Joette Calabrese Podcast

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

01:17   Americans for Homeopathy Choice

02:49   Meetings with the FDA

09:54    Draft Guidance

32:08    Donations to Americans for Homeopathy Choice

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Americans for Homeopathy Choice (homeopathychoice.org)

Hyland’s, Boiron, Hahnemann, Washington, OHM

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 89 with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:  Hi, folks. Today, we’re doing something a little different than we have done in the past. I’m going to be interviewing Paola Brown. She’s going to tell us all about her organization. You may already know about it. If you don’t, I want you to know about it.

We are very involved with Paola’s organization on many different levels. I want you to be involved right along with me. You don’t have to do a lot of work. You just have to be even just one toe into the water in getting involved with this wonderful organization.

Paola, tell us about your organization. Paola Brown, here you go, Sweetie.    

Paola:  Thank you. Americans for Homeopathy Choice.

I just thought I’d start right from the get-go and tell them what they can do. They can go to homeopathychoice.org. Right now, we are seeking 100,000 comments to go into the FDA docket. I checked today, it’s January 5th, and there was about 25,000 comments in there. So, we’re needing this to really pick up. The deadline is January 23rd. So, if you go to homeopathychoice.org, right on the homepage…

Joette:  Homeopathychoice.org. We’ll have this listed down below for you folks to click into.

Paola:  Yes. We have software that if you’re in the US, that makes it super easy for you. Just click, click, click, and it goes straight to the FDA.

If you’re international people, you can also comment. We have a copy-and-paste that makes it super easy.

Right from the get-go, pause this podcast, run over there, and get that done. But we can talk about the background of the issues, too, of course. 

Joette:  I always tell folks, I’ve written many times to the FDA and other government bodies in my adult life, and I find that if it’s short, and it’s concise, and it’s not just an opinion, but perhaps a short story (how Belladonna helped your child with pain and ear infection or how Chamomilla has helped your teenage daughter, and you need to have this medicine available, and you need all your homeopathic medicines available), how your doctor uses it, or how your practitioner uses it, and give examples — but no anger! No sarcasm. Don’t do that. You will just turn them off.

You want them to actually read these and say, “Wow, this is interesting. Look at this person’s arthritis improve by using Rhus tox and Symphytum,” or something like that. We want them to know that we are real people out there. We’re not oddballs. We simply decided to use homeopathy often instead of drugs — but sometimes alongside drugs as well.

We’re not anti-medicine. We are pro-medicine. But we’re also very much pro-homeopathy. It’s very important that they understand that there’s a large body of citizens in the U.S. and elsewhere who are very interested in keeping homeopathy alive. Because indeed, Paola, it is under threat, isn’t it?

Paola:  It is. It really is under threat. In the United States, our government works better when we can speak up and communicate and help our officials do the right thing. If we don’t get involved, I think that’s how overreach happens. That’s how things slip away from us. It’s such an important role as a citizen or as a resident of this country. You don’t have to be a citizen, obviously, because the international people can comment, but as a resident of this country to speak up and to help them understand your perspective, because they don’t know it.

I remember at our very first FDA meeting, we brought our homeopathy kits, me and the moms.

Joette:  FDA meeting, meaning you went to DC. Now, you live in Budapest.

Paola:  Right. Now, I live in Budapest.

Joette:  You flew from Budapest to DC to meet with the FDA. That’s the kind of commitment Paola and her group have in trying to keep homeopathy safe because … let me just say parenthetically that, what happens in the United States happens then throughout the world. We are leaders in many, many ways, even in, believe it or not, in homeopathy. That has switched recently. It used to be Europe was number one. Now, the US has become number one in users of homeopathy.

Okay, so you went to the FDA, and you brought a kit.

Paola:  Yes. We passed it across the table. That was our very first meeting, and the person who was really heavily involved in writing the draft guidance was in that meeting. I don’t think that person had ever seen a homeopathic remedy in her life!

You’re trying to break these barriers with these agencies because they’re there; they’re doing their job, or they’re trying to do their job, or whatever it is that they’re doing. They’re doing what they’re doing. Your job is to help familiarize them with what is happening and to understand the people behind this.

There are intricacies to every issue. You need to help them understand the intricacies of the homeopathy issue. It’s like if you put a face, and you make it real to them, it really helps. It really does. I have to say, Joette, we have made phenomenal progress with the FDA.

Joette:  Over what period of time? Tell me how long you’ve been doing this, Paola.

Paola:  It’s been about two years. It’s been about two years of, honestly, pulling 60 hours a week, just about every week for two years.

Joette:  Wait a minute. Let me also say, you not only live in Budapest, but you homeschool your children, three of them. It’s not as though you have a lot of time on your hands.

Paola:  That’s right, very, very busy. It’s actually been a blessing living overseas because I can spend my mornings homeschooling them, and then everyone’s sleeping in the US, then I can work until 10 o’clock at night and get more stuff done.

But this is so important to us. I was just telling your husband before you came, Joette, that my daughter has had a tummy bug, and this particular virus is pretty yucky. Kids are like rolling in pretty acute pain and vomiting.

It’s pretty severe. I tried a couple of different remedies. Actually, I switched to Chamomilla, which is not typical, right? You think of a colicky baby, so we use Chamomilla. Within three minutes, this little girl that’s been rolling in pain … she was beating her pillow, Joette, punching her pillow, “It hurts, it hurts,” punching it! Within three minutes, she sits up and goes, “Hey, you want to play a card game? Want to play Go Fish?”

Joette:  That’s the way homeopathy works sometimes. It’s not every time. But when you hit it right, especially in an acute situation when it’s quite extreme, that’s how quickly it can act.

Paola:  Yes. It’s these little moments where I just think, “We’re doing the right thing.”

I really am grateful for generations that have gone by that have protected our freedoms and done different things that have really impacted us and in a positive way for today. I just think about this is our generation’s fight — your generation, Joette, my generation. We’re in it together, right? This is what we have to do to protect our freedoms. I really think we’re going to be successful.

Now, the battle is serious. There’s a lot that’s going on. But that is why we need you guys to step up and comment and take this seriously. The deadline is January 23rd. Go to homeopathychoice.org. You can very quickly submit a comment to FDA.

Now, FDA doesn’t really care so much about numbers. They care about quality comments. Our comment that you can copy and paste or edit and add your own experience to it is there for you.

But one of the reasons we really like volume is because it gets Congress’ attention. We can go to them. That really made an impact last time, because last time, our goal was 20,000 (25,000. I can’t remember. I’m not great with numbers.) But that catches Congress’ attention. It’s not just FDA that we’re trying to show this to. We’re showing Congress this, and we have good relationships on Capitol Hill that we are continuing to develop. It’s really important to get those numbers up.

Joette:  There’s no reason why you can’t write a comment, and then have your husband write a comment, and then have your teenage daughter or son write comments, so that it can be as many people in your family as possible. If you’re a homeschooling mom, make this an important aspect of your civil duty class.

Kate:  That’s right.

Joette:  You can also take this to your church and ask your church mates, your school mates, your neighbors, your friends. This is very important, and it takes so little. Everything is right there at your keyboard — right at your fingertips.

Paola:  Have everyone in your household, regardless of age … you said teenagers, but you don’t have to be a teenager. I mean, there’s no, like … you don’t have to be a voting …  

Joette:  That’s right. That’s right. They could be a seven-year old. That’s a good way to teach your child.

Paola:  Exactly. Everyone, regardless of age, should be commenting. That’s right, having your friends at church.

The way you can talk to them about this is, “This is about our freedom to choose whatever medicine that we want. This is a federally recognized form of medicine. It’s backed by thousands of research, papers, studies, and clinical trials. It is something that you want to have the option to choose, if you ever need it.”

Joette:  Yes. Paola, tell us why the FDA is doing this. What are your suspicions or what do you know for sure? Give us a little background.

Paola:  Well, there are probably five different ways I can answer that question correctly.

The FDA says homeopathy … it’s been over a decade that they’ve done anything to homeopathy — it’s actually been longer than that. They were revisiting and trying to look at homeopathy and see what they can do to update the way it’s treated or whatever.

They had meetings in 2015. Then they came out with this draft guidance. What was really concerning to us is that everything that was presented in those meetings … this draft guidance — it is not a promulgation of the views that were proposed in those meetings in 2015! That’s the first thing.

But what’s really concerning about this guidance is that it takes homeopathy, and the FDA says that they’re going to treat it as if it’s a new drug.

There’s a little history lesson I can give …

Joette:  You mean each homeopathic medicine? Are you talking about single medicines or combination medicines?

Paola:  Just homeopathy will now be treated as a new drug. There’s an interesting history about the new drug process that I think helps us understand. I’d love to give you the little history lesson, if you’re up for it.

Joette:  Please.

Paola:  Back in the 50s, and you might remember this … or I don’t know.

Joette:  I was a young child in the 50s.

Paola:  That’s right.

Joette:  I don’t have that much memory.

Paola:  Well, you might know because your friends might … this is the generation that their mothers were taking this drug called thalidomide.

Joette:  Oh, I certainly know all about thalidomide.  

Paola:  Yeah, and it was causing deformities. You remember it because maybe you have friends or people who had deformities because …

Joette:  I know someone who was deformed as a result of thalidomide.

Paola:  Exactly. What happened is thalidomide hit the market. All these babies were getting deformed. FDA said, “You know what? We need to control these drugs better. We need to make sure that their benefits outweigh the risks for their indications.”

They did this thing called a new drug amendment and a new drug application.

Now, before a drug can hit the market, they need to do all this technical testing and whatever-whatever to make sure it’s “safe.” Now, we know that drugs get on the market that aren’t safe, but that process is supposed to help minimize these unsafe drugs.

That amendment, when it came out, it specifically says anything that predates this amendment doesn’t apply.

Joette:  Hold on a second, Paola. There’s another drug, Darvon, interestingly, hadn’t been reviewed. It was a very old drug. I think I have this story correct; it’s been a while since I’ve read about it. It had been on the market since, I’m going to say, the 40s and 50s.

Paola:  Interesting.

Joette:  They just took it off the market because there had been so many cardiac arrests after the use of Darvon, even in small amounts. Now, you can’t find Darvon any longer. Darvocet-N was one of them. Darvon was another. But it was on the market for decades, more than half a century, when I think about it. They just took it off the market. I’m going to take a guess. I really should know my figures a little bit better and my history a little bit better. But I’m going to say it’s been about five years.

But meanwhile, who didn’t take Darvon? I took Darvon as a teenager, anytime you had any pain. That was the pain reliever du jour for decades. Now, it’s off the market. They’ll probably be doing the same thing with the statin drugs forthcoming. Those will soon be off the market.

Paola:  Interesting. Well, yes, right.

Joette:  After having been on the market for, again, decades. So, it’s certainly not foolproof — this method.

Paola:  That’s right, exactly. This method is meant to minimize that, but absolutely, it’s a concern.

And so, the FDA said everything that predates these new drug amendments, they don’t apply. Like aspirin has been around for a long time, and it predates this new drug amendment, and they have a whole analgesic section.

This is like a big, legal lasagna. But basically, the new drug amendments make new drugs coming out on the market go through a new drug application that costs millions of dollars per component of a drug — very expensive, and it’s there intended to protect the consumer.

Well, interestingly, FDA, for all of these years as a matter of policy — so meaning this is their policy and how they treated homeopathy — was that they have always treated homeopathy as something that is unique and different:

FDA had this new drug amendment come out. All these thalidomide babies were coming out, so they changed things up. It specifically says that anything that predates is exempt. FDA treated homeopathy … we have this pattern where FDA has treated homeopathy as different.

Then 2017 comes. And FDA says — and I’m going to quote this, this is tricky, this is a double negative statement, it’s very confusing, but it’s one of the most important statements — it says, “Absent a determination that homeopathy is not a new drug, we’re going to treat it like it’s a new drug.”

What they’re saying is nobody’s actually … like Congress, no court … has actually come out and said homeopathy is not a new drug.

Joette:  So, because the statement is not solidified, it’s not declared by any particular body — legislative body — that means it must not be?

Paola:  Well, they’re going to say, “That means we get to treat it like a new drug.”

What does that mean? That means that every single homeopathic medicine is being sold on the market technically illegal because it hasn’t gone through a new drug application.

Do you think a new drug that comes out on the market can just be sold out there without going through the new drug application? Absolutely not.

Well, what they’re saying is homeopathy hasn’t gone through this, so it’s technically illegal, and it gives the FDA the authority to pull it off the market whenever they want!!

Now, that is just their treatment. That is their interpretation of the law — even though the law says that pre-new drug amendments don’t apply.

So, it’s kind of a legal mess. That is why we have an attorney and a legal team. Our position is, okay … you admit (FDA admits) absent a determination that homeopathy is not a new drug. That’s them saying nothing’s been determined. But you don’t get to pick and suddenly say, “We’re going to treat it like it is!”

Does that make sense?

Joette:  Yes. So, what’s behind this, Paola? Come on. This just doesn’t seem … this seems very irregular. You know?

Paola:  I don’t know what’s behind it. We know that Big Pharma is big and expensive, and you know that they have influence even in just the culture, right — what can be said on the news; what is considered appropriate. We know that they have a big influence.

But I don’t know. I really don’t know what is behind this. I don’t know if it’s just a big agency, and it’s hard for big agencies to get something that is finite in detail like homeopathy and treat it like it deserves.

It’s just like a big elephant sometimes that comes in and tries to fix things, and they make more of a mess than they needed to. I don’t know what’s behind this. I think that’s the million-dollar question.

But I can say that there’s been no deaths or disabilities attributed to homeopathy in over 200 years. I can say that. I can say that this is the safest category of drug. I said this to the FDA. “This is the safest category of drug you guys regulate. Not only that, you guys have these big issues. You have this antibiotic crisis; you have this opioid crisis. And homeopathy can help with that.”

Our urging to them is slow down, and let’s get this right.

Now, I can’t say there have been different recalls, different problems with different homeopathic products, and we don’t need to name them specifically. But, you know, it happens. So, what my legal team and I did together with my entire team, we went through one by one and analyzed every single one of those recalls. Guess what, Joette, guess what we found?

Joette:  I know what you found but go ahead and tell everyone.

Paola:  Well, we found two issues:

It was either improperly manufactured, so perhaps there was a contamination issue or something.

Or it was improperly labeled. The label “homoeopathy” should have never been on that bottle because the ingredients weren’t in the HPUS, or they weren’t homeopathic!

Joette:  Well, if you go online, you’ll find products here and there that call themselves homeopathic. Then you read the ingredients, and there’s nothing homeopathic about it at all.

Paola:  That’s right.

Joette:  It doesn’t show any potencies. They’re herbs. They think … people still believe … that the word “holistic” and “homeopathy” are synonymous. They’re absolutely not.

Paola:  That’s right, which is crazy for a drug …

Joette:  Including manufacturers, including marketers. Many, many people still get that confused, which is a travesty.

Paola:  I’ve seen CBD oil labeled as homeopathic, and it was, like, “CBD oil, crude substance CBD oil.”

So, what we said to the FDA, I said, “Look, to the extent that there have been problems, we think we should have proper manufacturing. We support you guys in that. These recalls that you’ve done (when I’m showing them the recalls), we support this because this is improper manufacturing; this is bad labeling; this is improper manufacturing; this is bad labeling.  We support that!”  I said, “But the thing is this is not an issue with homeopathy. Labeling and manufacturing is generic to pharmaceuticals. This is not an issue with homeopathic medicine, and you guys have created the guidance on homeopathic medicine.”

Joette:  It’s sweeping! It’s a sweeping .. what’s the word … a sweeping finger pointed at an entire industry — an entire medicine — when it should be more specific.

Paola:  That’s exactly it! That’s exactly right. So, I’ve actually joked — not joked, but you know, “joked” — about the fact that FDA has treated homeopathy very allopathically. They’re looking at the symptom, and the “symptom” to them is homeopathy.

I’m like, “Guys, if you get to the root of the problem, the root of the problem which we have analyzed carefully is two-fold: labeling and manufacturing. Let’s get to the root of the problem, and all of this is going to go away.”

Not one single problem that we have identified has come up as an issue with an actually properly prepared, properly labeled homeopathic product has caused an issue. Never have we seen that!

Joette:  How was that received, Paola?

Paola:  Look, the FDA is listening to us. The attention they have given and continue to give us is like no other in the homeopathy community, as far as I know. We met with the person right beneath the Commissioner. She’s the top drug regulator in the U.S., really one of the most powerful people in the world, if you consider the Food and Drug Administration one of the most powerful administrations in one of the most powerful countries in the world.

We talk to this person, responds to emails, asks questions, made a phone call once. So, we have a level of communication that shows a genuine interest. I really think that they are listening.

Now, they reissued this draft guidance. This is really interesting, Joette. They created a draft guidance in 2017. They released it. We did what we did. We got those comments in there. We did all that we did that the past two years. We worked, we worked, and we worked. Then suddenly, what we were expecting is for them to issue a final version of that guidance.

We have spoken to different people in my team, that have experience in the government. They say, “Usually, when an agency releases a draft guidance, the next thing they do is they make it final. They will sometimes revise it to match the stuff that you said. But the next move they always make is publish the final.” Very rarely — it’s uncommon — for them to issue a second draft like, “Oh, here’s my revised draft. Here’s a second draft.” They did that. 

Joette:  They were influenced.

Paola:  They were influenced. I was really excited to read it. Then I was promptly really disappointed when I read it.

Joette:  Because the second draft was also concerning.

Paola:  It didn’t change many of the big issues we had. They did add, for example, a definition about homeopathy. That was one issue I took with the first draft. I said, “Hey, you don’t even define what homeopathy is. How do we even know … because people are going to read this? They’re not even going to know what you’re talking about! You need to at least define it.”  

Joette:  Do your homework before you draft something that’s going to affect millions and millions of people.

Paola:  I’ve met these people. We have to remember that we’re talking to people, as well as we’re talking to a giant industry. I really think that there are people in that room that I’ve met with — I’m not saying every single one — but the people that I’ve met with seem to be trying to do the right thing.

But again, it goes right back to we need to step up, make our voices heard, communicate, and make sure that they do their job better than they would without us.

The second draft, okay, there was a definition in there. I didn’t necessarily love the definition, but I can see an effort. But again, that statement about treating homeopathy as a new drug when they acknowledge that it is not a new drug. They say absent a determination that it’s not, we’re going to treat it that it is. They acknowledge that homeopathy has never been treated as a new drug. It’s a total 180 shift on how the industry treats homeopathy. That’s what we’re going to take issue with.

Listen, we live in a country where there are three branches of the government, right? You have the judicial branch, the executive branch, and the congressional branch. We have been working the congressional branch from the beginning, and that’s Congress, that’s our Senate, and the House, right?

Then on the other side, FDA is part of the executive branch. Trump appoints the Commissioner of the FDA. That’s an executive branch. We’re working with the executive branch.

But guess what? We have three branches of the government here, and I, as President of Americans for Homeopathy Choice, am willing to exercise our rights in the third branch of the government. That’s lawsuit to the FDA, if we have to.  

Joette:  That will require many people making donations, and it’s worth every penny. It’s worth every penny.

Paola:  It really is. Right now, the way that we’re going with the FDA, I think that the conversations are again very positive. They’re listening.

Joette:  Good. Let’s stay with them. Put our eggs into that basket, but be willing to step out of that basket and go to the next, if needed.

Paola:  That’s exactly it. That’s right.

Joette:  No, homeopathy is part of the national health systems of a number of countries.

Paola:  That’s right.

Joette:  Brazil — and that’s where you’re from; it’s where you grew up — homeopathy was ubiquitous. Certainly India, that is part of their national health system. But I also understand, well, Switzerland, I believe Germany, Mexico, Chile, Pakistan. These are places where it is part of their national health system. Even Cuba, believe it or not, has used — I don’t believe it’s part of their national health system — but it has been used by their government to treat leptospirosis. If anyone’s interested in reading about that particular event, I’ve written articles about leptospirosis in Cuba. If you want to read up on that and explain this to your neighbors before they start writing their letters to the FDA.

Paola:  I just think homeopathy in the U.S. is a federally recognized drug. It is in the … 

Joette:  Since 1940s.

Paola:  1930-something.

Joette:  1930s, yes, Royal Samuel Copeland, who was a senator in New York State, helped develop the FDA to protect homeopathy. That was the original intent was to protect and regulate homeopathy as well as other drugs. Now, that FDA — that was designed specifically by him and others — is now going against our needs, our family needs, so we do need to step up.  

Paola:  One of the other things that FDA has said to us is they say, “Most of these medicines will remain available.”

Joette:  We don’t want most. We want all. When your child is sick, you don’t want to be able to only use those that are lovely like Calc carb and Chamomilla like what you use, we want also those that someone might consider toxic — but of course it is not once it’s made into a homeopathic medicine diluted 200 times to the 100th power — such as Nux vomica or Arsenicum album or Veratrum album or Hyoscyamus or Lachesis. We need all of these homeopathic medicines. We want access to all of them.

Here’s something else that I want to ask you, Paola, because many folks believe that, “Oh, well, if it happens, I can just go to Canada, or I can order from India, or I can order from England.” What’s your take on that? I have my way of thinking about it.

Paola:  Well, FDA is in the customs office. Customs is what inspects everything coming across the border, and the FDA has an office within customs that if anything FDA-related comes through, they can talk about that. So, they are at the border. We’ve already seen things being confiscated.

But I have to say I hate hearing that talk, Joette.  I hate hearing talk about, “Well, I’ll just order from overseas.”

Joette:  That’s right. I do, too!

Paola:  I understand. I understand, because trust me, when this draft guidance came out, the first thing I did is order a pile of remedies.

Joette:  Yes. I urge everyone to do that.

Paola:  Right. You should have remedies …

Joette:  From American homeopathic pharmacies, and I’ve talked about them many times. Let me just say this parenthetically, Paola, such as Hyland’s, Boiron, Hahnemann, Washington, OHM. These are our good pharmacies in the U.S. Don’t buy outside.

We need to protect these pharmacies. They are our American pharmacies. It’s important that we protect them by purchasing from them with our dollars because if they go to the wayside, so do we.

Paola:  There are all these other things that people are doing besides talking about, “Well, I’ll just order it from overseas.” I understand that. I did the same thing.

Joette:  But as a last resort. If this comes to …

Paola:  Yes. But the thing is we are not there yet.

Joette:  No, we’re not.

Paola:  I need the energy and the time going towards supporting these efforts because we need everybody to step up and comment, consider donating to homeopathychoice.org. We have a donation page there. Just step up and support us!

Because here we are fighting tooth and nail, and then we’ll see people say, “Well, can we order? If this happens, can we do this?”

I’m like, “No, no, no. Don’t move on. Stay here in the present! This is the fight! Stay here! Throw in with us and support us!”

But I understand. We do need to be prepared. We need to have our plans and whatever. We live in Budapest right now, but we have a homestead in Texas. Trust me, zombie apocalypse comes, I welcome it. We’re ready to go. So, I’m all about preparedness, and I understand that mindset.

Joette:  Buy your remedies now! Buy as many as possible that will support the pharmacies — our American pharmacies — as much as you possibly can. Every time you have a few extra dollars, get on, go to Amazon, order them there, order directly from these pharmacies, and have back stock.

Paola:  You know what, Joette? I would say order directly from the pharmacies because I have seen more than once, there are different distributors on Amazon.

Joette:  Yes, you’re right. You do have to be careful. You’re right. The reason that I like Amazon is because it’s usually next-day shipping. But you’re right. You have to be careful because there are questionable pharmacies. That’s why I say buy from these particular companies.

Paola:  I’ve had two incidents where a very reputable brand of homeopathy, I ordered it, and I peeled the sticker back, and it says Arsenicum, and underneath it, it was Allium cepa. Yes.

Don’t order from Amazon. Order directly from these guys.

Joette:  Oh, really? Well, that’s very interesting.

Paola:  Yes, not even the pharmacy, but the person who’s putting it in the box or whatever. I don’t know if you know about that. You probably haven’t seen that.

Joette:  No, I did not know that. I’m glad you brought that up, Paola. Thank you. All right. Let’s change that. Nix what I just said about Amazon! Go directly to the pharmacies.

Paola:  Yes, there you go. I think, yes, because people don’t realize that. In a pinch, go ahead, use Amazon — go for it. But I agree, except for we don’t get Amazon here. And I miss it dearly for all the other stuff Amazon delivers.

Anyways, this is a critical time. I think FDA is trying to reinterpret the way they’ve interpreted the law for homeopathy for a long time. It’s a total 180-degree shift, and we need to hold them accountable to that.

Joette:  Yes, we do. This is where I always tell people, don’t put your money into a latte from Starbucks. Don’t put your money into a new pair of shoes. Fix up the old ones; get them resoled; clean them all up. And spend your money on homeopathy — on owning your remedies, on your personal education, on investing in your family’s well being, and getting involved in an organization such as this.

Now, are there other organizations, Paola, or are you “the one?”

Paola:  Well, we are the only homeopathy organization in the U.S. whose focus is just advocacy.

We have wonderful organizations in the U.S. There’s the National Center for Homeopathy, the American Institute of Homeopathy, the North American Society of Homeopaths. There are so many great, great organizations. But they have different approaches. The AIH serves medical doctors, naturopathic doctors, those guys. NASH is the professional organization for the professionals of homeopathy. They all have different things. We’re the only one that just focuses on just advocacy. I think that’s pretty important.

What’s really, really nice is that the homeopathy community is behind our efforts. Because let me tell you, two years ago when we showed up, we were like the new kid on the block. Nobody knew exactly what to do with us — to trust us. “How serious are they? Are they going to be a flash in the pan?”

But two years down the line, we’ve gained a lot of support momentum. We actually have on our website this joint statement, Joette, that we’ve released. Over 15 leading homeopathy organizations in the U.S. signed on to our statement supporting what we’re doing.

We’ve really come a long way to unify the homeopathy community, a very, very important thing. That’s what we’re doing.

Joette:  Paola, this has been great. Thank you so much. It doesn’t mean we’re finished. This is an ongoing conversation, and I’d like to see us talk about it further.

Donations are very important. Paola, tell us how we can donate.

Paola:  You go to homeopathychoice.org. Right there on the menu, you’ll see our Donate button. You can actually join our Bear Pack. That’s someone who donates $25 or more a month to our organization.

Joette:  Bear Pack meaning “mama bear?”

Paola:  Yes, mama bear. There are papa bears. There are people who aren’t parents, too, people but to animals or auntie bears. Whatever you are in life, we treat homeopathy as if it’s our own child. We want to protect it as if it’s our own child.

That’s where the Bear Pack comes in. That’s $25 or more a month. There are all kinds of little perks we give you. Every time we have a chance to give you some love, we do that.

Then if you’re just in a position to do a one-time donation, that’s fine, too. We give you all those options on our website.

Those are the two things you should go to our website for is definitely comment. That’s the free thing to do. That will make you feel great. You did the right thing. Make sure everyone in your household signs regardless of age, and then also consider donating.

Joette:  Absolutely. We want Swiss Army Knife preparedness. This is part of one of those actions. Know your medicines, own your medicines, and protect your medicines. This is what we, as mothers, grandmothers, and others, need to be very involved in in 2020.

Paola:  Guys, the deadline is January 23th. That’s like in five minutes. We really need you, guys.   ( A 60-day extension has been granted.  We still need you to send an email or two to your State Legislator(s))

Joette:  You do it today. Do it today.

Happy New Year, everyone. Let’s get this changed!

Joette:  As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising. But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

In these podcasts, I focus on those students of mine who have already tunneled in and learned how to take care of themselves, family, friends, and pets, and even livestock using homeopathic medicine. Many of these students began their education by participating in one of my Gateway to Homeopathy study groups. And now, after taking one or more of my courses, they’re well-trained to use my specific brand of homeopathy. I hope listening to this podcast has inspired you to follow in their footsteps. With the proper training, you, too, can nurture and protect the health of your family and loved ones with Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:  You just listened to a podcast from PracticalHomeopathy.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shares her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Pandora, Stitcher, TuneIn and iHeartRadio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

01:24   Are the best results reserved for the purest people?

05:13   Factors that affect one’s responses to homeopathic medicines

10:15   Synthetic drugs

26:25   Homeopathic remedy tip especially for the holidays

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Ignatia amara 200C

My blog, podcasts and Facebook Live events

Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 88 with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:  This is Joette Calabrese, and I’d like to welcome you to the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast. Women and men worldwide are taking back control of their families’ health and learning how to heal their bodies naturally, safely and effectively. So, if you’re hungry to learn more, you’ve come to the right place. Stay tuned as we give you the tools — and the inspiration you need — as I share my decades of experience and knowledge using this powerful medicine we call homeopathy.

Kate:  Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. Thanks for joining us. We’re going to spend a little time reflecting today. Joette, you’ve been using homeopathy and seeing clients for quite some time. I believe it’s been over 30 years. 

Joette:  Well, I’ve been using homeopathy, I started studying it about 32, actually 33 years ago. But I didn’t go into full-time real practice where I actually hung out a shingle and met with clients full-time until about 25 years ago.

Kate:  Well, that’s still a very long time.

Joette:  It is. It is.

Kate:  Yes, and you must have seen so much in that period of time. I imagine that you have a lot of observations that you’ve made over the years.

Joette:  I have seen a lot. Many of the ideas that have come to me have changed through the years.

For example … we might as well just get into it. For example, I always thought — I expected — that those who would have the best results would be the purest people, meaning babies. I always assumed that babies would get well much faster from a chronic condition — I’m not talking about acute so much, but a chronic condition — much more readily than an adult would. An adult who had many years of medications would not respond as well as a child.

I’ve proven that wrong time and time again.

It doesn’t mean that it’s more one way or the other. But just when you think you’re going to expect to see something that’s going to take six months, you see a change in three weeks, even for a chronic condition! It doesn’t mean it’s necessarily completely healed, but we often see a shift that’s big enough that the person can say, “Oh, my gosh! This is really making a change in my life, and so I want to keep going with this.”

Or with a young person, a child, a baby, that we see eczema, and sometimes it can take me many, many months to witness a dramatic change.

So, when people say to me, “Well, I know my case is more difficult because I’ve taken many drugs; I’ve taken lots of antibiotics; I’ve been on the birth control pill for 10 years; I’ve used steroids — that’s going to really impede my movement forward.”

I always say, “No, not necessarily. It wasn’t necessarily the best way to live our lives by taking all of those meds, but it doesn’t mean that you’re not going to move forward quickly.”

It sometimes is quite surprising how it’s not what we expect.

Kate:  Yes. That’s very interesting. I would not have thought that. Someone who has had a history of many, many chronic conditions, and you would expect thinking logically that this is going to be tough, sometimes you see that change right away and vice versa. That’s very interesting.

Joette:  It’s the same with cancer, too. I don’t take cases of cancer, but I worked in the Banerji clinic (Homeopathic Research Foundation in Kolkata). I worked at the clinic for a period of time every year over a period of eight years. I worked with Dr. Prasanta Banerji who took only cancer and kidney cases — when I was there, at least, those many years.

We would see a case where it was first stage cancer, and it would take an awfully long time for the homeopathics to act or perhaps not even at all. We may not crack that case. On the other hand, we’ve seen fourth stage cancer turn around! So, even the stages don’t matter of a particular illness.

I’ve seen in my own work on a day to day basis. Rheumatoid arthritis that seems downright unbudgeable turn around in eight months — not to the point where the person has absolutely no arthritis or no pain, but enough has been removed so that even the markers show improvement! The fatigue is gone. The pain is not as extreme. The pain doesn’t last as long. It’s not as a sobering an illness. The person can then take up their life again as they had not done for 10 years.

So, we have these preconceived notions that the degree of illness will determine how difficult it is to get past it homeopathically, and that just is not so.

Kate:  Well, I’m thinking, and I would imagine your listeners might be thinking this as well, that, well then maybe it has something to do with how the person is living their life. Are they eating healthy? Are they taking care of their bodies? I’m guessing that you’re going to say that’s not necessarily so either.

Joette:  It is not necessarily so either. You’re absolutely right.

I’ve worked with people who absolutely insist on drinking diet soda for breakfast. And I used to give them a hard time about it, and I don’t any longer, I always, of course … if people don’t know any better, but most people know enough not to drink diet soda if they’re looking for good health.

But some people just say, “I’m sorry. It’s just something I love. I’m just going to drink it.” I understand completely, and I let it go. We work beyond that. We work past it.

I believe very strongly in eating animal products. I believe in meat — red meat, especially. I believe in butter, lard, tallow and duck fat. All of that are very, very important foods. Yet, I have clients who come to me who are vegans, and they still do well.

So, I have had to adjust my thinking several times and acquiesce to the possibility that we really can be all similar and yet all quite different from each other.

Kate:  So, you have no idea what the difference is or why one person might respond better than another.

Joette:  I think it’s innate. It could be inheritance. Inheritance is huge. But then I don’t want to give too much credence to inheritance, either, because I know many people who say, “Well, my grandfather died of colon cancer, and my father had colitis, so I get a colonoscopy every six months.”

I think to myself, “That’s an interesting rationale.”

Somebody must have said that to this person at some point. My grandfather died of colon cancer, and I have a lot of gastrointestinal conditions in my family, it never occurred to me that that would mean I have to go for a colonoscopy — ever. I’ve never had one.

It’s the way that we interpret things. It’s also the way our inheritance interprets things.

My grandfather probably had colon cancer maybe because he ate pasta every day. It’s all they could afford for decades. They ate very little meat because they couldn’t afford it until perhaps the late 40s and early 50s. But up until that time, they were eating what they could find, what they could muster up: lots of homemade bread, lots of pasta, et cetera.

Some might say, “Oh, well, foods were different in those days, and they were more pure.” But I don’t think that’s necessarily so either!

A lot of times, I’m told by folks that their belief is that the foods that we eat are very tainted because the nutrients are gone from the soil. Well, if you’re eating vegetables that are raised conventionally, I suppose you could be thinking that way.

But if you have your own garden or you buy from a farmers’ market, and you trust your farmer, or you’re buying organic (even from large grocery chains, etcetera) you can somewhat be assured that you’re getting a higher quality.

But because I’ve worked with Amish for decades who have raised their crops with the very seeds that their great, great, great grandparents passed down … They were not buying new Burpees. They’re not buying the newfangled seeds that have been tinkered with. They’re using the old seeds that their family has passed along. They’re raising cows just the way their parents, grandparents, great grandparents, great, great, great, great grandparents have done for decades.

And yet, they have the same conditions as the rest of us who live in cities and suburbs, et cetera.

I wish we could say it’s as easy as, “Well, it’s your fault that you’re sick. You’ve been doing this, this and that.” I do believe that one of the causes of disease that we do have the most control over — that is the most sobering of all the causes — is the use of drugs. I think drugs are where it comes from.

When I compare those Amish families and Mennonites and other religious groups who live very simply and based on their family’s origin (even from as early as the late 1600s, 1700s), we all have one thing in common: We all have an inheritance, and we’ve all taken drugs. They included. They, too, use synthetic drugs.

I believe that that’s where a good amount of our problems arise is from utilizing drugs especially in a superfluous manner such as, for example, birth control pills, such as antibiotics for a simple ear infection or a sore throat or even a strep throat. I think that antibiotics and synthetic drugs have been grossly overused, even haphazardly overused. That, I believe, is where a lot of this is coming from.

Kate:  We were talking earlier about some of the clients that you’ve seen especially recently. You’ve been talking to them, and you’ve deduced some of the reasons for these issues that they’re having — and that it might be related to the medications that they’ve been taking. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Joette:  Well, when I take a case, before I even meet the person for the first time, they fill out a form, and they give us information on what medications they take and what the reason is for taking it.

It’s not infrequent … I was just telling you earlier before we even started talking, that it’s happened so frequently that it’s just part of my routine now in understanding that there’s a good chance that the drug they’re taking is perhaps causing one or a few of the conditions that the person is presently suffering from, and they don’t make the connection.

It’s not that they’re stupid. It’s that, we, when we’re not well, get caught up in our world, and we take these drugs without thinking about it. “It’s just what I’ve been taking for 20 years. I don’t even give it a thought. What do you mean? That could cause this? Well, wait a minute.”

Then they think about it.

I’ll give you an example. I’ve been working with this lovely woman. I met with her once.

Then I met with her again the other day. She has a terrible tremor. The tremor is very severe, and she also has horrible, horrible panic and insomnia, that it has become a sobering disease for her. It’s ruined her life. This comes on — this panic and some of the tremor — come on at certain times of the day.

That’s always interesting to a homeopath. We’re always looking for what we call the strange, rare and peculiar. That makes it a little bit strange or unusual, and that can help us dig around and find a medicine that’s very specific for the condition.

But we used the medicine called Cuprum metallicum for these tremors, and it did no good at all. There was no change.

Upon meeting her the second time, I looked over at my notes again. (I usually do that, I study the case before we meet again, as to what I might have missed should I have missed something.) I noted that this woman had been taking Dramamine. It didn’t tell me for how long, but she’d been taking Dramamine.

I asked her about it, “How long have you been taking Dramamine?” She said about 10 years. Then I noted that the condition that she was suffering was about nine years old. So, that means that potentially this Dramamine could be part of this problem.

Of course, I went online, and I looked up “tremors from Dramamine.”

There it was.

“Dramamine can cause tremors, panic attacks, anxiety.” From Dramamine. There it was.

Now, you can’t count on that so much as we used to because trolls go online. Trolls are those who represent perhaps the industry that sells that particular medication. They change things in a subtle way so that it appears as though you’re getting good medical information when really they’re displacing the information in such a fashion that you will not find the answer you’re looking for. Even though the title says that, when you get down to the text of that particular site, you’ll see it has nothing to do with it.

The true way to know what a drug’s action might be on you is to get the insert that is sold with the product and read it. You have to get your magnifying glass. I actually have one with a light in it. Get it out and start reading and highlighting anything that looks like it’s connected to anything you’re suffering. Anything that you are suffering that you may have assumed was, “Oh, well, my grandfather had that. Oh, well, of course, I have that,” or “I have this because I eat too much sugar.”

Don’t do that! Don’t rationalize or theorize as to why you have this or that. Instead, just go through the list of all of the conditions that can be brought about as a result of taking a drug.

Or, the other way is to get to know your pharmacist. I always tell folks, “Your pharmacist knows his meds. Knows them inside and out.”

Make him banana bread. Bring him some Christmas cookies. Get to know him. Make him your friend so that when the time comes that you need information like this, he has the database at his fingertips. It’s a much more sweeping and in-depth database than we can ever get our hands on unless we’re willing to pay a monthly fee.

Kate:  They see these people, these clients, coming in over and over again. I actually have a friend. She’s a dear friend. She’s a pharmacist. Every time the doctor prescribes a medication for my mom, I give her the medication, and I say, “Look this up for me. Is this commonly used for this? What do you see as far as common side effects?” Because I feel like they see more than the doctors do!

Joette:  They do.

Kate:  Yes. The nurses actually tell me that their pharmacists are very intelligent, and they know all this information about these medications which you will never hear from your physician. I’m not against physicians. Don’t get me wrong. But I think that they just don’t have the access to the information or read the information on the medications like the pharmacists do.

Joette:  Well, drugs are yanked off the market regularly. There are many drugs we can’t buy anymore. It happens consistently every year. The way that the doctor learns about the next drug that will replace that is by the drug rep.

If the doctor is a man, I can pretty much guarantee the drug rep is wearing a short skirt, stiletto heels, and she walks into the office, bearing donuts or chicken wings or pizza once a month, and has these, “teaching luncheons,” where she teaches the docs and the physicians’ assistants and those who work in the office how to use the drugs that she’s peddling.

I’m sorry to make it sound so negative. But when you boil it down, when you really distill this down, that really is what it’s about. It’s drug peddling.

There are times when we absolutely need drugs. You’re going to have surgery, by all means, you need anesthesia, no doubt about it! There are others, too, I could come up with, but I think most of these drugs were never intended for the body to have to assimilate. The side effects can often be chronic.

So, when I mentioned this to this woman, she said, “Oh my gosh! It never crossed my mind why I should not be taking this drug or that this could be causing it.” It was new to her! The thought was new.

That was not the only one. I had another case just today — and I could come up with hundreds of these — but just today, of a woman who had difficulty swallowing. Chronic difficulty swallowing. Had to take small, tiny, tiny bites, could only eat certain foods, must drink it with room temperature water, (not cold, not too warm) room temperature, and then she could get the food down. She’d been taking a thyroid medication for many years — for just as long as she’d been having trouble swallowing! She backed off of the medication, and within two weeks, her swallowing improved by 50%.

Kate:  Wow!

Joette:  That’s amazing.

Kate:  Yes, it is.

Joette:  It looks as though the person needs this Synthroid because their thyroid numbers are up. But meanwhile, now they got a new disease that’s scaring the wits out of them because they’re thinking their throat is going to close one of these days. It’s so uncomfortable. It’s so worrisome. Particularly, it is annoying when we know we can use homeopathy to correct the thyroid! When we know we can use homeopathy for the reason for that person to be taking Dramamine!

What’s interesting about the Dramamine case is that it was like clockwork that she took her Dramamine, and it was like clockwork that she awoke with panic. It was a specific time of the day for both events.

I don’t know what’s going to come of that. I don’t know that she’ll stop the Dramamine. I don’t tell people to stop taking the drugs without working with their physicians. I’m not a medical doctor, so I do not do that. But I do make them aware of the fact that there’s the potential that that drug could be an instigator in this condition.

A lot of times, people also tell me that, “Well, I’ve always had a little difficulty swallowing. I don’t think it was the drug. It couldn’t have been the Synthroid.”

She did not say this. She was very open to this idea. In fact, I actually think she came up with the idea.

I always say, “Just because you had a condition before you started the meds doesn’t mean that the meds can’t make it worse. Because what synthetic drugs have been known to do — is get what the weakest link is in the body (that area that is limping along already) and drive it to a deeper state. It makes it worse.

Side effects are not necessarily those that we have never had before — those conditions we’ve never experienced — but rather the very conditions that we already have, but they worsen them. Very sobering.

Same thing, I see it a lot … I saw it in my father. I see it in a lot of men. Where they’re given a medication because of their prostate, and they have urine that doesn’t flow properly, and they use that. Now, it dries them up so that they’re not dribbling urine. Now, their sinuses are all dried up. Their eyes are dry. Their skin is dry. They can’t swallow properly. Other mucosal areas are affected.

Then we have to weigh it out and say, “So, what’s worse, this condition or that condition?”

Well, if you’re thinking that the condition that the drug is supposed to be treating is so much worse than the side effect, then, God love you, stay with the drug. But always remembering that homeopathy can deal with most of the conditions that these folks come to me with.

Kate:  Yes, and like you said, getting off of those medications, those conditions may in fact clear up. I remember you telling me many, many years ago, Joette, that some of the asthma medications (the inhalers) … one of the side effects is what? Asthma!

Joette:  Breathlessness. Yes, breathlessness. Absolutely.

Kate:  That’s just crazy to me to think that you’re taking this medication for this condition in which it can actually cause the same thing.

I’ve looked up with strokes. There are medications that doctors prescribe for strokes.

Well, what are the side effects? The side effects are actually strokes! A different kind of stroke, but it’s still a stroke. I’m like, “Well, you’ve got to weigh that out.”

Joette:  Right. Ritalin is a perfect example. It’s supposed to calm little boys down, and if used too long or incorrectly — or even used in the very beginning, even properly — can cause them to be more dysfunctional.

We have to be careful. We need to be very cautious about our and our family’s lives. These bodies that we are given, that are given to us, are the temple of our soul. We need to understand that human body was not intended to be given synthetic drugs regularly, daily, consistently.

I don’t know of any tests that show that you should be taking statin drugs for 10 years — or any drug for that amount of time. Most of these drugs only have tests on people who are … First of all, those who have taken these tests, — who have taken this drug, in a double blind survey — are young people! Because you’re not going to get an old person who’s willing to take a test like that, and say, “Oh, gee, I’ll try it. Let’s see how it goes. I might be given placebo. I might be given the drug.” No, it is young people who are looking for money, and who are healthy.

By the way, that’s important, too, because they are healthy specimens to start with. They’re 19-year-olds, 20-year-olds. And they don’t give these young people this drug for 20 years — a blood pressure drug for the rest of your life from the time you’re 50 on. They’re giving it to them for months. We don’t know.

And we also don’t know the synergistic effects of a blood pressure drug plus the statin plus the Synthroid. We could keep going and going and going. Because I know many people who come to me, and I ask them for a list of their medications, and I’ve actually had people fill out an entire page of meds.

Which also brings me to the next thought.

That is people don’t think supplements and vitamins count, but they do! I believe vitamins can be problematic. Synthetic vitamins are just that. They are synthetic vitamins. Supplements can often be synthetic. We have to watch for that, too.

I could tell stories about how certain supplements have caused problems as well. When we think it’s going to help or it helps for a short period of time, and then it doesn’t help any longer. But the person doesn’t notice this. They just think that their condition is worsening in spite of taking their beloved synthetic vitamins and supplements.

So, we have to be careful of those as well. If we need vitamins, we should be getting them from our food. I trust that the food that I buy and that most people buy who have any awareness of how to purchase foods (buying fresh vegetables and grass-fed beef or meat et cetera, if possible, but not always. It doesn’t have to be 100%). But I expect that my food is loaded with nutrition because I’m somewhat careful about it.

But if I’m not getting my nutrition, if I’m not getting my nutrients from my food, I don’t blame climate change because I don’t think it has anything to do with that. I might blame more the gut, that the person is suffering from a gut that is not properly adjusting to utilizing the food properly.

If someone has a low vitamin D in their last blood test — first of all, I question that — but if it’s clear that the person has a low vitamin D level. They’re very fatigued; they’re pale, et cetera. Then my next question would be, “Tell me about your gut. Do you have constipation? Do you have diarrhea? Do you bloat? Do you have indigestion? Do you have gas? Do you have any of the conditions that would be related to a gut that’s not in tip-top shape?”

If [it’s] not, then we can, to a certain degree, make the assumption that that is what needs to be worked on. So that when the foods that are loaded with vitamin D such as lard, tallow, butter that has A, D, and E in it are being eaten, then we make the assumption — and I think it’s a prudent one — that the person is either not eating the proper foods or they’re not utilizing the vitamins and nutrients properly as evidenced by the fact that the gut is not in tip-top shape.

We don’t want a gut that bloats. If someone says, “Well, no, I don’t bloat,”

“Well, tell me what your meals are.” That’s the next question. I ask them what they eat. If I note that they’re not eating any bread or any grains, I ask, “Do you eat bread or grains?”

If they say, “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I do, I bloat.”

That means there’s something wrong with the gut.

We should be able to eat these foods to a certain degree. I don’t think they should be our staple by any stretch of the imagination. But by just eating a bowl of Cheerios, we should not have bloating or gas or indigestion or anything like that. That tells me that they’ve simply avoided these foods in order to improve their digestion. That tells me there’s still a digestion problem.

Kate:  Joette, we have covered so much in our last 30 minutes that we’ve been talking. But I don’t want to leave this podcast without you giving us just one homeopathic remedy tip for the season that we’re in. Why don’t you share with us something that we can use right now?

Joette:  Well, not unlike what I said earlier about how when we’re in the thick of things, we don’t realize what to do especially when it’s for ourselves or someone that we’re close to, our child, our husband, et cetera. I want to remind you — and perhaps you put this down on a three-by-five card or someplace that you see on a regular basis, because this is a writer downer — and I know many of you who have been following me for a long time know that I love this medicine. I’ve used it for many years, for decades. But when I worked with the Banerjis, they used it constantly. So, I felt freer to include it in my practice more readily as well.

That is the medicine Ignatia — Ignatia amara 200C. Particularly with the holidays coming up, the cold weather, the darkness, the long nights, long darkness, a lot of times, people have seasonal disorders where they become blue. Or there might be a family conflict. Sometimes that can happen around Christmas and the holidays.

It’s a good time, if you’re feeling a little too sensitive to what was said at dinner two nights ago, or if you’re feeling overwhelmed especially if you’re a mom — and it’s very easy for moms to feel overwhelmed at Christmas time — remember Ignatia amara 200C. And it’s used twice daily.

We don’t use it forever. Again, these are not supplements, vitamins, et cetera. These are medicines. We use it until we feel better. Usually, it only needs a few days, and then stop.

Then if it happens to come back, we resume its use again. We use it as needed, and we will find more likely than not that the need for it becomes less and less frequent.

That’s a good one to keep in your bonnet — and on your index card.

A lot of times, if I have to remember a medicine — because I have a hard time remembering things when I’m not feeling so well — I actually tape it to the mirror above my sink in the bathroom because I’m sure to see it there. Or I put it in a place that’s unusual. I pin it to my pillow. Now, I’ll see it before I go to bed. It’ll help me remember. Something like that. I put it in the pocket of my robe. Then when I put my hand in my pocket, there it is. “Oh, yes, that’s right. I was supposed to take that,” or “Remember to take this should I get this or that.”

Kate:  That’s a great tip for the season, Joette. If we don’t need it ourselves, we likely know someone that does over the winter months. So, thank you.

Joette:  That’s right. If you love homeopathy — I always say this, if you love homeopathy — I know that you’ll love what I teach you. Because as far as I know, I’m the only homeopath (at least that I’m aware of) out there who teaches how to treat chronic conditions without taking years of study in classical homeopathy. Not that classical homeopathy doesn’t have a place; it certainly has.

For those who are new to homeopathy, let me tell you that homeopathy can be super, super complex, often enough to turn some folks off!

But what I try to do in my blog, on my Facebook Live Monday night events, as well as on these podcasts, is to distill down the complex into a formula so that it’s practically like a recipe. You know that for this chronic condition, I can use this medicine, this potency, and this frequency, and I can expect this or that results. It’s right there on the blog for free.

I urge folks to share this with their friends. Get your friends and neighbors involved with you in homeopathy. It will make your life easier in the long run. You won’t have to explain as much because that will be all explained for them. Just the way you learned; they can learn as well.

With that, I say happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas to all and a very happy and prosperous and healthy 2020.

As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising. But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

I hope listening to this podcast has inspired you to follow in their footsteps. With the proper training, you, too, can nurture and protect the health of your family and loved ones with Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:  You just listened to a podcast from PracticalHomeopathy.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shares her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy. Joette’s podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Pandora, Stitcher, TuneIn and iHeartRadio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

06:19   Cantharis for UTI

08:36   Zincum metallicum and Cuprum metallicum for Restless Leg Syndrome

11:17   Coffea for sleep problems and Nux vomica and Ignatia for Overstressing

18:56    Helleborus niger for Dementia

20:39   Antimonium crud and Arsenicum for Itchy Skin

21:29   Sepia for Hormones

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Recurring UTIs and Antibiotics: Stop the Cycle

Podcast 81 – Ladies Only

Get a Leg Up Over Restless Legs

Counting Sheep? Try Homeopathy

A Materia Medica: Practical Homeopathy® for Busy Families

Life’s a Tragedy

Homeopathy Kits

Free Downloads and Articles page

Here an Itch, There an Itch, Everywhere an Itch-Itch.

Sepia for Mother’s Day! This Time for Headaches

Ditch Birth Control Pills

Courses Page

My blog, podcasts and Facebook Live events

Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 87.

Joette:  Joette Calabrese here, folks. I’m happy that you’ve joined me for my podcast today. You’re in for a treat. From my virtual classroom, I’m privileged to see how homeopathy is transforming lives all over the globe. Their successes inspire me. They’re glorious and powerful, and I can’t keep their triumphs a secret. I want you to hear the excitement my students experience, too. So, you can be inspired by their unique stories.

With the help from Kate, my reporter, I bring you a podcast series I call, “Moms with Moxie.” Sometimes we even interview “Dads with Audacity” or “Teens with Tenacity.” See how regular mothers and others — average folks who love healing those around them — have gone from freaking to fabulous by simply applying what they’ve learned using what I call Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:  Today, I am so excited to be able to welcome a dear friend of mine and someone that I am privileged to be able to work with. She’s a co-worker of mine with Joette’s team. I’m super excited for you all to get to meet Tracey.

Tracey, welcome to the podcast.

Tracey:  Wow, Kate, thank you. That was such a sweet introduction. I’m excited to be here with you on your podcast.

Kate:  I’m excited to have you. Normally, we are on the backside of the podcast doing the work for them. But now, you’re actually being interviewed. It’s super-fun.

Tracey:  It feels like a role reversal.

Kate:  Normally, I get to interview Moms with Moxie or Dads with Audacity. We even have Teens with Tenacity. But you have your own category for yourself. Why don’t you share that with us?

Tracey:  Well — full disclosure — I’m not a Mom with Moxie because I’m not a mom. So, I thought, “Oh, I have been married for 36 years, so what if I’m a ‘Spouse with Spunk’?”

Kate:  That’s awesome. You know what? That fits you because you are spunky, too.

Tracey:  Awwwww. Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, Joette always says, “It takes guts, spunk, and moxie,” so I figured I’ll fill in that middle category.

Kate:  Right, and you do that well.

Tracey:  Thanks.

Kate:  All right, let’s get to know you a little bit, Tracey. Who is Tracey?

Tracey:  Oh, wow! The Cliff Notes are that I have been married 36 years. My husband and I met in college in California. We lived there for most of our lives and just fairly recently moved back to Florida (where I had been born) to be closer to my mom. She’s 96 years old. So, that’s a pretty big number, and we thought it was a good time to be here with her.

Kate:  Your mom is actually 96 years “young” because she is also spunky.

Tracey:  She is. I inherit it from her, definitely. Yes, she’s amazing.

Kate:  In fact, doesn’t she still go to Pilates?

Tracey:  She does. She does Pilates twice a week. She has a private session. She has really inspired a lot of other people that want to get their parents involved in it. She’s in good shape.

Kate:  That’s incredible. Wow! I’m just in awe of her.

Tracey:  Thank you.

Kate:  Tracey, have you heard of homeopathy before you started working with Joette?

Tracey:  Well, I had heard of it, but I didn’t know exactly what it was — which I don’t think is that unusual for newbies. I will admit that I am a newbie. I’ve only really been involved with learning about homeopathy for a couple of years, and I’m so inspired by the other Moms with Moxie who are so well-learned and so successful in their use. So, they inspire me.

But my first exposure to homeopathy was seeing the blue tubes in the health food store. I would walk by and think they look so fascinating and so professional. I thought, “Oh, I wish I knew what all of these words meant.” And I didn’t know really how to learn about them. But now I do, so I’m really enjoying my exposure to homeopathy.

Kate:  When you started learning about them, was that when you met Joette or had you used them before that?

Tracey:  No, it was when I was brought into work with Joette and on her team, and just reading all of the free information. The wealth of free information that Joette offers on her site is unbelievable.

Reading all of that, I thought, “Why have I not spent my whole life learning about homeopathy?” I’ve tried to make up for lost time and learned as much as I possibly could for the things that affect me and my family.

Kate:  You mentioned something. You said you’re a relative newbie to homeopathy. While that may be true, you’ve had a lot of success stories with homeopathy. In fact, many people who are new to homeopathy do have some pretty incredible success stories.

I just had a new Gateway to Homeopathy group start last night. There were some people there that had only been using homeopathy a few months, maybe longer, but they had these wonderful stories of how it has helped their family in incredible ways.

And so, I think that’s the beauty is that you can dig in. You can start using these remedies right away, and they can do amazing things. I don’t think people have to worry about being new and having a certain number of years of education behind them. They can jump right in with all that free information like you pointed out.

Tracey:  I agree. There have been a couple of things that have plagued me literally my whole life. I’ve tried a zillion different supplements or allopathic medicines, and homeopathy cleared them up quickly and inexpensively and easily. That’s why I say, “Where has this been my whole life, and why didn’t I learn about these blue tubes faster?” But, you know, we’ll go forward from that.

Kate:  Yes, exactly. You mentioned that you had conditions or things that have troubled you your entire life. Tell us about some of those things, and what you did with homeopathy.

Tracey:  Well, I’ll tell you about two things, if we have the time. The first one is I was constantly getting UTIs (urinary tract infections). I did the antibiotics a lot. However, I’m allergic to most antibiotics, so it was difficult to cope with them that way. I would turn myself into a cranberry, drinking cranberry juice. I just really tried everything. Then especially when we moved back to the South — they have sweet tea here. I don’t know if you’ve ever had sweet tea.

Kate:  No.    

Tracey:  But it’s hummingbird food. Let’s face it. It’s just sugar and water, and they wave a tea bag over it, and you drink this. Well, that much sugar, I can look at a glass of sweet tea and end up with a UTI. So, I have to be a good girl and watch my sugar intake because it’s only fair to the homeopathy that I do my part.

But in a blog post that Joette wrote called “Recurring UTIs and Antibiotics: Stop the Cycle,” I discovered Cantharis 30. I used that for … I would say I used it twice a day for maybe five days. The current UTI went away. I came up with another one maybe two months later. I used it again. It went away. Then I probably haven’t had one in a year and a half —after using it those two times. That’s a miracle for me because this has been my entire life of dealing with one on-one off. It’s amazing.

Kate:  Wow! Maybe someday you’ll be able to have that glass of sweet tea.

Tracey:  Well, now, I just look at it longingly. But no, there’s no good that can come out of that glass of sweet tea. But boy … no good can come out of it.

Learning about it, about Cantharis, was really life changing for me. Also, I think you did a podcast with Joette, “Podcast 81 – Ladies Only,” that she talked more about it in that. Once I had those two pieces of information, that was a life changer for me.

Kate:  Wow! What was the other thing?

Tracey:  Well, the other thing is not life threatening, but it’s really, really annoying. I don’t know if you’ve ever had Restless Leg Syndrome.

Kate:  No.

Tracey:  It’s just really, really annoying. You go to bed, and all of a sudden, you have to move your legs, and then you have to move them again, you have to move them again. It’s just like your legs take on a life of their own, and you can’t lie still — so annoying.

That has gone on since I was five years old, because I remember when I was in kindergarten, my mother would come in and rub my legs and try to help me go to sleep.

So, Joette wrote a blog post called “Get a Leg Up Over Restless Legs,” and I thought, “This one must be for me.” She wrote about two different remedies. One is Zincum metallicum 6. That’s for — just like I described before — it’s involuntary movement. Your legs just have to move around. The other is Cuprum metallicum 6. That’s when it’s just so bad you just have to get out of bed and walk around.

Those worked amazingly for me. I had tried magnesium oil — rubbing that on. I had tried everything over the course of my life, and nothing worked like those two remedies.

In fact — kind of an interesting story — I ran out of the remedy and just ran to the health food store and picked up another tube. This time, I had forgotten to get a 6, and I got a 30 potency. That didn’t quite work as well. So, I referred back to the blog post and realized, “Ah, I’m supposed to be using this in a 6 potency.”

That’s when I realized how Joette says if you want it to work as effectively as described, then use the exact potency recommended in the protocol. I realized it really does matter. Potency matters.

Some people want to use a different potency sometime, but I always rather liken it to baking. If a recipe calls for a cup of milk, and you put in two cups of milk, it’s not going to work. So, better stick with the recipe, right?

But those two remedies are miraculous for restless legs.

Kate:  Wonderful. Actually, a lot of people that I’ve come across lately have been talking about restless legs. I didn’t realize there were so many people that had trouble with that. Thank you for sharing.

Tracey:  Oh, no problem. Yeah, I didn’t realize until you just said that a lot of people do. It’s something I don’t think you realize is a “problem.” You just think it’s some little personal issue you’ve got going on. But then you read more and more about it, and it does exist.

But if everyone would look up that blog post, they’d be fine.

Kate:  You’ve also mentioned about sleep, having trouble sleeping, and that’s also super-common. So many people have issues getting to sleep or staying asleep. So, tell us a little bit about what you used for what you were experiencing.

Tracey:  Well, I first tried Coffea. I had seen that spoken about many times on Joette’s site. Somehow, Coffea just wasn’t for me. I can’t explain it. It just didn’t quite give the reaction that I was looking for.

Then Joette had written a blog post called “Counting Sheep? Try Homeopathy.” It spoke about what my problem was, which is wakefulness between the hours of two and four in the morning. That was my biggest issue. So, the remedy that she mentioned was Nux vomica in a 30 or a 200. I tried that, and that really was a blessing for me. I must be a “Nux girl” when it comes to sleep because it helped a lot.

Kate:  Well, that’s no surprise there, Tracey, because you tend to burn the candle at both ends, so overdoing it: Nux vomica.

Tracey:  Well, and I had seen that because I try to really use Joette’s site search box. So, I’ll put in the condition. Then when I find something that I think may be the right remedy for me, then I’ll put in the remedy and read everything about the remedy — as well as I have her materia medica, which is amazing, and look it up there.

But I did find an old, old podcast that Joette had done, “Joette Offers Her Favorite Tips and a Dose of Mothering Inspiration.” In that, she mentioned Nux vomica for overstressing. I thought, “That is me.” I think that’s why I’m waking up in the middle of the night because I’m just overstressing. It solved that problem, too. It’s my hero.

Kate:  Joette talks about certain remedies needing to be in the water like Ignatia. I think Nux vomica is another one of those.

Tracey:  I agree.

Kate:  Everyone can use Nux vomica from time to time.

Tracey:  It’s very true. But I don’t want to say anything bad about Ignatia either because I’m living on one or the other at any given moment.

Kate:  Yes, you and I. That’s a great lead into what we have in common. You and I share something special in common, and that has to do with our moms. Why don’t we talk about that for a little while? We have lots to share when it comes to our mothers.

Tracey:  Yes, that’s very true.

Kate:  Both of our mothers actually had a stroke. It’s about the same time about a year ago now. So, we’ve been walking this road together.

Tracey:  Yes.

Kate:  You’ve been a big help to me so many times. We’ve been able to just talk about what we’re experiencing and how this is going for us and what our moms are going through. It’s been so helpful to share that with you, Tracey. I just want to thank you for that.

Tracey:  Well, I thank you. You’ve been a huge support to me as well. My mom had her stroke, I think, a couple of weeks before yours, and you had been so supportive of me in that two-week period. Then for you to have to go through the same thing, it just broke my heart because it’s very stressful, very scary, and it’s a lot.

Kate:  Yes. Getting back to that Nux vomica, we both were, like you said, living on Nux vomica and Ignatia.

Tracey:  I remember every once in a while, we text each other, “Ignatia!”

Kate:  Yes, yes, “Don’t forget to take your Ignatia.”

Tracey:  Right.

Kate:  For those of you who are listening to the podcast and maybe new to Joette and Practical Homeopathy®, Ignatia is great for when you are experiencing grief. If you feel sad, if you have that sighing feeling a lot, any emotional thing, Ignatia is a great option to consider for all emotional conditions. It’s not that it’s 100%, every time, Ignatia, but many times, it’s very helpful.

Tracey:  There’s actually a podcast #69 Life’s a Tragedy in which Joette talks about it being overwhelmed with responsibilities and anxiety and fear. That pretty much has defined our days, Kate, sometimes. 

Kate:  Yes, I know. Unfortunately, yes.

Tell us a little bit about how you’ve been using homeopathy for yourself as you’ve been walking through this with your mother. If there’s anything that you want to share with your mom, that’d be helpful as well.

Tracey:  Sure. Well, the night that it happened, was just — you know — it’s like a punch to the stomach. It’s shocking, and you can’t believe this is happening. When we got to the hospital, I had grabbed my little red Top 100 Kit that I brought through Joette’s office because I didn’t know what I might need with me in the hospital. I had that with me, and my first thought was Aconite for the shocking ordeal that we were entering.

It wasn’t funny at the time, but looking back on it — it’s just, this is my life. It was about three o’clock in the morning. It was dark. We were in ICU. I was in a little cubbyhole that they had for the family off to one side of the room. Mom was hooked up to every machine that they’ve ever created. I was trying to find the Aconite in my little Top 100 red kit, and I spilled the entire kit in my lap. All 100 little bottles went every which way. And I thought, “This just can’t be happening.”

It was sort of a blessing, though, because I did find the Aconite. I took that. That, of course, helped me. Then I had to spend the next 30 minutes by the flashlight on my phone trying to re-alphabetize my Top 100 kit. So, it distracted me anyway.

Kate:  Right, and we have to do that in the secret because when the nurses come in, you don’t want them to see.

Tracey:  Yes, yes, exactly, exactly!

I gave myself the Aconite. I gave it to Mom, too, because this was a shocking event for her. You don’t expect this to happen even though she’s of an age where things do happen. She’s very robust, so we kind of expect her to outlive us. The Aconite, I think, helped her a lot as well.

Kate:  Did you take other remedies during this time as well?

Tracey:  Mostly, it was Ignatia because I was just — you know — it was that sighing thing you talked about. I think I sighed more during that time when she was in the hospital than ever before. Ignatia got me through it.

There was some diagnosis time period, so I didn’t really quite know what to give Mom, but I have given her several homeopathic things.

It reminds me, you and I hadn’t discussed this before, but I remember when I first asked Mom if it was okay if we tried some homeopathy, and she said, “Oh yes, I completely believe in homeopathy!”

I thought, “Does she know what I’m talking about?”

Then she went on to tell me that indeed she did. She had forgotten all about it. But when she was a little girl, they didn’t take her to a doctor; they took her to a homeopath.

Kate:  They did?

Tracey:  Yes! She had used homeopathy as a child. And she said it just … you know as it kind of was replaced with the more familiar allopathic medicine, I think she fell away from it and forgot to use it when I was a child. But she was so familiar with it, and she really believes in it. So, it’s been great having it for her.

Kate:  That’s wonderful that she knew. You would actually talk to your mom before her stroke about using homeopathy. This goes back to pre-stroke. What did you use with her before the stroke?

Tracey:  Well, Mom was having some memory issues — not Alzheimer’s, not really severe — but what we would consider natural lapses in remembering what time something was going to occur, or when she was supposed to do something. And, I think that’s to be expected at her age. I had read in Joette’s free downloads and articles page that anyone can join on Joette’s website. That is chock-full of great information. I had seen on there an article called “Best Remedies for Seniors.”

Looking through that, I found Helleborus niger 30 that was for memory or dementia and utilized that with mom after we talked about her experience with homeopathy. She was very eager to try it, because she had tried some of those supplements that they advertise on TV: the pills that instantly bring back your memory. And she was like, “These things don’t work.” So, we thought, “Why not give homeopathy a try?” I really think that has helped her a lot, so we continued to do that.

Kate:  How often did you give that?

Tracey:  Well, it’s in liquid, twice a day. I’m actually still giving it to her because this is an ongoing thing. I still give it to her twice a day. Every rare once in a while, I will not be able to give it to her, and the next day, I can just kind of tell a slight difference — a slight loss in focus.

Kate:  Your mom also had some trouble with her skin.

Tracey:  Yes, she just had some itching, and it wasn’t really fully defined. We couldn’t figure out what it was, whether it was maybe heat-related or just dry skin-related. But Joette, again to the rescue, wrote a blog post “Here an Itch, There an Itch, Everywhere an Itch-Itch.” (I love her titles!)

Kate:  I know. I do, too.

Tracey:  But it was Antimonium crud 6 mixed with Arsenicum 200. I tried that with mom. Of course, homeopathy did it. Now, her skin is beautiful. I keep it well moisturized. We try not to let her get too warm.

That cleared up. Thank goodness for that one, because itching is just annoying and not fair when you have other things you need to do.

Sepia for Hormones

Kate:  Tracey, are there any other situations that stand out where you’ve used homeopathy that you want to share with the listeners?

Tracey:  There is one, and that’s using Sepia 200 — my new best friend. Since it’s just you and I, Kate, talking here amongst girls, I will admit that my hormones have been a mess for my entire life because I took the easy road. I was on the pill for years and did the Norplant and the Depo-Provera shots. I did just about everything brutal that I could do to one’s hormones. And as I aged and went into menopause, I really could feel that my body was just on tilt. It just wasn’t where it needed to be.

I almost went the direction of hormone replacement, because — why wouldn’t I? I have been doing this synthetic crap for my whole life. Why wouldn’t I keep on that path?

But then, I met Joette and started learning about homeopathy and realized, “What am I doing to myself?” I put a stop to it, and I did not do the hormone replacement. The biggest symptom that I had from menopause was the hormonal headaches. They almost seemed like migraines. They were very, very intense.

I found a blog post that Joette had written. (I sound like I live on Joette’s blog post, don’t I? I kind of do.) But she had written “Sepia for Mother’s Day! This Time for Headaches,” and it described me. Every three days, I took Sepia 200, and those headaches went away. So, Sepia 200, my new best friend.

Also, you know, that it’s for when you’re overwhelmed. Sometimes you need Sepia. Sometimes you need Ignatia. I’m not sure how, but sometimes I can just tell which one I need. The little bottle calls me. It’s just been a real tremendous change to my life.

Then I look at other folks, other of my friends, who have tried the hormone replacement, and I don’t think they’re doing as well as I am on homeopathy.

Kate:  I feel like there’s a period in every woman’s life where they need Sepia, either they’re new moms and overwhelmed, or they’re going through that perimenopausal age and have those headaches or other issues. But Sepia, I took it for a while as well, and it was fantastic. It helped several issues, but it really helped me to sleep through the night. I think that I hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep for, I don’t know, I think 15 years before I took Sepia. And it really helped me to rest at night.

Tracey:  So, it’s your best friend, too!

Kate:  Yes.

Tracey:  Well, it’s funny. I have actually learned how to tie a little bow around the little blue tubes because I’ve given that one out quite a bit just to say, “Try this. If it doesn’t work, you don’t have to do it again.” (But it always works.)

Kate:  If our listeners are looking for information on that, there are a couple of blog posts. One is “Sepia for Mother’s Day! This Time for Headaches,” and another one called “Ditch Birth Control Pills.” There are some podcasts as well.

I loved what you said earlier, Tracey. We were talking about that search bar in Joette’s website, and how you can put, say, “headaches.” You’re searching for it, so you can just type in “headache” there.

But I loved what you said — and I never thought of this — you said you came up with the remedy Nux vomica. Then what you did is you typed now “Nux vomica” in that search bar and started reading and listening to everything that dealt with Nux vomica. You really learned that medicine well then and all the different ways that it can be used. I think that’s brilliant to put a remedy name in there and search that way! I never thought of that.

Tracey:  Thank you for calling me brilliant. I needed that today. No, I just realized that sometimes when I look up other things that it can be used for, it will either include that as the correct remedy for me or it might exclude that as the correct remedy for me and lead me on to something else. But like with Nux vomica, I realized the overdoing, and I thought, “Yes, that’s it.” It gives you more, more and more.

Kate:  It confirmed.

Tracey:  Yes, exactly. It confirmed.

Kate:  Yes. Tracey, it’s been so fun having you on the podcast today and talking about our lives together — commiserating, I guess.

Tracey:  Thank you. Yes, commiserating.

Kate:  As we do so often. But do you have any final words for the listeners today?

Tracey:  You know, I do. The thing I think about — that I love about Joette — is she often says she’s in the “empowering business.” That really is what I have gotten from Joette — is I feel empowered. Now, when I go into the health food store, I walk by those little blue tubes, and I know what those words mean. I feel so … “proud” is not exactly the right word … but strong. When I reach in there, and I grab the remedy, and I know what I’m doing, and I know this is going to work, or I know my family member is going to be benefited by this.

It’s all because of the learning that Joette has provided on her website. Also, I can’t speak highly enough about the Gateway to Homeopathy (that you teach a bunch of classes, and I know others do). That just is the most empowering information you can get, and then moving on to her courses …

If you don’t leave throughout all that feeling empowered, then you ain’t doing it right!

Kate:  Yes, I agree. It helps you to have that feeling of confidence so that you don’t have to fear. You know that there is a solution.

Tracey:  The interesting thing when you learn about homeopathy is you learn the right questions to ask about your own condition, right? So, I think you become a more informed healthcare consumer. Because now when I go to the doctor … and luckily, I have always, all my life, had very good allopathic doctors that were in favor of alternative medicines or homeopathy or acupuncture or other things. They’ve not been just allopathic “my way or the highway” kind of doctors.

But now when I go to the doctor, I know specific questions to ask them because I’ve learned how to listen to my own body or how to observe my family member’s body. I know more specific things to ask them that will help me determine my own healthcare path. As Joette often says, it’s about self-reliance. She’s given that to me, because now I rely on myself, and that’s really all you need — that and homeopathy!

Joette:  As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising. But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

In these podcasts, I focus on those students of mine who have already tunneled in and learned how to take care of themselves, family, friends, and pets, and even livestock using homeopathic medicine. Many of these students began their education by participating in one of my Gateway to Homeopathy study groups. And now, after taking one or more of my courses, they’re well-trained to use my specific brand of homeopathy. I hope listening to this podcast has inspired you to follow in their footsteps. With the proper training, you, too, can nurture and protect the health of your family and loved ones with Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:  You just listened to a podcast from PracticalHomeopathy.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shares her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy. Joette’s podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Pandora, Stitcher, TuneIn and iHeartRadio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

These Moms with Moxie podcasts are designed to be inspirational, not specifically educational. No Remedy Card is provided.

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

02:36    A course on pain

06:24    Caulophyllum, Magnesium phosphoricum for pain

19:15    Hypericum, Staphysagria, Arnica, Aconitum after surgery

22:00    Learning the pain protocols and medicines

24:06    Make It Stop! Escape From the Prison of Chronic (and Acute) Pain Using Practical Homeopathy®: Learn Effective Methods to Uproot Pain, Often for Good

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

My new course:

Boiron

More specific information on use of Caulophyllum:

More specific information on use of Mag phos 6X:

More specific information on surgery medicines I used:

My Learning Center (complete with Course Selector: How to Pick a Course)

My blog, podcasts and Facebook Live events

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 86 with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:  This is Joette Calabrese, and I’d like to welcome you to the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast. Women and men worldwide are taking back control of their families’ health and learning how to heal their bodies naturally, safely and effectively. So, if you’re hungry to learn more, you’ve come to the right place. Stay tuned as we give you the tools — and the inspiration you need — as I share my decades of experience and knowledge using this powerful medicine we call homeopathy.

Kate:  On today’s podcast, we’re going to be talking about pain which, as many of you know, is a big crisis that we are facing right now. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, over 2 million people had an opioid-use disorder in 2018, and on average, 130 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose. Today, Joette, we want to talk about pain, and how we can address it from a natural perspective.

Joette:  There was a time when I dedicated my life to urging anybody whose lapels I could seize and ears I could bash. But now, I approach my subject of homeopathy with a little more grace. I guess I’ve aged.

But I guess there’s also another reason. It’s that I don’t need to scream it any longer. People are clamoring for this information. They’re looking for the alternatives. The jig is up!

These painkillers … am I going to say they should be illegal? Of course not.

There is a place for these kinds of painkillers, I believe. In late stage illness where there is no choice and when homeopathy fails us, then we may, indeed, have to go to something that’s chemically derived. But why even consider it if we can avoid using something that could be so detrimental in the long run to our lives and to our families’ lives?

That’s why we have decided to put together a course on pain. You’ve got the title there, right, Kate?

Kate:  Yes.

Joette:  Because I don’t have the title memorized yet because this is all new to us. We’re still organizing it and putting it all together.

Kate:  It’s “Make It Stop: Escape From the Prison of Chronic and Acute Pain Using Practical Homeopathy®. Learn Effective Methods to Uproot Pain, Often for Good.”

Wow, Joette, that’s a tongue twister.

Joette:  That’s why I couldn’t remember the title, but I wanted to get it all in there!! I want to make it really clear what I’m going to be teaching. We want to have this knowledge, this information, these techniques at our fingertips like a Swiss Army knife of knowledge. We want to be constantly prepared because do you know when the next time you or someone in your family will have pain?

Kate:  It’s a total surprise. You never know when that’s going to happen.

Joette:  It is the true definition of an acute. It comes on suddenly! You don’t know when it’s going to happen. You want to know how to parse through whether it’s an injury, so it’s extrinsic or intrinsic, it’s something internal, whether it’s from the gut from food that has been eaten that was bad, whether it’s a chronic condition that’s related to hormones, (for women, for example, with menstrual pain or headaches that are specific to the hormone shifts), whether it’s an injury, an automobile accident, a ski accident. We need to be prepared.

Now, I will say I am prepared. I know my medicines. I know them inside and out, and I own them.

Kate:  That is key! That is key, Joette.

Joette:  Absolutely, because if you know, “Oh, my gosh! This is absolutely a call for Caulophyllum,” and you don’t own it, now what? What good is that knowledge? You have to either find a health food store that carries it (which is unlikely), get on Boiron’s site, or Amazon, or if you’re a student of mine, you can go to OHM pharmacy.

By the time that happens, the baby is born! Or the hemorrhage is now being dealt with conventionally in a hospital.

I don’t want people to believe that I don’t think you should go to a hospital or go to a doctor. Of course, you should do that if you need to — particularly if you don’t know what to do!

Kate:  And if you don’t know what it is — what’s causing that pain — sometimes you need that diagnosis.

Joette:  Yes, you often need a diagnosis. Now, do you need a diagnosis for your child’s ear infection— if you’ve seen this ear infection two and three times previously? You don’t need another diagnosis to know indeed that that is an ear infection. You’re observing. You know that the child’s pulling at the ear. The child is crying, maybe even screaming. The ear is red. Perhaps there’s a fever.

Do we really need to know — at a pediatrician’s office on Saturday night, at two in the morning — that it is indeed otitis media?

No, you know what it is? You’ve seen it so many times, not only in this child, but perhaps your other children. That, in itself, is your diagnosis.

But if it’s a first time! Or there’s pain in a woman’s breast — and it’s sudden, overt and something that has never been experienced in the past — you use the homeopathic medicines the best you can. You consider what you’ve taken recently — such as have you eaten a lot of chocolate or if you had a lot of coffee, et cetera.

If all of those can be ruled out, and this pain persists in spite of trying to figure out what it is and trying to deal with it yourself, in short order, get yourself to a doctor and get a good diagnosis! There’s no doubt. Doctors are incredible with diagnostics! It doesn’t mean they get it every time, but they often get it right.

Kate:  Let’s talk about some homeopathic medicines that you can use for pain. You just mentioned Caulophyllum. Let’s talk about when you would use Caulophyllum?

Joette:  Caulophyllum is a great medicine for labor, and for labor that’s stalled, for a uterus that’s not cooperating, so to speak. When everyone around the mother is saying, “Okay, it’s been now 20 hours (or whatever they allow in whatever hospital it is), and you are not producing a baby. We’ve got to go in, and we’ve got to take this baby.”

And the mother is absolutely beat up. She’s exhausted from pushing. She’s trying as hard as she can. She’s shaking. She can’t deliver this baby, and the pain is extraordinary.

The medicine … if the doctor knew anything about homeopathy or if there was a good midwife who knew anything about homeopathy would automatically know to use Caulophyllum. You use it at that moment. Then if the baby doesn’t … we don’t see a change, a dilation in the cervix, then we might use it again in another 15 minutes, and then again in another 15 minutes.

In more situations than not — and I’m afraid I don’t have the statistics; I’ve just seen it with my own eyes many times — the baby is born in very short order. This is an age-old medicine. It’s been around for 200 years. It’s been used in 200th potency, 30th potency, 6th potency. It’s a time saver and an opportunity to keep from having to submit to surgery.

Kate:  I wish I had known about Caulophyllum when I was delivering. Oh, my goodness! Think about how many women you might have just saved from having a C-section right now. That’s awesome.

Joette:  It is awesome. All of our medicines are awesome because they’re not synthetic. They’re “polite,” is what I call them. There are no side effects.

Kate:  Polite.

Joette:  Yes, polite. They are! They don’t slam the person across the face and beat them up like many drugs do — because they’re not synthetic. They’re made from nature, and then diluted many times, and potentized until they now become a medicine of great measure.

They’re very gentle. They simply stimulate the body’s natural ability to correct the problem.

Kate:  All right. So, what else can you talk about for pain?

Joette:  Well, since we’re talking about women, we can also talk about Mag phos, Magnesium phosphoricum. This is also great for men, too. But for women, we most often know about it as a great medicine for menstrual cramps.

It’s Magnesium phosphoricum. We call it Mag phos, but I like to call it “Mug phos,” (M-U-G phos) because it’s great when you put a dose of it (which is about four to six pills), into a mug of hot water. It delivers it faster.

Put it in, I figure, about one pill per ounce. Let’s say it’s four ounces of hot water and four pills. Or six ounces of hot water — six pills. If the dose on the bottle says six pills as a dose, then use six pills. It depends on what the outside of the bottle reads because pharmacies make each one of these a little differently because their pills are a little smaller or larger.

It’s a great medicine specifically for pain during menstrual cramps. Now, it doesn’t treat the pain (although that’s what everybody thinks they want). But to be honest, what they really want is they don’t want to have cramps which would cause the pain. They don’t want the actual muscle — the uterus — contracting. So, what it does is it calms that down, so the pain is no longer there.

Each sip from this hot water … just a sip (a tablespoon or so as one sip) … take a sip, and then you put it down. Each sip equals a dose.

Within another 10 seconds, if the pain is still there — and I assume it would be after only one or two sips — you take the second sip. Okay, put it down.

Now, you wait a few more minutes again, and you take another sip. In between your taking the sips, it’s cooling off.

I wish that there was alliteration, if I could call this “thermophos,” because it would be much better if it was in a thermos. But “MUG phos” works better because of the “mag” in the Magnesium phosphoricum.

What I suggest is that when someone has cramps, menstrual cramps — and I’m going to talk about other conditions in which we would use this beautiful medicine — we would put it in a thermos by the bedside, particularly if it’s someone who’s suffering at night. That way, the person doesn’t have to get up out of bed, go start the hot water, put it in the cup, and start sipping. It can last in a good thermos for two, sometimes even three, days, and keep it warm.

This is also great for children who have cramps that are different than menstrual cramps — a little boy who has leg cramps, or someone who has even cramps in the back. So, it’s a cramping medicine.

If we think in terms of magnesium, a lot of people take magnesium oil, I think that’s overkill. This is better than magnesium oil because we’re diluting it six times to the 10th power. Mag phos 6X is usually what people purchase. You can find it online. You can find it at your health food store. Magnesium phosphoricum 6X is a beautiful medicine that does not need to be taken consistently.

In other words, after you’ve taken it a few times — every menstrual period or every time the child has leg cramps, et cetera — you’ll find that the need for it becomes less and less.

That’s not necessarily so with magnesium oil. Once you start using magnesium oil, you will always be using magnesium oil … or not always, but for long periods of time. The idea with homeopathy is to uproot the condition and not just depend on the gross form of the substance.

Kate:  For instance, if you have pain from menstruation, you’re using Mag phos. And then the next time you get your period, hopefully the cramps won’t be as bad. And then the next time, less and less and less. I’ve seen that happen in our family’s lives. It’s very effective.

I get the question all the time, too. “Well, I don’t have time to go and make some hot water to put this in.”

Joette:  Or they’re in the car, and they don’t have availability of hot water.

Kate:  Exactly. By my bed, I always have a tube of Mag phos 6X. Because if I wake up in the night, my heart is beating fast, or I have some sort of pain, I just open that Mag phos and take some in the night. I don’t get up and make the hot water and do all this. I find it still acts. Maybe it acts faster in the hot water, do you think, Joette?

Joette:  Yes, it does. It just delivers it faster. It does not need to be put in hot water. It can be put directly into the mouth, no doubt about it.

Kate:  Tell us more conditions that you would use Mag phos for.

Joette:  First, let me say this that when someone has pain, I suggest that they just Google my name or go to my blog and put in the name of the condition, where the pain is, for example. Try to come up with some synonyms. Sometimes it doesn’t come up. (We don’t have the best search engine on our blog. We’re still working on that.) And, you’ll probably find a lot of information just for looking.

But what I want to do in this course is take you beyond that. I’m giving you examples of those remedies and protocols that are well-known and easily learned and easily memorized. But we’re also going to be covering more unusual kinds of pains — such as gallbladder pain. That can be excruciating, and it can also result in surgery.

If it feels imminent that surgery is down the pike, why not? Before you have your surgery scheduled, why not use a homeopathic medicine for such a condition? I’ll be teaching that.

I’ll be teaching about migraines.

We’ll be going over not only where the pain presents, which organs — skin, the gut, the eyes, the head, the uterus, the teeth, et cetera — but also the names of the conditions, infections, injuries, et cetera.

Then also, pain characteristics. Because that Mag phos pain (the pain that is addressed by Magnesium phosphoricum 6X), is a cramping pain. Sometimes it can be almost searing, but it’s not burning pain. It’s generally not stitching pain. It’s generally not cold pain. We’re going to categorize the pains as well … as to, if we don’t have a specific protocol for that condition, what else might we use to come up with the medicine that needs to be applied?

Kate:  I think of this course, Joette, as akin to your Survivalist Guide. Because you don’t know, like we said earlier, when you’re going to need this. To have these skills at your fingertips, to be able to categorize the pain and know the different medicines and what kinds of pains they affect, I think it is priceless.

Oh, my goodness! I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve used that Survivalist Guide, and how it has saved us many a trip to the ER.

Joette:  People say that they want to be pain free, and I certainly understand that. We’re all human. But I want to remind folks that pain, actually, in a way, is a gift because it tells us something is wrong. It may not tell us exactly what’s wrong or why it’s wrong necessarily, but it tells us, “Pay attention to that organ or to this condition.”

Can you imagine if you didn’t have pain receptors, and you were in an automobile accident, and you had no idea that your arm was severed? Maybe you were not aware of what was going on because you were tending to your child or something.

You need to know that there’s something going on. Pain is indicative of… it’s screaming at us, “Pay attention!”

Now, how do we pay attention? Does that mean that we simply obliterate the sensation of the pain? Well, I’m not going to say that’s never called for. For example, if you have to go into surgery, by all means, that’s exactly what general anesthesia or local anesthesia is grand for.

But when someone has a headache, to just obliterate the pain is not the goal. The goal is to correct the condition. That’s where homeopathy comes in. It helps correct the condition, uproot the problem, so that the pain is no longer necessary. The body no longer needs to produce it because the condition has been resolved.

Kate:  You talked about going into surgery, and how sometimes, we need a surgery. Well, you and I worked together when a horse actually stepped on my arm. I went into surgery, came out, and then consulted with you. We came up with a whole list of medicines for me to take.

But it was very interesting, and we talked earlier about the opioid crisis, when I was getting ready to be discharged from the hospital, and they actually said, “No, you can’t leave until you take one dose of this narcotic pain medicine because you will need it after the nerve block wears off.”

And I said, “No, I’ll be fine.” I had to go round and round and round with this nurse who was not literally going to let me leave the hospital until they knew that my body would handle the pain medicine okay. Finally, Joette, I asked them to just give me a Tylenol, and I would take that for the pain. After I took the Tylenol, I said, “Oh, I feel so much better now. I think that’s going to be fine.”

With your help, Joette, I actually did not need any pain medicine after that surgery, and it was a pretty major arm fracture.

Joette:  I saw the X-rays. Your arm was mangled.

Kate:  Yes, it was. I just used homeopathy for the pain after that. It took a while. I’m not going to say that I was pain free. Because that would just be crazy to think that after a pretty major surgery, you would be pain free. But the homeopathy made it so that I could tolerate the pain, and I didn’t need to take those narcotics.

Joette:  But we’re not looking for a disposition of being blotto. We just want to be comfortable enough to be able to sleep, to be able to get nourishment, to be able to take on our day a little bit at a time after something like surgery.

I, too, have had surgery many years ago. I had an emergency surgery and the incision was clear across my abdomen. They told me the same thing — that I was going to need painkillers. I said, “Well, thank you, but no. I’m really just fine.”

I used Hypericum. I used Staphysagria. I used Arnica, and even a dose of Aconitum. And those four medicines got me through. By the second day, I was using only … I believe, it was only Staphysagria. I was fine. Really, it was from hip bone to hip bone — that the surgical site was from hip bone to hip bone.

It was not what they expected. It’s what I expected.

The reason I knew this is because I had studied. I had made a point of owning the medicines in the potencies that I had learned to use for such a situation, and I had confidence in it.

Now, some people might even call that placebo, but I don’t know. I’ve used these same pain medicines on Buster, our dog; on our cat, Carmelina; on our son’s cat … what’s his name? I don’t like the cat. That’s why I don’t remember his name. He’s brutal. He’s just a bad cat.

Kate:  Is that the cat that likes only men?

Joette:  Yes. He attacks me. He attacks all women. I mean, literally, really attacks. That’s why I don’t remember his name. No, good old What’s-His-Name.

But we’ve used these homeopathics on the animals, and they don’t know what placebo is — particularly if you’re putting it in their water, and many times, we’ve had to do that with the cat.

Kate:  Well, it must have been the same placebo that helped me because I took those four medicines after my surgery.

Joette:  Right. Oh, those placebos are really powerful, aren’t they?

Kate:  Yes. For those of you wondering right now, I used those same four medicines after my surgery as well.

Joette:  Staphysagria, Aconite, Arnica, Hypericum.

Kate:  And the Staphysagria, if my understanding is correct, is not as much for the pain but to help with any infection that might be brewing after such a surgery, correct?

Joette:  Well, it’s for an incisional site. So, anything that might come from that, whether it’s a potential infection, whether it’s the pain of the incision itself. It’s for a clean cut. Yes.

Kate:  Staphysagria isn’t if you get some cut that’s jagged. It’s more of a surgical knife or you slice yourself with a knife.

Joette:  Yes, right, when you’re cutting carrots, and it’s a brand-new knife. Yes, certainly.

Kate:  Joette, so many times people ask me, “Where can I get all the protocols? Where can I find that ‘magic list’ of all the protocols that I need?” I tell them that it is not as easy as that. If there was just a list of protocols, that would be great. But you would still have to know how to use these protocols and these medicines.

People ask, “Well, can I just purchase the Banerji book, and will that have all the protocols in it?”

I say, “No, not all the protocols are in there.” If you want to learn these protocols, really, the only place that I know of is by taking your courses.

Joette:  Well, and you’re still not going to learn them all because there are, I don’t know, 6,000 human conditions? It would be like an encyclopedia. Once you learn the protocols that I teach, then you can extrapolate to a certain degree.

You’ll see how you apply this protocol that seemed as though it was just for this condition. But because the pain is so similar, and it’s in the same area of the body, the same organ, that you could potentially use it for this condition, as well. So, it takes a little more depth than that.

I mean, I wish that I had all the protocols, too. So, what I did was I went to India, and I worked with the Banerjis for collectively a year and a half — sat by their sides and jotted them all down and learned and studied.

Some of them were still not exact because there are conditions in which for some people, it makes more sense to use this protocol; for other people, it makes a little more sense to use that protocol. I don’t want to color the idea that this is not formulaic — because it is much more formulaic than any other method I know in homeopathy. But there is some maneuvering that you have to do in order to utilize this for absolutely every situation.

Kate:  I just wanted to make it clear that I don’t know of any magic list that we have that’s out there with all of the protocols. Do you?

Joette:  No, I don’t think there’s anything like that.

“Make It Stop: Escape From the Prison of Chronic and Acute Pain Using Practical Homeopathy®. Learn Effective Methods to Uproot Pain, Often for Good.”

Kate:  Tell us a little bit more about what you’re going to be covering in the pain course, and I’ll just call it for short, “Make It Stop!”

Joette:  Well, one of the conditions, of course, will be joint pain, gut pain, headache pain, injury pains.

Kate:  Is there something for a pain in the butt?

Joette:  You mean like our children, our neighbors?

[Much laughter]

Kate:  I believe you’ll be covering sinus pain as well. But stay tuned because more information will be coming out shortly about the course on pain.

Joette:  For those folks who believe that the best way to deal with pain is just to take Tylenol, acetaminophen, a couple of aspirin or something like that. You don’t have to take opioids, right? They wonder, “Why would you go through all of this, take an entire course just on the idea of pain, and how to treat it homeopathically?”

Kate:  What about those who say, “I’ll just use my essential oil?”

Joette:  Right, essential oils, too. Well, sure, if it works. If you get something that works, then perhaps this is not the course for you.

But the difference is that homeopathy — when we’re talking about it compared to conventional medicine — again, homeopathy has no side effects. That’s the first thing.

The second, of course, is what we said earlier and that is that we’re uprooting the condition. That’s the idea. It’s not about just getting rid of pain.

The third is certainly if you have essential oils that deal with migraine pain, by all means, use it.

And if you don’t have the time to take a course like this, I certainly understand.

This course is designed for people who want to be completely self-reliant as much as possible — who have families to take care of, want to take care of themselves, or they’ve gotten to the end of the road. And they’ve been using all of the essential oils, supplements, and synthetic vitamins, have changed their diets a number of times, have used other methods — and they have failed.

None of what I teach is for everyone. But if you have a penchant for learning, you have an innate curiosity, and you want to take control of your family’s health and your own, this might just be the avenue for you.

Because taking care of yourself and others is freedom. It’s freedom from limitations, and it’s freedom actually from our own egos. It releases us from feeling as though it’s only about us — because it isn’t. It’s about many. It’s about us, our children, our grandchildren, our neighbors, our church mates, our livestock, wild animals, our pets.

Kate:  And, so many people have problems with pain. If we can help other people, I think it’s an amazing gift to be able to give.

Joette:  That’s right, the gift of good medicine.

As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising. But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

I hope listening to this podcast has inspired you to follow in their footsteps. With the proper training, you, too, can nurture and protect the health of your family and loved ones with Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:  You just listened to a podcast from PracticalHomeopathy.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shares her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy. Joette’s podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Pandora, Stitcher, TuneIn and iHeartRadio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

01:47    History with Homeopathy and hints

10:10    Homeopathy for night terrors and poisoning

14:55    Homeopathy for chemical sensitivities, animals and plants

25:52    Exploring healthy living

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Terror in the Night

The Perils of Summer: Poison Ivy and Poison Oak

Cell Salts: The Easy Homeopathy

Cure Yourself and Your Family

Feminopathy course

The Survivalist Guide to Homeopathy

Sunburn and Dehydration? Homeopathy Offers the Cure

Ditch the Gatorade and Make My Son’s Homeopathic Electrolyte Drink

Gateway to Homeopathy II:  Only available for purchase through your resource page, after having taken the prerequisite Gateway to Homeopathy I (referenced below)

My blog, podcasts and Facebook Live events

Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 85.

Joette:  Joette Calabrese here, folks. I’m happy that you’ve joined me for my podcast today. You’re in for a treat. From my virtual classroom, I’m privileged to see how homeopathy is transforming lives all over the globe. Their successes inspire me. They’re glorious and powerful, and I can’t keep their triumphs a secret. I want you to hear the excitement my students experience, too. So, you can be inspired by their unique stories.

With the help from Kate, my reporter, I bring you a podcast series I call, “Moms with Moxie.” Sometimes we even interview “Dads with Audacity” or “Teens with Tenacity.” See how regular mothers and others — average folks who love healing those around them — have gone from freaking to fabulous by simply applying what they’ve learned using what I call Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:  Welcome, everyone, to another Mom with Moxie podcast. Today, I’m excited for you all to get to know Jennifer. She’s with me here today.

Welcome, Jennifer.

Jennifer:  Hi, Kate. Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here.

Kate:  Good, me, too. I’m really excited to get to know you a little bit more and to hear your story. Let’s get started by hearing from you about your background, and maybe how you came into the natural healing modality.

Jennifer:  Well, I live in Central Texas. I’m on a life-learning journey with my son who’s 12, and daughter, nine, and my husband. We live on Unruly Farm, which is a small farm. We have a dog, cats and chickens. My background is in the social sciences, and I love research. So, it’s kind of translated into me into researching healthy and holistic living — which is my segue into learning and using homeopathy.

Kate:  You must have been passionate then about natural healing for a long time? Is that true?

Jennifer:  The last 20 years, yes.

Kate:  Oh, wow.

Jennifer:  Yes. About 20 years ago, I was exposed to a chemical that I had a severe reaction to. It started me on a journey with reclaiming my health and understanding chemical sensitivities. It just led itself into holistic living.

During that time, I discovered a lot of different things that people were using — diet and herbs. I really had not even heard of homeopathy. Now, when I look back, I think, “How could I not have heard of homeopathy in my whole life?” It’s stupefying to me!

I got a sunburn. I was using aloe vera gel and all of the herbal things, and it just wasn’t doing the trick. I went to a little health food store that I frequented, and I asked the person, “What would you recommend for sunburn?”

She said, “Try this,” and she gave me some burn cream.

I put it on and within 15 minutes, I had about a 60% reduction in pain. I thought, “What is this stuff?” I didn’t even read the label. I just purchased it. So, I looked, and it said, “Homeopathic Preparation of Cantharis.”

Kate:  So, that was the first time that you’ve ever heard of homeopathy.

Jennifer:  That’s correct. It was the first time. It was about 20 years ago. So, I became really interested in what worked so well for the sunburn. And I went back to the health food store, and I purchased my first book.

You know, it’s hard now to think back about my life before homeopathy. It really is. I mean, you know how they say when you’re learning a second language, you start dreaming in that language, and you know you’re really getting it? So, I had a dream the other night, and in the dream, I was telling somebody about a homeopathic remedy. So, I think it’s become a second language for me almost.

Kate:  Wow! Fantastic.

Jennifer:  It is translating for my children, too. They both have their own little homeopathic kits that they carry in their backpacks. They both asked for them because I have a kit in my purse that I like that I finally developed with a jewelry organizer.

So, my daughter said, “Oh, I want one of those!” So, we got one.

Then my son, he said he wanted something — but he wanted something a little tougher. So, he has a nice little plastic case for his.

Kate:  Yes. Tell us a little bit more about that because I feel like this is fascinating that your kids wanted these, and what you came up with. Explain that a little bit more.

Jennifer:  Homeopathy has been a part of my life their entire lives. We’ve worked with it; they’ve used it. It’s second nature to them now. If they have an injury or an issue, we have a first aid box, and they go get their first aid with homeopathy.

Recently, something flew into my eye. I just had read the lesson that Joette had send out about Aconite being the Arnica for the eye.

So, when I’m having issues, I’ll say, “Hey, I just got something in my eye. I’m going to take Aconite because it’s Arnica for the eye.” I’m very vocal about what I’m doing.

Then a couple of days after that, something flew in my daughter’s eye, and she was having pain from it. She said, “Oh, I remember, Aconite is the Arnica for the eye.”

So, I’m always very verbal about what remedies I’m using, and why I’m selecting them, and they’re listening. They’ve had such great success with homeopathy. In fact, my son is very active. (Thankfully, we’ve only had one broken bone.) And he had injured his leg. He was busy, and he didn’t want to stop. The next day, he looked down, and he had this big purple bruise on it.

He said, “What is that?!”

I said, “It’s a bruise, Cyress! That’s how they look when you don’t work with it with Arnica!”

He was just aghast that a bruise could look like that because usually we apply Arnica topically, and you take Arnica by mouth for bruising. But that was just funny to me. He was horrified that this big purple thing was on his leg!

Also, I started doing this in books that I read. I would think if someone was injured or ill, I would think, “If I was there, and I wanted to use homeopathy, what remedies would I use?” I just started thinking that way is the way to educate myself about homeopathy.

We read aloud a lot in our life learning. We were reading a book about the Oregon Trail. It was a great opportunity because a lot of things happened to this poor family in “The Oregon Trail.” One of them was cholera. So, I said, “Well, if they’d had homeopathy, what would they have taken?”

So, we got out a book, and we read what cholera was and the symptoms. We discussed what remedies they might have taken.

Then another person had a snake bite … and, so different things. As we read books, we talk about, “If we were there with our homeopathy kits, what would we do?”

That is a fun way for us to learn homeopathy together. Hopefully, we’re not going to need that one day.

Kate:  Yeah, right? Yes, hopefully not. So, both of your children, then, asked you to get them something to carry the remedies.

Jennifer:  Yes. My daughter wanted the jewelry case that I turned into the homeopathic kit for hers. My son, he found a little box that fit perfectly into his backpack. He has about 15 remedies in it.

Kate:  Do you pick out the remedies that go in their cases, or do they pick them out?

Jennifer:  I picked them out. We talked about why I have each remedy that I have in my kit. Then we talked about why I use them, and what we would use them for.

Kate:  Do you have anything in their kits that explains if something were to happen, which remedy? You know what I’m saying … like a piece of paper or something?

Jennifer:  Right. I had a premade kit from a company that had a little booklet in there. We’ve used that booklet because it’s basically the same remedies. So, it has a little booklet on using each remedy.

Kate:  Okay. We’re going to show on Joette’s website below the recording of the podcast. You’re going to see a picture of the jewelry case that you’ve turned into your homeopathic and emergency kit, so to speak. You can see what we’re talking about by looking at that picture.

I think it’s brilliant, what you’ve done with the jewelry kit. I actually never thought of that. I’m thinking about making one for myself because I love how that jewelry kit holds those remedies from the picture that you sent me.

Then also you said that you have some other things in there, too. Tell us about that.

Jennifer:  There’s a larger zipper bottom. In that, I have some adhesive bandages. I have a saline vial for washing out wounds or even if somebody gets something in their eye. I have some herbal salts that I actually make in there as well for cuts and bumps. I have the original burn cream that I still use all these years. It’s great for bug bites and stings. Then I have Arnica cream.

Kate:  Who manufactures the burn and bug bite cream that you really like?

Jennifer:  Weleda. I used to be able to buy it at health food stores. At some point along in the last 15 years, they had stopped selling it directly in stores, But I call, and I order it from them directly. So, at the beginning of the summer, I call and order about four tubes of it, just so I have it. And I inevitably will give some away.

That’s the other thing I have in my kit: I bought some little tiny bags that seal at the top because I will inevitably give somebody my whole vial. Now, I have these little bags. I don’t know if they are showing on the photo or not. But I can put a dosage in there and give them the bag, and then I don’t give away my vials.

Kate:  Of the homeopathy.

Jennifer:  Yes, so I just bought a little packet of like 100, and I just keep those in there in case I want to share it with other people.

Kate:  That’s a good idea. I’m going to make one for myself. Thank you for sharing.

Jennifer:  Yes. Also, I don’t know if anyone else has had this experience, carrying the vials in their purse, but the labels on mine would tend to rub wherever they were. And this keeps the labels from rubbing off as well. So, this protects the labels. That’s just an extra bonus, so you don’t lose the writing on the outside.

Kate:  All right. Let’s hear some of the ways that you’ve used homeopathy over the last 20 years! I bet you have some great stories to share with us.

Jennifer:  One of the things that immediately comes to mind is night terrors. I don’t know if you’ve been around someone that’s had a night terror. My daughter had night terrors, and they are terrifying for the person that is taking care of them.

You really can’t wake the person up, and it is very scary. At the time, I really wasn’t prepared homeopathically for them. Then fortunately, there was an article about them of using Ignatia. I used Ignatia in the 200 potency.

My daughter had a night terror … and because we’ve done homeopathy, and I would say, “Open up like a baby bird,” when we take our remedies. So, in her night terror, I was able just to say, “Open up like a baby bird,” and she actually did! And I administered the Ignatia. Within five minutes, she closed her eyes and truly went back to sleep. It was amazing because the previous one she’d had lasted for 20 minutes.

It happened again about two weeks later. We did just one single dose that night and she never had one since! That’s been probably three years ago.

Kate:  Yay! That’s awesome!

Jennifer:  Yes! That is awesome! I’m so grateful to have had that remedy for those. As a mother, in the middle of the night, it’s a very scary thing. Even though, you know, it’s not like the high fever, and you’re worried and all those things. But it is just a scary experience. I’m just so glad to have Ignatia.

I would keep thinking about the remedies that I would not be without, and Ignatia is definitely one of those.

Kate:  Yes. Do you ever take Ignatia while you’re going through that?

Jennifer:  I think that night, I did take it myself as well. I think while I was waiting for that five minutes to pass, I took a dose myself.

Kate:  Yes, even though you know logically in your head that it’s just a night terror. Still, for your child to be terrified like that is unnerving.

Jennifer:  It is. It’s very unnerving.

Kate:  What else?

Jennifer:  Poison ivy. We live in a rural area, and my son climbs trees. And you will climb through poison ivy and not even know that you climbed through it. He was really getting into it. I used the Anacardium, and it helped relieve the symptoms.

This year, I prepared for the poison ivy season after I read a blog post, The Perils of Summer: Poison Ivy and Poison Oak. It discusses using the Rhus tox 30 prophylactically. So, I did that with my son.

He contracted poison ivy only one time this summer, and it was much less severe. It healed quickly. He was thrilled with the results of using the Rhus tox prophylactically, and so was I.

We had many nights prior to that where he would wake up in the night miserable, itching from the poison ivy. The one bout he had with it this year was so mild. It was incredible. We got a lot more sleep this summer because he wasn’t waking up itching and miserable. We will definitely be doing the Rhus tox prophylactically again next summer.

Kate:  Yeah, good. (So, you were referring to a blog on Joette’s website, joettecalabrese.com.)

That’s one thing that I failed to ask you about earlier in our podcast. How did you come to learn about Joette? I want to bridge the gap from seeing the word “homeopathic preparation” to how you came to study homeopathy and then ultimately learn about Joette.

Jennifer:  Initially, when I was studying homeopathy, I relied on books because I love books, and I have a lot of homeopathy books. When I ventured into online research, I was pregnant with my daughter, and I was looking for homeopathic and cell salt support because I had discovered cell salts at that point. I found Joette’s Cell Salts: The Easy Homeopathy program, and then also Cure Yourself and Your Family. And, I began using both of those resources.

Kate:  Your introduction to Joette was those two programs. Then did you go on to take any of her other courses or consult with her?

Jennifer:  Yes, I’ve done both. I consulted with her for chemical sensitivities where I started my journey here. I have done the Feminopathy course and the Survival course.

Kate:  The Survivalist Guide to Homeopathy is actually one of my favorites.

Jennifer:  Yes. When I go on trips, I take that binder and the kit that I purchased with that. That is my primary travel kit because I think I’m going to be prepared for just about anything when I’m traveling with that resource.

Kate:  Tell us how it’s going with your chemical sensitivities. Do you still have those?

Jennifer:  I have probably a 90% improvement in symptoms than when I started working with Joette. And, I have a protocol of what to do if I’m exposed to chemicals, which is very helpful, which for me is primarily Arsenicum album.

That is another remedy that I just would never be without. If I’ve been in a situation that I’ve been exposed to chemicals, I can take that remedy, and it helps my body deal with the chemical exposure.

Kate:  Now, do you take that in a 30C potency or 200C potency when you’re exposed and have some issues?

Jennifer:  I take it in the 200C potency.

Kate:  My one remedy — if I’m on a desert island and can only take one remedy — Arsenicum album is my one remedy that I would take, I think.

Jennifer:  Me, too, absolutely. I’ve used it with my chickens, I’ve used it with the chemical sensitivities. It’s just an amazing remedy.

Kate:  You mentioned using Arsenicum with your chickens. Tell us what you used that for.

Jennifer:  We have a small flock of chickens, and they all have names, of course. Lacey, one of our chickens, she would just freeze in place and not move. We could tell that she was off, and there was something wrong. Then her droppings also did not look the way they usually looked.

And so, I didn’t have any kind of resource for chickens at that point on using homeopathy. I thought, “Okay, there’s something wrong with her droppings. I’m going with Arsenicum.”

So, I used Arsenicum. We caught her; we gave her one dose; we put her in the coop. And, in the morning, she walked out, and everything was completely normal with her.

Kate:  Yay!

Jennifer:  About three days later, she had the same … she froze in place, not as severe, and the droppings were a little bit different, but not as severe. We gave her one more dose, and then she was completely fine after that. I still don’t know what the issue was, but it didn’t matter. I was able to help her with just using Arsenicum.

Kate:  Now, I’m trying to picture how you’re giving the remedy to your chicken, to Lacey. I mean, if you put it in her water, that’s one thing. But maybe you have a different method.

Jennifer:  Well, my husband held her, and I just pried her beak open and dropped a couple of pellets in.

Kate:  Awww. Was she a good girl?

Jennifer:  She was. I mean, she wasn’t feeling like being a fighter right then, so that was helpful. But she wasn’t drinking at that point, so I thought this is the only way I’m going to get it in her. I guess I could have also maybe had done a wet dose with her, but I just thought, “I’m just going to try this.” That’s kind of my philosophy, especially working with animals. “I’m just going to try this and see what happens.” And it worked!

The second time, it was more difficult to dose her that way because she felt better. Yeah, she was not wanting it the second time. But after the second time, she has not had any more issues.

I realized now I should have isolated her, as I’m reading more. I have educated myself on caring for the chickens, and maybe I should have isolated her. But thankfully, it wasn’t anything contagious. But if it had been, I could have put it in all of their water from what I understand.

Kate:  I actually just gave something to our cat. The poor thing, I closed the door on her tail, and I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. She ran off afraid of me, and I couldn’t get her even to want to stay by me too much because she was afraid then.

And so, I was trying to figure out how I was going to give her some Arnica. I didn’t want to put it in her bowl of water that she already had. So, I put another little cup with water, and then I put a couple of Arnica pellets in there. Then I thought, “Well, if she needs it, she’s going to drink this water.”

I brought her over there and showed her the water. She stuck her nose in there. I don’t know if she actually got a dose of it or not, but I left it out there because I feel like animals are very intuitive. Hopefully, that helped her.

Jennifer:  Yes, if you offer them a healing modality, they will avail themselves of it.

Kate:  Yes.

Jennifer:  I was thinking, too, of pets. My neighbor has a very big heart, and she has five dogs that she has taken in at various points — rescue dogs. One of them is a little Deer Chihuahua, and he was not feeling well. It had been one of those days — it had been warm the day before, then a big wind came in. And he was chilly and clingy to her, and his stomach was hurting.

They’d previously taken him to the vet for that, fearing that he had impaction. He did not. He just had gas. I took, actually, Pulsatilla to her, and I said, “Let’s just try him on a dose Pulsatilla and see what happens.”

Within 15 minutes, he passed gas and stopped shivering and went about his regular day. She was very thrilled that it did not involve a vet visit.

Now, I’ve given her some on hand. If Archie — that’s the dog’s name — if Archie gets out of sorts with his stomach, that seems to be the remedy that helps him. I’m also trying to keep notes. So, I have a little folder on animals. So, I wrote down when I gave the chicken Arsenicum, and how the remedy worked, and when I gave Archie the Pulsatilla.

So, I’m trying to keep better notes than I have in the past. I don’t always keep the notes, but it makes a huge difference. You can look back and say, “Hey, what worked before when this happened?”

Kate:  Yes, it does make a huge difference.

Jennifer:  I have another story about helping a friend with my favorite remedy, Arsenicum album. This involves the Texas asp.  

Kate:  What is that?

Jennifer:  It’s also known as the puss moth caterpillar, and it looks like a little toupee. It’s just this furry little caterpillar that is on oak trees. But each little hair on that caterpillar is a barb. It’s very toxic. It’s supposed to be extremely painful to get one on you and be stung by it.

My friend actually stepped on one in her garage. She’s had four children, completely natural. She said that this is the worst pain that she’s ever had.

She uses homeopathy as well, and she was taking different remedies. She took Ledum. She took Aconite because she said it was just shocking. We were texting, and she said, “I just feel this pain just creeping up my leg.”

I said, “You’re being poisoned by this asp.” I said, “Try Arsenicum.”

She took it. and she said that she could feel the pain and poison moving back down towards where she stepped on it. After about five minutes, it crept up again. So, she was taking it about every five minutes for 30 minutes. Then it completely went back down into her foot. But she really had to work with that sting.

But it poisoned her, and she just tried the Arsenicum, and it really helped her. Then she could move to longer interval between the dosage.

Kate:  I never want to encounter one of those. That is for sure. You guys have a lot of poisonous things in Texas.

Jennifer:  We do. We’ve, thankfully, never had to use any kind of homeopathy for snake bites. We have several venomous snakes in Texas. But we all know what we would do if we were bitten by a snake on our way to emergency care. We have Lachesis is what we would take on the way. That’s our plan. It’s in our first aid kit.

I also wanted to talk about using homeopathy with plants.

Kate:  Yeah, I would love to hear about that.  

Jennifer:  Right. Primarily, I’ve used the remedy that’s commonly known as China and the scientific name is Cinchona. It could be used for depletion of vital fluids if somebody’s lost vital fluids and been dehydrated. We have droughts here in Texas. I had planted some elderberry trees. They are water-loving trees, and they were just not looking happy at all no matter how much I water them. So, I decided to use that remedy for them.

I just had a gallon jar, and I put some of the remedy in there, stirred it up and poured it on their roots. By the next day, they had perked up. They looked much healthier. They weren’t as “falling over” as they had been. So, I started doing that weekly during the drought time for the elderberries. I think it really helped them. Then I started doing it for other plants that I noticed were being affected by the drought.

Kate:  Did you read that someplace or do you just figure that out on your own?

Jennifer:  Well, I figured that out on my own. Then I actually found a book called “Homeopathy for Plants.” It’s written by someone that’s in the UK. So, there are some plants that are not the same as in the United States, but it has a lot of great information on how to use homeopathy for your garden and balcony plants and indoor plants.

Kate:  Might be inside plants, sometimes they experience a drought because of their caregiver, shall we say? That would be a good remedy to have on hand.

What else Jennifer? How else have you used homeopathy?

Jennifer:  I’ve used the cell salts, which was my original course that I learned from Joette. One of the combinations that I’ve used is the Nat mur and the Kali phos to prevent dehydration, especially when someone’s dealing with a stomach bug, we would do it every three hours.

The other is an electrolyte replacement. It’s very hot here. I mix this up frequently. I have a huge three ring binder. I print out the remedy cards from the blog, and I put them in my binder. I take notes on different things. This is just handwritten. I took a note from this electrolyte replacement and it was: 16 bioplasmas, 16 Nat sulph in a 6X potency, a fourth of a cup of lemon or lime juice, a teaspoon of sea salt, and then a cup of coconut water. Then you put it in a gallon and add water to make it a gallon. That’s what our family drinks for electrolyte replacement.

Kate:  I know Joette has used that with her family throughout the years, and I’ve used something similar as well. If our listeners are looking at where to find that recipe, so to speak, there’s a blog titled Sunburn and Dehydration? Homeopathy Offers the Cure.

There are several blogs that you can find that recipe on, as well as in the Gateway II study guide, if you have that. The recipe is also in Lesson 2 towards the end of the lesson. That’s a great thing to have on hand in the hot months. Well, here in Wisconsin, there are very few. But in Texas, you probably need that often.

Jennifer:  Yes, and also I had a friend who had the flu, and she was severely dehydrated. I made this for her, and she drank it. It was one of the few things she could actually keep down. She said it really helped her recover from dehydration from the flu.

Exploring healthy living

Kate:  Jennifer, let’s wrap up this podcast by hearing some words of wisdom that you have on being healthy.

Jennifer:  What I’ve noticed over the last 20 years of exploring healthy living (and taking care of myself and taking care of my children and helping them take care of themselves) is that when we have a really strong foundation, we’re eating nutritious foods; we’re getting good sleep; we’re managing our stress.

I think about the holidays, and you go to too many functions, and at the end of it, everybody’s stressed and tired. I can just see the dominoes fall.

If we go somewhere, and we eat something that’s sugary, we don’t get enough sleep, and we’ve had too much excitement, and maybe somebody there had a cold, we’re more likely to come down with a cold.

If we eliminated the sugar, and we got better sleep, then we probably aren’t even going to come down with a cold. We’re never even going to take the homeopathy.

Kate:  Yes, it comes down to having a strong vitality. If you have that good foundation, I think you were telling me in our last conversation that you felt like the homeopathy actually worked more quickly when you have a stronger baseline to start with.

Jennifer:  Yes, and oftentimes, with just one dose!

Kate:  I think that’s a really good point. If we take care of ourselves, then our body has to do less work to heal, obviously, right? If we’re in a stronger constitution, stronger vitality, the homeopathy will act more quickly and be more effective. We have to take less of it and so forth.

Jennifer:  Well, homeopathy is a helper to me. Everything I do to make it easier for my helper to help me, in a way, is taking care of myself. So, then when I do need my homeopathic helper, my body’s ready to use it and heal.

I mean, I get emotional when I think about these are plants and minerals, and we’re using tiny amounts of them to heal. I mean, it’s a miracle to me! I do … I tear up when I think about how amazing homeopathy is! We were just taking in just this little bit, and it tells our body, like, “Hey, use me to heal yourself!” I think that’s beautiful.

Kate:  Yes, I think of them as little signals to our body to “get working.”

Jennifer:  Right. I am so grateful for the gift of homeopathy. It is medicine that helps your body heal without hurting your body. That to me is priceless!

Joette:  As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising. But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

In these podcasts, I focus on those students of mine who have already tunneled in and learned how to take care of themselves, family, friends, and pets, and even livestock using homeopathic medicine. Many of these students began their education by participating in one of my Gateway to Homeopathy study groups. And now, after taking one or more of my courses, they’re well-trained to use my specific brand of homeopathy. I hope listening to this podcast has inspired you to follow in their footsteps. With the proper training, you, too, can nurture and protect the health of your family and loved ones with Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:  You just listened to a podcast from PracticalHomeopathy.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shares her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy. Joette’s podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Pandora, Stitcher, TuneIn and iHeartRadio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

These Moms with Moxie podcasts are designed to be inspirational, not specifically educational. No Remedy Card is provided.

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

01:40    Importance of self-education

06:12    Finding time amid busyness

10:32    Repetition of remedies and provings  

21:21    Starting with the study groups

26:04    Tips on easy learning

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Stop It! How to Antidote a Bad Drug Reaction

A Salute to Ignatia Real Medicine for Post-Traumatic Stress and More

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

Allergic!? Escape Allergies, Sensitivities, and Intolerances, with Homeopathy. Practical Protocols to Get Your Life Back

Feminopathy: How You Can Correct Female Ailments Using Safe, Inexpensive and Effective Homeopathy

A Materia Medica: Practical Homeopathy® for Busy Families

Dr. James Tyler Kent’s Materia Medica

My free blog

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 84 with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:  Joette Calabrese here, folks. I’m happy that you’ve joined me for my podcast today. You’re in for a treat. From my virtual classroom, I’m privileged to see how homeopathy is transforming lives all over the globe. Their successes inspire me. They’re glorious and powerful, and I can’t keep their triumphs a secret. I want you to hear the excitement my students experience, too. So, you can be inspired by their unique stories. With the help from Kate, my reporter, I bring you a podcast series I call, “Moms with Moxie.” Sometimes we even interview “Dads with Audacity” or “Teens with Tenacity.” See how regular mothers and others — average folks who love healing those around them — have gone from freaking to fabulous by simply applying what they’ve learned using what I call Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:  Hi, I’m Kate. I’m here with Joette today for another episode of the Practical Homeopathy® podcast. Today, Joette is feeling a little spunky, and we are going to have a conversation about self-education. So, Joette, let’s talk about education. I know you’re very passionate about it, and you have a lot to say. Let’s jump right in.

Joette:  Yes, I’m very opinionated, especially lately, regarding universities. My husband and I actually discouraged our sons from going to the universities because we didn’t want to lose them. I think that’s what happens in these universities. Certainly, there is a reason to go to college if you want to get a further degree such as medical doctor, engineer, astrophysicist. Okay, I get it. Now, that makes sense! You need to go to college, and then you need to do some post-grad degrees.

But to get a degree in music, really? I’ll tell you about music.

My father, who never went to college, was a very successful man. He was a finished musician. He played in symphonies. He played flute, classical flute. He also played jazz in big bands. He was in a lot of the big bands in Buffalo when big bands were hot back in the 30s and 40s and 50s. He played trumpet. He did not go to college for that. I’m not telling you that there aren’t good teachers in colleges for trumpet or flute, but he sought it out.

He worked in the dry cleaners establishment, delivered dry cleaning, and had all kinds of little jobs, so that he could make enough money when he was a young man, so as to take lessons from the teachers that he sought out regionally — all around Buffalo, New York.

But he was also a businessman. He had small businesses. He bought and sold real estate. He had a small construction business when he was a very young man, and Buffalo was a very hot town at the time. Actually, Buffalo has come around quite a bit, but it went through a difficult time in the last 40, 50 years. But at this time, it was a very exciting city.

He went to New York City and bought hundreds — maybe even more than that —of ties (men’s neckties) and brought them back to Buffalo. He got a big, long dowel, strew it across a tiny little room — which was really not even a store, it was more like a closet with a door to the street — and sold neckties. He was enterprising. He did that to make a living. Then he had a delicatessen. He had a lot of businesses.

But my point is that in spite of him being able to take care of a family, he still educated himself. I’ve often told the story of how when I was about 12 or 13, he switched from a complete focus on trumpet playing — and he was a very good trumpet player — to learning how to play the flute as well. He played constantly. He practiced constantly.

I know I’ve told this story. When he picked me up from school in high school, he would have the flute by his side, and I would be in the passenger seat. At every light that turned red, he’d pick up his flute, and he would play a riff, or he would play a scale. Then he’d play it in the minor, and then he’d do the arpeggio. He hoped for a nice, long red light.

When it was green, he’d put it down and start over again. Instead of talking to me, he would talk to me while he was driving, but at the lights, instead of talking to me, he’d face me with the flute, playing. His eyebrows would lift, and he would be gesturing to me with his facial expressions and do a little bird fluting up at the top of the register. Then he’d do something that would make me laugh.

He would communicate through his instrument. That was because he had a passion for something. He took it seriously and didn’t look for a degree. He was looking to master something.

Degrees and mastery are not necessarily synonymous. In fact, often they are not. Because if they were, we would all be going to post-grad medical school, homeopathy school. We are not. We’re learning at home.

I guess this leads us into the discussion of how important it is to self-educate. That is the ultimate of being an adult, in my estimation: to remain curious and always be educating. Always be learning something new. When you finish that … okay, you’ve mastered that or almost mastered it? Okay, onto the next.

Kate:  Let’s talk about time for just a few minutes because I know that a lot of busy moms listen to this podcast. We are all busy and struggle to fit in the time to learn the things that we’re passionate about like homeopathy. I recently had the opportunity to listen to John Maxwell speak. He had a really great tip. I just wanted to share that with everyone.

As you know, John Maxwell has written a phenomenal amount of books. People ask him, “How do you write these many books?”

He says, “15 minutes at a time.”

So, it’s kind of like the stoplight philosophy that we can find these little pieces of time …

Joette:  Snippets.

Kate:  … and if you add them up, you will be educated. You will eventually become an expert or very well-versed in a subject if you just keep chipping at that information little bit by little bit.

Joette:  More importantly — you’re absolutely right — but more importantly, it gives it cohesiveness. Because if you found 15 minutes two hours ago, and then you find another 10 minutes now, you’re building on what you learned earlier in the day. That builds on top of building on top of building, and it adds cohesiveness and a collection of information by the end of the day.

More often than not, most moms who are learning how to use homeopathy to treat themselves and families don’t realize that they’ve learned a lot. They think they don’t know much. They’re just looking at how high they have to go to get to the end of the line — which to be honest, you never get to.

But if they talk to someone who knows nothing about homeopathy, and that was them a year ago or six months ago, they realize, “Oh, my gosh! I guess I really do know a good amount because I’ve cured my husband’s shin splints, and I’ve cured my sinus infection, and my menstrual pain, and my son’s attention deficit. Look at all the things I’ve done. I guess I have learned enough to say that I’m getting this.”

That’s what we need as humans. We need that self-congratulatory sensation that gives us the confidence to move forward.

Kate:  Sometimes we need someone to come alongside of us and just say, “Yes, those are great choices.”

I’ve had several people email me recently who are taking my study groups, and they’ve told me, “This is what I’m doing for a sprained ankle or something like that.”

They’ve given me three different medicines that they’re using, or two, and I say, “That’s great. That’s perfect!”

Joette:  They got it! They figured it out!

Kate:  Yes, I know.

Joette:  I see it every day when I work with my clients and when I teach in the classes at night with the study groups. I hear what these people are using, and I can tell. I used to ask in the classes and the study groups when I’d meet them on Zoom. We’d have 15 to 60 people up there, and I’d be looking at them. I’d say, “Tell me how long you’ve been using homeopathy.”

I don’t do that any longer because the questions that they ask, I know instantly approximately how long they’ve been using homeopathy — by the kinds of questions they ask.

Kate:  I think people just need that reassurance, that confidence, that you can do it. You can research. You can learn and make good choices. Then they need to be encouraged just to maybe go that next little step, whether it’s not being afraid to use a medicine too often. I mean, I know that you can use them too often. But I think they’re extra cautious — which is a good thing — but just someone to hold their hand and say, “Yes, you’re doing a good job. Now, let’s go to that next little step.”

Joette:  You bet. You bet. It’s not just about homeopathy and joining study groups or starting another one. Interestingly, I’ve seen, and I know you’ve seen this, too. We see someone who joins a study group, and they love it. Then they join that next person, — whoever’s running the next one — they join that one, too. Then they join the next one, and the next one, and the next one. You’re not rebuying the book! You’ve got the same book. Just keep going and listen to other people’s conditions and how they have dealt with them, and you will learn.

One of my teachers told me years ago, you will never learn homeopathy until you’re in practice. I don’t expect folks to go into practice, but that’s the second-best level is to hear everyone’s problems, and how they were solved. Then you can see over and over, story after story, and it’s memorable.

That’s how you remember. Because inevitably, whatever that person suffered that last week, I’ll bet, within a month, you’re going to have the same condition in your family.

Kate:  I brought up repetition of the remedy. I would like it if you could flesh that out just a little bit more for listeners because, like I said, they’re cautious. And they have a right to be cautious because these are medicines. But if you could just explain this a little bit more, how often can they repeat these remedies?

Joette:  Well, I can’t give a rule of thumb as to how often a medicine should be repeated because I don’t know what the medicine is, and I don’t know what the condition is, et cetera, et cetera. We have to be more specific than that. But I understand your general question. What has happened in homeopathy is — in my teaching — that you don’t want to overuse a medicine, and you want to always be observing whether or not it’s doing good or not.

I have cautioned people from using a medicine over and over and over again for no apparent reason. It has to hold up to the scrutiny of whether or not this makes sense to do this.

But in doing so — I’m afraid that perhaps it was me, perhaps it’s from other teachers — many of my students, I find, are very afraid of provings. If they’re not afraid of them, they think they see a proving when it really isn’t a proving.

I want to make it clear that in my experience of using homeopathy for 33 years and working full time as a practitioner for 24 years — so far that I’m aware of — I’ve never seen a proving not being able to be stopped, to be aborted, to end, and move on.

So, I think people are so afraid of them that it confuses them. I have a lot of times when people say, “I think I’m proving a medicine.” And I ask, “What’s going on?” I ask them to explain to me, and it turns out what it really was … was a cold.

“Oh, it was a cold.”

Or, “I think I’m proving something,” and they forgot to mention that they had taken a drug, and this was the side effect. They jump to the proving because they know about provings. It’s an interesting concept. In that concept, what happens is the fear is brought to the fore, and the angst that I’m going to do a real injustice to myself or my family member.

Of course, I’ve written about it. I call it “Stop It” on the article that I’ve published on the blog. It talks about halting a homeopathic medicine that is obviously not correct.

But many people think that they’re going to see it within a dose or two. They take a remedy, they say, “Okay, I didn’t feel so well after it. That must mean it’s a proving. It’s no good.”

No, not really. A lot of times, we need to see a little stirring of the undercurrents up, and then it can resolve. It’s a matter of observation and sitting back and watching.

Now, it’s easier to do when you’re watching someone else than yourself … or someone else, especially for whom you’re not too close to where angst would get in the way. Because that’s what happens is that we get anxious when we see our loved one not feeling well, as well as anxious when we don’t feel well. Excuse me for saying, but we, women, have more anxiety than men in general. That’s another little tidbit that I see frequently. We get more worried about health and well-being than men do. So, it’s not uncommon for us to feel a little uncomfortable and then jumping to conclusions.

It’s important that we learn the differential: the differences between what is a proving and what is not.

If it is a proving, and you’re afraid, then one can use Camphor (or Camphora) 200. Stop the medicine. Camphora 200: one dose, one day. Don’t take any other homeopathics that day. The next day, start up again on what you were using minus the medicine you think might have been causing the problem.

Or you can replace what you thought was causing the problem with the correct medicine because that, too, will antidote.

Kate:  If you don’t have Camphora, could you use Nux vomica 200 as well?

Joette:  Nux vomica will antidote some homeopathic medicines. Camphora is more universal.

Kate:  Or you can sniff mint.

Joette:  Essential oil of mint. A peppermint patty is not probably going to do it. I’ve tried it.

Kate:  That’s funny you tried it. You just wanted the chocolate, Joette. Come on. Let’s be real.

Joette:  Absolutely! That’s exactly what it was.

Kate:  I just want to clarify that when we’re talking about repetition of medicines, in general, right now, we’re going to be talking about acutes. Because chronics are a whole other genre. There’s protocols, and you know how often to repeat the medicines. But right now, we’re just basically talking about acute conditions, right?

Joette:  Yes. Let’s say someone is sneezing, and they’re coming down with a cold. You would give the medicine maybe every three hours, something like that.

But if they were sneezing, it was spasmodic, and they couldn’t stop sneezing. They’re sneezing so that now they can’t catch their breath (or they can barely catch their breath), and they’re weakened by it — now we’re going to use a medicine that is specific to abort the sneezing issue. We’re going to use it frequently, every few minutes, every minute even, because the person is weakening from the sneezing fits.

It can happen. I’ve actually seen it happen. So, when we say, “Well, this is for sneezing,” well, yes, but what kind of sneezing? Are you talking about sneezing where it’s a fit, and they’re weakened by it? Or are you talking about three or four sneezes — not 50 sneezes?

Kate:  I think people are afraid, “Oh, my goodness, a medicine every minute or two? That seems like a lot.” They are afraid of that.

Or even if they’ve had an injury, I feel that people, in general, are not using the remedies frequently enough when they’ve had a pretty severe injury.

Joette:  I agree. I totally agree.

When I had a tooth extracted some years ago, it was infected, I asked the dentist to please scrape the bone, remove the ligament, and clean out the area as best as he could, he did his job. After the local anesthetic wore off, the pain, really, it felt as though I had been shot in the mandible with a gun. The pain was extraordinary! I used the medicine every three minutes, four minutes. It was a high potency. I used it every four minutes because I could not have waited three hours! I was moaning and crying with pain.

Now, I could have used conventional medicine, but I do everything I can to avoid that. I haven’t had it in many years except for that local anesthetic. But I was going to find out what it took, homeopathically, to eliminate this.

I used Hypericum, and I used it every three or four minutes, and up to the fourth dose. By the fourth dose, my shoulders could drop. Then I could feel the pain starting to minimize enough that I was actually able to fall asleep — and I did.

Then hours later — I’m going to say maybe six hours later — it was early morning, I woke up. The pain was back, but not to the same degree. What was, on a scale of 1-10, that pain was a whopping 20. Now, it went down to about a 9 when I woke up.

What did I do? I used exactly the same medicine again. I was poised for the possibility that I might need to use it every four minutes, although I did not expect that because I could tell by the kind of pain it was that it wasn’t just going to be as severe.

I took a few more doses of it that morning, and I worked that day. I took that medicine maybe two or three times that day, and that was it. The next day, I took it once. The next day, maybe twice, something like that. It was over with within three days — without drugs.

Kate:  Correct me if I’m wrong, but I almost think that if you have a ton of pain, it’s almost better to use the remedy a little more frequently in the beginning. Then you will have to use it less in the long run. As opposed to if you use it every three to six hours, that pain might go on for a longer period of time because you’re not correcting the issues.

Joette:  Some homeopaths call it “loading.” It’s an odd way of putting it. But they say “loading it up in the beginning,” (you’re using it more frequently).

I don’t look at it that way because I don’t want to teach that you “load up.” I want to teach that, instead, what you’re doing is using it accordingly. That’s a little bit more careful with the description. Because if you’re loading, and you don’t need it, that can be a mistake, too. But if you’re using it accordingly — the pain is so severe; we meet the pain with the frequency of the medicine use. That’s how you’re going to use it.

If they’re hemorrhaging on the way to the hospital — it’s hemorrhaging, not bleeding, but truly hemorrhaging — you’re going to administer that medicine every few minutes, every minute.

If the pain is extraordinary, it’s going to be every few minutes — until you can get a handle on it, and then you back off.

Kate:  I think we need to clarify, also, that what we’re not saying is you’re using seven different remedies, one every couple of minutes.

Joette:  No, you’re using the same medicine for the pain. For me, it was Hypericum. The same medicine, say, for bleeding which might be Phosphorus or Hamamelis or Arnica or both. That’s the way we’re looking at it.

Kate:  Right, or you might alternate two, if two are needed.

Joette:  That’s right, if necessary. That’s right.

Kate:  Yes.

Joette:  My father had what we thought was a stroke. On the way to the hospital, we administered the medicine all the way — all the way to the hospital, in the emergency room, on the gurney, on the way into the hospital, into the emergency room, on the way into the next room. I just kept administering it to him.

Interestingly, we were told, “We don’t know what happened. It sounded like a stroke. But I guess it wasn’t a stroke after all.”

I feel pretty confident — so did my father — that it was the homeopathic that I had used. Which by the way — because I know folks are going to ask this question — was Aconitum napellus 200.

Kate:  Okay, I would have guessed that. That’s wonderful! That’s a great remedy. That’s one of the ones that I tell people never leave home without.

Joette:  Yes, that’s a good one. Well, because of your story.

Kate:  I have lots of stories of using Aconite. Many of them, I tell in my study groups, that it was the difference of going to ER versus not going to ER with my son one time, and it’s just amazing. It’s an amazing remedy.

Joette:  Yes, it’s one of the ones that I keep in my purse. I don’t keep that many in there. But that’s important. I certainly would never travel without it.

Kate:  Right. To bring this back to the self-education topic, Joette, if you had a person interested in learning all that they could, how would you recommend that they educate themselves?

Joette:  If they’re just starting homeopathy, it’s brand new to them or they have a vague understanding of it — actually, I should cut back on that! I shouldn’t say that because a lot of people start these study groups, and they have a good amount of information — I would start folks on a study group.

I started my study group back in the 80s. I gathered a group of friends. This was not virtual. Obviously, in those days, there was no “virtual.”

Instead, we met in my living room every Thursday night for four years, and we studied. We learned from each other. We posed questions to each other. We assigned homework for ourselves and met every Thursday night. It was a “ladies’ night out,” of sorts. But we were spending our time focused on our families, in spite of not being with them at that moment. It was pure intellectual joy — plus camaraderie.

You know, in a world where women, especially if you’re a young mother, are immersed in diapers, and nursing, and colic, and diaper rash, and skin conditions, and making meals, and making beds, and doing laundry, et cetera, et cetera — everything is so physical. What I loved about this — because that’s the stage I was in when I started studying homeopathy — is that it gave me the intellectual side that I could delve into. As I’ve said many times, it was intellectually delicious.

I was physical all day long, making beds, putting out the clothes, setting up the homeschooling. It was a lot of physical activity. This gave me my nourishment, but it wasn’t separate from my family! Immediately with my new knowledge, I was giving right back to my family. I think study groups are really key because we need that camaraderie. We’re doing this by ourselves!

It’s not the way it used to be when women were living in small communities, and they put their clothes out to hang on the line. Right next door was their mother. Then there was their aunt, their cousins, everybody was all around, and everybody visited all the time. When you made dinner, you made it for 15 people because everyone stopped by. It’s not like that anymore. And so, it’s important that we find that commonality in like minds in other mothers and grandmothers.

Study groups, I can’t urge folks enough!

Now, once you get through the first study group, then you should go through the second Gateway to Homeopathy: Gateway I, and then Gateway II.

These are inexpensive! That’s why we did it that way … was to make it super-inexpensive so that anyone can afford this. Once you’ve finished with Gateway II, then you get your group together and you decide where you need to go next.

You may not need to decide to buy a course. You may need to simply all gather around and say, “Okay, let’s just study Joette’s blog. It’s all free. We can go through each one every week. Everyone is assigned one. Then we come back and report on it. ‘Why did Joette use that particular medicine for that particular condition?’ In other words, if it’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder blog, then why was Ignatia 200 chosen?”

Then that person reads up on Ignatia and presents it to the group. “Why? Because Ignatia does this, and this, and this, and this.”

Then others around the room say, “You know what? I’ve used Ignatia for this, and it worked.”

“I used it for sleep.”

“I used it for,” [and this is a writer downer, folks] “for emotional eating, Ignatia 200.”

So, that’s how we learn, and you can keep it free.

Now, if you want to go much further, then that’s when you go to the courses, Good Gut, Bad Gut if there’s gut issues in your family. Or Allergic!? for those who have allergies in their families. Or Feminopathy if you’ve got a lot of girls in your family, or it’s you who’s got some hormonal issues.

And you keep studying.

Meanwhile, you purchase some books.

You can get my materia medica. I tried to keep that simple and easy.

But to be honest, folks, you could do this all free.

Go online. You can read Dr. James Tyler Kent’s Materia Medica. You can use that as your reference. It’s perfectly free.

My blog is free.

You could carry on like this and spend no more than $100! You can do this for a very low cost.

Kate:  What about time, Joette? Do you have any suggestions for us because you were that busy mom learning homeopathy. Just give us some tips on how to really fit this in.

Joette:  Well, one way to learn is by listening while you’re driving in the car. When I was first learning homeopathy, I used to take my notes from courses and record them into a tape player. (That’s how long ago that was.) I’d listen to my voice over and over again. That’s how I studied it. That was my idea for the CDs that I originally put together. That’s one way.

Another way is to write down … keep some 3×5 cards on the most important medicines that you want to memorize, that you want to learn. Put them in your robe pocket. Put them in your purse. Put them on the sink when you’re washing dishes. You take a glance at them so that you can remember what they’re used for, when to use them, what potency, and how often, et cetera. That’s another way.

But the pleasure of learning has to be within us. I think all humans have that. We have to instill that curiosity in ourselves and bring that to the fore on a day-to-day basis. We want to be the ones that care for our families as fully as we are possibly capable. The only way to do that — it’s not just gut, spunk, and moxie, that’s important too — but without knowledge, without skill, without an understanding of what you’re doing, you can’t get very far, and you’ll become discouraged.

I can’t urge you enough to put the time aside. If you have to, read your notes or what you’re learning to your children, so that you’re with them and teaching them as well so that they get benefit. Then make it a family project. Read it aloud to your children and let them learn as well. Don’t separate what you’re learning from what your children are learning. Don’t think for a minute that they won’t understand. Stretch them and their intellects just like you’re stretching your own.

Take advantage of every moment you’ve got, doing laundry, raking leaves, making bread, whatever it might be. Take advantage of that time and learn, and memorize, and go back upstairs, and get those notes again, and take them back downstairs with you.

Do it time and time again, and it will become yours.

I think you’ll be remarkably surprised at how much you can learn in short order, particularly if there’s someone suffering in your family. You will learn fast. You’re compelled to do so. Because being curious, scratching that itch for curiosity, and learning is intellectually delicious. It’s a part of being human, and we don’t want to forget that as busy mothers.

Joette:  As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising. But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

I hope listening to this podcast has inspired you to follow in their footsteps. With the proper training, you, too, can nurture and protect the health of your family and loved ones with Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:  You just listened to a podcast from practicalhomeopathy.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shares her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Pandora, Stitcher, TuneIn, and iHeart radio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit practicalhomeopathy.com.

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

05:55 Roadblocks to Learning

13:11    Gateway I and II Classes

17:28    “Careful, I might bite.”

19:54    Headaches, Feeling Overwhelmed, and Earaches

25:00    A Badly Broken Nose

27:10    Words of Encouragement

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

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

Gateway to Homeopathy I and Gateway to Homeopathy II study groups

Podcast 57: My Dirty Little Secret

“No Joy: Postpartum Depression”

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 83.

Joette:  Joette Calabrese here, folks. I’m happy that you’ve joined me for my podcast today. You’re in for a treat. From my virtual classroom, I’m privileged to see how homeopathy is transforming lives all over the globe. Their successes inspire me. They’re glorious and powerful, and I can’t keep their triumphs a secret. I want you to hear the excitement my students experience, too. So, you can be inspired by their unique stories. With the help from Kate, my reporter, I bring you a podcast series I call, “Moms with Moxie.” Sometimes we even interview “Dads with Audacity” or “Teens with Tenacity.” See how regular mothers and others — average folks who love healing those around them — have gone from freaking to fabulous by simply applying what they’ve learned using what I call Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:  Hi. This is Kate. I am here with a wonderful Mom with Moxie who I am really enjoying getting to know. Her name is Emily. Emily, I want to welcome you to the podcast. Thank you for being here.

Emily:  Oh, thank you for having me. I’m very excited.

Kate:  Emily, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Emily:  Well, my husband and I have been married for 25 years. We have nine children ages 23 to almost 2. I homeschool them all. I’ve graduated two, and I have a senior this year.

Kate:  Wow! You are a busy mom. I just want to pick your brain how you’ve done this.

Emily:  Not well. There you go.

Kate:  I’m sure you’ve done a great job.

Emily:  My kids are amazing. But I am pretty sure that it had very little to do with me. They’re just great kids.

Kate:  Oh, no. You seem like a great mom already since I’ve known you only 15 minutes.

Emily:  There you go. That’s the limit! After that, it’s downhill!

Kate:  Downhill? No. You were telling us about yourself. You homeschool?

Emily:  Yes. We’ve homeschooled since the beginning, and I’ve graduated two. I always say that that gives me street cred — that I’ve got them all the way from beginning to end. Then my 17-year old is a senior this year. So, I have a senior, a freshman, a fifth grader, a second grader, a first grader, and then I have a first grader (but she has Down syndrome, so she has special needs), and then the baby.

Kate:  I feel like you should be given the title, “Supermom.”

Emily:  That’s not true.

Kate:  Emily, I loved what you wrote when we were going to record this podcast. You wrote down that you’re truly, madly in love with this medicine. It sounds like you are really excited about homeopathy. You have been using it for a while. Tell us about that.

Emily:  Well, I’ve been using it consistently for 15 years. But my first experience was Hyland’s Teething Tablets when my oldest was a baby. I was a very young mom. I was at the mercy of the doctors we could afford, and they used a lot of fear tactics to manipulate me into doing what they felt was best for my kid — not what I felt was best. But I knew I shouldn’t be giving her Tylenol every time her mouth hurt, every time she had a shot. It just seemed like a lot. So, I went into the health food store and asked. They gave me teething tablets, and they worked like a dream. Right? Because they’re good things.

Kate:  Yes, they are.

Emily:  I still actually have a bottle of the old teething tablets, and I hoard them.

Kate:  Yeah. Right.

Emily:  Then fast forward with my fourth baby, I had really bad afterbirth pains. My midwife recommended Arnica. We actually stopped at Walgreens because they carried Arnica back then. I don’t remember. But I used that instead of Tylenol, and it worked so much better.

So, I was hooked, and I loved the idea. I was fascinated with the idea that I’d been able to treat my family, myself. Another homeschool mom offered a class on the flu. It was just basically you bought the book, and she just flips through it and mentions some of it.

I bought the book, and I inhaled it. I read it cover to cover three times. That’s all the classes I had. So, I just read materia medicas. I read Kent’s lectures. I did National Center for Homeopathy First Aid class, and I taught one of those. (hose poor moms. I just was just kind of like a fire hydrant at them.)

I loved the results we were having. Every single time, I give it to my kids or anybody and it works, I’m always just shocked. I’m like, “Isn’t this amazing?” Even though I know it works.

Kate:  I totally understand. You could do it 15, 20 years, and every time you see that result, you’re just so thankful!

Emily:  Yes, and in an instant. I’m impatient, and I love the instant gratification that it gives.

Kate:  Right. We know it’s not always that way. But when it does happen that way, it’s glorious.

Emily:  I don’t know. I don’t have any numbers on this. But in my experience, first time people who use it for the very first time, it almost always seems to work. They’ll go, “I tried that, and it worked.”

I’m like, “Oh, you’re hooked now. It’s over!”

Kate:  You talk about sharing homeopathy with other people, and I know that the people that you reached out to have had a lot of successes. But at that same time, you were struggling a little bit. There were some roadblocks to you taking that next step in your homeopathy journey. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Emily:  Yeah. Well, the only thing I had available at the time was classical homeopathy — which to take the case of a cold is hours. It takes a long time to look through the books. The people I was sharing it with, while they were having successes, they weren’t sticking with it. It just was too complicated.

Kate:  Right.

Emily:  I didn’t have any online sources, any places to go. I didn’t really have a sense of community, and I started to lose steam. I felt like a lone wolf. While I loved reading about it, and I loved the results we were having, I just needed something faster.

Even though my husband and I, we had invested hundreds of dollars in remedies, I wasn’t using them. I’d started using oils because you have a headache, you take a drop of this. You’ve got a muscle pain; you rub on a drop of this. I just needed that quick fix that oils were giving me.

My husband said, “But what about all this money we’ve invested?” I didn’t have an answer for him. I just stared at him and said, “I don’t know.”

He said, “You’re a homeschooler. You guys have curriculum for everything. Surely, you can find a curriculum for homeopathy.”

I was frustrated with him because I was thinking, “I’ve tried that. I’ve spent years looking for that.” But it had been years ago that I had done that.

So, I just Googled “homeopathy curriculum,” and Joette’s Good Gut, Bad Gut class popped up.

Kate:  Oh!!

Emily:  I watched the little video, and I just sat there for a little bit thinking, “Hold on. Every book I’ve ever read said you can’t do chronics unless you are a professional homeopath.” So, I would watch her video again, and then again. “Is it true? Could I do this?”

We invested again, but this time it was in her class, which at the time felt like a lot of money. It just, you know, it was just investment in my education. So, I did this, and because I’m an “all-or-nothing” kind of gal, I had this huge spreadsheet, and I was going to have my whole family … I had them all on four different protocols each. There’s eleven of us. It was a rough time.

So, I just dialed it back, and I just did the three things that I thought were most important, which was my gluten intolerance, my daughter’s thyroid issues, and then I have a daughter who has a dual diagnosis: she’s Down syndrome and autistic. And so, we focused on her.

Kate:  Okay. Tell us. How did all of that go after you took the Good Gut, Bad Gut and you started giving these remedies? What happened?

Emily:  Well, you know, you watch her videos and you get very excited. You order the remedies, and then you take these three little pellets, and you go, “I feel the same.”

You just kept taking them. Honestly, with the remedy for the gluten intolerance, I took it for about six months, and then, still didn’t do anything. I’d never tried bread. I just stayed off of it. My kids all went back to it, but they’re braver than I am. I had such strong reactions to it.

I started teaching the Gateway I and then the Gateway II classes, and my group really encouraged me to try it. “Just try a cracker. Just try it.”

So, I did. I tried a cracker. I didn’t tell my family because I didn’t want them to get mad at me for being in bed because of the stomach pains.

And nothing happened. And so, I waited a couple of days, and then I tried a cookie. Nothing happened. I had no pain! No joint pain. No headache. I was a new woman!

Kate:  Wow!

Emily:  At my daughter’s wedding last month, I had cake.

Kate:  Yay!

Emily:  I wasn’t sure how I was going to do that. But it was amazing!

Kate:  That’s awesome.

Emily:  I didn’t even know I also had a corn allergy. If I ate corn, I’d have a three-day migraine which nothing touched — even remedies — nothing touched. One day, I tried just to see if the corn intolerance was gone as well, and it was! I can go out to Mexican food which is a big deal in South Texas. We’ve got to have our corn. I can eat it in meal and foods. It completely changed everything for me!

Kate:  Wow! I never get tired of hearing women like you who talk about their allergies to foods that are really debilitating, life-changing. I don’t have that kind of severe allergy, but I can only imagine how much that must affect your life. If you eat the wrong thing (you don’t know what’s in there), then you’re down and out for days or even weeks sometimes. What an amazing thing this is for you to have learned this on your own and to now be free from that!

Emily:  Yes, because I would carry remedies that would help if I had an exposure. But now, I don’t even have to do that. I carry them for other people. It was life-changing.

By finding the protocols, when I say it changed my life, I’m not even kidding. Because I went from spending days trying to take a case to: you have a headache; you take the protocol. You have muscle pain; you take the protocol. It just revolutionized everything for us.

Kate:  I want to go back for just a minute. In the beginning, when you were talking about taking this Good Gut, Bad Gut course, and you said you had taken a remedy. You took it, and you didn’t notice anything right away. I just want to clarify for our listeners that you’re talking about taking remedies for chronic conditions like the food intolerances.

When you take a remedy in that situation for chronic conditions, you would take them generally for six to eight weeks, and then you’re going to evaluate. It’s different when we’re talking about acutes versus chronics. I just wanted to clarify that for the listeners for just a minute.

Emily:  Right. I was working on a chronic condition. Before, I had no hope to deal with. But I took the remedy for a certain period of time, twice a day or every other day, depending on what the protocol is. Then I reevaluated how it is working, not anything like an acute which is a much faster relief from the symptoms.

Kate:  Right. You would expect a remedy to start acting within one to three or four doses in an acute situation.

Emily:  Right.

Kate:  Were there other conditions or situations that you applied homeopathy using the knowledge from that course?

Emily:  Yes. I have a daughter who at seven was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s which is chronic hypothyroid. We just treated her with synthetic thyroid. I put her on the protocols.

Her numbers have stabilized. She’s still on the thyroid medicine. But any time she would stand for just a few minutes, her feet would start to swell. If she stood in line at a grocery store or stood up to sing hymns in church, her feet would swell.

The protocol I put her on was for one that had swelling, and that has completely healed. That really, really bothered her that her feet would swell. She always said she was like an old lady. That did clear up completely.

Kate:  Great! Emily, you mentioned just a bit ago about leading some Gateway I and Gateway II study groups. That’s Joette’s curriculum called Gateway to Homeopathy I and Gateway to Homeopathy II. She has a study guide that people can purchase and go through themselves. Or oftentimes they purchase the book and lead a group of people locally or via Zoom or other video conferencing software. Tell us about how you led these groups, what you guys did, and how it went for you.

Emily:  Well, I purchased the Gateway class the same time I did the Good Gut, Bad Gut, just figuring I would read through it. I’ve been studying it for a long time. I doubted there was anything she could teach me. So, I was confident it was just going to be a flip-through.

But then I noticed that I could get a discount on another class if I had more people with me. I thought, “Oh, now you’re speaking my language!” So, I did. I started a Gateway class at my sister-in-law’s house.

Now, I have done three or four Gateway I classes. As soon as the Gateway II curriculum was available, I purchased it and started teaching those as well. In fact, I’m gearing up next week [at the time of this recording] to start my next Gateway I class.

Kate:  Yay! That’s awesome. Now, do you teach all locally or via the internet?

Emily:  I do it all via the internet now because it just works better for my family’s schedule for me just to be home. I really enjoy doing it in person. The questions are better, and you stick around longer and visit. But I can’t do that right now, and I’m grateful we have the technology we do, so we don’t have to.

Kate:  Yes. I love getting to know all the people when you do those groups, don’t you?

Emily:  Oh, yes. I feel like we get really close. That’s why I was so excited about the Gateway II because then I got to get back with my friends again. And then when the last class of the Gateway II — in fact, the last one we did — we did our Q&A with Joette, and she said, “Oh, ladies, I’m going to go.”

She got off, and then we stayed on another hour, just talking and laughing and enjoying each other.

But I’ll say, “Okay. Well, that’s it.” And then nobody gets off.

So, yeah, I feel like we grow pretty close with each other.

Kate:  Tell me. You said that when you got the book, you thought you would just flip through it, and you would know all the information in there. Was that true?

Emily:  It was not true. The first chapter, I did know all of that stuff: how remedies are made and the history of Hahnemann. I did know all of that. Then after that, maybe the second chapter, but definitely didn’t know about the acutes and the chronic protocols in the back. And, I didn’t know anything about the Banerjis.

Kate:  Do you feel like I do every time I lead the Gateway study group, and we go through that — whether it’s the Gateway I or the Gateway II book — every time I’m reminded of something that I had forgotten about. And I’m jotting it down, “Oh, yes. I forgot about this remedy combination for this.”

Do you feel that way as well?

Emily:  Absolutely. One thing I’ve learned in studying my daughter’s brain (the one that has special needs), is that “constant review makes permanent.” The constant review … it helps it lock in my brain, so I’m not having to constantly look it back up (which is nice in the middle of the night).

Kate:  Right. I know. When you need that, you often don’t have time to spend looking for that information which is why the protocols are great in the first place.

Emily:  Right, right. My brain doesn’t work like that. In the middle of the night, I don’t even think to look it up.

Kate:  Or where? “Where did I see that?”

Emily:  Right. I’m really bad about that.

Kate:  For those of you who don’t know, we do have an index in the back of the Gateway II book, so you can look up a condition or a remedy. Then it will tell you which page it’s on. We did that purposefully in that book because I want to be able to just look it up super-quick. “Is this condition in there?” Then find where to get the information.

Emily:  Right. Well, I’ve been able to … when people will maybe text me or email me and say, “What do you recommend for X, Y and Z?”

I’ll say, “You know what? That, we go over in Week 5,” to encourage them to get into their book — to make theirs look as messy as mine with all the notes.

But I’m able to go, “That’s in week 5. I know that. That I know.”

Kate:  All right. Let’s talk about some of the other ways that you’ve used homeopathy. I know you have some really great examples.

Emily:  I do. Well, I’ve been using it a long time. I’ve had four pregnancies and three miscarriages since I started using homeopathy. I’ve been able to use it during my pregnancies, during labors, during the postpartum. I was able to use Pulsatilla to turn a breach baby once.

Kate:  Really?

Emily:  She wasn’t breach. She was transverse. She was my seventh — there’s a lot of room in there! So, she was lying sideways. Back labor, that one, phew! One time, I actually did bite my husband, and I had made a bottle that said, “Careful, I might bite.” He gave that to me.

Kate:  You’re kidding.

Emily:  No, because I’m the one with the knowledge. When I have my babies, I label the bottles in such a way that those around me will know what to get.

Kate:  So that it makes sense for them.

Emily:  Right. It says, “Careful, I might bite.”

I have one that says, “I’m scared.” I was able to use that in a labor I got very fearful in. I was able to use the Aconite to calm that down.

Of course, Joette’s cell salt protocol, the prenatal cell salt protocol. Whew! I’m convinced that’s what made my last two at 38 years and 42 … I was 38 years old and 42 years old in my last two pregnancies. I’m convinced that’s what made those so easy. The recovery was like a dream.

Kate:  Wow! That’s great.

Emily:  So yeah, I love the cell salt.

Kate:  I feel like you’ve just given me a great idea how to label bottles for my children or other people. That’s a great way to do it is to put something on there that they can understand rather than just … Like I’ll put “head injury” or something like that. But I love those creative little ways that you label that. That’s awesome.

Emily:  In my cabinet, I have two big drawer systems. They have all the remedies in them, and they’re labeled with their name. Then I have a smaller one that says “Headaches,” “Nausea,” “Diarrhea,” so that they can just go directly into that little drawer and help themselves. My goal is to get me out of it, so they’re not always having to ask me, but they know it themselves.

Kate:  Right.

Emily:  That’s what I’m trying to do, and I’ll often quiz the kids, “Okay. So, Henry just fell and hit his head. What do we need to get?”

“Yes. Good job.”

Kate:  That’s great.

Emily:  Another thing I love homeopathy for is headaches. I talked about my migraines. I have suffered from headaches a lot in the past. You take the remedy for it. It’s gone — faster than you could take an over-the-counter med. I use it for headaches a lot. I’ve been getting those less and less since I’ve been using it. Right?

Kate:  Yay!

Emily:  Uprooting.

Another one that I lean on a lot is Sepia. I had a very rough day, not “Supermom” at all. I gave the children to an older sibling, and I said, “I’m going to go to the store.” I wandered around the store and bought some Skittles and a candle.

Kate:  A candle?

Emily:  I just needed to get out of the house for a minute. On the way home, I was listening to a podcast of Joette’s about moms who lose their moxie. I’m from Texas. I wasn’t really sure what “moxie” meant, but I knew I didn’t have it anymore.

Kate:  Whatever it was, you did not have it!

Emily:  I didn’t have it. She recommended Sepia. So, I said, “Okay.”

I walked in, gave the children the Skittles. I took some Sepia, and I stayed on that for a while. Man! That is good stuff. I can always tell when I need some more of it because I start to feel overwhelmed, over-mothered, overworked. It’s a good remedy.

Kate:  We have to label the Sepia bottle, “Moms with young children who think they’re losing it.”

Emily:  Right.

Kate:  When you say Sepia, you’re talking about Sepia 200C. That’s S-E-P-I-A 200C.

Emily:  Yes.

Kate:  I know Joette talks about Sepia in a number of places, in her blogs and in the podcasts. There’s one blog called “No Joy: Postpartum Depression.” But a good thing to do if you’re trying to find out about a certain condition or a remedy, on Joette’s website — joettecalabrese.com — you can go, and at the top right-hand side, you’ll see a search bar. You can just enter the word “Sepia” in there or “mom” or whatever. Then you can search the blogs and the podcasts and the articles that she’s written and find a link to those places where she mentions that particular condition or remedy.

Another thing that you can do — I know we’ve talked about this over and over — but I think it’s worth mentioning here is — I don’t know if you do this, Emily, but I even do it — I’ll just go on to my Google search bar, and I’ll type in “Joette Calabrese” or even just “Joette” and a condition, and it brings up different blogs or a podcast where she addresses that.

Emily:  Oh, absolutely! When my last child was born, she was two days old, and the four-year old was screaming in pain. I mean, just screaming! And my husband texted me. It’s in the middle of the night, obviously — that’s how it always happens. He texted me, and he said, “Her ear … she’s dying.” But he didn’t want to bring her in with the baby, in case she had a cold or something.

I did, from my phone — Googled “Joette” plus “earaches.” And up popped it, and I texted him “Hepar sulph.” That’s what he gave her. Two doses later, she was sound asleep, and he went back to sleep.

Anytime she has an ear infection, it’s always for her. It’s Hepar sulph. But it takes two doses. I wrote that down in my notes: “She takes two doses.”

Kate:  That’s awesome that you keep those notes. I think that’s very important because we can see patterns, I think, with our children. Like, for this child, this seems to work, this child … Do you notice that, Emily?

Emily:  Absolutely. But for me, the two doses was important because my years as classical study, I wanted it to work with the one dose within minutes. If it didn’t, I had a tendency to, like Joette says, run around like a chicken with my head cut off. I would panic. “This didn’t work. Let’s try this one. Let’s try this one!” Before I’d know it, we had done three or four.

So, writing down, “it takes two doses” …

But that’s another thing I learned through the Gateway was to give it four doses before you decide to change. That really helped me stay focused. So, writing that down for that child to take two doses with the Hepar for her ear pain.

Kate:  Do you keep notes like that for all of your children? What’s your system for keeping track of the different remedies for all the kids?

Emily:  It’s often written in the last page of the current book I’m reading. But I do, I just will write it down or praise the Lord for our phones that we can do that. But because of Joette’s system of the file folders, I can just rip that page out and throw it into their file. I’m not very good at note taking. I’ll just write it down in the closest thing to me.

Kate:  But like you said, then you can take that and put it into their file. Yes.

Emily:  Right. I tried notebooks. I tried notebook per kid. Then I got too many kids. The file system makes perfect sense.

Kate:  Yeah. Tell us the story about your mother-in-law. I know she had a very bad accident. Tell us about that.

Emily:  She was leaving my home and tripped over some decorative rocks that I had put out. She fell and didn’t catch herself with her hands. She just fell onto her face. When we got her back inside the house, she was profusely bleeding from her nose. Her nose was completely flat against her face.

Kate:  Oh, my gosh!

Emily:  My sister-in-law and I both use homeopathy. She went directly to my cabinet. We got her Arnica and Hypericum right away and started alternating those back and forth while everybody around tried to discuss, “What are we going to do? Are we going to take her to the ER? Are we going to call 911?” She’s in her 70s, so a fall is kind of a big deal.

Kate:  Right.

Emily:  She said, “Are you sure I need to go?”

We pulled the towel away from her face, and her nose was very broken. But at this point, the bleeding had almost stopped … thanks to the Arnica. They took her to the ER and continued to dose the Hypericum and the Arnica.

When she got there, and I hope this isn’t TMI (too much gross), but she was complaining of something in her nose. She scratched at her nose, and a very large blood clot was there.

The doctor said, “You look fine. You need to see an ear, nose and throat guy in a couple of days. But there’s nothing I can do.” Two days later, she saw the ENT and he was shocked. He couldn’t believe how good her whole face looked.

Kate:  Wow!

Emily:  Then we started her on the Symphytum because he said, “We don’t need to do surgery. Everything is set.” We started her on the Symphytum. Other than bruising, she was fine which is shocking.

But the funny part about that one, she called me about a week later and said, “What were you giving me?” I said, “I gave you Hypericum.”

She said, “Well, I have this knee pain that’s been waking me up in the middle of the night.” She said, “It’s gone!”

So, she wanted to buy herself some Hypericum to keep on hand, in case her knee pain came back.

Kate:  Wow! That’s great.

Emily:  I didn’t even know she had that knee pain. I would have helped her.

Kate:  I’d like to transition now into having you give a few words of encouragement to our listeners. To start that out, I wanted to just read a few sentences from an email that you wrote to Joette, if that’s okay with you.

Emily:  Sure.

Kate:  It was a great email. I wish I could read the whole thing. But in this email, you say, “The real reward,” and I’ll just paraphrase here, “of teaching those Gateway classes is seeing the moms fight for their kids. They know there is something better out there. They just need to be shown the way. The pride on their faces, I know you know what I’m talking about. I’m so grateful for your classes. Not only have I healed my own family and many others, but I’ve given them the tools and confidence to do it for themselves. Thank you,” you say.

I just love what you wrote in this email to Joette. I think that is it. That is it! Just seeing people get a hold of this, get the knowledge and see their lives transform.

Just talk to us a little bit more about encouraging those moms. What would you say to friends of yours or others who are starting on their journey to homeopathy or even have been using homeopathy for a while? What are your tips, Emily?

Emily:  It’s funny. I know I wrote that email, but I teared up remembering writing that because I think I cried as I wrote that to Joette.

As a young mom, I was only 20 when I had my first baby, I really wanted somebody to tell me that I was enough, that I was her mom and what I know to be true in my gut was right. I didn’t have anybody to tell me that. That’s what I often tell moms.

You’re the mom! You’re the mom, and you’re the one that’s going to stay up two nights in a row making sure that you’re doing the right thing. You’re the one that’s going to sacrifice to make sure that they’re eating the right thing. Nobody else. You’re the only one that’s going to fight for your kids. That’s what you’ve got to do. Sometimes you’ve got to dig your toes in hard.

You’re not tossed to and fro on the whims of the popular fad.

“This is the newest and greatest drug.”

You don’t have to worry about that. You can let others worry about that, if it’s safe. You know that this is safe, and this is going to take care of your kids.

We are the ones that carry these children. We love these children. Now, we can take care of our children.

That’s our job! I love that homeopathy gives us this safe way — that works. It’s not just safe, but it works! So, that in the middle of the night when they have an ear pain, we’re there! Or when they fall and they hurt themselves, we have something for them. It’s such a gift to give, not just our kids but to other moms around us.

Joette:  As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising. But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

In these podcasts, I focus on those students of mine who have already tunneled in and learned how to take care of themselves, family, friends, and pets, and even livestock using homeopathic medicine. Many of these students began their education by participating in one of my Gateway to Homeopathy study groups. And now, after taking one or more of my courses, they’re well-trained to use my spceific brand of homeopathy. I hope listening to this podcast has inspired you to follow in their footsteps. With the proper training, you, too, can nurture and protect the health of your family and loved ones with Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:  You just listened to a podcast from PracticalHomeopathy.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shares her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Pandora, Stitcher, TuneIn and iHeartRadio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

These Moms with Moxie podcasts are designed to be inspirational, not specifically educational. No Remedy Card is provided.

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

04:16    Arnica for bruising

09:17    A family study group

13:32    Aconite and the surgical protocols — for a dog

17:41    Lyme remedy

21:03    Bioplasma on plants

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Homeopathic remedy kits

Chronic Lyme Disease: Are You Sure About That? (blog post)

Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Students of Joette Calabrese Facebook group

Buster, the Bad Office Dog’s blogs

From Tendon, Bone and Cartilage Problems to Healing with Homeopathy (blog post)

My blog, podcasts and Facebook Live

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 82.

Joette:  Joette Calabrese here, folks. I’m happy that you’ve joined me for my podcast today. You’re in for a treat. From my virtual classroom, I’m privileged to see how homeopathy is transforming lives all over the globe. Their successes inspire me. They’re glorious and powerful, and I can’t keep their triumphs a secret. I want you to hear the excitement my students experience, too. So, you can be inspired by their unique stories. With the help from Kate, my reporter, I bring you a podcast series I call, “Moms with Moxie.” Sometimes we even interview “Dads with Audacity” or “Teens with Tenacity.” See how regular mothers and others — average folks who love healing those around them — have gone from freaking to fabulous by simply applying what they’ve learned using what I call Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:  Hi! This is Kate. I’d like to welcome you to another Mom with Moxie podcast. I get to meet some pretty fabulous women on these podcasts, and today is no exception. I have a super Mom with Moxie who has used homeopathy in many different ways, even on plants! So, I’m pretty excited to get to learn from her and for you all to meet her. So, Janet, welcome to the podcast.

Janet:  Thank you. Good to be here.

Kate:  Janet, let’s get to know you a little bit. Can you tell us about yourself?

Janet:  Sure. I live in Virginia just outside of Washington DC. I’ve been married for 33 years, have two adult sons who both found wonderful women who I love.

Kate:  Oh! That’s a blessing.

Janet:  It is a huge blessing. I have a four-month-old grandson, two dogs, and two granddogs who visit often. Every one of them mentioned above has used homeopathy. Each household has kits so they can call me if they have issues.

Kate:  Oh, that’s great! They use the homeopathy and like to learn about it.

Janet:  Absolutely. Well, they have me, so they’re not so much on learning too much about it. But they know the Nux vomica remedy for hangovers — all the important ones.

Kate:  That’s funny.

Janet:  Yeah. My daughter-in-law, actually, she asked me to be in the delivery room when she delivered my first grandson.

Kate:  Oh, that’s so special.

Janet:  It was very special. So, we made good use of the pregnancy and childbirth section of Joette’s Survivalist Guide. She actually was the first one to use Nux vomica for something other than hangovers when she had nausea during pregnancy.

Kate:  Okay, so that helped her during her pregnancy?

Janet:  It absolutely did. My son actually called me a couple of times during her pregnancy when she was in Texas, and I think had a cold or something. He said, “Mom, is there something that Shelby can use for her cold symptoms?” (since she couldn’t take over-the-counter meds like Advil or Tylenol because she was pregnant). So, I sent a picture of Boiron’s ColdCalm. She was in Texas at the time. She could just go to that pharmacy and find that in a store. And it worked!

Kate:  Yay! That’s great. I guess I haven’t thought about that much because I’m not having babies at this time. But that is one advantage of homeopathy is it’s safe for the most part. There are a few remedies that you want to be careful of using when you’re pregnant. But it’s a much better alternative than using allopathic medications when you’re pregnant. So, it’s a great option to have.

Janet:  Yes, I agree.

Kate:  Tell us a little bit about how you came to know about homeopathy or study homeopathy. Give us your pathway into homeopathy.

Janet:  Well, I’m athletic, and I sometimes bruise or fall. So, my first introduction to homeopathy was Arnica, and at the time, I didn’t even realize that Arnica was homeopathy. I think a dentist had said, “Oh, here, your teeth are … use Arnica.” I searched for Arnica, bought it, and it helped.

Then my husband and I were adjusting a shower door, and there was a really heavy hinge, and it fell. I reached my hand out to catch it. I’m like, “Oh, this is going to really hurt and bruise.” Even my bones hurt.

So, I Googled, and I think Joette’s site might have come up, and it said to take Arnica. So, I took Arnica. I had Boiron’s little box of it. I took it, I think, once an hour for the first three hours, and it never bruised — and I bruise easily. It was unbelievable!

Kate:  Is that what led you then to learning more about homeopathy?

Janet:  Actually, no. I still didn’t really connect that they were homeopathy. The next thing I used that was homeopathy — and this one I knew it was homeopathy, but it didn’t push me to learn about it — was I got bit by a tick. A friend had sent me a link to Joette’s site. It’s called, Chronic Lyme Disease: Are You Sure About That? So, I tried that, and I used it because I didn’t want to use antibiotics. I was a little nervous like, “Oh my gosh! Am I going to get Lyme? Am I going to get Lyme?” Then eventually, I just forgot about it, and it worked fine, and I’m fine.

Kate:  Oh good! That’s wonderful. So, how long did you take the Ledum? I’m assuming it was Ledum 200C that you took.

Janet:  Yeah, the 200C that’s mentioned in her thing. I think it was — I can’t remember — it might have been twice a day. It’s in that Chronic Lyme Disease: Are You Sure About That? But I think it was Ledum 200, twice a day for a week, and then then there are follow-ons. I might have done two weeks of it, but I didn’t go all four weeks of it.

Kate:  So, that led you to Joette.

Janet:  Yes. I knew about Joette at that point. But what really got me into homeopathy is I’m on a Northern Virginia Holistic Facebook group. One of the moms was forming a Gateway to Homeopathy study group. I’ve been wanting to learn more about it but didn’t really know how to. So, I joined that group and loved it. While Arnica was my gateway medicine into homeopathy, the study group was my gateway into learning so much more about homeopathy.

Kate:  So, that was your bridge to Joette and her teaching?

Janet:  Yes, absolutely.

Kate:  What did you think about starting with that? Because you’ve gone on and taken other courses from Joette as well and even consulted with her, correct?

Janet:  Yes. I’ve consulted for myself. Joette was kind enough to let me sit in on my sister-in-law’s. I learned even more about homeopathy when I sit in on her phone calls.

Kate:  I know. You would think it’s just learning what remedies to take for yourself, but every time that I have a consulting appointment with her, I learn so much.

Janet:  Me, too.

Kate:  Yeah, it’s good.

So, what are your thoughts about that whole path that you took to learning homeopathy, the Gateway group? Then did you consult next, or did you take some courses?

Janet:  No, I took courses. I loved the study group. I went in thinking, “Well, I’m the old geezer here. I’m a grandma. Everybody else has young kids. Am I going to really learn stuff that’s applicable to me?” Well, I learned stuff that I could use for myself as well. Now, that I have a grandson, I’m very happy that I did it with young moms because I learned all good stuff that I can use if my grandson ever has any issues.

Kate:  Nice! Now, have you guys stayed in contact, the group that you studied with?

Janet:  I think a lot of us have gone on and taken new courses, and we got a discount because we did a group buy. So, we are on Joette’s Students of Joette Facebook group. A lot of times, I see people that I know there. But while the group was going on, one of the mom’s son was having teething issues. I forget exactly how she worded it, but it was pretty funny. I think she only had 30C of Chamomilla.

She said, “That’s just not doing it. I can’t stand it anymore. I ordered 200. Does anybody have the 200?”

At that time, I had already bought my kit, and I did buy also a 200 kit, and I had it. So, she came over, and I let her borrow some until she was able to get her 200s.

The next day, she said, “Thank you so much. It definitely helped.”

Kate:  So, you are actually leading a study group right now that I think is very interesting. So, tell us about that.

Janet:  Yes, I am and I’m excited about it because as I’m leading the group, I’m also learning and remembering things that I had forgotten or that are now more relevant to me.

Kate:  So, who are all in this study group.

Janet:  Well, we have a family reunion every year. At this last one, we have a great picture: eight young children sitting on a couch, and there are all these new moms there as well. So, I offered to lead a Gateway to Homeopathy class if they wanted me to. Four of them actually took me up on it. So, I’m thrilled to be helping my family learn about homeopathy and be able to treat their children with more holistic means.

Kate:  That’s wonderful! Every mom listening out there is probably super-excited for you and wanting that same thing that their families would all embrace homeopathy. So, that’s really great.

Now, is it just your family or are there other people that are joining you for the study group?

Janet:  Well, right now, it’s just my family, but I have two friends who are also grandmas. They’re kind of my posse. They’re interested in it as well. So, I said that I would do a group with them, but they want their own little private group. They don’t want it on Zoom. They want it in person, so we can have an opportunity to get together and have snacks!

Kate:  That’s a huge benefit to meeting in person — snacks!

Janet:  Yes.

Kate:  So, why don’t you tell us about some of the ways that you’ve used homeopathy over the years?

Janet:  First, before we move on, I still want to — while we’re on the subject of talking about this current study group — I want to tell you a couple of exciting things for me that happened during this study group.

In Week 1, Joette immediately gives two remedies that you can use. One of them was Chamomilla. And one of my nieces said, “Wow, my daughter is very irritable.” I think the irritableness of it got her attention thinking, “I bet that’s teething.”

So, the next morning, she went out to the store and found Camilia. She actually bought the drops that were from Boiron that had Chamomilla in it and gave her two doses of it. She said she was fine, absolutely perfect the rest of the day. She was very irritable the previous day.

Kate:  So right away, Week 1, she got to put this knowledge to use.

Janet:  Absolutely. And while that niece was mentioning that, another niece said, “Oh, my daughter has the same issue. I think I might try that, too.”

Kate:  Oh, that’s great.

Janet:  Yeah, so the very next day, they put it to use.

Then on Week 3 when we talked about first aid, one of my favorite remedies is Ledum because we live in a tick-infested area. So, I told a hiking story that I had a little first aid kit of homeopathic remedies. I got bit by some bug. I wasn’t sure what it was, and it started swelling up. So, I immediately took Ledum. I think I only had a 30C in there at the time, and I took one or two doses of it. Five minutes later, I couldn’t even tell I got bit. So, I told that story in the group.

Then the next evening, my sister-in-law called and said, “I got to tell you. My other daughter got stung by two wasps and took Ledum.” Fifteen minutes later, they couldn’t even tell that she got stung by wasps. I was so excited that they used that. So again, the very next day after our study group meeting, they put it to use, and I said, “You know, you don’t have to use and test everything out that we learn each week!”

Kate:  That’s great.

Janet:  So, I was very excited about that.

Kate:  Yeah.

Janet:  I’m also empowering them. They can figure out what remedies to use, and they don’t even need to call me.

Kate:  That’s wonderful that they’re learning it for themselves because then they can teach their children.

Janet:  Absolutely … and grandchildren.

Kate:  I know that you use homeopathy with some of your animals. Why don’t you share with us how you’ve used homeopathy with your dogs?

Janet:  Yes, I have, and I love it. It’s not a placebo because they take it, and they feel a lot better.

Kate:  Yeah.

Janet:  Well, first of all, I love Buster, the Bad Office Dog’s blogs. One of his blogs even helped my sister with her knee arthritis, and she can walk and play with her grandkids now. She keeps calling me, “her cure.”

I was like, “I’m not your cure. Homeopathy is your cure.”

I got that from Buster’s Blog. It was From Tendon, Bone and Cartilage Problems to Healing with Homeopathy.

Kate:  Oh! Buster would be so happy to know that he helped someone.

Janet:  He helps me a lot especially with my two dogs and my two granddogs. So, tell Buster, “Thanks.”

Kate:  Okay, I will. When I’m talking with Joette next, I’ll be sure to pass it along.

Janet:  Good.

But the biggest help that homeopathy was for my dogs was I came home one day, and we have a dog door, so the dogs can go in and out. They usually come out. This time only, one of my dogs came out to greet me. I was looking for King — and nowhere to be found. He is usually the one who is always by my side.

Then I looked out back, and his butt was on the ledge of the pool, and his paws were in the water. He just kind of looked at me with these sad eyes, and he couldn’t move. So, I ran out, and I pulled him out of the pool. I ran back in, got a bottle of Aconitum. Took one myself and then gave one to him. Then ran back in to call the vet, and I grabbed the bottle of Arnica.

He couldn’t move when I went in. When I came out, he had walked over to this little bush to hide where he thinks I can’t see them — even though his heinie is sticking out. Aconite worked that quickly just by itself.

Kate:  Wow! What was wrong with him?

Janet:  Well, he had a huge mass in his spleen. When I called the vet, they usually say, “Can you hold or is this an emergency.”

This is the first time I had to say, “Well, it’s kind of an emergency.”

So, I had to take him in. When I had come in and was talking to the vet, I’m thinking in the back of my mind, “Oh no. I’m going to have to carry this 80-pound dog to my car and then put him in the car and bring him to the vet.”

But all I had to do — because he could walk a little bit — is just help him along over there and just lift him into the car. So, I was so impressed.

Then he had the mass in his spleen, and they finally figured it out. They said, “This is an emergency. It could rupture.”

I was giving him lots of Arnica because it’s good for hemorrhaging. They said, “Well, call the hospital right now and see if they can get you in. You should bring him over there.”

So, I brought him over there and left him there for the night. They were saying this is what could happen. We’ll do some tests first. As I was leaving, I was giving him Arnica because that was the night before, and I wasn’t going to be able to give him some before the surgery. I was trying to use Joette’s surgery protocol with the dog, but I couldn’t sneak it over to the vet in the middle of the night and help him out, or to go over there before he went into surgery.

But he made it through, and he had the best possible outcome, and he’s fine.

Kate:  Oh, good!

Janet:  Yeah, completely fine, yeah. Afterwards, I was giving him Arnica and Hypericum for pain.

Kate:  Yeah, Aconite can be great for pain as well as Arnica. I used Aconite when I had a horse accident, a horse stepped on my arm. Joette had mentioned to me that Aconite can actually be good for pain after a shocking injury like that. I hadn’t thought about it that way, but it did help the pain as well. We always think shock when we hear Aconite, right? But it can also be good for pain after a shocking event.

Janet:  Interesting. Yeah, I didn’t know that. Good. I learned something new today!

My other dog, Xena, was not to be outdone or felt left out that her brother Kingsley got homeopathy. Her labs came back from the vet, and she had tested positive with the Lyme titer. Luckily, our vet doesn’t want to treat Lyme unless she’s showing symptoms. I did notice that she was showing symptoms. She was having random lameness on different legs.

So, I decided to give her a protocol I had read about from a vet to help with Lyme. It was Ledum 1M — which I had never used an M potency before (which is a one thousand) — and use that three times a day for three days, and that’s it.

So, it was like, “I’m going to give this a try because she’s really limping, and I don’t want her to have chronic Lyme.” Then on day four, she was no longer limping at all. That was the only symptom that I had noticed. So, I haven’t taken her back to the vet for her labs, but I’m curious to see what her Lyme titers are like and if she would test negative on it.

Kate:  Right. She hasn’t had any more symptoms since that time?

Janet:  No more symptoms. Oh no, she is definitely back to her old self and running and jumping and doing everything.

Kate:  Now, when we were talking earlier, you were saying something about using the protocol that Joette has on a blog as well. What was that for?

Janet:  For Lyme, you mean?

Kate:  Yeah.

Janet:  Yeah, that was for whenever we get bit by ticks.

Kate:  Oh, okay. So, if you’re out, and you get bit by a tick, then you use the protocol that Joette has on her blog. I think you have the name of that blog.

Janet:  Yes, the name is Chronic Lyme Disease: Are You Sure About That? That holistic Facebook group was how I found Joette’s Gateway Study Group. Everybody’s posting all the time: “Oh no! My daughter got bit by a tick. My son got bit by a tick. I got bit by a tick. I’m freaking out! Where do I send the tick to, to get the tick report, to see if it’s this, or that, or the other?”

And, I used to freak out, too. Now, when I get bit by a tick, I don’t freak out. I just use Joette’s protocol that’s on that blog for me, my family, friends. I take it, and I don’t worry about it.

Whereas before, I had called my doctor, a functional medicine doctor, and he actually put me on antibiotics. I thought, well, I didn’t question it, and I said, “If he’s telling me to take antibiotics ….” So, I did.

Then the next time I got bit, I called him, and I said, “Well, isn’t there something more holistic?”

He gave me … I forget even what it was, but it’s not antibiotics but something else. Also, he sent the tick in and waited for the results which took forever to come back. So, I was worried about it the whole time. But now, whenever I get bit by a tick, “Okay, here’s the Ledum 200. Take this.”

My husband, Pat, while I was out of town, he got bit. He went to Joette’s site and looked up the protocol, and then he told me after the fact that he started taking it.

Kate:  Awwww!

Janet:  I was so happy about that.

Kate:  Yeah! So, Janet, I know you also have used homeopathy with your garden. While I have several books on using homeopathy with plants and in gardens, I’ve yet to use homeopathy on them. So, tell us how you’re using it.

Janet:  Well, I started with getting Hyland’s Bioplasma which I’m also on a gardening homeopathy site, and that’s what a lot of people seem to use. That’s kind of the gateway into gardening homeopathy. So, I thought it was going to be expensive. I’m going to be using all these pellets. Like how am I going to apply it?

It’s really pretty easy. I take two pellets, put it in a liter jug, and shake it. Then I pour that into a watering can. (They say to do it into a 3-liter watering can, and I don’t have that big of a one.) Then I water the plants with it. If it’s a tree, you can water the bark; you can water the leaves; and/or you can water the base of it.

My tomato plants weren’t doing all that well. They had brown spots on the bottom of them. Once I did Bioplasma — which I think it was a magnesium deficiency, I think — it didn’t matter because I was doing all the cell salts at once. So, I watered it. Then I probably didn’t go out for like maybe another five days. When I looked, first of all, the leaves were so much more lush. The new tomatoes forming … none of them had any brown spots on the bottom.

I also put it on my herbs. We’ve had such dry, hot, hot weather that the leaves were limp. I thought one of the plants might be dead or dying. So, I watered them with this Bioplasma water. Probably a few days later … well, the next day the leaves were definitely not limp anymore. The plant that I thought might be dying was sprouting out new growth on the bottom of it. So, I’m convinced it helped.

Kate:  So, have you only used the Bioplasma with your plants or have you use used any single remedies.

Janet:  Actually, I have used a single remedy that Joette mentioned to me. On one of my consults, we got to chatting about dogs and fleas. She mentioned Psorinum, and that helped some of her clients keep bugs off of dogs and themselves. I was like, “Well, if that can keep bugs off of humans and dogs, maybe it can help with plants.”

So, I made up that same concoction the same way. I put two pellets of that remedy in a jug. Then I watered my kale because these white flies were all over and eating all my kale. So, I poured it on the leaves, and they kind of all flew off. Then I watered all the soil. Then the next day, I went out, and I shook one of the kale plants, and there were still some white flies but not nearly as many. Then I watered them again with the same concoction. Went out the next day, and there were hardly any white flies on it.

Kate:  Wow!

Janet:  I think you have to do it everyday because I did not do it every day religiously. After I waited a couple of days, they were all back. It’s not a permanent solution, but if you’re on it, and I think can do it every day, then that might help.

Kate:  Well, good job. That’s awesome. You’ve shared some very interesting scenarios with us today on how you’ve used homeopathy. I want to wrap this up by asking you the question: What advice do you have for those people who are listening today?

Janet:  Well, I’ll share a quick story to make a point of my advice. When I was on a consult call with my sister-in-law, Joette mentioned to her to think of homeopathy as medicine because it is medicine and reach for that first instead of Tylenol or Advil. Then, because homeopathy won’t interfere with those drugs, if you still feel like you need to take them, so you’ve got nothing to lose. So, you take your homeopathy first, and then if you still need to take them, you can. But a lot of times you won’t even need them.

That really made an impact on my sister-in-law because she never thought of homeopathy as medicine. Her go-to was always to grab that bottle of Tylenol or grab that bottle of Advil. I know she was reaching for homeopathy because the next time she needed an over-the-counter drug, she called me and asked, “Okay, I’ve got this, and I want to use homeopathy medicine first. So, what remedy should I use?”

Because she has a kit, she had what I recommended to her, and she could take it. She let me know later that it definitely worked. She didn’t need to go for the conventional medicine.

Kate:  Janet, I think that’s a really good point that a lot of times when people learn about homeopathy, they think, “Oh well, it’s good for that one thing.” But they don’t think about the broader picture, and that it is a medicine. We have to respect it, but also that it is powerful, and it can help. So, I love that point. I think that’s really good.

I hope that those of you listening today feel encouraged as well about starting study groups and sharing with your family. I think that was a great idea how you brought the Gateway to Homeopathy Study book with you to the family reunion and talked about it. I think that’s wonderful. So, I hope that other people feel encouraged and inspired. Thank you.

Janet:  Thank you.

Joette:  As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising. But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

In these podcasts, I focus on those students of mine who have already tunneled in and learned how to take care of themselves, family, friends, and pets, and even livestock using homeopathic medicine. Many of these students began their education by participating in one of my Gateway to Homeopathy study groups. And now, after taking one or more of my courses, they’re well-trained to use my specific brand of homeopathy. I hope listening to this podcast has inspired you to follow in their footsteps. With the proper training, you, too, can nurture and protect the health of your family and loved ones with Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:  You just listened to a podcast from PracticalHomeopathy.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shares her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Pandora, Stitcher, TuneIn and iHeartRadio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

These Moms with Moxie podcasts are designed to be inspirational, not specifically educational. No Remedy Card is provided.

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

01:16    Infections

08:48    When the remedy is acting; use of observational skills

14:59    Uprooting the condition

18:08    UTI and honeymoon cystitis

20:53    Feminopathy relaunch

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 81 with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:  This is Joette Calabrese, and I’d like to welcome you to the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast. Women and men worldwide are taking back control of their families’ health and learning how to heal their bodies naturally, safely and effectively. So, if you’re hungry to learn more, you’ve come to the right place. Stay tuned as we give you the tools — and the inspiration you need — as I share my decades of experience and knowledge using this powerful medicine we call homeopathy.

Kate:  Hi. I’m Kate, and I’m here with Joette again today for another podcast. Today, we’re talking about female issues. So, all you ladies, listen up. This is going to be an important podcast for you. We’re going to talk about a common condition that a lot of women experience. Get your pens and papers ready to take some notes.

All right, Joette, let’s get down to business and talk about these feminine issues. What do you want to discuss today?

Joette:  Well, one of the most common female conditions is infections: bladder, kidney, urethra, ureter, et cetera. I do want to cover that. Particularly for those who have chronic UTIs, I’m speaking to you because everyone believes that they have to take antibiotics. In my experience — not my personal experience, although I’ve certainly had a few UTIs many years ago — but in my experience in listening to my students and clients and taking cases for the last 25-30 years, I have noted that the history — because I take the history and I take the history of a person’s health quite seriously — that the history is often, “Got a UTI, used an antibiotic. Got another UTI, used an antibiotic; another UTI, antibiotic; UTI, antibiotic; UTI, antibiotic.” It gets faster and faster and tighter and tighter.

Now, they’re using that more and more frequently until after many rounds of antibiotics, we often see women left with interstitial cystitis that feels like a urinary tract infection, but they don’t find the microorganisms in the urine.

So, it’s declared, “Nope, you don’t have an infection!”

“But it feels like it. I have the urgency. I have the frequency. I have the pain, pain afterwards. Sometimes the pain radiates down the legs. I have aching in my kidneys. What is going on? You don’t find anything?”

That is often interstitial cystitis.

Kate:  What is “interstitial cystitis?” That’s a tongue twister.

Joette:  Yes, it is. Well, interstitial cystitis is what they often call bladder pain syndrome. It is a feeling as though you have a bladder infection and those other areas: lower urinary tract, upper urinary tract, in the back, et cetera. Often if it lasts more than about six weeks, that is frequently what is then pronounced as, “Well, it’s a syndrome instead of an acute infection.”

Not nice! Because what it is — a syndrome, especially in this particular case — means what was originally an acute condition is now a chronic condition.

What’s the difference? An acute comes and goes, and it’s over with. If treated properly, it comes and goes and is often over with for many months or years or perhaps even forever. If treated incorrectly, in a sloppy manner such as just throwing drugs at it that only kill microorganisms, then we often end up with a chronic condition — which means that the person, the woman is suffering (it’s usually a woman) … suffers from this chronic pain and discomfort and urgency and frequency. But more often, it’s really awful pain.

One person described it to me once as, “It felt like someone set my uterus on fire, and then stomped on it with combat boots.” The pain was horrible! So, it felt like she had been kicked. But before she was kicked in the bladder, there was tremendous burning pain.

And so, their entire lives — and I’ve worked with many, many women with this condition — their entire lives are focused around one organ, the bladder (and those that are relative to the bladder, so, the kidneys, the ureter, the urethra, et cetera), and it ruins their lives.

Now, they can’t go anywhere. They can’t count on anything. They have to wear pads. The pain is all encompassing. Being tethered to the bathroom is chronic. It’s not nice.

I believe that the problem has to do with the sloppy, poorly way the urinary tract infection was dealt with at the onset. If we use a homeopathic medicine that is correct, that suits this condition and this person, we will find that there is no need to go to a bazooka to kill a mosquito.

Kate:  A bazooka. What an image.

Right! That happens so often.

Joette:  Listen. I know that antibiotics have been lifesavers in the past. They have saved people from disease and death. There is a place for antibiotics, but not if you have homeopathy, to be honest. But let’s say you didn’t have homeopathy; I have to give credit where credit is due.

However, what has occurred in our society, not just the U.S., North America, but all over the world. Certainly, the same thing happens in South America and Europe and India, et cetera, and China, is that any time there’s any infection, the doctor automatically gives antibiotics.

So, infections come. We live on this earth where there are microorganisms everywhere. It happens frequently. So, that means that antibiotics are administered frequently. They become less and less valuable as time goes on, not only for that particular person but for that particular microorganism. So, we want to try to avoid them at almost any cost, if possible.

Now, if you don’t have the homeopathic medicine or you’ve used it, and it’s just not working for you … because most of these medicines, when we discuss this, will work on approximately 80% to 85% of the population who has this particular condition. That’s a very high percentage.

How do we know those numbers? The Banerjis have done the research. They have shown time and again that by using their specific protocol for this condition, that is the kind of result that they can expect.

Now, what happens if you happen to be in the 20% to 15% of society in which that doesn’t do any good? And I will say parenthetically, most people think they belong there?

Kate:  That’s true.

Joette:  It really is true. Most people feel, “Oh, well, what if I’m there? I guess I am there. It’s not working fast enough, et cetera.”

We have a second line. I teach this particular condition in Alternatives to Antibiotics, my course. But I also teach it in our course Feminopathy. We’re going to be talking about that. Should you be interested, this is where I train you how to use this. But I’m not going to leave you high and dry now. We will go into, in-depth, what remedy I would certainly begin with. I’ve also talked about it on my blog.

So, any time … also parenthetically, let me also mention … any time you have a condition, just in your browser, put in the words “Joette Calabrese” and the name of the condition. You’ll find that I have probably covered it with the name of the medicine, the potency, the frequency, and often a story behind it so that there’s a little more understanding of how to use it.

When it becomes a more complex condition, then I say I have to save that for when I teach courses. That’s where we really dig in and learn how to use these medicines.

Kate:  Joette, when someone has a urinary tract infection, they want relief right away because they’re suffering. So, how easy is this to solve with homeopathy?

Joette:  Well, I think it’s relatively easy. But I will tell you that the most difficult part is not finding the homeopathic medicine. That’s the easy part because I give it to you. I’m going to give it to you today. I give it to you in all of these forums. If you get a simple homeopathy book on the shelf of a bookstore, you will find the medicine that probably will do the work. The hard part, I believe, is in observing “what is it that you are now seeing.”

Most of us want more, faster. A lot of times, they’ll say, “But I still have the urinary tract infection!”

Well, does it still feel as though someone set your bladder on fire, and that you’ve been stomped on by boots? Or is it now maybe a 6 instead of a whopping 10 in degree of pain and discomfort, urgency, frequency, et cetera? That is the part that folks don’t understand that they need to pay very close attention to.

Kate:  Right. They just want it all gone right away within hours, I think, really.

Joette:  Right. It can happen that way. But more often than not, we see not only the condition abating (so, that is the pain is not as extreme; the frequency is not as grand; the urgency is not as trying), but we also see that their disposition has changed.

I know that sounds like, “How could that possibly matter?”

But it does matter because they become less frantic. They feel as though they can take a nice long nap and when they get up from the nap, they can feel refreshed. Or, they find they have more energy now, and their focus isn’t on the constant sensation in the bladder. They still have the sensation, but now they’re able to prepare their meals. Now, they still have the sensation of urgency, but it’s not so bad that they can’t get to the grocery store and get what they need for their families.

Kate:  If this isn’t yourself that you’re treating, say you’re helping one of your children or another family member, you can often tell how a remedy is working by looking at their face, I’ve found. Because like you said, if their facial expression is that of pain and they’re not talking, that’s often a higher pain level. Then when they start to relax a little bit, maybe take their mind off of the pain and do something else or start talking to you, that is often that the pain is lessening. They may not realize how much their pain has lessened. But if you watch their body language, you can tell.

Joette:  That is absolutely so! What homeopathy offers us, as the person who is healing the members of their family, is the opportunity to gain observation skills that they might not have had before. Instead of asking questions, we just observe:

If you see that that’s changing, then you know it’s very likely that you’re onto the right homeopathic medicine.

Kate:  The person, themselves, may not realize that there’s a change, but you can see that there’s a change. That’s very important.

Joette:  Yes, it is. They probably won’t realize there’s a change until there’s quite a dramatic shift. You’re looking for the nuances to observe.

One of the things that I love about homeopathy is that when we’re using a homeopathic medicine, whether it’s for an acute condition or a chronic condition or a species of both, is that the medicine, if it works 10%, don’t give up and say, “Oh, it’s only 10%. It’s not good enough. I have to go to another medicine.”

No, no, no. This is where the mistakes are made.

Continue using the medicine and go to 28% improvement. Then keep using the homeopathic medicine and use it accordingly — meaning you’re going to use it according to the need. In other words, the greater the symptoms, the more frequently we use it, usually. Then it goes to 28% improvement. Then we watch, and we watch. Now, we’re on the second day. Now, we’re seeing 60% improvement. If we keep going, we will see that it will most likely take us to 100% — particularly in an acute condition or an acute UTI.

Kate:  But, Joette, what if the person has that 8 out of 10 level pain? You hate to see someone suffer like that. We just went through this with a family member. How often should you give it? You’re talking about that 10% you’re watching. And say, the remedy works, and their pain level comes down now from an 8 to a 7. Right? That 7 is still very painful. You’re talking about, “No, stay with that remedy because it still helped that 10%.”

Joette:  If the pain is severe enough, then we’re going to use it more frequently. We would use the medicines maybe every hour. If the person was in danger, let’s say hemorrhaging, and you’re on the way to the hospital, you might use it every 15 minutes. I don’t imagine that someone is going to generally hemorrhage from a urinary tract infection but using that as another example. Or if the pain is very, very severe, yes, you can use it every 10 minutes. As the pain minimizes, then you start going to every 30 minutes. As you see that the person’s shoulders are now dropping instead of being tight up against their ears with angst, now it’s getting better and better. Now, you’re going to administer it every hour … every three hours …then perhaps every six hours.

If you start every six hours — let’s say by the second day or even later in the first day — and now at six hours, you can see it’s not close enough, then go back. You’re looking for that tipping point. You go back to every five hours or every four hours and allow it to do its work. And then try to go back to six hours later, and then to 12 hours. Usually, a urinary tract infection that’s an acute, particularly in a young person, will abate within hours. You see some shift within hours or a day or so. Then over a period of three or four days, we can put it to rest.

Kate:  Say that infection clears up. Now, two weeks later, a month later, the infection comes back, now what do we do? Do we just repeat those medicines again?

Joette:  I never tinker with success. Certainly, we start with the medicines that were used last that did the best work. We start in exactly the same fashion. We’re going to use it again, start it up again.

But! I pretty much guarantee — it’s not hundred percent of the time so maybe it’s not a hundred percent guarantee — but I see it so frequently that the second round (without antibiotics and all the medications that are allopathic and using only homeopathy that the second time this infection comes back, it doesn’t come back as a screaming 10 like the bladder was set on fire and tromped on by combat boots.

Now, it feels like it’s achy. It’s back again, and mostly more often than not, women will say, “Oh, no, it’s back again.”

I say, “Oh! It’s great that it’s back! Not because I want you to suffer, but here’s another opportunity to uproot it.” Because homeopathy’s unique ability is to uproot the condition, not suppress it, not kill the bugs, not kill the microorganisms. There’s no need to determine whether this is a bacterial, it’s a strep B, whether it’s a viral infection. That’s unnecessary.

What we need to know is what is the name of the condition (it’s a UTI), and how is it presenting. Once we see that, we know what to use. We use it a second time around. Now, instead of it coming back as a 10, it’s come back as say a 7 — 7 is still pretty painful or still too much urgency and frequency. However, once you started at 7, now you can go down to a 3 or a 4 faster. Then we go down to a 2, and then we go down to a 1 — administering all along. Now, the infection is gone again.

Now, let’s say it happens again. Let’s say six months from now, it happens again. This time — and it’s not always perfect like this, but it often presents this way — this time in pain, in urgency, frequency, et cetera, instead of starting at a 7, now it’s more likely to start at a 4. However, what most often women experience is the angst that goes along with it. The first thing they think is, “Oh no, it’s coming back again!”

No, no, again, another opportunity to uproot.

Now, how many times does this take? It depends on the person. It depends on how many drugs have been thrown at this condition.

Let’s say this is honeymoon cystitis. Honeymoon cystitis, you know, when young couples first get married, the woman often has pain and gets urinary tract infections from a greater amount of activity at that time in her life. So, it’s going to be more frequently that way. When we use these medicines, we’re looking to uproot the conditions so that the allopathic drugs are no longer necessary, and they actually become superfluous. Then we uproot the propensity for this to become a chronic condition — which is what we want very much to stay away from.

Kate:  All right Joette, let’s get down to the remedy. You have to share with us what remedy we should use for a UTI?

Joette:  Well, there are a number of them as you probably would have guessed. But my all-time favorite is Cantharis. Every classical homeopath knows the use of this medicine. We usually start it in a 30th potency, Cantharis 30C. If you only have X, then certainly you use Cantharis 30X.

But make sure that you’re well-stocked, folks. There’s nothing worse than knowing exactly what medicine to use and not owning it. You need to own the top 100 medicines. I cannot urge you enough to own a kit.

Cantharis 30 and it’s generally used every few hours depending on the severity. If it’s very severe, you might use it, as I said, every 15 minutes to get started or 10 minutes. Then you open it up to less frequently, as needed.

Then I also like Medorrhinum. That is in a 200 potency. That is generally used twice daily during this period of time. Sometimes when it’s a very severe case, then we increase the use of Medorrhinum, and it’s used perhaps every 3 hours.

Now, all classical homeopaths, all homeopaths of any stripe know that these two medicines are some of the best medicines. But the Banerjis have done even more work than that, and they used Medorrhinum much more frequently than the way that I was ever trained to use Medorrhinum. I don’t have a worry about it as long as you know that this indeed is a urinary tract infection. It is appropriate.

Kate:  And that is important. You have to know what you’re dealing with because you don’t want to be taking Medorrhinum frequently thinking that it’s UTI, and it’s not.

Joette:  Or Cantharis or anything else for that matter. What you want is always to know what it is you’re dealing with. You don’t have to know which microorganism is at play. What you need to know is what is happening to the bladder or urethra, et cetera.

Kate:  The honeymoon cystitis that you were talking about Joette, does Cantharis address that as well?

Joette:  Well, it can but we, homeopaths, we all know that one of the grand homeopathic medicines is Staphysagria 200C for honeymoon cystitis. It’s those women who after having relations are told they absolutely must empty their bladder, or else they’ll get a urinary tract infection, it’s Staphysagria. I like to use it in a 30th potency or a 200 potency. It is used in the same fashion as Cantharis.

Kate:  So, every …

Joette:  Every 3 hours is the general rule of thumb in the very beginning. If it’s very extreme, it can be taken every 15 minutes. If it’s not so extreme at all, it’s just mild and the person is expecting that this is going to turn into something, but it hasn’t quite yet, then we might use it only twice daily.

I have an article on this, a blog article. It’s called UTIs and antibiotics. You can look at it, “Recurring UTIs and Antibiotics: Stop the Cycle.” So, check that out. You’ll be able to read up on it a little bit more. But we go into much greater detail in all of these — because these are not the only three homeopathic medicines for this condition. It depends on how it’s presenting in other ways as well. And we’ll go into great detail in my course Feminopathy.

Kate:  You also have an infographic called The Three Feminopathy Fates. How do they get that though, Joette?

Joette:  I believe it’s going to be down below, and you just click on it. It will tell you how to go about doing that. You can download it, and you’ll keep it on your refrigerator or keep it in your medicine cabinet right by your homeopathy kit. If you got a book going that you’re putting together —- a loose-leaf binder. Many people tell me that’s how they do this. Under the category of “Female,” you put this infographic in there, and you can refer back to it time and time again. For those infographics that you use time and again, I urge people to put them in a plastic sleeve and put them in their loose-leaf binder.

Kate:  That’s just what I’ve done, Joette. I have the infographics for all of your courses. Again, these are free resources that Joette and her staff offer. You just go on her website, and you can download any of these infographics from the courses. I’m looking at the one for the Feminopathy course right now. You have some things on here for menstrual cramps, for PMS, varicose veins, hot flashes, flooding.

Joette:  Osteoporosis, that’s right, cystic breast, uterine fibroids, endometriosis, morning sickness. We tried to pull from as many different areas of a woman’s life as we possibly could. But in my course Feminopathy … which, of course, we’re re-launching, that’s what we’re talking about. We’re re-launching this course. You will be able to learn each of these and many, many, many more. Because we start at menarche in young girls and go all the way to women of a quite elderly age and cover all of the conditions that I could come up with that would be useful to most folks.

Kate:  I lead a lot of the Gateway study groups. People are always asking me, “What should I do next? Should I take a course? Should I purchase a materia medica?” I often tell them that you’re going to get the most protocols from Joette’s courses. I’m not just saying that because we’re doing a podcast. I honestly believe that if you want to learn protocols, you need to, after taking the Gateway study groups, take Joette’s courses because she details so many protocols in those courses that those courses are your best resources.

Joette:  Well, that’s right Kate. But for those folks who cannot afford a single course right now, just stick around the blog. Hang out on the podcast. Watch me on Facebook Live, and you will learn plenty. Then buy as you can. Buy a materia medica when you can. Order a number of homeopathic medicines when you can and make this a focus of your life.

Kate:  When we were talking at the beginning of the podcast, I was talking about being prepared. If you want to be able to treat these conditions yourself, you have to have the knowledge, the information, and you have to have the medicines. I just want to kind of wrap up this podcast by saying it is so important that you be well-stocked in your remedies like you said earlier Joette, and that you have the resources.

Whether it’s studying free information that you offer or your courses, just have that information at your fingertips and have some friends that you can talk to about these things. Have your study group buddies on your speed dial and be ready to contact them when an emergency situation arises because it’s hard to think when you are in that situation.

Joette:  That’s absolutely so. We have to be fiercely interested. If you take this very lightly, it can still work for you. But if you really want this to become an important part of your lifestyle, then you almost have to be fierce about it. What I mean is that focus on it, learn as much and as fast as you can, own as many homeopathic medicines as you can. Go to Wal-Mart or Wegmans or Whole Foods or your local health food store and look at the section that Boiron puts out and Hyland’s puts out.

Boiron is in blue tubes. Hyland’s is usually in white bottles. Look at even the combination medicines. You don’t have to just use single medicines. You can find combination medicines.

Now, I put a cautionary note to this. Those are the companies that I trust for combination medicines that are out there for the public. I’m not impressed with those pharmacies that manufacture homeopathic medicines that have 30 medicines in them all at once. But I do trust, and I’ve used them myself through the decades, these companies that I just mentioned and their combination medicines.

You can actually find some that are called bladder pain or something like that. I mean, they have their own names to them. And then you look on the bottle, and there are the medicines I’m talking about. I don’t think you’re going to find Medorrhinum, but you’ll certainly find Staphysagria and Cantharis.

Also, buy those because those are good for in a pinch. Leg cramps or overuse or restless legs or insomnia, sleep medicines or ColdCalm. There are many that are combinations.

Now, that is not a classical suggestion. Classical homeopaths do not normally suggest this. Because I’ve gone into a more practical way of teaching and using homeopathy, I find that it is so necessary for folks to learn how to use these medicines whether they’re a combination or not.

So, be diligent. Be curious. This is your secret weapon folks. This is a quiet way of taking care of yourself and your family that’s inexpensive. What I always say is this is what I call “intellectually delicious” because this work is so rewarding.

Joette:  As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising. But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

I hope listening to this podcast has inspired you to follow in their footsteps. With the proper training, you, too, can nurture and protect the health of your family and loved ones with Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:  You just listened to a podcast from PracticalHomeopathy.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shares her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Pandora, Stitcher, TuneIn and iHeartRadio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.

 IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

02:30    How the books define homeopathy

11:08    A nurse’s comment

16:45    I have a mission

22:05    Kate’s Study group

23:51    Ignatia amara

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Gateway to Homeopathy II:  Only available for purchase through your resource page, after having taken the prerequisite Gateway to Homeopathy I (referenced above)

Joette’s Blog, podcasts, Facebook Live, and articles in Wise Traditions

Free Resources (articles, research papers, studies)

Find a study group: Joette’s Study Group: Find your New Study Group Friends

Ignatia amara

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 80 with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:  This is Joette Calabrese, and I’d like to welcome you to the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast. Women and men worldwide are taking back control of their families’ health and learning how to heal their bodies naturally, safely and effectively. So, if you’re hungry to learn more, you’ve come to the right place. Stay tuned as we give you the tools — and the inspiration you need — as I share my decades of experience and knowledge using this powerful medicine we call homeopathy.

Kate:  Joette, we’re here to talk again about, “What is homeopathy?” We’re going to answer that question and expound upon that a little bit more today in this podcast.

Joette:  Yes, that’s right, Kate. The reason that I wanted to expound on this a little bit more is because last time when we discussed, “What Is Homeopathy?” I gave more of a history of homeopathy so that people can understand what’s behind the story and also what to say to folks.  

This time, I would not urge people to get too involved in explaining this, but sometimes we want to have a better understanding ourselves. Should we come across someone who wants a little more explanation, that’s what I wanted to offer today — just to get a little bit clearer about what homeopathy is.

Kate:  So, in the Gateway II, we talk about this very question, “What is homeopathy?” I know the reason that you put that in there is because you wanted to give people tools that they could use when they’re asked that question. So, I know that you wanted to talk about what you’ve written in your Gateway II study guide.

Joette:  Now, Gateway II is the second group that follows after taking Gateway I, which is a study group. These are all virtual study groups for those of you who don’t know what is available for learning experiences.

Kate:  So, it can be virtual, or it can be some ladies or men. We’ve had a group of men getting together in their home and going through these study guides. It’s a really great resource for people who want to learn more about homeopathy. So, I know you wanted to dive into that book just a little bit.

How the books define homeopathy

Joette:  Yes, yes. So, this is what I’ve written. I’m going to read directly from the book, page 35:

“Homeopathy is a system of medicine that’s fundamentally different from conventional allopathic medicine. Whereas allopathic medicine focuses on suppression of symptoms, generally, homeopathy seeks to correct the underlying imbalance that cause the symptoms in the first place. Homeopathy achieves this by strengthening the body’s own defenses, thereby allowing the body to heal itself.

Another way to explain homeopathy is that it works on the principle that “like cures like.” This principle says that any substance that can cause illness in a healthy person can cure that illness if manipulated in such a way as to minimize the toxic properties and leave only the curative ability. That’s done, of course, through homeopathic medicines. This is accomplished through a manufacturing process where each medicine is prepared using a series of repeated dilutions and succussions.”

By the way, this is very mathematical and pharmacological. It’s not done willy-nilly. This is done in a very systematic way.

“So, these medicines are made by homeopathic pharmacies in accordance with the standards and processes described in the Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States, which is HPUS, and are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.”

So, homeopathy is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration because it is considered medicine. They’re not supplements, not herbs, not vitamins, not essential oils. In fact, I used to consider it holistic, and now I’m thinking a little differently about how we present that because as soon as you say holistic, people think that what I mean is it is synonymous with holistic. Homeopathy is not. It is a very specific medical paradigm that does not use conventional drugs. That’s really the best way to put this.

Kate:  I think that is the main thing that homeopathy is confused with is they hear the word homeopathy, and they think that it means just general natural medicine including all of those things that you mentioned: essential oils, and herbs, and every type of natural medicine. Don’t you think that’s the biggest misconception?

Joette:  Well, it’s the misconception of someone just hearing the word for the first time. Yes, it’s very common, because unfortunately, in the word “homeopathy” is the prefix homeo-. People think that means “home” such as in “home remedies.” And that really throws off the discussion from that time forward.

I remember having a discussion with a friend, oh, 35 years ago, who said homeopathy means “holistic.”

I said, “No, it doesn’t. It means it’s a specific kind of medicine.”

She said, “No, it really means it’s, you know, it’s herbs.”

I said, “No, it really isn’t. I don’t want to get into an argument with a friend, but you really need to look this up.”

Now, at that time, of course there was no internet to look it up. But I even worry about that because harkening back to the discussion we had in the last podcast, was that I don’t trust Wikipedia — not for a New York minute. But if you look it up according to the National Center for Homeopathy and organizations that promote homeopathy, you will get a better definition of course.

But I also want to read something that’s from a fabulous book called “Nanodynamics.” It’s written by Dr. E.S. Rajendran. I love the way he puts this. He tells us — and it is absolutely so — homeopathy is nanoscience. It’s nanomolecular.

So, I’m just going to read this little section:

“In the process of scientific evolution, the greatly acclaimed Cartesian mechanistic model is making way for the realities thrown up by nanoscience and the related technology.

Now, we realize that there is a clear and subtle world present in nanoscience. So, nanoscience and nanotechnology accept and realize that particles smaller than the size of 100 nanometer process properties entirely different from that of particles of a larger size. They’re capable of showing new chemical and physical properties absent in particles of bigger dimensions. It is observed that these particles smaller than a critical size have different electronic structure, conductivity, reactivity, melting temperature, and mechanical properties.”

Then he goes on to say that the reason that we know this, that we’ve been able to experience this or note this is the recent advent, of course, of nanoscience and its related technology with the advanced electron microscope. We’re now capable of seeing the particles that homeopathy has been saying are there for all these 230 years.

Kate:  There is a video on YouTube that I found in the last couple of years. It actually shows that there’s a man, I don’t remember his name, but with a large microscope, and he was talking about that very thing that you just said, Joette. That now, they can actually see the molecular structure left, say, on the glass of water that you put some homeopathic remedy in. They pour it out, and they see that molecular structure is left on the glass. So now, with those microscopes, they’re seeing these particles.

Joette:  Yes, so it’s now become no longer enigmatic. What we’re talking about is something that was misunderstood for all these years because there simply wasn’t the clear evidence. Now, we have the clear evidence.

However, having said that, they did not know the mechanism of aspirin for more than half a century — 75 years. Yet, conventional doctors still administered it regularly. It was only just discovered — the action or the mechanism in aspirin — about, I’m going to say (I’m guessing now), that it was discovered about 25 years ago.

But up until that time, it didn’t mean they use it just because they didn’t understand the mechanism. They just knew that it showed action. When there was a fever, it brought the fever down. That’s clinical evidence. When there was swelling, it brought the swelling down. Clinical evidence, observation.

If we don’t use that observation and dismiss it as only an occasional event or not holding enough water because there was no study of hundreds of thousands of people behind it, we are going to lose out on an awful lot.

In fact, it always makes me chuckle when personally I have seen in the very beginning, when I was first using homeopathy long before I was in practice or teaching it, that when I use Belladonna for an extremely high fever in my children (one son in particular), the fever went down in very short order. One could say, “Well, that’s just the progression of the illness, and that was going to happen anyway.” But not when it’s time and time again.

So, it’s not unlike you put the key into your car, and you turn it, and the ignition goes on.

“Well, how do you know that was what did it?”

“Well, because every time I do that, it works!”

“How do you know?”

“Well, because I’ve done it 500 million times, and it works.”

That’s how we know.

Kate:  You can’t necessarily explain how it works. You just know it.

Joette:  That’s right. I know nothing about cars. My husband and my sons could tell you everything about cars. I know nothing. All I know is I put my key in, turn it, and it starts, and then I’m on my way. That’s good enough because that’s pure observation and logic.

So, for those who don’t believe in homeopathy, all they need is to be cured of something or observe a cure in someone else, particularly someone who they have a vested emotional interest in. So if you see your child suffering, and the child is no longer suffering because you’ve just given whatever — Belladonna for the extreme fever or Arnica for pain or whatever it might be — and you see it time and again, after a while, you kind of have to sit back and show some respect to this medicine.

A nurse’s comment

Kate:  Joette, I wanted to bring up something that I find very interesting. On our last podcast, there was a nurse that wrote down a comment, and I just want to read it to you.

She says, “Excellent podcast. Thanks for letting us read it, too. I feel an exciting door has opened for me. I’m a retired pediatric nurse but have moved away from traditional medicine. I’m a believer in natural cures, healthy eating, staying away from allopathic medicine unless necessary.”

So, what I find fascinating is the number of nurses that I see on your Students of Joette page, or writing comments to blogs and podcasts, or even in the study groups that I lead. Almost every study group, there is at least one nurse. So, I find that very exciting.

Joette:  Well, nurses are unique because more often than not, they’re in the trenches. The doctors prescribe the drug for let’s say a chronic condition — because I do have to separate those two. I think that in acute situations, drugs can be lifesaving. For chronic conditions, then that’s where I think modern medicine falls short. But they’re in the trenches. The doctor prescribes it on the phone or now fax or email …

Kate:  Tablet.

Joette:  … texting or whatever. I don’t know because they have to be legal about this, so they have to be very careful. So, the nurse administers the medication, and then she’s there, and she observes.

I’ve heard many, many countless numbers of nurses who say, “I see what these drugs are doing. He doesn’t see. The doctor doesn’t see it. He’s not there. He’s busy somewhere else.”

It’s not that he doesn’t care. It’s that that’s the structure of medicine, and the way it has to be run. So, she’s seeing the pitfalls. He might see the report. She might report this or that. But observing someone suffering at the hand of a drug, observing someone going downhill at the hand of many drugs, firsthand observation is very powerful.

I would say that in all our study groups, and we have lots of them from all over the world, there’s almost invariably always a nurse. Usually a retired nurse who had been in the trenches, as I said earlier, and has seen too many problems associated with drugs and had decided that she was not going to use drugs unless necessary.

Now, I also want to say because that’s an important statement that she said, “Unless necessary.” What is necessary? That’s a very subjective word.

If you ask the prescribing doctor if it’s necessary, you think he’s going to say, “No, this isn’t necessary.”

Of course, he’s going to say it’s necessary because he believes it is. In his world, it likely is! It’s the only choice.

But we have to parse that out, pick it apart. Tease it apart and find a way to look at it a little differently because what might be necessary in one person’s opinion is not necessary in another person’s opinion. It depends on your education. It depends on how much time you put into your own education.

Because if a child has a fever of 105 as my child did some 32 years ago, if I had taken him to the pediatrician and not been dogged about it, I’m certain that the pediatrician would have said, “This is necessary that we give this child acetaminophen and an antibiotic.”

But I found that the medicine Sulphur 30 brought down the fever within minutes and proved to me, my mother, and one of my closest friends, as we observed my child come out of this high fever lingering for days, that it indeed would have been unnecessary and that what was necessary was Sulphur 30C.

So, what is necessary?

We want to change that. It doesn’t mean that you don’t listen to doctors. I would never say that. I think that they can be very valuable for diagnostics. We do want to bow to their knowledge in that arena. But it doesn’t mean that the treatment is always the exact answer. We don’t want to be foolish about this, but we have to weigh out the words. We have to weigh homeopathy against allopathic medicine in many, many circumstances.

As a mother or a grandmother, that’s a hearty, heavy-duty responsibility. But if we take our mothering and grandmothering seriously … this is where it all boils down to, separating the girls from the women, the ones with gut, spunk, and moxie from those who are unsure.

Don’t get me wrong. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to be unsure when you make these decisions. But if you can hoist up your thinking, your confidence by good training in homeopathy, it’s likely that you’ll get it right more often than not. And by training, I mean self-training. I’m not saying going to college or going to a homeopathy school. I’m saying that you can learn this, folks, on your own! You can learn this all by yourself!

I have a mission

But, of course, what I love best is that folks join study groups, which is why I’m happy that you mentioned that earlier, Kate. Because for every person in your study group is a story attached to that person — perhaps two or three stories — and how they used this medicine, and how it worked … or how they used that homeopathic medicine, and it didn’t work, or it did work. Each of those stories are much more memorable than if you’re just reading a book.

You will never forget the time that Alice said when her dog got hit by the car, the dog was screaming, and she gave the dog Aconitum and Hypericum that the dog was relieved. You’ll never forget it! You’ll have that image in your mind forever!

Then there’s Alice and her daughter who are in the study group. Then there’s the other group of people who are all telling their stories. That’s how we learn, and how we share this information and get this out.

I believe, I, personally — and I know this probably sounds trite to some — I have a mission! This is important stuff that we’re getting out there. In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t monetize my blog. I do teach classes. I do indeed. I hope that you would commit to them at some point in your journey in learning how to use homeopathy. But my blog is not monetized. That means I don’t have any advertisers on it. Because if I had an advertiser on my blog, I’d have to write articles to their products so that it pays for my blog. That’s how it’s done folks.

Kate:  And your podcasts— not monetized.

Joette:  And the podcasts are not monetized, nor is Facebook Live— everything I do. Nor does my article in my column in Wise Traditions, it’s not monetized. I’m not paid for that. I do it because I need to get this information out there.

Then when I give you the information on which homeopathic medicine to use in my articles on the blog, and it’s written in blue, and you click on it, and it takes you to either Amazon or Boiron (wherever else we can find the medicines), I am offered by these entities to be paid back for every click-through. That’s called an affiliate program, and I don’t accept it. I said, “No, thank you.”

I don’t want that. Because I don’t want to be giving you information that I will instantly be paid for. My payment is that you do it, and you get someone in your family well or yourself, and you write to me. Tell me on the blog. I want to know about it. Tell the world about it!

My payment is to send it off to other people — get it out there. This is how I want you to help me. This is how you can repay me. I want you to have the burden of knowing that you must get this out there. You must get homeopathy to your friends and your relatives. Teach your children. Raise them knowing how to use homeopathy. Start your familial legacy. Teach your children. Teach your grandchildren. When you pass, they will remember you as the one who taught them how to treat an injury or an infection or a psychological concern. Then that will be passed on, and you will have built a legacy and homeopathy’s legacy as well.

Kate:  So, if you’re wanting to know how to explain to someone how to help them understand homeopathy, a couple of options: They can listen to the podcasts. They can get those study guides, the Gateway I and the Gateway II and take their friends and their family through those study guides. They can go to your free resources section on your website. That’s joettecalabrese.com. If you click on the free resources tab and then scroll down to free community, in that section, you have a lot of resources, articles, research papers. What else?

Joette:  Studies.

Kate:  Studies on there.

Joette:  Studies done by doctors, by pharmacists, by hospitals, by clinics that you’re not going to find here in the United States. It’s mostly in Europe and India, South America.

It’s a simple explanation as this: When someone says, “What is homeopathy?” You could simply say, “It’s the medicine that works without the side effects. It’s the one that we use to cure without the side effects. It’s the medicine that’s inexpensive.”

Now, if you have to go further than that, then by all means.

Remember, don’t go too far. You have to be able to read who you’re speaking to. You don’t know how much they want to know. You don’t want to come across too heavily. We have to balance that zealous personality aspect that many of us have — including,  obviously, me. And, you want to appeal to their emotions, but you also want to appeal to their intellect.

That’s what I’m trying to do today, and what Kate is trying to get across is that there is information out there that you can study and read and have as a resource so that you understand who has done the research, and how it’s been done.

Kate:  When people ask me, Joette, I usually give a short answer similar to the things that you said today. Then I say, “If you want to know more, go to joettecalabrese.com.” There’s a tab at the top of your website, homepage. It says, “New to Homeopathy?” They can just click on there, and go through those things, and learn more, and dig, and research for themselves.

I say, “And I have a study group coming up if you want to join that. You can learn for yourself about homeopathy.”

Joette:  I know, Kate, you’ve run … how many study groups have you organized?

Kate:  I don’t know, Joette. I think over 10 or 14. I don’t know, something like that, over 10.

Joette:  Excellent! And you’re one of the stars doing this. We have other ladies who are doing it, too, and they run these study groups all the time as well. Sometimes they’re only 10 in the group. We’ve had groups with as many as 99 people in them, and all meeting virtually.

So, Kate, I know that people are going to ask this in the question and answer, and then you’re going to be gone, and I’m going to be answering these questions at two in the morning. So, how do people join a study group that you’re running? How do they do that?

Kate:  Well, they can find me under the Facebook page: Joette’s Study Group: Find your New Study Group Friends. So, if you go to that Facebook page, you can find an advertisement for the study groups that I’m starting, as well as all the other people who are starting study groups. That’s where you can find everyone who’s starting a study group.

Joette:  Well, what’s nice about having a choice of those who are running these study groups is because some of them do it on Thursday nights, eight weeks in a row. Others do them on Saturday mornings. So, you want to decide depending on where your little bit of free time comes in.

Kate:  Exactly.

Ignatia amara

Kate:  Joette, I know our listeners love to hear recommendations for remedies on these podcasts. So, can you give us a little tip on using one remedy before we leave today?

Joette:  Yes. If you are worried that you are going to make the wrong decisions, if you’re worried that your husband is not going to like homeopathy because he’s new to it, if you’re burdened by being overwhelmed trying to learn all of this — I’m not talking about a little discomfort, I’m talking about something that is long lasting, that’s been a problem. Now, you’re up at night thinking about it. I would urge those people who suffer from these — not who are just touched by it but suffer from it — to go to one of the most wonderful homeopathic medicines on earth. That is Ignatia amara, I-G-N-A-T-I-A. Second word is amara, A-M-A-R-A. It’s named after St. Ignatius because it’s harvested around St. Ignatius Day.

We use that in a 200 potency. It helps people who have too much on their minds fall asleep. It helps people who are overwhelmed, not feel so overwhelmed. It’s more often for woman, but it is also a grand medicine for men as well. So, remember this Ignatia. I’ve written about it many times because it is such a ubiquitous medicine. It has so many places in our day-to-day world that it is a mainstay. I want you all to remember that it is a mainstay. Not Ignatia 30 — it can help. Not Ignatia 6 —it can be useful. Not Ignatia 1M. No. 200 is the potency that I find to be the most efficacious.

Kate:  One time, Serena took Ignatia, and I feel like it just popped in her mouth and right away, boom! She was changed from taking Ignatia.

Joette:  I remember you telling me about that, Kate. It can happen that quickly. It can happen so quickly that it’s not even completely swallowed. It’s just slightly melting in the mouth and chewed up a little bit.

I’ve seen that happen with Buster. When my husband leaves town, Buster freaks. If he’s restless, I don’t give him Ignatia; I give him something else. But if he’s not restless, and he’s just kind of sitting at that door pining for my husband, I give him Ignatia. Within short order — it’s not always that it works that quickly but certain times, certain circumstances, certain people, it works more quickly for — then I can get him to come to bed. “Come on. Let’s go. Just because Perry is not here doesn’t mean you can’t go to sleep. So, here you go. Get in your little bed in my bedroom,” and then he’s fine the rest of the night.

Kate:  Everyone should have Ignatia.

Joette:  That’s right.

Kate:  Not take Ignatia, but everyone should have it in their …

Joette:  No, we don’t want to take this willy-nilly because as we said, harkening back to the beginning of our conversation, this is medicine. We only use it when there is pathology. When there’s something wrong, then we use it. Not because, “Oh, well, let’s just give it a try.” You’re better off saving it for when it’s necessary.

Kate:  But have it in your toolkit and be ready to use it when you need it.

Joette:  You bet.

Joette:  As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising. But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training. I hope listening to this podcast has inspired you to follow in their footsteps. With the proper training, you, too, can nurture and protect the health of your family and loved ones with Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:  You just listened to a podcast from PracticalHomeopathy.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shares her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Pandora, Stitcher, TuneIn and iHeartRadio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com. (JoetteCalabrese.com)