please stop trying to get rid of your symptoms

I want something even better for you

It would not be an understatement to say that I owe my and my family’s current state of health to homeopathy.

My children, ages 19, 16 and 10 have collectively only needed one round of oral antibiotics in their entire lives. They’ve never taken any other prescription medication, outside of minor surgeries (extraction of wisdom teeth, for example). They have no chronic health conditions — mental, emotional, or physical.

Contrast this with my own story.

my youngest son, the picture of health :-)

After ear infections and pneumonia as a small child, I developed environmental allergies so severe that I was put on daily decongestant and antihistamine for years. Even with all that medication, I still had infections frequently enough that I needed antibiotics multiple times per year.

Since I was struggling so much, I started weekly allergy shots. Two years in, my allergies had improved, and I was getting sick less frequently. But then I developed an autoimmune condition. And “less frequently” still meant antibiotics at least a couple of times per year for sinus infections, strep throat, UTIs, etc.

Yet today, even after 30 years with an autoimmune disease, I now take no medication, prescription or otherwise, and I rarely get a cold. When I do get sick I recover quickly and easily.

Homeopathy is a big reason why — because this is a healing modality that builds up your inner strength. As a homeopath, I’ve learned that rather than trying to “fix” any one symptom, we have to focus on increasing overall health.

But what does that even mean, to increase overall health?

Changing my mind

If you don’t already know, I have alopecia — an autoimmune condition that impacts the hair follicles, preventing hair growth. I discovered I had this condition when I was 17 years old, and then at age 23, all of the hair on my head fell out.

At this point my dermatologist escalated my care. She sent me to the head of dermatology at IUPUI’s teaching hospital in Indianapolis.

Lucky for me, he was brutally honest. He told me: there’s nothing we can do to help you, that will not compromise a more important system in your body.

He encouraged me to simply live with my alopecia, and take good care of myself otherwise.

So let’s just pause here, and let this sink in:

There’s nothing we can do to help you, that will not compromise a more important system in your body.

In my case, he was referring to the generally accepted practice of using cortisone injections — and oral steroids — to suppress the immune system. This would allow the hair to grow back.

However, there are two major downsides to the strategy of applying cortisone, internally or externally: first, it damages the kidneys. Second, once the the steroids are stopped, the inflammation returns, often with a rebound effect that aggravates the condition it was suppressing.

Guess what this leads to?

Yup. A merry-go-round of suppressive medication and worsening symptoms.

What is the use of “curing” — or, more accurately, suppressing — alopecia, if I develop kidney disease as a result of the treatment?

If you consider long term health, sometimes no medicine is the best medicine.

Here’s why.

In a lecture last year, I heard my teacher, world-renowned homeopath George Vithoulkas , say this:

We are not trying to cure any disease with homeopathy. We are trying to increase your level of health.

In other words, expand and deepen your focus.

What is our ultimate goal, as health care practitioners? Is it health, or simply the absence of symptoms? Those two things are not the same.

If you look at my health history, you can see that as time went on, I became sicker and sicker overall. What started as acute infection, became chronic, systemic allergies, and then autoimmunity. As symptoms were suppressed with medication, my immune system became more and more compromised.

When we give medication to solve a short-term problem, without addressing the underlying problem, the underlying problem continues to afflict us — often at deeper and deeper levels.

In my case, I started out susceptible to infection. My immune system was already somewhat compromised.

But because the medication I was given did not address the underlying issue of susceptibility, my immune system continued to be compromised, and that compromise started expressing itself on deeper and deeper levels.

• First, on the level of acute infection — defense against pathogens.

• Then on the level of allergies — defense against environmental stimuli that are usually harmless to humans.

• Then on the level of autoimmunity — defense against my own tissues; in other words, self-attack.

What started out as an appropriate kind of defense mechanism became more and more confused.

Even though some symptoms got better, my overall health became much worse.

This is the wrong direction for health to go.

Establishing health in the body

In contrast, when we give homeopathy, we are supporting the natural processes of the body, strengthening the defense mechanism, and thereby increasing the capacity of the organism to respond to stressors on its own.

In other words, we address the underlying susceptibility.

If you are using homeopathy appropriately, you should need it less and less, AND you should see your overall level of health improve.

Any true healing modality should do the same.

• Your immune system should get stronger.

• Your nervous system should become more flexible, and less reactive.

• Your mood should become more stable.

• Your energy and vitality should increase.

This is what it means to increase your overall level of health.

And this is exactly what happened when I stopped taking pharmaceuticals. Slowly, over many years, I transitioned out of the conventional model of care, and developed trust in alternative methods of support for my immune system: acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, nutrition, and, of course, homeopathy.

Slowly, I started to feel better and better.

Which brings us to today. This is possibly the healthiest I have ever been in my life — at age 49.

Start here: ask some questions

When you are approaching any health issue: think big picture. Think long-term.

Don’t fall into the trap of chasing minor symptom with pharmaceuticals.

Don’t fall into the trap of accepting treatment for temporary, or non-life-threatening conditions without asking about the long-term consequences of said treatments, and making a full cost-benefit analysis — on your terms, with your criteria.

Ask these questions:

• What problem am I trying to solve? Why?

• What are the possible solutions to this problem?

• Will these solutions increases my health over time, or will they create other, different problems in my body or mind?

Will this solution increase my overall level of health?

These questions will change the way you approach health care — and if you follow your own lead, over time they will transform your health. For the better.

xoxo

Hi! I’m a recovered mathematician, and a board-certified homeopath and health coach based in Austin, Texas. You can learn more about my practice, sign up for my mailing list, and download a free guide to homeopathy for first aid on my website.

I offer a monthly class called Homeopathy Club, where we dig into a special topic. In June, we’re covering autoimmunity! If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, you can leave a comment, or sign up for my mailing list for details.