Homeopathy is a method for treating a disease by small doses of those drugs, large doses of which would cause a healthy person to experience symptoms of this disease.

According to this method of alternative medicine, the smaller the dose of medication, the more effective it works. When prescribing it, a doctor must pay attention not only to the symptoms of the disease but also to the personality of the patient.

Similarity principle

Homeopathy was developed at the beginning of the 19th century by the German physician Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann. Being completely healthy, he began taking quinine, and after two weeks he developed the symptoms of malaria. And as soon as he stopped taking the medicine, the disease disappeared. So Hahnemann concluded that the medicine can not only heal the sick but also cause illness in a healthy person. Consequently, it is necessary to treat any ailment precisely because it provoked it, that is, a “drug disease” must push the “natural disease” out of the body. On the basis of these findings, Hahnemann proposed a completely new system of treatment: the patient should take small doses of medication, which in large doses cause phenomena similar to the symptoms of the disease itself in healthy people.

The basis of drugs prescribed by homeopathic doctors today is the same principle of similarity. Thus, preparations based on bee venom are used to treat edema since it is known that a bee sting causes fluid retention in the body. The plant aconite in large doses provokes a rise in temperature and a rapid heart beat in a healthy person. If an aconite-based homeopathic medicine is given to a patient suffering from fever, it can relieve these symptoms.

Treat the body, heal the soul

Another principle of homeopathy is that the human body is perceived as a whole, and all medications are prescribed depending not only on health problems but also on the patient’s personality. According to the Minnesota Homeopathic Association, the cure of a disease is its removal from the deepest levels to the superficial ones. In this case, it is believed that the deepest level is mental, where many causes of our ailments often lie.

Indeed, unpleasant news can sometimes cause no less suffering than a cold or food poisoning. Yes, many bodily diseases arise “from the nerves”. Therefore, homeopaths consider it most important not only to relieve the patient from physical discomfort but also to bring his mental state into balance, that is, to get the disease from the deepest mental level. For example, if a person suffering from bronchial asthma stops seizures after homeopathic treatment, but a rash appears on the skin, the homeopathic doctor will decide that the medicine was chosen correctly. In this case, the disease has reached a superficial level. If the patient gets headaches instead of attacks, it means that the treatment is prescribed incorrectly, and the medicine, on the contrary, has driven the disease deep into the body.

The goal of homeopathic treatment is not to heal a particular ailment, but to restore the body’s ability to recover. If the drug is chosen correctly, the immune system is restored, self-regulation processes are activated. It turns out that the patient’s body literally “helps himself.” But sometimes immediately after the start of homeopathic medicines, the patient does not experience improvement, but rather an increase in the manifestations of the disease (for example, in the treatment of various skin diseases). This is not because the medicine was prescribed incorrectly. Homeopathic treatment is aimed at removing toxins from the body, which, leaving it, often provoke a rash on the skin. Fortunately, these unpleasant side effects will not last long. As soon as the body is cleared of toxins, the condition of the skin is normalized.

The homeopathic practitioner is interested in the patient and his personality. Therefore, before prescribing any drug, the homeopath carefully examines the patient, asks about all the health problems and examines his psycho-emotional state. It is important that the patient did not miss anything, because the more he tells about his state of health, the easier it will be for the doctor to choose the right treatment for him.

At present, there are no contraindications for taking homeopathic medicines. Unlike conventional drugs, they do not participate in the metabolism and do not burden the human excretory organs, so even allergy sufferers and expectant mothers can take them.

Less is better

The Minnesota Homeopathic Association believes that the effectiveness of homeopathic medicines increases with a decrease in their dose. This hypothesis was also proposed by Hahnemann in the nineteenth century. He noticed that large doses of drugs often harm patients and decided to build on the opposite. Then he put forward the idea to apply for the manufacture of homeopathic preparations dilution on the “centiism scale”, when each subsequent dilution reduces the content of the original substance 100 times. This system is still used today, and the packages with homeopathic medicines always list signs indicating the degree of dilution. Thus, decimal dilutions (1 to 10) are denoted by the Roman number X or the letter D, centesimal (1 to 100) – the Roman number C. But you can also find such drugs in which only one molecule remains from the original substance. Doctors homeopaths explain the effectiveness of such drugs by the fact that water, which is used in the manufacture of medicines, has a memory and retains all the properties of the substance dissolved in it, even after a strong dilution.

Homeopathic remedies are available in the form of granules, alcohol solution, tablets, powder, granules. The latter option is the most convenient. Granules are made of sugar and soaked in a medicinal substance. For an adult, it is enough to take 6 such grains a day half an hour before meals or an hour after it. The patient should put granules under the tongue and wait until it dissolves. When taking homeopathic medicines, you will have to exclude some products from your diet. First of all, you need to abandon coffee – it neutralizes the effect of all homeopathic medicines. This also applies to other products containing caffeine – bitter chocolate, strong tea, carbonated drinks. Mint, spices, and alcohol also block the effect of medicinal substances, so you have to forget about them for a while.

You should store homeopathic preparations in special conditions. Keep them in a dark place at room temperature, away from various sources of radiation and strongly smell substances – this way, they do not lose their beneficial properties.

Feel the difference!

Homeopathy is often mistakenly confused with phytotherapy because both of these treatment methods use the beneficial properties of plants. In fact, the raw material for the manufacture of a homeopathic drug can be substances not only of the plant but also of animal and mineral origin. Some tools may seem very unusual, such as snake venoms. But it’s not the source of the raw material for the preparation is important but the effect it has on the patient’s body. In addition, homeopathy uses much smaller doses than herbal medicine.