Homeopathy Frequently Asked
Questions Page 4
Seeing
a Qualified Homeopath
What
happens during a consultation?
If you have a chronic, or frequently recurring, complaint
the first consultation generally takes about one and a half
hours. You begin by telling the homoeopath what is troubling
you. It is helpful if you can give as much detail as possible
about your symptoms, including anything that makes them better
or worse.
If you have noticed any other changes in yourself (mood, anxieties,
sleep, dreams, appetite, thirst, temperature) since the symptoms
started; these can also be very useful. The homoeopath will
normally take a full medical case history from you and record
details of any previous health problems in your family, going
back to your grandparents. The aim of the consultation is
to get an overview, not only of your complaint, but also of
you as a person.
Follow-up consultations usually last around forty-five minutes.
These visits help you and your homoeopath to assess your reaction
to the previous remedy and decide how your treatment can best
be continued. Sometimes, if the remedy is working well the
homoeopath may wait and not prescribe anything, but the information
gathered during the appointment may well be used later on,
in selecting the next remedy.
What
happens after a consultation?
The most important law that a homoeopath has to follow to
prescribe successfully is the Law of Similars,
which states that we must match the symptom picture of an
illness or injury to the symptom picture of the medicine.
The better the match the more likely the medicine is to cure
you.
The first task is to carefully analyse the information collected
in the consultation and select symptoms that are particularly
characteristic or individual to your case.
Once this is done, the homoeopath uses two different kinds
of reference books:
Repertories are books in which symptoms
experienced by provers (testers)of homoeopathically prepared
substances are organised (both schematically and alphabetically).
They have been expanding and improving steadily over the past
two hundred years. So far over 1,000 different substances
have been tested to see what symptoms they produce in a healthy
person. A repertory provides are detailed index of symptoms
to help narrow this huge number of substances down, by guiding
the homoeopath to those which best cover all the selected
symptoms and traits. These particular substances can then
be studied in depth in the Materia Medica.
These are organised alphabetically, giving the names of each
substance and describing them in great detail. This is where
the final choice is made.
Repertories and Materia Medica are now available on computer
software which saves a lot of time when cross-referencing,
but even so the search is likely to take quite a long time.
For this reason the homoeopath may not prescribe anything
for you immediately, particularly if it is your first visit.
If, however, your consultation was for an acute illness, the
analysis will be simpler and the need for the remedy more
urgent, so it will normally be prescribed there and then.
How
many consultations will I need to have?
This is a very difficult question to answer and will depend
on the individual case. However, one can generalise a little.
Acute cases and injuries tend to respond very quickly once
the correct remedy is found. The same is often true of more
long-term problems which have a clear aetiology (ie. if you
have never been well since a particular event). For chronic
illness there is a rule of thumb that it may take up to one
consultation for every year that you have had the complaint.
Should
I stop taking all other medication?
No, it is inadvisable to stop taking prescribed drugs suddenly.
It is important that you tell your homoeopath about any medication
that you are on. Hopefully the need for these will lessen
as treatment progresses and they can be gradually and carefully
reduced under your doctor's supervision.
How
can I tell if the homoeopathic medicine is working or not?
Reactions to homoeopathic medicines vary with the individual.
Some experience a clear improvement in their symptoms very
early on. Others find that their symptoms worsen for a time
before improving (this is known as an aggravation). Still
others find that their general sense of well-being increases,
but the symptoms that they wanted cured stay the same. Perhaps
surprisingly, this is a very good sign as it shows the remedy
is working at the most fundamental level and removing dis-ease.
Eventually the original symptoms will disappear.
Apart from general improvements (in sleep, digestion, mood
etc.) homoeopaths tend to look out for three particular things,
which usually mean that there is a movement towards cure.
The first is a shift in symptoms from above to below ie. from
head to toe (eg. a rash moving down the body). The second
is a shift from within out ie. from deeper parts of the body
to the surface (eg. asthma changing to eczema). The third
is that old symptoms start to appear in reverse order.
This is the equivalent of the body having a spring clean,
clearing out old symptoms that have previously been suppressed.
It will be a great help to your homoeopath if you can mention
any changes that you have noticed since taking the remedy.
If you think you're likely to forget what has been going on,
you could jot down a few notes throughout the month and bring
them along to your next appointment.
Is
it O.K. to self-prescribe when you are seeing a homoeopath?
Self-prescribing can be very useful in treating acute illness
or injury. Homoeopaths treat the underlying weakness in the
patient's constitution, this should mean that eventually you
will have fewer acute illnesses. If you intend to see a homoeopath
regularly, please discuss self-prescribing with them before
taking anything, as it may interfere with your treatment.
Clearly, this does not apply in an emergency where the medicine
can be taken immediately.
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