To Avalon: Yes, succussing raises the potency so you don't develop a tolerance or cause a proving or antidote the previous dose. There's no "ceiling" or time limit on keeping the bottle, just add alcohol if you're worried about purity or germs, etc. You can keep the bottle in the refrigerator--I do. Hitting your thigh with the bottle? I haven't heard of that one. It really doesn't hurt tapping the bottom of the bottle on your opposite palm--especially if you're using one of those 2 or 4 oz. amber bottles that you can now buy at most health food stores; they're such little things.

RDS: You raise an interesting point: can a remedy bottle be reused to "house" a different potency of the same remedy: no. The original remedy is always in there forever. You'd have to boil the bottle; but then, I don't know for how long, so I never do it.

Everything you said about how to prepare a water potency and take it is correct. NOW, this is the important thing: when the bottle gets near the bottom, JUST FILL IT BACK UP. That way, you don't lose any of the succussions you've put into it. It's no longer a 30C, as it started out. Maybe now it's a 31C, who knows; the point is, you don't go back to square-one. You fill the bottle back up with water and keep on going until that particular potency is just no longer working and you have to go up to a 200C or whatever.

I have never found the refrigerator or the plastic bottle to be a problem.

I have to echo the advice of Helena: It seems unlikely that a homeopath would prescribe a 30C twice a day for more than 3 or 4 days. Always you're looking to adjust your remedy according to your response to it. If you're starting to feel better, take less often. If there's a striking improvement, stop altogether and wait for the improvement to slow down before repeating. If you're getting an aggravation, again, stop the remedy and wait and see if an improvement follows. If it does, redose when the improvement slows down, but take less often. If there's no improvement when the aggravation wears off, it's probably the wrong remedy, or possibly the potency was too high, and you might try again with a lower potency.

It's hard to believe that someone actually had Helena taking the same remedy/same potency for 4 or 5 months without warning her to stop if she got worse. Well, one more horror story to add to our collection!

Snoopy