Fitness first,

The problem is in real life one cannot always get keynote symptoms from a patient.
The two polarities of a remedy can express themselves in a proving with allows us not to be too rigid in our choice of remedy if the opposite modality was also present in a case.

The other option then is that a case does require 2-3 remedies, in turn. SInce a single remedy does not cover the whole aspect. Give the first one that does half the work and then the next picture becomes more pronounced and you give the second. An astute observer can see both the remedies and decide which one is the first state to be dealt with. Also its also possible to help a patient with a partial remedy which covers the most distessing symptoms.
Documented remedy relationships help with this process.

That's why a computer cannot prescribe homeopathy!
All the best

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http://www.homeopathy2health.com

I agree with Dr. leela. Homeopathy is not as simple as it looks like. Wait for Dr. Ghazi he has to tell us about the link which is available on his site on this topic.

Here is an interesting point, if homeopathy has been in business for around 200 years, then what Snoopy is saying is the perfect approach regarding the book for therapeutics. Gather the experiences of the homeopaths in treating diseases and based on that divide the remedies into categories.

The real work of repertorizing and rubric identification will still be required but that will be in a lot less number of cases which will be of very serious and different nature.

This is exactly what the book of Dr. AUR also has accomplished. He has documented his success with certain remedies in certain types of cancer. This is not THE list but a fallback which can be further improved by experiences of other homeopaths. Regarding this, I was reading the reviews of various people on his book and the cumulative finding seemed to be that most of the homeopaths have failed in treating cancer (stage-2 and beyond) with classical homeopathy. Success of classical homeoapthy has been limited in this regard but the different approach of AUR has revealed results for a lot of people.

He also has claim to reducing the fat deposition in arteries by upto 80% which is something really fascinating. I remember reading something about a remedy in the MM which is capable of doing this, don't recall its name.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that disease based prescription can be done even in homeopathy IF the cheif complaint is that disease and we can learn from the experiences of others who have tread this path. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. Of course there are no absolutes and exceptions will always be there requiring some use of common sense.

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Don't take life too seriously, it aint permanent.

Lets start with the basics. What is the central gravity of the case. This means is it a mental and emotional problem or a physical.

Symptoms
1. Mental general
2. Physical general
3. Particular
4. Worthless

Shown by
1. I am feeling..... which is an emotion
2. I am (e.g.)nauseous which is better after eating
3. My foot is e.g.cold
4. e.g. diarrhoea

Grading - as already stated it is important to distinguish between what is common to a problem e.g. itching in eczema which is a useless symptom and a SRP such as worse from bathing in hot water.

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RSHom - Registered Homeopath

Dear Fitness First,

I forgot something on my list of things to find out in a case--the generals! The generals are all the symptoms that start with "I'm":
I'm tired, I'm hot, I'm sweating, I'm shaking with the chills, I'm wide awake, and so on.

Also, Shirley, I knew someone would say something when I said we need a diagnosis, because homeopathy is famous for NOT treating the disease but rather treating the person. Finding out the diagnosis doesn't really stand in our way of treating the person, but it can really help clarify a hodge-podge of symptoms and give us a frame-work that we can work in. For instance, I don't know if you saw "20-20" the other night? A perfect homeopathic case! A child with ADHD/ODD
who was obdnoxious, disrespectful, throwing tantrums, in special ed., the parents at their wits' end, thinking of institutionalizing him, and of course, I'm trying to think of the remedy, and I'm not getting anything until the doctor says he was born with fetal alcohol syndrome; so, of course, now I know the remedy: it's Alcoholus;
why? Cuz now I know the etiology. Now I have information that's going to give me direction.

Think of someone who has shooting pain in the back in the kidney area, and we don't know what it is. Should we give Berberis because it might be a kidney problem or mag-phos because it might be a muscle spasm? If we have a diagnosis, or even if we know what happened, know the history, we'll be able to choose which remedy or set of remedies is appropriate.

If a person has a rash on his face, is it measles or allergy to something he ate? If it's measles, we're going to go to our measles remedies and pick the one that best matches the patient's symptoms. If it's an allergy to shrimp, for example, we may give Urtica Urens, which probably would not help a measles patient. So, we really have to know. Sometimes we can't always know, but it definitely helps us a great deal if we do know.

Yes, you're right about Nat-Sulph--ailments after head injury. I've used it myself and got great results. I've also used Arnica right after head injury and also got great results. The point I was trying to make was, when the etiology is clear, go with that; don't repertorize the symptoms. If a person is in a depression since a head injury, go with Nat-sulph, as Shirley said; don't repertorize the symptoms--sleeps on left side, thirsty for cold drinks, wakes at 3 AM, etc--it's irrelevant. What's relevant is: Ailments After Head Injury.

Snoopy

From my notes on Dr AUR lectures on cardiac problems he says that Secale 30 is a coronary vasodilator and gives it once a week or once a fortnight. I wonder if this is what you mean as I can't find anything else.
BTW I always give Crategus MT up to 20 drops a day for ever to any heart patients I have as it is a wonderful heart tonic. In the case of my mother who after an angioplast was forced to take 10 different allopathic medicines it got her to be able to cut most if them down and drop them altogether after a few months of taking the Crategus. I actually use fresh herbal tincture. Unfortunately I can't get her to take the tincture now as she insists she doesn't need it!! But she is 91 so what she says tends to go!!! She does take Ars 6 regulrly as she calls them her happy pills!!They help her sleep if she wakes after midnight worrying!!

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RSHom - Registered Homeopath

And man is the most complex and variable being on the earth. And homeopathy cannot be put into an equation.
FF, this is not meant as a put down, becasue I came to homeopathy as a mathematician and was always trying to put it into the box I had already learned. But homeopathy cannot be put into a box. The more I tried, the less success I had with people. I'm not sure how my teacher put up with me for as long as he did in order for me to allow my mind to expand to fit homeopathy rather than trying to sqeeze homeopathy down to fit into my mind. Regardless, I have to say that if you would spend half as much time reading the Organon as you do trying to fit homeopathy into your engineering box and equations and charts, you would make much more progress on becoming a successful homeopath.

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Shirley Reischman

Hi everybody! Leela, Carol, Shirley, FF, Ricky
(great story about your mother!),

I believe Carol had a question back there. Yes, Carol, if you're down to two remedies and one matches your patient's modalities, that's very significant!

Regarding what Shirley said about sometimes Lyc. can be better 4-8 PM instead of worse, and Puls. can be thirsty and Nat-mur can be shameless and Phosphorus can have an aversion to company...yes it's all true. Did you have to bring this up now, Shirley? It freaks people out the first time they hear it! I remember reacting just like Fitness First, as in: no way! If this is true, then none of this makes any sense!

FF, in homeopathy we refer to this as "Polarities". We might be better off saying that a person has "an issue with"; sweets, for example--either a craving or an aversion; or an issue with anger(either he CAN'T get angry or he's constantly in a rage)--because it's all 2 sides of the same coin. Whether a person can't say no, or says no to everything, either way, he's not able to exercise options--say yes to this and no to that; so, it's the same illness, whether he's at one end of the pole or the other end of the pole.

Now, even having said that, the modalities which are keynotes of a remedy, like Apis being worse from heat, and Sepia being better from exercise, are still quite reliable, and you shouldn't be afraid to rely on them even knowing that every once in a while you're going to get a Lycopodium with an aversion to sweets, or a Sepia who just wants to lie down and face the wall. These are all advanced concepts that a beginner shouldn't be burdened with.

Getting back to prescribing for the etiology, which I think is really important to understand;
let me give you an example. I remember when Shirley was here, my Lyme's Disease patient called. Lyme is a syndrome that occurs after being bitten by a certain deer tick. She had all kinds of great strange, rare, and peculiar symptoms--drenching sweats, intolerance of heat, better cold bathing, overwhelming urges to fall asleep in the middle of the day, all kinds of aches and pains and swellings, crying, a veritable wealth of things to enter into CARA; but Shirley said,
"We always give Hypericum for Lyme Disease." I said, "Good, we'll go with Hypericum!" Why didn't we repertorize the case? What about all those great peculiar symptoms and clear modalities? This is a clear "Ailments After" case. Sometimes we call it "Never Well Since". When you see a clear Never Well Since, whether it's NWS head injury, loss of a loved one, financial loss, humiliation, and so on, THAT'S your case, we don't pay attention to the symptoms.
In this instance, the case is: Never Well Since an insect bite. Our 2 big remedies for this are Ledum and Hypericum. My only decision was, "Should I give Ledum or Hypericum?" I didn't care what her symptoms were! (Please note, this is Shirley who says diagnosis doesn't matter! What would I have done in this case without the diagnosis? I'd have been lost in a sea of symptoms that didn't add up to anything!)
By the way, the patient is doing great!

So, as you can see, FF, homeopathy isn't easy to pin down. There really are a lot of variables, as you say. But there are some rules too, and if you learn them, as in if you TAKE A COURSE, as opposed to challenging us to make this make sense to you as an engineer as Shirley pointed out, it will all be worth it cuz you'll be able to take care of yourself and your family for the rest of your life.

Snoopy

The hardest thing for me to 'get' as a mathematician with a minor in engineering was that no matter what question I asked my teacher, he could always answer, 'It all depends'. Twenty five years later, it all makes sense. Homeopathy is basically an inductive process, whereas mathematics is a deductive one. In order to be a good homeopath, you have to think differently than you would if you were to be a good mathematician or engineer. If you choose to be a good homeopath, then you must stop using deductive reasoning and start using inductive reasoning. You don't have a choice about that. It's just the way it is. Your only choice is whether or not you want to be a good homeopath, not which type of reasoning you want to use.

[ 02. July 2003, 17:45: Message edited by: sreischman ]

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Shirley Reischman

Dear Members

Neither Arnica, nor Nat-s have created injuries during their provings.
So, to give Arnica on these grounds is allopathy.

Aetiology might point to a class of remedies, but it is the NOW present INDIVIDUAL SYMPTOM-COMBINATION determining the remedy in homeopathy.
So, these books which give you hints like in xyz give Arnica are grossly misleading.

I once gave with the best of results Mag-c after the patient received a head injury 2 days ago on the now presenting symptom of sudden falling to the floor without loosing the consciousness. These attacks seemed to happen more so in the evening and at night. There was a bruised pain in the area of the injury and a swelling.

There is no mentioning in the injury rubrics of Mag-c, but Mag-c one dose of the 200th cured.

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Hans Weitbrecht
Consultant Homeopath
homeopathy study guide: http://www.homeopathyworldcommunity....hy-study-guide