Podcast 54 – Moms With Moxie: Homeopathy Started with the Cat

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IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

03:59    Homeopathy started with the cat

05:55    Knowing Joette

07:06    Back pain

08:18    Using homeopathy with animals

09:20    Bleeding remedies

11:53    Pregnancy cell salts, tick bites, and scared dogs

14:47    Homeopathy with people

20:40    We are all aging

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Joette’s pregnancy cell salts program

Joette’s “Gatorade” alternative

Gina:  It had its fallouts, and I wasn’t happy with what I was seeing in my own pets and then also in pets that we were caring for.

Joette:  Each day from my office, I get to see how homeopathy is transforming lives all over the globe, and I want to share them with you. 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, and your successes inspire me. They’re glorious and powerful, and I can’t keep these successes a secret any longer. So, with help from my roving reporters, we bring you a mini-podcast series that I call “Moms with Moxie.” Sometimes we even interview “Dads with Audacity.” See how regular mothers and others, average people who want to cure those around them, have gone from freaking to fabulous with homeopathy.

Kate:  You are listening to Podcast Number 54 at practicalhomeopathy.com.

Hi! This is Kate. I’m here with Gina. I’m excited to have Gina on the podcast today because Gina brings a different perspective to homeopathy. She’s going to share with us today some interesting information that she has about using homeopathy with animals. So, Gina, welcome to the podcast.

Gina:  Thank you so much, Kate.

Kate:  It’s great to have you, and I look forward to hearing all of your wisdom because I see your name quite a bit on Joette’s Student Facebook page. I see how you jump in, and you’re always willing to help other people out and give suggestions. I so appreciate that about you, Gina. Thank you so much for your willingness to take that time out of your busy schedule and to help so many people.

Gina:  Oh! No problem. It seems like I’ve always wanted to do things like that. So, Facebook actually is good for that. It’s a good hobby.

Kate:  It could be worse, right?

Gina:  That’s right. My addiction is a healthy one.

Kate:  Exactly! That’s what I always tell my family. I collect remedies. It could be other things that aren’t as useful that I could collect.

Gina:  Yes! That’s so true, so true.

Kate:  So, why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself?

Gina:  Well, I am a licensed vet tech. So, I graduated college in 1989 from the University of Maine. From there, I moved right into a local practice in my hometown. I absolutely loved everybody I worked with. The practice was super busy. So, I worked there for the first 15 years of my career. I did mostly anesthesia and surgery and care. We were a full-service clinic. So, we did everything from neutering to emergencies to any type of surgery, so super busy. But, I could see where the regular conventional medicine was falling through. It has its fallouts, and I wasn’t happy with what I was seeing in my own pets and then also in pets that we were caring for. So, I decided that I had to probably move on. At that point, I move to a holistic clinic that I work for now — which has been about 16 years.

Kate:  Wow! That’s great that you found a holistic clinic. I don’t hear of too many holistic vet clinics.

Gina:  No. No. There aren’t. So yeah, that was a lucky find. I happened to go to a conference and the veterinarian from there was speaking. My sister nudged me and said, “Hey! You should work for this person.” I said, “Oh! I doubt they need anybody.” And she said, “Hey, you got to go up and ask.” She had me ask, and she hired me basically almost on the spot.

Kate:  Wow!

Gina:  Yes, it was fate.

Kate:  Yeah. So, tell me how you got into homeopathy.

Homeopathy started with the cat

Gina:  How I got into homeopathy is kind of why I became less enamored with the medicine I was doing. So, what happened is I had my own personal cat, who I loved and adored, and he just happened to be not feeling really great. He was a young cat. He’s six years old. So, I did some lab work on him. I was quite surprised to find kidney failure. Kidney failure can be pretty common in cats, but certainly, even today, it’s not common in a six-year-old. So, I kind of went head-spinning and crazy — because at that point, again, I was just working conventional medicine. I was trying to figure out, “Why is this happening?” So, I went to a specialty clinic, and they ended up doing a bunch of tests and basically gave me the prognosis that he had two weeks to two months to live.

Kate: Oh, wow!

Gina:  Yes. So obviously, just like any pet owner (or any mom or dad), you find this out, and your head is spinning. You just don’t know what to do and can’t believe it. But, I put my nose down and said, “No, he’s not going to die in two weeks!” So, I just started doing a whole bunch of homework. This is back in the late 90s. So, we didn’t have a lot of internet access at all in personal homes (in Maine anyway). So, it was a lot of library trips, a lot of ordering books. I hadn’t heard about homeopathy at that point.

So, I was going to the health food store which was about 50-60 miles from my house. I walked in and the owner there, Jane — I’ll never forget her name — she said, “Why don’t you consult somebody about homeopathy on your cat?” I was just there to pick up some herbs to help with his blood and et cetera. So, I said, “Well, I don’t even know what that is!” So, she gave me her homeopathic veterinarian’s card, and I called him — he did phone consults. And, with his constant care over the phone, that particular kitty ended up getting two years of excellent, quality life. So, from two weeks to two months then we got two years. So, I was happy.

Knowing Joette

Kate:  Oh, that’s so great. So, let’s talk about how you came to know Joette.

Gina:  Okay. Obviously, I had seen homeopathics work with animals — because then at that point, of course, that cat was the start of it all. But I had other animals that obviously I’d played around with and did homeopathy and also consulted that same vet and had great success. So, years later, after I had relocated to the holistic clinic, I was experiencing some chronic fatigue and a lot of muscular pain. And all the normal diagnosis starts coming in: “Well, maybe it’s fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome.” I do have Hashimoto’s. I knew that for years. So anyway, I went to a lot of different local homeopaths, and I just wasn’t having any success. But at the clinic I work for now, we get Homeopathy Today, the magazine. So, I was flipping through that, and I found Joette’s name. I don’t even remember the article specifically, but I read that article by her and I thought, “She really resonates with me. I really like her approach.” So, I said, “I am going to call her and see if she’ll take my case.” And so, the rest is history.

Back pain

I went from … I honestly could not stand upright. I was having a lot of back pain at that point. I had to stay bent over a lot which isn’t so good if you’re an animal nurse because you need to pick up things. You need to bend over. You need to move. She had me moving. It was pretty quick. Within a couple of weeks, we were seeing some major improvements. Then I pretty much stayed her client for about two and a half years. All that time, she was teaching me how to care for myself. So anyway, it’s been years since I’ve had to consult with her because she did such a good job!

Kate:  Well, that’s good!

Gina:  Yes! Yes! It wasn’t long after that we actually met at a conference. It was so good to get to meet her in person. Her hugs are the best.

Kate:  Oh! Oh! That’s sweet. Joette, we all want a homeopathy hug.

Gina:  Yeah!

Using homeopathy with animals

Kate:  So, Gina, give us some tips about using homeopathy with animals since this is an area that you have expertise in.

Gina:  Sure! The biggest thing is keep your eyes wide open because unfortunately — or fortunately maybe — animals don’t talk. They also don’t lie! So, if a remedy doesn’t work, you’ll know it. And if it does work, you’ll know it. But obviously, it’s your observations that make the remedy choice successful. Don’t make excuses for a particular symptom like, “Well, he’s itching today because he went swimming in the ocean, and the salt …” You know, if you rinsed him off … just don’t make excuses for the symptoms you’re seeing. Just write them down. Repertorize them. They’re not your enemy. Symptoms are actually your friends, especially in animals because it’s going to be subtle. So, that’s the biggest thing is really be observant with animals and don’t make excuses about their symptoms. It is what it is. Use them. They’re very important to making them well.

Bleeding remedies

One of the things that I was going to mention is that even conventional medicine — or the wrong remedy — can give me quite a bit of information like a breadcrumb leading me down my path. For example, a dog the other day we were doing a dental on had to have anesthesia for the dental because he had extractions that had to happen. The dog ended up with the extractions, a lot of bleeding. Of course, we give Arnica during this process, and Arnica was not working. The bleeding was quite profuse, and it wasn’t stopping. Despite Arnica in different potencies, we weren’t getting anywhere.

So, this was a great example of where a symptom and the wrong remedy can lead you to the right remedy because the symptom was bleeding. The wrong remedy was Arnica (because it wasn’t working). And our next choice was Phosphorus which immediately stopped the bleeding. So, sometimes when people give wrong remedies (or even in conventional treatment), they end up with a new symptom or a symptom that’s not clearing up, and then they become discouraged with the treatment or the remedy when actually it’s just eye-opening! Like, “If Arnica isn’t working, and this bleeding is happening, I need to move on.” And my next choice, in this case, was Phosphorus. It worked lovely.

Kate:  I think that’s beautiful. I just had a conversation with a friend of mine the other day, and she’s newer to homeopathy. She’s been trying some things. I mentioned to her as well … I said, “Don’t get discouraged because I know there’s something that will help. You just have to figure out what’s the right remedy. Because there are over 6,000 homeopathic medications, so, that’s a lot to choose from. Don’t get discouraged. Just keep researching and trying to figure it out and trying things. Something will work!”

Gina:  Yes! Exactly, exactly, “Something will work.” That’s what I always say. It’s just a matter of if you can find it. Sometimes you can never find it. I mean, I understand that, like you say … 6,000? Sometimes you can never find it. Or maybe there’s a problem that’s occurring that you don’t even understand. Like let’s say, if somebody is truly allergic to a particular food, and you don’t know that, and you’re continuing to feed it … simply omitting a food then makes your remedy choice clear everything up nicely. So yeah, we step back sometimes, look at the whole picture again, but there’s always a remedy that could help.

Kate:  Yes, I so agree. Okay, so what else do you have for us, Gina?

Pregnancy cell salts, tick bites, and scared dogs

Gina:  I actually use Joette’s pregnancy cell salts program — that she has for women — for pregnant dogs. So, that was kind of fun to see that work really well through the gestation of a dog.

Kate:  How can you tell that they’re making a difference with the puppies?

Gina:  It’s hard to absolutely say that’s what made the difference, but the puppies that I have used it on have grown very nicely. The mom had absolutely no troubles in the whelp. And the puppies nursed well right away. The mom had lots of milk to give. They grew nicely. It learns well, very intelligent, not hyperactive, just even puppies. Yes, you absolutely could get that without using cell salts. But I believe, in my experience, that it’s helped give them a leg-up to being healthy right from the start.

Kate:  Oh good! That’s a great tip. Thank you. So, Gina, is there anything that you like to use when you have animals that get bitten by a tick?

Gina:  I do; Ledum, I’ll give. But honestly, I find it’s about 50-50. So, if the bite isn’t responding to it … because all I can go by is how the bite looks. Because the dog, honestly, often doesn’t act different — unless later they get sick with the disease. So, if I go by how the bite looks, I’m using Ledum initially. And if the bite isn’t responding — if it looks still red, inflamed and hot — I’ll switch to Apis. And the animals that I’ve seen that didn’t seem to be responding to Ledum respond quite nicely to Apis.

Kate:  Okay, thanks for sharing your experience with tick bites with us because I know that it’s pretty prevalent, and a lot of people ask about that. So, when we were talking earlier, you were telling me about some remedies that you have for dogs that get scared easily or scared during thunderstorms. Tell us about that.

Gina:  Yes, yes. How many dogs are scared to death of thunder?

Kate:  Probably a lot.

Gina:  Yeah, a lot unfortunately. There’s a lot of reasons why that can occur which is deeper. Most popular remedy was Phosphorus and then the cells salts: Kali phos and Nat phos. Which, I would say, Kali phos is amazing, I’ve found, in dogs for just a general tonic for nerves. I really had a lot of success with that cell salt.

Then of course, conditions to be aware of when you think it’s just thunder or just anxiety from noises: You may think that, but sometimes when animals don’t feel well, they become more reactive to noises. So, it’s not the noise per se, but it’s that they don’t feel well. Medication reactions can cause these behaviors, or anxiety and, of course, physical issues. And also, we can’t forget good training. Desensitization training is obviously needed if it is truly sound sensitivity. So, I will say — just like homeopathy in people — that what works for one doesn’t work for everybody.

Homeopathy with people

Kate:  Right. So, we’ve talked a lot about using homeopathy with animals. Let’s switch gears now and talk about using homeopathy with people. Tell us some of your stories.

Gina:  Well, my friends got me a t-shirt that says, “That’s a symptom,” because that’s all that comes out of my mouth. I’m a lot of fun at parties. They start sneezing after drinking wine, and I tell them, “That’s a symptom.”

Kate:  That’s amazing.

Gina:  Oh! But, I know I’m annoying because I’m always trying to make people and things better and more well. I know that’s an annoying part of me.

Kate:  Oh well, I don’t think it’s annoying. I think that’s great!

Gina:  Oh, you don’t live with me. So, I’m always hounding, “Did you take your remedy today? Did you take this? Did you take that?” So, I’m honored that anybody would come to me and ask me for advice and think that I could help make them well. I always want to try to make people better and feel as good as I do. So, I obviously recommend Joette, but sometimes people aren’t onboard with homeopathy that much to consult with somebody, or financially maybe they’re not at the point where they want to make that commitment. But I tell them, “If we don’t have our health, we don’t have anything else.” So, to me, my health is right at the top of where I’m going to spend my money.

So yeah, my friends, they come to me; I tell them all the time to make sure that they don’t make excuses for their symptoms. A lot of people think symptoms are bad or negative. Symptoms are just symptoms. The more unique they are, the more special you should feel because they’re easier to find in your repertory!

Kate:  Oh, yes! That’s for sure. Yeah.

Gina:  And that’s my biggest advice to anybody getting into this is I learned on my own mostly until the internet came along, and obviously, once I started seeing Joette. But, I just read, and I read, and I read a page out of the materia medica or I read two or three pages out of the repertory. I wasn’t trying to put any one thing together. I was just reading it — because I think it’s fascinating. So, there are little bites that will stick in your head by reading a remedy in a materia medica. Then all of a sudden, you’ll meet somebody, and that will come up. You’ll go, “That person’s … I don’t know, Gelsemium. What he just said. What he’s doing.” So, there’s no shortcuts, I don’t think, in learning it. It’s just reading. Just like the old ways: studying.

Kate:  And then like Joette said, the more people that you think about what remedies will be helpful, the more kids that you have, the more experience that you have, you see that over and over again. That Gelsemium is great for this, and then you use it over and over again. You remember it, and then it becomes second nature.

Gina:  Yes, absolutely. You forget how second nature it is because somebody will be talking to you, “Hey, I’ve got this. What do I take?” “Oh! Just take this.” I mean, it just comes out of your mouth. You know.

Kate:  Yeah. It’s interesting. As I look at homeopathy kits — and now I read through the list of medicines in a homeopathy kit — and I think, “Okay. This is what you use this one for typically. This is what you use this one for.” And now, in a kit of 100 remedies, I can (most of them) say the top symptoms that you would use each of those medicines for. Whereas when I first started, it was only a few! I find that exciting!

Gina:  Yes, it’s an amazing medicine!

Kate:  So, the other thing that we were chatting a little bit earlier about is how people have a tendency to forget how homeopathy has helped them. Why don’t you talk about that a little bit?

Gina:  Like we were talking earlier, for some reason, when it comes to a natural medicine, they don’t like to keep taking it. I haven’t quite figured out why that is because people will take their blood pressure medication every day — almost right to the hour. But if you tell them that they have to do this remedy for maintenance for a chronic condition they have, for some reason, they just don’t like that. I try to explain to people, my family members or whatever, “Your house needs to be maintained. Your car needs to be maintained. Your health has to be maintained. Then if it can be maintained with something as natural as homeopathy, why wouldn’t you just maintain it with that?”

I guess people tend to get discouraged. You know, they get a bad knee, and they have to keep taking the Rhus tox, and they have to keep taking it, and keep taking it, and keep taking it. It works — but they have to keep taking it. Well, their knee is a real mess. So, their knee is never going to be brand new again. So, if it comes down to having to regularly take a remedy, that’s not a bad option. People, like you mentioned, sometimes they forget that the last thing they took made them well, and then they got well. And now it’s reoccurring, and now they’re discouraged. I often have to remind them, “Well, when you had this before, you took this remedy, and it made you much better. Remember? We just need to go back and use it again.”

Kate:  Yeah, that’s when those notes come in handy. We can look and see, “Yes! Last time I had that UTI, this is what I did, and it helped. Okay. Now, I’ll go back to that.”

Gina:  Yes, yes, exactly. Like Joette tells us, “Write it down, write it down.”

Kate:  You talked about writing things down because you can then remind people, too. When they come to you, “Oh, I have another UTI” (or whatever it might), you can say, “Well, last time this helped. Remember?” And then you can remind them.

Gina:  Yes. I do it for my family and my close friends. Luckily, I do have a really good memory, and, hopefully, it stays that way.

Kate:  Yeah! I think we all hope that. So, something else that you talked about earlier is that we forget that we are all aging. Talk a little bit about that.

We are all aging

Gina:  Yeah, we are all aging. That was one of the reasons why I actually reached out to Joette. Because again, it seemed like the homeopaths I was going to … they definitely wanted to help me, but they were giving me like one remedy and having me wait 30 days. And I wasn’t seeing anything whatsoever. I was becoming frustrated with my own body, my own self — feeling like a failure. Like, “Why isn’t my body healing?” When supposedly, I knew homeopathy worked because I was using it in animals. So, it got to the point where once I saw Joette’s articles, I realized she was using remedies more frequently. And, that’s what really resonated with me. Because, I thought, our bodies are all aging — we’re not getting newer every day; we’re getting older every day.

Kate:  So yes, we’re never going to arrive at this place where we never have any problems again. There are always going to be things that come up. I’m thankful that we have tools to address those things, and we’re not stuck just having to go to a doctor and get a medication that’s then going to bring on other symptoms that we need to fix. So, I’m thankful for what Joette teaches, and the tools that we have.

Gina:  Oh, absolutely. Homeopathy is probably 99.9% of what I use on my immediate family and my pets. For example, my boyfriend did his very first Ironman last year, and he never even took so much as one aspirin. He was powered completely by Joette and homeopathy.

Kate:  Nice!

Gina:  He was. Her “Gatorade” — her natural “Gatorade” that she makes with the cell salts in it — that’s what he drank. I mean he trains 8, 9, 10 hours a day. It took him a year of training to get to this Ironman in Canada that he did last year. Everybody else was walking around there all bandaged up. They’re popping the Advil, and he’s popping he Arnica and not one injury. He came away from that event without an injury and without a drug.

Kate:  That’s incredible! Wow!

Gina:  Yeah. He is incredible. He does what I tell him, and it proves it works. He’s quite an athlete.

Kate:  Wow! Well, thank you for sharing. I think if you don’t know about Joette’s “Gatorade” recipe, you should look it up. I think we’ll include a link here with this podcast, but it’s a great thing to have if you are out in the heat or doing something like that — like a triathlon — or just working outside a lot.

Gina:  Yes.

Kate:  So yeah, check that out. Well, Gina, thank you so much for sharing your stories with us, for encouraging us, and for all those great tips on using homeopathy with our animals. We appreciate you, what you do in helping so many people on the Student Facebook page every day. So, thank you for being with us and sharing your knowledge.

Gina:  Thank you so much for having me. Thanks, Joette. Thank you, Kate. And just my motto: Be more stubborn than the disease you have.

Kate:  I love it!

Gina:  That’s great!

Kate:  You just listened to a podcast from practicalhomeopathy.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shares her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Stitcher, and TuneIn radio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit in your health strategy, visit practicalhomeopathy.com.

These Moms with Moxie podcasts are designed to be inspirational, not specifically educational. No Remedy Card is provided.