Podcast 26 – Chicken without a Head

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In this podcast, we cover:

05:23 Facing fears through education

11:55 Sticking with the chosen remedies and respecting the protocols

20:40 Being organized, consistent, and having distance

25:47 Homeopathy is relatively safe

29:56 Classical training and combination remedies

36:10 A case of suppression

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 number 26 at joettecalabrese.com. Here is what we have coming up.

Hi, it’s Paola here. I’m really looking forward to Joette’s podcast today. We’re going to look at two important subjects. The first one looks at selecting a remedy and learning how to commit to that remedy. In other words, we’re trying to avoid running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Then the second subject we’re going to talk about is really important. It looks at whether or not Joette’s practical homeopathy, the Banerji Protocols and other protocols like that, whether or not they are safe when you compare them to classical homeopathy. This is an important subject because you really want to be confident and comfortable when you’re doing Joette’s style of homeopathy.

Okay, so here we go.

Hi. I’m excited to be here with Joette again. Hi, Joette. How are you?

Joette: Hi Paola, very well. How about you?

Paola: Good, good, and good. Alright, so we’ve got another podcast today for you guys, another homeopathy nugget that we’re going to learn and discuss today. Today’s subject is running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I think it’s Lara that first coined that term in one of the classes.

Lara is the gal that Joette teaches the classes with. So, go ahead and jump into that, Joette. What does Lara mean by that?

Joette: Well, I think what she’s talking about, I think this is what we’ve all been subject to especially as mothers and grandmothers is that we try a homeopathic medicine, or we try a certain food, or we try whatever modality we’ve decided we’re going to start with and we don’t see instant relief.

Say it’s our child. Because we’re so closely connected to our children and grandchildren, we can’t help but want instant relief. It’s horrible to see our children suffer.

So, we want something to happen now. Instead of waiting the prescribed certain amount of time for a homeopathic medicine to act, we say, “Well, maybe it wasn’t that.” We second guess ourselves. “Maybe it really wasn’t Hepar sulph. What if I was wrong?

What if it really was Arsenicum album?” So then, we go to Arsenicum album. We never gave Hepar sulph a chance. Let’s talk about it as an acute situation. So, let’s say for sore throat. So, we automatically go to for example, Hepar sulph, which is a very good choice for many kinds of sore throats.

If we don’t see a reaction, we think, “Uh-oh, we’re doomed. We got to go to something else.” We say, “Okay, I can’t stand it. The child is crying.” Here’s what I urge mothers, grandmothers, parents to do. Take a chill pill. Calm down.

Paola: By chill pill, you mean probably an Ignatia, right?

Joette: Probably. I’m giving it to you rhetorically. Take a chill pill. Calm down. If the child is not dying, if they’re not hemorrhaging, you’re not rushing on the way to the hospital, and all it is is a sore throat or an ear pain or teething, or sleeplessness.

I realize how horrible these can be on a family when somebody in that family is not well or they’re out of sorts. But you have to learn how to assess what is really dangerous and what is not. I harken back to Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, his book, How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor. He was not a homeopath. He was a pediatrician. He died some couple of decades ago.

Buy his book. I repeat this book all the time because this is where you get your guts, spunk and moxie or another way of putting it, of calming down over every little thing the child has.

Let me bring it in from my counter perspective. Have more kids because if you only have one, every little thing is a catastrophe. I see it all the time. I know how it was for me when I had one child. The more kids I had, the more it rolled off the back of my back.

Because it was something that I’d seen enough times now, croup didn’t scare me anymore. Ear infection didn’t frighten me. Teething didn’t freak me. I got accustomed to it. But if you don’t have the advantages of having more than one child, then by all means, you want to read Robert Mendelsohn’s book. I don’t mean once. Keep it by your bedside. Read it time and time again.

Because if you are freaking and you’re acting like a chicken with its head cut off, you’re going to make poor decisions. Your decisions will be made out of fear. You will jump from remedy to remedy, modality to modality. In the end, you’ll have a mishmash. In Italian, it’s called a [0:05:00], a mess.

Paola: Right. Well, there’s a little quote here that I pulled up real quick by Eleanor Roosevelt. She said, “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along. ‘”

Facing fears through education

Joette: Well and as Dr. Mendelsohn says, “The danger to children is not in childhood diseases.” Not anymore, we don’t have polio anymore in our world. We don’t have cholera anymore. We don’t have tuberculosis. I’m not saying we never have it at all ever. But I’m saying it’s not a looming threat.

What is a threat to most children’s wellbeing are accidents. So, it’s the accidents that cause the most devastating of all conditions that can happen during childhood.

So, if you understand and you read in advance what chicken pox looks like and what to expect, if you know what a cough looks like and you read in advance and you learn some of these methods, homeopathic methods, using good nutrition, taking soda pop out of their lives at an early age so that they’re not saturated with something that does them no good and can even do some harm sometimes.

So, you want to educate yourself. We have to do that. The only way to address fear face on is education.

Paola: You’re right. I mean, I think the thing that I read into the most when I’m helping friends with homeopathy is a huge, huge amount of fear with fevers. But if you read Dr. Mendelsohn’s book, he lays it out right there. Keep him hydrated, you’re going to be fine.

I mean, that’s what it comes down to. My daughter had a fever this week. I didn’t even give her homeopathy until later when I saw, oh, she’s kind of getting an ear infection. So then I gave her Pulsatilla which is actually a Banerji Protocol, Pulsatilla 30 for the ear infection, Chamomilla 30 every 30 minutes when there’s SOS, acute pain.

But her ear infection never got that bad. She was just kind of like I feel something in my ear. So we did the Pulsatilla.

Anyway, it’s that knowledge in keeping them hydrated and that’s all you got to know. I remember the first time my kid had a fever, my little middle child loves fevers of 105, Joette, 105. I had diarrhea. I was so stressed out about it. I was taking Ignatia. I even think I took Gelsemium because of the diarrhea, anxiety.

Now, after I’ve got through that first 105, the second one was a little scary but it was fine. I didn’t do Tylenol. I just kept him hydrated. I was reading Dr. Mendelsohn’s book like it was my bible. Now, I’m just like, “Oh cool, you have a fever. Just go drink some water and lie down.” I even gave him a remedy.

Joette: Yes, right, exactly, exactly. So, when we say read Dr. Mendelsohn’s book or read the blog that you get that from, from me or from whomever else it might be, don’t just read it and say, “Okay, well that’s the information.” And assume that it’s stuck in your brain. If you’re freaking, you better underline that in that book.

Now, put a paper clip or a little tab on that page in that book and go back to it and read it again and again and again.

Paola: I give that book at baby showers. If one’s having a baby, I give them Dr. Mendelsohn’s book. It’s used. I write them a little note in there, “You’re welcome.”

Joette: Yes. Great gift, Paola.

Paola: Thanks. Yes, I like that one.

Joette: I’ve written an article called Get Your Kids High. So if you want to just Google that, I talk about fevers and the importance of fevers being a curative aspect of being sick for children.

Paola: You’ve actually spoken a lot about fevers, not just in that Get Your Kids High. I think even before you started doing the Banerji Protocols. That was one of your biggest things. So, I remember my friend’s daughter had a fever. She actually went to medical school. Not complete, because she realized that it was basically selling drug school, not so much medical school. So, she quit.

But she inherently feared fevers. I think it was part of her education. I remember she was freaking out one night about her kid’s fever. I just sent her three articles written by Joette Calabrese on fevers, fevers, fevers. She said she read those articles over and over again that weekend.

It just helped calm her down. She got through it for the first time without any Tylenol. Now, she’s so much more comfortable with it.

Joette: Here’s the thing. I wonder if doctors, pediatricians believe that children should be given Tylenol for fevers nowadays because the American Academy of Pediatrics says -.

Paola: Finally.

Joette: Yes, finally. It’s taken a long time. They have declared, I think it was about two years ago, that fevers are curative or they can be curative.

Perhaps, they’re more careful about their verbiage. They have made it, I think, abundantly clear that it’s the mother who’s forcing the pediatrician to give something. Now, they’re blaming the mothers but I’m going to take the blame off the mothers. Even though I do believe that we, mothers need to get a grip and learn how to treat our children ourselves without running to the pediatrician for every little thing.

But I believe that the reason that mothers do that is because they’ve been trained by the pediatricians to go to them when their children have fevers. What do the doctors always give? Tylenol. What did they give in years past? Aspirin. So they’ve been training mothers and grandmothers and even older than that to go to the doctors.

As soon as there’s a problem, just go to your doctor. He’ll know what to do. That’s what was done. Yes, the mothers are asking for it now but it’s only because they’ve been well-trained.

Paola: Right, right. I think that’s what I like even about the Essential Oil’s Movement aside from the fact that they’re useful is because it’s finally given moms something to busy themselves with.

Joette: Yes.

Paola: Just let the people know.

Joette: Absolutely, absolutely.

Paola: Keep them hydrated. I feel like we’ve kind of gotten off on a tangent about fevers but it really does relate to running around like a chicken with the head cut off. So, if your kid is burning a fever, we’re talking about an acute illness right now. But this will apply to chronics in a minute.

You don’t give them, oh it’s a fever of 102, Belladonna, Belladonna. Oh wait, shoot, shoot, shoot, I shouldn’t have been using Belladonna. That’s not high enough of a fever for Belladonna. So, I’m going to go to Ferr phos, two doses of Ferr phos.

Oh, but she’s really, really clingy and whiny and whimpering and wants me to hold her. So, I’m going to switch to Pulsatilla now. It was like I’ve heard of people doing five remedies in one day, Joette, for an acute. I’m like, “No.”

Sticking with the chosen remedies and respecting the protocols

Joette: Stick with it. Make your decision and stick with it. At least give four doses when it’s an acute.

Paola: Yes, we say three to five in the study group classes. Yes, at least four doses. I think that’s important. People will come to me a lot of times. I’m sure you get this too. My kid is sick. I started them on Hepar sulph, whatever reasoning they came to Hepar sulph. I started them this morning on Hepar sulph. Do you think I’m right? Should I switch to

Do you think I’m right? Should I switch to Pulsatilla or whatever? My answer is always no. You started it. So now, we’re going to stick with it. We got to get to those three to five doses and see what happens. Is that right?

Joette: Generally speaking, I would say it’s right unless the child’s much, much worse. Every time you give the Hepar sulph, the child gets worse than ever then you might want to question it. But you want at least what was your rationale. Did it go away? Is the child different now or is your thinking different?

Paola: What if the child’s exactly the same? No better, no worse, they’re just the same?

Joette: Keep going. Keep going. Stay with it. Stay with it. You got to give that homeopathic a chance to act. It’s not like aspirin where you’ve taken aspirin for a headache and it goes away. It can be like that. I have seen it act like that. But if it doesn’t, give the homeopathic a chance to fully act. It could take several doses to do that.

Paola: Going back to the subject of fevers, I have to tell people, this remedy isn’t going to make the fever go away. So don’t expect that. Very new people to homeopathy, the child has a fever of 104 and they’ve given two doses of Belladonna. The fever is still here. Well, it’s not Tylenol. This is going to usher, assist the fever to complete the illness.

Joette: Yes, but it can abort the fever. It can do that. Yes, yes.

Paola: But that shouldn’t be the expectation?

Joette: That’s not the goal. We’re not trying to necessarily, for an acute childhood illness, we’re not necessarily trying to get rid of a fever. We’re trying to get the child well because the fever is just a symptom. It’s not the disease. We don’t say the child, actually, we do say that in our society.

Oh my gosh. He (I love this term) spiked a fever. You have to emphasize these words because it’s talk that emphasizes – the importance of the word spike. Spiking a fever is a very positive thing in most circumstances for childhood illness. We want that fever to cook it off.

Paola: We should say he bloomed a fever. I hate to cut that emotional -.

Joette: Yes, blossomed.

Paola: Right, blossomed a fever.

Joette: Yes, blossomed a curative symptom. Oh what symptom is that? Oh the fever. That is a part of the curative action.

Paola: If you think it’s just about the wording we’re using, that is really the problem because it ignites fear. So, connotation is the emotional undertones that are associated with the word. Slender is better than scrawny, right?

Joette: Yes, right.

Paola: I would prefer to be called slender, not scrawny. We need to think of fever -.

Joette: [0:15:09] as you’re obese.

Paola: Right. Voluptuous, right, exactly.

Joette: Voluptuous, right? Ample.

Paola: So, we just need to change our rhetoric. What did you say?

Joette: Ample.

Paola: Oh yes, very good. I like that.

Joette: We could keep going with this.

Paola: So, when we talk about normal childhood illness, change the way you think of it.

Joette: We do use common sense but the problem is common sense has been distorted. So we have to rearrange that thinking. We have to adjust our thinking. This is new for a lot of people. This is a different way of thinking. You can’t just say, “I think I’ll think differently.”

No, no, no, no, no. You have to educate yourself with this kind of thinking. You better read. You better study. You better learn. Start with Dr. Robert Mendelsohn and go from there. Read these blogs that I put out that are free. Take courses. Get more books.

Paola: As you pick your remedy, stick to it unless they’re worst.

Joette: On the full, three to five doses over the prescribed period of time.

Paola: Yes, exactly. Sometimes that takes a lot of fortitude to stick with it.

Joette: Oh, you have to be a cowgirl.

Paola: Yes.

Joette: You have to be able to buck the system. You’ve got to be able to lasso that cow and bring her down. You’ve got to have guts, spunk, and moxie back again.

Paola: In this case, cow is fear. The cow is your fear.

Joette: Yes, that’s right. That’s right.

Paola: Yes, and it is a wrestle school.

Joette: That’s kind of coyote medicine.

Paola: Right. I like it. It’s true. It does take guts. Oftentimes, people who I see that don’t follow through with protocols or succumb to the antibiotics, sometimes there’s a good reason for it.

Joette: Yes. I also want to make that clear too, Paola. That there are certainly are times in which we use conventional medicine. If you absolutely don’t know what to do and it looks dangerous, of course, you get yourself to a doctor. Let’s not be foolish here.

Paola: Right. If you want a full discussion on that, listen to the podcast on discernment that Joette and I had because we do want you to have that discernment. But basically we’re saying, I find that people that do what I thought maybe wasn’t so serious, it’s because they haven’t wrangled their fear and taken control over it.

Running around with a chicken with your head cut off is a fear-based, knee-jerk action trying to do it and you’re doing it wrong.

Joette: Well and I’ve also seen many parents and people for themselves as well go from doctor to doctor to doctor to doctor to doctor, modality to modality, naturopath, and chiropractor, and acupuncturist, and conventional doctor, and functional doctor, and homeopath.

They’re just going all over the place desperately looking for a method that’s going to cure them. I believe that if you stay in one modality, you’ll probably find some good answers.

They’re just going all over the place desperately looking for a method that’s going to cure them. I believe that if you stay in one modality, you’ll probably find some good answers.

Paola: Right. Okay, really what we’re talking about here by not jumping from one remedy to another remedy especially when you’re dealing with protocols for an illness is respecting the protocols.

Joette: I love that word. Yes. Because if you’re saying, if you have a little classical homeopathy training, “Well, but my child really seems more like Phosphorous because he’s sparkling. He’s got a twinkle in his eye. He’s artistic. I don’t think I want to use that protocol.

I’m just going to throw Phosphorous in there. I don’t think that my child can handle a 200 potency even though the Banerjis say to use a 200. I think I’m going to use a 30.” I would urge people not to do that.

When you say we should be respecting these Banerji Protocols, it’s based on knowledge of these doctors, the Banerjis and their colleagues seeing 100 patients per day. There are 12 of them that are working in this clinic. That means there are 1200 patients per day.

At the end of the week, they’ve seen over 7000 per week. They’ve been doing this approximately. They’ve been seeing this many for 150 years collectively.

Paola: Yes, six days a week, yes. Do you know what this reminds me of? I have always had this keen awareness when I was a young mom, pregnant with my first baby. I have this awesome mother in law. My mom is awesome too. My mother in law has had 10 children.

Boy, that’s like a weight. That’s like a knowledge and life experience that I know I don’t have. So when she would give me advice, I was really careful to listen to her advice because I knew where she was coming from. I knew that she had information.

But then I see some of my other friends dismiss the advice like, “Oh no. I know better.” I look at them. You just have like one kid. We have mother’s intuition. I respect that too. But look at all the knowledge.

Joette: The data, just the data.

Paola: Of our grandmothers that we’re dismissing here, of our mothers.

Joette: Yes, that’s 10 children everyday for all those years. Your mother in law, it sounds to me from what you’ve told me, had a lot of innate knowledge.

Paola: Yes, she did. I just think, “Don’t be naïve.” That’s embarrassing. 10 years from now, you’re going to be embarrassed. Don’t be naïve to not respect the protocols.

Joette: Right, right.

Being organized, consistent, and having distance

Paola: Then another aspect that’s important about this not avoiding, running around like you’re a chicken with the head cut off is being organized and consistent.

Joette: That requires writing down what you see, what you saw when it started. When your child started getting the fever, what time of the day was it? What remedy you chose, what you observed. It was a fever plus diarrhea. How frequently were the movements?

How severe was the diarrhea? Was it loose stool or was it explosive and watery? Those are things that you will forget especially if you see three children and they’re all getting sick. Who had what when? So you want to jot it down. Now, you don’t want to jot down absolutely every little thing but those that are noteworthy should be noted.

Paola: I tell people your magic markers podcast. We talk about the magic markers of improvement. We have intensity, duration, and frequency. If you don’t know what to write down, I think those are three things that you want to write down.

Joette: That’s right. I think in being organized and consistent is also having distance. That’s a part of this. When your child is hanging on you and saying, “Mom, mom, mom, I’m still not well. Mom, mom, I’m still coughing,” or your husband is saying, “What are you going to do about this?

Come on. Let’s do something,” you have to have enough staying power and being grounded enough to say it requires time, a tincture of time. It takes time for these medicines to act. Don’t expect me to just run my magic wand over them and correct everything within minutes.

It takes some distance. You almost have to shut off your emotions for a while until you can see what’s happening. So you can get enough. Because if you are helping a friend and you don’t have that child screaming in your lap or the father who is saying, “Come on, come one,” and you have enough distance, you have the wherewithal. That’s what you need in your own family sometimes.

Paola: So, it’s learning how to be objective and detached. I can’t tell you how many times. I’ve talked to friends all the time. No, do the remedy that you started with three to five doses. Report back. Take notes if you have to. When I’m in the middle of a crisis in my own home, this helps me tremendously. I have to tell myself, “Okay, what would I tell them if I were them?”

Yes, that really, really does help. Well, this is what I would say. Sometimes I’ll say if I’m freaking out and I’ll say I’m going to email Joette or call the office and see if she has a quick minute. But then I have to tell myself, “What is she going to tell me?”

I already know what she’s going to tell me. She’s going to tell me to stick with it or be patient. So then I’m like, “Okay, well then I don’t have to call her.” I don’t. I don’t call you all the time. But it’s this human instinct to help me. Fix me.

Joette: Help, help, someone, help, help. If you’re going to take this on and you want to learn how to cure your family yourself, then you have to have the guts to hold steady.

Paola: I think that’s exactly right.

Joette: Also know, let me mention again just to emphasize this, also know when it’s something that’s outside of your knowledge and when to get to a doctor or a hospital or a clinic. You also have to know that too.

Paola: Right. That goes back again to that discernment podcast which is so important. Then you gave us some rules when we’re treating chronic conditions, we’re going to touch into that just very briefly but allowing, we say in acute, three to five doses; well then in a chronic, you got to give those eight full weeks.

Joette: Six to eight weeks, that’s right, six to eight weeks.

Paola: And watch. Don’t watch the hourly changes of a chronic illness. Don’t let yourself do that. Distance yourself and allow those eight weeks.

Joette: That’s right. Well, people often tell me between appointments, “I just want to give you an update.” Well, no. The update is in six to eight weeks unless there’s a crisis. Now if there’s a crisis, by all means, we may have to make adjustments. What oftentimes people are saying, “Well now, the itching is not so severe. Does that mean the remedy’s not working?” Well, possibly.

Paola: I hope so.

Joette: Yes, it might be that the child wasn’t exposed to as much mold recently. So, we won’t know until we have that time so that we can observe from a distance.

Paola: Especially in the case of women, we have our hormone, our monthly cycle. That throws a rant into a lot of stuff. Well, part of the month you’re better and part of the month you’re worse. You don’t know until six weeks to eight weeks covers 1 ½ maybe even two cycles.

Joette: Right, exactly, exactly.

Paola: That’s important. Kind of shifting subjects a little bit, Joette. We have a little time and I want to jump into it. I have seen a lot of the discussion out there about classical homeopathy versus the protocols and saying and word of mouth that the protocols can actually suppress symptoms in the way that antibiotics suppress symptoms or drugs can suppress symptoms.

Let’s talk about that because that’s a really scary statement to think that our beloved homeopathy could be doing damage.

Homeopathy is relatively safe

Joette: Well, let’s start with this. Homeopathy is relatively safe. You can make a mess of things with homeopathy. There’s no doubt about it.

That’s why I’m so clear when I try to teach these protocols that you understand what you’re getting into and what you’re doing and how to use them and when to stop. So, I hope that I make it clear. I believe I am. People come back and ask me questions. I can see that they do understand. But if I have not, allow me to do so here.

It is very important that the protocols be followed precisely if you’re going to be using protocols. If someone takes a homeopathic medicine and it is incorrect, you’re taking it for eczema and what it really is, I don’t know, lupus.

You start taking these medicines and you take them and take them and take them and you insist that this must be eczema. Then the remedy may indeed cause what it was intended to correct. You may end up with eczema. So now, you have lupus and eczema or other conditions that could be brought out by using the incorrect medicine.

But that’s not, I believe, what the classicals who criticize the Banerji Protocols are saying. I believe what they’re saying -. Go ahead.

Paola: I just want to interject real quick. It goes back to something we talked about in our last podcast. That is the protocols are like recipes but you can still mess up a recipe if you read it wrong or someone tells you the recipe wrong.

So, that’s why I’m so adamant about telling people on Facebook who are sharing protocols, even in the Students of Joette Calabrese Facebook, you really want to take the courses yourself and know those protocols for yourself. Because you don’t want to get the protocol wrong or interpret the recipe wrong because homeopathy is relatively safe.

Joette: It’s medicine. It’s medicine. It’s not herbs. It’s not vitamins. It’s not supplements. It’s not essential oils. It is medicine. So, it has to be taken with a great more respect. So, what I’m hearing sometimes is that if you repeat a medicine daily that that can suppress. I couldn’t disagree more. That’s number one.

Paola: I think that’s great. That’s great news, yes.

Joette: I couldn’t disagree more because I see the outcome. The Banerjis have seen the outcomes of using them frequently. I also saw the outcome when I was a classical homeopath and I used homeopathic medicines.

I would give a dose and wait six weeks or give two doses in 24 hours or a third dose in 36 hours and then wait and wait and wait and wait. There were times when it was perfectly clear to me that it was important to repeat it. But my education told me not to repeat it.

So, what the Banerjis have done is given me permission. They’ve opened up my world and the world of many homeopaths, I believe throughout the world to yes, use it more frequently because it needs to be met with a condition more frequently.

Because if we wait too long, the condition starts to clear up for a little while and now, we wait week 4, week 5. It starts to come back again. Week 6, holy cow, here it comes back again. I got to wait until week 8, that’s classical. I got to wait until week 8 or even week 6.

Now, you can give it again. Holy cow, who’s going to wait that long? Who’s got that kind of time? We live in a fast paced world. People don’t want to wait for things to unfold. Indeed, it may work. It does work. Classical homeopathy is a beautiful medicine but it often takes too long and we have such a better method by using these homeopathics in greater frequency.

Classical training and combination remedies

Now, that also harkens back to companies such as Hyland’s Homeopathics or Boiron or Washington or Hahnemann Pharmacy, Helios, that manufacture combination remedies. I had been trained when I was trained classically many years ago, don’t ever use combination remedies.

Well, that’s great. But what that does is it keeps a huge segment of the population out of using homeopathy. I abhor that. It means that curing and the ability to correct disease then can only be in the hands of classical homeopaths. Well, good luck folks.

There aren’t very many, number one. Number two, they often don’t share the information. They don’t tell you what they’re giving you. They make it a kind of medicine that is only within the hands of a few. I don’t like that kind of thinking.

Paola: Well, it’s interesting. I have been to a classical homeopath before working with you, Joette. He’s a great homeopath. I think he’s done a lot of good in the world. But he wouldn’t tell me the remedy that he wanted to give me.

Joette: That’s very common in classical.

Paola: It kind of goes back, I think, to what you’re saying. Am I right?

Joette: Yes, that’s exactly what we’re talking about. It’s keeping it so close to the vest that no one learns it. Well, I hate to say it but I believe that there are classical homeopaths out there who don’t want people to learn it. They believe it’s dangerous.

I think in some instances, that’s an excuse because there is a lot that we can teach families how to use homeopathy. There’s a lot that we can get out there. If we keep it so close to the vest, it will never blossom the way it needs to blossom. I believe this belongs in the hands of the families.

Paola: Perhaps it also comes down to every homeopath might be a good homeopath but they’re not necessarily good teachers. That’s a burden too.

Joette: I’m a mother first. I was a mother first. Then I became a homeopath. I can’t wait until someday I become a grandmother because this is what needs to be in every single family. Every mother and grandmother needs to know what Arnica is used for.

They need to know how to use Hypericum. They need to know how to use Belladonna and Antimonium crud. If they don’t know how to do this then what normally happens is they go directly to the conventional doctor and get suppressive methods. If they happen to have a classical homeopath by their side, great, but what if they don’t?

Paola: Right. That’s most of us.

Joette: What if the homeopath chooses incorrectly. Yu got to wait six to eight weeks to find out. No, no, no, no, no. We need to know how to do this ourselves. So, what I like about the combination remedies that are available at Wal-Mart – hello, shouldn’t it be at Wal-Mart?

Why should it not be at Wal-Mart? What is this, esoteric? This is only for the upper echelon of education? Absolutely not. This is for everyone to use. So if a mother goes into Wal-Mart and says, “Gee, what can I use for my child’s teething or for sleeplessness or my husband’s leg cramp?”

There’s a product that says homeopathic leg cramps. What do you know? Why should we discourage her from using this? Because number one, it’s inexpensive.

Number two, it’s readily available. Number three and most importantly, slam dunk, it usually works. If we can give them a medicine that works instead of pain relievers for her husband’s leg cramps, we are 50 legs up on where they were before they started this. We need to give this message to the world.

Paola: It’s really about empowering families, I think.

Joette: Absolutely.

Paola: The point of this discussion is to let you know that while homeopathy is relatively safe, as you said, the statement that classical homeopathy does not suppress and the protocols suppress is really a sweeping statement that isn’t necessarily true.

Joette: Yes, that’s right because you can suppress with classical homeopathy too. They make mistakes too.

Paola: The risk is in both.

Joette: Yes, absolutely. When we’re buying, let’s go back to those combination remedies for leg cramps, or teething tablets, or fever, or colds and flus, or Coldcalm, there are so many wonderful combination remedies out there. I used to be against them. I’ll be honest with you.

You may even find something in which I’ve been recorded saying that a good 15, 20, 25 years ago. But I’ve mended my ways. Because I see how important it is that families have this at their fingertips. So, if only one of the medicines is acting in a combination remedy to help that father or that husband with leg cramps so that he can get a good night sleep, so he can get up and make a living for his family the next day, that’s good enough for me.

Just because there might be four others in that combination that are potentially superfluous doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

Paola: Well, I’ve actually had a friend whose daughter had a fever and was not feeling well. She was older. She wasn’t teething or anything. She had the teething tablets from -.

Joette: Hyland’s.

Paola: Yes, Hyland’s. But they don’t sell here anymore because of that controversy. Anyway, her older daughter, she just gave her the teething tablet because it happened to have Belladonna. She needed Belladonna. She didn’t have Belladonna. It worked.

Joette: Of course it worked, absolutely, because there’s the remedy right there, sitting right in there. The little label tells us.

Paola: Now, I wouldn’t recommend you to do that. That’s not what you do but in a pinch, alright, it worked.

Joette: Absolutely.

Paola: So Joette, just this is kind of the blazing question. All your years of experience and perhaps from what you’ve heard from your colleagues, have you heard of a case where you’ve seen homeopathy, classical or otherwise, suppress a symptom that is absolutely this is suppressed.

A case of suppression

Joette: I have seen a case. Years ago when I first started studying homeopathy, one of my friends who was far ahead of me in understanding of homeopathy was – we were all using only classical. She gave a homeopathic to someone. The person got sick. They got sick. Not with an acute, it was a chronic condition. I wish I remember the circumstances but it scared the wits out of us because we all believed that it must have been the homeopathic medicine that was incorrectly chosen. I don’t know.

We, still to this day, don’t know what it was. I’ve not gotten back to that person. I don’t know what the circumstances are or what came of that. But we were under the impression that the homeopathic medicine that our friend chose caused a chronic condition to blossom in this person. I hate to use the word blossom but to -.

Paola: Spike, Joette, spike.

Joette: Spike. So yes, it can happen. Absolutely, it can happen. But for my money, for my time, for my energy, I’ll take this medicine any day over medicines that we know have side effects, that must have side effects in order for them to even act.

Paola: And do suppress. If they worked, it means it suppressed.

Joette: That’s right. That’s right, absolutely. Now, there are times when we don’t mind suppressing. Suppression isn’t always a bad thing. When someone has to have surgery, you’re going to suppress the sensation of pain when they use that scalpel across the abdomen. Of course, it’s going to suppress.

There may be a downside to that. Of course, there’s a downside to it. The person can get sick later on. They can have vomiting from the general anesthesia. They can have nightmares from anesthesia. They can feel spacy from anesthesia. But hello, there are times when you have to do that.

You just weigh the advantages to the disadvantages. But if you’re using it without knowing, without understanding how serious side effects can be and how serious suppressions can be by using these drugs for long periods of time or even short ones, then you’re walking into the lions dead blindly.

You just weigh the advantages to the disadvantages. But if you’re using it without knowing, without understanding how serious side effects can be and how serious suppressions can be by using these drugs for long periods of time or even short ones, then you’re walking into the lions dead blindly.

Paola: So basically, what you’re saying is what other options do we have? If you’re going to sit in a corner, paralyzed by fear that maybe, possibly, there’s a small chance that homeopathy might suppress. You’re not going to do anything. Well then, you got drugs.

We know that. So, it’s like go with the safer option. We know this is much safer.

Joette: Yes, that’s right. So, I like those combination remedies from Boiron, Hyland’s, et cetera. I like those. I think that they are changing the way we, mothers, grandmothers, et cetera, treat our children and our families. It’s changing the world. That’s exactly what we want to do.

My goal is to reach 100,000 households by 2020. I have it written on this little rock here on my desk that I want to reach that many households. I hope I reach many more than that. But that was my original goal a few years ago. That’s my focus. I want people to know how to use this stuff.

Paola: Well, I can’t thank you enough, Joette. We have Moms with Moxie podcast coming out soon with Tina. She talks about that at the end about your goal and how thankful she is for it. I too, am thankful. So thank you for taking the time to talk to us today about not running around like a chicken with our head cut off. Kind of appreciating the difference between classical and the protocols and that it is relatively safe basically.

Joette: Yes, yes. Well, thank you for doing this, Paola. It’s always great.

Paola: 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 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.