Podcast 28 – Allergies & The Power of Properly Assessing What’s Happening

In this podcast, we cover:

02:32  Joette’s philosophy on allergies and allergy testing  

08:21  The two pronged method

16:51  Assessing after eight weeks     

27:52  Buster’s milk intolerance and Argentum nitricum

You are listening to a podcast from joettecalabrese.com where nationally certified American homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese, shares her passion for helping families stay healthy through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition.

Paola:  It’s podcast 28 at joettecalabrese.com. We’ve got a great episode for you. Joette and I were really burning the midnight oil when we’ve recorded this podcast this week. Joette circles around two important topics tonight. She talks about allergies. The second topic, I’ve noticed from my interactions with her lately that it’s really been on her mind and she is really trying to get this message across to her students. The topic is patience and assessing a case. What Joette is helping me understand more and more is that if you don’t assess a case properly, you might miss out on the whole value and power of homeopathy. So, let’s take it from the top and hear what Joette has to say about this. Alright, so here we go.

Hi, Joette. We’ve had a really busy week here on allergies, allergies, allergies. How are you doing?

Joette:  I’m doing well. This is always great, Paola.

Paola:  Thank you. Yes, so we’re relaunching your wonderful course, Allergic. That means that the first time you did it, it was live. So, we have the live students. Now, what we’re releasing is the recording of that live course with all the students who had asked questions during that session and all the notes and everything.

Joette:  Right. We’ve got lots of feedback and that’s helped us a great deal.

Paola:  In what way do you mean?

Joette:  Well, it helped us. For one thing, we have time stamped it. I know that that is useful to students. That was a suggestion by one of the students. So, we made it available to those who already have the course but now, that’s how we’re representing it with those kinds of finishing touches to make it easier to reference.

Paola:  So, time stamping is like the index so you can go to the minute and the second that they talked about a given subject.

Joette:  Right.

Paola:  Good. I think that’s actually very great. We’re doing that actually to all the courses now, too but this will be one of the first ones that have it upfront. That is exciting. So, talk about allergies. I feel like this is something that you get a lot. The question of I’m allergic, so I need to find out what I’m allergic to, to then suppress it or avoid it or whatever. You have a very different philosophy when it comes to allergies.

Joette’s philosophy on allergies and allergy testing.    

Joette:  Yes, because I think that by and large, most people know what they’re allergic to. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. So, I don’t know that testing is always mandatory or even necessary because it’s actually sometimes even unneeded.

Let me give you an example. I went for testing. I’ve had allergies or I had allergies since I was six weeks old. So, I had lots of tests. It was pretty clear what I was allergic to back then. We’re talking about the early 50s. I was allergic to chocolate and milk and feathers and dusts, wool, dander, and animals, and fur, the usual milk, orange juice. So, it was pretty clear. My parents did not know at that time because I was so young. So, I suppose it was useful. In one way, it was useful and in another way, it just made my parents nuts because now what? She can’t even have wheat. What can she eat? There’s nothing left. Then I got lots of shots. Because of that information, I was given lots and lots of shots. So, it didn’t help me. It just made me scared and angry and I hated going to the doctors because I knew I was going to get 16 shots. It was always 16 in this tray. It was very scary. I have little, skinny arms. So, I went regularly. It never made any difference. I still had eczema everywhere.

So then, as an adult, I went back and got tested again for allergies thinking, “Well, maybe something new has come up.” I mean it has been 30 years. Maybe science has changed and they can help me and give me more information. So, when I was about 29 or 30, I had testing done again. I actually knew what I was allergic to then. I didn’t have problems with wool but I did have problems with dusts. That was around too much. But what I was really allergic to by then was chemicals. I couldn’t be around dryer pads and perfumes and new car smells and nail polish and cleaning fluids, and walking down the aisle of the grocery store that had all the soaps. I could not be around those things.

So, I went to the allergist and got tested. He brilliantly came up with the three substances that I was allergic to and said, declared, “This is what you’re allergic to.” He put this little sheet in front of me. It was three items. I’ll never forget it. This was back in 1980. I’ll never forget it. You’re allergic to bananas, horse hair, and turkey. The reason I remember that so vividly is because it’s so ridiculous. It said bananas. Okay, well I have a banana maybe once every couple of weeks, I suppose. Okay, I can stop bananas. But then horsehair, now I was not an aficionado of horses. I had no horse hair furniture in my house. So, that didn’t make any sense to me at all. So, then how can I be so sick if I had bananas only once every two weeks and not around horse hair. Then the third thing was turkey which I did eat every single Thanksgiving.

Paola:  I thought you were going to say every single day.

Joette:  Every single Thanksgiving, I ate it. I know I shouldn’t have but I did.

Paola:  So, it was ridiculous.

Joette:  It was ridiculous. So these tests are to say they’re inconclusive is laughable.

Paola:  Well, I went and did allergy testing myself. I was really concerned because the list of foods that I couldn’t eat was so large. I mean, you can relate. But I went with an alternative doctor. What was kind of deflating for me is I’m there to get help so that I can eat more food. He came with more ingredients that I apparently didn’t even know about that I shouldn’t be eating. So, I was like why am I even here? You’re like ruining my life a little bit more.

Joette:  Just away with happiness.

Paola:  I know. So, that was pretty frustrating. So, I don’t care. I ate the shrimp because I had to eat. Then Tina, if you listened to the most recent Moms with Moxie podcast, Tina’s doctor came in and told her she had to live on air and water, I think. He kind of said it, he was laughing.

Joette:  Flippantly.

Paola:  Yes. Tina was just, that was offensive to her because this is like a death sentence basically.

Joette:  Yes, yes, yes.

Paola:  So, it doesn’t matter what you’re allergic to.

Joette:  On one hand, maybe it matters because if it’s an anaphylactic reaction then you, of course, need to know that it is peanuts or it is almonds or it could be apples or whatever. Certainly, you need to know that. But to be honest, if you’ve had an anaphylactic-like symptom, you know what you’re allergic to. It’s not very difficult to figure out.

Paola:  I know.

Joette:  If it’s absolutely mandatory that you find out then of course, find out. But to be honest, most people will know. I find that those tests can be pretty archaic. Now, I’ve give mine was done is 1980 the last time I went. But I hear these stories all the time. What has brought to their attention really is not what is real in their life, that it really is more chemicals or it really is because he ate too much of a certain food. So, I just don’t find, I’m not impressed with allergy tests. So, we could start with that, I suppose.

The two pronged method

So, the point is that in homeopathy, we look at things, most everything in terms of health quite differently. One of them is that when we look at allergies, we use the two pronged method. One is that we have to uproot the condition with medicines that have been proven time again for most people across the board. Then we have to use the symptoms that are presenting (of course, they present differently in everyone) to determine which medicines are used for those particular symptoms. Now, for those who are accustomed to conventional medicine, they might be thinking, “Well, I could just suppress symptoms just by taking Allerest or something. But what we’re doing is different. We are not suppressing the symptoms. We’re using the symptoms because they represent what’s going on, on a deeper level. We’re using them to determine which medicines are best chosen. Some people sneeze. Some people have eczema. Some people have bloating. Some people have hair loss. Some people have food intolerances. There are all kinds of things that can come from allergies. Some people have asthma. Some people have hives. So, we’ve got to use the baseline medicines that are across the board for allergies in general and then in addition to that, the medicines that are specific to any one of those. Now, if it’s two of those, we’re using two protocols. So if it’s sneezing and eczema, we’re going to use the sneezing protocol and an eczema protocol as well as the baseline medicines.

Paola:  Which is usually like that food intolerance protocol because that’s what’s causing the eczema?

Joette:  If it’s pretty clear that that’s what it is then you can use the food intolerance protocol but we don’t want to just jump to that. We want to see some food intolerances. We want to see some diarrhea or constipation or bloating, or burping, not literally but we want to see that the person has got some gut issue that’s pretty formidable before we jump to, “This must be food intolerance.”

Paola:  Before we assume that the eczema is a food intolerance right away. Okay, I see. That kind of goes back to the example with our Mom with Moxie, Tina. She didn’t have these food allergies because hers are actually anaphylaxis allergies her whole life until they presented that day in her car while she was driving eating almonds. That poor woman and had to drive to the ambulance. So, the goal is to press the reset button with the appropriate protocol.

Joette:  Yes. Meanwhile, people would say, “Well, so can I eat foods that are offending until that time, while I’m taking these homeopathic medicines until it uproots it?” The answer is for Tina, no, she should not be eating almonds because it causes anaphylaxis. But if a little bit of wheat here and there causes a little itching in the flexors of your elbows with an eczema, this rash, it’s not a big deal for you. So, it’s not as severe for you. It depends on the severity.

Paola:  But that kind of goes against what naturopaths say because when I saw my naturopath, I didn’t have allergic reactions to food but I would have intolerance-type reactions. My naturopathic doctors would say, “Well, you have to avoid this completely for four years for your body to forget it, for your immune system to forget it. Then you can try and reintroduce that.” Well, I did that for three years, maybe pushing four. Then I remember, I bought wheat. I sprouted it. I cut the wheatgrass. I pressed the wheatgrass.

Joette:  I’ve done it. I know what you’re talking about.

Paola:  I got a little juice and within five minutes, I had my autoimmune type reaction. I think it was seconds, honestly. I was amazed. Oh my gosh. Four years down the drain of avoiding this, hoping my immune system would forget. So, that’s really difficult.

Joette:  Good luck with that system. I’ve used it because I’ve done this for so many years because the allergies were such a part of, really, it was my middle name. So, I’ve done all of that. The avoidance thing, I suppose works for some people. It never worked for me.

Paola:  Me neither.

Joette:  Nor does it work for the people who contacted me because if they’re cured by it, then I don’t hear about it. I get the people for whom it does not work or from the poor mother who’s got five kids and two of them are allergic to gluten. One is allergic to dairy. The third one is allergic to everything. The fourth one can eat anything. Now, what does she do? How does she feed a family like that? So, it behooves us to learn how to uproot the condition instead of avoiding because the more we avoid, often, not always but often, the more we avoid, the more we must avoid because it’s narrower, and narrower, and narrower until finally people tell me, “I think I’m allergic to water.” That’s the first time I heard that some 20 years ago. I was thinking, “Well, could it be the chlorine in her water.” Then I thought, you know what? I don’t think this is allergy to the substance. I think it’s not the raw materials going into the gut, into the factory. I think it’s the factory. It’s the gut. It’s the person’s body, the mechanisms have gotten cockeyed. That’s what needs to be corrected, not trying to make that food perfect.

Paola:  Right, that’s exactly right. I think that’s just very interesting. You have to have that mind shift that you’re body doesn’t need to forget the food that it’s intolerant to by avoiding like my naturopaths were saying. Instead, it’s allowing the factory to repair itself because really, I mean that’s the truth. If you’re going to avoid and the factory isn’t going to get better during that time then what’s the point?

Joette:  Well, how do you avoid pollen, and feathers, and dusts, and perfumes, and fumes? Now, you can avoid cigarette smoke but it was horrible for me. I’d smell a puff of cigarette smoke and I go right into asthma. How do you do that? Well, what I did is I lived in a bubble until I finally came across it.

Paola:  So, let’s say I have food intolerances which I’m a lot better from that. But if someone has food intolerances and they want to get better. So now, they’re going to get better in a week or two?  Is that how it works?

Joette:  Oh, wouldn’t that be great? Although I have heard it, it has happened but it’s not common. It’s more often that it takes using these medicines for very long periods of time especially the medicines that are used, the baselines: Bovista, Tuberculinum, Calc carb. These are the medicines that I’m saying them quickly because to be honest, there’s a whole protocol around them. So, just to give you an idea of what the names of the medicines are.

Paola:  Right. That’s the core part of your Allergic course.

Joette:  That’s the core. That’s the first prong. Then the second prong is if there’s sneezing then sometimes it can be resolved in very short order, yes, absolutely.

Paola:  Yes, those little symptoms go away. That’s true. I remember in one season, my seasonal allergies were significantly better which is pretty quick.

Joette:  Well, I always have had watery eyes, for years on and off through the seasons. I always thought there were these allergies. It’s allergies. It’s allergies. I have to uproot the allergies. Then one day, I took Argentum nitricum and it was gone. I hate when I say this because then I’m always sorry later because people say, “Well, it didn’t work that fast for me. It must be the wrong medicine or homeopathy doesn’t work for me or it works for you but not for these people.” But the reason I remember of course is because it was so stunning. I only took a dose and the next day, they were fine. I didn’t have runny eyes. Of course, it came back again about a week later and I took it again. Until finally, I took it enough times, it finally left, it aborted. But that’s the kind of the upper, kind of like the piccolo in the concert. We’re talking about the whole string section has to be corrected. Those are the baseline medicines.

Paola:  So, in your courses, you explained that we need to have hat patience. You talked about the eight weeks before we change protocols or something like that. So, talk to us about that, about that patience.

Assessing after eight weeks

Joette:  Well, what I find is that often, people are so eager to feel better that they are not honest with how many changes there have been or whether or not there have been even small changes. So, because of that eagerness to get well soon and because they’ve spent, we talked about this earlier, spent so much money trying to deal with this and seen so many doctors that they feel as though it’s within their right to expect the medicines, these medicines to work fast. They feel like homeopathy has to make up for all the previous mistakes I’ve made in my life, all the money I’ve spent, all the vitamins, all the supplements, all the doctors, all the shots, all have to be culminated again. Eight weeks, if I don’t see a change, well, I’m just going to toss it up. There we go. There was just another paradigm, another notch on my belt to prove that indeed, I’m not curable. But instead, if we look at it from a different point of view and we say, use the medicines accordingly, correctly. If you watch carefully and diligently, you will likely see a little shift at about eight weeks. If there’s no shift, absolutely no shift at all, I might say, push it a little further because these protocols are Banerji Protocols that have been used for the Banerjis for 150 years. Why not you? If it works for millions of others, why would not it work for you? So, we might push it a little bit longer but generally speaking, at about eight weeks, we stop and assess. That’s what I teach in this course, Allergic or in all my courses and on my blog that’s free. I always say stop at a certain point and especially for chronics and assess.

Paola:  So, you’re saying the eight weeks is really to kind of steady people to get comfortable because eight weeks is kind of a long time when you’re suffering. You’re trying to steady us to really give yourself the chance and the opportunity to assess and maybe even sneak past that a little bit.

Joette:  Yes. In the eight weeks, remember now is not for say the watery eyes or the lips that are swelling, absolutely not. We expect that too quickly because that’s an acute. So, I said that’s like a little piccolo.

Paola:  Like an acute presentation of the chronic.

Joette:  Of the chronic condition, absolutely. What we’re looking for in eight weeks is just an overall lifting, a little shift, a little less fatigue during allergy season, a little less bloated, a little bit less itchy. The skin is not quite as bad. If we could pick some patience out of people without them thinking about how much they’ve done before and what’s brought them here and look at this as a fresh, new paradigm, they will probably be happier with what they learn.

Paola:  Right. So, kind of going to the other extreme, do you worry that someone might use a protocol for too long?

Joette:  Yes, I do worry about that because I don’t know who I’m speaking to in these courses or even now for that matter. Are you an 80-year old man? Are you a young, 25-year old mother? Are you a mother with an infant who is sick? I know nothing about you. Are you in the US? Are you in India? Are you in New Zealand? I know nothing about you. So, I would rather be conservative and teach how to really pick it apart and observe at eight weeks than say, alright, green light, go for four months and see how you do. It really needs some overview.

This is why I’m probably one of the few homeopaths that I’m aware of who teaches this kind of stuff because I know why classical homeopaths and other homeopaths won’t teach this because they’re nervous. I don’t blame them. I’m nervous too. I’m worried people are going to make a mistake. I don’t want them to make mistakes. I want homeopathy to be hailed and not the focus of fury. So, I would rather see that we move slowly and judiciously than jump into something and say, “Okay, it can’t be that. Let’s go to the next one.”

Paola:  No, I agree with you because I do have a lot of friends come knocking on my door. They just want me, so tell me real quick, just tell me real quick. I was talking to someone about bladder issues, interstitial cystitis, this is what I had. So, I kind of know plenty about it. Is it okay if I just tried this protocol? My fear isn’t so much that the protocol will hurt you because it’s likely that that won’t happen. But my fear is that you won’t apply it for the appropriate amount of time and then you think it’s not working and then you abandon it. Then all has been lost when it could have been helping.

Joette:  Right.

Paola:  That’s such a huge loss if you think about it. It’s like in the movie when the main character is about to do something right and they don’t realize it and then they give up. You’re like, “God, no!”

Joette:  Right, right, exactly, exactly.

Paola:  It’s so frustrating.

Joette:  Well, I always get the question – I always get a little preface to the question. I have a quick question. Well yeah, the question might be quick but the answer is not so uncomplicated. The answer is pretty in-depth. You might say, “What I can use for tuberculosis?” You know what I mean?

Paola:  Right.

Joette:  So, it might seem so simple. Homeopathy is a very complex medicine. What I’ve tried to do here is I’ve stuck my neck out. To be honest, I really stick my neck out with this information. What I’m trying to do is distill it, make it simple so that families can use this. I don’t guarantee results. I can only tell you what happened for me. I can report what’s happened to others. I can report what I see in Kolkata at the Banerji Homeopathic Research Foundation. I can tell you about the data that they’ve collected over the last 150 years. I think it’s pretty impressive.

Paola:  Right. I think the big issue here is when we talk about it theoretically like we are right now, it seems very logical. Okay well, I’ll just make sure to give it lots of time. But the problem is we’re dealing with humans who have emotions and feelings. It’s like you said a minute ago. Because we’ve suffered so much, sometimes we feel like we’re entitled to a quicker cure but it doesn’t matter.

Joette:  Well, I hear this all the time. I say, “Okay, so how are you doing?” They say, “Well, I’m about the same.” I’m going to be honest with you, not to be critical but people have said that to me. I don’t have anyone in mind but that’s lazy. It is really lazy. Come on.

Paola:  Don’t say that.

Joette:  Tell me what you were like before, although you don’t have to because I have it all written down when I’m working with you one on one. I have point by point, straight from the horse’s mouth. Now, tell me what has changed? Look. I don’t want to make people neurotic and have to write every single thing down but when you say, “Oh, it’s just about the same.” Now, it’s my turn actually to pick at that and say, “Okay.” So, I go back to the notes about those old headaches. This is what I usually hear. “Oh yeah, I know I don’t have those anymore.” Oh, there you go. So, I guess the medicines worked. Okay. “But I’m still pretty much the same.” Then I ask the next question. Okay, so how about the bloating? “Oh yeah, that’s gone.” So now, we’ve got two pegs there on the side of it must have been homeopathy, unless you just took steroids or something.

So, it’s important that we realize that in two-month period of time, those eight weeks, you kind of have to pay attention to where you were, not on a day to day basis but rather at that eight-month juncture. You’ve got to be able to look back. How do you look back if you’re treating yourself or your family? You better take copious notes and assign a number value. On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad was that eczema itching? Oh it was an 8, okay. And how often was it? Every night. Did it keep you up at night? It keeps me up every night. Now, eight weeks later; now tell me, how bad is that eczema itching? Oh, it’s a 6. We’ve gained two points. That’s great because it was 8 and now it’s 6. You don’t say anything yet. You wait. You wait. Okay, so every night, there is itching? No, it doesn’t itch so much anymore at night. It is just a little here and there but it doesn’t keep me up anymore. Now, we know the medicine is acting. When we know the medicine is acting, what do we do? We stay with it.

Paola:  But I have to play devil’s advocate here for a second, Joette. I’ve been in this situation where I’ve been frustrated because we can’t nail down the right remedy. So, I think what you’re saying is that you understand those frustrations but don’t short change homeopathy. And don’t stop observing and seeing what could be happening right now because of those frustrations.

Joette:  Listen. Maybe I’m a little harsh in saying that that’s lazy because I do know that people are suffering. When someone is sick, the last thing they’re thinking of is observational skills, being pragmatic, keeping notes, et cetera. But if you want to really get this, to be honest, you’re going to do this yourself, you have no other choice. Now, if you’re working with a homeopath, it’s different because then, the homeopath is writing everything you’ve said down. Now, we’re comparing notes to what you’re saying now. That’s okay that you’re a little bit lazy about it. But if you’re doing this yourself, for your child, your dog, yourself, whatever, you have to be sharp.

Paola:  Yes. I agree with that because I feel like I have seen people kind of dropped out of school of homeopathy so to speak, drop out before they really gave it a chance. I know they’re missing out on it because like it or not, I have gone so far with homeopathy. We get greedy. We want to be better and better and better.

Joette:  Yes, we do. We do.

Paola:  But for heaven’s sakes, I’ve come so far and you have to realize that this can take you very far.

Joette:  Yes.

Paola:  Let’s go back to allergies. Tell me about a food intolerance story that you have.

Buster’s milk intolerance and Argentum nitricum

Joette:  Yes, I can tell you about Buster, my dog. He writes the blog every once in a while on my side. Buster for quite a while couldn’t drink milk. We would get this beautiful milk from our farmer down the road. It was fresh. It was raw. He would love it. If drink one day, it’d be okay. But by the second or third day, his eyes would get weepy and red. It looked really gross. It was bothersome for him too. At one point, they would get even a little bit raw and itchy. So, we stopped the milk, the symptoms would go away. Then we wait a little longer, we do it again. Milk again. He would drink it for a couple of days, same scenario repeated.

So, we could have just given Buster the life of milk abstinence. No more milk for you mister. This is just for everybody else. But I was getting all this great milk years ago. Sometimes my family didn’t drink at all. So, there are a lot of things I could have done with milk but it was awfully easy just to feed the dog and get his meal taken care of pretty much. I decided I’d just give him the medicine for it. So, I put this medicine, this homeopathic medicine in the milk.

Paola:  Specific. And you mean a homeopathic medicine for the eyes or specific for the food intolerance?

Joette:  No, specific for allergies, for food intolerances. I had started with that. That is our baseline. That’s the string section of the orchestra. Then the piccolo which was really presenting, I’m sure it’s a bigger picture than this. I bet if we continue with the milk, he’ll get probably itching elsewhere or he might get burping. He might get diarrhea, et cetera. But because it presented as his eyes becoming problematic, I gave him Argentum nitricum. I gave that to him specific. So, I gave him both, both the medicine that was specific for food intolerances and another specific for how it presents. There’s the string section and the piccolo. Then once that stopped, the eyes got better then we could reintroduce milk, not necessarily immediately. Sometimes it takes months. Not months of the Argentum nitricum because that usually went away in short order, in a week.

Paola:  Right. That’s what you’re saying.

Joette:  It better go away in a week because the piccolo doesn’t have a big part in the orchestra. It’s only got a couple of little lines here and there. But the string section is the baseline. That is the basis of all of orchestral music. So, we have to eventually correct that so there’s not a cacophony.

Paola:  So, the acute presentation of the chronic tends to go quickly?

Joette:  Yes.

Paola:  Then, we’re talking about that’s the eight weeks.

Joette:  Which is why it worked so well for Tina as she’ll describe in her Moms with Moxie podcast.

Paola:  Yes, exactly.

Joette:  So now, Buster drinks raw milk. It took a couple of years of using the baseline medicine. Every once in a while, I’d give him a little more Argentum nitricum. I don’t say when it comes back again, “Oh no. Homeopathy doesn’t work.” Wait a minute. He’s still been drinking. It is just not perfect yet. He just needs it a little bit longer.

Paola:  Right.

Joette:  Stop chewing in the towel is what I say. Come on. We have to have tenacity here. You have to have persistence when it comes to something as important as uprooting a chronic condition such as allergies.

Paola:  Right. Yes, we tend to oversimplify things in our mind. We want this nice, tidy, uphill climb to feeling better.

Joette:  Well, we want it to be linear and it is not linear. It’s two steps forward and half a step back, four steps forward, three steps back.

Paola:  It’s funny. You’re talking about your dog with milk intolerances. We have a dog that we got this year. He was astray. We started giving him raw milk and he had diarrhea from it. So, I went to your blog. There’s the disasters, dysentery, and diarrhea, I think blog. I gave him the protocol for the diarrhea. I’m thinking now. I think I’m going to go ahead and give him the remedy for that food intolerance.

Joette:  Yes. And see if he can start drinking milk again or for the first time.

Paola:  Very good. So, one of the reasons you haven’t given a lot of specific protocols in this podcast is why, Joette?

Joette:  Well, because it really requires not just, “Here is the protocol, just take it.” Sometimes it can be that simple in homeopathy but not for chronic conditions such as allergies. Allergies are old. I mean in the person, they’re often old. Even for Tina. I mean I do know Tina quite well but I don’t remember whether or not she had no allergies ever at all in her life or if there were no allergies in her family. I suppose it’s possible. I do hear that from time to time. These chronic conditions arise out of a couple of things. One is inheritance. It has to be in the DNA on some level that this person is capable of even getting allergies. Then the second is a stimulation of the inheritance. So, all you need is a couple of rounds of antibiotics for some people. Sometimes it takes two or three years of antibiotics. Sometimes it takes just one little round. Birth control pills, steroids, those are the drugs, those are the catalysts that get the DNA a little wild up and start presenting this or that. Some people’s DNA will present allergies. Others will present heart disease. Others will present rheumatoid arthritis. Others will present all three.

Paola:  Right.

Joette:  So, it takes time but it also takes courage. Aristotle said, “Courage is the greatest of all virtues because it makes all the other virtues possible.”

Paola:  Anyone who’s gone through chronic illness knows that to be patient takes courage. I think it does.

Joette:  I agree.

Paola:  Because it’s scary, it’s scary to kind of stick with it to allow yourself the time to see if it’s helping. But that’s where it is. You said it before to me and I’m sure in the classes that the hard part isn’t to select the remedy but it’s assessing the case. That’s the hard part.

Joette:  That is the hard part. It is. That’s right.

Paola:  Because of the lack of patience that’s in our human nature.

Joette:  That’s right. Well, as Voltaire said, not that I’m looking to quote every one of all but he said, “Tend your garden.” Don’t just expect that you pour seed on the ground and now you’re going to have all the vegetables for the rest of your season. No. You have to tend to that garden. You have to pay attention. You have to wait. There’ll be good days and there’ll be bad days. There’ll be bugs and there’ll be too much rain. There will be drying and there’ll be wetting. So, you have to know how to tend your garden. There’s no other garden more important than yours or your family’s.

Paola:  Yes. Well, thank you so much for your time, Joette. We’re actually recording this kind of late into the night. So, you’re so wonderful. Thank you. I hope you guys know. Joette wakes up early and works into the night on this. We’re so thankful to have you. You’re such a blessing to all of us.

Joette:  Oh Paola, thank you. Well, I feel the same way about you. It’s wonderful to have you running this that I can just hand it over to you. You just kind of pull it altogether for me. So, I have a lot to be thankful with you as well.

Paola:  Alright. Well, let’s go to bed. Thank you so much.

Joette:  Okay. Night all.

Paola:  Bye.

You just listened to a podcast by joettecalabrese.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shared her passion for helping families stay healthy through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Stitcher, and TuneIn radio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. If you liked it, please share it with your friends. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit in your health strategy, visit joettecalabrese.com and schedule a free 15-minute conversation.