Podcast 5 – What Can Homeopathy Do For You and Your Baby?

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In this podcast, we cover:

1:08 Homeopathy is universal

5:06 Benefits of homeopathy

10:36 Remedy for colic

16:10 Happiness that homeopathy brings

20:59 Organizing one’s life

This week’s podcast should have been titled: “What can homeopathy do for you and your baby (and other ages too)? Plus 3 benefits that you can take to the bank.”

This is the take-away.

• I tell my story of raising my three boys so you can hear my practical advice and use it.

• How I used Chamomilla for teething instead of Tylenol and avoided the dangerous side effects.

• What one of my nursing babies received when he had a bout of colic because I ate too much garlic.

• How knowing some homeopathy made me happy, had me leap frogging instead of ladder climbing when it came to curing my family’s ills and gave me confidence as a new young mother.

Don’t be dissuaded. Like a good piano teacher, my methods and the Banerji Protocols can have you treating your family’s ills in no time.

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.

Jendy: Hello! This is Jendy and I’m back with Joette Calabrese. Today, we’re going to talk about What Homeopathy can do for you and your baby. Hello, Joette! How are you?

Joette:  Hi Jendy. I’m well, thanks.

Homeopathy is universal.

Jendy: You have about three remedies or three benefits of homeopathy that we can use for babies?

Joette: Yes, that’s right and other ages, too. So I’m trying to bring it into both babies and adults, so that those who don’t have babies can also be helped. It’s not of course not everyone has them. So you might have a baby cat or a baby dog or your neighbor might be struggling with a baby and this will apply across the board. Homeopathy applies for babies, infants, the elderly, dogs, cats, livestock, wild birds, you name it. So, homeopathic remedies are universal. That’s my point here in teaching you that it says for babies but we can use it for anyone

Let’s get back and give you some benefits while offering kind of a practical tip so you can talk these tips away in your mind for future reference. Many of you are just entering this profound world of homeopathy. While others have recognized intuitively the importance of health independence, autonomy, and particularly now in the glaring light of the changes our American health system is going through, I always try to make the information I give here on my blog as practical as possible. So I’m going to use my personal experiences as a springboard. It will help define the best way to use the remedies. It gives you stories and a little narrative so it’s more easily remembered.

Today I’ll give you what homeopathy did for me, especially when I was first starting and I had young children. Of course one at a time and it was with my son that I recognized the importance of homeopathy. Then you can extrapolate how this might fit into your lifestyle.

Let me clarify that you needn’t go as far as I did. Although I secretly hope you will. That is I never used Tylenol in raising my children or aspirin or antibiotics in the two and a half plus decades of my mothering years. Instead, I bought a kit with the top 100 remedies in it. I used it. It became my, I don’t know maybe my arsenal. I took my kit with me on road trips, on family vacations. It was quietly present in my home at all times. At first it was in the linen closet in our city home. Then when we moved to the country, it had its own little place in a chest at home as well. In fact, I could barely resist using it. But I always encourage moms now to hold back and not jump into using remedies too quickly. But I also want to mention that I actually still own the same kit and replaced only a few remedies in it.

Jendy: So those remedies, they are still good even though your children are grown up and adults? They still have the same amount of potency?

Joette: Yes, yes. They don’t go stale. These remedies, I’ve owned in my kit – this particular kit for about 20 years. I have remedies that are even older than that. They last for decades. In fact, I’ll share with you that in my office I have a shadow box with four remedies in it given to me by an elderly man who was a client of mine many years ago. His mother was a homeopath in Chicago when he was a lad. As a gift, he gave me four bottles dated from about I don’t remember now, but about 1919 to around 1930 something. I’ve used these same remedies, the ones in these bottles over the years and indeed they still work. So that means that these remedies, some of them are 100 years old and yet they still have their ability to do exactly what they did back in 1919.

So when I purchased my first kit, instead of looking at it as a financial stretch, I considered it as an investment in my family. I don’t know. Can you think of anything greater value than a box of cures that it can be used for decades? I can’t think of anything that could be as valuable as that.

Jendy: The medicines in the stores are expensive if you go in to buy Tylenol and stuff like that.

Homeopathy for pain and better sleep

Joette: Oh yes. That’s not even getting into prescribed drugs which can be hundreds if not thousands of dollars per month. So here is the first benefit of homeopathy to babies and others. It’s a remedy that I gave my entire family a good night sleep and let me explain.

My first baby started teething and my goal was to never give my children Tylenol or antibiotics. So instead of Tylenol when he was teething, just to mention – Tylenol has been implicated in studies to cause asthma, sometimes even within an hour of taking the stuff. At that time, I didn’t know that but I knew that it was not a good thing to give my baby, particularly when he was already down. To give him a chemical on top of it was counterintuitive to my thinking.

So instead, I learned about a remedy called Chamomilla, like chamomile, like chamomile tea only Chamomilla is the Latin word because it’s made into homeopathic remedy and we use it as Chamomilla 200. Now, you moms out there with babies, this is a writer downer. This is an important remedy for teething. So, Chamomilla twice daily for about three or four days and sometimes a little longer depending on the severity. If very severe, the baby’s really screaming and arching his back then you can give it three times per day for a few days.

So not only did this end the particular bout of teething the first time I use it but the next time a tooth came in for my older son, it was less of an ordeal. So of course I went back to giving him Chamomilla 200 when the next tooth was coming in. But now, the pain was not as grand. It was only needed for a day or so and it was over with. But what was most interesting was that he never again needed another dose. Even though he had suffered for a long time with teething until I found Chamomilla, it ended it.

Why does this happen? Well let me make it very simple because this is homeopathy folks. It cured the teething problems. It didn’t just cover up the pain. I could have kicked myself for not having learned this earlier because we had all suffered. We were up all night, my husband and I with this screaming baby. This particular son had months of those painful and sleepless nights until I learned that he was irascible and fractious. He was arching his back and screaming sometimes. Sometimes he would scream out in the middle of the night. That of course was the pain of the teeth coming in. So I turned a crying, sometimes screaming baby into a sleeping angel and allowed him and my husband and I to fall back to sleep and that was the end of it. What we did it with was a $9 bottle of Chamomilla 200.

But wait! That’s not all. I’ve used the same remedy for when adults suffer from teething, too. Adult’s teeth? Yes! Think about it. That’s about the time in the early adulthood. It’s about the time when wisdom teeth begin to emerge, right? Of course, the dentist wants to yank them out. No! I say. Put those teeth back. Let’s just see if we can save those teeth that are coming in with Chamomilla 200. So, the very same son who had the teething problems when he was a little baby now is an adult and this was a few years ago, began to have pain in his wisdom teeth as they emerged. He reminded me, “Mom, all my friends are having those extracted.” Nasty old teeth, what do you need those for? Well, I happen to think they’re beneficial to keep. So we employed Chamomilla 200 again in exactly the same fashion as we had 25 years earlier.

What’s interesting about this story is that I actually used the same bottle, the one that I used in the 80s. It worked like a charm in 2013 just like it did in 1988. What do you know? It wasn’t taken off the market because of its horrendous side effects like so many conventional drugs are taken off. You can’t find the drug that did something for you years ago. No, these remedies stay consistent. Homeopathy isn’t capricious. In fact, we could go back even further and the very same remedy was likely used by the British Royal family for their teething babies and young adults back in 1801, as I used it 200 years later.

 Jendy: So the British Royal family was using homeopathy over 100 years ago?

Joette: Yes, yes. They have used it for close to 200 years from my understanding. Not just used by the Queen Mother but the entire family. She actually travelled with her homeopathic physician. She was said to have enjoyed longevity. I believe she lived to about 102, 103, some place between 101 and 103 years because of homeopathy. That’s what she has told many of her followers of what’s the reason. So I guess if it’s good enough for royalty who can demand any kind of medicine and travel anywhere in the world to get it, I suppose it’s certainly good enough for the rest of us, right?

Jendy: Oh I think so, sure.

Joette: Yes.

Remedy for colic

 Jendy: Let’s move on. What would be a second benefit for baby?

Joette: Of course, colic is very common complaint in babies. So at first when my baby was a newborn, I used gripe water. I don’t know many mothers may know about this. At the time back in the early mid-80s, I even had a hard time finding gripe water. I lived near the border of Canada. So I used to have to travel to Canada to get it.

But then I instead learned about two remedies with my babies. My births were without drugs. I’m going to step back so that you understand a little bit. My births were unmedicated. But when a baby is born after a medicated birth, this particular remedy is even more clearly indicated because it’s the ultimate remedy to clear drugs that I know of. Many of you who already know homeopathy may know that it’s very famously named Nux vomica. I should also mention that you’ll be able to read about these remedies and find them online. We’ll connect them to you online so that after this podcast, you’ll see it written so that in case you don’t know what I’m saying, it will be written out.

So the first time I used this for my infant was when I had eaten a lot of garlic. Since I was nursing, it affected the baby. So he began pulling up his legs in pain and crying. It was obvious that there was something gastrointestinal going on. I gave him Nux vomica 30. After three doses, over a period of maybe I don’t remember exactly but maybe it was six hours, he fell into calm and sleep. But another time with another child, Nux vomica didn’t do it for my next child. So what was I to do? Sometimes the remedies are right on and sometimes there’s just enough differential that it makes it a little confusing.

So I refer to a little priceless book that I owned. Actually it wasn’t even a book. It was more a pamphlet. Back in those days, it was very hard to find homeopathy books. It said when a child has colic, the remedy that should be employed is Colocynthis 200 or 30. So for this second child, when he had colic, this Colocynthis worked better than Nux vomica did. The way that I knew that it was slightly different was that in the second child, if I pressed his belly or I laid him on my arm like football hold as they say and the pressure of my arm was up against his abdomen, he was comforted a little bit. It didn’t make it go away but you could tell that he was a little more comforted. That better from pressure issue was something that I had not noticed in my first child when he was younger. So now I added these two remedies. I had these two remedies from which to choose for colic.

That’s around the time and it was vague now, it was 25 year ago that my husband came home one night after eating out for lunch and complaining of stomach pain. He said that he wanted me to give him both remedies. Well I was just studying homeopathy in those days. This was the time when I adhere to the strict laws of classical homeopathy. And I said, “No, you can’t do that. You can’t add two remedies together, particularly two remedies that I don’t know well enough to know whether or not they do come together.” But he wore me down. He said, “Look, give them both to me. I don’t want to wait for one to work and see if it acts and then go to the next one.” So we did it. I guess I’m here to tell you that of course it worked like magic. The pain in the stomach was gone in about 15 minutes. But this isn’t the end of the story. This is just the beginning and it’s really fascinating, to me it is anyway.

When I had my fellowship with Dr. Banerji in Calcutta, I learned that they had been doing the same thing, putting these two remedies together, these precise remedies together. In fact, their protocol for colicky babies is Nux vomica 30 mixed with Colocynthis 200. I couldn’t believe it. Across the other end of the earth, some 25 years later independent of each other, I and the Banerji’s had come to the same conclusion.

Now, in the homeopathy world, I’m sure that there are other homeopaths who have figured this out as well. But for me, it was interesting because I actually even use the same potencies. Theirs was probably more trial and error because they see so many thousands of patients per week. But while mine was the insistence of a suffering husband but it’s pretty remarkable given that there are thousands of homeopathic remedies and probably 100 just for the use of stomach pain alone. So that makes it pretty unique.

 Jendy: It is. We’ve talked about Royals and Americans and Indians. It’s like across continents, across social stratum. It’s decades and hundreds and centuries of years. It’s so applicable. It’s just amazing.

Happiness that homeopathy brings

 Joette: Yes, it is amazing. As I said it’s not whimsical. It’s founded on the bedrock of solid medical principles. It surpasses what might be boundaries and limitations that might otherwise detour us from understanding its capabilities. So let me give you the number three of the benefits of homeopathy to a baby and a family in general because of course it’s going to affect everyone.

What I found to be one of the most compelling aspects of homeopathy is that it made me happy. I will explain in a moment. But when I was happy as a mom and satisfied, of course I was a better mom in many ways. So it offered me the satisfaction of an intellectual feast. As a mother and as most mothers, I tended my children. I made meals and I was insistent on making my meals from scratch. I even made some herbal tinctures from the property around me, from the fields, et cetera. I tended a small garden. Later as my children we growing, I homeschooled my kids, and sometimes for my personal enjoyment I played the piano. But that was the extent of my intellectual pursuit.

But all women I believe have ultimate pursuits in which they yearned for a little more intellect in their lives. I’ve always disliked mediocrity and intellectual sluggishness in society but especially in myself. So what homeopathy offered me was a clever pursuit that absolutely ignited me. It kept me sharp and concomitantly gave me information that was useful, no, downright lifesaving in some instances for my entire family. So of course it brought me to where I am today as a practitioner and a teacher. And I never dreamed it would take me so far.

But homeopathy has been the best investment of my life. It saved my family tens of thousands of dollars in doctor’s bills and drug costs, time missed from work for my husband, my father, my brother, and now as adults, my sons and of course myself. It has given us, my family immeasurable piece of mind and comfort knowing we had the answers that no doctor has. Well, I shouldn’t say no doctor. There are occasionally a doctor or two in North America you might find who know a little bit about homeopathy but certainly not the run-of-the mill or the garden variety of doctors.

When I saw some of my friends struggle with not wanting to give their children drugs but simply didn’t know what else to do, well I did know what to do. In fact, when I learned of someone I knew who had had a problem, I’d go home and study up on that problem and what I would have done and what remedy I would have used for this or that.

Jendy: So were you able to help those friends?

Joette:  Well, here’s the thing. Because homeopathy especially in those days, back in the 80s was such a different paradigm, I usually offer to help. But many were grateful for what I taught them but others were not so interested. It was something they knew nothing about. So they were unwilling to try something new. Remember, if they were asking their doctor about it, the doctor would say, “Homeopathy, no, no.” Most doctors especially then and even now don’t even know what homeopathy is. Remember, this was back away when the word homeopathy was unknown. Before the internet allowed us also to readily discover the horrific side effects of antibiotics and acetaminophen and asthma and drugs and such that are related to that. So it was the harder sell back then.

But today, mothers have had about had it with drugs. Doctors have to do a lot more convincing especially to those mothers who are willing to do their homework that their methods are useful. So this pursuit of learning to cure our families, ourselves fits seamlessly into mothering and homemaking. It always just felt right to me to have this intellectual side to myself brought to the fore and allow it to work nicely with being a mother.

Jendy: It’s so interesting to me when I start learning about it. I start cringing now when people say, “Oh I went to the doctor and got an antibiotic.” And then I have to share with you that yesterday I was in Wal-Mart. The cashier was complaining about her allergies. And it just came out. I was like, “Oh! I’m learning about homeopathic remedies for allergies. I can cure it.” She was like, “Oh I heard about that.” I was like, “Go to JoetteCalabrese.com.”

Joette: Oh aren’t you sweet.

Jendy:  But it just comes out. I don’t know a lot how to help them. I like how you said you went home and learned about it. So then you could tell more. How would you wrap this all up in your farewell words, so I can go off and repeat all this to my husband?

Organizing one’s life

 Joette: All right. Well I always tell moms or anyone for that matter, anyone who will listen. Plot out your life. Don’t let life just happen. Actually lay it out. What do you want in life? Plot it out one step at a time. You know how you learned to make soup from scratch? There was a time when you didn’t know how to do that. But you learned. You know how you know how to make your home lovely and organized and tidy, this is not that different.

This business of learning how to cure your family really is very innate in all of us and becoming a healer in your home is really not that complex. So as I say, plot out your life one step at a time. Know how to cure just one ailment. Know how to use Hepar sulph for example for ear infections that we discussed last week. Know that remedy now. Read up on it. Go online. Read it in the material medica, material medica, Hepar sulph. Look that up. Use that as your stepping point.

Then read my blogs. So okay, there it is. There’s one remedy under your belt. There’s one illness that’s under your belt. Now add how to cure your baby’s teething pain in fractiousness. That’s Chamomilla 200 every three to six hours depending on the severity. Now you’ve got two remedies.

So what about if your husband shovels the snow too vigorously like mine did last week. Remember I live in Buffalo. My husband was shoveling snow all day long for three or four days. Arnica montana 200, Arnica montana 200 every three hours. He just came in the house and just took it. He doesn’t ask me any longer. He just knows what to take now.

This is not unlike learning to play the piano, one hand then two and you begin with scales and Arpeggio. Soon you’re playing melodies and eventually, if your passion is ignited enough, sonatas. Learning to play a sonata can take a lifetime to perfect. But not so with the method of homeopathy that I teach moms. Not so with this practical method called the Banerji protocol. You’ll not only be playing a sonata, you’ll be the piano in the concierto. You’ll be the violin in the first position. You’ll take the lead in your family’s life. You become the virtuoso. So I urge families to be relentless in your pursuit of beauty, genuine health, and a masterful, robust life.

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.