I have a friend that now have received Q3 Phos. every 3 days for a month. She now have to stop because of problems with her eyes and pains in the legs plus some other small problems. She is not sure why the homeopath gave her this but for her this is not "soft". Question: how long will Q3 or Q6 last before the the side effects disappear, as it seems that she is doing a proving.

No remedy should be prescribed routinely, as your friend's was--but essentially, she was prescribed what is more commonly called an LM potency--and aggravations will come with LM or Q potencies if they are repeated too often. Usually these remedies are to be taken on a "watch and wait" basis, so that the patient can see an amelioration, then a return of the old symptoms to some degree--and then the remedy should be repeated. It is important that the remedy be given its time to work in order to avoid situations like the one your friend is in.

The "side-effects" are really an aggravation to the overdosing, and they will go away. It depends on the individual how long they last, but once the aggravation passes, the remedy's curative work will be more obvious.

Your friend was correct to stop dosing, however. If the aggravation is too strong, and doesn't seem to relent within a few days, the remedy should be antidoted; so she should speak to her homeopath about antidoting the remedy to lessen or remove the aggravation.

Divina

__________________
...and deliverance has many faces<br />but grace<br />is an aquaintance of mine

Thanks Divina. This was also my assessment of the situation. The treatment was for a constitutional treatment performed by a “professional Homeopath”. The main problems are that the eyes are still very sensitive to light and that there are some pains left in the abdomen region (the pain has however dropped over the last three days). What is antidote to Phos?

Boericke lists: coffea, calc, mez, nux v, sep, and tereb.

See if the presenting symptoms match any of these remedies above; but keep in mind that often, when LMs are used, the signal to stop dosing with the remedy is the aggravation. If your friend's symptoms are merely an aggravation of her condition, then she should just wait for the aggravation to end.

Sounds like the homeopath consulted is not one to keep the classical training in mind:
"Similia minimus."

Divina

__________________
...and deliverance has many faces<br />but grace<br />is an aquaintance of mine

Nux-v or coffea will usually antidote Phos - however, it sounds as if the aggravation is improving spontaneously, so your friend might be better to wait a while then see her homeopath again.

I wouldn't necessarily be so quick to blame the homeopath for what has happened. Theoretically, LMs are said to be less likely to aggravate, but I have found they often do. When I prescribe LMs, I give detailed and (hopefully) clear instructions - both verbal and written - including advice to stop the remedy and phone me if there is any worsening of symptoms, adverse effects or new symptoms appear. And patients STILL come back 4 weeks later with reports of all sorts of symptoms (chest pain and haemoptysis in one case!). Short of visiting them daily to interview them before they take the stuff, I'm not sure what more I can do. So I use LMs less nowadays - though they can be a wonderful tool. Please ask your friend to discuss what has happened with her homeopath.

Hi Mose, and other interested colleagues,
Several years ago, many homoeopaths in my town got access to LM remedies from a highly reliable source in India. With great enthusiasm and good intentions I started prescribing this potency in the majority of my cases.
It wasn't long before I realized I was way in over my head. I couldn't make any sense out of my case management. And everything I read on the subject seemed to contradict. For the next few years I stopped using them and it's only in the last 6 months or so I've started to feel confident again.

This is what I learned in the process.

Start the case with LM 1. Many homoeopaths don't, they start at LM 3 or higher. If you change to a different remedy, start the new remedy at LM 1. It's better not to swap potency scales (from LM to C, especially high Centesimals) use LM's for acute remedies too.
The proceedure is to give one dose of one remedy, and then 'wait and watch' as in Kentian precscribing. If it's the correct remedy there will be a noticeable amelioration. ONLY WHEN THIS AMELIORATION STOPS do you take another dosage. The length of time between doses varies with each individual. Amelioration from one dose may last months for one person, another may need a subsequent dose weekly or even daily. The trouble I got into was that I'd read "they are very gentle potencies, no aggravations, and it's safe to repeat 2X or 3X a day". Well, that's bollocks!
They're deeper acting than Centesimals, and that's one reason why Hahnemann said they can decrease the time taken to cure by up to a 1/3.
Patients can aggravate on a LM 1 potency if they belong to that group called the "hypersensitives" (like people needing Phosphorus tend to be) and have been overdosed by repetition of dosage. That's why it's vital to 'wait and watch' the effect. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've jumped in too quick with another dose. What can happen is that a patient sometimes develops accessory symptoms of the remedy because they were indeed sensitive to it's full range of action.

What happened with me is that confusion set in, and I'd start to see other remedies, prescribe something else believing it's another layer to be treated. Like a cat chasing it's own tail.
It's taken me years to figure this out and I offer the insight to others who may recognize the same pattern.
Giving more doses of a similar remedy does not make it more of a similimum. It confuses the case.

The David Little site www.similimum.com and "50 Millesimal Potency in Theory and Practice" by Dr Harimohan Choudhury are the only references I would recommend alongside the 6th edition of the Organon. Personally, I found Robert Barker's "LM Potencies" more trouble than what it's worth.

The time to stop taking the remedy is when after a continued period of amelioration one more single dose is given and there is a return of the original complaints. This indicates that the patient is responding to the energy of the remedy rather than having real symptoms of the original complaint.
Regular (in my practice, fortnight to monthly) follow-up consultations ensure that any true homoeopathic aggravation is kept to an absolute minimum. And by the way, I don't charge hundreds of dollars per consultation.

[ 21 April 2001: Message edited by: chrisg ]

Very good to point out the dosage method, ChrisG! Wexdoc, I wasn't "blaming the homeopath", but I do think prescribing routinely should be avoided, especially with LMs. I think LM dosing gets problematic when potency is chosen arbitrarily (why LM3 and 6 as opposed to just LM1 to start?) and why is the dose to be repeated "sight unseen"--without waiting and watching to see if there is any need? This was my "issue" with the homeopath...

Anyway, Chris' post describes what needs to be done with LMs very well.

Divina
Divina

__________________
...and deliverance has many faces<br />but grace<br />is an aquaintance of mine

My understanding of every text I have read on LMs - including Dr Chaoudhury's, the Organon, Robert Barker, and from my discussions of LMs with other homeopaths using them is that they are taken initially on a daily basis and titrated up or down according to response. I have never come across the method described by Divina and Chris - though it sounds an interesting approach - and I wonder whether this is a national difference in approach. I have certainly seen aggravations from one single dose; however, more commonly - particularly with emotional disorders (where I mainly use LMs now) i have observed that recovery really starts to take place around LM5. So I often start there when I feel it is appropriate. I don't use them with skins at all now, preferring the low potencies advocated by Robin Logan and Ian Watson. Not that I'm suggesting my way is better than Chris & Divina's - but I must disagree that daily or alternate daily prescribing of LMs is somehow aberrant since it is what most registered homeopaths I know do - and it appears to work well. It just seems to need closer supervision than C potency prescribing.

Perhaps the patient forgot to succuss the remedy between doses?

Hi Wexdoc, Not all of my LM cases were complete 'botch-ups'. I did have successes. But these were always fairly straightforward cases. And the patients had strong constitutions to begin with.

However there was a sufficient number of other cases where this didn't eventuate. And in all conscience I wouldn't take the risk of inflicting my ideas of 'what should happen' on to innocent people when it clearly wasn't working. And everything I was able to read on the subject suggested I wasn't doing anything wrong. So what gives?

Rima Handley perpetuates the idea that LM's can be repeated mechanically every day for months. Well my experience is that this is a recipe for disaster. I've since read that experienced Indian homoeopaths who use this scale of potency equate the action of an LM 1 with a 30C in its dynamic action. Would you repeat a 30C daily and not expect to see a disturbance in the patient's lifeforce?

I've noticed that some homoeopaths here don't administer the dose according to Hahnemann's instruction. They tip several poppy seed size pellets into a small 25ml amber bottle and fit it with a dropper lid. There is no recognition of patient sensitivity or individualization. I use a 4oz (100ml) bottle with one pellet. (There's a really easy way to get one poppy-size pellet into your medicine bottle, if you don't already know, just ask.)

But just because other practitioners, registered or not, are doing it their way doesn't mean I have to follow suit.

David Little refers homoeopaths to Aphorism 246 in the 6th edition. (The one that's made my hair go grey.)
"Every perceptibly progressive and STRIKINGLY INCREASING AMELIORATION during treatment is a condition which, as long as it lasts, COMPLETELY PRECLUDES EVERY REPETITION OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF ANY MEDICINE WHATSOEVER, because all the good the medicine taken continues to effect is now hastening towards its completion."

For chronic cases Hahnemann gives instructions to speed the cure using 4 techniques:
1. The selected remedy must be PERFECTLY homoeopathic.
2. Dissolve the medicine in water and give in A PROPER SMALL DOSE.
3. Repeat the remedy in DEFINITE INTERVALS for the quickest accomplishment of the cure. And this is determined by the reaction to the remedy -'wait and watch', the sensitivity of the patient's constitution, and the nature of the disease. This may mean daily doses for some, but not automatically all people.
4. And with the precaution, that the DEGREE OF EVERY DOSE DEVIATE SOMEWHAT FROM THE PRECEDING AND FOLLOWING in order that the vital principle be not aroused to untoward reactions and revolt as is always the case with unmodified and especially rapidly repeated doses.

Hope this is of interest to you.
Regards,
Chrisg