Homeopathic Medicine

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Homeopathic Medicine:
What is it and How can it help you?

Native, Innate, Natural Care

Bringing the HOME back to Medicine.

No matter who you are, you are "meant to shine, as children do."
~Marianne Williamson, from her book "A Return to Love"

As I continue my education in medicine, I've received the opportunity to begin my transition into adding homeopathic medicine into the foundations of what The Essence Studio shares. This beginning starts with education. I am not a Certified Homeopath (CCH) or Licensed Homeopathic Doctor (MD-H) however, as a student of the American Medical College of Homeopathy, I am sharing this essential education to help further the consciousness of the new health age, one that continues to promote prevention, self care, understanding the toxicities of our world (and what to do about them), nutrition, conscious support systems, and health from the inside out. Essentially, the work is to help you become the best of you, thus helping our families, communities, world, and earth become better everyday. The more that all of us can instill this important education out there in practical and vital ways into communities who need it most (whether uneducated, undereducated, or educated), the more we can create an attitude of proactivity, nourishment, and innate balance. Education is the source of knowledge, and knowledge is the source of wisdom. Our wisdom is the source of intelligent and healthy actions thus enabling, inspiring, and motivating genuine health and vitality.

Be Apart, Build a Healthy Community. It all starts IN You.

Thank you for your support and I look forward
to sharing this valuable education with you!

Sincerely,

Jennifer Coomes BA LMT RYT
Creator, The Essence Studio LLC

The Heart of Homeopathic Medicine

When you combine great wisdom, longevity, and nature,
the eyes that see the world motivate it to balance in life.
The call is to listen with your heart and choose those eyes.

Homeopathic medicine is a body of medicine that is designed to help look at the whole person (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual as one) and seek the root cause of dis-ease and disease and re-establish a person's self-healing capabilities, inner wisdom, and innate state of optimal health. Its foundation is individual specialized care seeking the heart of the issues affecting a person's life, health, well-being, longevity, and vitality in ways that are harmful, toxifying, disruptive to one's balance, de-nourishing, and blocking one's vital expression.   This disruption (evidence of stress affecting function) could be in the body (structures, nutrition, absorption of nutrients, the nervous system, etc), one's personal truth, one's voice and communication, the mind, the emotions, the spirit, personal skills, or purpose.

The heart and way of homeopathic medicine looks at a patient's environment (inner and outer) to find where the outside expression of symptoms and the inner feeling of dis-ease are connected to the disruption of the natural work of the immune system that is essentially designed to help keep a person healthy and well. The purpose of making these connections is to determine the root cause (or real cause) of the symptoms and conditions that are affecting a person as an individual and human being so that a deeper, more effective, and long lasting solution can be determined.   The goal is to reduce or eliminate "obstacles to cure" so that what is blocking the natural path of healing and health can be removed so that what is vital in the mind, body, spirit, and heart returns.

When the root cause of a patient's health condition is determined by Certified Homeopath or Licensed Homeopathic Doctor, the next set of goals in patient care include the following:

Educate the patient about his or her body and current health state and where the optimal health state is for the patient

Determine a treatment plan to clean out toxic burdens, remove dysfunction, and correct imbalances and deficiencies in the patient's body and life while introducing correct and individualized nourishment, support systems, and nutritional changes

Support the patient with practical goals to create and maintain a new state of health with good self-care and coping tools in moving towards a vital and proactive life and lifestyle.

What is Homeopathy?

"In the healthy condition of man, the spiritual vital force (autocracy), the dynamis that animates the material body (organism), rules with unbounded sway, and retains all the parts of the organism in admirable, harmonious, vital operation, as regards both sensations and functions, so that our indwelling, reason-gifted mind can freely employ this living, healthy instrument for the higher purpose of our existence."
~Samuel Hahnemann (Aphorism 9, Organon of Medicine)

Homeopathy is primarily an energy based medicine specifically designed to eliminate the natural disease condition from the body, mind, and spirit through the premise of "like cures like." The purpose of homeopathic medicine is to bring the Vital Force (one's essential life energy which is found in all living things) back into balance. When the Vital Force is in balance and "tuned" correctly, an individual is healthy and adapting to nature and environmental factors with healthy adjustments. When this normal adjusting is out of balance due to being overwhelmed with stressors, difficult lifestyles, or traumatic events, the Vital Force becomes mistuned. When this happens, the body tries to adapt internally to bring back balance, and when this adaptation cannot be maintained, the body begins to develop symptoms whether they be physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. Often in homeopathy, we look to the mental and emotional state of the individual first, since this is often the first dimension that reveals the true state of the Vital Force and the innate health of the individual, whether the condition is acute or chronic.

The science of homeopathy is the study of original substances from plant, animal, mineral, or metal sources and learning the depth of their natural behavior and medicinal properties and then understanding how these sources can cure physical symptoms and mind states that an individual may present with in acute/emergency situations or in chronic/genetic conditions. The premise of "like cures like" is based on matching very uniquely the mind state or physical symptoms that is produced by a homeopathic remedy (ie. the behavior and qualities of the natural source) with the the mind state and physical symptoms of the individual.

It is said by Samuel Hahnemann, one of the great fathers of homeopathy, that to cure an individual of disease, you must give a medicine that produces similar symptoms as the very disease itself of an individual. Only medicines matched based on "similar" states can reach to the core of the disease and eliminate it. Why? Two similar diseases cannot exist in the body at the same time, and the stronger disease will eliminate the weaker disease. The disease state that is in the body is known as the "natural disease," ie. the disease that the body has produced due to genetics, lifestyle, environmental toxicities, and stress. The homeopathic remedy chosen produces an artificial disease or what is known as a medicinal disease which is similar to the natural disease of the body. By chosing a potency and dose of the homeopathic remedy that is just stronger than the natural disease state, the artificial disease (stronger disease) of the homeopathic remedy will eliminate the natural disease (weaker disease) of the body. Then, because of the very diluted amount of the original source/material used in the homeopathic remedy, the individual's Vital Force is strong enough to stimulate the immune system which can then eliminate the artificial/medicinal disease produced by the remedy. This happens primarily because the natural disease of the body has depressed or mistuned the Vital Force (and thus the immune system to fight off the disease) and once the natural disease is eliminated, the Vital Force becomes unsuppressed and thus can return to balance and stimulate the body's immune system to eliminate this energetic source of disease produced by the homeopathic remedy naturally. When this happens on the deepest levels and symptoms are no longer present, the movement toward cure can be achieved.

What is Homeopathy used for?

Homeopathy can be used for a variety of mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual conditions (whether they be acute, emergency, or chronic depending on factors involved), however, a classical homeopath or homeopathic doctor may not use any diagnosis to chose your best homeopathic remedy. This is because to chose the best homeopathic remedy that is specific to you, it is necessary to understand your complete and specific symptom picture, the core issues that have created your specific disease state, and the patterns, lifestyle, and obstacles to cure (factors that inhibit progression towards health) that are only known to you. Simply put, two people may be diagnosed with high blood pressure, but each person may look and act different, have different causes for this high blood pressure, and different life circumstances and environments in which to deal with correcting this condition. This is why a standard diagnosis given for a condition is only a factor in chosing the best remedy for an individual, and it is very rarely the key factor. This is called individualization, or chosing the best medicine that matches the individual and unique health picture for each person who comes to see a homeopath or homeopathic doctor.

What are Homeopathic Remedies?

As mentioned, the original substances or materials used to make homeopathic remedies/medicines can come from plant, animal, mineral, or metal sources. Each of these core categories have distinct behaviors and characteristics and within each category, you'll find even more distinct behaviors, ie. the behavior of a particular plant herb vs. the behavior of a lion (animal) vs. the behavior of calcium (mineral) vs. the behavior of gold (metal). The number of substances used for homeopathic remedies are in the 1000's, but the way that homeopathic remedies are made has stayed pretty consistent while developing over time since Samuel Hahnemann first began his work in homeopathy in the 1700's.

For a brief understanding, part of the original substance is taken and then diluted into what is known as the mother tincture. Then a drop of that mother tincture is then diluted and succussed (shaken), and that process is repeated many times for specific dilutions of the substance. Homeopathic remedies are a series of dilutions of the original substance and often the remedy that is given to you no longer has any molecules of the original substance left in it, but only an energetic imprint of the substance in the water.

In today's scientific based world, there is a conflict of understanding the differences between how material pharmaceutical work (ie. the substance of this medicine you can see and it is often used in large amounts) verses a homeopathic medicine which is the imprint of the original substance on a very tiny pellet. Even more, the quest is to understand how a medicine that is diluted 50,000 times beyond its original material source can have deep and long-lasting effects at eliminating natural disease from the body. This is not just theory, since homeopathy has been around hundreds of years, and there are many many cases where it has been shown that these kinds of medicines can reverse disease progression towards health.

What is missing more at this time is the full body of research which shows specifically how a homeopathic remedy, once taken, specifically affects the physiology of the body. What homeopathic research shows now is through the use of provings which are based on observing the symptoms that arise in a healthy person when taking a specific dosing of a homeopathic remedy over a period of time. This is how we learn the behavior of a specific remedy and understand more deeply what disease conditions and symptoms the homeopathic remedy is best suited for.

Why is your initial interview (intake) so important?

Your initial interview with a homeopath or homeopathic doctor is very important and likely to take about 1-2 hours long. During this time, it's really your time. The homeopath/homeopathic doctor may ask you a few questions to begin to get you talking about why you really came but then only ask clarifying questions as you talk along the way. Often you may have an initial complaint or condition but as you talk, you often reveal the deeper issue that is plaguing your inner harmony and health.

The purpose of this is not only reveal the symptoms and what can be seen about your health condition, but also reveal the essential energy state of your health condition, as well as what you may not even realize is bothering you.

This is called the "mind-state" of your disesase which is often profoundly related to the physical state of your disease and this can often be revealed in an acute situation as well as a chronic (or constitutional) case. It is a revealing of how you essentially and uniquely respond to life and its circumstances unique to you that can tell a story about how your physical body is responding to keep you healthy (and thus how the Vital Force is maintaining a state of health).

It is this mind-state that makes your health condition unique and different from others who may be diagnosed with the same health condition. This mind-state along with all of the other symptoms of your health picture is what gives the key direction into a homeopathic remedy that not only suits a diagnosis but the totality of your unique case. Often these interviews are very core to the individual and reveals deeper roots that an individual may never share with anyone else. As such, these interviews are confidential from the homeopath/homeopathic doctor standpoint unless there is a permission to use the interview for educational purposes.

What happens when you take a homeopathic remedy?

Homeopathic remedies are often taken either by pellet form or in a dilution of water which is then shaken ("succussed") before taking. There are some homeopathic remedies that come in topical form and you'll even find homeopathic toothpaste! The key for the remedy, after it has been carefully chosen, is to take it in the correct dosing and at the right strength (potency) which matches the disease/dis-ease state that you are experiencing. You may dissolve a few pellets on your tongue or take a few teaspoons of a homeopathic solution. Often in acute or emergency situations, a homeopathic remedy can act immediately or within a few hours if chosen correctly. For chronic conditions, it will often depend on how long someone has been experiencing their condition but usually an individual will have some response to the correct remedy within a day or two but it may take weeks or months to fully see a deeper recovery from the chronic condition. This is often because the immune system has been suppressed on a deep level and is no longer working in the way that it should, and the homeopathic remedy is beginning to repair the state of the Vital Force by layers so that the immune system begins to have the innate ability to self-heal and re-balance again into a state of health. This state of repair is the action of the remedy working but it takes a diligent commitment to the process of homeopathy as well as removing obstacles to cure (enviromental and lifestyle factors preventing the progression towards a state of health) and encouraging a healthy lifestyle.

Why is dosing, potency (strength), and observation important while you are taking a homeopathic remedy?

What is key in ensuring that homeopathy can have a positive and lasting effect in your health condition is finding not only the right remedy but the correct dosing and strength of the homeopathic remedy that fits the level of your disease state. As mentioned, disease is not just something that is physical, but it includes the symptoms that come from your mental and emotional states (ie. "I'm so depressed that I feel like there is a heavy weight on me and I can't lift it" or "I'm angry so much that even when I see nice people, I want to scream at them"), what is generally affecting you consistently (ie. "I'm tired all the time" or "I'm always feeling cold"), as well as the specific and particular symptoms that are unique to your particular experience of the condition (ie. "I'm always waking up at 3am and I need to go to the bathroom" or "I tend to be really itchy on my lower back when I wake up in the morning").

The point of understanding all of these factors is to discern and understand at what level that the expression of your disease/dis-ease (disharmony) occurs. These are some key points that are considered in determining the strength of your homeopathic remedy which often determines the level of positive response that you will have in taking the remedy:

Is the disease/dis-ease more acute (ie. just happened and its more superficial) or chronic (ie. it's been around for awhile and there's likely an original injury or traumatic event that started the symptoms)?

How old are you?

How vital and energetic do you feel and look?

How sensitive do you tend to be to new medicines? How sensitive are you in general?

While taking a homeopathic remedy, you always want to take notice initially how you are responding to the remedy. What is changing, what is getting better, what is getting worse? Sometimes, if you do receive a remedy that is either incorrect (not totally right for your condition) or in the wrong potency (strength) or dosing (how often you take the remedy), you may have what is called a "homeopathic aggravation." This means that the remedy is stirring up your healing process more than necessary and creating some uncomfortable or unwelcome irritation. When this happens, you always want to talk to your homeopath or homeopathic doctor to find out what kind of adjustment you need.

Remember always to give yourself time to adjust to the working of the homeopathic remedy and to share all of your progress and symptoms in each follow-up. Make sure you go to your follow up session! Some medicines work beautifully when they are initially given, and some medicines need to be adjusted if you are not responding well. Trust your homeopath or homeopathic doctor. They are invested in helping you feel better. Be committed to the healing process, and the teamwork will pay off with a great transformation in your health and your life!

Resources

Organon of Medicine by Samuel Hahnemann

Lectures on Homeopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent

Teachings by Patrick Hesselman at American Medical College of Homeopathy

Free Student Homeopathy Consultations

with any Essence purchase!

Jennifer Coomes is a student at the American Medical College of Homeopathy in Phoenix, AZ. Beyond her training in massage, bodywork, meditation, and yoga, she has two and half years of training in naturopathic medicine that she is bringing in to complete her medical training in homeopathy. At this time, she offers free student consultations in homeopathy with any Essence services purchase. This consultation includes education in homeopathy, a homeopathic intake interview, a homeopathic remedy recommendation, and follow-up. Her casework is part of her studies at the American Medical College of Homeopathy and her cases are often reviewed and presented with trained and certified homeopaths and homeopathic doctors.

Please email Jennifer at jennifer@theessencestudio.com for more info!

Cheers To Good Health!

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