Wise Traditions Summer 2012

Joette Calabrese describes treatments for pain and injury

Joette Calabrese,HMC,CCH,RSHom

Published in Wise Traditions, Summer 2012, “The Devil’s in the Details”

DRUGS INDUCE CHRONIC ILLNESS

Chronic illness is the bad boy of modern society. It puzzles conventional medicine, oils the pharmaceutical industry and plagues millions of families. Allergies, food intolerances, eczema, colitis, cancer, diabetes, reproductive problems—lists like this constitute a sobering reality that mystifies conventional medical methodology.

What’s the treatment allopathic medicine offers? Management of symptoms. Drugs indeed suppress symptoms, but they also may be a major factor causing chronic disease.

THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAILS

Allow me to offer the homeopathic version of chronic disease manifestation that seamlessly parallels the WAPF and GAPS methodology. Let’s begin with one of the foundational aphorisms of classical homeopathy set forth by the Father of Homeopathy, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann. He taught in his treatise, The Organon, that there are two underlying prerequisites to chronic illness: 1) The predisposing cause and 2) The causa occasionalis, or the exciting cause.

The predisposing cause is the inclination to a certain type or category of illness. The diseases our kin have suffered are likely to be down the pike for us. Genetic predisposition represents the terrain from which we’re formed. Knowing this allows us to make sensible decisions regarding how we care for ourselves and our family. One of the ways to achieve optimal health is to take care not to rouse the demonic sleeping giant.

Modern medical conjecture over-simplifies and trivializes chronic disease. For example, chronic illness may be blamed on a stressful job or your bad genes. To explore what causes chronic illness any further is considered speculative and utterly superfluous.

But isn’t it human nature to ask “Why does my child have eczema?” Certainly an inquiring mind is a fundamental quality for avoiding and reversing chronic illness.

While conventional medicine conveniently lays blame on the patient or an anonymous third party, such as genes, germs or stress, homeopathy squarely blames the allopathic method of treating acute illness with drugs, drugs used to suppress symptoms. Typically, drug use begins with antibiotics for infections in early childhood, sometimes even infancy. Later there are birth control pills to suppress normal human reproduction, acne meds such as Accutane that cover up and drive skin issues to a grim pathology, and—most tragically—psychotropic drugs to control behavior in children.

Long-term use of drugs can be injurious enough to incite that slumbering giant of chronic disease. And depending on the vital force and susceptibility of DNA, the stage for chronic illness can be set with even a dose or two of a pharmaceutical drug, particularly in childhood, when the novice gut flora is just forming. Indeed, drugs have a commanding long-range effect that conventional medicine rarely considers. The detrimental effects of antibiotics used months, even years previous, have far-reaching tentacles. The results of taking drugs can be far worse than simple side effects.

CHRONIC ILLNESS IS SET A STIRRIN’

The Mayo Clinic warns that MRSA is an infection associated with previous use of antibiotics (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/antibiotics/ FL00075). Allopaths recognize that their methods can craft artificially fashioned pathology: a synthetically induced disease that skirts their own treatments. Despite this, the engine to continue this practice chugs on, leaving only the most observant to note how sweeping, fateful and even generational effects these routines can deliver. More often than not, it’s only those who have personally suffered or witnessed the effects of MRSA in a loved one that take notice.

MAGPIE MEDICINE

One can’t help but note that allopathic medicine has a distinct aversion to natural methods yet gets giddy over shiny new objects; a novel imitation food instead of breast milk; the up-to-the-minute new vaccine; the latest pain reliever.

While drugs of commerce have promotional appeal because the marketplace loves bigger, better and newer, they’re a tricky substitute for the reassurance of long-term full scientific discovery. Indeed, each decade spotlights yet another quiver of drugs revealing their injurious effects via the mortality or morbidity rate that follows.

PAIN KILLERS

How scientific, rational, and useful is allopathic medicine when treating normal acute illness? Let’s take a cursory look at only one tiny chapter in its history of meds used to treat pain. In 1900, James R. L. Daly published an article in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal which claimed, “It [heroin] possesses many advantages over morphine. . . . It is not hypnotic; there is no danger of acquiring the habit. . . .” (http://www.trivia-library.com/a/history-of-legal-and-illegal-drugs-from-1900-to-1910-ad.htm).

Around the same time, cocaine was used as the preferred treatment for teething babies (http://wings.buffalo.edu/aru/preprohibition.htm).

A few decades later, parents were directed by their trusted family doctors to administer aspirin to their children and teens at the first sign of fever or pain associated with childhood illness. It took years before the results were tallied, showing that by doing so, a deadly illness, Reyes Syndrome may be contracted.

The next fashionable nostrum was Tylenol, and as always, the public dutifully complied. Recently, NPR released a story about how acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, has been found to cause asthma in children, sometimes within minutes and often with long lasting episodes (www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/02/20/147002356/does-tylenolworsen-asthma-for-kids). A simple fever has morphed into chronic or deadly illness.

Some call these effects “side effects,” but that’s playing down the fallout. Upon closer examination, symptom-reducing drugs like aspirin and Tylenol force a normal and mild childhood illness to develop into long-term disease. This is quite a price to pay for the reduction of a normal fever, wouldn’t you agree?

No doubt it’s become familiar, even trite news that a legal and “tested” drug has been found to cause a more sobering disease than the one it was meant to “treat.” After years of marketing the safety of the product, how are these insidious discoveries made? Why, by having the public ingest it!

When addressing an illness, a homeopath draws a timeline in reverse chronological order. This maps out when the symptoms of the chronic illness began and most importantly what preceded them. When we lay out the details of events that lead up to the pathology, a picture often emerges. An ear infection treated with antibiotics, followed by another ear infection, (actually, the same one in encore) and another round of antibiotics. Then, a yeast infection from the antibiotic. After that, the yeast infection is treated with Nystatin which is followed by inability to digest a myriad of foods. Subsequently, this is followed by allergy shots which in turn becomes full blown Crohn’s, debilitating food allergies or colitis, depending on the demons that lurk in the family’s DNA.

SYMPTOMS NEVER LIE

I make no apologies—we homeopaths love symptoms. It’s not that we’re sadistic; it’s that symptoms tell all. Since suppressing them is often dangerous, the decision to use drugs ought to be soberly weighed.

Symptoms provide clues to determine the remedy that most closely suits the person’s explicit pathology. More significantly, they are vital representations of the inner workings of the body. When we suffer, our aches and pains offer useful information because we all suffer differently. The genius of homeopathy resides in the details. Pain shouldn’t be ignored, nor subdued without first categorizing it in our mind and then using it to choose a remedy. Nor should it dictate immediate removal at any cost.

Each individual has his own tolerance to pain, so it is helpful to know just how intense the suffering is. Belladonna 30, for example is a remedy that addresses extreme pain, such as a very painful ear infection, strep throat, or certain migraines. If the pain isn’t agonizing, then Belladonna won’t work, because it isn’t indicated.

It’s worth noting, though, that we shouldn’t get too caught up with the “condition.” Griping or colicky pains may alert us to an imbalance in the bladder, but bear in mind that in homeopathy, we are not treating a bladder infection, but the entire person whose imbalance is observable in the bladder. Similarly, when there is uterine pain with menses, the correct remedy will not merely address menstrual cramps, but the concomitant headache, too, and will invigorate the woman with renewed energy. The entire person must be observed and the remedy that covers all of the observations employed. In this way, and only in this way, will the patient find complete improvement. Anything less is what I call polyester medicine.

For mild, occasional pain, I wouldn’t administer a remedy. This is where we depend on a good cup of bone stock or a warm glass of raw milk instead. We also don’t want our children to assume that every little scrape and wound requires a pill. However, if an injury is harsh, the sufferer is clearly shaken and has the potential for concussion or internal bleeding, then it makes sense to administer the remedy in as high potency as you own, repeated every few minutes while on your way to the emergency room. Continue administering every few minutes until out of danger and then a few more times for good measure. Resolution can occur within a few minutes or may take as long as days later. The more serious the pathology, the faster the remedy acts.

MASTERY GRANTS INNER STILLNESS

Nearly every day I hear folks say, “I don’t like drugs, but I didn’t know what else to do.” That’s why it’s wise—even mandatory—that folks learn to take care of themselves and their families.

It’s about being in the kitchen, preparing your fermented vegetables, setting up your kombucha, listening to and observing your family’s symptoms. The quality of the dinner you’re preparing tonight is in the details. The cause of chronic illness can be found by seeking out the original stimulus. The choice of the curative remedy is in the person-specific symptoms. It’s in acknowledging and utilizing the details that develops the portrait of a life well lived, and in so doing keep the demons and slumbering giants serenely comatose.

MASTERY OF THESE METHODS GRANTS INNER STILLNESS

Pain can drive someone to take conventional drugs, but knowing a handful of homeopathic remedies can help keep your family drug-free—highly valuable knowledge even if needed on just a single occasion!

Undoubtedly, we must acknowledge the value of certain drugs such as anaesthesia, and it would be irresponsible to simply eliminate medications that are presently being used without forethought and some professional supervision. However, if we can minimize our reliance on drugs and make prudent, sensible, and educated decisions, we’ll have protected our family from the side effects of drugs of commerce.

ACONITUM, THE KING OF INJURY REMEDIES

The first and most commonly recognized remedy for an injury is Arnica montana, but in my experience, there’s another remedy equally valuable that offers a more calming response: Aconitum napellus. The pain this remedy helps is one that is tender, bruised, and lame.

When my son sprained his ankle skiing, we used Aconitum 200c every thirty minutes or so for the initial pain and the shocky feeling that often accompanies an injury. Once the pain was under control, we administered the remedy every hour, and then less frequently as it became more manageable. In most injury situations, pain is the only indicator. Yet, homeopathy offers so much more than just relief from pain. It will also support the system in minimizing the chance of infection and even has a reputation for aborting hemorrhages.

By the end of the first day, my son took the remedy every two to three hours, but by the third day it was only required every four to five hours. Remember, the objective is not only to reduce pain and minimize swelling, but more importantly to protect from gratuitous methods. Each injury, pain, infection, and pathology is an occasion to learn and ultimately guard.

THIS TIME, EAT THE DAISIES

Bellis perennis is a no-nonsense remedy made from the simple daisy, but of course, made in homeopathic formulation. Its action is skewed specifically to contusions, bruises, and lacerations, especially to the trunk of the body. So it’s an essential remedy for trauma to the breast such as mechanical injury caused by a mammogram or from a seat belt in an auto accident. Particularly when the accident is from a blow, then think of this remedy. has a reputation for minimizing the potential of impending harm.

Whenever a safe and restorative alternative can be substituted for a drug, especially for normal childhood illnesses, common colds, ear infections or pain, it’s rational to take advantage of that opportunity. In no time, you’ll be your family’s expert. Indeed, experts are just students who have kicked their commitment up a notch.

SWISS REPORT

The Swiss government recently released a report referencing a momentous number of randomized double-blind clinical studies on homeopathy that documented the effectiveness of homeopathic therapy. Because of the large numbers of the Swiss population using homeopathy, in 2009, a nationwide referendum with two-thirds majority favored the integration of it and other holistic methods into the Swiss Health System, allowing reimbursement by the government’s health program. Since the referendum is not available on line, interested readers may go to www.naturalnews.com/035714_homeopathy_Switzerland_health_care.html#ixzz1uEX50CcW.
Today, even some fed-up medical doctors in the U.S. are questioning the wisdom of the employment of drugs. In my hometown of Buffalo, New York, it has been reported that patients in the emergency room of a well-known Buffalo hospital (normally a citadel of conventional medicine) are treated with a few doses of Arnica montana 200 for injuries. Perhaps a devilish detail that the pharmaceutical rep for the ER has not yet noticed! Shhh.

This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Summer 2012.