I am visiting Japan at the moment. Here, I experienced a good thing. I thought I should ask this question to my respected members.

The world is going towards commercialism. This Commercialism has been entered in each walk of life. Even each of us has no time for sparing long time for consulting homeopath. More and more are using ready-made compounds of medicine for their daily ailments.

Peoples want short cuts. They have lack of time. They are happy to use homeopathic compounds. When these are also working.

If you are suffering from fever, go to the market, read medicinal brochures and purchase homeopathic compound medicine according to your symptoms. When these compound are easily available without medical prescription in most of the countries.

My question is what is the actual hurdle of not adopting these compounds in our daily practice. I am talking about those effective combinations / formulas, which have logical and less ingredients as per combinations and most effective having no side effects.

Why these compounds are not allowed in homeopathy when 90 percent of the world population is relying on these combination stuffs. They don’t want to pay heavy charges in the form of consultancy.

Classical homeopaths don't use them because they are not Homeopathy. They are prescribed allopathically. They are a mix of remedies, so you are not giving the similimum. They may cure acute symptoms or they may suppress acute symptoms, but they will never act deeply to cure a chronic problem.

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Shirley Reischman

There are several reasons why combinations are not used by traditional or classical homoeopaths.

1. The idea breaks one of the basic tenants of homoeopathy - Law of the Single Remedy. Hahnemann created this guideline so that there would be order and clarity when treating a patient, rather than chaos and confusion. To understand why, look at the possible reactions any one single remedy can have:

a) Cure (nice when it happens alone)
b) Aggravation
c) Suppression
d) Proving
e) Palliation
f) Nothing

Now imagine getting any one of these reactions for every remedy in a combination. This is the Chaos that might ensue.

Then understand it from a case management point of view. As practitioners our goal is not to simply erase a particular symptom or condition. It is to prodcue a stable and powerful state of health in a person, which takes months or even years. Every remedy we use may need to be increased in potency, or it may need a number of complementary remedies. We cannot determine which remedy to increase or which complementary to use if we do not know which remedy is working. This is the Confusion.

2. The idea breaks the Law of the Similars. Combination remedies are not proven - there have been no experiments done to assertain what symptoms a combination produces in a healthy person, therefore it is guesswork as to what effect it will have on a sick person.

Now if someone would just do provings with them, perhaps we could discover what they really do.
We do not know if the remedies maintain their individual effects when combined, or if they actually combine into a new unique remedy.

3. Combinations are created based on pathology - a remedy for colds, a remedy for arthritis, a remedy for insomnia. This runs contrary to everything homoeopathy stands for - INDIVIDUALISATION of every case. We do not treat the pathology, but the person with the pathology. Every remedy we have can cure every pathology there is. It is the differences between the people with the pathology that allows us to choose the right remedy. Frequently we prescribe on the peculiar general state or emotional condition of the patient - that is never taken into account when a combination is created.

4. Finally, combinations are often seen as the cheap or easy way out, to avoid having to pay a homoeopath for their services. I ask you, would you do the same to a surgeon, or a electrician, or a vetinarian? There are some things you cannot do yourself, and then you need to go to a specialist. I have spent 11 years getting to the level of skill I have, and I spent over 10,000 dollars just to train in the first 3 years, and much more in the later years keeping my stock, library and medical skills up-to-date. People are paying for my experience and my knowledge, not for my medicines.

I cannot count the number of patients I have seen using the combinations to treat the minor ailments, only to come to me eventually with something quite serious, and possibly hard to cure. I have no doubt that the combination remedies they have been using were either covering up the problem as it worsened, or suppressed the condition and damaged their health.

Homoeopathy cannot be used the way Allopathy is - that is one of the reasons the world is in the terrible state it is. We are struggling everyday with the damage that the allopathic style of treatment causes - but to add the power of potentised medicines to that damage as well!!

[ 30. December 2002, 03:39: Message edited by: DavidJK ]

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David Kempson.<br />Dip.Homoeopathic Medicine.<br />Lecturer Australian College of Natural Therapies (Brisbane Campus)<br />Member AHA, AROH, HMA<br />Member Australian Homoeopathic Association. Member#0442.

MSJhan!

Your concerns are genuine. Yes! Combinations are not permitable in homeopathy but very widely used in homeopathy.

All classical homeopaths are very found of using combinations although they don’t accept.

Actually the way they use is totally different. They will not give you Ferrum phos and kali mur at the sametime. First they will give ferrum phos and then kali-mur, which is also a form of combination.

To understand this sentence, you need lot of study of homeopathy. Bye the way combination by rule is allowed in homeopathy. Hahnemann himself used combinations. For authenticatin you can consult divina. That’s I have also proved so many times.

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Hafeez
Forum Pk

I have observed David (in australia) and Shirley's (USA) in their clinic and saw using combinations very frequently.

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Hafeez
Forum Pk

Dr Mas, I think you may have misunderstood what this thread is about.

Using one remedy after another is not combination prescribing (polypharmacy).Assuming you are not giving a remedy every minute of course. I rarely give a new remedy even a whole day later, unless it is a serious acute situation. That is an incorrect interpretation of prescribing combined remedies.

Combinations are widely used due to LAZINESS, POOR TRAINING or POOR UNDERSTANDING OF THE PHILOSOPHY. It may be widespread, but that just shows the unfortunate state our medicine finds itself in.

I wonder how you were observing me in my clinic? Perhaps you have some sort of spy satellite aimed at me?

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David Kempson.<br />Dip.Homoeopathic Medicine.<br />Lecturer Australian College of Natural Therapies (Brisbane Campus)<br />Member AHA, AROH, HMA<br />Member Australian Homoeopathic Association. Member#0442.

If you truly observe me at my clinic you will know that I NEVER prescribe combinations. I have approximately 1,000 remedies at the clinic and not one of them is a combination! You have never been to my clinic or observed me at work.

[ 30. December 2002, 09:48: Message edited by: sreischman ]

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Shirley Reischman

Msjhan: the humanity is sick, only we have to look at the newscasts or the newspapers to realize it. The combinations are not a homeopathy, and do not do the good waited by the homeopaths, do not recover. Sreischman and DavidJk has explained it very well. We do not prune to defend a medicine that he does not treat and that at best, he contributes to the imbalance.

Dr. Mas: why you do not give himself a truce? I Am sure that it is great you nicer than it seems.

At website www.curantur.de you can find some remarks for the fourth american edition of Hahnemann's organon by Constantine Hering:

"All homœopathic physicians are united under the banner of the great law of cure, similia similibus curantur, however they may differ in regard to the theoretical explanation of that law, or the extent to which it may be applied.

All homœopathic physicians also acknowledge that provings upon the healthy are indispensable in ascertaining the unknown curative powers of drugs.

And, finally, all homœopaths concur in giving but one medicine at a time, never mixing different drugs together, under the absurd expectation that each will act according to their dictum.

This is the glorious tri-color of our school, which will make the circuit of the world and in these we are as the heart of one man."

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Shirley Reischman

Combination remedies are not used in homeopathy because they are not homeopathic medicines. They may alleviate a particular symptom, but they never cure and they can never be used in practice because they do not allow for treatment (case management and patient care) to take place.

They are sold to an uneducated public by pharmaceutical companies or unscrupulous drug manufacturers who wish to take advantage of the fact that conventional medicine offers no cure. This fact has made consumers interested in "alternative" medicine in large numbers: it is this group of motivated yet highly uninformed people who constitute the "target market" for combination drugs.

Combination "Homeopathy" is promoted this way because it can be sold in large volume and at any price--plus it is extremely inexpensive to produce. Large profit margins and a willing, motivated, uneducated target market provide these drug manufacturers with big visions of success. No where is there any interest in restoring health or providing treatment or caring for the sick.

Homeopathy, on the other hand, can cure; it can do so quickly, and with as limited suffering as possible. We all know the drill: homeopathy has to be practiced as Hahnemann taught, or it will not work (that is how science functions: repeat the experiment precisely, or you will not achieve the results of the scientific test any other way). People who are committed to becoming well, taking responsibility for their health, restoring their health...they undertake what is necessary to accomplish this and they don't want "shortcuts". They understand what is involved in this task and they don't wish to compromise. Consultation and treatment fees for the work of homeopathic doctors are minor expenses and they are only a part of what people have to work through when they are committed to becoming well.

As more and more people become aware of homeopathy and how it is practiced, the lucrative
sale of "combination" medicines will fall away, so no one is really worried about them. The problem with them is that they do cause real damage in unsuspecting people who buy them and then use them just like other conventional medicines; they provide real homeopaths with quite a task of fixing the damage. Fortunately, as homeopathy becomes more well known and more homeopaths continue to educate the public about what homeopathy really is, we'll see less of these disasters taking place in the future.

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Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.<br />C.G.Jung