Podcast 151: Chronic Fatigue Through the Lens of Practical Homeopathy®

Hi, I’m Joette Calabrese, and I welcome you to our health care movement — yours, mine and the countless men and women across the globe who have retaken control of their families’ health with Practical Homeopathy®.

So, for the next few minutes, let's link our arms as I demystify homeopathy — what was once considered an esoteric paradigm — into an understandable, reproducible, safe and effective health care solution available to all.

This is the medicine you've been searching for — my unique brand of homeopathy, PRACTICAL Homeopathy®.

Introduction: Chronic Fatigue Through the Lens of Practical Homeopathy®

Kate: (01:00)

Hi Joette.

Joette:

Hi, Kate.

Kate:

Today, we have a subject that I think a lot of people encounter, and that is chronic fatigue.

We just had a long conversation about it, and you have some amazing insights of how people can think about chronic fatigue, because that diagnosis can sound scary. But it can also be a little misleading and not help us to get to what we should use homeopathically.

So, can you let us know how we should think about it if we hear the words “chronic fatigue?”

“Syndrome” Sounds Scary

Joette: (01:31)

Well, often, it's called “chronic fatigue syndrome, which means that there are other aspects to the condition other than just the fatigue.

Kate:

Well, and it makes it sound scary too, right? “Syndrome.”

Joette:

Yeah, syndrome, I know.

But syndrome doesn't necessarily mean that.

It means that there are a couple of additional conditions that are associated with the main condition — kind of like satellite conditions.

In the world of Practical Homeopathy®, knowing the name of a condition or a diagnosis can be useful. After all, there are well-established protocols for many ailments. But sometimes those labels can be misleading, especially when they come from a medical, a conventional or a functional medicine approach.

And they might sound super-precise, but they often fail to give us the true nature of what's going on so that we can make a good decision on choosing a homeopathic medicine.

Challenging the “One Size Fits All” Definition of Chronic Fatigue

Kate: (02:23)

Well, today we're going to challenge some of that thinking and those intimidating diagnoses, Joette.

So, help us to reframe our thinking when we hear chronic fatigue or chronic fatigue syndrome, and how do we zero in on the symptoms that really matter?

So, help us to know how do we think about it? How do we frame our thinking so that we can dial in on and find a correct homeopathic medicine?

Joette:

Sure. Well, chronic fatigue. There is a protocol — and there is a Banerji protocol — for chronic fatigue, and you'll find other protocols as well for chronic fatigue, in general.

But what's probably more important in this particular situation is what's happening in that person's life?

Is this a person … let's say a woman who just had her third baby, and the baby was born, say, five months ago. And she still feels fatigued after the birth.

We're really not even supposed to feel fatigue after a birth. We should feel exhilarated, but she's feeling fatigue after the birth.

We can call that chronic fatigue, but there's an underlying hormonal issue here.

How about people who eat a lot of carbohydrates? They have Kix for breakfast with skim milk, and then for lunch they have a peanut butter sandwich, and then for dinner they might have a little protein with rice or pasta on the side. And they have chronic fatigue, thinking nothing of those kinds of meals that could be potentially causing a fatigue that's related to what they're eating.

And then what about someone who has just come out of surgery — say, a month ago — and ever since then they've been fatigued?

Well, first of all, surgery is like World War II on your body. That's a big deal. You're being generally anesthesed. You are being cut open! You are being given an antibiotic. You are given an anti-inflammatory, steroids afterwards, et cetera, et cetera. There's so many drugs: tranquilizer to fall asleep because you're restless after.

And many times, people are normal. They have a normal amount of energy until they have surgery.

So, it could be the shock of the surgery. But it could also — and this is super common — be a result of the number of medications that they were given. And it may not even be the sheer number (although that would be certainly a priority to consider), but it could have been one particular drug that did it.

We don't know which one it was. Maybe it was just the general anesthesia. And ever since then, the person is fatigued in hindsight.

Practical Homeopathy® Offers Medicines to Consider

Joette: (04:55)

Now, I'm going to attach some medicines to this. Because in that situation, we might consider Phosphoric acid, where with a mom who had her baby months ago and who still has fatigue, we might consider Sepia.

For someone who's had a lot of pasta and breads and carbohydrates during the day, you might want to consider Helonias.

But then, let's go to another condition. How about anemia? What if the chronic fatigue is low-level anemia, and that simply wasn't tested?

How about someone with chronic insomnia? Now, that would make sense of course, that you're going to be fatigued if you're not sleeping properly.

But sometimes the person is getting eight hours, but they're broken up because they go to bed; they fall asleep; then they wake up; then they fall asleep again; then they wake up; now, they're up for two hours; then they go back. So, the sleep is broken up, so their rhythm is off. That can cause a concern. And then in that case, we're talking about perhaps something like Coffea.

And then how about if it's chronic fatigue resulting from depression? Sometimes people don't even recognize that they're depressed. They feel low, loss of interest in life, loss of interest in their work. They have no desire to strive, and they're fatigued, and they just feel, “I don't know, I just don't feel up to it.” That could be something like, for example, Aurum metallicum.

Or how about this? How about just dehydration, living in a hot climate where they've perspired a lot. And they're drinking, but they're not drinking enough. Or they're drinking, but they're drinking only water. They're not drinking anything with electrolytes or any salt added, and so they're losing minerals as well. So, they're dehydrated. In that case, we might consider China.

And how about overstudy? Let's talk about that one. A lot of times people get fatigued — students get fatigued — from over-studying, staying up too late, thinking and thinking and thinking and memorizing and trying to put to memory many, many concepts into one brain in a short amount of time … say, cramming for exams. In that case, we're going to consider something like Kali phos.

So, chronic fatigue is really an umbrella for what could be many conditions, and I'm sure there are others here that we could think of — that if you thought about it, what could be causing chronic fatigue?

Is a Conventional Diagnosis Necessary or Even Helpful in This Situation?

Joette: (07:15)

And so, it's nice to know what it is, I guess. But if you've gone in to see your medical provider, and you are going in with a complaint, and the complaint is, “I'm tired all the time,” … I'm tired all the time means chronic fatigue. Means you really didn't even need to go in to get that diagnosis because all that's happened is that a label has been placed on top of what you already knew was happening.

You walked in knowing you were always tired, you walked out knowing you have chronic fatigue.

Same thing.

So, if we understand that there are many ways to — I used to say “skin a cat,” but I don't say that anymore because I've been chastised by people who love cats, and I mean, I like cats, too. So, I'm calling it baking a biscuit. There's more than one way to bake a biscuit.

So, that's why I want you to look at this from a couple of different angles. Make sure that you're considering the circumstances.

And not always do we consider circumstances in choosing homeopathic medicine. But certainly, in chronic fatigue, we do want to consider what's happened before, what led up to this and what the person is suffering from even now as they're suffering.

So, oftentimes, I do tell people they should know the name of the diagnosis, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you need to know it in every single case.

So, in this situation, it's valuable to know the name that you would've given it. “I am fatigued.” You already know that. Now we need to look deeper and see what else needs to be considered.

Kate:

Right. So, although we could use the protocol for chronic fatigue, it's beneficial to look deeper.

Joette:

Particularly in this kind of a condition. Yes.

Kate:

Yeah.

Other times, it might be the reverse, where we get too specific of a diagnosis that can lead us down a rabbit hole.

But in this case, with chronic fatigue, you are saying, Joette, that it's important to look at the circumstances surrounding that, and that can be useful as well.

Joette:

Yes, that's so.

When Might We Use the Protocol for Chronic Fatigue?

Kate: (09:19)

When might we use, Joette, the protocol for chronic fatigue?

Joette:

When we look at all of these possibilities that I just named: the anemia after birth, overuse of drugs, a poor diet, et cetera. When all of those are not showing up in the case and simply no place we can actually hang our hat, then I would say you might go ahead and utilize the chronic fatigue protocol. But be certain that there isn't something that's obviously underwriting this.

Kate:

So, Joette, if we've looked at the surrounding circumstances to the chronic fatigue, and we haven't identified anything in particular as you discussed earlier, that might be causing the fatigue, what is a medicine that we might consider?

Joette:

There are a couple to choose from, but one of the top ones is Aurum metallicum. But I would not just jump into using something like that until I knew that all the other possibilities have been eliminated, just as you said.

Closing Advice

Kate: (10:25)

So, if you want to learn more about the medicines and the conditions that Joette talked about today in this podcast, you can learn these things by joining a study group and going through the Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®, or taking some of Joette's Practical Protocol courses, or even joining The Academy, which is a year-long study of homeopathy in depth. And we just started another year, too. So, that's exciting.

But this is the way that you will learn about the medicines and how to distill your thinking down and really get to the medicines that would distill the information you've been given as a diagnosis into what homeopathic medicines can work for you.

So, Joette, what’s the upshot?

Joette:

So, the upshot is it boils down to study, my friends. Learning this.

Even if you can't join a Gateway to Homeopathy class, even if you can't join The Academy, the information that I leave available here for you, as your resource, is voluminous. These podcasts and blogs have been published now for well over ten years, and they're every single week, so take advantage of them.

I believe that when we strive to become the best version of ourselves — to become the person who is the one looked to for help from suffering — that we elevate not only our status in society, but our intelligence and our self-reliance, so that this becomes a lifestyle: knowing how to treat and how to approach all different kinds of illnesses, even those that might be confounding in their title.

It's my honor to share many lessons on this simple method of using homeopathy for free —without affiliates or advertising — here in my podcasts, but also my blog posts and Monday Night Lives.

But it's critical that you learn how to use these medicines properly. These podcasts should serve as only the beginning of your training. Peruse JoettesLearningCenter.com to find fun study group opportunities and in-depth courses developed by subject.

So, with the proper training, you can join the thousands of students before you in developing the confidence and competence to protect the health of your family and loved ones with my brand of homeopathy, Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:

You just listened to a podcast from internationally acclaimed homeopath, public speaker and author, the founder of The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®, Joette Calabrese. Joette’s podcasts are available on all your favorite podcast apps.

To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.