Huh, I'd like to pulse her tilla...

Homeopathy continues to amaze me. I just started learning about this whole practice last summer and as near as I have seen and experienced thus far, if used properly, homeopathy works just as well, if not better, than conventional drugs for treating just about anything that you would normally take a pill for. While the remedies are symptom specific, homeopathy doesn't treat symptoms (the way most drugs do). What it does is actually trigger your body to fight back against whatever happens to be plaguing it. It actually helps you heal faster, and heal naturally, with your body’s own defenses. A few of the remedies that we use in our house often are:

Arnica Montana – Great for bruises and sore muscles and has all but replaced Ibuprofen in our medicine cabinet.

Nux Vomica – Exactly like it sounds. It’s good for stomachaches, indigestion and all around ickiness due to overeating or overdrinking. If you let a few of these dissolve under your tongue after you’ve been out drinking all night it will usually save you not just the puking but also the hangover. I also took the Nux whenever my hernia started hurting or poking out and it was a good temporary fix until I got in for surgery.

Hepar Sulphuris Calcareum – This is an awesome remedy for dry congested coughs. It’ll cause the phlegm in your lungs to break up and allow you to get to sleep.

Chestal – This is the brand name of a homeopathic cough syrup made by Boiron and it’s good for wet, croupy coughs. What’s better, it tastes like honey. No I mean it REALLY tastes like honey. It’s not some false NyQuil promise, “Oh sure it tastes like grape,” but really still tastes like battery acid. We have no problems getting Allison to take this syrup. In fact she usually keeps asking for more.

Ambrosia Artemesia Folia – This was a godsend last September. Ragweed season always kills me, so last year, rather than suffer through another zombie-like month hopped up on Benadryl, I took Ambrosia which is literally ragweed. Taking in a little bit of ragweed several times a day made me right as rain all season with zero drowsiness. I’ve found that it also works when I’m having an allergic reaction to dust or other pollens as well.

Well the newest homeopathy to truly flip my lid and say, “Wow this stuff really does work doesn’t it,” is a remedy called Pulsatilla. I’ve heard Lauren mention this remedy before. At the birth center where she works they give it to women whose babies are presenting breech. Supposedly it helps the baby turn.

Okay, sure, it was always just one of those stories I heard about and said, “Oh that’s neat,” and didn’t think about further. Well then last Saturday Lauren got an email from her friend Lacey who was nine months pregnant. The mass email said that their baby was breech and the doctors didn’t want to do an ECV to try and turn it. They told her that unless the baby magically turned on its own, they would have to do a C-section on Tuesday.

Lauren immediately shot off an email to Lacey and told her to head to her closest natural food store and pick up some Pulsatilla. I honestly wasn’t expecting much. Even if Lacey got the message, she wouldn’t have had a whole lot of time to let the Pulsatilla do it’s work and would probably still be breech come Tuesday. My impression of most natural remedies is that they aren’t quick fixes. They generally need time to percolate in your system and do their work. I was again doubting homeopathy, which had shown me time and again to be the real deal.

Well apparently Lacey did get the message and went out on Sunday to pick up the remedy. And by Monday, the baby had turned! Her doctors were justifiably amazed and she went on to have a natural childbirth afterward. I’m not sure what the stats are on babies that turn after a certain point in the pregnancy and how those stats change for mothers who take Pulsatilla. Academically, I don’t know how well homeopathy stands up to conventional medicine. But it’s anecdotal cases like this that continue to make me a believer in this practice and make me want to learn more and more about it.