FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
When receiving homeopathic treatment, a real partnership is created between the patient and the homeopath. Reciprocal trust and respect, and confidence in your practitioner are essential. For this reason, as a patient you want to be sure you are choosing a homeopath with whom you can feel comfortable and at ease, who understands your situation and can support you throughout the process. A discovery call can give you an insight into how I work and run my clinic, and give me an overview of your needs and your reasons for turning to homeopathy.
To get a sense of whether homeopathy is for you, if you do not know it already, below is some information in a question-and-answer format that will go some way in answering any initial questions you may have.
WHAT CAN I EXPECT FROM MY FIRST CONSULTATION?
Homeopathy is a so-called holistic therapy, that it, it treats the patient as a 'whole', taking into account mental and emotional factors, general information about body temperature, food and drink likes and dislikes, aversions and desires, alongside with the symptoms of the presenting complaint. For this reason, the first consultation is an extensive exploration of the patient's world, in which the homeopath listens to the patient's description of their experience of the complaint they have, and integrates it with information about a wide range of facts about the patient's life, habits and history. After the consultation, the patient receives a remedy with instructions on how to take it and for how long. The homeopath checks in after a few days to see how the patient is responding to the remedy.
WHAT KIND OF HEALTH ISSUES CAN HOMEOPATHY ADDRESS?
Homeopathy has been used clinically for over 200 years, as the sole healing treatment or alongside conventional medicine. The range of complaints that have been addressed spans both physical and mental/emotional, acute (i.e., a self-limiting condition such as a cold, food poisoning, sprains after an accident, 'tummy bugs', that last from hours to a week at most) and chronic (i.e., well-established complaints that have been around for a while and that are not going to be resolved by themselves). Homeopathy can support children in their physical and mental/emotional development, and adults throughout life's challenges.
There is a substantial body of evidence of how homeopathic treatments have been used: to know more, good resources to consult are the Homeopathic Research Institute, Prof. George Vithoulkas' clinical cases and his research papers, and the 'Research' page on the Faculty of Homeopathy. Both adults and children can benefit from it.
HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO SEE SOME IMPROVEMENT?
The answer to this question will vary from case to case, since everyone responds differently to homeopathic treatment. The speed of healing depends on a number of factors, the length of time for which you have been suffering from the condition and the amount and type of treatment you have already received, as well as your levels of vitality. However, when the correct remedy has been identified and prescribed, you will probably notice some positive changes in the quality of your sleep, energy levels and mood before your main symptoms start to improve. These are signs that you are on the path to healing. At other times, the changes are quick and dramatic. The minimum you will need to commit to are one first consultation and at least two follow-ups. After the first few appointments, which may be fortnightly or monthly depending on the case, as progress is made you may only need to see your homeopath every two to three months.
WHAT IS HOMEOPATHY?
Homeopathy is a gentle and non-invasive therapy that is based on the tremendous ability that the body has to self-heal and regenerate: this can be seen in action after injuries (such as cuts, wounds, grazes, broken bones) and pathogen invasions (such as colds, coughs, stomach bugs, etc.). The support homeopathy offers is in the form of an impulse given by homeopathic remedies, which stimulates in the body a precise reaction. Homeopathy can therefore be thought of as a key that unlocks that self-healing power. Since every lock has a different key, homeopathy is a highly individualised treatment: the headache sufferer with a sharp and localised pain in the right temple will receive a different remedy from another headache sufferer for whom the pain is dull and mainly localised in the occiput. You can read a short article I wrote for my local health hub for children and young adults. Homeopathy is safe, not having any of the side effects of conventional medications, and it can work alongside conventional medicine. It is suited to all ages, from babies, to children, to adolescents, to adults to the elderly.
I particularly like Melissa Assilem's take on homeopathy: "So often we try to explain how homeopathy works, but the truth is we do not know the exact science behind how it works. However we do know that it can and does heal on a very deep and holistic basis. It is gentle, it will take the amount of time needed for the healing to take place, and it leaves no side effects.".
WHAT ARE HOMEOPATHIC REMEDIES?
Homeopathic remedies are made from extremely small quantities of nanoparticles of substances derived most commonly from the plant, mineral or animal kingdoms. They mostly come in the form of white sugar pillules that have been doused in the highly diluted and vigorously shaken liquid extracted from a variety of sources. Analysed at the chemical level, the remedies mostly do not contain any molecules of the original substance because of the high level of dilution: above a certain potency, there is no trace of it at all. This is what leads sceptics to claim that homeopathy cannot work, since there is nothing in the remedies but water and sugar. Analysed at the electromagnetic level, however, homeopathic remedies appear to show water structures that mimic the original molecules of the substance they are based on. It is at the electromagnetic level that homeopathy acts.
IS HOMEOPATHY SAFE?
Homeopathy is a very gentle form of healing. Its primary focus is the stimulation of the body’s own internal defence mechanism through the administration of homeopathic remedies, to bring about recovery, repair and regeneration. Because of the nature of homeopathic remedies, they do not chemically override the system: they are highly-diluted substances with no toxic effects, which makes this form of healing safe enough to be used at times like pregnancy and infancy. Homeopathy can also be used alongside conventional treatment without interfering with it. Furthermore, homeopathic treatment is highly individualised, so that each remedy is specifically selected to match the whole of the patient’s symptoms. This is what it means when we say that homeopathy treats the person, not the disease.