Thanksgiving Remedies

If you had known me when I was growing up, I would be the kid curled up on her side after dinner, eyes squeezed shut, knees bent, a pillow pressed to her tummy, sipping 7-up to catalyze relieving burps. Perhaps you’ve already discovered homeopathy’s first-aid and acute care remedies and can avoid a similar situation during your own holiday meal. If not, read on.

If I could grant you only three homeopathic wishes for Thanksgiving, they would be:

Arsenicum album
Nux vomica
Antimonium crudum

Take a few doses of Arsenicum album for food poisoning, as soon as it’s suspected.

Nux vomica can soften the immediate and long-term effects of a threatening or anticipated hangover. (Remember to drink lots of water, too, as dehydration plays a large role.)

Antimonium crudum will often save a meal you’re about to lose from richness, including red wines.

Perhaps you’ve wondered whether I, as that young girl whose “eyes were too big for her stomach,” might have been rescued by one of the above remedies. Truth be told, I don’t think so. (I think I needed Colocynthis.)

Arsenicum and Nux vomica are commonly available at natural food stores and some grocery store chains. If necessary, you can order Antimonium crudum from an online homeopathic pharmacy in time for Christmas, especially if rich foods are your achilles heel. The number and letter following each remedy name is called its potency. Buy the smallest number available (although any will do), x favored over c. Follow dosing directions on the vial.

Then, discover a new reason to be grateful this year.

Childhood Ear Infections

With the “back-to-school and back-to-germs season” in full swing (and cooler weather just around the corner), now is a good time to investigate homeopathy for children’s earaches. A homeopathic remedy can prevent much discomfort and lost sleep when an earache develops, especially if your child is unable to see his or her doctor right away.

Types of earaches

Otitis media, the first type of earache, most likely caused by an infection, is noticeable because of pain or discomfort and is accompanied by fever or redness of the ear drum. At the end of this article, there is a list of safe and effective homeopathic remedies for this type of earache.

Serous otitis media, the second type, is usually symptom-free and is often diagnosed during a check-up. What the doctor sees on examination is fluid behind the ear drum. If a sample of this fluid were taken, it would usually reveal that no harmful bacteria are present.

Antibiotics are often prescribed for this, often in response to consumer demand, but they are obviously not effective since the cause is not bacterial. Serous otitis media is most often caused by allergies, from introducing solid foods before six months of age, or errors in diet. Attention to diet and constitutional homeopathic care are very helpful here.

This Homeopath’s Soapbox

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Once I became a homeopath, I had to get a soapbox. Excuse me while I get on it.

Imagine this headline in tomorrow morning’s newspaper:

Doctor discovers mind-body medicine of 21st century. Treats everything, from common cold to ulcerative colitis. Cures bird flu, west nile virus and e-coli. No side effects. Pennies per dose. Non-toxic. FDA approved. Available now!

This is true. It really happened. More than 200 years ago.

The relatively few number of people whose medicine cabinets are stocked with homeopathic remedies, not drugs, hardly get sick. When they do, they have available a natural substance that rapidly and cleanly catalyzes healing.

Do you believe me? Do you want to?

Summer Remedies

By August, summer is in full swing. I am reminded of this truth as my daughter (though tan) still comes home with occasional sunburns. My parents’ cat suffered from overheating when she was found trapped in a shed for several hours. Marcus, our dog, had an incapacitating stomachache from drinking stagnant water. The time is ripe for insects, and I am going to recommend a homeopathic remedy for gnat bites. (Homeopathically, there is a treatment. Read on . . . .)

Relieve insect bites

Many have suffered from the sharp jab of a gnat, which is often followed by a hard wheal (hive). Burning, itching and swelling spread widely.

The torment can seem unbearable, especially in this heat, and it’s hard to resist the impulse to scratch and tear at the area. Give a vial of homeopathic Cantharis 30c to anyone suffering from the effects of gnat bites. After a few doses, their suffering will be negligible, then forgotten.

Other insect bites require other remedies depending on the particular symptoms, but itching from any bite can generally be relieved by making a paste of a few tablets (not pellets) of Natrum muriaticum 6x mixed with a drop or two of water.

Swim Bladder Disease II

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

This is Mama Fish. She was one of my “original five.” Jon noticed the orange mustache. I know she’s female, though, and said it’s lipstick.

On a Friday in the summer of 1998, Shirley and I wondered if the orange and white fish was pregnant or just fat. Shirley thought pregnant, and was right: By the time I returned on Monday morning, she was skinny. No babies in sight. Oops. That’s when she became Mama Fish.

Mama Fish has been with me since I opened my first downtown office on F Street. I bought a 5-gallon aquarium and five “feeder fish” from Davis Lumber. (In time, I would add three more.) As a girl, my fish seemed to die within a week or two. I felt sad when they did, helpless every time my dad flushed one down the toilet. So, when I bought goldfish for the first time as an adult, I learned how to take care of them. Doug in the fish department at Davis Lumber was an expert. I was a good student. Over time, I even started teaching him.

My goldfish were with me through another two office moves, then to my home last fall after I permanently closed my downtown office. We been on a ten-year journey together.

Graduating Homeopaths

The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.
~ Anais Nin

A few years ago, I received a call from Anna Fastenko, a third-year student at the Pacific Academy of Homeopathy in San Francisco, California. Students are required to submit supervised cases as part of their graduation requirements. Anna asked if I would supervise her work.

Students have continued to call. Today, another group of homeopaths are graduating from my alma mater. Earlier this week, I made my mentees a card that included the above photo of my graduating class (click to view the full photo), with this message:

This is a group note to the students I have had the privilege of mentoring over the past few months. I sincerely regret that I could not be present to personally shake your hand, in joining our colleagues in celebrating you as homeopath.

It has been my privilege to accompany you on a part of your journey, to witness firsthand your skills—gleaned from life, as well as PAH. With a grateful heart, I welcome you to the homeopathic community.

On the back of this notecard is an excerpt from Jo Daly’s first lecture on philosophy to my graduating class. (I’m in the back row, 2nd from the left.) May Jo’s words also be your lighthouse.

May you trust not only your gift, your knowledge, and the people who show up, but homeopathy’s simplicity—and, in that, let it be fun.

To graduating homeopaths everywhere:

Congratulations, Homeopath!

Mockingbird Rescue

The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.
Blaise Pascal

I was unloading the empties at H2O to Go today and noticed a splatter of bird poop on our car. Instead of my usual annoyance, I felt compassionate tolerance. Instead of being grossed out, I saw the poop as “healthy” (i.e., two colors, not greenish).

Overnight, I’ve learned a lot about birds.

I’m typing in our living room. Marcus is on the carpet in front of me, Gracie’s curled up in a kitty donut on the dining room counter. George is exploring out back, and Inca’s sleeping in her pyramid bed upstairs. I hear a chain saw outside, or maybe it’s a weed eater. Other than that, the winds that blew in our temporary house guest have mellowed, even retreated, and the birds are surprisingly silent.

That is, except for one.

She trustingly chirps whenever she wants to eat, which is about every 20-45 minutes. Last night, Cindi Valencia and Cheryl Grackin, wildlife rehab volunteers, walked me through the steps of caring for a wild bird, until the Wildlife Care Association (WCA) opened in the morning.

I set him up in the downstairs bathroom. Our nestling mockingbird readily accepted food and water, then napped. Later in the evening, I thought her breathing seemed labored. Of more concern, his body felt cool (birds have high body temperatures). Misunderstanding a direction, I had aspirated the nestling (often fatal). Aspiration is when food or water goes down the bird’s trachea into its lungs, something Cheryl kindly reassured me that even trained volunteers can’t always avoid.

Swim Bladder Disease I

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
Henri Nouwen

Though it’s 8:30 p.m., the baby blue sky is brushed with cotton candy pink. The mugginess is beginning to dissipate.

Jon called for help this morning with a work-related cut, severe enough for stitches, according to the doctor, only complicated by its location. I mothered Jon’s cut with homeopathic first-aid.

My little white goldfish, after a heartening response to homeopathy these past two weeks, went downhill after a 10 degree spike in water temperature last night.

It died around noon—peacefully, in the scheme of things. I know the time, because it was as Jon was leaving for work. Jon thought he’d seen faint breathing; when I went back in, the fish was limply still—dispirited.

This was one of the original fish from my 5-gallon tank when my office was on F Street. As the aquariums grew, I made the mistake of shifting from bottled to tap water. The fish stopped growing, and the small white fish lost its sight, but otherwise seemed happy. Back on bottled water, the little white one lived to 10 years old.

The World Beyond Davis

Anna is a new mother and relatively new homeopath who lives and practices in the South Bay (Bay Homeopathy). Right now, she is in Russia, supporting her mom and family during a health crisis. Anna has been a homeopath long enough to begin experiencing the complications in helping one’s own family. In personal relationships, the trust required in any healthy healing relationship is absent. Respect and authority are negated by patient fear—in a mother’s eyes, we remain “daughters,” not healers.

Unfortunately, homeopathy is not readily available in Russia. While Anna prepared to fly to Moscow, she sent me an e-mail asking for guidance in helping her mother with homeopathy. I e-mailed Anna a word picture of my quiet morning as I read her mom’s “case”:

“Outdoors is sunny here and morning-quiet. I sporadically hear school children walking to the local elementary school. Looking out the bay window in our living room, I see a bright salmon geranium hanging from our fence, the yellow flowering of jasmine (gelsemium), the summer green of greenbelt trees in leaf.

Something in my e-mail stirred Anna’s emotions. She said she nearly cried and that this trip was very different from the others:

I am in the midst of a strong cold, no remedies with me, parents not feeling well, my brother (also with a cold) roaming the flat bored and not knowing what to do. Smoggy, dirty in the city. I was needed very much here though…. Connection is via modem here, so I am online for 20-30 min a day. I will become more appreciative of what we have in sunny CA: Air, freshness, lightness of being.

This brought to mind my conversation with a vendor at last night’s Farmers Market in Davis. He works at the Indyna Restaurant in Mansion Square (132 E Street, the previous location of Rosie’s and, later, New Delhi Chaat Cafe), and took a second part-time job as cook for Kathmandu Kitchen to support his family (both excellent restaurants). He brought his family to the United States eight years ago, to escape certain death. In the last 15-20 years, Nepal had changed from everything being free (as visitors, you and I would have received free food and lodging), to a dictatorship by a king who brutally killed several members of royalty in this man’s family. At a moment’s notice, without reason.

Hearing others’ stories expands my world. I similarly appreciated hearing details about Anna’s stay, and wrote, “We can remove ourselves with the TV screen between our eyes and life’s reality, so it’s good to hear it ‘live.’”

My Homeopathic Love Story

The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
~ Allan K. Chalmers

I taught myself acute care homeopathy, and I administered my first homeopathic remedy to my dog in 1981. My first exposure was Dr. Pitcairn’s natural healing book for pets. I was living on five acres in Colorado at the time and had rescued so many animals through the years that I had inadvertently created a mini holistic health pet sanctuary. It was not until the birth of my daughter that I even realized that homeopathy was a standalone healing modality in itself—for people and animals.

After every other natural and conventional teething aid had failed, our local natural foods store owner directed me to Hylands Teething Tablets. As a conscious mom, I read the label. The owner assured me that it was safe and natural, and that was also my intuitive sense—yet, the inclusion of Belladonna as an ingredient made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Well, for any of you whose family has slept well after a course of homeopathic teething tablets, you know how my story ends. It was for me, however, also another beginning. The leap of faith required to give the remedy to my infant daughter in the first place proved to be Robert Frost’s:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

I used only two self-help books (incidentally, the same ones used by NCH study groups today) and my 28-remedy, 6x potency home kit for the next seven years. Our medicine cabinets slowly emptied; my susceptibilities that facilitated back-to-back bouts of winter bronchitis, sinus infections, and quarterly strep throat healed; and, I became a lay homeopath by avocation. Easily 85% of the common first-aid and acute health problems experienced by my family, friends and pets resolved. Not surprisingly, my enchantment eventually led to enrollment in the Pacific Academy of Homeopathy.