What is Homeopathy?

Homeopathy is a medical treatment used by thousands of practitioners around the world for about 200 years. It has been used to treat many conditions acute and chronic, from skin rashes and earaches to infections and cancer. Most reports on the efficacy of homeopathy are anecdotal and very few studies have been done that follow current scientific standards. However, many scientists conclude that homeopathy may be of value in the treatment and prevention of diseases in humans, animals and even crops.

Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, collected information from a range of symptoms he experienced when he and his colleagues took various substances one at a time. Today, we have about 2,500 different substances listed in the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States, the official compendium of homeopathic remedies recognized by the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938.

We don't really know how homeopathy works. It has been suggested that homeopathic remedies have the ability to stimulate the body's own regulating systems towards recovery. A homeopath will select a substance (mineral, vegetable or animal) capable of causing the same symptoms in a healthy person as the symptoms of the disease to be treated. For example, a substance like coffee can be used to treat insomnia or the onion to treat a cold or hay fever; this is called the "law of similars". Today, researchers are engaged in scientific studies to learn more about how homeopathy works and what conditions are best treated with it.

Homeopaths believe that the symptoms of disease-like inflammation, fever, diarrhea, cough and discharges-are methods the body uses to heal itself and should not be suppressed. These symptoms are used as a guide to understand what is going on with the body and to choose the best remedy to treat the disease at the point in which the organism becomes inefficient in the healing process.

A homeopath will take the patient's symptoms and compare them with the records of the experiments with homeopathic remedies and come up with a remedy that most clearly resembles the symptom picture of the patient. A homeopath will pay special attention to particular, peculiar and characteristic symptoms. For example, a person with headache that gets better from cold, with thirst for cold drinks but with general chilliness of the body resembles the remedy picture of the substance Phosphorus.

Since these substances can cause the same symptoms as the disease homeopaths use very small quantities of remedy to avoid a worsening of the patient. The concentration of the homeopathic remedies is in the range of one part-per-million and at times even more diluted.Sometimes, despite the minuteness of the dosage people may experience an initial aggravation of symptoms that can last a few minutes or up to a few days. Usually the aggravation resolves by itself. The aggravation is the organism's reaction to the homeopathic stimulus and is not a chemical effect of the medicine.

At times, a homeopathic "antidote" is required to reduce the body's reaction and sometimes conventional treatment may be required. However, homeopathic remedies produced according to standards are totally safe and non-toxic.

Homeopathic remedies can work very quickly, in a matter of minutes, in acute conditions. It can take several weeks or months of treatment in chronic conditions. In the course of treatment with homeopathy acute conditions may appear, as is normal in everyday life-like colds, discharges, etc.-that can be treated homeopathically. However, there are instances in which episodes of acute asthma, seizures, strokes, heart attacks, or severe infections may require conventional treatment in a hospital. In these situations, and in most conditions, a combined treatment of homeopathy and conventional medicine can be given. In all circumstances traditional diagnosis and diagnostic studies, as well as consultations with specialists is appropriate and recommended.