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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