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IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

 

01:15    Stramonium for Night Terrors

08:47    Stramonium for Pets

14:14    Watching Violent Movies

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

 

Stramonium by Paul Herscu

Stramonium 200C

Mindful Homeopathy: Practical Protocols for Mental and Emotional Conditions

My blog, podcasts, Facebook Live events and courses

Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

 

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 94 with Joette Calabrese.

 

Joette:  This is Joette Calabrese, and I’d like to welcome you to the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast. Women and men worldwide are taking back control of their families’ health and learning how to heal their bodies naturally, safely and effectively. So, if you’re hungry to learn more, you’ve come to the right place. Stay tuned as we give you the tools — and the inspiration you need — as I share my decades of experience and knowledge using this powerful medicine we call homeopathy.

 

Kate:  Hi! This is Kate, and I’m here with Joette. I want to welcome you back to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast.

 

This is a bit of an impromptu podcast. Because Joette and I were just doing some work together, and she thought of a subject that she really was passionate about and wanted to share with you listeners.

 

And so Joette, why don't you get us started?

 

Stramonium and Night Terrors

 

Joette:  When you and I were just talking, I was recalling a story about one of my children. It was from many years ago, and how I studied a specific medicine and the medicine was Stramonium, S-T-R-A-M-O-N-I-U-M, Stramonium.

 

At the time when we needed this medicine for my son, I was a novice in homeopathy. But I knew enough that if I found the right medicine, that it would abort the condition.

 

Well, this was the condition. We used to borrow movies from the library when my children were growing up. We borrowed the movie, “Swiss Family Robinson.” I'm talking about the version from 1959 — this was an old version. Great story, nice movie, great movie for kids.

 

But, my son was very young — he was about six maybe, at the time. He was very taken by the scene where the bad pirates were going to harm the family — the Swiss Family Robinson family. He wanted to watch it over and over again. He was obsessed, almost, by watching this one scene.

 

I know what he was doing. It's what children do — and all of us, for that matter — is trying to process it. I don't think it ever occurred to him that someone would try to hurt a family. Of course, he was relating to the family, probably greatly. He wanted to watch it over and over again to make it clear in his mind. It was something that he had never experienced and was trying to understand what was going on. Why would somebody want to hurt this family?

 

And so, with that, then when he would stop watching the movie … we’d borrowed it from the library for a week. When he finished watching the movie, he would play with his Lego guys. And these Lego guys who were kind of peaceful creatures up until that point became aggressive — very aggressive — and killing the bad guys. I mean, not just killing, but you know, killing in really gory ways that I didn't even know he understood.

 

Kate:  Oh, my goodness.

 

Joette:  His good guys were stabbing the bad guys. These Lego creatures were having wars constantly.

 

And, then he would go to bed — that first night he went to bed — and he had a terrible nightmare. In fact, it wasn't a “mare.” It was a terror!

 

We ran into his room because he was screaming and turned the light on, and he would not wake up. And that's what a night terror is: They are out of their mind with the images in their brains, and they can't let it go.

 

And so, it would take an awful lot for us to calm him down. We'd have to have bright lights on. He needed the bright lights.

 

In those days, I used homeopathy classically. I didn't know that there was a protocol for violent thoughts or severe angst from witnessing something that was violent. All I knew was to repertorize, and so I repertorized in my book, and I found Stramonium.

 

Now, I had many materia medicas at the time, and I certainly opened them up, but it wasn't until I totally delved into it. I purchased a book titled “Stramonium.” It was just simply on the subject of Stramonium by Paul Herscu, and I read it from cover to cover.

 

Meanwhile, it was night after night of this with my son suffering, not being able to sleep, all of us not being able to sleep because of these night terrors. When I finally convinced myself that Stramonium was the medicine, I gave him a dose of Stramonium 200C.

 

Now again, in those days very classically thinking, I was thinking only one dose, maybe two doses over two days, maybe a third dose, but that was it! You don't give any more.

 

And so that's what I did. I gave three doses over a 24-hour period, and it completely changed everything. He relaxed. He did not have the angst any longer. His Lego guys started to act more civilly. There was no more Lego blood all over the living room floor.

 

Kate:  Did you give the Stramonium to the Lego guys?

 

Joette:  No, but I think that their master was in control and made sure that they didn't have these gory … these battles.

 

The night terrors melted away the very first night. The day I gave it to him — the first dose that night — he didn't have one.

 

This was consistent. He had been having these night terrors for … oh, I'm going to say, by the time I got the book and read and felt comfortable doing all this, it was probably two weeks.

 

So foolish of me not to just give it, but in those days, I was so worried about using a 200 potency — which is not even a high potency! It is really medium. But that's the way I had learned homeopathy, is that you should be very, very careful.

 

So, I always caution people to be careful but not that careful. Oh my gosh, he suffered for two whole weeks, because I didn't have the confidence to give him the medicine.

 

But when I did, it worked like magic. It melted the angst away. All of the violent thoughts in his head that he needed to try to settle down went away. I gave him three doses over a 24-hour period. And that was the end of it, or I thought.

 

Then about six months later, we went back, and he said, “Oh, I love this! Let's get this, please, Mama. Can we get this?” So, I got it again.

 

Got the video again but he wanted it so badly. It was really not a very violent movie at all. It was from 1959 or something. I thought, well, he's safe now he's got the Stramonium in case it happens.

 

So, we got it again.

 

We watched it, and three days later — after watching it over and over and over a period of three days — the symptoms returned. He started having the night terrors again. His Lego guys got violent again with each other. So, I reintroduced Stramonium.

 

It only goes to show that sometimes we need to reuse these medicines. As the symptoms return, we use them again.

 

So, I, indeed, used Stramonium 200C. I gave it him three times in 24 hours, and it took it away — again.

 

We did not see it again, I'm going to say, for about a year. And then something came up, and it had nothing to do with the movie (because the movie in my mind was, “Okay, enough of this movie.”)

 

Kate:  You’d had it! No more “Swiss Family Robinson!”

 

Joette: “No more “Swiss Family Robinson” until you’re older, and maybe you had processed it enough.”

 

Something else came up. Oh! I remember what it was. It was Halloween.

We went to the library. At the library counter, which was a very tall counter where you checked your books out, there was a very, very scary face on the front of the desk that was exactly at the height of my son.

 

Kate:  What were they thinking?!

 

Joette:  They were not. They were not thinking. It was so stupid. Somebody there, I don't know, did they not have children? Did they not realize? It was scary to me! So, I mean, not that I was frightened by it, but it was a very intense image. It was exactly at his height.

 

And it happened again. That night, we got home; we went to bed; woke up in the middle of the night; night terrors; gave the Stramonium again. From that time forward, we never saw it.

 

Now he's a full adult, and I've never seen him need Stramonium again.

 

So, his Lego guys survived. In fact, we still have all those Lego guys. We still have them! My sons don’t want to get rid of them.

 

Kate:  They didn’t kill each other off or anything?

 

Joette:  No, no, no, there were no more massacres. They made it — I guess because they're made of plastic. They're protected.

 

Stramonium for Pets

 

Kate:  You also have used Stramonium for some of your pets.

 

Joette:  Yes, we also use Stramonium for Buster. Now Buster was home birthed.

 

Kate:  Home birthed?

 

Joette: Yes, his mother, Dolly, gave birth to her pups, as a matter of fact, in my office one early morning. He was born at home. We didn't get him from a home or from a veterinarian or any place where he had already gotten vaccines.

 

So, at one point, we decided that he really ought to get a vaccine for rabies because we lived in the country, and he did a lot of running around roaming.

 

We were concerned, even though I don't believe … especially at that time, there was no incident of rabies for many, many years in the entire region of where we lived. I did a lot of reading up on that and checking with vets, etc. Indeed, there had not been any cases of rabies.

Nonetheless, because he did so much running around, if he had gotten bit by a rabid animal, we would never know that that's what had happened — because it might not be severe enough for us to notice it.

 

So, we got him the rabies vaccine, and it was even a small amount. He's not a very big dog. He was only 18 pounds when he got that vaccine. And he reacted very badly.

 

He has always been my husband's dog, by his side at all times, won't go anywhere without my husband, etc.

 

But suddenly he became vicious, angry, wouldn't let me near my husband.

 

Now, Buster sleeps on the foot of the bed, and he wouldn't let me on the bed. If he saw me walking towards my husband or even walking into the bedroom — he and my husband already were ready for the evening — he would not let me in. What I mean by that is he would snarl and become very vicious — something I've never seen in him.

 

That anger and that response — we know that’s a response to this vaccine. We see it all the time: that this vaccine often causes a neurological response. And that's what Stramonium is all about. It’s a neurological shock to the system just like that movie was a shock to my son’s system. The angst that came from this vaccine is a shock to the dog’s system. And this is how he reacted.

 

I gave him Stramonium in precisely the same way I had given it to my son: three times in 24 hours, and he calmed down.

 

That was not the end of it. I needed to repeat it.

 

A week later, it was not as severe. He was no longer snapping at me. These are not little gentle cautionary snaps. These were … I think Buster would have done harm had I gotten too close to my husband during that time. Even with my husband's grabbing him and shaking him and saying, “No,” and, “Stop it,” and keeping him off the bed and doing everything that you would normally do to a dog that would behave in that manner. It made no difference until we gave him Stramonium 200 C, three times in 24 hours.

 

At that point, he calmed down. And then a week later, he did it again because it was still … it got amped-up again. Basically, I think as I recall, we used Stramonium three times in 24 hours about every 10 days. That's my recollection (it was a long time ago). About every 10 days for about a month. After that month, he became himself again. That was the end of it.

 

It's a very powerful medicine for when we see a shock to the central nervous system, an injury to the central nervous system, on some level — whether it's psychological, or vaccine-induced, or whatever it might be. It could also be for having witnessed atrocities. The reaction is protection of the cell for protection of the family through a violent sensation. So, the dog was going to protect my husband at any cost. My son was going to have his Lego guys protect the family at any cost.

 

Kate:  Powerful medicine.

 

Joette:  Very!

 

Kate:  You know what this makes me think of is animals that end up in a shelter and end up being put down because of their aggression.  Don't you just want to go and give them all Stramonium and see how it works?

 

Joette:  I think about it all the time. I know many people who have had to put their dogs down because they were attacking neighbors or attacking their own children. It was a very nice dog, sweet dog, great dog, wonderful dog, but for this one little idiosyncrasy! It turns out the dog wants to masticate everybody at sight.

 

Kate:  What about dogs wanting to go after certain other pets? You know how dogs have an instinct to go after the chickens? That would be … same?

 

Joette:  Yes, Buster killed a chicken once — one of our chickens. Yes, carried it around all day. We decided to just leave it in his mouth because if we took it away, he might go after another one. So, we thought, “Oh, well, let's just leave it at that and let him get his fill.”

 

No, I think that's within a dog's instinct. I think that's what that is. I don't think that that is an aggression towards a family member. He didn't consider the chickens family members. We might have, but he didn't. They were his prey.

 

Kate:  What about if there's rage, or you see that acting out, but you don't know that it's preceded by watching something violent or, say, a rabies vaccine, what then Joette?

 

Watching Violent Movies

 

Joette:  Good question. Many times, we don't realize that our children have been at someone's house, and they've watched a movie that was inappropriate violence-wise. Or it could have been a very violent birth that this child had.

 

Now let's not over-analyze. I don't like to run down those rabbit holes. We want something that's somewhat substantiated.

 

But, sometimes we don't even need to know the etiology. We don't have to know that, “Oh, my gosh, when he was at that friend's house six weeks ago, they watched movies. I wonder what they watched, and he's never been the same since.” Or a Halloween costume that scared someone. Or witnessing an atrocity.

 

I mean, we live in a very mild world here in the Western world. We don't witness atrocities. Other parts of the world witness atrocities regularly.

 

This is where we can do the best work without necessarily even knowing whether or not there was an atrocity witnessed. If we see someone acting in a very violent behavior, my go-to, and I teach this in my course, Mindful Homeopathy (and many other medicines) to use Stramonium. We often use it in a 6 twice a day, or we use in a 200 in the fashion that I used it.

 

Now, the Banerjis use it in a 6, twice daily. I think that's often a better method to use, especially when it comes to children. But, a 200 can also be utilized as I had used in my two situations from the past.

 

You don't need a specific event that you know of. How do we know what someone has gone through? We may not know, even if we are the mother, we may not realize that something was very hard on this child, and now they're acting out in either violent words, or their games that they're playing with their animals or their toys seems too violent, etc. — seems like it's out of character.

 

“What is going on?” That's when we start thinking about Stramonium.

 

However, having said this, I would not administer something like Stramonium without reading up on it. So, if anyone ever wants to use this kind of medicine, I urge people … I mean, I read and read and read and read before I administered it to my son. I purchased that book, which I think is a very intelligent way to know your medicines and utilize them properly.

 

Kate:  I think one of the keys, too, is to stop that medicine when they are very much better. Don't continue on. “This is medicine,” like we often say. Right, Joette? You say that all the time.

 

Joette:  These are not supplements where you say, “Oh, well, you know, this is vitamin D …” or vitamins, “Oh, I'll just take them. My vitamin D levels are kind of low. I'll just throw it up and see if it sticks.”

 

No, no, no. This is medicine, and it is relatively safe. Nothing is perfectly safe. Remembering that this is medicine will give you the respect that this medicine is owed.

 

Kate:  So, I wonder if you used Aconite when that event occurred — like your son — maybe had he been given Aconitum 200C after that event, I wonder if it would have quashed that, and he would have never got into rage?

 

Joette:  Yes, I think you're right. I think you're right.

 

When I observed him watching that movie intently and scrolling ahead to get to that particular part, I knew there was something that had captured him. I didn't realize to what degree until that night when he had such a difficult time sleeping and had such horrible nightmares. Had I realized, Aconitum probably would have been a good choice.

 

So, think about people who have witnessed atrocities. Think about those who were around 911. Think about our servicemen and women — what they see; what they've experienced.

 

Just because my son used it within weeks of the time of the neurological onset … and for the dog within, I mean, I realized immediately with him. It was only a short time after he got the vaccine that this behavior began to appear. It can be years later that we finally recognize, or it can be years later that it shows up.

 

Now, it's more likely it's going to show up at the onset of the event, but it doesn't mean that years later you can't treat it.

 

That's another incredible benefit of homeopathy: that you can treat something that should have been treated five years ago with a medicine at the present.

 

This medicine is like a Mendelssohn symphony. It's elegant; it's polite; it’s intelligent. It belongs in the hands of families. It doesn't slam us with a psychotropic drug. It doesn't slam us with Valium, or something.

 

Had I taken my son to a doctor for something like this, they probably would have given him something like a psychotropic drug. And now, we think about what those synthetics can do to a young brain. Think of what it does to an adult brain, let alone a developing one.

 

Whereas homeopathy gently touches because that's Stramonium was diluted 200 times to the hundred power. So, it's very, very dilute, very gentle.

 

It's polite.

 

Joette:  As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising. But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

 

I hope listening to this podcast has inspired you. With the proper training, you, too, can nurture and protect the health of your family and loved ones with Practical Homeopathy®.

 

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 Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Pandora, Stitcher, Spotify, TuneIn and iHeartRadio.

 

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