How to Make Homeopathy Work for You

The trick to making homeopathic medicines work for you is to find the individualized remedy that most closely fits the symptoms that you are experiencing. There will sometimes be more than one remedy that fits the sick person’s symptoms. In such cases, consider giving the remedy that fits the person’s most intense symptoms, giving priority to a remedy that matches a person’s psychological state.
Readers are encouraged to obtain other homeopathic guidebooks to help them find the individualized homeopathic remedy for them, their sick family member, or their friends. Although there may be some overlapping of information from these books, each book also has some information that the others don’t have that can help you help use homeopathic medicines most effectively.
One of the great benefits of homeopathy is the often dramatic results that the remedies provide when a person is experiencing much pain or discomfort.
Generally, a person will notice observable changes within a couple of hours or after a single night’s rest.
People with chronic symptoms or ailments will sometimes require more time before they experience noticeable results from homeopathic medicines. It should also be noted that it is highly recommended to seek out professional homeopathic care if and when a person has chronic or recurring symptoms or for any severe acute ailment. This book may provide information on remedies that may provide some relief from these symptoms, but more profound results can often be obtained from the care of a professional homeopath (see “The Place for Professional Homeopathic Care” later in this section).
This book primarily recommends that people use the 6th, 12th, or 30th potencies. Generally, when you are extremely confident in the selection of the remedy, consider giving the 30th potency. When you are not confident in the selection of the remedy, consider giving the 6th potency. When you are somewhere in between, give the 12th potency. If you have a homeopathic medicine kit at home and the potency that you need is not in the kit, simply give whatever potency you have.
Information about the number of doses to give of a remedy is provided during the discussion of each ailment, but the basic idea in homeopathy is to give as few doses of the remedy as is possible but as much as is necessary. Homeopathic medicines do not work by the notion of “the more the merrier.”
Because homeopathic medicines catalyze a person’s body to heal itself, it is often unnecessary to give many doses. Homeopathic medicines are like a match; they get a fire going. After the fire is burning, it isn’t typically necessary to strike another match unless the flame dies down. Repeating a dose of a homeopathic medicine is necessary when a dose provides a benefit but the benefit wears off.
It is rarely necessary to take a homeopathic medicine more than a couple of days.
People should seriously consider having a homeopathic medicine kit in their home, because children, in particular, tend to get ill at night when pharmacies and health food stores are often closed. Homeopathic medicine kits can be small (six remedies) or considerably larger (28-50 remedies). These kits are available at homeopathic pharmacies and homeopathic distributors, as well as at select health food stores (see the Resources section for a listing of sources of them).

Homeopathic medicine kits are primarily “single” ingredient remedies that people must learn how to use from various homeopathic self-care books like this one. In addition to having these single ingredient remedies, it is useful to have some of the homeopathic combination remedies in the home as well. Information about these combination remedies is provided in the next section.