01:00   Introduction: Never Forget Remedies With Stories: A Closer Look at Arnica

01:55   The way most people remember their remedies

02:55   The story of the injured bird

04:46   Arnica for longevity, vascular issues and trauma

            Joe De Livera (Joepathy)

05:52   More applications for Arnica

09:17   Remembering the homeopathic medicines through impactful stories

11:30   Closing Advice

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)

Joette’s Learning Center

The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

PracticalHomeopathy.com

Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Joette’s Study Group, Find Your New Study Group Friends

Joette’s Mighty Members

FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 162, with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:

Hi, I’m Joette Calabrese, and I welcome you to our health care movement — yours, mine and the countless men and women across the globe who have retaken control of their families’ health with Practical Homeopathy®.

So, for the next few minutes, let’s link our arms as I demystify homeopathy — what was once considered an esoteric paradigm — into an understandable, reproducible, safe and effective health care solution available to all.

This is the medicine you’ve been searching for — my unique brand of homeopathy, PRACTICAL Homeopathy®.

Kate: (01:00)

Welcome back to the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast with Joette Calabrese. I’m your co-host, Kate.

If you are looking for ways to remember which homeopathic medicines address specific conditions, today’s podcast is for you. Joette, our Practical Homeopathy® founder and trusted expert, will share her insights to do just that.

But before we jump in, I want to welcome you. You, our listeners. You’re in the right place today if your goal is to become a confident, capable healer in your own family. Or maybe you’re just learning about homeopathy, and you wonder if this could help you or maybe someone that you know. This is the place for you, too.

And this podcast is just one of the many resources Joette offers to help you — wherever you are on your journey.

But let’s get started with today’s podcast. Joette, give us an overview of the topic of our discussion today. It’s a good one.

Joette: (01:55)

Okay. So, let’s start with homeopathy being an academic pursuit, but it’s much more than that. And I’m going to give you some insight into that today.

The way most people remember remedies — learning the materia medica — is by taking cases and observing their successes by using homeopathy.

I guarantee — pretty much — you’ll likely never forget when you helped that little girl down the street with hives by using, say, Urtica urens and seeing a big shift.

You’ll never forget the remedy you used when it helped your husband with that horrible pain after that fall.

You might forget the medicine that helped you with your cough. But when it’s touching you on an emotional level — like when you’re helping a family member or a friend or a pet or even an animal from the wild — it’s more likely you’ll not forget it.

So, let me give you an example.

Joette: (02:55)

Let’s say a bird flew into your window. And this has happened to me a couple of times, and I’ll never forget the combination of the medicines that I used.

The first one I thought of, of course, was Arnica because the bird — being that it flew into the window — hit its head. Arnica is one of our best medicines for a head injury.

Now, I did not know whether or not the bird was in pain, and you might not know this either, but we do know that there was a head injury.

And one time, when we had a bird that flew into our window, I gave it Symphytum with Calc phos as a combination. And I did that because the bird’s head was cocked to one side. And I assumed that there may have been an injury to the spine or to the neck or et cetera.

So, I made that connection. Not sure of it, of course, but certainly, we knew Arnica, and then I added Symphytum plus Calc phos.

But did you know that Arnica has so many other uses? It is one of our most sweeping homeopathic medicines. And there are many medicines like this in our materia medica, but Arnica, because it is such a well-known medicine, ought to strongly be considered for many other conditions as well.

For example, Arnica’s a great remedy for insomnia, for sleeplessness. I learned that from my own mother, who started to use it. She knew only the name of the medicine, Arnica, when I first started learning homeopathy myself. And she just remembered the name, and a couple of nights she had some insomnia and took Arnica, and it worked! And that was news to me. (This was back in the 80s.)

But it can also be used for jet lag.

Kate:

Joette, that’s very interesting. I know that you have talked about some of the surprising uses of Arnica. It is a very sweeping homeopathic medicine. But give us some examples of those surprising uses that people may not think about.

Joette: (04:46)

Yeah. Arnica’s been used for Joepathy’s case (Joe De Livera). He believed it brought him longevity. Well into his 90s, he lived, and he took Arnica daily.

Now, he has a specific way of doing it. He put it in water, et cetera, et cetera. And there’s a whole method in the way that he used it. And he took a dose of it daily. He believed it was the longevity remedy.

But it’s also used for vascular issues, which perhaps could be what contributed to his longevity. Because that is an issue — vascular issues and cardiological issues. But it is one of our best medicines for vascular issues, such as spider veins and even varicose veins that are more prominent.

And of course, do I need to go into trauma? We already did that. That is very important, not only just head injuries, but also soft tissue injuries, such as an injury to the thigh or to the arms or a broken bone. It’s one of our best medicines for that, either recent or remote.

And it can also be useful including tumors formed in an area after trauma.

Kate:

I find that so fascinating, isn’t it?

Joette: (05:52)

Isn’t it? Yes.

So, in Robin Murphy’s “Nature’s Materia Medica” and his tome on the use of homeopathic medicines for so many conditions, this is a quote. He says, “Tumors in many parts following injury have been cured by Arnica, including serous tumors of the breast.”

So, it can be used as a medicine, for example, after a mammogram that caused an injury to the breast.

So, how do we know there’s an injury to the breast? Because there’s pain, or there’s swelling, or something like that that leads us to believe that there’s been injury to the breast.

Arnica’s also a great remedy for hemorrhoids.

It’s also a great remedy during labor and postpartum, and before and after an athletic event.

I know skiers — professional skiers — who have used Arnica montana. And when I’ve worked with professional hockey players, we’ve used Arnica montana after their injuries from their athletic pursuits.

And we’ve used it for football players, and those who are injured, even if it’s only a minor injury. And instead, all that remains is — after a rigorous game — is just the feeling of being beaten up because essentially that’s what athletic events often include.

But how about for just someone who’s overusing their muscles or joints? Someone maybe who is elderly and has overused their muscles by going to the gym with too much zeal their first week. And they’re feeling achy and overuse of their muscles and joints and bones, et cetera, and feeling that sense of being beat up.

How about for gout? It’s one of our great remedies for gout.

But let’s not forget Arnica montana for bed sores or even whooping cough.

This keeps going.

I’m going to name some more because this is so extensive. This medicine is so valuable on so many different levels, that’s also used for blood sugar issues. Joe De Livera, Joepathy, often used Arnica montana in his very special Joepathy way (in water) for diabetes.

And then, we’ve also considered it for ailments from stroke or during a stroke.

And then there are also taste disorders.

And these are some more interesting, unusual issues that could come up that could verify the use of — or shore up the argument for the use of — Arnica.

And also, Joe De Livera, Joepathy, used Arnica for hair growth. Ussher, who by the way, was a referenced homeopathic practitioner of the 19th and early 20th century. He actually contributed to the clinical information on certain homeopathic remedies in his practice.

He noted that “the local use of Arnica [meaning local directly on the skin, on the scalp, produced an extraordinary growth of hair on the area that’s in question] produced an extraordinary growth of hair on a limb.”

And this suggested the use of perhaps “an oil mixed with Arnica 1X in a case of baldness, which was followed with marked success.”

Rather interesting.

And so, let’s also consider Joepathy’s method of using Arnica locally on the scalp in liquid form.

Now, I’m not giving the exact formula, but I want to give you these ideas of how Arnica can be used in so many different ways.

Kate: (09:17)

Great. Those are very interesting and things that you wouldn’t normally think of, but maybe it’s something you want to look into as you have time.

I want to get back, Joette, to learning how to use homeopathic medicines and how we can remember what conditions might be addressed by what medicines.

Joette:

Yeah. Learning about homeopathic medicines is great. But this is more than just studying them and committing them to memory, such as the symptoms for this particular, that particular condition.

It’s different.

It’s making this a part of every fiber of your life. By doing so, then, you can save someone’s life, or you can soften the suffering that someone is experiencing.

So, I will never forget how quickly my mother responded when she was having a stroke, and we used Aconitum. (And I also used Arnica at that moment as well.) And I will never forget the look on her face.

I’ll never forget also how Stramonium helped relieve night terrors for my young son.

And think about it right now. Think about the stories that you may have that are in your arsenal. And the reason that you remember the medicine is because you have a story associated with it.

That’s how we learn our medicines, my friends. It doesn’t mean that we don’t study, but this is what concretizes our knowledge of the medicines. This is what really holds it into our memory.

But ask me what remedy my husband gave me when I was very sick with relentless vomiting, and I don’t remember, to be honest. I know what the medicine is that I would use for someone else, but I don’t remember what he gave me because I was too sick to remember it.

So, when you are giving of yourself and helping someone else — the little bird that flew into the glass, the mother who was having a vascular event, the husband who had an injury and had extreme pain — that act is bigger than you. And now you will remember that because it’s not only emotionally attached to the suffering of someone that you’re caring for, but your memory will remain most likely very much intact.

Kate: (11:30)

So, Joette, some of us may have those stories already, and some of us may not. Give us the upshot in how we can use this information to help us remember our medicines.

Joette:

Well, the upshot is: Take care of your family and take care of those around you, those you love. Take cases, take care of your family, and you’ll get good at this. That’s what’s missing for people who don’t take homeopathy seriously. It hasn’t stirred them deeply enough yet.

Kate:

Yeah. Once you see the life-changing power of homeopathy, like I have with my daughter in anaphylaxis, right? That will never leave my mind. That use of Apis in that situation … I will never forget that.

So, after that, then you begin to incorporate that into your lifestyle. You see someone else that has anaphylaxis? Now, I know what to do.

Joette:

Yep. Anything in life that’s unfavorable or traumatic is an opportunity to grow. In fact, those who live lives that don’t have suffering don’t have the chance to climb the mountain — because it’s in the climbing of the mountain that all the good comes.

I argue that that’s how you become a good homeopath. It’s about climbing one mountain after another.

It’s my honor to share many lessons on this simple method of using homeopathy for free —without affiliates or advertising — here in my podcasts, but also my blog posts and Monday Night Lives.

But it’s critical that you learn how to use these medicines properly. These podcasts should serve as only the beginning of your training. Peruse JoettesLearningCenter.com to find fun study group opportunities and in-depth courses developed by subject.

So, with the proper training, you can join the thousands of students before you in developing the confidence and competence to protect the health of your family and loved ones with my brand of homeopathy, Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:

You just listened to a podcast from internationally acclaimed homeopath, public speaker and author, the founder of The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®, Joette Calabrese. Joette’s podcasts are available on all your favorite podcast apps.

To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

01:00   Introduction: The ‘C’ Remedy for Colic, Cramps and Cysts

01:59   What is Mighties Plus?

            Mighties Plus

02:49   What are homeopathic medicine keynotes?

03:30   Keynotes of homeopathic Colocynthis

            A Materia Medica: Practical Homeopathy® for Busy Families by Joette Calabrese

08:02   Colocynthis for Colic

10:39   A clinical case study in Colocynthis for abdominal pain

            Colocynthis

15:29   Can Colocynthis also be used for GI pain related to anxiety?

16:07   Closing thoughts

            A Materia Medica: Practical Homeopathy® for Busy Families by Joette Calabrese

            Free online materia medica

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)

Joette’s Learning Center

The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

PracticalHomeopathy.com

Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Joette’s Study Group, Find Your New Study Group Friends

Joette’s Mighties Members

FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 161, with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:

Hi, I’m Joette Calabrese, and I welcome you to our health care movement — yours, mine and the countless men and women across the globe who have retaken control of their families’ health with Practical Homeopathy®.

So, for the next few minutes, let’s link our arms as I demystify homeopathy — what was once considered an esoteric paradigm — into an understandable, reproducible, safe and effective health care solution available to all.

This is the medicine you’ve been searching for — my unique brand of homeopathy, PRACTICAL Homeopathy®.

Kate: (01:00)

Welcome back to the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast with Joette. I’m your co-host, Kate, and I’m looking forward to today’s topic because we’re diving into a homeopathic medicine that I believe every household should keep close at hand. And in just a moment, Joette, our Practical Homeopathy® founder and trusted expert, will explain exactly why.

But before we jump in, I want to welcome all of you. You are in the right place today. If your goal is to become a confident, capable healer in your own family, this podcast is just one of the many resources Joette offers to do just that.

So, let’s get started. Hi, Joette.

Joette:

Hi, Kate. This is so great. This is a very interesting topic today.

Kate:

It is! What sparked our topic of discussion today is a question from one of your Mighties Plus members.

So, some of our listeners might be asking, what is Mighties Plus? And do you want to explain it to them just a bit, Joette?

Joette: (01:59)

Mighties Plus is a virtual group. We meet each month, where I’ll get your questions answered.

And there’s much more because there’s also that community. And so, we also have a special lesson in Mighties Plus for each month, so that members can study.

We have those who have been in Mighties Plus for a little while. We have them give us exciting success stories.

And then, we have Remedy Riddles and all kinds of fun things that keep it alive and interesting. So, it’s not just me answering questions.

Kate:

So, one of those things in your Mighties Plus membership site is the flashcards that give keynotes for various homeopathic medicines. And it’s a great way — for whether it’s adults or even children — to learn the keynotes of the medicines.

For those people who may not know what a keynote is, can you explain that, Joette?

Joette: (02:49)

Well, each of our homeopathic medicines have sweeping, grand ability. They can touch on so many aspects of human suffering and human health. But there are specific aspects of each of them that rise to the top — certain abilities of these medicines — and we call them keynotes. It’s an appropriate name because these are the key aspects of this particular medicine.

So, for those who only know a little bit about Arnica montana, you would understand that — Arnica montana — one of the keynotes, is elements from an injury. So, soft tissue or hard tissue injury would be met with Arnica. That’s a keynote of Arnica montana.

Kate: (3:30)

So, in our last Mighties Plus live, one of the students — which is what sparked this episode, actually —asked you, “Does the homeopathic medicine Colocynthis work for just GI pain (because that’s what you were talking about) related to bullying? Or would it also help with GI pain related to anxiety?”

So, can you take us through how to think about this question, and why it was a good question.

Joette:

Well, I discussed that moment in Mighties Plus. I was describing a case that I had taken years ago about an adolescent boy who had been bullied and had tremendous GI pain. He was practically unable to go to school most days because of this pain, and it was related to having been bullied.

And those are two keynotes that are related to Colocynthis: being bullied or, actually, maybe indignation. And then, following that indignation, the person has stomach pain.

And so, the person wanted to know — that Mighties Plus member wanted to know — so is it only for bullying or would it also help with a stomach pain that’s related to anxiety?

Now, I could actually say, “Sure.”

But what I want to do is get my followers — and especially my students — to learn how to fish. I don’t want to give her the fish. I want her to learn how to fish.

And so, the next step I encouraged her to do — and I’m going to encourage you listeners today to do — that is to find that answer out not by asking me (so that I can give a yes or no answer), but rather to go to our beloved materia medicas.

Now, materia medica is a book that has the homeopathic medicines listed, and each medicine is described, the keynotes are included, and it gives a very good description. Sometimes, depending on which materia medica one chooses to read and then study, it can be three pages long of information on one particular medicine. Or you can go to, for example, my materia medica that simplifies it, makes it much easier for the beginner or for someone who needs kind of a quick reference.

So, I want that person who’s asking can it be from another cause, such as anxiety … Can stomach pain, that is a result of anxiety that fits the picture of the remedy Colocynthis, be associated?

And I say, “Please go to your materia medica and read up on it. Because indeed Colocynthis is ailments, such as stomach pain from anger, from indignation, from excitement. And anxiety could be certainly excitement, and the person can be also irritable.

So, if I explain this to someone — and I am happy to do so — they will not know enough to go digging deeper. They will not know enough to go into a materia medica and start reading up on this medicine and all of its capabilities and how it’s related to many different kinds of emotional issues.

Kate:

Let’s widen our lens just a bit. Joette, for those who may not know much about the remedy Colocynthis, and it’s spelled C-O-L-O-C-Y-N-T-H-I-S.

For those who don’t know much about this, can you give us a broader picture of what conditions or symptoms might be addressed with Colocynthis?

Joette:

Well, it’s for pain, but a certain kind of pain. It’s usually abdominal pain, or it can be ovarian pain — a cyst that’s in the ovary. It can be from dysmenorrhea from menstrual pain.

But we were talking about how this was affecting a young teenage boy with gastrointestinal colic, basically.

So, did we need to know whether it was the pancreas or the gallbladder or the stomach or the intestines? It would be useful, but, boy, I’ll tell you, the whole abdominal area is often difficult to fine-tune and determine exactly where it’s coming from … which organ it’s coming from. Sometimes we can, but many times we can’t.

So, it is specific for a colicky pain, a pain that can be very severe. It forces the person to double over, to bend double, or to put their hands against their abdomen and then double over.

It’s for muscles that are cramping. It’s for neuralgias — even sciatica with cramping or shooting pains.

These are the gastrointestinal or the abdominal that include also (besides sciatica), it’s all in the abdominal region. For women, it can be in the ovaries or the uterus as well.

Kate: (08:02)

One of the things I think of with Colocynthis is when a baby has colic. Do we use it for that?

Joette:

It’s a wonderful remedy for colic. And the way that we notice that the colic is related to Colocynthis is that when I say that someone doubles over and presses against their abdomen, babies don’t do that. Maybe children who are a little older, but a baby …

You might find that you can calm the baby down a little bit. It might not resolve the condition, but you can calm the baby down by putting pressure on the belly.

And how would that occur? Well, you might be holding the baby up so that the baby’s facing behind you, and the baby’s belly is pressed against your shoulder. And that calms the baby down.

Or if it’s much younger, if you put the baby on your arm and it hangs the way with arms and legs on one side and arm and leg on the other side — like a lion hanging from a branch of a tree over your arm, draped over — because there’s pressure that’s being put on the abdomen, that that’s somewhat comforting.

That tells us that it’s not curing it, but we’re looking at what are the symptoms and how are they presenting? And what makes it a little better, what makes it a little worse? What makes it much better, much worse?

And that gives us a clue that this baby is more comforted when there is pressure placed against the abdomen.

Now, the first thing we think of would be Colocynthis. But we would not know that unless we went to a materia medica and read up on this medicine because someone would say, “Well, is it worse from anxiety?”

Well, maybe. Perhaps the baby was anxious the night before because … who knows: There were loud noises; there were thunderstorms; or it was frightened by a big dog that came running in the room after it. And ever since then, the baby now has (or the child or even the person) has abdominal pains that are somewhat softened by pressure.

Kate:

So, does that emotional trigger have to be there in order to use Colocynthis?

Joette:

Well, that’s a great question, and I think that was part of the original question to a certain degree.

It doesn’t have to be there. No.

Or it’s there, but you don’t notice it. You may not have realized it.

And I’ll tell a story about that, a case that I took years ago. But before I do that, let me answer the question as frankly as I can. It doesn’t need to be there. But if it is, it really shores up your argument for using this medicine over another medicine, say Arsenicum album or Nux vomica or Ipecac or something like that.

We really want to be able to shore up our argument as best we can. And if there is an emotional component, yeah, we’ll add that in, and it just builds our argument for using this.

Joette: (10:39)

The case that I’m referring to that I think would be instrumental in understanding was an adolescent boy whose mother brought him to me, and he had tremendous abdominal pains. So severe with these pains that he was missing a great deal of school.

And when he had these pains — and they weren’t all day, but they were a good many hours, every day — he would double over and press against his abdomen. It wasn’t clear that that’s what he was doing in the very beginning, but it became more and more clear that this is what gave him a little bit of comfort.

So, I used a couple of homeopathic medicines. I used one, one time, and then another one, another time, and just, there was no improvement.

And the mother had put an enormous amount of effort into what she was feeding him. She was convinced that it was something that he was eating that was causing this. So, she rearranged her entire kitchen. She rearranged her ideas on what the family should be eating. She read and read and read, tried to find an answer to this, convinced again that it was something that he was eating.

And indeed, that makes sense.

But what didn’t make sense was that he didn’t have this all his life. Instead, it just started happening about six months before she brought him to me.

So, after the second — I think maybe it was the second or the third appointment — I asked. And I had asked before, but perhaps I didn’t ask properly because I didn’t get the answer that I needed. I asked, “What preceded this? Why is it that this boy was fine until six months ago? What happened seven months ago? Was he given an antibiotic? Did you move? Your marriage is still intact, right, Mom? Was there anything that could have shifted emotionally or physically?” (Maybe she started a new vitamin regimen, and it could be some kind of a synthetic vitamin that could be aggravating his abdomen.)

And so, when I asked this question in that way, asking, giving ideas — potential ideas — anything emotional, anything physical, anything extrinsic, the mom and son exchanged glances.

And then she said to him, “May I tell Joette about this?”

And he said, “Sure.”

So, she relayed a story to me that had occurred about seven, eight months ago of a boy in the school who was bullying this boy. And he felt trapped. He loved school; he wanted to be there, but he felt trapped by not being able to go to school comfortably because he was anxious, and I would say, experienced indignation and embarrassment in front of his friends.

So now we’ve got a couple of different emotions here.

So, when the mom told me this, it finally clicked. I said, “Oh my goodness. This is the medicine: Colocynthis. Because when someone has colic, whether it’s gastrointestinal or even ovarian or uterine, that follows an indignation, anger, irritability, excitement, loss of stature in their little community, in their school community, or anger towards them, and following that, there’s colic in the abdomen, et cetera, this is likely a medicine that we need to strongly consider.

His mother described how he bends over when the pain is severe, and he’s got his arms folded in front of himself and pushing down on them. That’s when it was clear to me that this was the need for the remedy Colocynthis.

And so, could we have used this had they never told us this? I might have come to it. But what really struck me was this story that ever since these events seven months ago, this boy has been suffering.

So, we used Colocynthis. We used it, I believe, in a 30th potency, as I recall. It was so long ago. I believe it was a 30th potency, probably, once or twice a day for a few days. And the mom called me and was so grateful that she was teary. She shared that, “My gosh, after the first dose of Colocynthis 30, he fell asleep,” something that was unusual for him.

And after the second dose, he felt steadier, or maybe, I don’t know, more firm in who he was. She said he started to think a little differently.

By three days of using Colocynthis, the pains were gone. He was back to himself and was excited about going back to school and felt resolve in his ability to be able to handle this bully at school.

It completely shifted this boy’s school experience, how he ate. The mother could relax and not have to worry about all the foods that he was eating, how perfect she had to be, how perfect it had to be when they went out to dinner, et cetera.

It relieved not just him, but the whole family, because it is a ricocheting event. When one cog in the wheel is off, the entire family is. It relieved especially him and secondarily his mother. Beautiful medicine, this Colocynthis.

Kate: (15:29)

Yes.

Now, I think I should ask you that question again, which was asked by your Mighties Plus member. Does Colocynthis work for just GI pain related to bullying, as in your story, or would it also help with GI pain related to anxiety?

Joette:

Well, given that Colocynthis is used for bullying, indignation, excitement, being angered, being distraught emotionally, I would say it’s very likely that if the pain is not unlike what I’ve just described, and it follows anxiety, I would say it could be a very good choice. Yeah.

Kate: (16:07)

Okay. So, what are our takeaways today, Joette?

Joette:

The takeaway is that before you choose a homeopathic medicine, don’t go by my story alone. Go to your materia medica. Own a couple. If you’re interested in this subject, own a few of them. You can go to my materia medica, which is very simple, quick reference, or there are online materia medica that are free, and I talk about them all the time.

But it behooves you to own the ability to at least have access to one and reach out and read the medicine before asking.

I mean, it’s a great question. I’m glad that she asked this question, but I urge people to ask the question of themselves. When you open up the materia medica, and you look up Colocynthis, you will learn that, indeed, from excitement, ailments from excitement, colic from excitement — whether it’s menstrual colic, whether it’s gastrointestinal colic — colic as a result of excitement.

And so, does anxiety fall into the category of excitement? And I would say, “Of course.”

So, it’s not like if you have strep throat; here’s the medicine, and there you are. You’re done. Bob’s your uncle.

No, my friends. These medicines have broad abilities, sweeping abilities, and you want to know that picture. And once you use this medicine, say, for this person who’s asking about colic following anxiety, you’ll remember this medicine. You’ll never forget it.

I know it’s an unusual word. These homeopathic medicines are all in Latin because it’s the real thing. This is actually made from a plant.

So, I’m sharing my story with you because perhaps you don’t have one yet about how to use Colocynthis. So, this story about the boy with the colic pain is mine to share with you to help you remember this. And as you do this, you’ll have stories. You’ll grow your own collections of homeopathic stories as you treat those around you.

So, I guess the bottom line is it’s all about collecting: collecting knowledge and your collection of assorted stories.

Kate:

Thank you, Joette. This has been so insightful. I appreciate you sharing.

Joette:

My pleasure, Kate.

It’s my honor to share many lessons on this simple method of using homeopathy for free —without affiliates or advertising — here in my podcasts, but also my blog posts and Monday Night Lives.

But it’s critical that you learn how to use these medicines properly. These podcasts should serve as only the beginning of your training. Peruse JoettesLearningCenter.com to find fun study group opportunities and in-depth courses developed by subject.

So, with the proper training, you can join the thousands of students before you in developing the confidence and competence to protect the health of your family and loved ones with my brand of homeopathy, Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:

You just listened to a podcast from internationally acclaimed homeopath, public speaker and author, the founder of The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®, Joette Calabrese. Joette’s podcasts are available on all your favorite podcast apps.

To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

00:58   Introduction: Real-World Integration of Practical Homeopathy® and Conventional Care

01:56   Health care professionals seeking to incorporate both allopathy and homeopathy

            Boiron

04:40   Is homeopathy the same as “home remedies?”

            The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

06:07   A day in the life of a “combination” practice

11:28   Attention, health care workers: Stay at your post!

13:24   Homeopathy and/or pharmaceuticals

17:02   Success Story: Osteoporosis

            Watch Out for Dem’ Bones

18:07   Success Story: Depression

            Homeopathy Can Spoil a Girl

            JoetteCalabrese.com

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)

Joette’s Learning Center

Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Joette’s Study Group, Find Your New Study Group Friends

Joette’s Mighty Members

FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 160.

Joette:

Hi, I’m Joette Calabrese, and I welcome you to our health care movement — yours, mine and the countless men and women across the globe who have retaken control of their families’ health with Practical Homeopathy®.

So, for the next few minutes, let’s link our arms as I demystify homeopathy — what was once considered an esoteric paradigm — into an understandable, reproducible, safe and effective health care solution available to all.

This is the medicine you’ve been searching for — my unique brand of homeopathy, PRACTICAL Homeopathy®.

Kate: (00:58)

Welcome back to the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast. I’m Kate, and today’s guest is going to talk about how she integrates homeopathy into her existing health practice without abandoning the credentials, training and experience as a medical professional.

I’m thrilled to be joined by someone who embodies this balance beautifully. Michelle is a nurse and a homeopath who works alongside her physician-husband. She’s also gone through The Academy of Practical Homeopathy® and is now finishing the second year, which is the Mastery program.

So today, she’s here to talk about how to introduce homeopathy to people steeped in the allopathic world. Michelle, welcome to the podcast.

Michelle:

Thank you, Kate. It’s good to be with you today.

Kate:

I’m so glad you’re here. You have a very unique and exciting perspective, and I’m thrilled for you to be able to share with the listeners.

Michelle:

Thank you. I’m glad to be here as well.

Kate: (01:56)

So, tell me about what you’ve noticed. When we talked earlier, you said some things about nurses who are giving up their positions and their licenses because they’re wanting to go into homeopathy, and they’re not really sure how to incorporate both of those paradigms. Can you talk to us about that?

Michelle:

Yeah, especially through the last several months and getting to meet everyone, and there’s so many RNs. And I would say other health care professionals, too, that I’ve met along the way in my study groups, as well as the broader sense of the school, that so many of them seem to feel like they have to give up their nursing license or their doctor or physical therapy license in order to practice homeopathy because of the scope of practice.

And I don’t know the laws in every state. However, I’m in Florida. Florida’s pretty friendly with combining those. And I just find that for us in our private practice, I find it very beneficial to have one foot in the allopathic world, as I call it, and one foot in the homeopathic world — in the sense that there’s so many things, especially that you can teach patients or clients, that they can take something homeopathically and not have side effects.

Oftentimes, when they’ll come into our office, I have lots of remedies right in our office. And they can see those, and they will ask me questions about them. And we usually start with simple things like heartburn, or if they’re having issues with sleep, or as a woman with menopausal symptoms.

And Boiron does a beautiful job of making remedies sort of “shelf attractive” to people that are used to more Big Pharma over-the-counter type things. And so, I educate them on some of their choices so that they don’t have to be on more Big Pharma medicines. And the reason not to be is that there’s so many side effects with the synthetic drugs in our world today.

So, I feel like I can win more people over to homeopathy, and ultimately, it’s better for the person. A lot of people just don’t know. They’ve never heard of homeopathy, or that they misunderstand it.

They think that it is natural or herbal, and they aren’t sure. Functional medicine, I think, has come into play and confused waters even more. So, it does take some explaining. Once they see that something works for them and we have a small win, they’re ready to hear more.

Kate: (04:40)

When you said earlier, they think it’s natural. I want to just clear that up for a bit.

It is natural. However, I think what you were trying to say was they just think it’s a broad category of natural medicine, like herbs, and essential oils and all of that.

Michelle:

Home remedy.

Kate:

Yeah, home remedy. That’s what they think.

Michelle:

Right. Yeah. That’s what I meant by “natural” is, like, they think home remedy and homeopathy are the same thing.

Kate:

I think most people don’t really know that homeopathic medicines are regulated by the FDA. There’s the homeopathic pharmacopoeia that the pharmacies go by. So, these medicines are manufactured in pharmacies, according to strict standards. It’s very regulated. So, I just think that’s a fact that people don’t usually know.

Michelle:

And through The Academy, we’ve had the opportunity to see many interviews with the different pharmaceutical companies.

In The Academy, I was blown away by the homeopathic pharmacies that Joette actually interviewed, but we listened. And the regulations that they have to go through was unbelievable scrutiny.

I’ve never interviewed another pharmacy, but it just seemed to me like it was over the top — how much that they go through and how particular they are, and making certain that the medicines that we use homeopathically are exactly what they say they are.

Kate: (06:07)

Michelle, can you explain to me what happens in your private practice?

So, a patient is scheduled; they come into your office. How does that usually work as far as the balance between your husband and yourself, and the allopathic world and homeopathic?

Michelle:

Of course. We’ve been in practice for 30 years-plus now, and a lot of our patients are very well known to us. We still do have new patients, but most of them have been with us for quite some time.

And my husband has always been a minimalist as far as drugs and things. But as a physician in this world, his tools have always been pharmaceuticals from drug companies. And since learning homeopathy, we now feel so blessed because we have more tools to use.

And so, a patient comes into our office, they first come to my station — which is the nursing station — and I do the typical intake of what is currently going on with them, along with their vital signs and what they currently are taking for vitamin supplements and medications, et cetera.

They sit in the chair and right in front of them, up on my wall, I have several homeopathic remedies, specifically combination remedies for acute illnesses and things like that that we can use.

And so that oftentimes brings up lots of questions from them of something like, for example, the Acidil®, if they’re having heartburn. “Oh, is that what that’s for?”

And then we have a conversation and then go through some things, and it just puts some ideas into their mind of some things that they can take that don’t have side effects. So, that starts a discussion.

They go back to see Dr. D. He and I have an exchange of what’s going on with the patient. He goes in, sits down with the patient. He always says the patient will tell you what exactly is wrong with them if you listen.

I think this is an important lesson — as simple as it may seem to anyone working in health care, whether you’re a homeopath, a nurse or a doctor — that the symptoms that the person is describing leads us to the right remedies.

So, he will make his assessment. And as I said before, he’s a minimalist as far as drugs are concerned and tries to take people off of things that they don’t need to be on.

He will come out to me and discuss if there’s something that he thinks that we can do for them homeopathically. If so, many of those that are common that he has become very familiar with, he will go ahead and send them back to me for a homeopathic consult. And at that point, then we continue with that.

It’s not to say that we don’t believe there is not a place for allopathic medicine, especially in the diagnostics. That is especially where my husband shines, and he is very much a diagnostician, and we need him for those skills that he was well-trained and has great experience in … as well as Western medicine. We believe it’s great for a trauma situation.

Clearly, we need hospitals, and we need emergency trauma care. But other than that — and surgery — we believe that real health comes from diet and exercise, discipline, sunshine, homeopathy.

So, there is a place for both. And I think that that’s where we’re a little bit unique in that we don’t want to abandon where we came from. I think that it can add to where we’re going with a practice that is both somewhat in Western medicine as well as our tools — as much as we possibly can — have switched to homeopathy.

Kate:

I have a question. When the patients come in, and they are maybe needing a homeopathic remedy — it would be great for this situation — do they just get the homeopathic medicine (the box) from you, or does your husband write it on his prescription pad? Or how does that work?

Michelle:

So no, he does not write it. That’s when he turns it over to me, and then I guide them through the process.

If it’s new to them — which many of them now, it is not new to them — they have a pharmacy that they pick. I go through about three or four different pharmacies. I explain to them the advantages and disadvantages of some of them, whether they’re stateside or there’s one we use in the U.K.

If it’s a chronic, I try to go and help them out a little bit with that as far as one that they would need to have a more quantity from. So that’s where I guide them.

I have my own script pad, and from that point, then I write down the instructions for them, and they go forward with that. Then, when they come and return for a follow-up, the follow-up is with one or both of us.

Kate: (11:28)

That’s great. All right. Thanks for explaining that.

So, you’ve been passionate about encouraging nurses and other health care workers to stay in their roles. Talk about why that’s so important. You talked about this a little bit earlier, but if you could share a little bit more about that.

Michelle:

There’s one person who was in my study group, our first year of APH, who is an ER physician. And she’s done very similarly to myself in being able to offer the patient an option.

It’s never forced upon them, but many of them come in very timid or leery about what might be given to them or their child if it’s in a pediatric situation, and they are asking and seeking an alternative, if you will.

Although in the homeopathic, we would tend to think we are the original, and the synthetic version of pharma is the alternative.

But what I’m saying is when you remain in the system, if you will, of our hospitals and urgent cares or physician’s offices or in places where you can meet people and present an option to them of homeopathy, I feel very passionate about it. And I feel that the more people that can learn today that we do have options that perhaps people have just never heard of.

I think it’s important that some of us can stay and perform in that role, whether it’s physical therapy or chiropractic or emergency medicine or primary care.

Kate: (13:24)

One of the things we were talking about earlier was when you were saying that some older patients are on many medications at a time, and sometimes, they’ve been on them for many years. And you had mentioned a couple of conditions and how they may not have been improving on those medications, yet they’re still on them. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Michelle:

So, perhaps something about the years I’ve spent in the allopathic-dominant world of health care and how I often see that when patients go on pharmaceuticals, they’re on them for the rest of their lives. And those medicines, they will make them better in the short term, but they are literally on them forever.

So, it’s not curing them, rather it’s something that they must take the rest of their lives.

And, for example, thyroid or cardiac meds. Whereas in homeopathy, we have remedies that are intended to uproot the conditions that we suffer from. And eventually, hopefully, we would not require the homeopathic medicine any longer. And so, the conditions that we suffer from, and eventually we would not require any medicine, whether allopathic or homeopathic.

And that is something that I see in our practice that homeopathy is helping. It’s completely uprooting. I have many clients that I have gotten off of synthetic thyroid medications with the help of my husband, who is a physician.

So, as I give them the remedies homeopathically to correct their thyroid imbalances, then, he titrates down on the synthetic medicine to the point where we’re off completely. And then they continue for a short period of time on the homeopathy medications, and then they’re off.

And we have a person that no longer has symptoms of thyroid issues, whether hypo or hyper.

Kate:

Isn’t that exciting? I bet they are thrilled.

Michelle:

Correct. Correct. And also, takes a little bit longer and maybe a little bit more balancing, but we’re doing the same things with blood pressure and some cardiac issues as well.

So, to not be on — not only financially to be on medicines — Big Pharma medicines for the rest of your life, but also, and more importantly, for the health of your body.

Kate:

Wonderful. Exciting stories. And with acute conditions, I think you were mentioning that you usually see results more quickly.

Michelle:

Yes. I mean, it’s an acute and a shorter fix than from chronics. And I do find that when we have acute illnesses, and I can help the person feel better homeopathically, then they’re a little bit more willing to come out and say, “Hey, what do you think about this?”

And it might be a chronic problem that they’re having or suffering symptoms from.

“Is there anything available for that?”

And so again, I find it exciting to be in the position that I’m in that I can offer them some hope with their chronics as well.

Kate:

And I just want to add that we’re not saying that you alone should get off any medications. You should always work with your doctor, and that’s what Michelle is saying, that her and her husband worked together as a team in this effort.

Before we wrap up today, can you share a couple of success stories with us?

Michelle: (17:02)

Oh gosh, yes. I have lots of them. Let me think of some of my favorite ones.

Chronically, osteoporosis, especially with women. And it might be just our practice, but I think a lot of times women end up getting diagnosed more with osteoporosis, whether it’s the years of nursing babies, having babies and things like that. They end up going for bone density scans more often than men.

But we have a beautiful protocol homeopathically that I’ve been using, and many women, their osteoporosis scores have improved. They have had falls where they don’t have a broken bone, especially our elderly women who maybe are falling a little more frequently.

You can look the protocol up. I think Joette has a blog called Dem, D-E-M, Bones, Dem Bones. “Joette Calabrese and osteoporosis.” If you even Google that into your search finder, and that’s the protocol that I follow.

Michelle: (18:07)

Another one is depression.

We have a lot of depression within … whether it’s aging, whether anxiety leading to depression … with some of our younger people, both male and female. Again, Joette has a great blog on depression, and those are the protocols that we’ve been using homeopathically, and we’ve seen such great success with those.

Kate:

The podcast [blog post], if you want to look that up, is Homeopathy Can Spoil a Girl, and it’s medicine for depression. So, if you even — in the search bar at the top right corner of JoetteCalabrese.com — click on the search button and then type in “depression.” And you’ll see the blog posts that have to deal with depression or any other podcasts or anything.

In fact, if you want to go there and search for any condition, you can just click that search button and type in the condition or on your search engine, type in “Joette Calabrese,” and then the condition, and you’ll see all of the articles that come up about that condition.

Michelle, this has been such an encouraging conversation and enlightening.

So, your message was clear. You don’t have to abandon your license, your training, and your profession to practice homeopathy. Of course, look at the regulations, like you said, in your state, but you can stay in the field, serve your patients and gently introduce them to an alternative and let them choose.

So, I appreciate your time today, your wisdom and sharing your experience with us.

Michelle:

Absolutely. And thanks for having me, Kate.

Kate:

And thank you to the listeners for joining us today. If you are a health care professional wondering how to integrate homeopathy into your work, I hope today’s episode gives you some confidence and clarity, and we’ll see you next time.

Joette:

It’s my honor to share many lessons on this simple method of using homeopathy for free —without affiliates or advertising — here in my podcasts, but also my blog posts and Monday Night Lives.

But it’s critical that you learn how to use these medicines properly. These podcasts should serve as only the beginning of your training. Peruse JoettesLearningCenter.com to find fun study group opportunities and in-depth courses developed by subject.

So, with the proper training, you can join the thousands of students before you in developing the confidence and competence to protect the health of your family and loved ones with my brand of homeopathy, Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:

You just listened to a podcast from internationally acclaimed homeopath, public speaker and author, the founder of The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®, Joette Calabrese. Joette’s podcasts are available on all your favorite podcast apps.

To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

01:00   Introduction: “But my doctor said …”

02:25   There is a price for convenience

06:40   Doctors Joette follows

            Dr. Ken Berry

            Dr. Shawn Baker

            Dr. Robert Kiltz

            Dr. Anthony Chaffee

            Dr. Ben Bikman

            Dr. Annette Bosworth

            The Weston A. Price Foundation®

09:31   Finding a local, open-minded doctor is possible

13:06   Put on that mask (no, not the one you’re thinking of)

15:34   “But my doctor said …”

18:44   Questions for the doctor

21:06   The specialist referral

23:27   Closing advice

            Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)

Joette’s Learning Center

The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

PracticalHomeopathy.com

Joette’s Study Group, Find Your New Study Group Friends

Joette’s Mighty Members

FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 159, with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:

Hi, I’m Joette Calabrese, and I welcome you to our health care movement — yours, mine and the countless men and women across the globe who have retaken control of their families’ health with Practical Homeopathy®.

So, for the next few minutes, let’s link our arms as I demystify homeopathy — what was once considered an esoteric paradigm — into an understandable, reproducible, safe and effective health care solution available to all.

This is the medicine you’ve been searching for — my unique brand of homeopathy, PRACTICAL Homeopathy®.

Kate: (01:00)

Welcome to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast with Joette, where we empower you to take charge of your family’s health with Practical Homeopathy®.

I’m your host, Kate, and I’m here today with Joette, your teacher and mentor and the founder of Practical Homeopathy®.

Today’s episode is for everyone who has ever walked out of a doctor’s office feeling perhaps dismissed or maybe confused — not sure you’ve been given an effective solution. Well, Joette is here today to pull back the curtain on the phrase we’ve all heard, “But my doctor said …”

So, get ready because this podcast is going to give you courage and clarity.

Joette will share why even the best doctors can be wrong (or maybe their knowledge limited), why the hidden costs of blind trust in titles and white coat can be deceiving. How to find those rare doctors who actually do think outside the box, and the life-changing moment when you finally put the mask on and see what homeopathy can really do.

Joette will explain that a little more later; it’s not what you think.

Hi, Joette.

Joette:

Hi, Kate. We’re talking about a different kind of mask, but we’ll get into it.

Kate:

Yes, exactly. It’s a really great analogy that you have. So, Joette, as we get started today, what were you referring to when you said, “But my doctor said …”

Joette: (02:25)

Let’s start with this idea. We have to step back a little bit. The idea that I want to get across today is that there is a price for convenience. We all know that convenience foods, convenience drugs — conveniences — we pay for them on one level or another.

It’s easy to go along with conveniences because … there it is. That also is the same for it’s easy to go along with what the doctor said because it’s convenient!

It can represent work if we must figure this out ourselves or dig about and find another doctor, maybe not even in our area. We may even have to travel, drive a distance, maybe even fly a distance, depending on the degree of the condition or the degree of commitment, or … you know, it depends on the situation, of course.

So, we have to be very careful, too, because it’s easy also to get the wrong information.

And what I mean by that is that if you ask a friend who their cardiologist is, it’s likely a cardiologist that’s well-known in your area. And the reason I say that is because I know that many doctors — not all — but many doctors are master marketers, and they’ve been labeled “the best cardiologist in the county” or “the best allergist” in that hospital.

And maybe the doctor is the best cardiologist or the best allergist. But you want to be sure that the information you’re getting is not because the doctor is a great marketer.

And so, we may have to travel to find truly the best. That can take some time that may require you to do some research.

And it depends on what you mean — and what the doctor means — by “the best.”

Now, for my money, I want to know that a doctor thinks out of the box.

I don’t want someone who is told what to do by the pharmaceutical rep that trots up to his office and keeps his training up to snuff with the drugs that she brings in. I want a doctor who eschews drugs, will do everything he or she possibly can to help a patient get off of drugs or to not get on them in the first place.

I want someone who’s aware of the importance of diet and lifestyle. That really matters an enormous amount to me, and that doctor may not be what they call “the best doctor” in the county or “the best doctor” in the city.

A lot of times, the best doctor is the one who has the best procedure — say, surgical procedure — and is articulate in describing what he or she’s doing; or has great, steady hands as a surgeon; or has a wonderful surgical technique but is wanting in other areas. And so, you have to weigh that out.

So, it’s a hidden trade-off — that convenience, that prestige — that doctor comes with. And you also have to be concerned about insurance coverage. A lot of times, the doctors that are the best ones are not even covered by insurance, and you may have to think that through as well.

So, one of the ways that I’d like to tell people to find a good doctor is find a book that you agree with. Let’s say there’s a book that … let’s say, it’s a cardiologist. And the cardiologist has authored a book on the hoax of cholesterol. (In fact, that actually is the title of a book. It’s called “The Cholesterol Hoax,” and I think it is written by a cardiologist. I don’t remember right now.)

But if the book resonates with me — if it makes sense to me — then the first thing that I would do is contact that doctor. And so, let’s say he’s in Minnesota, and you’re in New York. Doesn’t it make sense, perhaps, to at least talk to this person, particularly because there’s a lot of medical work that’s done online these days?

So, step outside of that, “It must be someone local. It must be someone that I’m told is the hot guy in the neighborhood.” And also, we must think outside of the box in terms of whether or not our insurance covers that work with him.

Kate: (06:40)

So, Joette, can you expound upon that a little bit and share maybe some of the doctors that you follow? I know there are people that you like to listen to online.

It takes a little bit of research, as you said, to find someone perhaps in your area, the expanded area. But who are some of the people that you like to listen to that are doctors?

Joette:

Well, what’s interesting is that when you find someone online that’s quite devoted to his craft, a lot of times you’ll find that they make their information available — and themselves available — to more than just their local constituency.

For example, Dr. Ken Berry. He’s on YouTube. I’ve been following him for a very long time. He discusses diet in great detail, but he especially spends a lot of time on diabetes and insulin resistance.

He believes that the Diabetic Association in the U.S. has been bought out. So, instead of telling people, “And if you’re going to an endocrinologist, you’re stuck with someone who is probably following the concepts that are being put out by that organization.” Instead, he’s decided to start his own diabetes association. And there are doctors that will be associated with that. I think it’s already up and running now, including, I believe, himself, where you can meet up with them online.

And that is for, of course, diabetes. But diabetes is behind the cardiological problems. Diabetes is behind the obesity problem and the cognitive problems, et cetera, et cetera. So, it’s not a bad place to start.

But then I also like Dr. Shawn Baker. He’s an athlete and an orthopedic surgeon. He’s on YouTube.

I like Dr. Robert Kiltz. He is a fertility doctor. I think that just being able to schedule an appointment with someone like that — to meet with him — could be very useful.

Then there’s Dr. Anthony Chaffee. He’s a neurosurgeon.

So, you see, all of these doctors are very involved in diet as well as their specialties.

There’s also Dr. Ben Bikman. Now, he’s not a medical doctor; he’s a PhD, but also quite informative, teaching people about insulin resistance.

And also Dr. Annette Bosworth, or “Dr. Boz,” she’s called. And she’s an internist … in internal medicine. I’m pretty sure that’s what she covers.

Then also, a great resource for finding a good doctor is to check out Dr. Weston A. Price Foundation (or the Weston Price Foundation). And going to their conferences is valuable, joining their organization and getting their quarterly journals.

These are the ways that we could get some very good resources under our belts.

Kate: (09:31)

You might think that these doctors are all online, and they’re nowhere near me. But once you start digging, you can often see that these doctors will have information or organizations like you were saying earlier, where you can find doctors who are like-minded and maybe closer to you than these people. But this will get you a start on your research.

But Joette, I wanted to share a story about a local doctor, if I might.

Joette:

Sure, please.

Kate:

When I was helping my mom and I was taking her to a doctor after she had a stroke — I think I’ve talked about this on a podcast before — but we had a doctor that was very open-minded. She specialized in geriatric care, but she was very open-minded.

I had just gotten some referrals from people locally to her. She was willing to diagnose and tell me what is going on with my mom, and then open to saying, “What is it that you have in your arsenal? What homeopathics do you think might help this situation?”

And so, I just want to encourage the listeners that there are people — even if they’re not local-local — there are doctors who are more open-minded and willing to work with you. So, you just have to do some looking for those doctors.

Joette:

Yeah, you were lucky, Kate, that she was as open-minded as that. But I must say that since 2020, 21, 22, 23, 24, we are seeing a lot more doctors coming alive, questioning the CDC, questioning the so-called authorities and stepping outside of the box and doing their own research and reading, and not counting on what they learned 20 years ago (even 40 years ago in medical school) or what the pharmaceutical rep is telling them every Friday when they trot in with the chicken wings.

So, normally, I find it irksome when a doctor has to be trained or taught by you. And instead, I prefer to be taught by someone who’s more learned than me. But in your case, it worked out beautifully because she admitted she didn’t know, and she was asking you. And she probably — is my guess — has started to question why those medicines worked like they did and how they helped your mother here and there.

Kate:

And how she could avoid the myriad of medicines people are usually on as they age … and especially in the facilities. My mom was not on very many meds like so many of the other people there.

Joette:

Yeah.

So, I’m not looking for this opportunity, and I’m not encouraging people to necessarily do this, but it’s an opportunity to explain to the doctor what homeopathy is. I would not urge people to do this on a regular basis, or with their doctor on a day-to-day basis, or when they go to see their doctor, unless they have a very special relationship with them, because most doctors are not interested.

In Kate’s case, with her mother’s doctor, that was much different. And even if she knew — or they know — a little bit about homeopathy, they don’t realize the depth and breadth. They think, “Oh yeah, homeopathy, sure, Arnica montana. Yeah, we’ve used that for bruises or injuries that come into the hospital.”

And there are doctors who do that throughout the U.S. You know, when you know that there’s something that’s available, you know what it is, you have an idea of what it is, but it’s not until you dive deeply into it that you realize the depth and breadth.

Joette: (13:06)

It’s not unlike — and this was our analogy regarding the idea of wearing a mask — when you know that there are fish under the water when you go and you dive down off the shore of Florida or California. But it’s not until you put a mask on, maybe a snorkel too, and you really get involved, and you really see it that this whole new world becomes apparent to you and how alive it all is and how vibrant and how varied it can be.

And that is what we know — for those of us who use homeopathy — what the extent of homeopathic medicines can have in someone’s life. That’s what we want to, of course, allow our doctors to learn about as well.

Now, again, I am going to repeat: I don’t believe that you should be training up your doctor unless you have a very special relationship. In Kate’s situation, that was a special relationship, and I think you hit the jackpot. It was almost by accident, wasn’t it, Kate? It’s not as though you sought her out. It just turned out that she was willing.

Kate:

Why do you think it is that people, or even physicians, don’t put that mask on and really dig into this paradigm?

Joette:

That’s a good question because they’re thinking, “Well, Arnica, that’s the extent of it. Oh, that’s nice. It’s a lovely medicine for an injury, a mild injury or maybe a cold or something like that, but not for something as severe as ‘fill in the blank,’ ” (whatever it might be).

So, part of it is, of course, habit. It’s what they’ve been accustomed to doing, and people don’t want to break a habit. It requires time, requires effort, and sometimes it even requires accepting that you were wrong about the paradigm you’d been using all along.

And of course, we don’t want to make someone uncomfortable with our knowledge, but if you can gently explain it, that can be very useful.

And then another thing that, of course, is skepticism. I mean, there’s no doubt about it that they can just simply be skeptical. “Well, they’re just little white pills. What could they possibly do?”

And then there’s also … anytime we ask someone to make a change, there’s fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of wasting time, fear of looking foolish, potentially fear of mistakes made around it, and there’s just too much involved.

Kate: (15:34)

So, let’s go back to that saying, “But my doctor said …” We’ve all heard it from friends or relatives when maybe we say, “Oh, you’re suffering with [let’s just say] arthritis.”

Joette:

Yes. Yeah.

Kate:

And then you say, “Well, I might have something that could help that you might want to consider.”

And they say, “But my doctor said I should be taking this medication or whatever it is for my arthritis.”

Joette:

“But my doctor said …” And usually there’s, “Oh, but my doctor said …”

As soon as someone says, “Oh, but …” in one way, it’s an invitation for you to dispel what they’re thinking. In another way, it could simply be, “No, I have to do what my doctor says.”

And that is the sticking point that we want to get past because we don’t need to do what our doctor says.

And for one reason is you might find that that doctor says that, but two other doctors say this, and a fourth doctor says this and that.

So, it all depends on who you ended up choosing in the first place as to what kind of care, what kind of decisions will be made for you.

When someone says, “Oh, but my doctor said …,” you can give a little answer and then drop it. That’s the way that I look at it. They’re usually digging their heels in. So, it’s a way of saying, “I don’t trust what you’re saying. [Basically.] I don’t believe that this could possibly be of any value to me. And my doctor, who is my authority, has told me otherwise. Hence, I’m not going any further.”

Kate:

I’d like to give an example of what you were talking about earlier. I knew someone — this is with a dentist — but just how, when you go from one doctor to the next doctor to the next doctor and how varied it can be. So, this person went to a dentist, and they said, “Oh, you need a crown on this tooth. No ifs, ands or buts.”

Then she went in to another dentist, and that dentist said, “Oh, no, I can just do a filling.”

That is a huge difference.

Joette:

Yes, it is.

Kate:

It’s a crown which would remove a lot of the surface of the tooth, and it costs who knows how much, $15–1,600, versus a $300 filling and keeping the structure of the tooth intact.

So, you really have to ask questions, get second, third opinions and do your research.

Joette:

Well, getting a second or third opinion is really important idea, but also want you to remember that many of these doctors and dentists are trained in the same fashion, so you may have to go to a third or fourth opinion.

Kate:

That’s true.

Joette:

And in that case, I urge you not to bring it up to that second or third or fourth opinion that you’re contacting them as a second opinion. If they think they’re a second opinion, well, it’s like a professional slap in the face. “Why are you not coming to me as the primary opinion? I’m the secondary, I’m the tertiary opinion?”

So, you might want to be extra careful about how you present that because, after all, they are human, and they have human emotions just like the rest of us.

Kate: (18:44)

So, let’s talk about some takeaways with this whole discussion of, “But my doctor said …” So, I think what I heard you saying is you want to respect the doctors during the appointment and not try to persuade them necessarily. You want to thank them for their help, not arguing. And it depends on your relationship with your doctor as to how far you go.

Joette:

It does. And there are times when we need to know a little bit more. “So, Doc, what are the long-term studies on this drug? And are there any non-drug options?”

Now, people often ask that. “Isn’t there something we can do that’s natural?”

Well, I have to tell you, if the doctor thought that something natural could be done, my guess is that’s what would’ve been brought to the fore. But doctors generally are not taught to do something natural. They’re taught to use drugs — synthetic drugs of commerce — or surgery, just know that.

So, the next question might be, “So Doc, what would you do if you were in my shoes? Or would you prescribe this for your mother or your wife?” And I can’t imagine that if you asked a doctor that question, they would say, “Oh, well, for me, I wouldn’t take that drug. Or if it were my wife, I wouldn’t prescribe that.”

That would be a very strange thing to say after you just finished prescribing this particular drug or surgical method for you. And then say, “Well, but I would never do it.”

So, that kind of a question is not very valuable, if you ask that question of the doctor. What you really want to know is if the doctor is in the same court as you. Is this doctor extremely conservative? Will this doctor keep from using the most extreme methods and do everything he or she can do to keep from subjecting you or your loved one to unnecessary procedures or potentially dangerous procedures down the road?

Kate:

So, what do you do, Joette, when a doctor doesn’t know what the answers are, and then they refer you to a specialist? I know you had an example that you talked about earlier of someone who was referred to a specialist that really had nothing to do with her condition, and you couldn’t see how it related. Can you talk about that?

Joette: (21:06)

Yes. This was a client of mine who was seeing her primary care doctor. And she had joint pains in her fingers and her feet. And the doctor had been working with her for some time, and they couldn’t seem to get a handle on it.

Yes, she was taking Tylenol and some of the other drugs that are commonly used, and it’s hard for me to remember them all because they’re changed so frequently. And it was helping a little here, but there were side effects that she was very unhappy with it.

So, what the doctor prescribed was — the last time she saw him — was to see a cardiologist.

I said, “A cardiologist? Did the doctor find something wrong? Was your blood pressure out of whack? Were you having palpitations? Did you explain that you had anything like that going on?”

“No,” she said, “because of my age, the doctor referred me to a cardiologist.”

And so, now, the cardiologist wants to do lots of tests — stress tests — because how can the cardiologist read and understand and take the case if they don’t have a baseline?

So now, she’s gone to a primary doctor who is not helping with the joints, and now, she’s going to a cardiologist who wants to do tests. And some of the cardiological tests can be invasive. Not to mention the angst that that causes can be tremendous, depending on the personality of the person.

So, it’s, in a way, kicking the can down the road and kind of getting the person out of view for a while and hoping that after a while, perhaps the drugs that were prescribed will start taking effect over a period of time or something like that. I’m not sure exactly what the rationale was of the primary doctor.

This is one of those times when you want to make sure — as always — that you get copies of all your records.

If you’re at the dentist, you can ask for a copy. They often will give them to you. If they don’t, then you take a photograph on your phone. Take an image of the X-ray, if an X-ray was done (if it’s absolutely necessary) or of the sonogram. Take images of that, so that you’ve got copies of it.

And I think it’s prudent for you to own all of your copies, all of your labs, your reports, and anything that has to do with your health in your own file cabinet or your own file in your phone.

Joette: (23:27)

I guess the last thing I know you’re going to ask is, “So, what should we be doing?”

Kate:

Right? That’s the question.

Joette:

So, what’s the upshot?

Well, we’ve given a couple suggestions here, but one of the most important things is to learn homeopathy. I mean, really learn it. Really understand how to use it because no one cares about you like you do. No one cares about your family member like you do.

The moment you leave the doctor’s office — even as a very caring doctor — they’re onto the next patient. They’re not thinking about you or your loved one in the least. It’s done. Now they move on.

So, it’s up to us. It begins in our own heads, in our own libraries, with our own books, in our own Gateway groups, in our study groups, so that we can increase our ability to protect ourselves and our families.

So, I’d like to close this little podcast today with the thought that trusting authority is super easy, and that’s exactly what authorities count on. But it’s work to not. It’s work to do research, to take it on ourselves. Taking responsibility for your health can be difficult, but it’s the only path that I know of to true freedom and lasting wellness.

And I also have to add that the journey along the way is not only fascinating, but deliciously intellectual … this kind of commitment to your health, your family’s health.

Learning how to use homeopathy has the potential of changing the trajectory of the next six months, year, 10 years, and even onto the next generation.

It’s well worth your effort and your time.

It’s my honor to share many lessons on this simple method of using homeopathy for free —without affiliates or advertising — here in my podcasts, but also my blog posts and Monday Night Lives.

But it’s critical that you learn how to use these medicines properly. These podcasts should serve as only the beginning of your training. Peruse JoettesLearningCenter.com to find fun study group opportunities and in-depth courses developed by subject.

So, with the proper training, you can join the thousands of students before you in developing the confidence and competence to protect the health of your family and loved ones with my brand of homeopathy, Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:

You just listened to a podcast from internationally acclaimed homeopath, public speaker and author, the founder of The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®, Joette Calabrese. Joette’s podcasts are available on all your favorite podcast apps.

To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

01:00   Introduction: How To Direct Our Teens To Step Into Adulthood With Responsibility: What Is Our Role?

02:06   My parents were very strict.

05:02   Fast-forward to raising my own children

10:11   The Academy of Practical Homeopathy® is attracting young people as a college alternative

11:44   A new role: parents of adult children

14:28   Knowledge of homeopathy provides relevance for parents even after the children become adults

16:23   Closing advice

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)

Joette’s Learning Center

PracticalHomeopathy.com

Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Joette’s Study Group, Find Your New Study Group Friends

Joette’s Mighty Members

FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 158, with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:

Hi, I’m Joette Calabrese, and I welcome you to our health care movement — yours, mine and the countless men and women across the globe who have retaken control of their families’ health with Practical Homeopathy®.

So, for the next few minutes, let’s link our arms as I demystify homeopathy — what was once considered an esoteric paradigm — into an understandable, reproducible, safe and effective health care solution available to all.

This is the medicine you’ve been searching for — my unique brand of homeopathy, PRACTICAL Homeopathy®.

Kate: (01:00)

Welcome to another episode of the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast with Joette. I’m Kate, and I’m here today with Joette.

Joette:

Hi, Kate.

Kate:

Hi. Today, we’re going to talk about parenting. And you’re going to share your thoughts on a topic that’s close to many parents’ hearts, and that is guiding our children into responsible adulthood and understanding our role in that journey.

Joette, you’re going to share your personal experiences today, including the advice that you give your own children — or I should say “gave,” as they graduated high school — and how your relationship with your father shaped the way you guided your teen children.

Joette, let’s begin with you sharing about your father’s influence in your life, and why do you advocate for, let’s call them, I guess, “guardrails.”

I like that image of when you go bowling, and they put down those guardrails for the people that are just brand new bowlers, and it guides that bowling ball to the pins. I like that image, and it helps you to hit the mark … or hit the pins.

So, talk about that for a bit.

Joette: (02:06)

Well, let me start by saying that when I was growing up, my parents were anything but laissez-faire parents. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that because if it works for a family, then that’s just fine.

My parents were very strict. They were not helicopter parents at all. We were outside playing all day long. Sometimes, I didn’t see them for many hours. There were a lot of kids on the street.

But once I got to puberty — high school — my parents became very strict. I was the only one that had to be in hours before their friends. My father was adamant about curfews, and my mother was adamant about what I wore. I felt hemmed in.

And ˆI can call them guardrails, but then, I was resentful. I’ll be honest, I really hated it. I hated that my parents were so strict. My parents were certainly American, but they were first-generation Sicilian American, and so a lot of the older ways they brought into their parenting.

I grew up in a neighborhood where everyone was Irish American, and it was their grandparents and great-grandparents who would come over, and so we were closer to the original European thinking, especially southern European thinking, and I resented it. In fact, I hated it.

But I have to say, I did (in the back of my mind) — as much as I felt hemmed in — I knew that the reason that I was hemmed in was because they cared so much. I knew that I was very loved. I always felt very loved by both of them.

And my brother and I talk about it, even to this day, that we never felt anything but love and care towards us, even though they were strict. Now, I look back, and I can see that they were putting in the extra effort — which was not easy for them because they were fighting against society at that time, too — to keep us in line.

Now, I’m not going to tell you that it worked — constantly worked. There were plenty of times where I was able to sneak around here and get away with this or that, but I always knew that I would be in trouble.

So, it hemmed me into a certain degree if I did anything that was really outside of those guardrails.

Now, my parents encouraged me also. And they encouraged me to go to college, and, of course, my brother, too. My parents assumed that I would become a piano teacher because we had been playing piano; my brother and I had been playing piano all our lives. My father was a professional musician, and that’s the way he saw it. They both saw that I would work at a school, perhaps for a while, or I’d take private students. That just wasn’t for me. I wasn’t even thinking about that far in advance.

So, their advice was to go to college in music and perhaps even only go two years and become a piano or a theory teacher.

Joette: (05:02)

And so that brings me to where my husband and I went with our children.

Now, we homeschooled our children up until high school. Then one of them went to a private high school, and the other two went to a Catholic high school, and we actually discouraged them from going to college.

Now, had they said anything about going into STEM, any of the sciences, then we would’ve said, “Well, of course, you go to college for that.”

But without really knowing what they wanted to do, we felt as though it was a waste of time and a waste of money. And so, our oldest son needed to go to college in order to get into his profession today. That made sense. But the other two weren’t exactly sure what they were going to be doing, and my husband and I discouraged them and encouraged them instead to consider other possibilities, such as a trade school or starting a business or joining our business.

My husband had a construction business, and he was also in the boating business … and get them involved in something like, as well. But the pressure was on. There was so much pressure in society, they felt as though they wouldn’t be up to par if they didn’t go to college.

So, what my husband and I decided to do was to tell them we just weren’t going to pay for college. So, if they wanted to go to college, then it had better be something that they really want to do, and they had to pay for it themselves.

So, this, then, put in place a couple of situations. One is that, then, they were pretty much not going to go to a very expensive college, nor were they going to go away. We raised our kids outside of Buffalo, and there are a number of — two universities and many colleges. It’s a college town. And so, they could choose something that was local. Well, that kind of kept them local, which we very much wanted to do.

And now some people might say, “Well, don’t you want your children to expand and grow out and go out into the world?”

Yes, I did want that, and I didn’t want them under our wing. I liked that they did go to college — they paid for it themselves — and they left the home. They did not stay home during those college years. They actually lived together and with, I think, another roommate at one point to keep their costs down.

But I did want them to explore the world. And that’s exactly why I didn’t want them to go to college, because I think it’s a one-track way of thinking in universities and colleges. Now, there are exceptions, but there are only barely a handful of those. And so, I felt as though if we wanted our children to be independent thinkers, they had to stay out of the arena that would be most likely to indoctrinate them with certain kinds of thinking.

And so, I think we were somewhat successful. Because they paid for their education themselves, they were more apt to make use of every class. In fact, at one point, we figured out that let’s say they were taking an English literature class, the cost of the tuition for that particular course was X amount of dollars, and then how many classes would they actually be attending during that school year? And we figured out it was about $40 per class.

So, every time they walked into the classroom on that Monday, Tuesday and Thursday — let’s say it was three days a week — they would actually be handing the professor $40. And because they paid their own tuition and they worked during the summers, it would sting if they didn’t like the course or if they weren’t getting good information out of it, or if it was one of those courses that were so problematic and they weren’t going to get any value out of it.

So that helped them become more autonomous and choosing courses that would be useful, not fluff, because I tend to believe that the reason that students end up in these fluffy courses that are questionable is because someone else is paying for it. But if they have to pay for it themselves, that’ll keep it tight.

So anyway, we had a friend also who has a school called ATI, it’s called Accelerated Training Institute, and we talked to him about that. It is a hands-on — even though it’s online — but there’s also a lot of hands-on work for trades. My children were not interested in that, but we did discuss that at one point.

And I wish that there was a place that they could have gone to learn how to go into homeopathy as a practice, as a business. Now, they were observing me doing that, but it would’ve been nice if they could have gone to a formal setting.

And so that’s where we want to go with this today, because it’s interesting that we’re finding that students are coming from high school and joining The Academy of Practical Homeopathy® — joining our Academy — as their next step.

In fact, we even had one high school student skip senior year and use this as their stepping stone … and go to The Academy and then Mastery. And I am so excited about this possibility.

Look, I do want people to join our Academy, but it is not my main focus here. A big part of my focus is to steer our children, I should say, towards our family values and not away from them. And many people find that college isn’t necessary for everyone.

Kate: (10:11)

Yes, Joette, I’ve heard many parents talking about how excited they are that there is this opportunity of The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®.

In fact, we have one student who is in our Mastermind group. (So, we have The Academy and Mastery, and then our Mastermind group.) And she was super-excited because her son applied for The Academy, and she didn’t even know that he applied. And then next thing she knows, he says that “I’ve been accepted into The Academy.” And so now, she’s so excited to talk about what they’re studying, and they’re sharing this together.

So, we’re hearing this more and more that the children of those who have gone through this are now interested in The Academy, and they’re doing it together. What a fun thing to be able to share with your family.

Joette:

Yeah, we’ve had a couple of mothers, and a mother and a son prior to that as well. He wasn’t a high school student, but we’ve had a number of high school students, even though their mothers or fathers have not gone through The Academy. It’s really exciting to see this.

But those who have family members who are studying homeopathy and are only couple years behind them, they have a constant smile on their face describing how much fun it is at the dinner table because they’re discussing homeopathy on a level that they never expected would occur in their families.

Kate:

Right, we have husbands and wives going to school. We have children — young adults, I should call them — going to The Academy, and then their parents go to The Academy. And so, all different ways it happens.

Joette:

It’s expanding, and it’s quite exciting.

Kate: (11:44)

So, Joette, move on to our role as a mother of adult children. Both you and I have adult children, and now you are also a mother-in-law. So, can you talk a little bit about that role?

Joette:

Yeah. Obviously, when we’re raising our children, we’re raising them up, and then they get to a certain age, and now they’re adults. And now, I think it’s more mentoring.

I think our role shifts. I know our role shifts, and we, as mothers and fathers, want to be poised for that position. We don’t want to hover, but we want to provide a steady presence and support should it be needed.

And then I have to admit that there are times when I have to bite my tongue, and I do. I always thought that I wouldn’t; I think I’m a pretty opinionated person. But I hold back now because I have to pick my battles, as they say, and I have to remember the age difference.

The age gap is huge because I had my children later in life, in my late thirties and early forties. And so, I have to hold back and remember that there is a ripening process that everyone must go through.

So, I’m just back there. My husband and I are just back there, holding off and waiting for a question or even a quiet little opportunity to add a story that might exemplify the point we’re trying to get across.

So, my father — and my mother, too — but my father in my business, in my practice, my mother, especially in raising our children, were mentors to me. In fact, to the very last day that my father was on this earth, and until my mother was no longer capable of helping me, they were there on a day-to-day basis — often physically, but at least on the phone. They were with me all the way.

Even my husband relied on my father, and they even partnered in business for a short period of time.

I have to say that long-distance mentoring can be done, but it’s so much easier when you’re sitting across the table and sharing a meal.

Which then brings me back to why I thought it was so valuable to have our children decide to go to schools locally, so that those formative years, 18 to 21, we were very much connected. Sunday meals, maybe in the middle of the week, we would stop by and see them. They knew we were just a 10-minute drive away because that in-person closeness deepens our trust and deepens the family dynamics. Doesn’t mean it can’t be done when there’s long distance, but I think that it is quite valuable.

Kate: (14:28)

Joette, another way that you often talk about remaining relevant in our adult children’s lives is by your knowledge of homeopathy and how they contact you when they have a question about what homeopathic medicine to use for something.

Now, I know some of your children know a lot about homeopathy, and they are well on their way to raising their children with homeopathy when the time comes, but you still have that involvement as a mentor in their health.

Joette:

Well, as we age in our society, the elderly are pushed aside. But if the elderly have something valuable to share with the family — to offer to the family — this is our opportunity to position ourselves and stay relevant to the very end.

I always imagine that my grandchildren will come to me and say, “Nonna, what should I do about this little sliver I got in my finger?”

And of course, she’s going to go to her mother first. But let’s say her mother already took care of it, and now it’s time for we need the sliver to get out of the little finger, and it’s time to start implementing homeopathic medicine.

I want to stand behind my daughter-in-laws and stand behind my sons so that they know that if the homeopathic information is needed — my mentorship is needed — I’m right there, sturdy and ready, willing and able.

And I think it’s a great way for us, as we age, my friends, to position ourselves and our families in more than the ways that we always imagined. So, we have this ineffable medicine that we can count on and that our families know they can count on us to deliver it. It’s a great position to be in.

Kate: (16:23)

Sure is.

Joette, this has been very helpful. Do you have any final thoughts to wrap it up for our listeners?

Joette:

Well, the final thoughts are really just repeating what I’ve said: that it’s important to stay connected and relevant in our young children’s, and our young adult children’s, and our older children’s lives all the way into their aging years. It’s one of our greatest treasures to be so tied to our families in such a beautiful way.

Kate:

And, Joette, I know you like to hear from your listeners. Surely, they have other thoughts on this topic and ways that they stay relevant in their children’s lives. How can they give you some comments that you’ll see?

Joette:

Yes, I’ll read those comments. I enjoy reading them. So yes, just comment at the end of the podcast, and I’ll take a look. And I love to get the conversation going because everyone comes with something new and interesting.

Kate:

Great. Thank you, Joette, for these valuable insights on parenting and staying close to our adult children and guiding them. It’s important that we do stay connected, especially in this day and age, when I think that we’re being torn apart. It’s definitely one of our greatest treasures.

Joette:

It’s my honor to share many lessons on this simple method of using homeopathy for free —without affiliates or advertising — here in my podcasts, but also my blog posts and Monday Night Lives.

But it’s critical that you learn how to use these medicines properly. These podcasts should serve as only the beginning of your training. Peruse JoettesLearningCenter.com to find fun study group opportunities and in-depth courses developed by subject.

So, with the proper training, you can join the thousands of students before you in developing the confidence and competence to protect the health of your family and loved ones with my brand of homeopathy, Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:

You just listened to a podcast from internationally acclaimed homeopath, public speaker and author, the founder of The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®, Joette Calabrese. Joette’s podcasts are available on all your favorite podcast apps.

To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

01:00   Introduction: Practical Homeopathy® Success Stories: From the Family to the Farm

02:57   How do you give homeopathy to cows?

03:33   An interest in natural healing and helping people led to Joette

            Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

            Joette’s Learning Center (Protocol Courses)

            The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

05:45   Success Story: Correcting anemia homeopathically without an iron supplement

            Gateway to Homeopathy II

06:57   Success Story: Behavioral issues in childhood (temper tantrums)

08:21   Success Story: Chronic conditions (such as this case of eczema) often take longer to resolve

10:23   Success Story: Newborn with blood sugar issues

11:20   Success Stories: Chronic Pain

14:58   Being a Practical Homeopath™ is “the best job ever”

15:53   Success Stories: Animals

18:47   Tick prevention on the dairy farm

20:52   Closing Advice: Stay immersed in peaceful, yet powerful, homeopathy

           FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)

PracticalHomeopathy.com

Joette’s Study Group, Find Your New Study Group Friends

Joette’s Mighty Members

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 157.

Joette:

Hi, I’m Joette Calabrese, and I welcome you to our health care movement — yours, mine and the countless men and women across the globe who have retaken control of their families’ health with Practical Homeopathy®.

So, for the next few minutes, let’s link our arms as I demystify homeopathy — what was once considered an esoteric paradigm — into an understandable, reproducible, safe and effective health care solution available to all.

This is the medicine you’ve been searching for — my unique brand of homeopathy, PRACTICAL Homeopathy®.

Kate: (01:00)

Welcome to the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, where we dive into the world of Practical Homeopathy with real stories and how homeopathy has transformed lives.

I’m Kate, and I’m joined today by Melissa. She’s a Practical Homeopath™ who lives on a small farm in Nebraska and is passionate about helping her family, friends, clients, and even her Guernsey cows using homeopathy.

She’s going to share, today, her journey and experiences. Melissa learned the art of homeopathy through Joette’s Academy and Mastery programs. She has some amazing stories to share with us about how this gentle medicine has made a difference in her life and those around her.

So, let’s get started. Welcome, Melissa.

Melissa:

Hi, Kate. I’m so honored and excited to be here. I think I’ve listened to every single previous podcast, and I’ve learned so much from everyone’s stories.

Kate:

Oh, it is great to hear about people’s success stories with homeopathy. I find it so inspiring, and I, too, am honored to be able to talk with people about how they’re using homeopathy.

So, I’m excited about what you’re going to share today, Melissa. You have some pretty amazing things to share with us. So, let’s get started.

Can you tell us about your life on your small farm in Nebraska with your cows? I know they mean the world to you.

Melissa:

Yeah, I love my life on my small farm in Nebraska. It’s so beautiful and peaceful here, and I get to connect with a lot of people. I even end up writing remedy suggestions on paper towels in the milk room. People come in with their ailments, and I’m able to give them some suggestions. So, that’s fun.

And giving the remedies to the cows is a lot of fun … to see them turn around with a homeopathic remedies and just to watch them. They come up, and they want their remedies. They’ve taken them since they were little calves.

Kate: (02:57)

So, do you just put them — the pellets — into their mouths, or how do you do it?

Melissa:

I actually dissolve the remedies in syringes of water and then squirt them in their mouth. It’s hard to keep a big cow’s mouth closed while the pellets dissolve.

Kate:

I know because I’ve done it with horses. And I’ll actually kind of just put my hand gently under their mouth as they’re chewing to keep them from putting their head down and everything just falling out.

Melissa:

Yeah, for sure.

Kate:

Yeah, there’s a lot of ways I think that you can give homeopathy to animals, and so thanks for sharing that.

So, tell me, what sparked your interest in homeopathy?

Melissa: (03:33)

I have always had an interest in just more natural healing and just a heart for helping people with that. It’s about 13 or 14 years ago, my mom actually came across Joette’s blog and showed it to me. I just kind of took that and ran with it.

I devoured everything that Joette wrote. I read through all of her blogs. Anything I could find during that time.

One of the first remedies I saw success with was Cantharis. My mom had chronic UTIs. She was on a standing prescription of antibiotics. She tried herbs and diet; nothing was working.

After taking Cantharis, her UTIs were completely gone, and they never came back. So, of course, that got me even more excited to learn this.

I then joined the Gateway classes. I went through those several times. At least one of them was with Kate.

Kate:

Yes! Yes!

Melissa:

Then I took a deep dive into the protocol courses. I went through each of those.

I then patiently — or rather impatiently — waited for Joette to start her Academy. I joined The Academy and spent an amazing year in that first year of The Academy. I graduated in 2022, and then I went on to Mastery and graduated in 2023.

I’ve been in Mastermind for the last two years, and I’ve been seeing clients for the past three years. It’s been such a joy to walk with people through their suffering and give them hope with homeopathy.

Kate:

Yeah, it’s been really fascinating to watch you and your journey and how your life has really changed since you started learning about homeopathy. Right? It’s completely different in the fact that you used to have a lot more cows, and you were doing farming. Full-time, was it?

Melissa:

I mean, it really has shifted. God has just opened doors for me, and I’ve just kept walking through them. And it has turned into this almost full-time business, so that’s very exciting.

Kate:

Yeah, that’s great. Well, speaking of that, I know you have a lot of stories to share with us, so let’s get started because I know the listeners want to hear.

Melissa: (05:45)

Yes. I have so many stories I’m excited to share.

The first one I want to share is about a child who has chronic kidney disease. Because of the chronic kidney disease, she had extremely low iron levels. So, they reached out to me to see what could be done to help.

They were not able to find a supplement — an iron supplement — that she could tolerate. So, it was really an issue.

And so, I taught them how to use the anemia protocol, which we learned in the Gateway courses. [Editor’s note: Gateway to Practical Homeopathy® II]

After just a few weeks on that protocol, she had another blood draw. The test results showed that for the first time, her levels were out of critical. It was so exciting.

And I think this is such a cool story because a lot of people question whether homeopathy can correct nutrient levels without providing a supplement, and this story really just proves that that’s possible.

Kate:

Yeah, I’ve heard that many times about the protocol for anemia … that it works, and usually it works fairly quickly, like you were just sharing.

Melissa:

I have seen that protocol work many times.

Kate: (06:57)

Yeah. I know you have another story about a boy that had a frightening episode and temper tantrums.

Melissa:

Yeah, so this little boy went to a sporting goods store with his family. This store had very real-looking talking statues. He was extremely frightened when he saw this. He was screaming and just very frightened. They calmed him down and left the store.

A few days later, he started to have raging temper tantrums. I knew that this was a perfect picture of Stramonium with the fright and then turning into anger and rage.

I suggested that Stramonium might be a good remedy to try. After just a few doses, he was back to his good-natured, sweet self.

Kate:

Well, Melissa, how did you figure out that the Friday episode was part of this picture? Did you ask some questions, like “When did this start?” or how did that happen?

Melissa:

Yeah. They told me the story about what happened. I think we were talking about the temper tantrums, and then I kind of asked them had anything happened previously, and so that led to the knowledge that he had been very frightened a few days earlier.

Kate:

Good. Alright. Tell us some more.

Melissa: (08:21)

Okay, so this next case is more of a chronic case. It took about two years, which I think is really good to tell these stories, because we often like to tell the quick, fast, amazing stories.

But chronic conditions often take a couple years to unravel. And really in the big scheme of things, if you can take care of something in two years that would’ve lasted a lifetime, that’s still a pretty good turnaround.

Kate:

Right! And they might’ve had this condition for 10, 15, 20 years, even. So, I think you’re right, two years to see a complete resolution isn’t bad.

Melissa:

So, this was a child that had eczema really covering a lot of her body. She was so itchy. She was miserable.

She also had food intolerances and environmental allergies. So, if she got food that she was allergic to or played outside at the park when they had just sprayed chemicals, her skin would flare up terribly.

Her parents didn’t want to go down the steroid route and knew that homeopathy could help correct her body. We used a number of different remedies. We had to pivot a few times. We had to work through flare-ups.

It was kind of like Joette said, “Two steps forward, one step back; three steps forward, two steps back.” It took a lot of patience and diligence. So, a big shout-out to her parents, who are really in the trenches of working through this every day.

And I am happy to report that now she has a healthy, beautiful child with almost completely clear skin. She’s able to eat anything and everything. She can play outside without reacting, and she doesn’t have to deal with the side effects of steroids and the deeper health issues that they may have triggered.

Kate:

Wow. Life-changing for that family and that little girl because that can last a lifetime.

Melissa: (10:23)

For sure.

My next story is about newborns. Actually, newborns often have blood sugar issues when they are born. They do the tests in the hospital to check their blood sugar, and if they don’t pass those tests, they often get sent to the NICU.

So, through my study with Joette, I knew that Chelidonium was a good blood sugar remedy, and it’s also used for newborns a lot if they have jaundice.

So, when I had parents contact me about a remedy to use in this situation, I suggested Chelidonium. It worked beautifully, and I have actually never seen it fail. So, this has been really great to even keep the newborns out of the NICU with this issue.

Kate:

Way to go, Melissa. That’s fantastic. I want to shift now, and let’s talk about some successes you’ve had for pain.

Melissa: (11:20)

Sure, Kate. My first story I want to share is about a client I’ve been working with for the last few months. She was hit by a car about 25 years ago and had severe pain in the lower half of her body ever since.

The doctors didn’t have any answers. The painkillers were not working. She really had nowhere to go with this and was just struggling with this pain every day.

We started with a few different remedies. We worked through a few different remedies that didn’t touch the pain. Finally, we found a remedy that worked. After she took this remedy for about three days, her pain went from a 10 to a 3 to a 4. And then it continued to improve to where now it is not a problem for her at all.

So, it was very exciting to find something to give her relief when she really had no hope.

Kate:

Wow. That’s great. And even sometimes medication doesn’t work for pain, so I bet she’s very thankful that she spoke with you about this, for sure.

Melissa:

She is very grateful.

My next pain story is about my dad’s neck pain. He struggled with severe neck pain for years. He took Tylenol and Advil daily for years. We started using homeopathic remedies to correct the issue in his neck. He took those for quite a long time, and he has not had Tylenol or Advil for years now. So, that is so exciting.

It was … totally corrected it. Yes! He has his go-to remedy that if his neck is bothering him, he will take that, and it takes the pain right away for him.

Kate:

So, I’m just curious, what is the remedy?

Melissa:

Rhus tox.

Kate:

That is a great one for neck pain, especially when you wake up in the morning with a stiff or sore neck. Yeah, wonderful.

Melissa:

Yes. He’s always asking me, where’s my Rhus tox?

Another story about my dad: He has an amputated leg. He was in an accident in his twenties and, sadly, lost his leg. He has struggled with a lot of pain. One type of pain that bothered him was a severe electrical pain.

We tried several different remedies — some of the first remedies you would think of for a pain like this — and it didn’t touch it.

When I was studying in The Academy, Joette was going through the materia medica, and one day we were studying a remedy that was specific for amputation pain. I decided that the next time he had this pain, I was going to try this remedy.

I did. He took it a few different times. Not only did it take his pain away in the moment, but it never came back!

Kate:

Wow! That’s so great.

Melissa:

He was very excited, to say the least.

Kate:

Yeah.

Melissa:

My next pain story is about someone who had severe stomach pain. They were ending up in the ER. They went numerous times. They had several different CAT scans, all kinds of testing done to see what could be wrong, and nothing was found. The pain medication — even in the ER — was not taking care of this.

So, I suggested that they try Chamomilla and Mag phos. After taking this several times a day for a few days, the pain was resolved, and they never had to return to the ER

Kate: (14:58)

Melissa, as I’m listening to your stories, I can’t help but think, I mean, how do you feel being able to help people with things like this … where they don’t have hope, or they’ve suffered for many, many years? I mean, what an incredible thing to be able to do.

Melissa:

It is such a joy. I think I have the best job ever, really: to bring hope to people in these situations where they didn’t have hope, that doctors didn’t have answers, and homeopathy came in and saved the day.

Kate:

Yeah. Now, we don’t want to give the impression that every time it works, and it’s easy to figure out the right remedy every time, and it works so quickly, because sometimes it does take a little while. But this is the power of homeopathy and how it can change lives.

Kate: (15:53)

Let’s move on to animals.

Melissa:

Okay. So, my first animal story is about a cow that came in to be milked. I noticed that she had an abscess on her abdomen. It was about the size of half of a basketball.

Kate:

What?

Melissa:

This looked like, it was going to require antibiotics, but that’s not how I roll.

So, I grabbed my homeopathic remedies and started to give to her. I gave her remedies every few hours for the first days. The next day, the abscess started to drain. It was really nasty. It smelled very bad.

I continued to give her remedies, and the abscess continued to drain. During this time, she continued to eat. Her milk production stayed steady. She was very perky and happy. I never had to give her antibiotics, and it completely cleared up and healed up.

This was huge because on a dairy farm, if you give antibiotics, you have to discard the milk for quite a while, and that’s never good for a dairy farmer to be dumping milk out. Right?

So, to have these medicines that are just gentle and safe, but heal this abscess is so incredible.

Kate:

So, how long did that take?

Melissa:

It took a few days to really get the abscess healing. Then it really took — in the end — a few weeks to get it completely.

Kate:

Still pretty good.

Melissa:

Yes. My next cow story is another abscess story.

So, a cow came in. I noticed she was having some trouble breathing. When she put her head down, she was really struggling to breathe. I knew it was either pneumonia or an abscess in her throat.

So, I went to feel her throat, and sure enough, she had quite a bit of swelling in her throat. I knew that if I didn’t do something quickly, this could close off her airways. It was obstructing her airways when she put her head down.

For those of you who are fans of the TV series, “All Creatures Great and Small,” think Strawberry, when they had to do the risky surgery to take care of the abscess that was blocking her airway. That’s what was going to happen to this cow.

So, I started her on remedies right away. By the next day, her breathing was much better, and within a week, it was completely resolved.

Kate:

Did you use the same remedies as you did for the other cow with the abscess?

Melissa:

I did not. The remedies I used for the cow with the throat abscess were Lycopodium, Hepar sulph and Silicea. They worked amazingly.

Kate:

Yeah. Wow. You saved the cow’s life.

Kate: (18:47)

Melissa, can you share how you use some homeopathic medicines now for tick prevention in your animals? Because I know that’s a big deal, especially in the Midwest. We have a lot of ticks.

Melissa:

Yeah. There are so many ticks. My cows start coming in with ticks every spring. That’s when I know that I need to add these remedies to their water tank.

So, I use Ledum and Mag phos in their water tank every spring for about three weeks, and that prevents the ticks from getting on them. It’s amazing to see the difference from one day to another of when they have their remedies and when they don’t.

An old farmer told me years ago that land that is deficient in magnesium will have lots of ticks. So, I just applied that to cows and thought that they, maybe, needed some Mag phos to help with ticks.

So, the combo of the Ledum and the Mag phos has been really amazing, and it keeps the ticks off of them.

Kate:

So, I can almost hear people asking, “How do you do this?”

How do you give them these remedies in their water? Do you put just a couple pellets in there? How often?

Melissa:

I make a water bottle. So, I take about a 16-ounce water bottle, and I put about 10 pellets of each in that water bottle. I shake it up hard, and then I pour it into their hundred-gallon water tank.

I refresh that about every other day, and it seems to work. If I go much longer than that, I can start telling that they’re coming in with more ticks.

Kate:

Okay. Wow. Thanks, Melissa, for sharing your tips on using homeopathy with your cows in the spring and fall. I know fall can be a time when there’s a lot of ticks as well.

So, when I had horses, I used to do it in the spring and in the fall, and I too found that it really helped.

So, let’s wrap things up today, Melissa, by asking you to share some observations that you had about homeopathy and why you think it’s so powerful.

Melissa: (20:52)

I have recently been reflecting on just that homeopathy is not traumatizing.

I know so many people, adults and children anymore who have medical trauma from all the invasive tests and procedures. It’s just such a blessing that homeopathy is not traumatizing. It’s so peaceful and yet powerful. Not only is it not traumatizing, but if there has been trauma from medical procedures that needed to be done, homeopathy can address that trauma as well.

Kate:

Yes, good point.

So, I know you also compare homeopathy to learning a second language, and I think that’s such an interesting analogy. Explain that.

Melissa:

I often tell my Gateway students that learning homeopathy is like a second language. Like learning a second language, they need to stay immersed in it.

So, listening to things over and over again to just hear those remedies and all the information. Surround yourself with people who are speaking the same language. It makes such a difference. And I think if we aren’t using it, we lose it. Right? And then, we come across situations that we need to know the information right now. And if we’re keeping ourselves immersed in it, we’re going to know what we need to know in those situations.

Kate:

Yeah, and I know that’s probably, I’m guessing, one of the reasons why you stay connected through your Mastermind group with Joette … is you’re continually immersed and working together with those students who are also learning and seeing clients and continually working to be a better homeopath, whether it’s just to help their family and friends or to see clients.

One of the things that I wanted to mention is that if you loved hearing Melissa’s stories and you’re asking yourself, “Well, I want to find a Practical Homeopath™. How do I do that?”

You can go to FindAPracticalHomeopath.com. That’s FindAPracticalHomeopath.com, and Joette’s students — her graduates who are taking clients — are listed on that site, and you can find someone that you think you would connect with there. So hopefully that’s helpful.

Melissa, just tell us about what homeopathy means to you personally and any other advice that you’d have for people who are just starting out.

Melissa:

I am so grateful to our good God every day for this medicine, Kate. It is such a gift from Him.

And I am so thankful that my life crossed with Joette’s and that she has been my teacher and mentor all these years. I often think about that I’m just here in Nebraska. I never would have known the information of the Banerji doctors if Joette hadn’t gone and sat with them all those years and brought that information back to me. So, I am so grateful to her.

I would say, just like I said before, just stay immersed in it. Listen to these podcasts and just stay diligent and persistent in learning.

Kate:

Melissa, thank you so much for sharing with us. Your journey and stories are inspiring and encouraging and really highlight the power of Practical Homeopathy®.

It’s been a joy having you with us on this podcast. I know that your insights and stories are an inspiration to everyone that this podcast is reaching today. So, thank you for being here.

Melissa:

Thank you, Kate. It’s been a joy to be here with you today.

Joette:

It’s my honor to share many lessons on this simple method of using homeopathy for free —without affiliates or advertising — here in my podcasts, but also my blog posts and Monday Night Lives.

But it’s critical that you learn how to use these medicines properly. These podcasts should serve as only the beginning of your training. Peruse JoettesLearningCenter.com to find fun study group opportunities and in-depth courses developed by subject.

So, with the proper training, you can join the thousands of students before you in developing the confidence and competence to protect the health of your family and loved ones with my brand of homeopathy, Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:

You just listened to a podcast from internationally acclaimed homeopath, public speaker and author, the founder of The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®, Joette Calabrese. Joette’s podcasts are available on all your favorite podcast apps.

To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

01:00   Introduction: Why Did You Stop Taking the Remedies?

03:28   Falling Back Into the Status Quo

05:04   When the Symptoms Return

06:36   “Maybe I’ll Try Another Modality.” (Shiny Object Syndrome)

08:58   Staying on Track With Homeopathy

            Joette’s Learning Center (Protocol courses)

            Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

            The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

13:20   It’s All About Keeping Notes

15:47   What Is Our Goal?

17:15   Closing Advice

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)

PracticalHomeopathy.com

Joette’s Study Group, Find Your New Study Group Friends

Joette’s Mighty Members

FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 156, with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:

Hi, I’m Joette Calabrese, and I welcome you to our health care movement — yours, mine and the countless men and women across the globe who have retaken control of their families’ health with Practical Homeopathy®.

So, for the next few minutes, let’s link our arms as I demystify homeopathy — what was once considered an esoteric paradigm — into an understandable, reproducible, safe and effective health care solution available to all.

This is the medicine you’ve been searching for — my unique brand of homeopathy, PRACTICAL Homeopathy®.

Kate: (01:00)

Hello and welcome back to the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast with Joette.

I’m Kate, and whether you are a longtime listener or joining us for the first time, we’re so glad that you’re here.

Today’s episode is one I think many of us can relate to, especially those of us who’ve been using homeopathy and have seen results either for ourselves or our loved ones. So, today we’re asking the question: Why do people stop taking the homeopathic medicines that are helping them, and what’s going on when something is clearly working, and yet we drop it?

So, Joette is going to help us shed some light on this mystery in today’s episode. Whether it’s forgetfulness, skepticism, or just falling back into old habits, we’ll be talking about what’s behind this and, more importantly, how to stay on track with homeopathy.

Hi, Joette.

Joette:

Hi, Kate. I think this is a compelling subject. It’s super-common that people kind of lose track of what they’re doing. Working with clients for all of these years, I find that many of them are really tight to their schedule, and they stay true to it — the schedule of remedies, two remedies or maybe, sometimes, even three remedies.

And others, when I meet with them, they’re not doing so well. And the first question I have to ask is, “Well, have you been taking the remedies since the last time we met?”

And I get a variety of answers to that question, but one of the most common is that “No, I stopped taking that because I just wasn’t sure,” or “I ran out,” or “I forgot.”

This is so common. I think it’s just part of human nature.

Most people don’t even like to take pills at all — even though these are not the usual pills. They’re not the big fat purple pill, and they’re certainly palatable. But when you’re feeling better, you’re not thinking about, “I need to do something about not feeling better,” because you’ve improved.

Kate:

Right? And you can stop taking the remedies when you are feeling better.

I think the question is — the reason we brought this up, Joette — is because I have a friend that I’ve noticed that when they stop taking the homeopathic medicine, then they fall into the same … symptoms start reappearing, and they don’t even notice it.

And then I ask the question, “Well, are you taking the homeopathic medicine?” And they say, “Oh, no, I forgot,” because they were better for a period of time.

But now it’s creeped in a little bit again, and so they need to start taking it again. But they didn’t realize it. And so, that’s what we were talking about when this question came up, and …

Joette: (03:28)

Well, what happens is they fall back into the status quo, and they say, “Well,” when you say …

So, if you were to ask them, “How long have you had those joint pains?”

And they might say, “Oh, my goodness, for 25 years.”

But what we really are asking is the comparison from the last time we met with that person (and we try to keep up with meeting with them every couple of months, if we’re talking about clients).

But even if we’re talking about friends, what we want to know is “You were doing well”

“Yes.”

(You have to put together a timeline of essence.)

“Yes.”

“You were doing well while you were taking the medicine?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“And then you felt well enough that you could back off.”

“That’s correct.”

All good stuff. This is exactly where we want to go.

But then it came back again. And what returns to their thinking often … and I’ve had this. I shouldn’t say “they” because I’m included in this, too. We’re all …

Kate:

Right, me too.

Joette:

This is just human behavior.

But what folks are thinking is that “Oh yeah. Well, that’s back again, and that’s what I’ve always had for … I’ve had it for 20 years.”

And it’s easy to forget that you had such improvement while taking the medicine, and even after having taken it for a while and having stopped. The goal is … I’m sure one of the questions is going to be, “So, does this mean we have to take these homeopathic medicines forever for the rest of our lives?”

No, that’s not what we’re looking for. We really are looking for it to start softening, minimizing, becoming less intense, showing up only occasionally. But it does take some awareness — self-awareness — which is sometimes hard to do, especially when it comes to our own health. Some self-awareness that it was better, and now it’s not doing so well.

And what changed?

“Well, I stopped using the medicine.”

Kate: (05:04)

Right. And it could also be that now the person is thinking, “Oh, I’m going to try X, Y, Z therapy, or I’m going to try something else.

Joette:

Yeah, start taking supplements now. “I think I’ll take supplements, or I’ll go for acupuncture.”

I think acupuncture can be very valuable. And chiropractic. Valuable. Supplements? I’m … generally speaking, I am not a supporter of supplements. But of course, it depends on what people mean by supplements.

I don’t like vitamins because supplements can often be synthetic. But if we’re going to use supplements, then I’d like to think of something like, okay, apple cider vinegar. Could you call that a supplement? Could cod liver be considered a supplement?

I suppose I think of those more as foods, but I digress a little bit too much there because what I really want to say is that what you brought up, and that is that people say, “Well, you know, I’ll try this for a while,” and then they forget about using homeopathy.

So, when it comes to chronic conditions and depending on what they are, it may take a while —quite a while — before things really shift.

And so, when there’s improvement — a great improvement, let’s start with that …

There’s great improvement. Then, we do want to stop using the medicine. This is not something we want to use the rest of our lives. We want to assume that the medicine has acted.

But if it returns — that condition returns — then that is our indicator. That is our red flag that tells us, “Okay, back to the medicine again.” Maybe for as long a period of time, but maybe not. Maybe as frequently, but maybe not.

The only way to know is to start it up again and see how it goes.

Kate: (06:36)

So, Joette, getting back to what you were saying just a bit ago about different modalities, which again, they can be useful. But sometimes, we think of that as what you often call the “shiny object syndrome,” right?

We’re seeing the new thing, or someone’s telling us about something new that might help. So, explain that a little bit.

Joette:

Particularly given the vastness of the internet, if what you’ve been looking at are subjects around health, automatically, it’s going to set up your feed to be talking about health. And it could be bringing up, as I said, vitamins, podcasts on physical therapy, et cetera. I mean, it’s going to cover the whole gamut, which is interesting.

And I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be watching all of that, but if you’ve had a success with a modality, then I would say don’t tinker with it. Stick with it. Whether that’s homeopathy or it’s chiropractic or it’s botanical or it’s diet, I would stick with it.

And by “sticking with it” doesn’t mean that you’re going to be taking this medicine, as I said, forevermore. It means stick with the paradigm. And then note when you could back off because you’re feeling so much better, and when to take it up again because the condition is starting to return. And then back off again as you find that the improvement has been realized again.

Kate:

Or at a minimum, don’t introduce new paradigms while you’re just starting to see if a medicine is acting, especially in a chronic condition. Because then, how do you know what it is that’s helping?

Joette:

And we do need to know that. People think, “Well, whatever it takes, I just have to get rid of this.”

And I understand when somebody’s in a real bind and the suffering is grand. But to stay with one paradigm gives a lot better information.

And someone might be thinking, “I don’t care about information; I just want a resolution to this problem.”

If that is the course that the person is taking, we want to try to minimize those other modalities as much as possible because we do need to know where we’re going in the future. We do need to understand that this medicine was acting, or it was not acting.

What do we do in a month from now, two months from now, six months from now, a year from now? We have to have our pathway cleared, and the best way to do that is to not add shiny new objects here and there and throughout those days, weeks and months.

Kate: (08:58)

Okay. Let’s talk about how do we figure out what’s working and when we might need to go back to the homeopathic medicine that was working.

Let’s talk about some of the ways that we can stay on track. One of them I wanted to mention briefly — Joette, I know you have several of them — because I’m so passionate about study groups, is having a study buddy: Someone that you’re close to that can help you remind you that “Hey, you were feeling better. That hip pain was gone, and now it’s back. And did you stop taking the homeopathic medicines?”

So, one of the ways that you can do that is joining a Gateway to Practical Homeopathy® study group, and you have these people that you’re studying together with, and they can help you and remind you of the things that you were doing that did work at one point.

But I know there are some other things. Joette, what might those be?

Joette:

Well, what you’ve brought to the fore, Kate, is that sometimes we need to depend on others. And so, whether that means that your phone’s set up with a timer or on your calendar, whether you have your spouse reminding you or asking the questions.

Let’s say we’re talking about you and your suffering, your personal … not about your child at this point — but probably the most valuable is to track and to keep notes. That’s what I teach in my courses — in the protocol courses — and in The Academy is you have to keep good notes.

I teach a very specific method of keeping notes, where there’s a margin on the far left that puts it into a specific category. So, if you’re having hip pain, you’re going to say on the left margin “hip.”

And then on the right side, you’re going to describe what’s happening and what has occurred and to what degree it’s improved. Actually, to start with, what the pain number is. We have to assign a value — a pain value — to it so that in six months from now, you can go through those notes and find — instead of reading everything you’ve written, which would be tremendously laborious — you can go right to that set of notes.

Look down the left side of the column of the way you’ve structured it, look in that little cell, and it says “hip.” Now you can read, “Oh my goodness, that hip pain was happening every day as I got out of bed. and I couldn’t sit on the floor with my cat, and I couldn’t move if it was cold out, and it was every day, and the pain was the whopping 7.”

Now, two months later, when I’m reading this, I’m saying, “Oh my goodness, that’s improved greatly.” You want to jot that down.

How has it improved? “Well, it’s no longer every day.”

How else has it improved? “Well, it’s no longer a 7; it’s now a 3.”

How else has it improved? “It doesn’t last as long, and I find myself on the floor with the cat more often.”

So, we have to make a note of that.

And then how do we relate that to the medicine that was used?

Well, you have to go back and look at “What did I take two months earlier when I was in more pain? Oh, I took Symphytum. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I took Symphytum 200 with Calc phos.

And let’s see, when did I stop? Oh, wow. I ran out of it about three weeks ago, and it was all right for the first week without it and the second week. But you know, in the last week, it really is painful. Again, not as painful,” (because parenthetically, we might say that that’s because the medicine was still acting, and we’re at a better place now). “But I think I need to take that medicine again and start right up where I left off.”

That’s how we do it.

Keep notes and keep them like a ledger so that on the left side of the page, whether you do this digitally or on a sheet of paper and keep it in a file, the left side of the page tells you what part of the body you’re concerned with or that has been a problem, and now, what has happened with it. And so, then, you can scroll down with your finger or with your mouse and see what has improved and what has not.

Kate:

I like Joette also how you talk about writing down the medicines that you use at the top of the paper, and then I like to write notes. “This helped whatever condition,” because six months, a year from now, I might think, “Okay, I had this nagging cough. What remedy was it that I used when I had that nagging cough?”

And I can, like you said, go back to that page and right there at the top, it says, whatever homeopathic medicine helped this type of cough, and it’s easy for me to, then, employ that medicine.

Joette: (13:20)

Well, unless you have an extraordinary memory — an ability to remember details like that — pretty much most people are not going to remember what they took, what potency, what frequency, and how quickly it changed.

And having that information readily at hand — just by opening the file and looking at what was used last time for that cough — will give you, in your darkest moments … if a cough has returned three years later, you will have at your fingertips precisely what you used last time.

Now, I’m not going to say that it’s an absolute, and that it will work because it acted last time, that it will act this time. But let’s use that as a springboard. Let’s start with what we know as successful in the past and then move forward to other possibilities. Then also, what you used those years ago for that cough, what other medicines had you tried that were useful or not useful, but didn’t take it perhaps all the way to the end of the problem?

But you need those notes. I urge you to use the method that the system that I’m discussing, and that’s keeping margins on the left for each subject of each part of the body. And if you have a repertory, and hopefully you do — if you have a repertory, open up the beginning of the repertory and look at the list of the parts of the body so that you can lay yours out in the same fashion, as long as it’s useful. (As long as it’s pertinent is what I mean to say.)

In other words, if you look in the repertory, you’re going to see “Mind.” And so, if you’re talking about or you’re feeling very blue, you’re going to write “Mind” on the left side of that column and then describe how blue you are. You’re feeling like life is not worth moving forward in, et cetera, et cetera. On a scale of 1 to 10, it feels like a whopping 9.

Okay, now, you can go down to the neck. Okay, what about the head? “Nothing about the head.”

Okay, what about the throat? “Oh, I have mucus in my throat.”

What about the shoulders? Nothing in the torso? Okay, then you can skip right down over that.

But if you have that repertory lineup as your template, even if you don’t fill out all of those areas of the body — and of course, you wouldn’t because it’s not … everything in the body is not falling to pieces, only certain areas are problematic that need some effort.

If you follow that, you will have a very nice layout so that you can return to it at a later date. A month from now, two years from now, 10 years from now. I actually have files for my family and even some of my clients that are 25, 30 years old … even older than that.

Kate: (15:47)

So, what is our goal, Joette, and how can we achieve great health?

Joette:

Well, the goal is not perfection. Let’s start with that.

Not only not perfection in experiencing good health, but in addressing how to go about doing this. What’s important in working towards this method of keeping notes is consistency and keeping on track with your remedies.

Again, I want to reiterate: It does not mean that you take these medicines forevermore. You do indeed often stop once the condition is much improved.

The other goal is to empower you so that you can empower yourself and to recognize what’s working.

You can’t recognize what’s working or be empowered if you don’t know what you’ve done, and you don’t stick with it when you find out that that is indeed what was aiding the condition.

The last thought that I have is that we don’t need to find another solution often. That doesn’t mean we never do. No, I think diet’s very important. Again, I say chiropractic is a really wonderful tool. Physical therapy’s great. There are many wonderful tools out there. But I would not add them while you’re also adding or starting with homeopathy because you won’t know at the end of the line (whether that’s a week from now or two months from now) what has done the work. And so, you will not be able to repeat what you had done previously that brought you to that success.

Kate: (17:15)

This has been very helpful. Joette, what would you like to say in closing?

Joette:

Something that needs to be considered at all times, and it’s so different than what we’re trained to think in society. We are trained to think that the body is always on the way to falling apart. Aging, things are going wrong.

When instead, I believe that our default is good health, but it just needs some intelligent prodding: better diet, using the homeopathic medicine, according to the needs of this issue or that.

And then what that medicine does: It gently prods the body to get back to its homeostasis and back to good health. And if we remember that our default is good health, then we can be more optimistic about it and look at the possibility that all that’s needed is a little tweak — a little tweak of this, a little tweak of that. Maybe eliminate this in your life or add that to your life.

And then, for most people, we can enjoy pretty good health if we pay attention.

It’s my honor to share many lessons on this simple method of using homeopathy for free —without affiliates or advertising — here in my podcasts, but also my blog posts and Monday Night Lives.

But it’s critical that you learn how to use these medicines properly. These podcasts should serve as only the beginning of your training. Peruse JoettesLearningCenter.com to find fun study group opportunities and in-depth courses developed by subject.

So, with the proper training, you can join the thousands of students before you in developing the confidence and competence to protect the health of your family and loved ones with my brand of homeopathy, Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:

You just listened to a podcast from internationally acclaimed homeopath, public speaker and author, the founder of The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®, Joette Calabrese. Joette’s podcasts are available on all your favorite podcast apps.

To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

01:00   Introduction: Quashing the Pain of Fibromyalgia With Homeopathy: Rhus tox

02:00   Personal Experience Dealing With Fibromyalgia

            How I Cured My Fibromyalgia With One Simple Medicine

03:43   Symptoms of Fibromyalgia

07:50   The Most Valuable Homeopathic Medicine for Fibromyalgia

10:17   Do We Change Our Use of Homeopathy Depending on the Specific Sufferer?

11:30   Where To Buy Homeopathic Medicines

12:16   Causes of Fibromyalgia

14:48   What if Fibromyalgia Returns?

16:20   Homeopathy vs. Conventional Medicine

19:14   Closing Advice

            Joette’s blog

            Joette’s podcasts

            Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)

           Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Joette’s Learning Center

The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

PracticalHomeopathy.com

Joette’s Study Group, Find Your New Study Group Friends

Joette’s Mighty Members

FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 155, with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:

Hi, I’m Joette Calabrese, and I welcome you to our health care movement — yours, mine and the countless men and women across the globe who have retaken control of their families’ health with Practical Homeopathy®.

So, for the next few minutes, let’s link our arms as I demystify homeopathy — what was once considered an esoteric paradigm — into an understandable, reproducible, safe and effective health care solution available to all.

This is the medicine you’ve been searching for — my unique brand of homeopathy, PRACTICAL Homeopathy®.

Kate: (01:00)

Hello and welcome back to the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast with Joette. I’m Kate, and as always, we are thrilled to have you joining us today. If you are new here, welcome. This is the place where we dive deep into the power of homeopathy and how it can offer real, practical solutions for you and your family.

Today, we’re exploring the topic of fibromyalgia. It’s a condition that’s often misunderstood and notoriously difficult to manage using conventional approaches.

But what if there was another way, a gentler yet powerful system of healing that addresses this chronic condition? Well, that’s exactly what we’re diving into today with Joette: how homeopathy can offer and help those suffering from fibromyalgia.

We’ll be talking about some real cases, practical remedies, and what makes the homeopathic approach so unique and effective.

So, let’s get started.

Hi, Joette.

Joette: (02:00)

Hi, Kate.

This is one of my favorite subjects, you know.

I used to have fibromyalgia, and I’ve actually written about it. I think it might even be on my blog, but I think it’s time to go over it again because it’s such a common condition, particularly for women. And it’s something that seems like all we can do is take an analgesic, and it simply is not so.

In fact, analgesics only cause more trouble. Some of them cause liver disease and cause gut problems, and we can keep going on all the problems that are related to taking drugs just to soften some pain. And all that does is it drives the condition to a deeper state and causes more conditions that we call side effects.

And side effects, my friends — I have to just add this one little aspect to this — doesn’t mean that it just happens right away, and you know what it is and okay, and you’re calculating it into your determination or a decision as to whether or not you want to stay with the drug.

No, no. Side effects can be very subversive without us ever really realizing. They can cause liver damage that you’ll never know, or you may not know for many years.

They may cause side effects that seem like, “Oh, no, that’s not a side effect, that’s just aging.”

No, my friends, we don’t want any “effects” from a drug. We want to use a medicine that’s relatively safe — as long as it’s used properly — is relatively safe, is efficacious, and is very inexpensive and often resolves the condition once and for all.

And that’s why I say that I really appreciate this particular condition or subject we’re talking about today, because this topic is dear to my heart.

As a result of having used homeopathy, I no longer have fibromyalgia.

Kate: (03:43)

Joette, can you talk about the symptoms of fibromyalgia? Because I think everyone has heard the word fibromyalgia, but they may not know what it actually is or what the symptoms might be.

Joette:

Well, “myalgia” means pain, and “fibro” means fibrous tissue, such as muscles — mostly muscles — but it can also be tendons. And there’s a tendency for there to be a kind of tenderness. And so, the muscles are inflamed; they’re in pain.

So, there’s a tenderness, but it’s also accompanied by a couple of other symptoms, such as fatigue, sometimes sleep difficulties. Because sleep, of course, if you’re laying on a place that hurts, such as your shoulder or your arm or your knees, your back, your neck, that can cause pain because it’s so tender.

So, it affects sleep, but it also can affect cognitive abilities — to be able to reason and think through your day-to-day activities. So, it depends on how severe it is.

Now, there are certain areas where we find fibromyalgia to be most commonly positioned in the body, and it’s often in the shoulders, as I said, in the upper back, near the neck, the sternum, the knees, the hips, sometimes even the hands.

And it’s also a condition that afflicts women more than it does men. Now I have a theory: Why does it affect women more often than men?

It’s only a theory, my friends, but I have to mention that I think it’s often women suffer from a lot more conditions than men because women are more often tinkered with, yet women start going to a doctor at a very early age.

Once they finish with the pediatrician, then if they get their menses, or they’re going through menarche, and there’s a little problem here or a little problem there, or they get acne.

The thought of acne: “Oh my gosh, we’ve got to get to the doctor right away!” And instead of considering the possibility that it could be diet, BAM! In come the birth control pills, in spite of the fact that she’s only 13 years old. Or BAM! Antibiotics.

And so, we see a lot more tinkering.

And because of those kinds of conditions that are treated, synthetic drugs of commerce, I believe that it causes an inflammation. I don’t have proof of this. It’s my theory based on thousands — and I mean many thousands — of cases that I have taken.

Now, I’ve also noticed that fibromyalgia often comes a little bit later in life. Could that be because there’ve been more and more antibiotics, more and more birth control pills, years and years of all of these steroids and all of the drugs that women automatically take?

And I have to say parenthetically that you don’t realize how many drugs you’ve taken because we don’t care to remember, to be honest. It’s only human nature.

What we need to do is even look at: “I had pneumonia two years ago. Let’s see, and ever since then, I’ve had pain, and after that, I had a urinary tract infection, and then I was getting headaches. Oh my gosh, remember? Oh, and I also had that otitis media. And then, oh my, oh yeah, I had that sty.”

For every one of those conditions, I guarantee most people have had drugs that have accompanied them. So, that’s something that has to be considered.

Now, let’s put that all aside and get back to fibromyalgia. I’m happy that you thought of this topic, Kate, for today, for us to discuss, because we’re heading into autumn in the north. Autumn is cold and damp and wet, and that often exacerbates the myalgia. It brings things more to the fore, and it’s something that we find ourselves when we have something like this.

And let me also say, it can be very mild version of fibromyalgia. It can be a moderate version of fibromyalgia; it can be an extreme version. And I found myself, when I had it, I found myself rubbing my neck, rubbing my shoulder, rubbing my wrists. That sleep was disturbed, indeed, because I’d be sleeping on my shoulder, and it would cause sensitivity and pain, making it much worse.

Kate: (07:50)

So, Joette, that leads me to the question, what do we do about fibromyalgia? Especially, is there a homeopathic solution?

Joette:

I find that the most valuable homeopathic medicine for fibromyalgia is Rhus tox, Rhus toxicodendron, and it’s usually used in a 30th potency, sometimes in a 200 potency.

I like people who are new to homeopathy — that means within the last couple of years to consider starting with Rhus tox 30, instead of going directly to the 200, and using it twice daily. I find that medicine to be, excuse my repetitive use of the word, “gobsmacking,” but it can be.

Now, when I had fibromyalgia — by the time I had that, I had a good understanding of homeopathy and what to watch for and how to assess — what occurred, once I started using the medicine, I started using it in a 200C. So, I used Rhus tox 200C, and I used it twice daily. And within a few days, for me — I’m not going to tell you that this is so for everyone — within a few days, I had complete relief, so I stopped.

That’s a big part of homeopathy. When the condition is resolved, we halt it. This is not a supplement or a vitamin in which we would say, “Oh, well. Just take vitamin C for the rest of your life.” Or “Here, let’s take some vitamin D.”

No, no, this is medicine. So, that means that when the condition is aborted, so is the medicine. We stop. Now, for me and for many others, we find that once it’s stopped, there’s a really wonderful, beautiful grace period. And it can go on for days, weeks, months. And then it might show up again.

And when it shows up again, what do we do? We don’t say, “Oh, no! It’s back again.”

We say, “Oh, cool. It’s back again. I know exactly what to do. I get my Rhus tox 30C, and I get it out of my homeopathy cabinet, and I start using that again.”

For how long?

As long as it takes for the medicine to act, usually within a few days or a week or so. And once it halts the condition, again, we halt the use of the medicine.

Kate: (10:17)

So, Joette, if there’s a dog exhibiting the same symptoms or maybe an elderly person who has these symptoms. Can you talk about how homeopathy would differ with the use for an animal or an elderly person or a middle-aged person?

Joette:

Yes. It matters not.

But how would you know that the dog has fibromyalgia? Well, you would use that description. Is there tenderness? If you touch the dog’s shoulder, and it kind of winces or pulls away or moves away from your touch, then that can be arthritis.

But this is the same medicine that we use for arthritis, as a matter of fact.

And if you touch, and the dog is very fatigued. Now that’s a hard thing to determine because dogs usually sleep all day long. But let’s say the dog has no time up and running around and asking you to throw the ball. That’s unlike this dog. Then there’s a possibility that it could be something like a muscle pain and tenderness that we would characterize as fibromyalgia.

So, we would use the same medicine, the same potency, and the same frequency for a poodle as we would for an elderly woman. That’s all the same. It works beautifully in both.

Kate: (11:30)

So, if you’re newer to homeopathy, and you’re hearing this and it rings true with you, and you think you or someone you know needs these medicines, you might wonder, “Where do I purchase homeopathic medicines? What is a trusted source?”

And I just wanted to mention, Joette, that you have a blog titled Where To Buy Homeopathic Medicines, and that’s on your website, Joette Calabrese, that’s J-O-E-T-T-E-C-A-L-A-B-R-E-S-E.com. And it’s titled, again, Where To Buy Homeopathic Medicines.

And you can just type in the search bar, and it’ll bring that blog up and give you lots of ideas about trusted sources for homeopathics.

Kate: (12:16)

So, now I want to ask, Joette, these symptoms that you’re talking about, are they always maybe a side effect of a medication or what could cause these fibromyalgia symptoms?

Joette:

Well, there are other reasons that fibromyalgia shows up, and one of them is trauma.

If someone was in an automobile accident, for example. And maybe no bones were broken, and perhaps there wasn’t even any bruising, but the body was shocked by the impact of another car.

Or somebody falls on the ice, and their whole body feels rather shocked by the event. And after a while, the person finds that they feel tender and kind of a widespread muscle pain and fatigue. That is a way that fibromyalgia could also present.

So, it’s not always from drugs.

And another source, I believe, is inflammatory foods. So, I would urge you to consider looking at your diet. Should you indeed be eating bread? Should you be eating foods with gluten? Ask yourself that question. And in fact, you might even want to check with it and say no bread, no gluten, no grains for, say, six weeks.

And then at the end of six weeks, have a glutenfest. Have waffles for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch and pasta on the side for dinner. And then after dinner, have a dessert — maybe a cupcake or something — and see how it feels after a few days of eating those kinds of foods and see whether or not you feel inflamed.

This is an experiment that’s, I think, prudent to do. We want to know what foods are doing to us because we put them in our mouths every day, and there’s a lot of wiggle room here. There’s a lot of ways that we can get this shifted if we have complete understanding of what it is we’re eating and what we’re doing to our bodies as a result of it.

And I have to say, when I talk to people, most people believe they’re eating a good diet.

It’s very rare that somebody says, “No, I don’t eat a good diet.” No, people want to feel as though they’re making good, intelligent decisions, but there’s a lot of erroneous information out there, friends.

So, I urge you to question what it is you’re eating on a regular basis and be honest with yourself because it’s really easy for us. We humans like to pretend that we are doing the best thing for ourselves, and we’re being intelligent and educated, but we are also emotional beings. And I don’t know that we like to. But we often hide — even from ourselves — what we’re doing. And myself included, so, I’m not slapping anyone’s hand.

Kate: (14:48)

So, let’s go back to what we talked about in the beginning and how you talked about your fibromyalgia that you had and no longer have. How are you doing now? You said that you no longer have symptoms. Do you ever have to take those medicines once in a while, or is it just completely gone?

Joette:

Well, I would say it’s 99% gone. Every once in a while — especially if I’ve overworked, like I’ve cleaned out the garage for far too many hours, walking up and down the stairs from the basement, carrying boxes or that kind of thing, and it’s been a full day — I might get a little achy.

Sometimes it’s hard to know, is this in my joints (so that it’s more arthritic), or is it more in my muscles? And sometimes it’s difficult to know, but it matters not, my friends.

I simply use Rhus tox. I take it for one day — maybe two doses in one day — and for me it goes away. That’s it.

And then it doesn’t show up again until — I don’t know, a year later — the next time I clean the garage because everything’s accumulating again. The next time I move heavy boxes that it can come back again.

But I’ve noticed through the years that I need these medicines less and less frequently because that’s the goal of homeopathic medicines. The goal is to uproot. And I’m not saying it does it in every single case, but we should see a shift in how the body is moving along, having been using these homeopathic medicines.

And I also have to add in there, I don’t eat inflammatory foods very often.

Kate: (16:20)

Joette, it’s so amazing what these medicines can do that I was just having a conversation with someone yesterday about homeopathic medicines. And I just wonder, what do people do who don’t use homeopathy? And they’re always running to the doctor, and I guess another medication?

I don’t know, but it’s so incredible how we don’t really have to go to the doctor. That all the things that come up in our lives, unless it’s an emergency, can really be handled efficacious with homeopathy. And I don’t know how people live without it.

Joette:

I agree with you. And what happens is they go to the, let’s say, rheumatologist, for this condition, and then they go to the gastroenterologist for the stomach upset and the bloating and the inability to eat this food or that food. And then they go to the OB-GYN to get another test and their prescription for their birth control pills. They go to the neurologist because now they’ve got headaches, and they go to …

And then; and then; and then; and then.

And none of these specialists are coordinating all of this. So, in the end, it’s surprising to me. It’s really stunning to me how many drugs people are on.

I was taking care of my elderly uncle years ago, and he was very, very sick after having had minor surgery. He was very sick, and he was not able to sleep.

Now, let me just say this. (This is a fascinating case.) When I say he was not able to sleep, I mean he was not able to sleep at all.

The drug that they were giving him … I wish I could remember the name of it; I don’t. The drug they were giving him for after surgery kept him completely awake for three or four days, as I recall.

By the second day, he was moaning. He could not fall asleep.

Now, it would’ve been nice if somebody had told him this, but according to the directions that he was given after surgery, no one said anything to him about getting off of that medication. No pharmacist knew anything about this.

And when I called the doctor, they said, “Oh no, he shouldn’t be taking that any longer.”

That was only for the day after surgery, and it was many days after surgery. It was like Chinese torture. That was absolutely horrible to witness this, I don’t know, 85-year-old man going through this terrible suffering.

Thankfully, I made the call and got rid of that prescription, and he was able to sleep. And he slept for two days after that.

So, if we’re not watching and if it’s an elderly person, if you are not the advocate for someone else, no one else is watching my friends. I would love to say that the system is really organized and well thought out and tidy and has your best interest in mind.

But it does not.

It is up to you to take care of yourself and your family, and have others willing to take care of you when you need an advocate.

Kate: (19:14)

Wow, Joette. This has been a lot of excellent information. So, what should we do next?

Joette:

Well, for listeners who are new, I urge them to consider just going to JoetteCalabrese.com. I have a universe of information — much of it is at no charge at all — on my blog and my podcasts and Monday Night Lives and social media, et cetera.

But if you are not-so-new or you want to go further, faster, then I urge you to consider joining a Gateway group (one of our study groups), and join in with others, because it is important, friends, to do this with others.

This is an unusual medicine in North America. Not unusual in Europe, not unusual in India and in some parts of South America, but here, it’s unusual. And you don’t want to be alone in pursuing this kind of information. It’s really great to join a group. That’s the way we humans are made … is to be a part of a group.

So, I urge you just to look into my study groups, Gateway study groups, and just peruse — just to hang out — on my site.

And if you go to my blog, say hi to me. I respond to my blog every day.

Kate:

Great. Joette, thanks so much for the information.

Joette:

My pleasure, Kate. It’s always good to talk with you.

It’s my honor to share many lessons on this simple method of using homeopathy for free —without affiliates or advertising — here in my podcasts, but also my blog posts and Monday Night Lives.

But it’s critical that you learn how to use these medicines properly. These podcasts should serve as only the beginning of your training. Peruse JoettesLearningCenter.com to find fun study group opportunities and in-depth courses developed by subject.

So, with the proper training, you can join the thousands of students before you in developing the confidence and competence to protect the health of your family and loved ones with my brand of homeopathy, Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:

You just listened to a podcast from internationally acclaimed homeopath, public speaker and author, the founder of The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®, Joette Calabrese. Joette’s podcasts are available on all your favorite podcast apps.

To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

00:58   Introduction: From Hopeless to Hopeful, Homeopathy Addresses Serious Conditions.

03:27   It All Began With a Diagnosis of Neurofibromatosis           

04:45   A Slightly Overwhelming Introduction to Classical Homeopathy

07:06   Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®

            Gateway I and Gateway II courses

08:56   The Brain Surgeries

            Surgical Protocols

12:48   A Horrible Accident

15:32   Aconitum for Shock

16:30   The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

            Good Gut, Bad Gut: A Homeopathic Strategy to Uproot Seemingly Unrelated Illness in Body and Mind

            The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

18:24   Success Story: Epstein-Barr, Chronic Lyme and Mold Toxicity

            Rethinking Detox with Practical Homeopathy®: How to Stop Stressing About Toxins and Fearlessly Achieve Health the Simple Way

            What To Expect When Using Homeopathy: Part 1

21:00   Success Story: Elevated PSA

22:30   Closing Thoughts

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)
Joette’s Learning Center
PracticalHomeopathy.com
Joette’s Study Group, Find Your New Study Group Friends
Joette’s Mighty Members
FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 154.

Joette:

Hi, I’m Joette Calabrese, and I welcome you to our health care movement — yours, mine and the countless men and women across the globe who have retaken control of their families’ health with Practical Homeopathy®.

So, for the next few minutes, let’s link our arms as I demystify homeopathy — what was once considered an esoteric paradigm — into an understandable, reproducible, safe and effective health care solution available to all.

This is the medicine you’ve been searching for — my unique brand of homeopathy, PRACTICAL Homeopathy®.

Kate: (00:58)

Welcome to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast, where we dive into the transformative world of Practical Homeopathy® and how it empowers families to take charge of their health.

I’m your host, Kate. And today I’m thrilled to introduce our guest, Shannon, a remarkable woman whose journey with homeopathy is nothing short of inspiring.

Shannon is a dedicated stay-at-home homeschooling mom of three on a small farm near the Amish community in southeastern Pennsylvania. Shannon and her family embrace a holistic lifestyle, where they raise chickens, goats, and even pigs to ensure they know exactly what’s in their food.

Her passion for natural living began 20 years ago when she started exploring the impact of food and lifestyle on health, leading her to embrace organic eating, fermented foods, and traditional practices, inspired by the Weston A. Price Foundation.

From crafting bone broth to sourdough bread with freshly milled flour, Shannon’s commitment to a chemical-free life is truly inspiring, but it’s her journey with homeopathy that we’re here to talk about today. Shannon’s introduction to homeopathy began with her son’s diagnosis and a classical homeopath’s suggestion to explore homeopathy. This eventually led her to Joette’s teachings.

Homeopathy was also instrumental to help her husband who suffered a devastating accident. We’ll hear more about these incredible stories in just a few minutes, and you won’t believe what this family has been through.

Now, on a lighter note, Shannon is a soon-to-be graduate of Joette’s Mastery program. She’s taken her knowledge to new heights, helping others with complex health issues, from supporting a woman with chronic Lyme, Epstein-Barr, and mold toxicity to helping a man lower his PSA levels naturally.

Shannon’s success stories highlight the power of homeopathy. Her message is clear. There is another way, and there is hope.

So, let’s get started. Shannon, welcome to the podcast.

Shannon:

Thank you, Kate. It’s wonderful to see you again.

Kate:

It’s great to see you. We’ve known each other for a little while now. It’s been about four years, I think you said, since you joined our Gateway to Practical Homeopathy® study group. And so, that was fun getting to know you then.

And since that time, you’ve really taken your knowledge of homeopathy to a new level. And I would love to just hear a little bit more about the story of what happened, how you got into homeopathy and where it’s led you.

Shannon: (03:27)

Sure, Kate, thank you. I love sharing my story. So, it began with my oldest son, who is 16. (We do have three children. So, I have another son who’s 14, and our daughter is 12.) And he was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis type 1.

Kate:

What is neurofibromatosis? Did I say that right?

Shannon:

You did. What that is … it’s a rare genetic disease, and it causes tumors to grow on the outside jacket of your nerve, and they can grow anywhere in your body.

Now, 20% of these cases have what’s called a plexi neurofibromas. And what that is is you have a cluster of these tumors that are somewhere in your body close together, and my son happens to have that as well. It is rare, and I didn’t really know much about it because my husband and I do not have it. No one in our past has it either. It’s kind of like a snip in his gene that he has.

We went to a doctor — we have some hospitals around here, conventional doctors that specialize in children that have NF1 — and we went to them. And we decided to get some imaging done — MRIs. He would get them every year just to kind of keep an eye on things to make sure that nothing is growing and that things are okay.

Shannon: (04:45)

We ended up going, Kate, to his doctor around here in the past — we don’t go there anymore — was a classical homeopath; he was also an M.D. And we went there to have him check on Aidan just for wellness checkups. And he was the first person to obviously introduce me to homeopathy. I really didn’t know much about it, and he actually said, “I think there’s something that we could do to help him.” And of course I was ecstatic, Kate, because I did the one thing a lot of people do. I googled what this was, and it was really scary.

Kate:

There was nothing that you could do medically that you hadn’t tried.

Shannon:

Correct, as of right now, because his tumors weren’t causing an issue at this point. And there really wasn’t anything even in the conventional world at this time, and that was 10 years ago. It was still so rare that there really wasn’t any other options. So, that was exciting for us to hear.

And he was a wonderful doctor. He did not teach homeopathy, obviously, the way I’m learning now. He would give him the remedies, and then I kind of would ask what they were. And he was very vague about it, which probably was a good thing at the time, Kate, because I was so overwhelmed with information on things that I probably honestly wouldn’t have really understood what was going on.

And he also encouraged me to buy a kit — homeopathy kit — and I bought the 50-remedy kit from Washington at the time with the 30th potencies. And I was like, “Okay, this is great!” But I had no idea how to use it.

So, he encouraged me to purchase Dana Ullman’s book of “Everybody’s Guide to Homeopathic Medicines.”

So, Kate, I’m going to be honest with you, I bought the kit; I bought the book; and honestly, I didn’t use it. I was like, I have no idea how to really do this. I was intimidated.

So, what happened moving forward … my son was getting the checkups, and we had an MRI checkup (a standard routine), and the doctor told us that one of the tumors that was near his trachea — it’s on the nerve by his trachea — has grown larger than what it should be growing.

At that time, they didn’t have any options but surgery, and surgery was extremely risky. It was also near his carotid artery. We didn’t really know what to do.

Shannon: (07:06)

And we decided God has been wonderful with a lot of prayer. God intervened.

And at that time, they decided that they were experimenting with a chemotherapy drug. We decided to try that for Aiden. And there was no radiation in this chemotherapy drug, but they found in studies of children with NF1 that this drug would help reduce benign tumors.

So, since we didn’t really have any other options, we decided to go down this path. And the drug worked for a little bit, but then over time it stopped working.

And what we did is … I always continued, Kate, in my journey to explore other options — any alternative way that maybe we didn’t have to go down this road with him.

In between all of this, I started learning about Gateway I and Gateway II courses through Joette, which I took with you and Michelle. I started learning about Joette’s blog and a different way to use homeopathy, and I was really intrigued.

And during — it was Gateway II — I actually finished that course in the hospital because in the interim with all of this, my son got a rare brain infection, and he was really sick. And it was actually four years ago, around this time, that he went to the emergency room. I had thought he had the flu, and he was just really sick. Very sick, very sick.

I honestly, Kate, I do not run to the doctors unless I feel it’s absolutely necessary. I try a lot of things at home, and this warranted an emergency room visit. And I was even doing homeopathy at the time, Kate, trying something. Again, all I had was the — which I’m thankful for — I had the kit of 30th potencies. I wish I had more, but I didn’t at the time.

And we went to the emergency room, and I’ll never forget when … here I’m thinking my son’s going to get … maybe he’s dehydrated or what was going on.

And I’ll never forget them telling me they did an MRI, and they came back and they said, “Well, the good part is it’s not any of the neurofibromas in his head because he does have tumors throughout his body, so it’s not that causing an issue. It’s an infection, a brain infection.”

I was like, “Wait, what?” I’m like, “Okay.” So, I’m thinking brain infection. I’m thinking infection. I’m thinking, “Okay, he’s going to be on some type of antibiotic. And my son has never been on an antibiotic ever in his entire life.” And I was like, “Okay.”

I went back to the emergency room, the ER doctor comes in, and he’s like, “Yeah, so we’re going to prep him for surgery. He’s going to be getting brain surgery.” And I was like a deer in headlights.

I’m like, “Wait, what?”

Shannon: (09:53)

So, he ended up having four brain surgeries in total.

They tried two surgeries to drain the infection. And then the third, because the infection was so bad, they needed to relieve the pressure in his head because the antibiotic wasn’t getting there fast enough.

So, his third surgery was removing the part of his skull to help relieve the pressure in his brain, or he was going to die. So, we opted for that, obviously, and thank God he survived the surgery — all of the surgeries. And after that surgery, he started to make a full recovery.

He had to wear one of the helmets on his head because he had nothing protecting his brain for three months.

So, the time came three months later — remember it was right around Christmas — he was to have the surgery to have his bone flap (they call part of the skull put back together). And at this time, I finished Gateway I. I finished Gateway II with you guys, and I was really into Joette’s blog daily and researching.

I came across her surgery protocol, and I was like, “I’m using this.” And one thing I did learn after my son’s bout in the hospital. He was in the hospital for about four or six weeks, and he did make a complete recovery, which I’m so thankful for.

Kate:

Yes.

Shannon:

And Kate, I ended up buying so many kits with different potencies at that time. So, I knew that I was going to be prepared in the future for whatever was in store.

I’m so glad I did because I used — when he went back for that fourth surgery — I used the surgery protocol that Joette has on her blog.

I used Arnica the night before. I used Arnica the day of the surgery. And when he got done surgery, I even gave it to him while he was in the hospital.

And he was supposed to stay overnight for observation to make sure everything was okay. And he came home that night! It was awesome, Kate! The doctors could not believe how well his surgery went.

Kate:

Oh, that’s so great.

Shannon:

It was so exciting because he just wanted to be home. I mean, he did have some pain that night, and Arnica helped with that. But in hindsight of everything that he went through with that surgery, Arnica took care of it. I didn’t have to use anything else. And he was back to himself within probably a couple days.

Kate:

That seems inconceivable, honestly.

Shannon:

Yes. He still has NF even with all of this going on. So, after all of that, we’re still dealing with the neurofibromatosis with him.

And a few months after that brain surgery, he became a client of Joette’s. That was an answer to prayer. And he is still on this health journey. With Joette’s help, he remains stable, and the tumor that was of concern by his trachea is not causing any issues. So, he is stable right now, and I am so thankful for that.

Kate: (12:48)

Wow. And then I can’t even believe what happened after that.

Shannon:

Right! His last brain surgery was in December.

April, which was only a few months later, my husband was in a really horrible accident. He was crushed by a 14-ton steamroller that tipped on its side and fell on him and crushed him.

Kate:

How did he survive that?

Shannon:

Well, Kate. God. That’s how he survived it.

But when they checked his pulse — the EMT wasn’t there yet — but when the gentleman that he was working with were checking him for a pulse, he didn’t have a pulse. He remembers feeling this amazing peace.

I remember him saying he prayed for all of us, and he was just excited. He was excited! We love the Lord. And he was excited to be with Jesus. And then he remembers, all of a sudden, extreme pain. He was like, “Oh, wow.” He was in so much pain, Kate.

And I remember when that day happened, I was having a hard time getting ahold of him. I needed to get ahold of him for something, and I couldn’t get ahold of him on the phone. I’m like … I don’t know. Something just did not seem right. I texted him; I called him. No answer.

I was like, “What is going on?” I kind of dismissed those feelings, but it was still there, that nagging feeling that something wasn’t right.

And my brother and sister-in-law pulled up in the driveway because we live near them. And Kate, I knew at that moment that something wasn’t right.

And they walked in. I said to them, “Is Derek alive? Is my husband alive?” And I said, “Wait, don’t tell me anything.” And I took a dose of Aconite.

I took a deep breath, and then I was ready for them to tell me whatever news it was going to be.

And I said, “Okay.” I said, “Is he okay?”

And they said, “I don’t know.” They’re like, “We need to go to the hospital.”

Kate, I had no idea what I was walking into.

Kate:

Wow. You didn’t know if he was alive even.

Shannon:

I didn’t. I didn’t.

They said he was in a really bad accident, and they took him to the hospital.

I said, “Okay.”

So, I took another dose of Aconite — another amazing medicine, Kate — and I was able to drive to the hospital, and I walked in.

He was alive and in very bad shape. But I was able to process the information that I needed to hear at that moment because I was also having moments of PTSD from all of the information from my son that happened just a few months ago — within six months ago.

And when you have these things happen, the doctors are talking to you, and they’re trying to tell you what’s going on. And I’m trying to … I was just was having a hard time, just kind of like, “Alright, just give it to me straight. What’s going on?”

Kate: (15:32)

So, for those people who are listening and are new to homeopathy, Aconitum napellus is a great medicine for shock. So, that’s why Shannon chose that medicine.

Shannon:

It was amazing because I was able to function. I was able to process everything, and I was able to function with what was now going to happen with my husband.

So, after that — that was three and a half years ago — he survived with long recovery. He crushed his pelvis. He has permanent nerve damage, but he is able to walk today with a limp.

He’s in pain every day, but the pain is manageable, and he has permanent muscle damage and permanent nerve damage. But in hindsight of everything that happened, it’s a miracle that both my son and my husband are here today. Yeah.

Kate:

Wow. You have been through so much. Your family has been through that. And then on top of that, then you decide, “I need to know more, and I need to dig deeper in homeopathy.”

So, then you decided to join The Academy?

Shannon: (16:30)

I did. Kate, I did. While all this was going on after Gateway — Gateway I — my husband was recovering. I was like, “You know what? I want to purchase the Good Gut, Bad Gut course. I really wanted to start diving in.” But Kate, with his recovery and everything going on, honestly, I didn’t have a chance to do the course.

So, I remember The Academy was starting. It was a couple years that The Academy has started, and I’ve always said to my husband, “I really want to do this.” And it never seemed like the right time, Kate. Never.

Well, I chose to do The Academy at probably the most inconvenient time ever in my life because it was a struggle for us financially. My husband wasn’t working; he was still recovering. And I remember looking at him, and I said, “I really want to do this.”

And he goes, “I really want you to do it. We will figure out a way. Just enroll.”

And Kate. I mean, look! I’m going to graduate Mastery!

It’s nothing but wonderful things that I have. The information that I have learned through The Academy and Mastery is priceless. It’s priceless. Even if I never was able to help anybody else, just the information I have to empower myself and my family is something that I am forever thankful for.

Kate:

So, for those listening, again, who don’t know what The Academy of Practical Homeopathy® is, it’s a yearlong online school that Joette leads. And it’s an immersive school where you learn all about Practical Homeopathy®.

And then there’s a second year for those who choose to go on to what we call the Mastery program. And so that’s what Shannon is going to be graduating from soon.

And Shannon, you’ve been taking some cases of some of your friends, family members. You actually, as part of Mastery, are going to present a case coming up here as you finish Mastery.

You’ve already done one in your Mastery program, but tell us about some of those cases and what you’ve seen and how you’ve used homeopathy.

Shannon: (18:24)

Sure, Kate. So, the case that I presented to the class in Mastery was a friend of mine, and she was having some issues. She saw a few doctors (natural doctors, conventional doctors), and she was getting better, but she was still struggling.

And I said to her, “Would you like me to help you?” I said, “I can try. If you’re okay with it, I’d like to present it to Mastery so I can get some feedback from them.”

So, she came to me, and she was sharing with me what her symptoms were. She was diagnosed with chronic Epstein-Barr, chronic Lyme and mold toxicity. And what I was doing was basing off of the symptoms that were presenting and the diagnosis that she was given … is what I base the homeopathic remedies on.

So, she was experiencing chest tightness, fatigue, irritability, brain fog, sensitivity to light. She’s having ear ringing, headaches and muscle cramping. And a lot of these on a number scale with 10 being the worst … a lot of these were an 8, a 9 or a 10, Kate.

She was also on a hormone replacement therapy drug for many years. With everything that I’ve learned from Joette, I used the mold remedies Joette teaches in the Detox course of Nat sulph and Arsenicum album.

I used Gelsemium for the brain fog and fatigue, and Chamomilla for the irritability, as well as some other remedies that have been mentioned — especially the one for headaches, which Joette mentioned on her blog of the Banerji protocol of Picric acid mixed with Belladonna.

I presented the case to Mastery, and it went very well.

And I had a follow-up with her a few weeks ago. We went over everything in the consult, and, Kate, she was so encouraged because after she told me how well she was doing, I was able to kind of tell her what her numbers were from about eight weeks ago. And her numbers went from a 10 to a 1 and a 2, in almost 90% of her symptoms.

So, the only thing that she’s really struggling with right now is brain fog. Everything else? There was significant improvement, and she was so encouraged to hear this.

Kate:

That was only a matter of weeks!

Shannon:

About eight or nine weeks, yes, by the time we had our follow-up.

Kate:

Good job, Shannon.

Shannon:

It’s encouraging for me, but it’s encouraging for her. But Kate, as Joette says, “It’s God’s medicine.” It’s the remedies and just the tools that I have been taught — of how to use them — is priceless, Kate.

Kate: (21:00)

Yeah. And you have another one with a man in his fifties, I believe it was.

Shannon:

I do. So, he is in his fifties. There is a history of a lot of prostate cancer in his family. And he went to the doctors, and his PSA levels were rising. And his conventional doctor said, “If these continue to rise, my suggestion would be to do a biopsy.”

And he really did not want to do that, Kate. So, he asked me is there anything that I could help him with his elevated PSA levels? And I said, “Sure.” So, I said, “We can try it.”

I suggested that he try Conium and Thuja. And I learned about these medicines for elevated PSA levels in a men’s health lecture in The Academy, and how beneficial they can be.

And he just had a follow-up appointment with his doctor. His PSA levels are now within normal range. Kate, he was ecstatic. And the doctor said to him, “Whatever you’re doing, continue to do it!”

Kate:

Wow. You know, whenever I talk to people about homeopathy — like you — it is incredible the stories that they tell and how homeopathy has changed their lives and the lives around them. And I get tears in my eyes every time I hear these stories. You’ve been through so much, and now you are taking what you’ve learned and helping other people. What a rewarding thing to do, Shannon.

Shannon: (22:30)

It is Kate.

And I wanted to share that there is another way to do things, and especially when it appears no other way. I mean, as I shared in the story, there was no other way for my son.

There was a way, and there still continues to be a way with homeopathy.

And it just doesn’t need to be with my son. It can be with anything. Homeopathy has given me hope, Kate, in a place where I didn’t have any. I had very minimal hope, and I am so thankful for this medicine.

Kate:

Well, Shannon, thank you so much for your willingness to open up and share your life and the life of your family with us and what you’re doing. I appreciate you being here and look forward to hearing about all the other things that you accomplish now with what you’ve learned. Thank you so much.

Shannon:

Kate, thank you so much.

Joette:

It’s my honor to share many lessons on this simple method of using homeopathy for free —without affiliates or advertising — here in my podcasts, but also my blog posts and Monday Night Lives.

But it’s critical that you learn how to use these medicines properly. These podcasts should serve as only the beginning of your training. Peruse JoettesLearningCenter.com to find fun study group opportunities and in-depth courses developed by subject.

So, with the proper training, you can join the thousands of students before you in developing the confidence and competence to protect the health of your family and loved ones with my brand of homeopathy, Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:

You just listened to a podcast from internationally acclaimed homeopath, public speaker and author, the founder of The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®, Joette Calabrese. Joette’s podcasts are available on all your favorite podcast apps.

To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

01:00   Introduction: Homeopathic Stramonium for Violent Tendencies

04:18   Arnica for Head Injuries

04:45   Stramonium for Violent Tendencies

            Monday Night Live: Rage

07:18   Homeopathy Works!

            Stramonium 200C

08:36   Employing Homeopathic Medicine Until It’s No Longer Needed (Very Much Better)

10:32   How Often to Consider Utilizing Stramonium

11:51   Homeopathy Addresses Physical, Psychological, AND Emotional Conditions

 Joette’s video reel regarding Stramonium on YouTube or Facebook

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)
Joette’s Learning Center
The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®
PracticalHomeopathy.com
Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum
Joette’s Study Group, Find Your New Study Group Friends
Joette’s Mighty Members
FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 153, with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:

Hi, I’m Joette Calabrese, and I welcome you to our health care movement — yours, mine and the countless men and women across the globe who have retaken control of their families’ health with Practical Homeopathy®.

So, for the next few minutes, let’s link our arms as I demystify homeopathy — what was once considered an esoteric paradigm — into an understandable, reproducible, safe and effective health care solution available to all.

This is the medicine you’ve been searching for — my unique brand of homeopathy, PRACTICAL Homeopathy®.

Kate: (01:00)

Hi, and welcome to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast. I’m Kate, and I’m thrilled to be here with you today as we explore the wisdom and real-life applications of Practical Homeopathy® with Joette, where homeopathy is distilled down to be practical and accessible to moms, dads, grandparents, and even busy college students and skeptical uncles who just want results.

Joette has spent her decades teaching families how to take the reins of their health using time-tested homeopathic protocols that are simple, effective, and most importantly, doable.

Hi, Joette.

Joette:

Hi, Kate. We’ve got an interesting case to go over today, haven’t we?

Kate:

Yes, we do.

So, we’re going to talk about how to find the right medicine. So, turning the tables a little bit. I think you are going to ask me some questions about a case that I’ve encountered recently.

So, let’s get started.

Joette: (01:57)

Yes. As I recall, this was a case of a young man, right?

Kate:

Right. Yes.

Joette:

And he had some behavioral problems. Kate, why don’t you explain what behavioral and plaguing thoughts and then an interesting history.

Kate:

Right. So, we’re going to focus on some of the emotional components of this case. There are some other things that came into play, but as you say, Joette, “Look at what symptoms are the most prominent.” And it’s clear in this case that the emotional component was definitely the most serious — the most dire — of the symptoms. So, I’ll talk a little bit about it.

There was some violent thoughts, like wanting to kick people — so, almost rage. And the person was embarrassed by the fact that they’re thinking this. They don’t know where it’s come from, but it was really plaguing thoughts of just wanting to reach out in anger.

And I don’t know if this person actually kicked the door at one point or not, but it was pretty severe as far as the almost depression and the rage.

Joette:

And he was about how he wanted to do that. He wanted to hurt someone.

Kate:

Yes.

Joette:

He wanted to kick someone or harm someone, and it turned out that he kicked the door. But that’s as far as he went, at least as far as we know.

Kate:

Right. Yeah. I don’t think it was action as much as just those plaguing thoughts.

Joette:

Plaguing thoughts. Right.

So, how has this case opened, Kate?

Kate:

The person is someone that has used homeopathy on and off for years. So, they did, at one point, take Camphor.

Joette:

So, this is a person whose mother has been using homeopathy on and off for years.

Kate:

Yeah. Correct.

Joette:

Right. It’s in his blood of sorts. He knows enough to start thinking this through and asking for some help homeopathically.

Kate:

Right. And when the mother started thinking about it, she realized that at one point her son had a head injury, and so that played into it. But even though it was a pretty prominent head injury, where there was actually some broken bones in the back …

Joette:

And so, do we know how long ago that injury occurred before the case was taken regarding these?

Kate:

I think it was about a year or so.

Joette:

Okay. My guess is, if the mom knew — I’m just going to take a guess on this, and correct me if I’m wrong — she knows enough homeopathy, she probably treated that injury.

Kate:

Yes.

Joette:

At the time, correct?

Kate:

Correct.

Joette:

With Arnica first and then Natrum sulphuricum next, and that kind of thing, right?

Kate: (04:18)

Correct. Yes. So just if people are wondering, Arnica is so good for so many things, but head injuries is one of them.

Is that what you normally go to first?

Joette:

Yes. It’s the first thing we think of for hematomas and the shock of it. Pain, of course, but especially hematomas. That’s the concern that we most have. Yes.

Kate:

Okay. So yes, that was a long time ago, and now there are these emotional components that are coming to the fore.

Joette: (04:45)

So, when the mom was taking the case — essentially, she was taking the case, and she was relaying to you — that she looked at violent tendency.

Now we don’t know whether or not he was actually violent (but for the kicking of the door). Right? But he talked about how he wanted to punch someone or kick someone and harm to someone.

Kate:

Right.

Joette:

Yes.

Kate:

Right. And so, she looked up in the repertory under “Mind-Emotions and VIOLENT.” And I know you talk about how the remedy Stramonium is pretty prominent when there are violent behaviors.

Joette:

It certainly fits. It fits that, for sure.

But now let’s look at what Stramonium also represents. It represents a shock to the system.

Buster, when he got that injection from the vet, went into a Stramonium state. (I’ve talked about this before. I’ve written about it. Actually, it was a Monday Night Live that I talked about it.) That injection was a shock to the system, and that’s the way I saw it.

Shortly after that, within weeks or so, he became a very violent dog. He’d never been violent. He was really passive and sweet, but he became aggressive towards me. Wouldn’t let me in the bedroom; wouldn’t let me near my husband; snarled at me; showed me his teeth and actually snapped at me several times. My husband had to grab him by the scruff of the neck a number of times.

And so, I knew that the cause of that was likely the neurological shock to the system. I used both medicines specifically for that injury to the system, as well as how he was behaving. I gave him, Stramonium …

Kate:

Turned him right around, as I recall.

Joette:

It did. Immediately within a day or two. It was really fast.

And then it came back again a couple weeks or a month or something later, but not as severe. He didn’t snap this time. He showed his teeth, and he wouldn’t let me near my husband or let me in the bedroom. My husband had to grab him again, and then I knew it was time to give him the Stramonium again.

So, it was a neurological shock to the system, and we could say the same, perhaps, for this young man … that there was a neurological shock. And that can happen after an accident, after an injury (especially a head injury), something that is extreme to the body can often show up later in this kind of behavior, anger, desire to do harm, violent thoughts, et cetera.

So, Stramonium fits both the fact that this behavior is presenting, but it also fits because of the etiology — the potential cause of the condition in the first place — which, indeed, could have been the head injury.

Kate: (07:15)

Yes. And so, interestingly enough, the mother reports that the Stramonium acted, and it acted so quickly and so beautifully that within one dose, this boy stopped having those (the thoughts of rage), and he calmed right down and was doing really well.

Now, when he stopped taking it — and I believe, he was taking it … at first, it was twice a day, and then gradually going to every other day — but when he didn’t remember to take it, those things crept back in. Right?

And so, when he took it again, they went right away. It’s so incredible. I mean, every time we talk, Joette, we talk about these medicines and how amazing they are.

Joette:

God’s medicine. There’s no doubt about it. No side effects, et cetera. It was probably 200?

Kate:

Yes.

Joette:

In a 200C. So, Stramonium 200C. And so, used it a couple times a day for what? Probably a week or so?

Kate:

I would say yes.

They tried to go to the Stramonium every other day, but it didn’t seem like enough. So, they went back to the twice a day. And I didn’t follow the case, so, I don’t know what they’re doing now, but I know that this boy is doing really well.

And whenever he starts to get those thoughts again, he just takes the Stramonium. Or if he’s taking it regularly, then those thoughts don’t even creep in.

Joette: (08:36)

So, the upshot of this is that you use it until it’s no longer needed, and then you test it out. We’re not using it for years; we’re using it for days. And then when it’s clear that the condition is much improved, then we back off.

When we see that it’s not time to back off because the symptoms return, then it’s time to return to the original schedule or a schedule that’s perhaps not as tight as twice a day. Maybe they just use it once a day, see how it goes.

So, we’re always looking for that tipping point to find a place where it’s just right. And it could be taken for a long … it could be taken weeks, perhaps even a month.

Again, we test. We check and see how it’s going without it again. And after a while, the person will no longer need the medicine, and that’s how we know that the medicine has done its job.

Now, just like Buster. It happened months later that he started to behave like this again. It’s almost as though the body said, “I’m ready for another couple doses of this.”

We used the medicine … we loaded up front twice a day for several days. It became much better. I backed off, and we halted the use of it because it appeared to be completely resolved.

Then months later, it started up again. I started right where we left off: twice a day every day for another week or so.

And I don’t remember exactly how long it was because, my friends, it doesn’t matter. People ask me, “So, for how long?”

Well, that is dependent upon what you’re observing. So, once I saw again that he was much better — we’re talking about Buster now — that it’s time to back off the medicine again. And if we see that it reared its ugly head one more time, I would’ve started again.

As I recall (it’s been years now), I don’t think I needed it a third time. But if I had needed it a third time or he needed it a third time, I would’ve done it again. And each time I would’ve expected just what happened … a little bit less, the next time. The symptoms are not as intense. They’re not lasting as long, and there’s a larger space between each of the episodes of the behavior.

So, that’s what apparently happened with this young man. Right?

Kate: (10:32)

So, I’m wondering, Joette, if there’s a case that you had and the symptoms were leading you towards the use of Stramonium, do you think about the severity? And if it’s more severe, maybe you would use it twice a day in the beginning? Or would you start with every other day? Or how often do you like to use Stramonium?

Joette:

Well, it can be used every other day if it’s a rather milder version. But usually, when we’re using a remedy like Stramonium, it’s pretty intense. Because they’re already in depression. That’s intense. And they’re experiencing violent thoughts. I would say that’s worth repeating it twice a day for a while.

These are serious conditions, and it is something that needs to be addressed by someone who’s experienced, a seasoned homeopath, a health care professional, someone like that.

But I do want people to learn how this is done because it gives us freedom from worry that this could never be resolved, or now they’re going to need drugs, et cetera.

Kate:

And it can change someone’s life in amazing ways. So, thanks to these medicines that are so inexpensive. It’s really unbelievable.

Joette:

Yet, in this case, it changed at least two lives. We know about the mother and the son. My guess is it changed the life of his father and his siblings and his friends and his classmates and et cetera.

Kate: (11:51)

Joette, thank you for helping us understand the use of Stramonium and how to think about these emotional cases that can be complex. I appreciate your thoughts, and I think it’s clarified some things in my mind, and I hope the listeners’ as well.

Joette:

I like the point that we’ve brought to the fore today, and that is, most people don’t know that it’s possible that homeopathy can treat emotional and psychological conditions and events as well.

Most people have believed that homeopathy is assigned to acutes, like a cold or a flu or an ear infection. But no, there’s even this.

So, this just helps people understand the universal ability of this medicine. So yeah, it was an interesting case. Thanks for bringing a case.

It’s my honor to share many lessons on this simple method of using homeopathy for free —without affiliates or advertising — here in my podcasts, but also my blog posts and Monday Night Lives.

But it’s critical that you learn how to use these medicines properly. These podcasts should serve as only the beginning of your training. Peruse JoettesLearningCenter.com to find fun study group opportunities and in-depth courses developed by subject.

So, with the proper training, you can join the thousands of students before you in developing the confidence and competence to protect the health of your family and loved ones with my brand of homeopathy, Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:

You just listened to a podcast from internationally acclaimed homeopath, public speaker and author, the founder of The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®, Joette Calabrese. Joette’s podcasts are available on all your favorite podcast apps.

To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.