Podcast 25 – Moms with Moxie – Meet the Arnica Mom!

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In this podcast, we cover:

04:33 Barb’s introduction to homeopathy and the Arnica basket

14:10 Joette’s influence with Kali carb for asthma

21:09 More Arnica experience: uterine fibroid

24:51 Using remedies on horses and tips on how to administer them

31:51 Childbirth and labor

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 another podcast at joettecalabrese.com. Today, we’ve got a new episode for the Moms with Moxie miniseries.

Joette: All the way from my desk in New York, I get to see how homeopathy is transforming lives all over the globe. Some of my students have really caught my eye. Some of you have done all you can to learn how to cure those around you using homeopathic medicines. Your successes inspire me and they’re glorious and powerful. I can’t keep your successes a secret any longer. So with help from my roving reporter, Paola, we bring you this mini podcast series that I call “Moms with Moxie.” It’s actually grandmoms, too but it’s moms with Moxie. See how regular mothers and others, average people who want to cure those around them have gone from freaking to fabulous with homeopathy.

Paola: Hi. I’m excited to have another “Moms with Moxie” interview. Today, we have Barb Rigelhof, hailing from the state of Washington. Hi, Barb.

Barb: Hi. It’s nice to see you, Paola.

Paola: I know. I’m so glad to be chatting with you. I love doing these little interviews because I want others to see and Joette wants others to see that normal moms, if you study this, you can become pretty awesome. I’m excited to hear your stories. Tell us about how you came to find natural medicine and homeopathy.

Barb: Right. The natural medicines came about because I’m blessed and cursed at the same time that regular medicine doesn’t tend to work on me. I get side effects and no results. At some point, I started looking into natural medicine. I have a science background so I looked at herbs. I looked at sort of everything except homeopathy because homeopathy being energy medicine, so I was kind of woo-woo. And so, being a science snob, I was like, “Oh, that’s just perfect. Whatever.” So I didn’t look at that.

It was when a friend of mine who dragged me to a talk by a homeopath back in Montreal where I’m from, she took me to this talk and this homeopath just blew me away. She had been a nurse for 35 years, and also French-Canadian lady, awesome, awesome speaker. Just what she was talking about just blew me away. So, I started thinking, “Okay. Maybe I do need to look into this homeopathy stuff.” It was in my face all the time. I kept putting it aside. So, I did start working with that. When I started trying it out, it was first on my dog. There’s no placebo effect on animals. That’s one of the things they always talk about with homeopathy. Oh, it’s the full effect.

Paola: Yes.

Barb: Yes. Try telling that to a dog. I don’t think you can convince a dog that what you’re doing is going to help them. They just either get better or they don’t. I had some great results. So then I started using it for myself and this was before I had kids. By the time my kids came along, I was really starting to get much more proficient with it. So, my kids were raised largely with homeopathic remedies.

Paola: Oh, I’m so jealous. That is my dream story, that I found homeopathy before I have my kids, practiced on some animal, got comfortable with it.

Barb: That’s just because I’m older than you, Paola. I found it and then I had my kids. That’s all.

Paola: Well, that’s wonderful, I think. I meet moms even today that have just one tiny baby. I’m like, “Oh, you’re so lucky you met me and I get to share this with you.” So that’s great. I like that you had a science background. It is funny how we just dismiss homeopathy until we realize that maybe we don’t know it all.

Barb: Yes, exactly. Yes, it’s that science indoctrination. Really, we’re not even looking at evidence. We’re just going with what we’ve been told.

Paola: Right.

Barb: We just spoon feed it along and now at some point, you go, “Oh, wait a minute. Well, I actually don’t know anything about this. Maybe there’s something to it.

Paola: Right. I think that’s why people do the herbs and the essential oils first because in our heads, it makes more sense.

Barb: Most allopathic medicines come from herbs or plants or something. We know that. So, using the herbal form is less of the mind shift.

Paola: Right. I think the biggest thing that people need to grasp with homeopathy, just step one is understanding we’re not trying to kill the infection, which a lot of times garlic, herbs, and antibiotics -. I was kind of thinking along those lines. We’re thinking about changing the terrain so that your body can’t host the illness anymore.

Barb: Exactly. We’re not suppressing. We’re actually helping the body to rally its troops and deal with it.

Paola: Tell us what happened with your dog then.

Barb’s introduction to homeopathy and the Arnica basket

Barb: Oh, okay. Yes. So, this was a number of years ago. So my dog, within a space of six months, he had two surgeries. The first one, I didn’t know about homeopathy yet. So, he came back from that surgery. He was in quite a bit of pain. I gave him pain relief. You could see it in the eyes. I saw how he dealt with it. But the second surgery, I knew about homeopathy and I decided to give Arnica a try. So, I had dissolved some Arnica in a dropper bottle. I had that ready with me when I went to pick him up. When I went to pick him up, he was very excited to see me. He was having, it was debulking of a tumor that was on his jaw. So, he smacked his jaw when he saw me. He was so excited. It started bleeding. I could see the pain in his eyes. Blood was gushing everywhere. Fortunately, I had it already. I gave him the drops right away. Literally, within 30 seconds, his eyes cleared and the bleeding stopped. My pet went like, “Wow!” I kept giving him the Arnica and I didn’t have to give him any pain relief medicine. When you know your animal, I mean, I could just tell by his eyes especially having experienced a previous surgery, and just the way it kept everything under control and how quickly he recovered. It was a real eye-opener. That’s when I went, “Okay, this is something.”

Paola: That’s what’s so cool about treating animals and young children or babies is they’re so uninhibited. They will let you know if there’s improvement. You can observe and see that shift so clearly.

Barb: Yes.

Paola: I was teasing you. You are like the Arnica mom. You’ve really found a lot of great uses for Arnica.

Barb: I have. I even have another little story since we last talked. For Thanksgiving, we went to our neighbor’s house. There were few other families there. Everyone was sitting around the table. They went around and said, “Let everyone say what you’re thankful for and also what you’re known for.” So, when it was my turn, I said, “I’m known for BBs,” which I call them Barb’s bombs. It’s these little chocolate, homemade chocolate truffles that I make that I always brought to any of our events, right.

Paola: Oh, yummy!

Barb: So, I was known for those. Everyone was like, “No, you’re like the Arnica.” Anytime we’re injured, you’re on the doorstep with the Arnica and the instructions on what to do.”

Paola: Oh, I love that. You have like an Arnica basket.

Barb: There’d be other remedies too depending on the injury. But yes, I’m known as – and sometimes the kids would come to me and say like, “Barb, I hurt myself. My mom said I could come for some Arnica.”

Paola: Oh, that’s so awesome. They trust you. They know. That’s great. I love that. I know it’s so funny. I think sometimes when I’ve learned homeopathy even more, I get them all jumbled up in my head and sometimes the answer is so simple, Arnica or even Aconite and Arnica.

Barb: Those are certainly for an injury or an emergency because one of the things I love about Arnica is how good it is for shock. It’s amazing for shock or just getting your head straight. I mean, I took it one time when my daughter injured herself. I was fine. But I took it just because she cut the end of her finger and she was really young.

Paola: Oh, my gosh!

Barb: Yes. I’m not squeamish but when it’s your kid, it’s a whole different thing. So, I was feeling faint, just so like, “Oh, my God!” I said to my husband, “I actually took the Arnica before I gave it to her.” It’s a little of that airplane thing where you put the gas mask on first.

Paola: Yes, that’s exactly what I thought.

Barb: I was worried that I was going to be sick.

Paola: Right.

Barb: I got to keep it together so I can help her.

Paola: Yes.

Barb: Yes. It’s a life-saver for so many things.

Paola: That’s awesome. I love that. So, you have how many kids? Tell me what that was like raising them having known homeopathy from the beginning.

Barb: Right. So, I have two children. My oldest is 17. My youngest just turned 14. So, I’ve been doing this for a while.

Paola: Yes.

Barb: You can tell. I got more proficient as I went along. I didn’t have a lot of childhood illnesses. We didn’t have a lot of stuff. But I did have the crying baby and the fevers and all of that. My kids have never had a suppressed fever in their life. They’ve always had their fevers treated homeopathically. I’ve never had an elevated fever for more than 12 hours using homeopathics

Paola: Wow!

Barb: So, I’m not afraid of a fever. I mean, we’re so indoctrinated in this fear of fever. I mean, a fever is a wonderful thing. It’s your body burning up whatever is in its system that shouldn’t be there. So, it’s not something to be afraid of. But if you can help it along and help it do it more effectively and get through the disease more effectively, then great.

Paola: I think that’s such a big thing that Joette has talked about so much. But it seems that I still can’t get away from it no matter how much -. She has blogs and podcasts about fevers. Young moms are still so stressed out by it. I mean, I think it’s coming from three areas. I feel like part of that is because the doctors are, “So, you need to give them Tylenol. You need to give them Tylenol.” Then you fill in the blanks.

Barb: They’re burning up. They could get out of control.

Paola: Right. Then the second thing is I feel like our mothers and grandmothers aren’t passing down that knowledge for whatever reason. Maybe we’ve a lot of doctors who supersede and take over that role for us. Then it’s just that lack of experience. I guess what made you feel comfortable to never ever suppress a fever?

Barb: I think part of it was the gift of having children a bit later than I expected to. I think I watched all my friends go through it. I mean, I had one good friend who had a daughter who, this wasn’t a fever situation. I think she had strep throat or something. This poor little kid ended up on the couch for two months on various antibiotics after antibiotics after antibiotics. She was all of three or four years of age. When you see a listless kid on the couch for a couple of months at that age for something pretty normal, I mean, it’s just an infection, I was mortified. I just said, “This is not the way to treat kids.” You just see that it’s just more and more suppression, suppression, suppression.

I also had an incident myself where I worked at a bank and I got a paper cut on my finger that ended up with some funky herpes virus. So, I ended up with this funky infection on my finger that had to be lanced, opened. Anyway, I took antibiotics for that. Well, after that course of antibiotics, I ended up with a bladder infection. I was given antibiotics for that. Then I ended up with a kidney infection. At some point, I just went, “Okay, so I’m going from one infection to another because I’m going from one set of antibiotics to another.”

Paola: The merry-go-round.

Barb: A pattern. I saw that in myself. I saw it in people around me. I just went, “No, this doesn’t work.”

Paola: So, maybe the takeaway here is observe. Observe those around you that are doing everything that Joette is saying to be careful about.

Barb: Right. When you see people who are preaching all the other stuff, are they really healthy? How well are they doing? Are their kids truly healthy? Are they popping pills all the time?

Paola: Yes, are they propped up?

Barb: Yes, exactly. That’s one of the things that I’m good at. I see the big picture in things. Some people are very good at looking at specific things. I’m not so good at that. It’s hard for me to really focus in on things. I see everything. I’m pretty good at picking up patterns around me. I saw that pattern in so many people and just thought this is not how we go.

Paola: Which is very science-based, observation, kind of referring to your background, I think that’s great. Observation is incredibly powerful. It’s how we’ve come to know a lot of things.

Barb: It’s the first step to any valid science. If you’re not observing stuff, I mean, that’s how you start studying this, observation.

Paola: Back to raising your children with homeopathy, tell me more about that.

Barb: When I was looking at how to best raise my kids, I was so lucky to start it with dogs. It’s less stressful, honestly, when you’re looking at pets first as babies and everything. I learned a lot. This dog that I told you about with the two surgeries, he ended up having cancer. So I started really looking into what’s going on with cancer in dogs because those rates are going through the roof.

Paola: Yes, they are. I heard today, it’s one in every two dogs are going to die from cancer. That’s a lot.

Barb: It’s crazy. It’s crazy. I had a friend, a very good friend who was talking to me about how she was stopping to vaccinate her dogs. I was like, “Really? Why were you doing that?” She said, “Well, they’re showing a link between all these increases and all these medications and everything and all these diseases that are coming forth. There’s a concern that there might be a link between that and cancer or just what it does to the immune system and therefore, more diseases and everything.” I’m not trying to say that vaccines cause cancer but just vaccines will harm your immune system. So then, you’re just going to expect more things to come up, whatever.

Paola: It compromises the immune system.

Barb: Exactly. So I started looking at all of that. It just all came together in a picture for me. It’s not that I won’t do things allopathically but why would you for things that it doesn’t work well in?

Paola: Joette calls this being a consumer of medicine. Like if you’re going to go shopping and you’re a consumer for like an outfit, you’re super critical about how it fits, how it looks, how it feels, the price, everything, the risks, and how much money you’re going to spend, and going to debt or whatever for this if you’re putting it on the credit card. We don’t do that with allopathic medicine and that’s exactly what you did.

Barb: This is the indoctrination that we’ve been given. It’s amazing because when you look around, people are not getting healthier. Certainly, children are not getting healthier.

Paola: Right.

Barb: You want to question what’s going on. It’s not, I mean, the intentions are good but let’s open our eyes and look and decide what we think is best for us and our families.

Paola: Tell us how has Joette influenced your journey because that’s going to be more recent.

Joette’s influence with Kali carb for asthma

Barb: Yes. Well, because of course, when you’re trying to treat your own family, it’s really hard. It’s really hard with your kids. It’s hard, first of all, to really see the picture of what’s going on because you’re influenced by your perceptions. I mean, most doctors don’t treat their own family members either.

Paola: Right. Right. That’s true.

Barb: That’s difficult. It’s also hard too, sometimes when you’re dealing with something that’s a little more chronic to really have the patience to follow it through and know you’re going in the right direction without a fresh set of eyes and they’re saying, “Hey! Yes, this is the right thing.” So, I consulted Joette for my daughter. She had some exercised-induced asthma that was building up. She was playing soccer. She was quite young, just six or seven, probably about seven. She hadn’t been formally diagnosed but I could certainly see. Her color would just get – she’d get very pale and just have a hard time catching her breath. That was starting to get worse and worse. Then eventually, I did take her to my naturopath and she said, “Yes, it looks like she’s developing asthma.”

Paola: It’s just typical at that age. Usually, you don’t get it until about seven or eight. Did she have eczema before?

Barb: A little bit but not bad. I didn’t use cortisone and do all those nasty things that would have made it bad. She had a pretty bad cradle cap as a newborn. Yes, yes, that I remember quite well.

Paola: And Joette says that that can sometimes be food intolerance, a manifestation. Yes.

Barb: Yes, exactly. So we treated her for that. Within about six months, she was just pretty much – it was pretty much better. We just had to give her. Kali carb is the remedy for her which is the one for wheezing and all that kind of stuff.

Paola: What is it, Kali carb 200, every other day?

Barb: Yes.

Paola: Okay, because I know they’re going to want to know, the people, the folks listening.

Barb: Oh, my gosh! She was on a few others because she had a few other things going on. But that was the balm for the wheezing.

Paola: Okay.

Barb: Every now and then, when she’s had a chest cold since then, I’ll still give her a couple of doses because first of all, I mean, it helps clear up the chest cold and just because that seems to be her remedy for anything that goes to her chest. But my daughter does not have exercise-induced asthma. She has no issues now. She is a pretty heavy-duty equestrian right now. So, she trains hard and she has no breathing problems at all. There’s not an herb or a drug out there I think that can do that.

Paola: Wow! That’s amazing

Barb: Yes.

Paola: Oh, just to give her that freedom to live. Oh, that’s great.

Barb: That I could not have done on my own.

Paola: Right.

Barb: I do have some training, not just an independent training but I have a bit of formal training in homeopathy. I would not have been able to follow that through with my own child on my own because I was second guessing myself. I would be just like, “Oh, I don’t think it’s working or now, this has popped up, maybe I need to shift it.” You know, we wouldn’t have gotten there.

Paola: Yes. We are so lucky to be able to have consults with Joette.

Barb: Yes.

Paola: That’s a huge thing. Tell us about your training, your background education with homeopathy and then the shift into the Banerji Protocols because that’s a question that’s been coming up is comparing the difference between the two. So you have classical training. Go ahead.

Barb: Yes. I have a certificate from the British Institute of Homeopathy. I’m not a certified homeopath but I have a certificate in homeopathy. So it’s the first step. I was doing that classical training. That was my first exposure to homeopathy as well. It’s always the classical method. So, you’re looking at one remedy for the problem. You’re taking one dose. You wait a month. Then I had consultations with classical homeopaths. That was always the process is you figure out which is the best match. You take that dose. You go back in a month to see where you’re at, to see if you need to do things differently. It can be of course extremely effective. But if you’re not finding the right remedy, first of all, it’s very time-consuming, taking the case especially for someone like me. I’m an onion with many layers. So, it can be really hard to take the case for me because I have so much stuff. Then other people are a little more cut and dry. But I’ve found some frustration with that. I had some great successes. But I also found, again using it for my family, using it myself was really frustrating because I’m not going to sit down with my kid for an hour and a half and take the case the way a classical homeopath will.

Paola: Right.

Barb: So then, once I started consulting with Joette, she was just starting to get into these protocols. When she started using those, it was just like ding, ding, ding. The light went off. Just having things that are more, you have this situation, well then chances are this protocol will probably work. You don’t have to do this complicated case-taking.

Paola: Yes. It’s practical. It’s practical. Moms want straightforward and practical.

Barb: Especially with treating your own family.

Paola: Yes.

Barb: You need to know if your kid has this, this or this. Well, you know what? Start with this. When it doesn’t work, it’s going to be this and that’s probably going to do it.

Paola: Yes. I love that.

Barb: You don’t have this open book of well, it could be one of a hundred remedies. Let’s see. Do they feel better at night? You go through all of this. Oh, my gosh! It’s so – I hate it.

Paola: Exhausting.

Barb: Yes, exactly.

Paola: Yes.

Barb: I like it. I’m the Arnica lady, right? They tend to be more like Arnica. They’re a little more universal.

Paola: Right, because Arnica is a protocol that a lot of classical homeopaths, whether or not they appreciate it as a protocol, it’s the go-to. With Joette, she’s teaching us the Banerji Protocols and she’s expanding that same mindset.

Barb: Exactly. It also makes sense. I mean, the classical remedies, when homeopathy was first developed, I mean, that was what, 250 years ago now. It was a different world. Things were a lot less complex than they are now. Bodies responded in a different way than they do now. I think you need to modernize, just like medicine has had to be modernized. Any healing modality needs to be modernized as we develop.

Paola: Right and as our illnesses become modern.

Barb: Yes, because they’re more complex.

Paola: They are.

Barb: They’re different. If you get the flu now, it’s not the flu of 250 years ago.

Paola: Right or even out with syphilis, enter Crohn’s, fibromyalgia, colitis.

Barb: Exactly.

Paola: We can’t trick Mother Nature. She finds a way to make us sick. We’ve got to let our bodies evolve with healing.

Barb: Yes.

Paola: Very good. Let’s hear some stories. You’ve told me about your experience with your dog. That was your big introduction to homeopathy with Arnica. I love Arnica for that reason because it’s such a dramatic, it’s a great convert. You know, when someone’s hurt themselves like, “Oh here’s some Arnica.”

Barb: Yes. It works so quickly. It’s amazing.

Paola: Right. Tell us some more stories with Arnica, with homeopathy, whatever you think.

More Arnica experience: uterine fibroid

Barb: I can give you one of my best experiences with Arnica. It wasn’t a great experience but the Arnica really saved my butt, at least. I had a very large fibroid that I did not know about. It decided to prolapse which is basically the birth itself. So, it sort of showed up. I scuttled over to a doctor. We had arranged for surgery. Of course, it was a Friday when I got to the doctor.

Paola: This is a uterine fibroid?

Barb: Yes, uterine fibroid.

Paola: Okay.

Barb: The surgery was scheduled for Monday morning. Well, Sunday night, it decides to detach, 10 o’clock at night. It was like having an artery cut. I was bleeding. I’m sitting in the bathroom bleeding like an artery has been cut. I’m thinking, “Holy crap. What do I do?” Fortunately, my kids and my husband were still up. So I called my kids. My husband was upstairs. I said, “Get the kids to get me my Arnica.” I have, of course, a homeopathy kit that has a 1M Arnica in it. Usually, I keep 200C Arnica in my purse all the time. But I have the 1M and I told them to get me the 1M.

Paola: Right.

Barb: I took Arnica right away because I was worried that I might pass out or I didn’t know how long this bleeding was going to go on. They got my husband. I had to keep my wits about me. I had to call my doctor, all of these. So anyway, long story short, we booted over to the hospital. It was almost a 30-minute drive. But I have my Arnica with me. I kept taking it. By the time we got there, the bleeding had completely stopped.

Paola: Wow.

Barb: And it was amazing because that’s probably the most scared I have ever been personally for myself because I’ve never bled like that. It stopped it very quickly. Within a few minutes, it was under control and within a few more minutes, it was done.

Paola: That’s amazing.

Barb: Yes, it was amazing.

Paola: I can relate. I wrote on Joette’s blog about my miscarriage where I hemorrhaged.

Barb: Oh there you go, yes.

Paola: Arnica was part of that.

Barb: It can literally save your life.

Paola: Yes.

Barb: Yes.

Paola: I was in the hospital still hemorrhaging and they didn’t even know. I guess they weren’t monitoring me. I just had a miscarriage, so I was kind of loopy and not sure. Oh wait. Maybe I shouldn’t be bleeding this much. I wasn’t in the car on the way anymore, so I had a dose behind the doctor’s backs. But, yes.

Barb: Yes, that’s what you do. You kind of sneak it.

Paola: Exactly.

Barb: So that you don’t have to explain. When your mind is messed up, the last thing you need to do is have to explain this to a doctor.

Paola: Defend yourself, right.

Barb: Yes. My husband was dosing me at the hospital when the doctor would leave the room as well.

Paola: You too, okay. Yes. We do that not because we want to lie. It’s because you want to protect the doctor and not get into it.

Barb: Exactly. I mean, how could I talk about it the next morning when I’m out of the danger zone and not feeling so exhausted by the whole process. But yes, that the time sometimes you just got to do what you got to do.

Paola: So, at that point with your fibroid, did you still have to have the surgery to get it removed?

Barb: Yes. But it was very simple surgery because when they prolapsed – I mean if they’re small, they just have to twist. You can just twist them right off. It’s just because it was so large that it had to be surgery in a hospital because of the potential for bleeding.

Paola: Right.

Barb: I have proven at this point that yes, it had a lot of potential for bleeding.

Paola: Right. So it had fully detached or it was just tearing?

Barb: It was tearing.

Paola: Okay, so you had finished it off.

Barb: Yes. They just finished it off. But oh my goodness, I recovered in record time even with having the general anesthetic and everything. I had the surgery on the Monday morning. The Tuesday, I rested. Wednesday, I was on my feet at a horse show with my daughter for the next five days.

Paola: Wow. That’s amazing. I love that story. I’m so glad you’re okay.

Barb: Yes, fine.

Paola: That’s awesome. So horses are kind of big part of your lives. Have you had a chance to use it with?

Using remedies on horses and tips on how to administer them

Barb: I do. Yes, I use it a lot with horses; again, Arnica of course. I’ve used Rhus tox. It’s been great for the aches and pains and that kind of thing because the horses are athletes. I’ve had a lot of success with one of our horses using that. I’ve sort of had to develop a method for administering the homeopathy to the horses because I kind of tried everything. Having always used the glass dropper bottles, that’s what I went to first. Then I switched at once to look for something a little more simple. So, I switched to little spray bottles. Most of the horses are okay with that. They have to get used to something being sprayed near their mouth and some are fine. Some are a little flighty with that. One time fairly recently, I was dosing one of our horses. I just had a dropper bottle with me. So, we’re at a horse show. I’m giving him this little dose.

Paola: Do you put it in his mouth with the dropper bottle?

Barb: Yes. I would put it just in his mouth. I pull the lip out a little bit.

Paola: Okay.

Barb: Sometimes they’re tossing their head around. I would basically just squirt it in there.

Paola: Right.

Barb: But the little devil, he bit the tip off the grass.

Paola: Oh no.

Barb: I just about died because I didn’t know if he swallowed it. I didn’t know if it was in his mouth. I didn’t know. I’m searching in the hay but I mean, needle in a haystack, right.

Paola: Oh my God.

Barb: It was just a little tip. I had visions of surgeries and internal bleeding. I just about died. It turned out he was fine. He must have spat it out. We never found it. He was fine or if he swallowed it, his body took care of it. Whatever happened, I don’t know but he was totally fine.

Paola: Right.

Barb: But that was the end of me with glass around horses and homeopathic remedies. I kind of had a little aha moment when I was drinking out of a water bottle. I thought, “Oh, those little, small water bottles that they have for kids that are about eight ounces instead of the bigger ones.” You just mix up the remedy in one of those. Shake it up. Let it dissolve. They can use a Sharpie to write on it, what it is. I just dose them like that. It’s plastic. If they bite the bottle, it doesn’t matter.

Paola: Then that bottle is permanently assigned to that remedy?

Barb: Yes, exactly. They are disposable. So if you’re at the horse shows or you’re travelling or whatever, I don’t have to worry about taking care of little glass bottles and wrapping them up and everything. I don’t use disposable water bottles as a rule. I try not to but it’s fantastic, I have to say.

Paola: That’s clever.

Barb: I put those in my car. Now, I don’t have to worry about running out of sterilized bottles for remedies and to keep my kit. If you’ve used them a few times then you go like, “Oh gosh, I got to sterilized the bottle or whatever.” I just keep those little water bottles with me and a Sharpie and my remedy kit. I can mix it up right there. Even with some horses when they’re eating, I’ll just toss it on their hay.

Paola: Oh, that’s clever.

Barb: Because you’re not supposed to have them around food. But I think with horses and some other animals, they have such a simple diet. Horses are eating all the time. So, it’s almost impossible to dose them away from food anyway. I think with their very simple diet, I’ve had great success. It seems to work just fine.

Paola: Interesting.

Barb: Yes.

Paola: So with our cow, they’re very different than horses. We are able to spray on her nose. It doesn’t bother her much. But we just have the one and then often what I do is when she’s in distention, I have access underneath her tail because I’ve milked or whatever. I can just lift up the tail and spray under her tail and that works.

Barb: Yes. I’m thinking with the horse, that could be an interesting experience.

Paola: Yes.

Barb: They vary a lot. Some horses are no problem at all. But others are going to hit the roof. You’re never going to get near them again with the spray bottles.

Paola: Yes, that’s probably true. Horses kick backwards, whereas cows don’t. They kick to the side. So, if you’re right behind her, you’re generally safe.

Barb: Yes. It’s just I wouldn’t want to go there with the horses.

Paola: Yes.

Barb: I think my method is I’ll stick to that one.

Paola: Yes, very good. I like that. Oh boy, I don’t want a horse. They’re huge. They’re scary to me.

Barb: Oh, they’re fabulous. But yes, it’s one of those things.

Paola: No, that’s very good tip. I know lot of people that use homeopathy and have horses especially around where we live in Texas. So that’s a very good tip. I like that.

Do you have a specific story of using homeopathy in one of your horses?

Barb: Yes. We have a retired pony that injured herself horribly. She cut her side on this bolt in our yard and ripped her side open down to the ribs. But she’s very stoic. We had no idea anything was wrong. My daughter and I just went to feed them in the evening and she’s standing there. We tossed her a hay, standing there chewing her hay. Then she turned and I see this huge, I mean it was probably at least 10 inches long.

Paola: Oh my gosh.

Barb: Fortunately, it wasn’t bleeding too much. It was still fairly fresh. So, you can imagine, both my daughter and I kind of went into shock. Anyway, I got up the Arnica, gave it to the pony right away. I gave it to us and called the vet. Of course, the vet is over an hour away, so we had to wait. So, I’m just giving her Arnica, Arnica, Arnica and the vet got there. It was several hours later because she was worried about the lung being punctured. It was that nasty a wound.

Paola: Wow.

Barb: So, she had to apply layers of stitching. Anyway, got her all stitched up. Well, that pony healed so quickly. This is an older pony. She’s 23. She healed so quickly and so perfectly from this wound. There was no infection. We didn’t have to do anything else. I mean, it was just amazing. Other than just keep it clean and keep our eye on it, it just healed up beautifully. That was a real saver because it was really extreme. It was a really horrible, horrible wound.

Paola: So, did she end up getting stitched up or having to take antibiotics or anything?

Barb: You know, this was a case where I actually did give her the antibiotics because the wound was fairly fresh but it was probably at least an hour too old. You don’t know what’s in there. I mean, there was some dirt in there. It had to be cleaned.

Paola: Well, it’s in a barn.

Barb: It’s in a barn and it was down to her ribs. This is where you weigh the pros and cons. Allopathic drugs save people’s lives.

Paola: Right, they do.

Barb: This to me was a time when I said, “Okay, you know what, I’m doing the antibiotics.” But I’m using all my homeopathic knowledge to support the healing. With that being so much faster and so much cleaner, I mean it was best case scenario.

Paola: Right. That’s good to know. You can use the homeopathy alongside. They don’t counteract.

Barb: Absolutely. I mean there are times for that. This is what I’ve seen time and time again is anytime we have an injury in our family, whether it’s a pet or a human or whatever, our rate of healing, we’re always sort of the best case scenario.

Paola: Right.

Barb: We heal so quickly and so efficiently.

Paola: That’s wonderful. You had also told me a good story, moving on from horses to humans, about child birth.

Childbirth and labor

Barb: Yes. Oh my goodness, yes. Hypericum is my very good friend. I wasn’t as knowledgeable about homeopathy when I had my first child as I became. But I had a very knowledgeable midwife who was wonderful. I damaged my coccyx quite a few times in my youth.

Paola: Is that your tailbone?

Barb: Yes, it’s the tailbone. That is what ended up causing me the biggest problems in my first labor. I had horrible pain in my tailbone. It was worse than the actual labor pains and I had fully natural labor. So the Hypericum was what actually really saved me in that case because that’s what allowed me to just be able to get through that pain. I would not have known what do. I was very fortunate to have a midwife who knew her remedies.

Paola: Oh how lucky.

Barb: It was Hypericum. It’s in 200C and she just kept dosing me. I was able to get through it. I was so pleased because I did not, I definitely didn’t want to end up going to any of the drugs. As someone who’s had a lot of back issues, my big concern with an epidural is then you end up (I mean, my theories) giving birth in positions you wouldn’t necessarily give birth in if you could feel it.

Paola: Right.

Barb: You end up doing some damage. So, I was really worried about. I didn’t want to mask any pain because of my back.

Paola: I never thought of that. That’s a very good point because you might get into a safer position.

Barb: Yes.

Paola: Wow. It can cause that problem, interesting. I never thought about. You see, I had epidurals with all three of my births. People always apologized to me like, “Oh well, I did an epidural.” Hey, listen. Homeopathy didn’t come until after I had all my three children.

Barb: The other thing too is if you don’t have someone who’s skilled supporting you. If you’ve got a doctor and you’re trying to do it naturally and your doctor only knows allopathic medicine and you’re having a hard time, you need support.

Paola: Yes.

Barb: One thing about childbirth, you need support. So when you have someone who’s really knowledgeable with the alternatives supporting you because you can’t and even if I knew what I knew now, I don’t think I could have done it for myself. It was extreme. I just wanted to run away from this pain. It was so painful. It wasn’t the labor pain. It was that different.

Paola: It’s the pressure on that bone.

Barb: Yes. It was excruciating. To have someone who could just really support me through that made all the difference and the right remedies. Women should never be hard on themselves about labor.

Paola: You did it. Good job.

Barb: You do what you got to do. That’s why you need to surround yourself with the right people.

Paola: Right. That’s very good. I love that.

Barb: It’s a support group. So, you need the right support people.

Paola: I like that very good takeaway. What about your husband? Has he used homeopathy? How does he feel about it?

Barb: Oh yes, especially, of course Arnica. He’s an avid cyclist. He was in a cycling accident one time. He was with a group of people and they all kind of went down. He ended up really kind of crushing his collarbone. It was just a nasty fracture. They actually ended up taking him away in an ambulance because they were worried about his neck. I don’t know what’s the problem with his neck but it was just such a nasty fracture. They just wanted to stabilize him. But I got the distress call as soon as the fall happened. They give me, “Come and pick me up and bring the Arnica!”

Paola: Oh I love it.

Barb: I would load him with Arnica. All the guys got the Arnica. He didn’t want to take any pain meds. He just wanted his Arnica. Actually, I had to force him to take one dose of pain meds because he was in so much pain.

Paola: Did they have to set the collarbone?

Barb: They didn’t set it. I’m trying to remember it. It’s a few years ago now. I’m not quite sure what they did with him but he did have to go see a surgeon, an orthopedic surgeon. He didn’t have to have surgery. It’s because of an old injury that he had where he had a really strong ligament that held his collarbone on so strong. That’s why it actually ended up being a worse fracture. It had been added to his old injury that had made his ligaments so strong. Anyway, I filled him up with all kinds of remedies and his supplements and everything. He made a supersonic recovery, yet again, but the Arnica got him through that point of dealing with all of that.

Paola: You really are the Arnica mom.

Barb: I am. Thanksgiving really brought it home when everyone was like, “No, you’re the Arnica.” I was like, “Oh, I am.”

Paola: For the chocolate, the chocolate balls.

Barb: Yes.

Paola: Do you just use Arnica?

Barb: No, no, no. I use all kinds of stuff. Well, I like another story of my son when he was young. He didn’t have a lot of fevers as a young kid which actually worried me because I was worried that his immune system wasn’t kicking in. He would get these low-grade sicknesses where he’d just be hot but it never got this big. Well, when he got his first really good fever, he was five. It was a Belladonna fever. I was so excited. He had the eyes. He had the flushed cheeks. I was like, “It’s a Belladonna fever.” I’m so excited. So, I treated him with this Belladonna. He got through it beautifully. I’ve got 150 remedies, at least, in my little drawers. I use all the kinds of stuff. But I guess it’s just the Arnica, when it’s an injury, it’s the first thing I go to.

Paola: Yes, easy.

Barb: So, you can figure out what else you need. Of course, as you’re healing, different remedies will support the healing process if it’s bone or you know.

Paola: I was thinking for your husband’s collar. You probably used Symphytum.

Barb: Oh, absolutely.

Paola: That’s a great one for healing bones that have been broken. But it’s really important that they’re set. You have to have the bone set first before you start that one.

Barb: Yes, because it’s going to start knitting together. So, if the bones are in the wrong spot, you’re going to start healing it all off.

Paola: Yes. Then they’ll have to re-break it and then set it again. Oh don’t even, that would be awful.

Barb: No, exactly.

Paola: Thank you Barb for chatting with me and telling me you Arnica stories and your horse stories and all of you thoughts. It’s so helpful to hear from a seasoned mom who’s been there and done that. You know Joette is not the only one. We can aspire to go out to be like you.

Barb: I don’t know. I think you probably have a lot more knowledge. You seem to have a lot more knowledge than I had at your age. You probably have a lot of knowledge in there. We all have our own leg paths and we learn about the stuff we learn about.

Paola: That’s exactly right. That’s thanks to Joette, thank you Joette.

Barb: Yes, Joette’s wonderful.

Paola: Thank you for joining me today.

Barb: Thank you so much, Paola. I really appreciate the opportunity to chat about homeopathy.

Paola: No problem. We hope to have another “Moms with Moxie” coming out soon. So stay tuned to Joette’s podcast. Thanks.

Joette: Are you or someone you know a Mom with Moxie? Well, we’re on the hunt for you. Of course, we don’t want to hear just from moms but from anyone who uses and loves homeopathy. Reach out to my podcast team and let us know why you’re a Mom with Moxie. For more information, contact podcast@joettecalabrese.com.

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.

Many of the homeopathic medicines referenced in this transcript can be found at https://shop.boironusa.com/. Enter the coupon code “joette” at checkout and you will receive a 20% discount on your purchase.