Dr Shreya Salil Kamat Maad
World Homeopathy Day was celebrated recently, marking the birth anniversary of Dr Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of this discipline of medicine. Homeopathy was founded 225 years ago on April 10, 1755 in Germany, and is now practiced around the world.
This discipline is based on the concept “ Similia Similibus Curentur” i.e. likes cures like, and also considers aspects such as mind-body connection. A human being is composed of four elements: body, mind, intellect, and spirit. Health entails complete harmony of body and mind. Secondly, all individuals are not the same. they have their unique characteristics, nature, behaviour, looks, cravings, aversions, etc. Homeopathy takes this into account during treatment, and stipulates individualised treatment for patients according to their own needs.
To illustrate with an example, Let’s suppose two persons are suffering from migraine. Person A has headache on the left side,which is relieved by pressure on site-this is an indicator that they are sensitive, soft-hearted person. Person B however has headache on the right side, and it grows worse with pressure. in this case, we are dealing with a strong-willed and shrewd person. These two individuals will need two different medicines.
Not only that, every individual will require different medicines at different points of time. Symptoms manifest in the body as well as in the mind, and every individual has different ways of expressing these symptoms. Considering this, a classical homeopath’s consultation for chronic conditions include an extremely detailed case history. Along with the present complaints – more attention is given to modalities i.e. when the problem exacerbates, what does the patient do to get relief. Factors such as weather,time of day, and moon phases are also considered. Even the cravings, aversions, habits, thirst, bowel and urine output, for females all menstrual complaints, for child along with milestones, mother’s pregnancy history and mental condition (whether any stress, disappointment etc.) is taken into account. Disease symptoms are what the body uses to tell us that the body is out of harmony. By getting rid of symptoms, we kill the messenger, not the illness. Homoeopathy corrects the underlying imbalance that caused the symptoms of illness health means complete harmony of body and mind. Mind is a mirror which reflects the physical state of the body. Any derangement of mind may affect the body as well and result in disease. For instance, let us suppose a person is suffering from high blood pressure. Now, the goal is to cure the root cause of the disease rather than just symptoms. It is always recommended to start homoeopathy from the time you feel stressed out and find it difficult to deal with the situation and people in your life. Here, we look at the individual’s mental state.
When there is a loss of loved one or a major disappointment, this is typically the time when a person starts developing high BP, but having this ailment does not mean the person has to take medicines for whole life. Homeopathy will address the mental issues by providing remedy to cope-up with the situation and slowly restore health, both mental and physical. Here too, treat ment will vary from person to person for a given situation. It is important to note how mental condition leads to manifestation of physical symptoms such as BP, diabetes, or rheumatic complaints etc. Mind affects the body and vice-versa. Hence, in order to get to the root cause of the ailment, the patient needs to reveal a number of details about themselves. The doctor is not interested in your personal things, but it is necessary for us to understand a person as a whole. All individuals react differently to different events.
To sum it up, Homeopathy helps improve the vitality of mind and body. it uses medicines made using natural substances, and high dilution renders them completely non-toxic. During Hahnemann’s time only 99 remedies were proved, but now the number of proved remedies stands at more than 4000. That said, there are a number of myths about Homeopathic medicines out there, and I urge you not to fall prey to them.
