The Fear du Jour: Radiation

 

The antidote to fear is preparedness.

Let me say that again …

The antidote to fear is preparedness.

And what is preparedness to my way of thinking? Owning the homeopathic medicines needed for any expected — and unexpected — eventuality.

So, my friends, the press, and whoever is behind their unified message are at it again — fanning the flames of the fear du jour. I can visualize their meeting in a conference room, saying, “If we didn’t scare them to death with the virus or the pox, let’s try the threat of nuclear weapons! That oughtta work!”

 So, now we’re supposed to stay up at night worrying about an atomic blast and radioactive fallout?

However, what we can do is know how to use — and own — the homeopathic medicines that have been known to address the ill effects of radiation.

That’s preparedness.

Then we can relax. We’ve done what we can.

I wrote a blog post over 11 years ago on this subject. For the most part, the information still stands, but I’d like to expound a bit.

The most important thing to remember is these remedies are not used willy-nilly. These are medicines … medicines corresponding to specific conditions. So, something nuclear in nature needs to have actually occurred before employing homeopathy. A REAL event. It’s vital to understand that I would not condone utilizing any of these medicines as a knee-jerk reaction to rumors of an impending threat.

These are medicines that homeopaths have known about for a long time — since radiation sickness became a potential condition. But I always like to turn to Robin Murphy’s MetaRepertory, Fourth Edition, for the most recent collection of homeopathic information from a variety of sources, past and present.

Ah, here it is: “RADIATION, sickness” on page 2396. Cadmium sulphuratum, associated with this condition, appears in bold, capital letters. What does that mean? Well, bold capital letters indicate that this medicine is one of the stronger choices (among the others listed) for ailments resulting from radiation exposure. It is more frequently chosen by homeopaths and has demonstrated success.

But we don’t stop there.

To ensure our remedy choice is sound, we would then look up Cadmium sulphuratum in a different type of homeopathic reference book — a materia medica.

You see, the two books work in conjunction with each other. A repertory is a list of every known health condition and the corresponding homeopathics that may be considered. A materia medica alphabetically lists all the various homeopathic medicines and provides a deep dive into each one’s characteristics and keynotes.

In Murphy’s book, “Nature’s Materia Medica,” we see that Cadmium sulph, indeed, helps the body overcome many radiation-related conditions: “weakness, emaciation, nausea, vomiting, liver damage, hair loss …” In fact, there are three pages of information to comb through. Most materia medicas are extensive books written with the professional homeopath in mind, so the language can sometimes be challenging. That’s why I wrote my own! A Materia Medica: Practical Homeopathy® for Busy Families* is written in plain talk with memorable stories to serve as examples and the highlights of 150 of the more common medicines!

Cadmium sulph is generally used in the 30^th potency upon exposure to a severe radiological event (such as an atomic blast resulting in fallout) and up to twice daily thereafter until symptoms abate. However, one of my old teachers and now colleague, Dr. Ramakrishnan also used Cadmium sulph 30 for radiation sickness after cancer therapy. So, it’s a well-rounded choice.

Additionally, although these are not both mentioned in the repertory, Calcarea fluorica 12 and Natrum muriaticum 6, thrice daily for several months after the initial exposure to radiation, have a history of helping the body eliminate resulting toxins. Regardless of which other remedies are chosen, they may be utilized in tandem with the other remedies.

And there are other choices as well. In fact, I’ll give a few more to my Mighty Members in this week’s memo.

But these three are good medicines to own — in case. And, hopefully, just as with the symbolic umbrella we carry when it looks like the slightest chance of rain, if we have our medicines at the ready, we won’t need them!

Hmm, I’m sensing that you may have a question, so let me answer it before you ask. Yes, my friend, these medicines may also be choices to consider for combatting the side effects of medical radiation treatments. However, I have a few preferred choices up my sleeve, so perhaps I’ll do a follow-up blog post containing this subject in the future.

Before I close, I don’t mean to make light of such a serious topic, but maybe some levity is exactly what we need now. And I suppose you’ve been wondering what on earth the photo provided with this blog post has to do with the topic, right? Well, writing this article made me recall the preparatory exercises we did as children to “protect” us from atomic blasts. Does anyone else remember “duck and cover”?

For some reason, as a child. I never fully grasped that I was supposed to be afraid. Instead, I saw it as a time to have fun! We’d each file by the cloakroom (yes, that's what it was called in the 50s!) to get our coats, then hide under our desks. (As though hiding under our desks was going to protect us, right?)

But on the way to the cloakroom, my friends and I would pass by the art table and grab a little chunk of molding clay. Then, in lieu of imagining ourselves vaporized by weaponry, we would make little animals out of our clay and pass notes. I thought it was fun! “Look, I made a kitty!” “Well, I made a fish!” “Here’s a funny owl!” We turned the most somber of occasions into a great time to sneak in some illicit entertainment.

All these years later, let’s turn my duck-and-cover activity into a powerful analogy for you to remember. Just like that malleable clay, we can mold our own preferred state of mind! We don’t have to allow others especially unreliable ones to control our internal narratives.

So, now, as an adult, I prefer to be prepared with a more realistic method of coping with threats and also use that preparedness to embolden my more lighthearted side. Indeed, my favorite antidote to fear is to own the homeopathic medicines I need and have the information on how to use them, gird myself in my faith … and then get back to enjoying life.

I don’t live in fear, and I hope you won’t either.

Get skilled up and pass on the good news of homeopathy.

 

Warmly,

 

*A Materia Medica: Practical Homeopathy® for Busy Families is an excellent introduction to the more common medicines we use in homeopathy. You’ll find it an invaluable resource when trying to decide between two potential remedies.

However, some folks get confused about exactly what a materia medica is. I hope the description within this blog post helps. Still, to reiterate, a materia medica is an alphabetized compendium of the most common homeopathic medicines, along with descriptions of their characteristics and keynotes. It is NOT a list of conditions and protocols.

But believe me, you’ll use it all the time! And many readers have told me that my memorable stories help them retain the pertinent information on each remedy.