Hi all

I'd like to know how one goes about treating a patient who is 44 years old presenting with PMT, weight gain, occasional hot flushes & Urticaria. She has been on the contraceptive pill microgynon for over 15 years and doesn't want to stop taking it.

If indicated remedies fail to work, could this be due to the pill being a possible obstacle to cure. I would welcome any advice or suggestions.

Thanks Marion

I don't find any problem treating people who are on the pill with homeopathic remedies. I may , however have to take this into acoount when prescribing and prescribe accordingly. However every patient is different. Take the case as you see it and rep for the top layer showing at the moment and ask your patient what she want treating at this moment. Since you are still a student you should have a supervisor you can refer to but I well understand if you wish to check with us first!!

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RSHom - Registered Homeopath

i do not treat patients who take the pill, in accordance with organon par 52.

Par 52 states that there are two principle methods of cure. Is this the correct paragraph? My experience is that if someone is taking any allopathic meds on a regular basis, I just take the case and the remedies work. I think the body adjusts itself somehow. I've had problems where the person takes something on an 'as needed' basis where the body isn't used to whatever the med is.

I would also have a problem if I didn't work with women on the pill, since almost every woman who comes to me between the ages of 18 and 50 is on the pill.

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Shirley Reischman

There is also the issue of the need for contraception, which is very real for women. If we counsel our patients off the pill, and they become pregnant with an unwanted child, we have put these patients in jeopardy. Clinical experience shows that we can treat patients like this despite their use of the pill--certainly we can take their use of these drugs on a daily basis into consideration, and treat accordingly.

I don't think Hahnemann would have wanted us to turn our noses up to patients who have to live in the real world and need to contend with some real issues to maintain their quality of life. In my own experience, I know we can cajole and preach about abstinence, natural forms of birth control, and sterilization until we are blue in the face; but the fact remains that for some women the current medical form of contraception will be the best solution for their needs to maintain their own reproductive freedom. So, despite our best efforts to sway our patients towards "healthier" forms, we don't do them any good by dictating to them about their choices, nor do we do them any service by counselling them away from choices which seem to work for them. This is not what we are aiming to do, anyway (who wants to do homeopathy just so that they can tell others what they can and can't do? That's silly.)

If a patient seeks out information about alternatives from us, then they will be open to trying out other options. If they don't, they have come to us for our help and they present us with a challenge just like all our other patients do. You have an opportunity to help someone make themselves well; why not do what you can?
Certainly homeopathy can work despite the patient's use of allopathic drugs. If we shut patients like this out or make our work conditional, then we're no better than the allopathic doctors who tell patients that they refuse to treat them if they opt to use an alternative medicine such as homeopathy.

Divina

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

divina and others of similar persuasion, i understand that you are coming from a position of wanting to help as many people as possible in your practices, and that is what motivates you to practice homoeopathy.

however, *homoeopathy does not bend to what we want it to be.* hahnemann directed us not to mix allopathy with homoeopathy [para 52 is unambigious in this respect.]
my understanding of why hahnemann was so adamant are as follows:

natural diseases present in symptom pictures that tend to be similar to our remedies. if we introduce allopathic medication into the picture it can skew the picture of disease, so there is no longer a picture of the natural disease.
[in the case of some drugs which mask major symptoms this can be unsafe, because the remedy can bring out those suppressed symptoms strongly and dangerously despite the drugs - because homoeopathic remedies are more powerful than allopathic medications.]

in case-taking it is not always possible to distinguish between the natural disease and the drug-induced disease, and to get a picture of the disease that is clear enough on which to prescribe with reasonable certainty.

by definition a drug is a substance which alters the physiology of the body - so there is no escaping the fact that continued drug-taking will alter the presenting picture, the response to the remedy, and the progression of the case.

specifically, the pill instigates profound changes on the female body.
no woman can become wholly well while taking a substance which causes such an unnatural imbalance in her body. apart from homoeopathic principles, as a health practitioner i am not complicit in the use of 'the pill' which, in addition to its direct effect on health, causes pollution on a scale only beginning to be recognised.

Well, pardon my saying so, but Blah, blah, blah.

If you are not going to treat patients who use conventional meds, you will rule out a large number of patients to help. The medicines are an ever-present reality of life. They cannot be ignored. And you are not to dictate to a patient what he or she is to do, regarding the decisions they need to make for their own lives. That is NOT your job!

If you choose a good remedy, and prescribe properly and manage properly, chances are good your patient will be able to free him or herself from the use of conventional meds of his or her own accord, precisely because of your homeopathic intervention.

Hahnemann was a genius, most surely; but from what I can read in his works I also know that he was a hot head with a bit of an ego problem--he simply had a very hard time with rejection, especially of his very good ideas. On the one hand, this is what some people would call a natural reaction; on the other, many other people would say that "he could have handled the matter a little more productively". It is true that in Hahnemann's time, allopathic practices would have definitely got in the way of homeopathic treatment, and in certain cases this holds true today as well (I daresay Chemotherapy and surgery certainly make an impact on any good you'd do with a well chosen similimum!); but we know from our own clinical experience that we can definitely treat patients well even if they are on allopathic meds...and that our treatments as homeopaths have the realized potential of allowing them to come off those medicines forever.

Yes, the pill does have a very deep effect on women, and homeopathic remedies will have to be given in such a way to mitigate that effect on a sustained basis in order to work well--but who says this is not possible, when many practitioners know it is? Oh, and just how invasive, devastating, and sick-making would it be if you gave your pill-taking patient an ultimatum (off the BCPs or no homeopathy!), and she followed your dictate, and then got pregnant with a child she could not bring herself to abort--but did not want?

Clearly, treating her while she's on the BCP is far less damaging.

Sheesh.

Divina

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

I hesitate to get involved, but wouldn't a productive way of handling the situation be to council the patient against the dangers of the pill and encourage them to get off? I see both sides of the argument. Other, less harmful methods of contraception are available, why not encourage the client to explore these options instead? Reading this post though, I keep thinking that the pill must cloud the symptom picture, making treatment less likely to succeed? Is this not a dis-service to the patient and homeopathy? I know it may not be as extreme but is it not simuliar to the heart failure patient who refuses to stop smoking? (especially if the problems arise from hormonal or cyclical issues). At the same, out-right refusal to treat a patient taking the pill; is this not a missed oportunity to council against it. Just a thought...

Thank you all for your comments and suggesions.

i would not want to dictate [even if i could] because as you write divina, the prospect of being responsible for another person's life decisions and its consequences, is not desirable.
the patient always has the choice.

hahnemann's personality did not cloud his logic, and par 52 fits into a logical setting showing why allopathic medication conflicts with homoeopathic.

krista, when patients ask me about the pill i give advice from a homoeopathic perspective, and i say i cannot treat a patient who takes it. i have never given a flat refusal without the opportunity for discussion.
it is disappointing if a patient will not give up allopathic meds but i consider it unsafe for them not to do so, and at the same time to use homoeopathy - also a counterproductive combination as outlined above.
it would be a lovely world if allopathic drugs were not harmful and suppressive - in direct opposition to homoeopathic treatment.