Joette Calabrese Podcast

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

01:37    What’s new with practicalhomeopathy.com

04:46    Joette’s pet peeves

09:39    Melanie’s story and aggravations

18:04    Proving and antidotes

22:23    For the highly sensitive people

28:58    Know your medicines

38:10    To summarize

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Gateway to Homeopathy Guided Study Group

Joette Calabrese Facebook page

Petroleum 200C for dry skin

Cantharis and Medorrhinum for bladder issues

Gelsemium 6C for anxiety and nervousness about upcoming event

Lycopodium 200 for bloating

Camphor 200 one dose, one day to antidote (see blog post: “Stop It! How to Antidote a Bad Drug Reaction”

Ignatia or Aconitum for anxiety

Gelsemium 6X for chronic anxiety

Ignatia for nightmares

Facebook Live: Provings and Aggravations

Facebook Live: Provings and Aggravations: Take 2 (better video quality than previous)

Podcast 33 — New (and Not So New) to Homeopathy Part II  (section on proving)

Looking for Proof That Homeopathy is Effective? We’ve Got It! (blog post containing brief history of Dr. Hahnemann’s usage of provings)

You are listening to a podcast from practicalhomeopathy.com where nationally certified American homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese, shares her passion for helping families stay healthy through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition.

Joette:  Everyone is very frightened of provings, and I am here to say, “I’m not worried about provings!” I don’t know where the idea has come from that proving is a very, very dangerous thing. It is not.

Kate:  You are listening to Podcast Number 49 at practicalhomeopathy.com with Joette Calabrese. In today’s podcast, Joette will address the topic of provings and aggravations. Listen in as Joette answers some of your questions about this subject.

Joette and I are here together again today to bring you another podcast from practicalhomeopathy.com. Joette, I’m having a hard time keeping a straight face because I’m looking at you and you have this white, huge thing on your microphone. And it looks … I don’t know … it looks like a big sock on your microphone.

Joette:  I know. It looks like I have like a dental infection or something, and I’ve got tooth pain, and I’ve got ice in there or something. So, it’s all puffed up around my face.

Kate:  Oh, my goodness!

Joette:  We left our filter back in our other home, and it’s hard to remember to bring everything back and forth. So, you got to look at this funny looking sock on my microphone.

Kate:  Because you’re in Canada right now, right?

Joette:  Right.

Kate:  Yes. So, you’re back in the cold, yay!

Joette:  Yes.

Kate:  Okay, so let’s talk today, Joette, about … we have a couple of things coming up soon that we’re going to be launching. Why don’t you go ahead and tell us a little bit about what’s coming?

Joette:  Well, the first thing that’s coming up that I keep promising folks who ask me that, “It’s going to be coming next week,” — but, I don’t know when it will be finished — is our Gateway II (which is the follow-up to the study groups that had started before). You taught a few of those courses — actually many of those courses — haven’t you, Kate? You’ve gotten to be kind of our expert in running those courses and bringing people in —  mostly moms and grandmothers from all over the country, even all over the world — to meet once a week or once a month. So, this is a follow up to Gateway I. So, it’s for those who’ve already taken Gateway I. They can join right into Gateway II. So, just watch for that.

What I love about this Gateway curriculum is that they are … it’s an opportunity for folks to get to know each other and spend time together. I’m told that, in fact, one group has gotten so close that — they are from all over the country — they’re actually all meeting in Florida in a couple of months. They asked me if I would join them and meet them for lunch, and they were going to have a slumber party. I said, “Well, I don’t know about the slumber party part!” But, it does sound like fun. I do want to meet all these people in person. I’ve known them now for quite a while because of our affiliation with these classes that I teach and these study groups that have been organized now for probably over a year.

So, these groups, they’re kindred spirits. These are moms or grandmothers. Some of them have never had children, but they take care of their pets, et cetera, and neighbors and all. They count on each other. They help each other on Facebook, through the studies and the teachings that I’ve given them. And I just love that. And some of them branch out and learn other information as well, and they incorporate that into their relationships with their friends. So, that’s Gateway II.

Then the next thing that we have going after that or sometime around there as well, is we’re now putting together a course called “Mindful Homeopathy.” It’s going to be on the mind and emotions, psychological problems, anxiety, sleep issues, attention deficit disorders, etc., behavior disorders in children, behavior disorders in husbands (just being silly), but behavior disorders and anger problems. “My dog had an anger issue after he was vaccinated for rabies,” etc. Those are the kinds of things that we’re going to be touching upon and teaching protocols that are specific. Because the best part about this course, that I believe is one of the most pertinent aspects, is that it will be so easily integrated into any other course that you’ve taken of mine — because, of course, we’re all psychological. You can’t have one condition without another. So, it integrates seamlessly one into the other. It will round out the understanding of how to use homeopathy with these protocols and this practical method that I teach.

Kate:  Great! Well, I’m looking forward to taking that course. So, we will look for those things. I’m sure there will be more information coming out on the Facebook page and emails and so forth, so … exciting stuff happening.

So Joette, I was thinking today as we were getting ready for this podcast. I was thinking about you, and who you are. I’ve gotten to know you over the last five years, I think we’ve been working together. Some of the things that come to my mind that describe you, some words that describe you, I would say that you are super smart. You’re super fun.

Joette:  Oh, smart too, that’s great. Thank you.

Kate:  You are classy.

Joette:  I don’t know where you got that idea!

Kate:  You are, and you are classy. You are caring, and you’re cheerful and warm. Those are just some of the words, but Joette, let’s talk a little bit about what are some of your …

Joette:  The downside, my bad side.

Kate:  Yeah!

Joette:  The dark side!

Kate:  I was thinking I’ve never really seen you in a bad mood or upset. You’re always very cheerful and upbeat with a positive attitude. That’s one of the things that I admire about you and I respect you for. But, I know you like to have fun. And so just for fun, let’s talk about what are some of the things that irritate you or some of your pet peeves.

Joette:  You told me you were going to ask me this, Kate. Well, we’ve just moved into a house that I just adore. Really, it’s a great little place. It’s in Canada. It’s not a permanent move. It’s a partial move, but it’s a great little cottage. But, somebody about 6-foot-3 designed this kitchen and I’m just skimming 5-foot-1.

So, my husband says, “Well, just get one of those kick stools and kick it across the room and then step on it — you know, that kind of thing with the wheels underneath.” But even with that, believe it or not, these countertops are so high, and the cabinets are even higher. I get the use of one shelf in the cabinets. I can’t get to the second shelf. Forget the third shelf — I’d get a nosebleed if I went up that high. So, that altitude is way out of my reach.

So, it leaves me with a kitchen that’s less than as functional as I need it to be, because I love to cook. So that’s one of my pet peeves. Whoever, if you could just tell me — now that this out into the ethers — somebody find out who designed these tall kitchen countertops and cabinets in my house. So, that’s my pet peeve. The world is designed for tall people. The whole world is designed that way. So, that’s one of them. I guess my height is a challenge sometimes.

So, I don’t know. Another pet peeve … when I come back here to Canada, my skin gets dry. I love being in Florida. It feels so supple and moist and nice. It’s always so great. Isn’t it amazing? My hands get dry, and coconut oil just doesn’t cut it. And I eat a ton of butter. I mean, my husband just brought me a cup of coffee, and I put butter in that — a good teaspoon, sometimes even as much as a tablespoon. That just doesn’t do it. So just for those who want to know how I treat that, when it gets bad enough then I take Petroleum 200C, every other day. Now, it’s not that bad. My hands aren’t cracked, but it’s just that feeling like, “Oh yeah, we’ve been in the north now for what, 10 days? And already my skin is starting to get dry.” So, there’s nothing like the south and the ocean air and the saltwater to make your skin nice and comfortable. So, that’s I guess my next pet peeve.

The next pet peeve is probably my dog, Buster, who … he’s my pet.

Kate:  Oh Buster!

Joette:  Yes, he’s peevish. I know. I think he’s got a bladder thing going on because he gets us up at night. The last two nights, he’s been waking us up and saying, “Come on, come on, I got to go. I got to go.” At first, we thought it was just restlessness and anxiety, but now I’ve realized that I think it’s his old poodle-type bladder. I think I’m going to give him some Cantharis and Medorrhinum, and that will probably calm him down. But, my pet peeve is I don’t like to be awakened at night because it’s hard for me to fall back to sleep. So, Buster is just going to have to either hold it …

Kate:  Poor Buster! Awww!

Joette:  I know, sitting there with his legs crossed for a while and wait until morning. I’m sure that if it is … that’s what it is then Cantharis and Medorrhinum is going to take care of it.

Kate:  I feel like Buster always has something going on, doesn’t he?

Joette:  He does. He’s an old dog. He’s 13. And they tell us that, from my readings, poodles don’t live very much longer than 13 — anywhere between 11 and 15 years. So, Buster’s at his peak of performance. I think he passed that a while ago, actually. But he’s actually doing pretty darn well for an old dog. I mean, he’s had the fleas. He had fleas last year. He’s had tendonitis and those kinds of things. But generally speaking, he’s really not doing too badly.

Kate:  That’s good.

Joette:  Because he’s our baby, we got to take care of him all the time.

Kate:  So today, we’re going to talk a little bit about provings and aggravations. Just to flesh that out a little more, really to help our listeners understand how to tell when we’re experiencing a proving or an aggravation, and what we can do about that.

Joette:  Yes. I have someone who wrote in. I think it was on the blog. I’m just going to read to you what she wrote:

“I need some clarification, wisdom, knowledge. I’m struggling to understand whether new symptoms are a proving, an aggravation, or a symptom of healing. I guess I really don’t understand how to recognize which is which, and my tendency is to assume a proving, and antidote. “For example, this past weekend, I had four performances for church. I took Gelsemium for the anticipatory anxiety and to keep my voice steady for singing.”

(You know all about that, Kate. You’re a singer too.)

“I’m also leaving for a long road trip with my daughter this morning, and I’m having a little anxiety about it. Last night, I developed a migraine which I would definitely say fits the characteristics of Gelsemium headache and was feeling many of the Gelsemium keynotes: fear over health, the anxiety over upcoming event, etc. Instead of taking more Gelsemium, I assumed that I proved the remedy from using it so much this weekend, about four to five times, so I antidoted it last night. I still have the headache this morning. Any and all wisdom, advice or article recommendations are welcome.”

So, that was Melanie who wrote that. I don’t know if Melanie is going to be listening to this, but I thought it would be useful to use her story. I do believe, based on what she’s told me — four to five times over a two-day period — no, it’s not horrible, but it’s probably a little bit too much. Normally, if we use Gelsemium in a 6C, we use it twice a day or for a couple of days in advance. But if you’re using it four to five times in one day, that certainly is way too many times.

Now, let’s say she used that Gelsemium only four times over two days. So, that would mean, of course, that she would have used it twice daily. That would mean to me that Gelsemium — if it wasn’t working — it’s wrong. It’s either too much frequency, or it’s the wrong remedy. It could also mean the wrong potency. So, wrong means a number of things: not just the remedy, not just the potency, but also the frequency. So, you have to get it right. That makes a big difference.

So, when someone says there is a “healing,” that is a term that’s often used in naturopathic world. But in homeopathy, we call it an aggravation. Things get a little bit worse before they get better. It’s often a positive sign, but I find that it’s a positive sign more often in classical homeopathy. Let me make this distinction first. In classical homeopathy, we generally use one remedy, one potency. Give it once — maybe a split dose, once that morning and then once again that night — and then that’s it. We wait six to eight weeks to see what comes of it. During that period of time without taking anything else, we can see that things worsen. What’s worse? The symptoms that you’ve had most recently or even just in your past. If things are made worse that you’ve experienced in the past … So. if you’ve had eczema, and it was behind your ear, and now it’s behind your knees — that’s still the same thing. Just because it’s in a different location doesn’t mean it’s no longer eczema. It’s still the same condition. So, if it worsens after taking a remedy from a classical point of view, that is generally considered a positive shift. That means that remedy may have overshot the center a little bit too much, pushed it over but things will soften out. And in short order, things will become more comfortable again. Then on the other side of that, if we could use it as a bell curve for example, on the other side of the curve is a healing on its way.

Now, that was one of the reasons I didn’t like classical homeopathy. I didn’t like warning people that there could be an aggravation because then sometimes they wouldn’t even take the remedy. Or they would become so frightened that I would have to spend a lot of time trying to convince them to go ahead and do it. Or even including myself, I don’t want to go through an aggravation. I don’t want to see my children get worse before they get better. It depends on what worse means. And could it be dangerous? It’s unlikely to get dangerous when we’re using classical homeopathy, because we’re moving in a direction of correction. I’ve never seen it get dangerous, but I suppose it’s possible. But at any rate, what I didn’t like is … I didn’t like all the phone calls. What if this has happened? Does this mean this? Does this mean that? It’s too hard to really know until you’ve had some time to be able to step back and assess. So, I didn’t like that aspect of it.

So, years ago when I was studying with Dr. Ramakrishnan, long before I started using any protocols, he told us that, “Well, if you have an aggravation, one of the best ways to keep from getting one — actually to preclude it — is to head it off at the pass and don’t give the remedy only once or twice over a 1-, 12- to 24-hour period. Instead, give it twice a day for several days. Even though it was a 6 or a 30 or a 200, it didn’t matter what potency it was. Just go ahead and give it several days in a row. Because every time you give the remedy, it calms it back down again. By stimulating the body with the remedy with just one dose or a split dose (two doses in 12 hours or 24 hours), what you’re doing is allowing the remedy to take over and go where it wants to go. But by using the medicine again and again, you’re calming it down. Just when the body is about to present the aggravation, you give another dose, and it calms it down. And just when it’s about to mount another aggravation — 6 o’clock, 7 o’clock that night — give another dose, and it calms it down. So, that was the first time I ever heard of using the same remedy repetitively, in order to keep an aggravation from mounting. I found it to be super-efficient.

That was way before I learned about the Banerjis. The Banerjis were doing it on their own. I don’t know how they came to it, probably in the same way. When you have lots and lots of experience, decades — about a century and a half of the Banerjis cumulatively — you figure these things out. Look at this. You give Lycopodium 200 once, and it makes the person bloat like crazy. That’s why they came to you was for bloating, but now the bloating is horrible! It’s like a beach ball! It’s terrible! There’s gas, and there’s indigestion and everything is worse. Oh, this is horrible! Then about two weeks later, maybe seven days later, the whole problem starts to calm down. That’s a long time to wait for some people who are suffering. They have a life to live. They’ve got places to go, people to meet. And I don’t blame them. I felt the same way. I didn’t want to have an aggravation.

But by using Lycopodium according to the Banerji Protocols — Lycopodium 200 for gassiness and bloating and indigestion, and food intolerances twice a day, every day — now that might seem like overkill to classicals, but it’s not overkill. It works. Now, if there’s any aggravation at all, it’s quite fleeting. It can still happen with this method but it’s short-lived. It’s not as uncomfortable. In fact, for most people, it’s just a blip on the page. By the time they shoot an email to my assistant to report on it, it’s over with — usually within a day or two, tops. More often than not, we don’t see any aggravation at all.

Kate:  So, let’s go back to that example. You were talking about Melanie using Gelsemium … I forgot even where we were. Do you remember?

Joette:  Yes. I’ve got it. It was for anticipatory anxiety before she sang in church. Most likely, she used it too many times. I can’t say for sure. We don’t know absolutely. But that’s the way I would interpret this. And by doing so, she got a migraine. Now, if she had had migraines in the past all along, then I would say this is still part of the aggravation — because it’s old symptoms that she’d had in the past. But if a migraine was new for her — she’s never had one or they were extremely unusual (maybe she had one 30 years ago and now, she was having one now) —  it’s unlikely that that’s what it was, an aggravation. It was mostly likely a poorly chosen remedy, potency, or frequency —  and now she was causing a proving.

Kate:  Right. That’s what I was going to say. It’s actually a proving and not an aggravation.

Joette:  That’s right, that’s right. So, a proving is when we use a remedy incorrectly. We use it too frequently. Sometimes you can get a proving with just one dose. It’s pretty unusual, but it can happen. More often than not, a proving occurs when you take a remedy again and again and again. And the symptoms that the medicine is intended to correct are then brought to the person to suffer. And they’re usually symptoms you’ve not had in the past. Now, how do we know that that is — if we’re taking, let’s say, four remedies — how do we know which one it is? Well, this is where a materia medica comes into play. It’s important to have a materia medica.

You can go online and just look up “Dr. James Tyler Kent, materia medica,” and look up that remedy. Just put in Gelsemium. When you read Gelsemium, there it is. Migraines are there. I think that’s … I don’t know how Melanie found this out. I don’t know which materia medica she was using. But it matters not. You look under the head section and see if there are migraines or severe headaches. If they present in the same fashion or that they’re even there, now you know there’s a good chance that the remedy is causing this condition because it was ill-chosen; it was ill-used, too frequently, wrong remedy to start with, wrong potency or something. So, that’s the way you have to find out whether or not it’s a particular medicine.

In either case, it’s not scary. I don’t think it’s scary. It might be scary to the person when first it happens. Apparently, there’s a classical homeopath who follows me and believes that this is imprinted forevermore, and that the remedy is imprinted, and now you are stuck with that in your life forever. I don’t know. How do you find an imprint? I don’t know how you would even know that. How do you know that five years from now, or two months from now, or whatever, that’s still happening? You just antidote and move on. I don’t think it’s as serious as people make it out to be.

In my experience, after using homeopathy for 31 years and a very, very busy practice with thousands of students, I’ve not yet learned of anyone who can’t get over a proving or an aggravation if they follow the method — and that is to cancel it out using Camphor. You don’t have to antidote. You can just let it be, and it will just go away on its own. It’s not going to last forever. I’ve yet to see a remedy that lasts forever when it’s brought up an aggravation or a proving.

So, you can use Camphor 200 — one dose, one day — and I’ve written about that in my blog. Or you could inhale mint, essential oil of mint. Put it to the nostril and inhale it; then put it to the next nostril and inhale it again. We’ll put an essential oil of mint on a cotton ball and sniff it throughout the day. And put it on your pillow at night if you still feel it so you need to do that. There’s also a wonderful grid that’s available in the back of Kent’s repertory (the one that is printed in Great Britain, not the one that’s printed in India). In the back, there is a grid called “Relationships of Remedies.”

Kate:  Yes.

Joette:  And it has this grid and it shows you the names of all the remedies — not all the remedies but most common remedies — and what’s inimical, what is antidoting, what follows well, what’s complimentary for that particular medicine. So, you can look it up!

Kate:  So Joette, explain to us what “inimical” means.

Joette:  So, inimical means “enemy of,” literally. So, it means it’s not good, using this medicine with that medicine, one right after another. So, when I look up antidotes for Gelsemium in this “Relationship of Remedies,” Coffea would be the most obvious. Digitalis is in there, China as well. But these are remedies that you probably won’t have that on hand, but you certainly should have Coffea on hand.

Kate:  Let’s say you do, Joette, what potency would you take?

Joette:  I would just use it probably in the same potency that you use Gelsemium, if possible. Now, if you don’t happen to have Coffea 6 — because that’s what this woman used was Gelsemium 6, then you might use Coffea 6. But, no one’s going to have that on hand; it’s not a common potency for that particular remedy. So, use what you’ve got: 30, 200, take a couple of doses and that will probably antidote it, pretty quickly.

Kate:  So, what about people who are highly sensitive? Do you run across people who say, “When I take homeopathy, I tend to … what I think is maybe experience a proving or an aggravation. So, I’ve gone to taking a water dose, and I’m less likely to experience a proving or an aggravation.” What do you say to that?

Joette:  I think most people are not as sensitive as they think they are. More often than not —  and we will put that aside, I think that there are people who are super-sensitive — but many people come to me saying I’m super-sensitive to chemicals, and perfumes, and foods, and molds, and colds and flu, and things like that. So then, they make the assumption that they’re sensitive to homeopathy and that does not follow through.

So, having said that, I think people are less sensitive than they believe they are. A lot of it has to do with anxiety for what has happened to them leading up to this use of homeopathy. I can understand that. I used to be very chemically sensitive myself. So, I assumed that I was sensitive to homeopathic medicines, as well. If a person finds that by putting a homeopathic medicine in water that it helps them being able to take it, that’s great. Then by all means, do that. But that is making it more dilute, hence, more powerful. So that’s actually bringing it up one. So, if you’re taking a 30C and you put it in water, you’ve just diluted it further. It’s not really a 31, but it certainly is higher than 30. So, what you’d want to do if you’re sensitive to homeopathic medicines is, generally speaking, people think in terms of going lower at potency, not higher.

So, I find that more often than not, if we use the specific protocol for that particular condition, it doesn’t matter if the person is super-sensitive. It still acts. Now, there are those exceptions, but they are very rare. I work mostly with super-sensitive people. The people who come to me in my practice and in my courses don’t come skipping in; they come crawling in. They’re very sick and they’ve had lots of drugs and lots of procedures. They’re very frightened, and they’re feeling overly sensitive and vulnerable. It doesn’t take a different potency necessarily for them to be able to react properly. I find more often than not they need Ignatia for anxiety.

Kate:  Yes, I was going to say take an Ignatia first, and then take the remedy.

Joette:  Yes, or Aconitum: a remedy that has been shown helps people who feel very anxious and vulnerable and needy and worried and frightened, etc. So, that’s a remedy in and of itself. It’s not a measure to determine what potency to use. That lack of determination as to what potency to use is very classical.

Classical says you take the case. You do the repertorizing. You come up with a few remedies that seem apropos. You go to your materia medica. You study the materia medica; see which one fits best. You choose one. Now, you’re all alone in choosing this as a practitioner. You’re all by yourself. There is nothing behind you saying, “Oh, for that condition, we’ve used this potency, this frequency and this is how long it usually takes.” No. You’re doing it all by yourself. So, you’re choosing a remedy; now, you’ve got to choose the potency. Now, you’ve got to choose the frequency. Now, you’ve got to determine how long the person takes it for. Really? Boy, you better be really, really, really good at figuring this stuff out because that’s just posology that we’re describing. I’m not saying that it can’t be figured out, because certainly there are many conditions after we’ve seen them over and over and over again, it’s pretty clear. But those are protocols! That’s the best part. Those are protocols.

So, when we use these particular protocols and we use specifically Gelsemium 6 for anticipatory anxiety, twice a day only. When it’s better, we stop. If there’s no improvement, then that remedy is not correct in the first place. Now, we have to consider something else. Those are the rules. If we follow the rules for the recipe, the cake will rise, and it will taste delicious. But if we don’t follow the rules —  and I’m not saying that Melanie didn’t follow the rules — but if that was the case, that was most likely what went wrong: too much frequency (used too many times).

Kate:  So Gelsemium 6 as opposed to the 30C or the 200C potency?

Joette:  Yes. It doesn’t mean 30 or 200 won’t act. Now, here’s the thing. Does she always have anxiety? I like Gelsemium 6 for say a schoolboy who’s always worried about school, always worried about whether or not he’ll fit in. Will he make the baseball team? Will he be alright in that class? Is he going to pass that test? How will the teacher look at him? Does he fit in? Does he wear his clothes right? He’s always worried. That is a chronic condition, and that’s exactly what we’re going to be talking about in the Mindful Class. That’s when we use it, Gelsemium, in a 6X, twice a day — because it is a chronic condition and we want to be able to use it every day.

If, however, it’s only just before an exam — there’s anticipatory anxiety — or a presentation or getting on a flight or something that frightens someone, we can still use Gelsemium 6 twice a day, from the moment it begins to bother us. So, if the flight is on Sunday and you start feeling anxious on Friday, you might start taking the Gelsemium 6 twice a day, commencing on Friday and going into the time that you no longer need it. But it can also be used in a 30. It can be used in a 200. You can use remedies in any potency, but what I love about these protocols is that it gives you the recipe.

Kate:  So, if she had to sing, for example, and she only got nervous right before she sang, you would just take it one time?

Joette:  Right, when she starts feeling it. In other words, we don’t treat pathology that doesn’t exist. What if she wasn’t going to have anxiety?

Kate:  But, it would still be used in a 6 as opposed to a 30?

Joette:  I would still use it in a 6, yes.

Kate:  Okay.

Joette:  I’ve worked with a lot of musicians, performers, and also athletes. And that’s what I use, Gelsemium 6, twice a day, leading up from the time the thought becomes laborious and invasive into their lives until they don’t feel any need for it any longer.

I have another question here, and her name is Kathy. She said, “I have a friend taking Nat mur 30 as part of the Banerji Protocol for anemia. She is taking a few others, too, Ignatia, Sepia, Ferrum phos, and Kali mur. She’s been having vivid, strange dreams for a few weeks. She’s also experiencing grief and has a lot of suppressed grief: lost her dad as a child and lost her oldest daughter a few years ago to a divorce. I’m trying to figure out why she’s having the dreams. They are really bothering her. Could it be the Nat mur? I know Nat mur can help suppress grief? Could this be a healing, or am I just reaching here? I do not want her to stop taking the remedies. They are helping in many ways. But she is new to all of this and is wondering if it is like a bad side effect? I’m inclined to believe it is not a proving.”

So, the way that I see this is this is a perfect example of why it’s important to own a materia medica. She’s assuming it’s Nat mur because she knows the characteristics of Nat mur. But, she’s not looked into the other medicines to see whether or not any of those could cause bad dreams, vivid dreams. And Ignatia is one of the premier remedies for nightmares —  one of the first ones we think of. Again, I don’t mean to keep harkening back to that Mindful Homeopathy course that we’re putting together, but that is something that we’re going to be covering.

If she had known that Ignatia is a remedy that is specific for vivid nightmares, she would have not even considered that Nat mur was not acting. And she would happily just have her friend continue with the Nat mur for the thalassemia and just called it a day — stop the Ignatia. But she didn’t give me enough information to tell me whether or not the Ignatia is acting. In other words, was there a lot of grief before, and the Ignatia is helping? Or was there no grief at all, and now there suddenly is grief? That would tell me it’s more likely to be Ignatia.

So, in other words, when you use these remedies, I love to be able to tell you that it’s super easy. But, if you’re going to take on chronic conditions that are complex, you really have to do your homework. You really have to read each one of those medicines and know them. Then when you use them, potentially expect the possibility. This won’t always happen. But if it does, you’ll be prepared. You just have to be prepared. You have to know your medicines. Once you know your medicines, then you can pick out exactly which one is the one that’s most likely causing the trouble.

Kate:  Oftentimes people do not flesh it out enough like you’re saying. She didn’t mention whether or not the Ignatia was actually helping. So, there’s so many more details that we need to look at. We look at what’s the problem, but we don’t often look at the other things that are surrounding that. Like was this happening before? And what other remedies … Like you said, I think that we just have to be careful to write it all down, to list everything that is going on and not just those couple of things, right?

Joette:  Well, that’s right. She also didn’t start out by telling me that this woman had grief when she took the case. Because she lost her father when she was a child does not mean she still has grief. She had grief then. By now as an adult, if she’s had a child and a divorce, that means she’s a full-grown, middle-aged woman. That grief should have been finished by now. If it was not finished, and she’s still suffering grief — and I don’t mean hidden, I mean overt, true grief.

I think too many people believe that there are these crevices deep in our brains that holds these old thoughts, and that’s holding us back. And yes, there is a memory of sorts of our sadness throughout our lives, but it’s not unless it’s a pathology. In other words, presenting now — still presenting, still crying over the loss of her father, still weeping, still feeling lost without her father from 35 years previous — if that’s not present, then Ignatia doesn’t fit.

Now, she may have given Ignatia because her daughter was lost in a divorce. (I think what she means by “lost” is that she lost custody, is my guess.) Indeed, that may be part of it, but don’t make the assumption that there’s grief. It could be anger. It could be rage. It could be rage against the ex-husband or the court system, against the attorney. It could be a whole mixture of issues. Then Ignatia is not really necessarily the remedy we choose for that. It depends on what her state of mind was. Was she weepy and confused and overwhelmed and can’t think straight. Okay, then I could say more Ignatia, but if it’s not all there, you need to have the full picture. I need to have the full picture. I don’t know whether or not this person had the full picture, but she certainly didn’t present the full picture. So. if she didn’t present it, she’s not thinking that way. She’s still stuck on Nat mur causing this potential problem.

So, a lot of times, people assume that it’s a proving or even an aggravation because they know one remedy, and they know what it’s supposed to correct, and they see that condition coming up without even looking at all the other potential possibilities. So, don’t jump to, “Oh, my gosh! It’s a proving!” Everyone is very frightened of provings, and I’m here to say, “I’m not worried about provings!” I don’t know where the idea has come from that a proving is a very, very dangerous thing. It is not generally dangerous. Now, I say generally because anything, any medicine, any substance can have danger to it. So, people say, “Well, I want it to be not dangerous.” Well, we all want no danger in our lives, but eating too much salt can be dangerous. Drinking too much water can be dangerous. Driving your car is certainly dangerous. So, I don’t want to be facetious here, but at some point, we have to take a little bit of personal responsibility and say, “Okay, there might be some danger involved in this, but I think that the advantages are going to outweigh the potential for danger.” And you have to decide whether or not you’re willing to do that.

Kate:  When you went to school, Joette, you actually had to participate in a proving, right?

Joette:  That’s right. I think it was three or four provings that we were involved in in my class. It’s quite an interesting experience. There were about 350 of us the first time in a class, and we were studying together for five years. Actually, the first class was three years long. It was broken up into three groups. One group was given the homeopathic medicine, and they did not know what it was. It’s truly double-blind. They did not know what it was. By double, it means that the person who administered the homeopathic also did not know what they were administering to that first group. So, the first group was given. The second group was administered. And the third group simply collated all the information at the end. It was fascinating to see how these medicines presented in people, and how there were so many similarities and dissimilarities.

Kate:  So, it was one medicine that they gave all the people.

Joette:  Everyone got the same medicine. The first group, that one-third of the group got the same medicine.

Kate:  Were you nervous doing this?

Joette:  No, because I didn’t take it.

Kate:  What?!

Joette:  I was one of the administering ones. I was in the second group. At the time, I was nursing my baby, and I did not want to take something then report on how sick I was.

Kate:  Right.

Joette:  I had responsibilities back home. I had three children, and one of them was a baby. I didn’t want to take a chance like that. What I mean by that is you’re supposed to take this remedy in spite of the fact that you need it every day. You take it every day. So, you’re going to get a proving, and you can be pretty uncomfortable. Some people can get pretty uncomfortable with it because they’re not supposed to be taking it. They’re only doing it for scientific purposes, not to uproot and contain a condition. And, you don’t know what it is when you’re taking it.

Kate:  So, you just have to watch and make sure that the person doesn’t get too ill, just like you would if you’re taking a homeopathic remedy for some condition. A proving or an aggravation may happen, but you’re going to see that you’re getting worse, and you’ll be able to do something about it. You’re not helpless.

Joette:  Well, it’s like taking any medication. If you take an aspirin and you get indigestion from it or you take aspirin and you get ecchymosis and black and blue marks all over your body, do you continue taking the aspirin? Of course not. You stop. It’s just prudence.

Kate:  Right. And hey, I think it’s better than all of the cautions and side effects of the allopathic pharmaceuticals, you know, “Can cause death, can cause stroke.” I mean, the funny thing is people aren’t afraid to take those.

Joette:  No. I know. I know. So, nothing is 100% guaranteed. There’s no such thing in life. It just doesn’t happen. But given the numbers of people who are aided with homeopathy, it’s probably … and as long as you follow the rules and you use these accordingly, you should have nothing but great results and lots of wonderful stories to share with your friends and family.

Kate:  So, in summary, what do you recommend that people do if they’re worried that they’re experiencing an aggravation or a proving?

Joette:  First, I would say startup by knowing what you’re doing. What I put on the blog are simple measures, simple conditions — simple measures, pretty much — that can be followed pretty closely. By using those, most people get great results. How do I know that? I mean, I don’t know for sure, but I certainly read my blog. People, I would hope, would tell me if there was a problem, but I don’t see that. I don’t see it or hear it in my practice or with my clients. So, those simple ones are easy to follow.

Now, when the case is more complex, then make sure you’re studying. Make sure you know homeopathy, at least enough of it by taking my courses or even other people’s courses. Just study as much as you can so that you know what you’re doing; so that you’re using the right potency …

Let me step back. You got to have the right diagnosis. This person was talking about thalassemia. Don’t assume the person has anemia (thalassemia). Make sure that they do have it. The doctor said this person has a type of anemia! By all means, now you use the remedy that’s specific to that. But what if the person says, “Well, I’m fatigued, I guess I have anemia.” No, no, no. That’s not a diagnosis. That’s where a lot of these provings come from, because they’re starting off on the wrong footing. They don’t have a firmament. They’ve decided that it must be this or it must be that.

“It must be yeast.” Why do you think it’s yeast? “Well, because I love sugar.” Wait a minute. That doesn’t mean it’s yeast. Either it’s yeast or it isn’t yeast.

It’s the same thing with, “Oh, it must be low thyroid. Oh! I’m sure I have hypothyroidism. Why? I’m fatigued, and my hair is falling?” That’s not a diagnosis. So, if you start with a shaky firmament and you use remedies accordingly, you’re going to get poor outcome. It’s just the way it is. So, you better be honest with yourself to start. Make sure you’ve got good information to begin, then the next step you follow exactly the protocol: name of the remedy, potency and frequency.

And, then know how to read what it is you’re seeing. And that’s important! After six-to-eight weeks, you have to compare where you were (or where that person was that you’re working with). What has changed and to what degree? Don’t expect to just “BAM” and it’s gone. I wish I could say that about homeopathy: that every single situation is like that. I often talk about those that are like that because I want you to know that there is that possibility. But for chronic conditions, it can take months, years sometimes. Just as long as we see movement in the right direction, then we know that the remedy choices are correct.

The only way you know this is by taking classes, reading (use my blog, it’s free), studying, experience, experience, experience. I try to relay as much of my experience as I possibly can, but nothing beats your own experience.

Kate:  For those of you who want more information, I believe there’s a Facebook live recording that you can listen to that you talked a little bit more about provings and aggravations. You’ve mentioned that in several places. We’ll include some links with this podcast so that you can refer to those other resources to learn more about provings and aggravations.

So Joette, thank you for talking us through this complex subject and giving us a little bit more insight into provings and aggravations. Thank you so much.

Joette:  Well, it’s my pleasure. And given that this is spring now — I haven’t seen the dandelion come up yet — I’ve just seen the robins up here. But, this is not unlike blowing on a dandelion. When you blow on it, the seeds plant everywhere. That’s what I’m trying to do is to get these seeds to plant in your home, in your neighbor’s home, in your mother-in-law’s home, in your friend’s home, in your church community. Let’s get this word out about homeopathy. This belongs in the home. Healing belongs in your home.

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 and nutrient-dense nutrition. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Stitcher, and TuneIn 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:

04:05    Jessica’s homeopathic journey

10:40    When you think it doesn’t work?

15:24    Strep throat

19:14    Skin issues

20:45   “Charlie stories”

28:52    Joette’s materia medica

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Skin, the Ugly Truth: Safe, Effective Treatment of Skin Ailments, Chronic or Acute, with Homeopathy

Aconitum napellus (Aconite) for croup and for stressed moms

ColdCalm®

Gateway to Homeopathy Guided Study Group

Antimonium crudum for canker sores

Hepar sulph for strep throat

Protocol for impetigo: “Impetigo Treated with Homeopathy Puts Out The Fire”

Arnica for injury, trauma

Ledum

Phytolacca for mastitis

Remedy kits from Joette

Joette’s materia medica

You are listening to a podcast from practicalhomeopathy.com where nationally certified American homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese, shares her passion for helping families stay healthy through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition.

Jessica:  I no longer fear illness. I no longer get anxiety. I mean, of course, there’s the general feeling of you just don’t want people to be sick. I almost, in a sense, have this feeling of, “Bring it on! I can handle that.”

Joette:  Each day from my office, I get to see how homeopathy is transforming lives all over the globe and I want to share them with you. Some of my students have really caught my eye. Some of you have done all you can to learn how to cure those around you using homeopathic medicines. Your successes inspire me. They’re glorious and powerful. I can’t keep these successes a secret any longer. So, with help from my roving reporters, we bring you a mini-podcast series that I call “Moms with Moxie.” Sometimes we even interview “Dads with Audacity.” See how regular mothers and others, average people who want to cure those around them have gone from freaking to fabulous with homeopathy.

Kate:  You are listening to Podcast Number 48 at practicalhomeopathy.com. I’m Kate and I would like to introduce you to a mom who has gone from freaking to fearless with homeopathy. Jessica has a contagious enthusiasm for homeopathy, and I’m so excited to have her share with us today.

Jessica has some great stories for us today about how she’s been using homeopathy. And she’s even started leading study groups, and so she’s pretty connected with her community — getting to know people and teach this. And so, Jessica, I want to welcome you here today.

Jessica:  Hi! Thank you so much for having me.

Kate:  Yes, we’re excited to get to know you, Jessica. So, why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about yourself, and then we’ll get to hear your homeopathy stories.

Jessica:  Sure. Well, I’m a mom of three boys who are ages seven, just-turned-six yesterday, and an almost two-year-old, and married to my husband. And, we are out on the North Fork of Long Island, enjoying our lives here on beaches, and the vineyards, and the farms. I also teach yoga. I am very excited because I recently discovered Joette, and it’s totally changed my life. I am more than excited to be here sharing all this with other people because all I want to do is shout it from the rooftops.

Kate:  I think once you start learning about homeopathy, you want to tell everyone, “This can change your life!” Right?

Jessica:  Yes, absolutely. It really has changed my life. I mean, I’ve been using natural means of medicine for a long time from herbal medicine, and just trying to not use antibiotics and things like that, eat healthy diets, and stay away from lots of sugar — all that general stuff. But, I was still always so fearful of illness. And I had that conflict of, “Should I bring them to the doctor because then they’re going to tell me I need antibiotics. If I don’t do antibiotics, I don’t really have another option. And what if I don’t do them?”

Ever since I’ve encountered these protocols, and Joette, and all her magical wisdom (I feel like it’s magical), that has changed for me. I no longer fear illness. I no longer get anxiety. I mean, of course, there’s the general feeling of you just don’t want people to be sick. But I almost, in a sense, have this feeling of, “Bring it on! I can handle that.”

Kate:  Yes, it’s empowered you and helped you feel equipped, right?

Jessica:  Yes, and in so many ways — not just with my kids but with everything. Even just little things, like I had this sun allergy my entire life. The first few times I go in the sun, even it’s on vacation or just the beginning of the spring, I get this horrible, itchy rash on my chest and my hands. And it’s to the point, I scratch it in my sleep until I bleed. I just recently started taking the skin course and found that there’s a remedy for that! There’s a protocol that I can use. And I used it when I went down to Charleston for a quick vacation. I had the allergy probably a day, and I usually have it almost two weeks after being in the sun.

Kate:  Wow!

Jessica:  So, empowering in terms of I’m not worried about my kids anymore. It’s the little things that I just sort of dealt with I never thought I’d have an answer to, I can now fix that, which is great.

Kate:  Yes. Let’s get into talking about how you first came across homeopathy. You said that you used some other natural methods of healing before. Can you just tell us just briefly a little bit about those, and then how you came to using homeopathy?

Jessica:  Sure. I’ve always kind of had a foundation in eating a healthy diet and using alternative methods. When I was younger, my father was diagnosed with cancer and given six months to live — and that’s with chemotherapy. And he ended up using 100% natural means. I don’t know exactly what they were. I remember him taking something like shark cartilage when I was really young. But he lived a long time after that, just using these natural means. His tumor completely disappeared. He was perfectly fine. I always had this foundation as a result of that. As I became a parent, I always kind of wanted to do things more naturally. I was sort of jumping on the buying things organic bandwagon, stuff like that.

But, it wasn’t until my first son was nine months old, and he got his first case of croup. I took him to the doctor with this barking seal cough. He was a great doctor, but he just was like, “You know what? It’s probably going to be a bad night for you. So, I’m going to give him this shot of steroids.” So, he gave him the shot of steroids, and we went home, and everything was fine. And then a few months later, he got croup again. He woke up from his sleep and couldn’t breathe. And so, we took him to the ER.

Kate:  Oh my gosh!

Jessica:  Yes, it was very scary — ended up with a chest x-ray. Looking back, I would have done a lot of things differently. But, you can only go with what you know at the time. And then I think he may have gotten croup one more time, and I was pregnant with my second son at this time. I decided this wasn’t the way to go. The doctor said, “Oh, he’s just going to grow out of it.” It just didn’t seem right to me that you get a cold, and you end up in the emergency room.

So, we went and saw this amazing craniosacral therapist. This is from when we were over in Westchester, and she’s also an acupuncturist. She worked her magic on him, but also told us that we should maybe try getting rid of gluten and dairy, just to start. And that kind of was the beginning of everything for me. That opened one door that opened another door that led down a really long hallway with a lot of doors.

And I found myself years down the road using homeopathy now, but it all started with using Aconite. That same practitioner told us to use Aconite, in the case of having any sort of sudden onset attack. And it saved us, definitely, a few visits to the emergency room. And, my second son had the same issue. And he had it actually a lot worse than the first. He continues to have them, but they’ve been getting less and less.

We also had another pharmacist in the area — this great, compounding pharmacy at the time. He had some homeopathic remedies in his shop. And he had mentioned anything sudden onset, and my son had had this really quick onset fever. And he told us to use Aconite for that. So, we started seeing that you could use things for different conditions. And then at some point, that craniosacral therapist we were seeing, she told us to use ColdCalm®, so that became a regular item we had in our house.

Kate:  That’s incredible that a pharmacist actually knew about homeopathy and recommended it.

Jessica:  Yes. He actually had a lot of great information out there. I feel like him combined with that craniosacral therapist we saw, we really got into using homeopathy at that point. It became something I felt a lot more comfortable using, just getting those little pieces of information from one person. And it was only tidbits, nothing like I’m getting now.

Kate:  Yes. So then that kind of piqued your interest about homeopathy, and how did you first really delve into homeopathy?

Jessica:  Sometime in the last two years. I can’t really pinpoint when it was. I’m really involved in wellness. So, I’m constantly listening to all of the most current research and other functional medicine doctors, and all sorts of practitioners. This one pediatrician held this summit, and Joette was on it. So, when I heard Joette talking on her little discussion, she mentioned that she wanted any person to be able to go to McDonald’s and eat there if they absolutely had to and not have a big freak-out about it. And I was in this place of freaking out about where I could eat if I couldn’t get the food that I was used to or wanted or of the quality I needed.

So, then I started listening. And then she had some amazing information to share. I was totally at this place in my life where I needed to dive into something more deeply — like take my interest in wellness and really focus on one area. I was about to go the route of looking into gut health. As so many people know, that is a very complex topic, and I don’t know that I am in a place to handle it myself.

Joette mentioned this, you know, she had these study groups and she mentioned a few remedies and a few protocols. I think she talked about Aconite for croup. So, I was listening. But she also said using Aconite for yourself, and I had never known that. Because certainly when my child wakes up in the middle of the night and can’t breathe, you can be sure I’m having some anxiety myself.

Kate:  Right.

Jessica:  Yes, that really resonated with me. And then she mentioned these study groups, and I think she mentioned the cost being low because that’s the other thing. I’ve been wanting to take herbal classes and do this, but they’re thousands and thousands of dollars — and there’s no way I could have afforded that. So, I went on the website and started researching and thought to myself, “No one’s going to do this with me.” I called the office, and there are some wonderful people at Joette’s office that really helped me. They said I could sign on and try to get other people from anywhere else all over the world to join my group. But it turns out, I just mentioned it to a couple of people and before I knew it, I think we had seven people in our group.

Kate:  Wow!

Jessica:  Yes. It was all people that I lived in Westchester with, and that was it! From there on, I was hooked. At that point, I feel like the universe threw every single thing at me it could and in such a short amount of time. Luckily, nothing major — but little things. And, I was able to have some amazing “aha” moments with homeopathy that forever have convinced me. I mean, you could tell me, you know, lots of people will say negative things about homeopathy, that it’s “placebo effect.” But at this point, my experiences are so profound that I could never go back from where I am.

Kate:  Yes. And you could never dispute the fact that that was what helped, right?

Jessica:  That’s the coolest thing. It’s happened so many times, and Joette talks about it being reproducible, and that it’s not just one instance. I have three children. I have a dog. I have a husband. I have myself. I have a whole lot of willing friends. We’ve done it. We’ve done on all of them, and it’s worked for everybody. And you know, sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes, I get the wrong remedy, or they didn’t stick to it, or the timing was off. And it’s more often that it worked than it doesn’t. I will say that.

Kate:  So, what would you have to say to those people who maybe get discouraged when it doesn’t work? What would you say?

Jessica:  You know, I think about that a lot because I’m trying to persuade the whole world to do this. And the only way to persuade them is for them to have those moments themselves. Otherwise, they are not going to be users of homeopathy.

So, I would say it’s just a matter of really learning the remedies. I mean, I wake up every day, and I’m getting my book out for something else. I’ve woken up in the middle of the night thinking, “Oh, I have to read the description of that remedy because I need to know, ‘Does it work for that?’” Or I just have these moments where I’ll start connecting the dots.

Beyond that, I’d say you have to have the remedies. Getting the 30 kit is really important, but also the 200 to me is very important because you can’t get a lot of the 200s in the stores. Any kit is really helpful just because it’s in your house. And in the middle of the night, if you need something, it’s there. But in particular, I feel like that 200 kit, with the Banerji Protocols, has really been a lifesaver for us. If I didn’t have that 200 kit, we wouldn’t have had so much success.

But to be honest, I think you have to be ready to do what you want to do. Joette once said — I don’t know if it was on a podcast or in our Q&A, because I was telling her how I was really wanting to tell everybody about it — and she said, “You really have to know your audience.” So, that’s important too, you know, giving the remedies to the people who you know are going to use them because she said, “You can give homeopathy a bad name if people are going to sort of do it halfway.” Or you could tell someone to use something, but they have to go buy those remedies themselves. You have to invest in it yourself. And that’s where the study group comes in.

I can tell people all I want to tell them, but it’s their decision at that point to start and learn about it themselves and have those experiences for themselves. It’s totally different to have someone else tell you what to do, and then you doing it yourself.

Kate:  Right. I like what you said that if it doesn’t work, stick with it. And, if it doesn’t work, it’s likely that you’ve chosen the wrong remedy, or like you said the timing is off. Maybe but you just tried it once and you needed to use it more often, or something like that. But just have the remedies, have your materials, your resources, take some classes, get the knowledge, and then it will be just like you were, like, “I want to shout it from the rooftops.”

Jessica:  And it’s a practice in patience too. I’ve had moments where I’ve taken something, and it’s gone. My son got croup recently — my middle child. Actually, this is kind of a funny story. Half asleep and in a panicked mode, I go into my kit. And I go to get the Aconite out, and I took out Arsenicum unknowingly, and I gave him Arsenicum. So, he takes Arsenicum and nothing happens. He’s not getting better. I’m being very calm, and I’m saying, “It’s going to work. Just give it some time.” I knew what to do with croup, so I wasn’t too nervous.

He says, “It’s not working, Mommy. It’s not working. I can’t breathe,” in between his gasping for breath. So, I’m like, “Alright, I’m going to do a second dose because I think he needs it. It’s pretty severe.” So, I go back to my kit, and I hadn’t had the remedy out. I grabbed it and looked at it. It was Arsenicum. I’m like, “Well, that explains it!” So now, I gave him the Aconite. And within three minutes, he was breathing again, totally normally. The virus went away.

What’s cool is I ended up taking the Aconite with him there. I remember Joette telling us, “You take it, too, when you’re having anxiety.” And I could literally feel the anxiety being sucked out of my body, as if almost someone knocked the wind out of me. They’ve knocked the anxiety out of me. It was one of the coolest experiences. To have anxiety sucked out of you in a moment like that is more than just amazing. It’s a gift from God.

Kate:  It is.

Jessica:  It’s those moments that really make you a believer. I don’t want to say “believer” because then it sounds like it’s something that’s not real. But it’s those moments that you learn to trust homeopathy with every bit of you. And then the other moments take a little more patience.

When we were doing our study group — her name is Tami, the craniosacral therapist. So, Tami, who I had this past relationship of trust with, I would call her. So, at the time we were suffering from the flu over the winter during the study groups. So, I was texting with everyone on a group text. And she kept saying to me, “Just be patient.” Because I’ve had those moments where homeopathy has worked like that, I couldn’t handle that it wasn’t working so quickly. So, patience is a big part of homeopathy, too.

We talked about not giving the remedy at the right time, but also taking too many remedies. And Joette had joked about in one of the podcasts that in the beginning everyone is going to have a moment where they try too many remedies. They sort of do this one, and then they throw another one out there, and then they change their mind and they throw another one in there. I definitely had a few of those days where I’m not really sure, and I’m anxious, and I want to get rid of that condition, whatever it is.

I was just texting with a friend today. She said that she had a really great experience for her canker sore. I actually gave her the Merc sol, and it wasn’t working. We did like two and a half days of it. It actually got worse. So, I was like, “You know what? I saw on a post somewhere Antimonium crudum.” So, she took it. And within a few hours she said, “Noticeably better.” She was begging to take another one. I said, “Just wait. Just let it have its time. You’ll know when you need another one.” So, it’s really practicing that patience.

Kate:  Yes. So, tell us about some other things that have happened. I know you had some experience also with strep throat, right?

Jessica:  Yes. Strep throat was a big one. So, my middle child — the one who has the croup issue — all his issues land in his throat, which is of interest. He used to get croup attacks, and then last year in May, he got a really sore throat. It ended up being strep throat. I took him to the doctor on about day four, and he had a positive strep test. And they gave him antibiotics because I’ve never had strep before. I’ve never researched it. And at this point, I wasn’t really using homeopathy for something like this. I didn’t know.

We went home and gave him the antibiotics. That was it. And then, he was on and off sick from May until October. We weren’t sick the whole previous winter and then after those antibiotics, things went downhill. And he’d only had one other dose of antibiotics in his life. And at this point, he was five. So, he had one when he was two. So then in September, he missed the first two days of school. He got strep throat again. Same thing, but this time I knew exactly what it looked like. With him, it hits with a high fever, a really sore throat, he’s really sick. And he also throws up.

So, this time, I think I waited until day two. Took him in, sure enough, strep throat. Came home, antibiotics, same thing. And then right around this time is when I’ve discovered Joette, and she mentioned strep. So, I got the remedy — as quick as I could get them, I got them. I knew that strep was coming again. I knew that wasn’t the end of it. So, I ended up getting the remedies. I made sure I had the right remedies on hand for strep. I felt like I was really ready for it to come. And this is one of those moments of empowerment like I wasn’t scared of strep coming anymore. I was like, “It’s going to come and we’re going to do this.” I even bought the home strep test.

Kate:  Oh!

Jessica:  Which was not easy to use, nor did that even help us in the end. So, that was September, and then the third time around was about the end of October. Sure enough, high fever, sore throat, throw up. I knew it was strep throat. There were the pus spots in the back of the throat.

So, sure enough, I got out the Hepar sulph, gave it to him. And I think I was writing on Joette’s message board — I was pretty anxious about it. It’s one of the first times I was using homeopathy for more of a major acute situation. And within 24 hours, he’d majorly improved. And by the next day, we actually already had a visit with this new pediatrician (we had a well visit the next day to get our school forms filled out). He looked at his throat, and his throat was perfectly fine, and he had had no fever the next day. He was still coming down from being sick, but he was overall on the mend.

Kate:  Amazing! Yay!

Jessica:  We’re really happy about that. Now, I can’t believe that I have this tool. What I think is also really cool — this is where I come back to the part about all of his issues being in his throat — he’s also a very vocal kid. He also, somewhere over this winter, they got impetigo. My older son was doing wrestling, and I think that’s where it came from. So, the older one got it at first. So, I started using the protocol for impetigo. And then the second one got it because impetigo is pretty contagious.

What was interesting to me is that the same remedy, Hepar sulph is used in both protocols, for impetigo, and also for croupiness, and also for strep throat, and also for hoarse voice — and he uses his voice so much. So, it’s all in his throat region! So, what’s really interesting to me is how he keeps calling for this same remedy. I like to think that it’s really uprooting all of this illness for him. That eventually he’s not going to have any of these issues, because he is now able to fix these conditions with homeopathy — which is really empowering for me. And I think for him too. He doesn’t feel as scared. It’s scary not to be able to breathe or to get these really horrible sore throats and feel that sick. So, he’s learning to trust the remedies, too, which is great.

Kate:  Wow! That’s so beautiful when it all ties together like that, and you start to see that this one remedy could uproot all of these things. It’s so incredible, so powerful!

Jessica:  Yes, really powerful. And I have to say skin issues always sort of perplex me. I know they’re usually not very dire circumstances, usually, skin conditions. But we never had any major eczema, but we’ve had little things here and there. Austin had one bout of eczema, and it was after a steroid shot when he’d had croup when he was younger. It came right around where he had the steroid shot in his hip area.

Kate:  Oh, wow!

Jessica:  That was the only eczema he’s ever had. However, over this winter, he got eczema on his back. I actually have right great before and after pictures. That was a huge thing, is taking a picture of it because if you only take a picture, you know what it looked like the day before.

Kate:  Oh yes, so document with photos. 

Jessica:  Yes, that’s been a huge help for me because it’s so easy. Joette talks about how it’s easy to forget — but it’s really easy to forget. I can’t remember if it’s better or worse. So, I would take a picture, and within a week of having this eczema, it was completely different. It was on its way out and now there’s nothing there.

And then my littlest guy got ringworm, also I think from the wrestling room. Same thing, used the protocol and worked great. What was cool there is I couldn’t get exactly what I needed in one of the remedies. I needed a 3C, and I didn’t have a 3C. I only had a 6C. That actually did work which was great. That question does come up — of playing around with the remedies. I know that it’s best to stick with the remedies to get the best results. But sometimes, I think there is a little bit of wiggle room.

Kate:  So, you told me a story when we were talking earlier about your son, Charlie, and something about a runny nose.

Jessica:  Oh, okay. Charlie had this runny nose from October all the way to January. I wasn’t exactly sure how to get rid of it. I was using Nat mur because I know that’s a great one for just uncolored mucus. But, nothing was really working, and it was just consistently coming out of his nose. He was healthy; he wasn’t sick. I couldn’t think of anything that he was allergic to. He was only 18 months.

So, I had gotten some information from Joette about using a remedy just for this runny nose. I used this remedy and within two days, the runny nose disappeared, and I haven’t seen it since. He just got a cold now. He’s got a runny nose again. But, now I know what to do which is great.

Kate:  Yes, that’s amazing. I love it!

Jessica:  I love it, too.

Kate:  You and I are going to be shouting from the rooftop, “You all need homeopathy!”

Jessica:  They’re really going to want to lock me up.

Kate:  Oh, that’s funny! Alright. Talk to us about your Gateway course and some of the moms, and how everything kind of came on at once. And then there was an experience about Charlie — all these Charlie stories, right? — Charlie playing with the ceramic mug.

Jessica:  So, we were on, I believe it was the week two meeting for my first study group, and we were talking about first aid. So, whenever we’d finished our night that night, we’d read about the remedies, and that was the end of that. The next morning, Charlie was in my mug drawer with all my coffee mugs. He took out a ceramic mug. Before I can even get to him, he dropped it on the floor and sliced his little pinky open with this mug. It was gushing blood. If you’ve seen it cut on a little baby’s finger, you know how it can really pour blood. It’s gushing blood.

I’m almost laughing in this moment to myself, how ironic this is! So sure enough, I gave him right away some Arnica, and then I gave him some Ledum. I was a little unsure of what to do, but that would seem to be the topic of our discussion last night. And that was on my mind, and I gave him Ledum 200. And I got really nervous, and I texted my friend and I said, “Oh my God, I gave him Ledum 200. Do you think that was too strong? She said, “Just go with it, it’s done. You just have to believe in what you did.” Within a few minutes, it healed up in a way that looked like he had a paper cut. I kid you not. It went from a gushing open wound to a tiny little sliver that wasn’t bleeding.

So, I was really amazed and really happy. And it looked really great. So, that was it. We went to bed that night, and I totally forgot about it. Job well done! Patted myself on the back. Laughed about that.

Then about two days later, I saw him kind of favoring that hand. And I looked at that pinky, and sure enough, it was really infected. It was really inflamed. It was swollen. Half of his pinky was bright red. I know he has a little pinky, but it was really not looking happy. There was pus coming out of it. It was a well-infected finger.

I was concerned. I wasn’t really so concerned about where he cut it, because it was a clean mug. But, we have plants and dirt, and this kid is an earth baby. All he does is play in the dirt. So, all I could think about was those moms freaking out about tetanus. I started to freak out about tetanus and didn’t know what to do. Sure enough, I thought, “Oh, I’m going to try Ledum.”

There were a few remedies that crossed my mind, but that was the one that we talked about that night so much. I said I’m going to try it, again. And I used Ledum the first night. But, I didn’t think about it again. So then, I used Ledum now and within a couple of hours, the pus started to go away. I think the redness and the swelling was the first to go. And it healed up really nicely.

It was a really wonderfully empowering experience. And I was so grateful to have those remedies on hand. If hadn’t had them on hand, I would have had to go to the doctor. I would have had to do something else, because it was an emergency situation at that point. His finger really was not looking good. And again, I took pictures, so it’s really great because I have the before and after of that.

Kate:  Oh wow! And then, didn’t he also hit his head or something where he had a goose egg?

Jessica:  So, Charlie has a hemangioma. And I’m not sure if everyone knows what that is, but it is a vascular. It’s like a giant red, blood-looking-like mark on his forehead. It’s a birthmark. It’s supposed to disappear on its own somewhere around the age of two. If it doesn’t, now we have homeopathy for that. So, I’m ready.

But, he fell and hit his head. As a mom of three boys, I’m no stranger to head bumps. It really doesn’t freak me out when they hit their head. I know what happens. I know what to do. But, he hit his head right on the corner of a really solid wooden bench — right under that hemangioma — and it swelled up instantly. I didn’t know if — because it was such a vascular, bloody area — if there were any implications for that. So, I got pretty nervous. It was a good-sized bump. It bruised and swelled up very quickly.

So, I called the doctor. There happen to have a concussion specialist there, so we made an appointment. On the way to the doctor, we decided to give him Arnica. And this was still at the point where I was using homeopathy, but I had to, like, remember to use it. It wasn’t my instinct — “Oh, I’m going to use homeopathy!” And we’re using ice and trying to get ice on an 18-month-old’s head is not really easy.

Kate:  Yes.

Jessica: So, I gave him a dose of Arnica 200. And right there in front of our eyes, it’s completely reduced in swelling. It basically disappeared. Underneath the hemangioma, there was no more lump.

Kate:  So, you went to the doctor then?

Jessica:  We were on our way to the doctor at that point. My husband wanted to get it checked out, so we did. They looked at it and they said it was fine and sent us on our way.

Kate:  Nice!

Jessica:  Yes, it was a really great experience. We’re very lucky to have had that there.

Kate:  Yes. So, give us a list of all the different things that you’ve seen homeopathy work for — like, I’ve seen it work for croup, and bruises, and cuts.

Jessica:  Yes. Just off the top of my head — we’ve had the ones I’ve been talking about —  we’ve had strep throat, impetigo, eczema, ringworm, the cut on my son’s hand, bruises, and swollen areas of the body. For bleeding, it’s worked. We had a friend who we helped with pneumonia. We’ve used it for coughs. We’ve used it for runny noses. We’ve used it for anxiety and sadness. We’ve used it for irritability and teething, and irritability just on its own (nothing to do with teething). I’ve used it for my own. We’ve used it for sleeplessness. And, I’m trying to think, I mean the list is literally endless. I just used it on a friend for an infected cesarean incision, and another friend for a canker sore, allergies, sneezing fits. You name it, and we’re trying to heal it.

Kate: Nice.

Jessica:  Oh! Vomiting, bloating … you go down the list. I don’t know if it’s a good sign or a bad sign, but we have so many things to treat.

Kate:  Oh, I think mastitis, too.

Jessica:  Oh, yes. That was very early on. I used Phytolacca to help with my mastitis. That was very, very early on. Actually, that was probably the first remedy I ever used.

Kate:  Wow! Start off with a bang!

Jessica:  Yes, exactly.

Kate:  Well, it’s been really great talking to you, and I love your enthusiasm for homeopathy. I know that will be contagious to our listeners and those people who just need a little bit of encouragement that, “Yes, you can do this. You can find the right remedy. This is going to work. Just keep learning. Have those remedies on hand.” Oh, and one other thing that we should mention. When we were talking earlier, you said something about this really isn’t that expensive to have — the remedies.

Jessica:  Right. So initially off the bat, it might seem like a really big investment to some people to get the kit. But I can tell you, I’ve used all those remedies so many times. And if you go to the store and you stock up — say, at Whole Foods or something — you’re going to spend probably four times the amount of money in the end that you would if you just went out and bought a kit.

And, you have to this at your disposal. You can travel with it. You don’t have 55 giant vials in your bag. You have this nice, compact, little container. You can help everybody just from this one little container. You can take it with you on an airplane. You can take it with you in a car. Wherever you go, you always feel like you have that with you — which is really a huge comfort.

Kate:  So, did you get the kit from Joette?

Jessica:  I did. I initially purchased the 30 kit and the 200 kit from Joette, and then shortly thereafter, I ended up getting the cell salt kit [no longer available].

Kate:  Okay. So, Jessica, I think you were telling me that you also have Joette’s materia medica. And I have people asking me quite often what I think of Joette’s materia medica, and if they should purchase it. So, why don’t you give us your take on her materia medica?

Jessica:  Of course! Joette’s materia medica has been super helpful for me. It’s really great because it doesn’t use some of the difficult terminology that’s used in the other materia medicas that I’ve seen. And instead, it’s very relatable and easy to understand information. It’s used in Joette’s voice. Her personality shines through in it, as well as sometimes she’s throwing in some protocols that are either helpful in that moment or helpful to tuck away for later use. It’s really been an excellent tool for me to have.

Kate:  Well, Jessica, thank you again for sharing with us. It’s been a pleasure getting to know you. I thank you for your time and your willingness to share the successes that you’ve had. So, thanks for being with us today, Jessica.

Jessica:  Thank you so much for having me. It’s really been an honor. I feel so grateful to have had this experience. Thank you.

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 and nutrient-dense nutrition. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Stitcher, and TuneIn 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.

Music Credits:

Music Link ➞ https://youtu.be/jVqxkN05UIg  Artist SC ➞ https://soundcloud.com/ehrling

Music Promoted by Chill Royalty Free Music https://goo.gl/5NfMV4

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

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

01:23    Everything we do has meaning

04:22    Stop spending your good health

15:24    Classical background, stocking up on remedies, and organizing notes

20:08    Homeopathy for all conditions

22:08    Make your bed

23:37    Combination remedies

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Coffea cruda

Nux vomica

Washington Homeopathics

Hahnemann Pharmacy

Boiron

Hyland’s

OHM

Helios

You are listening to a podcast from practicalhomeopathy.com where nationally certified American homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese, shares her passion for helping families stay healthy through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition.

Joette:  We always think when we’re young, “Oh, that will never happen to me,” the proverbial, “I’ll just flit through life almost like a magpie, ‘Oh, something shiny. I think I’ll chase after that for a while.’” That’s why I felt, when I looked back, it feels as though my life was like a magpie.

Kate:  You are listening to Podcast Number 47 at practicalhomeopathy.com with Joette Calabrese. In today’s podcast, Joette takes a look back at her life as a mother and homeopath. She will share with us the wisdom that she has gained from her many years of experience. If you’re like me, you love to learn and would love to sit with Joette for just 30 minutes and pick her brain. Well, we will do just that. So, grab a pen and some paper and let’s hear from Joette.

Hi. I’m Kate and I’m here with Joette today. I was thinking to myself, what would I ask Joette if I had the opportunity to sit down and just chat with her for say, half an hour or an hour. What pressing question … or how would I narrow it down to one burning question? Joette, this is what I came up with: Looking back now with all of your experience with homeopathy in your family, your life’s experience, what would you tell your younger self?

Joette:  I think I would say, “Stop it! Just stop that! Stop acting like that way, like that, stop thinking that way.” Really, if I could — oh — if I could just undo my mistakes. I made so many stupid mistakes. So, if I could get myself, I would shake her. I would tell her to … I would slap her across the face and say, “Get a grip, girl. It’s not about this or that. It’s about this.” So, what is “this?” “This” is that everything we do is meaningful. I don’t want to put a guilt trip on everyone but, you know, we’ve all made mistakes. But, everything we do has meaning. And not only does it have meaning for us, but it has meaning and rippling effects into the world around us. Our parents are affected by our behavior. Our children are affected by our decisions, our grandchildren, even our great-grandchildren.

I mean, my grandparents came to this country from Sicily. That decision — both sides — that decision that they both made has rippled through hundreds of people’s lives, hundreds (because they had large families on both sides, and now their children — who are my parents — and their grandchildren, and now great-grandchildren). So, think about that one decision to leave a horrible place, such as Sicily. It was horrible for them: grinding poverty, heavy government hand on them in addition to the grinding — well, that’s the reason there was grinding poverty, as far as I’m concerned. And, they decided to come as young adults and make a whole new life. My goodness! What a difference it made in so many people’s lives.

So, we think that every day when we think of doing this or that, we think it has no consequence. Everything we do has a consequence. Everything goes out there, good or bad, whether it’s called a consequence or an advantage. So, I wish I had been more mindful of that. I wish I had had more wisdom. Of course, wisdom doesn’t come with youth, it comes with age. We always think when we’re young, “Oh, that will never happen to me,” the proverbial, “I’ll just flit through life almost like a magpie, ‘Oh, something shiny. I think I’ll chase after that for a while.’”

That’s why I felt, when I looked back, it feels as though my life was like a magpie. I was too influenced by shiny objects. I don’t mean literally, although, I like jewelry, too. But I mean, I was too influenced by the first thing that came to my mind or the first thing that came before me. So, that’s what youth is. It’s a misguided understanding of what’s important. The hierarchies of importance are not there. Parents tell the children, but we don’t listen. I didn’t. I didn’t listen. I made a lot of really stupid mistakes. So, that’s one thing.

I guess I would say stop spending. Stop spending money. Stop spending your good health because it may not always be there. We want to save for that rainy day because it’s inevitable. Life has its twists and turns.

Kate:  So, what does that mean exactly to you, Joette, when you say, “Stop spending your good health?” What does that mean?

Joette:  Well, when I was a young woman, everyone smoked cigarettes. So, that was really foolish of me. We drank alcohol. I would never say that I went into an alcoholic binging. I wasn’t like that. But, that’s part of it. And not worrying about eating properly. Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe that the youth should be worried about eating the proper foods. But, there should be a baseline that preparing your own meals is a very important part of being an adult and eating foods that are made from scratch as much as possible.

Also, when you have a cold or flu, you don’t run to the doctor and get a drug. I mean I used to get urinary tract infections here and there and I would just take an antibiotic. I never gave it a thought. Why would I put anything in my body without knowing what the consequences might be? That’s spending your health without realizing. To this day, I still am amazed at how many people I meet with … and again, I am not slapping people on the back of the hand because many folks have just not thought about this. So, here’s an opportunity for us to discuss it. But, I’m surprised at how many people take drugs and have several conditions. We look up the drug and look up the side effects, and there’s the condition that they have.

Kate:  Wow!

Joette:  It’s a secondary condition or the tertiary condition. I said, “Did you know that the drug that you’ve been taking for 10 years has been known to cause the condition that you are now suffering from for the last five years?”

Kate:  I think you mentioned that with inhalers for asthma, right?

Joette:  Yes.

Kate:  What’s the medication that’s commonly used?

Joette:  Steroids, certainly … steroid inhalers.

Kate:  I remember you saying that about steroid inhalers, that they can actually cause asthma. And that’s what doctors prescribe for asthma!

Joette:  Yes. It’s uncanny how drugs cause such trouble, but people don’t think twice about it. They just believe what they’re told and accept it. There should come a time in all of our lives when we say, “Enough! That’s enough. I now have to do my homework.” And in today’s world, with the access to information that we have, there really is almost no excuse for not looking up what the side effects of drugs are.

I would never expect someone to read all the side effects because that’s longer than a Russian novel. And you know how you can’t pronounce those Russian names in War and Peace, that’s sort of the same idea. You can’t pronounce those words! You’ll never get through all. So instead, you’ll look up online. Does this condition that I have … is it caused by that drug, or does this drug cause this condition (any condition you might have)? You might have asthma, but my hair is falling out for goodness’ sakes. Is alopecia the result of taking this inhaler? Find out.

But. I also caution you that now, the industry is smart enough to have picked up on this. The first page, they will give you a lead to saying that, indeed, it can cause asthma. You open it up, and then there’s nothing. I mean there’s information, but it has nothing to do with the title of the lead of the article. And they expect people just to give up after page one, two, or three. So, you have to dig further. You’ve got to keep looking.

Or, I got an idea, how about asking the pharmacist? He’s the guy who knows! The doctors don’t know. Doctors do not — excuse me, I know this is a blanket sweeping statement — doctors do not know their medicines like they should. The medicines change too quickly.

Kate:  Right, how can they know everything about every medicine?

Joette:  Well, not only that but the last medicine that they’ve been using, you know, Tylenol, whatever it might be was just yanked from the market. Now, they’ve got a new one to replace it. Their drug rep comes in — in tall, 3-inched stiletto heels, and a short skirt, bearing donuts and chicken wings — and showing him the new drug that replaces that old drug. So, as long as people understand, it’s not that the doctors are bad guys. It’s that they couldn’t possibly keep up! It’s up to you to keep up!

So, if I could speak to my younger self, I would say, “Hello, it’s your life. Not the doctor’s life, not your parents’ life, it’s your life.” So, what we put into it is what we get out of it. You don’t get to this point in learning about health as I have learned. You don’t get here at once; you get here at last!

So, when someone you love (an aunt, or a cousin, or something), comes to you and says, “You know, I’m really sick. I’ve got this, this, and this.” And you’re trying to direct them — especially in severe illnesses like cancer or something — and you want them to learn about homeopathy, find a doctor who treats cancer with homeopathy, et cetera. The path that you have been following is your path. Their path is brand new. Suddenly, bam! Now, they’ve got this terrible diagnosis.

You can’t expect them to shorten it and tighten it up to suit your time schedule. Because as I said: You don’t get here at once, you get here at last. It takes a long time to get to the point where you say, “Okay, I don’t like that drug. I don’t like what that did to me. Or you know what? It’s not really working! Or it might be working on this, but it’s causing that.” And you do it again and again and again. After a while, we get slapped upside the head by the drug, and we realize this was a mistake. That’s how we come to this. No one comes to homeopathy at first glance. They’re not born and then suddenly say, “Okay mom, here’s the deal. I want homeopathy.” You have to suffer. You have to suffer at the hand of drugs and ill-treatment through certain conventional medical methods.

Kate:  So, you would say to your younger self maybe make informed choices? Don’t just trust someone else with the decisions that affect your life? Really do your research, your homework, right?

Joette:  Yes, it’s like getting a mortgage. I mean do you just go to the bank and they say, “Okay, the rate is 12%.” You say, “Okay, I’ll pay 12%. Over 30 years? Sure.” “And there are 5 points?” “Okay.” Then five years later, you find out, 12%! What are you doing? This is 2018! It should have been 3% with no points. Whoops! You didn’t do your homework.

Now, that’s not going to happen in a free market, generally speaking. They know they’re not going to get away with 12% if it’s 3%. But I’m being a little fictitious in the exaggeration, but what if they charge 3.5% when you could have gotten 3%? That would make a huge difference in your lifestyle. So, think of this as buying a house. How about buying a car? At least if nothing else when it comes to your health, kick the tires. Hold still, Doc!

Kate:  Let me see what shakes out.

Joette:  I mean, at least go to the blue book. Check out the value for goodness’ sakes.

Kate:  Yes.

Joette:  If you don’t do that then, unfortunately, we end up on this long trail of drug-after-drug-after-drug-after-procedure-after-drug. It’s a freight train. It’s a freight train. Once you step on, it will zoom you away. You will be so caught up in the world of drug-after-drug.

I had an aunt who was not that sickly, but she had a urination problem. It was really becoming bothersome. She was in her early 80s when this was happening. She went to the doctor, and she got a drug. Then that caused trouble with her throat and her eyes. They got very dry. Then she would cough. She’d go into coughing fits. Her eyes would burn and hurt. It felt like sand in her eyes.

Then she went back and got another drug for that and then drug after that. I finally said, “Why are you going to the doctor for this? Why don’t you be more hands-on here? Let’s figure out why you’re urinating so frequently.” Well, I knew why she was urinating so frequently. She was drinking — and I know you’re not going to believe this. I’ve talked about this before. She made a big coffee pot of coffee every day, and the coffee pot held 20 cups. She drank all but two, every day!

Kate:  Oh wow!

Joette:  She drank EIGHTEEN cups of coffee daily. I said, “Aunt Mary, that might have something to do with your kidneys, your bladder, your ureter, your urethra. I think you need to back off of that coffee. That’s what’s causing the trouble.” Now, why did that urologist not tell her that? Why didn’t he say, “How many cups of coffee do you drink a day?” I knew that. I’m not a doctor. And this was long ago. How come I knew that? Because it’s common sense! It’s just common sense.

It draws out the fluids from the body. That’s why when people drink coffee, they often have a bowel movement shortly after — besides the stimulation of it — it’s a diuretic. So, this diuretic was playing on her body for all these years causing urination trouble. Instead of saying, “Let’s just be logical.” No, he said, “Here, take this drug. And then take this one for that, and that one for this.” And her answer was, “Yeah, but Joette … it’s free! I don’t have to pay for this.” I said, “Aunt Mary, that’s why you shouldn’t go — because it’s free.”

Kate:  Right.

Joette:  Because if you have no skin in the game, so to speak, if you’re not paying for this information, you’re not going to really value it as much as you ought to. You need to do your homework. That’s not a good reason to go to a doctor – because it’s free. In fact, it’s the worst.

Kate:  So, did she stop drinking the coffee?

Joette:  Yes, she did. She did, and then she started to get terrible headaches. Of course, her first thought was to go to the doctor and get pain reliever. But instead, I gave her Coffea and Nux vomica, and it helped with the headaches a great deal. So finally, she didn’t stop coffee completely, but she stopped it enough. I believe she went down to about five cups a day. Now, let me also explain this: She was 4’11 and probably weighed 100 pounds soaking wet. So, it amazes me that she was even able to get that much down. But, 18 cups of coffee in a 4-foot-11 person is pretty intense.

Kate:  Okay, so let’s talk now about looking back at your younger self when you started getting into homeopathy, and you were on the right track … away from the medications. What advice would you give yourself about how to go about healing your family using homeopathy now with the information that you have?

Joette:  Well, I wish I had had the Banerji Protocols back then. I was craving them. I wanted protocols. On the other hand, having studied classical homeopathy to the degree that I did — and I spent years studying it — it was very beneficial. So, from the time that I learned homeopathy, I would say I did it right. I’ll be honest with you, I think I did it right. If I had had the Banerji Protocols, I would have still studied classical homeopathy because it’s so valuable as an underpinning for someone who eventually goes into practice or starts writing or teaching. But for a mom who has no intention of doing that, these practical applications of homeopathy are so golden that someone could easily skip right over classical and get right to the meat of the problem.

Kate:  If your intention is not to go into practice …

Joette:  Right. If you’re planning on going into practice or teaching, then you really ought to have a classical background because this is all based on classical.

Kate:  So, what about purchasing remedies. I know you often say purchase as much as you can, as often as you can. Stock up! So, looking back, would you have anything to say to your younger self about the remedies … about getting remedies?

Joette:  I can just say that whenever I could afford more, I bought more. But, I did do this: Mother’s Day, birthdays, Christmas … I asked for homeopathy, homeopathy books, homeopathy classes, remedies, homeopathy kits. My focus was homeopathy, homeopathy, homeopathy because it was the essence of how I was raising my family and treating my husband and my parents and our livestock and our pets. So, I couldn’t get enough. I still can’t get enough. I still go to India every year. This year, I’m not going because of some family losses that we’ve had, and my family needs me here. But it’s something that will never disappear in my life. I must always keep learning. We must do that, all of us.

Kate:  So, here’s another question. If you could only take one book with you, what book would you take with you? What homeopathic book?

Joette:  Oh, homeopathic book … because I would say the Bible would be first to be honest because there is all the wisdom. Aside from something that would protect me spiritually, one book. Well, when I was younger, it would have been my repertory, so the Synthesis. Yes, I would take the Synthesis.

Kate:  So, when you say the Synthesis, is that the name of a repertory? Is it an author?

Joette:  Yes, it is the name of the repertory. As I matured in my homeopathic knowledge, it would probably be my notebook, the notes that I’ve kept for years.

Kate:  Yes, I agree with you. After having studied with you for many years and taking your classes and just learned about homeopathy in general, my notes — having those organized in one place that I can easily refer to them is invaluable to me.

Joette:  Well, and organizing our notes is not a job. It’s actually total pleasure because while you’re organizing them, you’re learning more. You’re memorizing more. You can’t help it but to do it 2, 3, 4, 20 times. Organize, organize, organize! I love doing that. It’s my dessert at the end of the day.

Now, we’ve just moved, and I’ve just organized my remedies and some of my papers. I look forward to it. We have dinner. We go for a walk. We sit down in the living room, and I start at it and I love it. It’s total pleasure to me. Now, if it’s not total pleasure to you, that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be that way for everyone. But that just happens to be mine. And of course, if you have young children? Yeah. Right. Because it’s bedtime, and there’s a lot of work to be done.

Kate:  Maybe midnight, you’ll get to organizing them, right?

Joette:  Right, right, right. When my children were young, I would do it while they were playing, or when they were sleeping. Whatever they were doing, I was doing it right alongside them so that they saw their mother doing purposeful work. What was she doing? She was organizing remedies. She was folding clothes. She was making meals. She was cleaning the house. She was tending to the other child. That’s part of mothering is for children to see this purposeful work. I can’t think of anything more purposeful than planning for the eventuality of someone’s illness.

Kate:  Okay, so you talk to a lot of people, every day a lot of people over the course of a year. You sort of having a pulse on what these people who are hungry for healing their families naturally using homeopathy, what they’re going through. So, pretend you’re speaking to a wide audience of them. What advice, knowing the kinds of questions, the kinds of things that they come to you with, what kind of advice do you have for them?

Joette:  Well, one of the questions that I see repeatedly asked is, “What about my case? What about my child’s case? Does homeopathy uproot eczema? Can homeopathy help my husband with GERD? Can I be helped with …?” and then fill in the blank. And everyone believes that their illness or their child’s illness is the one exception, and perhaps homeopathy can’t help with. But I’ve yet to see where homeopathy hasn’t been invaluable in just about every condition there is.

Now, if someone’s in an automobile accident, obviously you’re going to get care from an emergency room. But that doesn’t mean you don’t use homeopathy, too, to help with the shockiness, and hemorrhaging, and hematomas, et cetera. If you could use both, that would be great. A friend of mine’s son just had surgery, and of course, he had surgery. He needed surgery on the shoulder. Homeopathy can take it so far, and then there can a time when surgery is needed. I love that there’s surgery available to us. I think it’s used too often, but it is invaluable when it’s necessary.

So, for the pain, he could have been given oxycodone or those kinds of drugs, and his mom is using homeopathy. Wow! Can you imagine that? I mean this is a young man. And so, we don’t want a young man taking oxycodone every day for pain. We all know how serious the consequences are to something like that. I’m not saying he should never take it. But until she got the right remedy, she had to administer it a couple of times. But, we want to back off as soon as possible.

Kate:  So, is there anything else that you can think of that when people …as you’re talking to people all the time … it’s something that generally you want to say?

Joette:  I would also say to most moms or to moms in general that this is their one opportunity. You only get one. This is it. You’ve got it right now. I just talked to a young woman who was pregnant the other day. I said this is it. You have nine months. At the end of the nine months, that baby is out of your body. What you eat, what you think, what you do everyday matters. If you pray everyday, that unborn baby will get that. If you watch pornography everyday, that baby will get that. If you eat good quality, pasture-raised eggs or just good quality eggs and good quality cheese, that baby will get that. The baby will also get the alcohol or the diet soda.

So, we have to be intentional. We need to be practically militaristic. Get up in the morning. Make your bed. I don’t mean that specifically. I mean figuratively. Make your bed. That means okay, this is done now. We finish that task. We go to the next task. You have to be intentional about your life. If you want to learn homeopathy and that’s your intention, you’ll get it. You’ll do it. I know because I’ve done it, and there’s nothing different about me.

Kate:  So, one of the things, Joette, that I hear often as long as we’re talking about what kind of advice, tell us what your advice would be about using a combination remedy that has maybe five to ten ingredients in it. You know, they vary widely as to the number of ingredients. Along with say … you are taking … you’ve taken one of your courses and now you’re taking two remedies for say, allergies. What kind of advice would you give people about using those combination remedies in addition to say, two, three, four other remedies that they’re using?

Joette:  Well, years ago when I was classical, and I was classical for many years where I was trained that you use one remedy at a time, I would become squeamish over the thought of using a combination remedy. I may even have some old information on my blog regarding that. Actually, I’ve thought about taking it off, but then that doesn’t show my growth in all of this.

But, through the years, I’ve learned through my own experiences and those of my clients and students and friends, et cetera, that they still work even if you’re using several remedies. So why not? Why would you allow someone to suffer, when you can give them something that will help? Now having said that, we don’t want to go over the top either. And there is a tipping point where we can become so worried about our health or our children’s health that we just throw remedies at them or ourselves. That’s not prudent.

So, it is important to stay with those remedies that you know are correct, that you’ve got a good rationale and you’re seeing, perhaps, you’re seeing results already. And then if someone gets the flu, you use a combination medicine, for example. Or there’s an ear infection, you use that combination ear infection medicine, and you add that in there as well. I don’t have any trouble with that. So, if there are five remedies in one combination, and you’re already taking three for a chronic condition, I think that’s perfectly acceptable.

Kate:  Okay. So, some of them have upwards of eight, nine different medicines.

Joette:  I know there are some. I’m not up on all of them. But the ones that Boiron make, and the ones that Hyland’s make, and the pharmacies that I’m most familiar with generally have about four to five. Now, if you find the some that have 20 in them, now I would think twice. That’s too much potshot. Now, they’re just throwing it up against the wall to see if it sticks. That’s not tight enough.

What I like about those pharmacies, Washington Homeopathics, and Hahnemann Pharmacy, and Boiron, of course, and Hyland’s, and OHM for my students and clients, what I love about … Helios … about them is that they know their stuff. They’ve been around a long time, and they’re not just throwing stuff together and coming up with a potential combo. They know what their product is. They’ve had it out for a long time, and their pharmacists are quite sophisticated.

Kate:  So, I think there are two sides to this, right? I remember you talking to a group of our Gateway students and telling them to make some choices. That perhaps if they’re looking at taking a combination remedy for weight loss, say, right, and they’re dealing with some chronic issues — well, maybe the weight loss isn’t as important as the chronic issues.

Joette:  Well, that’s a good point. And I like that you brought that up because oftentimes, when you’re taking a homeopathic schedule for chronic conditions, the weight just falls away — or whatever it might be, alopecia, or chronic conjunctivitis. Those things will often fall to the wayside when you treat the chronic anyway, so, don’t address it specifically. Allow the remedies to act most fully and see where you go with that. You might be very surprised to find out that that’s resolved seemingly on its own, but it’s because you were using the correct medicines for those chronic conditions.

Kate:  Yes, don’t you see that over and over in talking with people?

Joette:  Yes, all the time, all the time. So, what I hear is, “Oh my gosh! We were dealing with my arthritis, but I’m sleeping better. And not only that, but I don’t have the burping anymore. In addition to that, my libido is back.” What do you know? It’s all connected.

Kate:  I know. Isn’t that exciting when you find remedies, and it just helps everything.

Joette:  Yes, yes, the shoulder bone’s connected to the elbow bone, there’s no doubt about it. The thigh bone’s connected to the hip bone. The hip bone’s connected to the backbone.

Kate:  Oh yes!

Joette:  The backbone’s connected to the shoulder bone. The shoulder bone’s connected to the neck bone. The neck bone’s connected to the head bone. Now hear the word of the Lord. I love that song, DEM Bones.

Kate:  DEM Bones! Maybe that should be your theme song.

Joette:  Yes, if I could leave with any words, I would say don’t follow someone else’s rules. Unless you’re young, then follow your parent’s rules. But by the time you’re a mother or grandmother, don’t follow someone else’s rules. You have to find out for yourself. I urge you to determine who it is you hold in highest esteem and follow that — potentially —  that person for a while, and then go to another person and follow …  

I mean, I follow a lot of political pundits who I hold in high regard, and I listen to many of them. I try to synthesize what I think is most valuable in how it relates to my life and the life of my family and my clients and students. But, I don’t follow their rules. I listen to their information because they’ve done more research. So, it forces us all to be independent thinkers. Take this on. It’s your life. It’s your child’s life. This is where the rubber meets the road!

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 and nutrient-dense nutrition. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Stitcher, and TuneIn 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.

*Music Link ➞ https://youtu.be/jVqxkN05UIg, Artist SC ➞ https://soundcloud.com/ehrling, Music Promoted by Chill Royalty Free Music https://goo.gl/5NfMV4

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

05:29    Advice to beginners

07:30    Puncture wound, Ledum and Arnica

10:01    Toenail injury

11:24    Bladder exstrophy and Cantharis

17:49    Saving through homeopathy

21:30    Gateway curriculum

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Good Gut, Bad Gut

Ledum – for puncture wounds

Arnica – for puncture wounds

Aconite – for puncture wounds

Cantharis – for bladder infections

Pulsatilla  – for soothing child’s clinginess

Chamomilla  – for relaxing a child before bed

Joette’s Facebook Page

Arsenicum  – for food sensitivities and allergies

A Materia medica: Practical Homeopathy® for Busy Families

Remedy Kits

Joette:  Each day from my office, I get to see how homeopathy is transforming lives all over the globe and I want to share them with you. Some of my students have really caught my eye. Some of you have done all you can to learn how to cure those around you using homeopathic medicines. Your successes inspire me. They’re glorious and powerful. I can’t keep these successes a secret any longer. So, with help from my roving reporters, we bring you a mini podcast series that I call “Moms with Moxie.” Sometimes we even interview dads with audacity. See how regular mothers and others, average people who want to cure those around them have gone from freaking to fabulous with homeopathy.

Kate:  You’re listening to Podcast Number 46 here at practicalhomeopathy.com. I’m Kate. On today’s podcast, we have a sweet, young mom who joins us to share her experiences with homeopathy. Suzanne will tell us how she’s helped her whole family with some pretty scary and serious incidents. I think you’ll want to listen to her story and share this podcast with others you know that might be interested in homeopathy and how to get started. I’m also going to share with you information about the new Gateway to Homeopathy study guide. But first, I want to welcome Suzanne to the podcast.

Suzanne, it’s great to be with you here today. I’m excited to get to know you. Welcome!

Suzanne:  Oh, thank you, Kate. I’m very excited to be here.

Kate:  So, you are from Indiana, right?

Suzanne:  Yes. We’re from Indiana. I’m married to Danny. We’ve been married 10 years now. We have three kids. Ian is seven, Jace is five, and Elise is one. We have our dog, Max, too.

Kate:  Another family member.

Suzanne:  Yes. He’s three. He is our teenager in our house, that’s pretty much …

Kate:  That’s funny. Tell me a little bit about your background.

Suzanne:  We have always kind of been conscientious about our health and things like that. Sometimes we slip up, but we wouldn’t consider ourselves “crunchy” in any sense. But yet, we like to have more of a healthy approach to things.

So, my sister has been looking into homeopathy for — it’s been about a year now. She approached me with it. I thought here’s another “one thing” that maybe we could contribute to our family and try to help support us in our health. She started a study group, Joette’s Gateway to Homeopathy. She invited me and a few of my friends. It was a group of six of us. We sat around and went through the book, and we all decided that this is something that we were very interested in. I’m really new to this. So, just been kind of experiencing things through what my family ends up doing.

Kate:  What ends up happening to you guys, right?

Suzanne:  Yes. So, well, with two boys, it’s been kind of crazy.

Kate:  I can imagine. Okay, so you went through the Gateway to Homeopathy curriculum.

Suzanne:  Correct.

Kate:  What did you think of that?

Suzanne:  It was very informative. At first, all we wanted to know was … we wanted to know what to do. It was very refreshing to be at the end of the lessons to get some of that from Joette and understand that we’re in a process. It’s not something that we just figure out the protocol, and we do this. There’s so much work to it. We have to understand the whole aspect of what homeopathy is. So, there’s a little bit of frustration at first. We finally, at the end, we’re like, “Okay, we get this.” Now, we want to do the next study group and we want to move on. My sister has actually moved on to Good Gut, Bad Gut. She’s been really excited about that.

Kate:  I think that’s super common. When people first start out with homeopathy and they take the Gateway or however they’re learning about it, they want to get to, “hat are the protocols? What do I take for xyz?” I think many people don’t understand that there is more to know than just what’s the protocol for a cough. It’s good to have that depth of understanding to know a little bit about the history, and some information about how the remedies are made. So, I think that Gateway curriculum is really great to give a good foundation so that someone then can branch off and study more in-depth.

Suzanne:  Yes, that’s been really helpful to understand that, to just kind of delve into just the thought process behind homeopathy. It’s a total mind-switch.

Kate:  Yes, it is. It’s so different from anything else.

Suzanne:  After we had gotten done with the whole Gateway to Homeopathy, our minds … they were so full of information that we are all starting to go back through that study and relearning a lot more. Because now, we have that foundation to understand the way homeopathy works. It’s been great. Going back through the study on my own is very enriching, even more so.

Kate:  So, what recommendations would you have for someone who is just beginning their adventure in homeopathy — just starting out — maybe taking a Gateway group for the first time? What would you have to say to them?

Suzanne:  I will say at first, have patience in it. Have a little bit of faith in it, too. I think a lot of times in our society, we just want that one medicine to just get it, and just be done. Put the Band-Aid over it. I don’t want to deal with it anymore until it comes up again.

It’s just a different mindset. Instead of reaching for an aspirin or the ibuprofen or something like that, what are you going to reach for? Do you have everything in your grasp that you need with homeopathy? That’s the one thing that I’ve learned this last weekend is to have the first aid — homeopathy, ready, set, and go — especially if you have kids. That’s a little bit of advice.

Joette knows exactly what she’s talking about. That’s what gave me the faith at first, having her as the professional knowing what to do, and then utilizing some of the homeopathy remedies and protocols just as a simple step. We all learn when we need to and with situations. And just to be patient in that.

Kate:  Yes, that’s really great advice. Thank you for sharing. I think it’s helpful for those who are just starting out, and like you said, just want to get going and want all the information. So yes, being patient. And oh, it’s so important to have those remedies, isn’t it?

Suzanne:  It is. It is. I wanted to share what happened this weekend. My husband was home. He decided he wanted to fix the cheese slicer — just one of those little cheese slicers that has a little wire that fell off. So, he has a screwdriver like this. He had the cheeser on the side. He puts a Phillips screwdriver through his hand, on the inside of his hand.

So, it’s a very deep puncture wound. I came running downstairs, found him just kind of holding it. It was bleeding enough that I knew that it was getting cleaned out a little bit. And, he proceeded to faint on me.

Kate:  Oh my gosh!

Suzanne:  So, it was just one of those things, that … I’ve never seen him faint. I had no idea that he even would do that on me. So, I got him down on the ground. He had hit his head. So, I immediately grabbed for the Ledum. I only had a 30c. And then I had the Arnica 200c that I started giving him right away for the pain. He was in shock. There are probably more things I could have given him, but I didn’t have them on hand. So, instead of just not giving them to him, I decided to give what I had.

I went ahead and treated the wound just by cleaning it out. He came to. We continued to give him Ledum. It was about every 10 minutes, I would give him a Ledum. It took a good one hour to two hours, I would say, before the pain really subsided. Then after that, it was about every hour that I was giving him a Ledum and an Arnica, actually. After a day, he didn’t need anything. He didn’t take any ibuprofen. There was no swelling. There was no bruising — which I could not believe.

This was my first attempt at the first aid. Any other time, we probably would have gone over to the urgent care or something like that just to make sure. But we were pretty sure and had the faith in what we had learned with homeopathy that that was going to work. It did. He’s back to work. It’s not sore. I was just amazed.

Kate:  Nice! That’s great! I love it! So, did you guys have any Aconite on hand?

Suzanne:  We did not have Aconite on hand. The next day, I went right out and bought some. I knew I needed to have that. As I was flipping through the Gateway to Homeopathy, and I believe on her website, I’m not sure, she has the free first aid paper that I ran to right away, to grab, and went through all the protocols that she had suggested. So, the next day, I was like, “Okay, that’s it. I’m doing this.” I think for some people, it does take them to see it in action and to work for the first time to have faith in it. But, it was amazing.

About four days later, my son goes out, seven years old. He was putting something in the dumpster. There was a piece of wood that held on his second toe. It broke his toenail open.

Kate:  Oh my!

Suzanne:  Yes, so we had the Ledum. We had the Aconite. And we had the Arnica. We went ahead and started with that. He had no pain by the end of the night. It is totally gone, no bruising. Everything is healed up. It’s been wonderful!

Kate:  So, how does your husband feel about homeopathy? Did that incident that he experienced this weekend, did that help bring his confidence level of using homeopathy up or was he already supportive?

Suzanne:  He was very supportive anyway. But after something like that happens to yourself, you think, “I think I might need to go to the doctor,” especially after he fainted. We just talked about it. We asked a couple of nurses. I just explained to them what I was doing. They actually had a little bit of knowledge of the Ledum. That was enough for him as a confirmation to keep going and see what happens. It was really great. He is now very supportive, and he wants us to get some kits. He wants us to get some cell salts. We’ve seen a lot of really great things come out of the homeopathy.

This is Jace. He is my middle son. He is five. He was born with bladder exstrophy or they also call it OEIS. It’s a 1 in 400,000. We didn’t know he was going to have this until a C-section. The doctor held him up and said, “Oh, I’ve never seen this before.”

It’s been a blessing though. We’ve met so many people through this. We have just started him on the Cantharis for bladder.

Kate:  Cantharis?

Suzanne:  Yes, 30c. He has done phenomenal. He’s very susceptible to bladder infections. His bladder was on the outside of his body when he was born. He had to have a lot of surgeries to have that fixed. It has been amazing. We’re really excited about that ever since he was born, he’s been on Septra. It’s an antibiotic. So, we really wanted to get him off that. This has been our chance to do that.

Kate:  Wow! That’s amazing! So, do you give it to him regularly or is it just when he presents with an infection?

Suzanne:  It’s everyday that I’ve been giving it to him. This has been about three weeks that I’ve been giving this to him everyday. I would love to get some input from Joette at some point to see what she would recommend. The doctors have said if he gets a really bad bladder infection that goes into his kidneys, it could be life-threatening. So, that’s kind of where I’m at with doing it on a daily basis. There’s probably a better suggestion. That’s kind of what I’ve known so far though.

Kate:  So far, he’s been doing well, no infections?

Suzanne:  No infections. He’s been doing very well. My kids don’t mind taking the little pills.

Kate:  I know!

Suzanne:  My daughter actually, every morning, she’ll ask for medicine. She’s asking for the homeopathy. I’m like, “Honey, you don’t need that for today.”

Kate:  Yes, isn’t that wonderful when we don’t have to figure out how to try to get the medicine down.

Suzanne:  Yes, it’s wonderful.

Kate:  Okay Suzanne, so you have a one-year-old daughter named Elise. You have an interesting story about some homeopathy with her and what seems to be effective with Elise. Why don’t you tell us about that?

Suzanne:  She is my little Pulsatilla girl. She is clingy. She wants mommy. She wants up. She just wants to be with me, and a little bit weepy. I just know that Pulsatilla helps with that from the study that I did. That’s what I’ve been giving her every once in a while. When she gets in a mood like that — the clinginess, and the crying — I just give her a 30c, and she calms right down. The Chamomilla 30c also really helps at night. Like before she gets ready to go to bed, if she is really anxious or wants to stay up and play and it’s bedtime, I just give her one of those. It just relaxes her. I love knowing that it’s natural. I love that part of it, that it can’t hurt her.

Kate:  So, I bet you’re pretty excited about the successes you’ve had with homeopathy and probably have been sharing with your family members or friends. Tell us a little bit about how receptive they’ve been to homeopathy.

Suzanne:  They have been receptive. They’re also health conscious, too. But, they also have their own things that they like to do and things that they like to use. But, they have been really receptive to listening to what has happened. My dad has started to use homeopathy when he starts with a cold or something like that. He’s older. So, he likes to stay on top of things. We’ve been able to … my sister and I both work on him and just let him know what there is out there in homeopathy to be able to help him. My sister, she’s like, “Here, take these, Dad.” So, he’s learning right along with us — which is great.

One of my friends who is actually my niece-in-law went to the study group with me. It’s nice to have some people that have taken the study group with you to understand and be able to talk with. She wasn’t sure the homeopathy was really for her. But, through my circumstances that have happened and me sharing with her, she started to use them more. I have another friend, Katie that did the study group. She and I talk all the time just about what we’re utilizing, what’s working. I love being able to talk with others about what they’re doing.

Right now, the one thing that I love seeing on a daily basis, I have Joette’s podcasts that come up on my Facebook feed. Facebook has that new … that you can save all the articles that pop up. So, I’ve been saving all the articles that pop up so that I can read them when I have time. Those podcasts are amazing that she does. It’s all written out. Then she has the little cards at the end that I can save for some of the protocols that I’ve been really wanting to know.

Kate:  Okay, so tell us a little bit about saving those articles with Facebook because I’m not that familiar with it. I think it would be useful for a lot of the people who are listening to this podcast.

Suzanne:  Yes, it is wonderful. Even when you’re just in your newsfeed, up on the top right-hand corner, there are three little dots you can click on. I believe it’s the first little thing — it says, “Save post.” You can save that post. Just go back to it whenever you have a chance. I try to have a little bit of a routine that I do. I’ll save the post. I’ll go into the post right away. Save the protocols that are at the end. And then I will go through later and read the whole article. Otherwise, I get so many posts that I’ve saved that I don’t have time to go back through every single thing.

I love reading what she writes. She just wrote one that I was almost in tears because it’s just exactly where I’m at, being a young mom, into some of the other healthy things that are out there.

There was one podcast … Joette was talking about how she got into homeopathy, her being a mom of young kids, and how there are many things out there that helped. There are a lot of things that help. But homeopathy cures, and that’s what I’m starting to learn. It’s not a Band-Aid. It’s not something that you just give that’s going to just cover it up. It cures. And I am so excited to delve into this further. I can’t wait to be able to get more classes.

Kate:  Yes!

Suzanne:  My sister is probably going to do the next study group because I’m like, “Please, we need to join the next study group. We need to do this.” So, I’m beyond myself knowing that there’s actually something out there that will cure this.

Kate:  And that you can give and like you said before, it’s safe. Your kids, they don’t mind taking it. It’s not a struggle. It’s so simple, isn’t it?

Suzanne:  Yes. It’s very simple. Also, for us being a young family, we don’t have a lot of money to do a lot of things. Homeopathy is not expensive. I have been so amazed at that. That’s why we really started trying it because it was the one thing that we could really get into and not put a ton of money into right away. That’s been wonderful. I feel like I have the resources to be able to give to my kids what I know that they need right now. Then I could also save up a little bit of money and get the first aid things that I need and get some cell salts that I need. So yes, it’s been amazing.

Kate:  Yes. Although it’s a win all around, isn’t it?

Suzanne:  All around, yes.

Kate:  Yes, I know. You can’t contain yourself almost when you have these successes and then you start sharing them. And it never ends! It’s all the time, all the time. It’s going to continue, and spiral, and super exciting.

Suzanne:  I have one more thing. My husband, all of his life really has had something that happens to him whenever he eats sugar. We’ve kind of looked into it a little bit more. Doctors have not really been able to put a finger on it. It’s not diabetes. It’s nothing like that. The carbs, the sugar, anything like that makes him have really foggy mind, and he can’t think well. So, we really stay away from any carbs. But, when I started looking into homeopathy, the Arsenicum 30 … if he eats something that might have some carbs in it — like if we go out on a date or something and he wants to be able to continue the conversation with me — I carry that in my purse. He takes one pill. Then another 10 minutes, he takes another pill, and he’s good.

Kate:  Wow!

Suzanne:  I’m amazed! I mean we can go out on a date now, and he can kind of eat a little bit of what he really wants. We can have him take that Arsenicum, and he feels so much better. His mind is not foggy. We still try to stay away from that type of thing, but the Arsenicum is “in for the save.”

Kate:  That’s awesome, very, very cool! So, I’ve had that same experience with Arsenicum album with some students that were in a study group. Someone reacted to something in one of the study groups. They took an Arsenicum album. I can’t remember if it was a 30c or 200c. I think it was a smell that affected them. Someone had used a strong essential oil. They took a dose. It worked within … I don’t know … was it 10 minutes, 15 minutes, something like that? They said normally, it would put them out for a day at least. They would be just out, you know … down and out, trying to recover from that exposure. Yes, it’s amazing.

Suzanne:  That’s wonderful. Like I said, we try to stay away from things that we think are going to happen, but there’s always something that’s going to come up. To have that arsenal of homeopathy in my purse — I love that.

Kate:  Right. Now, you know that eventually you’ll learn things that you can use homeopathically that will help to uproot that condition. Then, you’ll be able to hopefully be over that and not have to utilize that. That’s exciting.

Suzanne:  Yes.

Kate:  Is there any other stories that you have or things that you wanted to share with us?

Suzanne:  We’ve run the gamut through my whole family. I’m really trying to get started into cell salts. I know that they are very supportive. I do want to start uprooting some of the things that are happening with our health.

Kate:  So, in the Gateway II curriculum, we actually have one chapter devoted to all the cells salts. We go through each of the cell salts. We talk about how they can help. We’re going to talk about colds and flus, and just a little bit more in-depth about how you can look at those viruses that come around seasonally, and seasonal allergies, as well. We’re going to be talking about the repertory and Materia Medica, a little bit about the proof of homeopathy, so that people have the information that they need to talk in an educated fashion about the support of homeopathy and the scientific evidence for homeopathy. Then one of the chapters is about emergencies, just like what you were talking about. We’re going to fill out a chart about what things might be useful for our family as we work our way through that chapter. We’re going to go through some different scenarios and then talk about what to do for further studies. So, it’s pretty exciting. I can’t wait for it to come out.

Suzanne:  That’s great. I can’t either.

Kate:  It sounds like right up your alley. Maybe you guys want to continue on and go right in to the Gateway II curriculum after that comes out.

Suzanne:  Yes, yes, we would love to do that. I cannot wait to get my hand on one of those materia medicas. My sister just got hers the other week, and I was like, “I need to get one so bad.”

Kate:  Yes, yes. I just got one and I love it. It’s easy to use.

Suzanne:  That’s great. That’s what I had seen with hers. I just can’t wait to get my hands on one.

Kate:  Suzanne, thank you so much for taking the time to share with us because I know there’s a lot of moms out there with young children that run into the same situations that you do. Or maybe there’s a mom that has the son who had those bladder issues, and that you can help. So, that’s great. I look forward to hearing more in the future about what happens with that and success stories. So, let’s talk again sometime. Anything you want to leave us with?

Suzanne:  Just get out there and get your homeopathy kit. Have your first aid ready —  especially if you have kids. Just get out and discover it.

Kate:  Thank you, Suzanne.

Suzanne:  Oh good, thank you.

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 and nutrient-dense nutrition. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Stitcher, and TuneIn 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.

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

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

01:25    The name change

03:11    Getting to know Joette better

10:44    From classical to protocols

16:51    Why are classical homeopaths hesitant to share this

23:05    Efficacy and simplicity of the protocols

31:07    How to teach families how to treat themselves

34:15    The Prasanta Banerji Homeopathic Research Foundation

43:31    Homeopathic protocols work

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Fatty liver: Chelidonium or Lycopodium

Tired new moms: Sepia

Prostatitis: Thuja

“Why I Go to India Every Year: Drs. Banerji”

Injury: Arnica

Allergic reaction: Apis

Head injury: Cuprum metallicum

You are listening to a podcast from practicalhomeopathy.com where nationally certified American homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese, shares her passion for helping families stay healthy through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition.

Joette:  Medicine, modern medicine to consider homeopathy viable, you have to be reproducible. That’s got to be scientific here.

Kate:  You are listening to Podcast Number 45 with Joette Calabrese at PracticalHomeopathy.com. On this podcast, Joette shares her wisdom on how to use homeopathy utilizing proven practical protocols. On today’s podcast, Joette and I will have a conversation about her background in classical homeopathy and why she has moved to using the efficacious practical protocols. This is a great podcast to share with others who would like to know more about Joette and the practical protocols. Now let’s get started.

Hi and welcome to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast. I am Kate. I am here with Joette today to bring you another exciting podcast. So, grab a cup of tea, sit back, relax, and let’s learn together from Joette.

Joette, I wanted to start off today by talking a little bit about that name, Practical Homeopathy®. Some of your listeners may be wondering why the name change? Why move from joettecalabrese.com to practicalhomeopathy.com? So, tell us a little bit about that.

Joette:  Well, Joette Calabrese doesn’t have any real meaning to it other than it’s just me. But, what’s valuable about Practical Homeopathy® is that it tells people exactly what we’re doing, what I’m doing. That I’ve made something very complex — homeopathy — and brought it down to a usable, fine-tuned level of medicine that folks can use themselves that makes it super-practical. By practical, I mean I want someone to learn about it during the day and use it that night. Classical homeopathy is much, much more complex. So, I have moved from classical homeopathy and have gone towards something that would make it easier for me to teach.

It was very frustrating for me, not only while in practice as a classical homeopath, but I would teach homeopathy — I taught homeopathy for years at a local college at first, credit-bearing course in New York State on the subject of classical homeopathy. I taught it in a local college in Amherst, New York, outside of Buffalo, New York. I taught classical a great deal. But, one of my messages was, one of the main messages that I think most people came away with after taking these courses from me was that, “Well, kind of interesting, but I guess it’s not for me because who’s got 10 years to study all this and a lot of money studying and learning medicine from scratch — a homeopathic medicine from scratch.” So, it was frustrating to me because I knew I was losing a lot of people who would otherwise be interested and be able to perhaps treat their families. So, I decided to figure out how I could make this most practical for myself and my family, and for my students and clients.

Kate:  Joette, let’s talk for just a minute about your background in homeopathy because I’d like your listeners to get to know you a little better. Now, you didn’t ask me to say this. But, I think it’s important that your listeners know that you’re an accredited homeopath with several degrees in homeopathy and have studied with many homeopaths from around the world. You’re an author and a speaker. You’ve taught homeopathy to medical professionals. You’ve been on staff at several well-known, reputable international homeopathic schools. And, you have been on radio and TV. I’m probably missing some things, but if you go to practicalhomeopathy.com which is Joette’s website, you can click on the “About” tab and you can find out more information about Joette if you’d like to know more.

Joette:  Well, probably most importantly of all the things that you didn’t mention is that I was a mom. That’s where it all started for me. I had been sick, myself for many years. In fact, most of my life I had severe allergies that came and went, came and went. I suffered from them in many different forms, eczema as a child, and lots of bronchial conditions, and then later, gastrointestinal condition, and then later, asthma. So, even from the time I was a little girl, my mother was always searching for alternatives. That was back when I was born in 1952. So, I spent a good deal of my life dealing with these chronic conditions and, also, far too many acutes that were kind of sitting on top of the chronics. Then when I decided to have children, when I got married, my husband and I decided we wanted children right away. I did not want them to go through what I had gone through. I didn’t want them to have the antibiotics, and the steroids, and all the tests, and the allergy shots. All of the gunk that I was exposed to my entire life, I did not want them to be exposed to.

So, I decided early on when I was pregnant with my first son that I would go to a conference, actually it was just a lecture given by a homeopath who was a medical doctor. He was retired. He was traveling the country and teaching people about homeopathy. I was about six months pregnant. I remember sitting in this class and I was mesmerized. I had been studying naturopathy, not as a naturopath but I had been studying many naturopathic methods and had gone to chiropractors. I had been studying botanicals and essential oils. I also wildcrafted my own botanicals and made tinctures, et cetera for years. I had heard of homeopathy, but I didn’t really know what it was.

So, for the first time ever, when I listened to this man, it seemed as though he spoke in my language. He said that for every condition that a child can have such as fever, otitis media, conjunctivitis, strep throat, eczema, cradle cap, you name it, there’s a homeopathic medicine that will correct it. I had heard something like that from the essential oil people. I had heard something like that from the botanicals. I had heard things like that from the chiropractic. But, it wasn’t bearing out for me. It wasn’t showing me that that was what was happening because I had been using them for decades. I was not as impressed as I wanted to be. So, that very night, I bought a homeopathy kit and bought a book and decided I was going to study homeopathy. I was going to learn about it.

So, once I had my child, it came into use immediately. I put it to service right away. I won’t go into that story. I have a lot of stories. I don’t know, we would be on for hours talking about the stories on how homeopathy has corrected this or that. And has saved my children and me and my husband and my parents and our dog and our chickens and our goats and our ducks. I mean we could go on and on about how homeopathy is so efficacious.

But, then I started to study more rigorously. We studied in a group. I met with some friends. We met every Thursday night for four years. We studied under a teacher who had been a homeopath, a lay homeopath, from England. She had come back to the US. She came to my house and then other people’s houses. We took turns. We studied homeopathy. She assigned homework, and we learned. As my interest grew, as I became more and more astute with this — it was always classical, by the way. That’s all we learned was classical. I started to repertorize. I got myself a repertory. Then I got a second repertory. Then I got a third repertory. Then I bought materia medicas, and I started studying earnestly. In fact, my husband used to remark that there was never a time when I was seated that I didn’t have either a child or a homeopathy book on my lap, and sometimes both. So, it went hand in hand with mothering. It was my right arm. My left arm was holding my baby, either nursing or feeding or taking care of my children. So, I could not, I don’t know how I would have done this without.

In the beginning, I did use essential oils and herbs and supplements, et cetera because I didn’t know enough about homeopathy. I was frightened by some information that I’d gotten in terms of “proving” if you use it too frequently and that kind of thing. But, I didn’t understand it well enough to understand that it’s not as serious as people think it is. It’s really just a way of learning.

So, at any rate, then I decided I was going to take the big leap and I went to study in Toronto. I studied there for five years. I studied with teachers from all over the world. Some of them were medical doctors. Some of them were lay practitioners. Some of them were naturopaths. Most of them were medical doctors, especially if they came from outside of the US. In doing so, I then sat for certain international exams. I won’t go into them all, but I’ve got my designation. People can look at that on my website. I was a dyed-in-the-wool classical homeopath.

By the time I had my third son, I had been trained well enough, I felt, that I could start a practice, and I did. In doing so, I was using only classical. At the same time, even before that time, I started to teach homeopathy. I was teaching so often that I was teaching every night at a different location. So, Monday nights, I would teach in one part of Buffalo, New York, downtown. Another night I would teach at one of the suburbs. Wednesday night, I would teach in the south towns. Thursday night it would be in a church. So, every night was a different class. I did this for years. When I finished, I would teach six classes with one group. That class would finish and then I would start in another segment of Western New York area, Black Rock, West Side, Tonawanda, Cheektowaga. I was all over the place teaching these classes. What I found fascinating is that everyone wanted to do what I wanted to do — treat their families. They wanted to know how to treat otitis media and conjunctivitis and eczema and the same things I wanted to know how to do.

But in teaching classical, it was like teaching with one hand behind the back because you had to study so diligently to get to the classical modalities, to get to the point where you could have enough acumen that you could actually cure someone. Sometimes you hit it; sometimes you didn’t. And it was hard. What remedy? Now, what potency? Okay, now what frequency? Okay, now when do we stop? It was an awful lot of conditions that needed to be met in order for all to be lined up like a perfect storm in order to get the remedies right. So, I knew there had to be another way.

Also, in my practice, I was using classical. I also learned that when I was working with folks, I would use the constitutional remedy which is strictly classical. That is supposed to be given one dose, one day. Sometimes, in some homeopathic classical circles, they use it twice in a day (a split dose), or three times over a 24-hour period (also called a split dose). But then you would have to stop. And you’d have to choose only one remedy. How do you choose one remedy if someone has let’s say eczema? Okay, that’s not so hard. But you were supposed to choose one remedy that encompasses everything.

What if that person had eczema and then walked in the back and they were clipping bushes and they got stuck in the eye with a branch? Now, they had an eye injury. Okay now, what do you do? Use another remedy on top of that? Certainly, you should. Now, they go back into the house and their eye is all a mess. They got this eczema and they’re itching. Now, they trip over the doorstop and they fall, and they hit their head. Okay now, what are you going to do? Pretend that didn’t happen? Of course, you’re going to give a remedy for a head injury. Okay now, they get in the house and the kids come home and they’re all sniffling. So, he’s like “I got the flu!” Now the guys got eczema, an eye injury, a head injury, and the flu. Now on top of that, that night he’s up all night long because he’s got prostatitis. He’s urinating all night long and he can’t sleep. Now he’s got anxiety. What are you supposed to do with that? Really? Can we really find one homeopathic medicine that’s going to cover all of that? Well no, you can’t! You have to parse it out.

So, I found it very frustrating that I still had to live by the dogma: one remedy. So, what I started to do was I started to cheat. What that means is that I would use the constitutional medicine, the main condition for the main, and then of course peripheral conditions as well. Then I would use a remedy that was specific to the miasm, which meant generally speaking, it was a nosode. That’s another category. Then I would also give a cell salt because you can always use a cell salt. Then an acute would come along, and I’d have to give the acute. So, that’s four remedies! That’s not classical! Then I would find that they would contact me and say it worked for the first couple of weeks. But I don’t know, it’s not working so well anymore, so I’d repeat it. Then I would repeat it every week. After a while, I started to realize that I needed more than one constitutional, classically-derived medicine.

Kate:  Some people might say, “Well Joette, you didn’t get the right remedy.”

Joette:  Maybe not, but I’d been studying for many years. I was in practice full time. I was already in my 40s. At what point was I going to get it right? Okay, so maybe I’m dimwitted, but I was in school also in Toronto. I would add this onto it — is that in order to be in this school in homeopathy, you had to have been in practice for five years. So, everyone who came to this class, we were all studying under Dr. Ramakrishnan who would come in from India. He was a medical doctor teaching and using homeopathy exclusively in India. He would come and teach us. There were doctors who were coming in to learn this. We’re learning together. One was from Iran and another one was from Ireland, another one from the Netherland, two of them were from Columbia, and another one was from … you know, they were from all over the world. Another from Israel and Great Britain and Canada, of course, because were studying in Toronto, and of course, Americans. So, we got to know each other. I was not willing to admit — just like what you said — maybe I was dimwitted. Maybe I wasn’t going to get this correct. Maybe I just was never suited to this in the first place, and that’s why I wasn’t getting the correct remedy. I’m not telling you I didn’t have any successes. I had successes, but they weren’t fast enough. They weren’t good enough for me. I wanted lots of success. I don’t want 50%, 60% success. I want 90%!

Kate:  Right.

Joette:  What are people coming to me for otherwise? To me that feels half-baked. So, the first year, I would get to know these folks, and I never said anything. Then the second year … I kind of whispered to one of the people who I’d gotten to know pretty well. She was a homeopath from Holland. She was probably in her 70s at that time. I said, “I just got to ask you. Do you ever use … (and I was whispering) do you ever use more than one remedy at a time?”

She said, “All the time, absolutely.”

I said, “Wait a minute. Then do you use … do you ever use protocols where somebody says you should use it a specific way repetitively, time and time again, and that’s the potency you always use or at least you’d start with that and you repeat it x number of times?”

She said, “Of course!”

I said, “Wait a minute. What do you mean of course?” All this time I’d been studying classical homeopathy, no one revealed that to me.

So, then I was emboldened. I was talking to others … and I asked the homeopath that was from Ireland. “Do you ever use more than one medicine at a time?”

She said, “Yes, of course.”

Then I asked the two doctors from Colombia — yes. I asked the psychiatrist, I think he was from Pakistan — yes! Then I asked Dr. Ramakrishnan — yes! I said wait a minute. Why is this a secret? Why are we not being told this? Why are we being told that we can only use one medicine? There’s only one medicine that cleans the whole picture up. And if an acute comes along, you have to count on the constitutional. You can use an acute, but you must stop the constitutional. You can’t repeat too frequently, or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, or you’re going to cause a proving. Why is this? Then as I got to know homeopathy better, I started to think a little differently.

One thing I think is happening, and I do not want to be derogatory towards my own profession, but I think that homeopaths are worried that if they teach people their secrets, that people will stop coming to them. Instead, they’ll treat themselves. I think that’s very shortsighted. Because look around you folks … everybody is sick. There are so many sick people on this earth. If they don’t have one thing, they’ve got another. It’s very rare to see a perfectly healthy human being. So, you will never be “unbusy.” The more you help others, that’s a closer step to heaven as far as I’m concerned. I don’t mean to be silly here, but I really do believe that. I really believe that we’re supposed to be giving this information away, this kind of protocols.

So, if a homeopath learns that a student or a client has a fatty liver, for example, if that homeopath doesn’t use Chelidonium, shame on him or her. Of course, you’re supposed to use Chelidonium. You could also use Lycopodium as a strong potential. But you must at least strongly consider Chelidonium. What potency? Well, you could use a 200. You could use a 30. But, it has been shown by the Banerjis that repetitively using a 6X of Chelidonium for fatty liver — or a tender liver, or a disrupted liver, or et cetera, et cetera where there’s clear indications that the liver enzymes are too high, et cetera — that Chelidonium 6, twice a day after many weeks will correct that, slowly but surely. The tender liver or the stool that looks off or whatever else is showing up — the liver enzymes when that person goes to their doctor and gets their testing — starts to normalize. That is clear, indicated, reproducible — keyword here — if you want medicine, modern medicine, to consider homeopathy viable, you have to be reproducible. That’s got to be scientific here.

What used to floor me was that when we took a case in Toronto during those five years with one teacher and two more with another teacher, that if we all took the case, we all watched that person. We all observed that person. One person was asking the question. The person was sitting in front of the class of 300 people, and they would answer the questions. We all would come up with a different remedy. What? That’s not medicine. How could you come up with a different remedy? It was all our perception. It was too subjective. That’s not good medicine. We should all have come up with the same remedy. Now, it doesn’t mean that if this remedy acts that no other remedy can. But it does mean that you’re at least on the same page, and you’re all studying in a fashion that is reproducible and that you can teach others — and not just use yourself — so that it doesn’t become a coveted, quiet method that’s esoteric. Instead, it’s something for everyone to learn.

Everyone should learn this. All families should have homeopathy in their home. All mothers should be a student of homeopathy. All grandmothers should know how to use homeopathy. All mothers should be teaching their children how to use homeopathy, so that as they grow up, they have systems in place for when they reach college age and beyond, and get married, and have their own children. This should be part of everyday learning. Just like a child should learn how to invest money and learn how to build a house and learn how to cook and learn how to garden. These are skills that everyone should have. This is important stuff. So, how can we do that if we keep homeopathy esoteric, and too complex, and too difficult, and requiring that people buy very expensive programs or very expensive medical books.

I mean my medical books, I’ve spent probably, I’m going to say at least $50,000 on my homeopathy books. These are not lay people books. These are medical books that are used in homeopathic hospitals throughout the world. They’re very expensive. So, what I do is I get that information and distill it down so that it can be used by everyday people. That’s what good medicine is. That’s the way it should be. We don’t want the paradigm of, “Oh! Only I know. You don’t bother your pretty little head.” No, no, no, that’s an old paradigm. That’s an allopathic paradigm. It teaches people that teaches mothers that the pediatricians teach mothers that they don’t know how to take care of their own children.

Kate:  Exactly.

Joette:  I hate it!

Kate:  You’re trying to enable mothers. You’re trying to empower them to give them the skills that they need to be able to care for their children when they’re not feeling well.

Joette:  Yes.

Kate:  I think my story is probably very similar to many of the people who listen to you. I went through all of the different natural health paradigms. I went food. I started within herbs and essential oils. And then like you often say, I dated those other methods of healing.

Joette:  But I married homeopathy! Yes. And it’s a long-term commitment here. Until death do us part. I’m not leaving. This is where I belong. There’s no doubt about it. I’m in love.

Kate:  I think people who come to this feel the same way. I studied classical. I didn’t go to school, but I started to get all the books. I worked with a classical homeopath. It is so time-consuming. “You have a cold. You know, Joe, okay just a minute. It’s going to take me an hour and a half to sit down with all my books, to ask you all these questions and try to figure out what to give you for that sore throat or whatever it is.” Oh, my goodness! Yes, you have made it so simple.

Joette:  Well listen, if this method that I’m teaching was not efficacious, if it didn’t act, if it didn’t work, I’d be right back to classical — except that it worked better. It does. It works better because it takes the mystery out of homeopathy. Instead of saying, “Okay, I finally got the remedy. I’ve repertorized, and I’ve read in my materia medica. I’ve studied, and I’ve overlapped, and I’ve integrated, and I’ve made sure that it’s correct. Okay now, I’ve got it. Okay, now what potency? Alright, okay, let me guess. Let’s see.” In fact, I’ve got a couple of books on posology. Which potency is the best potency do you use for each remedy? Do you know what it’s all about? It’s all the information that authors from the past such as Kent and Bönninghausen and et cetera, et cetera, have all used in the past. What potency did they use for a specific remedy? Well, if you look up Sulphur, they’ve all used it in a 6, a 30, a 200, and 1M. So, which one is the one we use for today? Then you might look up Phosphorus. Okay, now it shows Bönninghausen like to use it in a 30. That was his favorite potency, but Kent like Phosphorus in a 1M. Okay, which one are you going to use?

Kate:  Great!

Joette:  How do you choose something like that — especially if you don’t have experience? And I had experience. I had been in practice for many years when I found this — when I realized this, I should say. So, now you’ve got a remedy. Now you got a potency. Okay, you made a decision on a potency (which is really, to be honest, a shot in the dark, pretty much.) Now, how frequently? Show me how often are we supposed to use it for? Nobody ever teaches that. That’s called posology. How often do you use it?

Now with these protocols, it’s the whole picture. Give me the name of the condition. In 80% of the population, this remedy that I’m going to tell you about and this potency with this frequency and for this length of time has been shown to act. If you’re not in that 80% (and most people when they’re sick think that they’re not, but they usually are, of course, because it’s 80%), in that remaining 15% to 20%, there’s a second level. If the first method doesn’t act — the first line —  then you go to the second line, because there in about 15% of the population does not respond to the first one. So, we use the second line. That second line is also a protocol. It gives you the name of the remedy, the potency, and the frequency. If that still doesn’t act and there is a third line, we go to the third line. If there’s no third line, guess what we go to — classical. We use it as a last resort. Not a primary. We don’t start there.

Now it doesn’t mean that I don’t look at cases with a classical eye. I’m always looking at what the miasm can be. I’m always considering that. I’m always looking at the summation of these medicines. Could it be put together in a more tidy fashion so that I can use fewer medicines? I can use maybe just one. It’s pretty rare that I can use just one because our human sufferings are not single-minded.

Kate:  It’s not so neat. It’s not that tidy, little package.

Joette:  I wish it was like that. All the people that I worked with for all of those 10, 15 years of using classical homeopathy, full time as a classical practitioner, full time. I didn’t dabble. I was not a dabbler. I’ve never dabbled in anything. I’ve always gone whole hog, all the way up to my Eustachian tube as my mother used to say. I dive right in. So, I was full time doing this every day, five to six days a week. So, my experience was that it needed something faster.

Then I would learn that other homeopaths had protocols. If a woman has had a baby and she’s not feeling so well and she is fatigued … hello! Anybody out there who studied anything about homeopathy, you should be thinking of Sepia the moment I said, “Woman just had baby.” It doesn’t mean it’s the only one. But, we at least need to start with that. If you’re not thinking that way already and you’ve already started to go into your repertorizing program or cracking your repertory, you have not learned your organ remedies because there are specific organs. For every organ in the body, there is a specific medicine that approaches it homeopathically. That is very important.

If a man has prostatitis, you should be thinking of Thuja. It’s not the only one. It could be Medorrhinum. It could be Cantharis. But, it’s likely Thuja. Could it be Conium? Certainly! But you have to memorize these. So, because it makes so much sense based on what I’d learned classically in terms of the organs — the organ-specific remedies — then when I met with the Banerjis and watched what they were doing, it all made perfect sense. Of course, a man who has prostatitis should get Thuja. Of course, unless it’s hardened, then it’s Conium. Of course, a woman who has just had a baby and is having anxiety and fatigue and lack of well-being, et cetera, et cetera, problems with milk, all of that — of course, we should be thinking of Sepia. I mean why wouldn’t you? If there’s anxiety, why wouldn’t you think of Coffea or Ignatia? Of course, you should think like that.

So, I memorized those. When I was studying for my exams in classical homeopathy, I had to memorize that kind of stuff. I needed to know my organ remedies. Now in classical, they don’t stop there. They say you have to memorize a few of them. You have to know the top, the keynotes. And you have to know the top remedies for each of the organs. But, why go to remedy number two on the second level when number one works practically every time? Why not if it works in 80% of the cases? Why would you go any further? Why complicate this?

I think — I wonder if it’s really true that classical homeopaths are questioning this. Sometimes I wonder if it’s just not trolls against homeopathy just trying to divide us, because it is a classical homeopath’s dream to have these protocols. What it did for my teaching and my practice is astounding. The results went up. The commitment from students went through the roof. People are dying to learn this stuff, and I don’t blame them. We should all know this. This should be taught in grammar school. Well, better yet, homeschool because … grammar schools. So, if you’re a homeschooling mom, use this stuff as your curriculum. Your kids need to learn this.

Kate:  Yes, we do. We use it as a part of our curriculum.

Joette:  Absolutely.

Kate:  I think what you were saying earlier about people not wanting to admit. I think it’s more they want to appear that they can find that one remedy that’s going to cover it all.

Joette:  Oh my gosh! It’s a dangling carrot. Let me also say. One remedy can do a lot of good work. There’s no doubt about it if you can get it and get it right. But, my classes in Toronto were filled — 301 classes … it was 350 people in that class — were filled with people who were studying homeopathy because you had to be a homeopath in order to join the group, the classes. They had to be in for five years. They had to have been in full-time practice. That room was filled with homeopaths looking for their one gem — the one remedy that suited them. I know that because I talked to them all. I want to find my one constitutional. Everybody wants to find that because it’s like a magic bullet, or it’s purported to be. There are people who have been 100% cured by one remedy. There’s no doubt about it. But it’s very difficult to find, and very difficult to study to get to that point. I always tell people. If you want to become a classical homeopath, roll up your sleeves. Expect to spend the next 10 years studying and about $100,000 worth of studying. It’s very expensive to do this.

I guess another part of this, too, what was part of my journey towards wanting to learn protocols and learning a simpler method — based on classical by the way. This is all based on classical. It’s just classicals who have been using it so many times that after a while, some things started to become clear. Patterns started to develop. It was clear that Chelidonium is the remedy that’s very specific for the liver. It doesn’t mean it can’t be Nux vomica. It doesn’t mean it can’t be Lycopodium. But, Chelidonium is a really good first choice.

So, it became clearer to me when I was a tutor for an international homeopathic school. This school had been around for decades. I was a tutor. So, I would get these young women — almost always women, I never saw men coming through. The reason for that is because most of these young women are mothers. They came to homeopathy because they wanted to learn how to treat, okay, right back again: otitis media, conjunctivitis, strep throat, eczema, urinary tract infections, shin splints for their husbands, and vomiting after eating too much. That’s what they wanted to know. But instead, what this curriculum was teaching them was the history of homeopathy, the theory, how to use a repertory, how to use a materia medica. Not bad information, excellent information if you’re going to become a homeopath.

What I found was that the homeopathy schools in this country and in England, et cetera — every place that I could find, in Greece, and Spain, in Italy, et cetera, et cetera — were all geared towards training homeopaths. No one was teaching families how to use this. So, these women would come into the school and attrition rate was ridiculous. I never took a single student from the time they started the class all the way through the full three years. I never took them to the end because they quit. What a shame! They lost out on such an opportunity because yes, it’s interesting, the history! Yes, of course, we should have the theory. Yes, we should know how to repertorized, if you’re be going to become a homeopath, or you really want to take this on as a grand hobby in your life at a later date. But the most important thing that these women came with was, “How do I treat my family?” And that’s when it became very clear to me that there was one aspect of this — of homeopathy — that was not being addressed. That was how do you teach families how to treat themselves. How do you do that?

So, when I learned that the Banerjis were using protocols, and by the time I learned this, my children were old enough that I felt as though I could go to India. I knew that I had to go to India in order to really get this down to a science. I thought about Greece and studying with George Vithoulkas who was classical. I thought about studying in Italy with Massimo Mangialavori. I thought about going to all places. There are many places all over the world where you can study homeopathy. But, I wanted to learn how the Indians were using it because I knew that they had such a huge population. They had to take cases very quickly. The only way to take cases quickly was to not commit 100% to classical and constitutional, but rather to use a distilled version of it.

So, by the time I went to India — to Kolkata to work with the Prasanta Banerji Homeopathic Research Foundation — my children were grown. When I watched and observed them as each doctor was taking a case, they would take case for … it would take 15 minutes. Sometimes it would take only 5 minutes, because the protocols were very clear. They saw 100 patients per day, each doctor. Let me repeat that. Each doctor saw 100 patients per day. I don’t know a single classical homeopath who even has that many people interested in seeing that homeopath. First of all, because you’ve got to have results in order for people to bang down your doors. These people weren’t just banging down the doors. They were lining up on the streets. The line went all the way not around the block but clear down the road. They would sleep overnight to get into this place because it had such a reputation. So, each doctor — and there were 12 senior doctors —  were seeing 100 patients per day.

Now, they also had assistants. The assistant would take the case first, and look at the chart, and look at the X-rays, and read the MRIs, and take the family history, and get all of the information instead of the senior homeopaths doing that. These were the junior doctors, the junior homeopaths. By the way, these people are all MDs and use only homeopathy. So, that case would be fully taken. That junior doctor would walk into the room, into the office and have the patient sit down. The junior doctor would sit next to me. I would be sitting next to Pratip Banerji or Prasanta Banerji. In some cases, sometimes I’d work with other senior doctors.

The case would be shown to the senior doctor. He or she would glance over. Take a real good look at it. The junior doctor would point out aspects of the case that needed to be pointed out. The senior doctor would palpate on the examining table, if need be, hold up the X-rays looking at it in the X-ray lamp, and dictate to the junior doctor exactly what needed to be used. After you’ve seen … you’ve seen 100 of these a day, six days a week, that’s a lot of patients you’ve been seeing for your entire career. After a while, this is not that complex. There are patterns that are developed that are clear.

Kate:  This is all put into their database, right?

Joette:  Well, put into a file system. The whole back building is all files, boxes, and boxes, and boxes. It’s all it is. It’s a huge building. All it is is files. They’ve been collecting these files … they’ve been doing this for 150 years. Did you hear what I said? 150 years of using these protocols with all of these doctors doing this. Now, it’s not exactly 12 doctors over the full 150 years. There might have been only two doctors a hundred years ago. But it’s the same protocols. They do evolve a little bit here and there as things change in humanity, in the human family. But, they have used these protocols basically for 150 years.

As they’ve had these 12 doctors doing this, at the end of the day, there have been 1200 people who have tramped through this clinic. What they put into the data center, which is on the second floor and there are six computers up there with junior doctors sitting in front of them, inputting the kidney cases and the cancer cases mostly. Now, they also take other cases as well, cardiac and they put them in the data. But, it’s mostly those particular cases because to be honest, after a while, how many times can you say fatty liver/ Chelidonium. And if you’re seeing 100 patients a day, you see 10 of those.

Kate: Wow!

Joette:  Of course, they’re coming back. They come back in six to eight weeks, sometimes four weeks. Sometimes they come back and just ask questions of the junior doctor. So, when people say they don’t get results … what? It’s all written down. It’s all registered.

The president of India has given them awards. I met the two princes of Bhutan who came into the office. Royalty come in to see these doctors — all of the royalty of India and the royalty of the surrounding countries. This is not just some smurfy, little clinic. These are well-known. They have a bridge named after them. They have statues named in the city around the work that they’re doing. These people are highly revered. This is not just some classical homeopath that thought he’d put up a sign up in front of his office.

So, when people criticize this, I almost don’t want to respond because it’s practically laughable. But, I don’t mean to be rude, on the other hand. The Banerjis are the doctor to the first lady of India and the president of India. But of course, because they’re the best! They get results.

So, after I’ve been there — and I’ve been there eight times — and each time I go, I generally go for six to seven weeks, and all I do is I sit. I do it all by hand. I have a notebook, and there’s a mall next door to them. I go there, and I buy another notebook every couple of days and more pens. All I do is write. I don’t even ask questions. I just write. I just record and record every case. Every single case I see, I record. So, I write down the condition, the prescription, the conventional drugs that they might be on (and many of them are on regular drugs. Many of them are). But, they come here because the drugs aren’t acting or aren’t helping. Some of them come on stretchers. Some of them come in ambulances. We get out of our seats in our office. We walk around to the back where the ambulance is. We all stand around, and we observe as Dr. Prasanta or Pratip Banerji takes the case as the person is laying there in the ambulance.

Kate:  Wow!

Joette:  People are brought in on homemade stretchers made from bamboo and rags that they wrap around. They carry their loved ones in on their backs. Grandsons carry the grandmother in, in a sling that they’ve fashioned out of fabric. They come in on crutches. They come in half alive, but they come in. Meanwhile, when I’m going out for lunch, I leave the building. I go with one of the doctors who I’ve become very close friends with, and we leave the building. She has to hold my hand to pull me through because the swarm of people trying to get into this clinic is astounding.

They see 7,200 patients per week. So, when someone says that it suppresses, really? Show me the evidence. Let me see the double-blind study. Let me see the evidence. Let’s see it. Show me how they could be suppressing when they’re curing cancer. They’re curing brain cancer. They’ve been invited to go to Anderson Cancer Institute, and Roswell Cancer Institute, and the NIH, and institutions all over Europe. They are invited because they have the research and they have the PowerPoint presentations. They’re teaching doctors how to use these.

Kate:  Right. Those doctors I’ve read are actually starting to use those homeopathic protocols.

Joette:  They are. They do. Yes, they do. They do.

Kate:  You can’t argue with success.

Joette:  That’s right. I want to replace the idea that dogma is number one. No. Results are number one. I don’t care what dogma says. If I see results, I’m going to accept it, because I was trained that the dogma is you don’t repeat the medicine more than a couple of days. You don’t use twice day for six to eight weeks. You don’t do that. You don’t use more than one remedy. Except that I got to tell you, it works! So why would I deny it?

Dr. Samuel Hahnemann did not see 100 patients per day. He was brilliant. He had it all understood. He was the father of homeopathy. There is no doubt that he was clearly onto something, that he was a genius. But, it’s not until we put this into practice where a doctor can see 100 patients per day, and beside him in the next several rooms are 11 other doctors doing the same thing. So, in the end, there are 1,200 patients that are being seen per day. Dr. Hahnemann didn’t have that kind of experience. He was brilliant. He was right. But he did not have clinical experience like this.

Kate:  Do you think he would say, “Oh no! Don’t learn anything new!”

Joette:  That’s right. That’s right. He would never have said that. It’s very unscientific to be close-minded.

Kate:  Most of those people like you said, they do use the protocols. They just aren’t acknowledging it because who doesn’t use Arnica for an injury or Apis for an allergic reaction.

Joette:  Yes, that’s right. It’s absolutely so. We don’t mean that that’s just for an acute or that’s just an injury because there can be a head injury that was 20 years old that’s still causing trouble. If you use Arnica now, 20 years later or Cuprum metallicum or Cicuta virosa or et cetera … you have to know those medicines. You use the one that is the most frequently used by the Banerjis and it’s … you’re golden. They don’t use Arnica for head injuries; they use Cuprum metallicum every time.

Kate:  So, to summarize it up, Joette, what would you like to say to those people who speak against practical protocols?

Joette:  Shut up! Just shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about. When you do, come back and we’ll discuss it, okay.

Kate:  Do you feel better now?

Joette:  Yes, I feel much better. Okay, so I guess you’re looking for advice that’s more kind than telling somebody where to go? Okay, then I will give you good advice. If somebody says it works, why would you not want to try it? Just give it a try. It’s not going to do any harm. Oh, but they think it’s going to do harm. So okay, if you think it’s going to do harm, then don’t do it. Oh my gosh! Sometimes you just can’t get through to some people. So alright, that’s fine. We won’t get through to you. Okay, you just stay in your classical world.

Kate:  I think it’s been good for our listeners to hear about your background and to know that you’ve been there. You’ve done that. As we’ve talked over the years, Joette, every time I come to you and I say, “Joette, this is what I’ve learned.” And you say, “Oh yes, yes, I’ve been there, and I’ve done that.” But, let’s go back to what really works. I think a lot of our listeners are there, where they’re learning. They’re finding out new things and then they question, “Okay well, what about this instead of those practical protocols?” As we come to you, you’re going to say “Yes, I’ve been there. I’ve done that.” There’s nothing …

Joette:  There’s nothing I haven’t seen, because I’ve been doing this for so long. I’ve been working a long time. I’ve been studying homeopathy for 30 years. Before that, I studied somewhat a little bit of naturopathy, again, not in a naturopathic school, but I used to study that. I read it incessantly. The reason I read it incessantly, the reason anyone studies these things incessantly are generally twofold. One is that they’re suffering or someone in their family is suffering, and they need to find an answer. That’s where I was. I needed to find an answer.

So, I studied and read and read and studied. My mother read along with me. She studied. She read one book. I would read another book. We’d go on to the next. In those days there was no internet. So, we would go to health food stores, and garage sales even, and try to find books that were no longer in print and go to bookstores that had a good medical section. We’ve read because I was very, very, very sick for a long time. So, I know all about other methods — blue-green algae, and now it’s colostrum, and now it’s this, and now it’s that. Yes, that’s all good. Vinegar. Of course, we use those things! Of course, we employ those things. But, if you want results, it’s homeopathy. That’s what it boils down to.

Kate:  And the practical protocols.

Joette:  And the protocol that distills it to a much simpler method.

Kate:  I think we have come a long way from the question of why did you change your name to Practical Homeopathy®?

Joette:  … from Joette Calabrese on my website to Practical Homeopathy®. Okay, was I supposed to just answer that and say, “Oh because — because it’s easier to spell or something.”

Kate:  That was the longest question ever.

Joette:  I try to teach folks — because I believe this is so important that people have this skill — that you need to establish what’s really important in your life. Once you’ve established the priorities … when people say, “I don’t have the time to learn.” Okay, well maybe it’s just not important enough, because you can always find a way to do it if it’s truly important. You need to establish what’s important, establish your day. Start your day with studying. If you are a prayerful person, then you should start with your prayers. And if you’re Catholic, your Rosary; if you’re Protestant, your Bible. You start your day on good firmament, and then establish what you’re going to get done that day. And learn one way to cure one person in your life. Learn how to figure out why your dog is sick. “How can I fix my dog with diarrhea? What are the protocols for diarrhea? How does that present in my dog?” Figure out where to get the remedies and buy them and start utilizing this.

There’s not an awful lot to figure out. I hand it out to people on my blog. I give you the name of the condition. I give you the name of the homeopathic medicine, the potency, the frequency, and then I give you a link to Boiron or Amazon or where else you can find it. I don’t get paid for those links by the way. I want people to know that I do not get kickbacks, because then it wouldn’t be a free blog. I don’t make an income on this. So, the blog is free because I want it to be free, because I think it’s important that we give back and that we hand this out. That’s what I hope others will do. When you learn how valuable homeopathy is, I hope that you will turn other people on to this method of medicine and my blog that’s free so that this can get around to many, many, many families.

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 and nutrient-dense nutrition. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Stitcher, and TuneIn 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.

*Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

03:28    The latest FDA draft guidance for homeopathy

08:24    Americans for Homeopathy Choice, CPG

12:08    Combination Remedies and Nosodes

15:57    Withdrawing the compliance guide

21:33    The probable reasons for doing this

29:23    Copy, paste, and send

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

HomeopathyChoice.org

You are listening to a podcast from practicalhomeopathy.com where nationally certified American homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese, shares her passion for helping families stay healthy through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition.

Joette:  We don’t know how far this would go. But, we don’t want our choices — that’s the keyword, that’s the keyword — we don’t want our choices taken away from us.

Kate:  You are listening to Podcast Number 44 with Joette Calabrese at practicalhomeopathy.com. On today’s podcast, Joette will be conducting an interview with someone who will unpack the recent FDA action on homeopathy. Learn more about what the FDA is proposing, and how you can help ensure homeopathic medicines remain accessible now and in the future.

Joette:  Hi folks! Tonight, we’re reversing the tables, and I will be doing the interviewing. So tonight, we are discussing something that’s rather important about the laws around homeopathy. We’re going to be meeting with Paola Brown. Now, some of you may know Paola; some of you may not. So, I’m going to tell you a little bit more about her. Paola used to work for me for a few years. We miss her, but she started homesteading. She has three kids and she homeschools. She lives in Texas, of course! She is a member of the Texas Society of Homeopathy. She is an activist for homeopathy. Paola is the President of Americans for Homeopathy Choice. I miss having her on my personal team, but every once in a while, Paola comes back to me and says, “Okay, can I do this with you?”

Paola:  It’s really fun to be here with you, Joette. I feel a little weird because I am so used to interviewing you for your podcast back when we used to do it together, and we had so much fun.

Joette:  Well, I know Paola when we started these study groups of, you know, Gateway to Homeopathy, you kind of took that study group and ran with it (is putting it mildly). You used to pack them in. I think you’re still doing it.

Paola:  I love teaching that study group with your curriculum. I loved it. In many ways, it’s put me in position to do what I’m doing right now for Americans for Homeopathy Choice. I have to say, Joette, I see you as my mentor — of course, as my friend. But, it all started with you — that very first class you taught, Good Gut, Bad Gut. It means a lot to me that you have mentored me and coached me and helped me learn homeopathy and given me personal advice and professional advice. I just really appreciate that. But really, I think one of the biggest things you’ve given me, Joette — that nobody else could do, it was just you that could do it — is you gave me the permission to step up and be the mom that I always wanted to be as far as taking care of my family, and caring for them, and giving me the courage I needed.

Joette:  I love it! I love it!

Paola:  I didn’t need that permission, but you gave me that permission that I needed.

Joette:  I love it! That’s my shtick. That’s truly what I’m all about — giving mothers and grandmothers the right and the permission to get back to being the kind of parents and grandparents they want to be.

Paola:  That’s right.

Joette:  It’s a beautiful thing. So, Paola, tell me what’s going on with the FDA. I mean, I have a good idea. And I’ve been in this arena for so long, I’ve seen changes around the FDA and all of that. But give us as briefly, my friend, as you can.

Paola:  I will try. I actually wrote these points out because I do want to get it real briefly. Right before Christmas …

Joette:  This was Christmas 2017.

Paola:  Yes, 2017, that’s right. The FDA, they issued … there’s something called a draft guidance. That means it’s a rough draft. It’s not a final document. They’re saying it’s a rough draft. Together with a group of moms, we did not like what we saw in this draft guidance. So, we formed this organization, Americans for Homeopathy Choice. You can see our website at HomeopathyChoice.org.

When you download the FDA’s December press release, right from the beginning you know where they’re going. They say that the FDA has developed — this is a quote, “A risk-based approach to create actions on homeopathics that potentially post higher risks to the public health.” In the press release, they used the word “risk” 17 times. I have to say that this is a very suspicious press release, Joette because, by the FDA’s own definition, homeopathy is completely non-toxic.

Joette:  Yes, ma’am! Yes, ma’am. In fact, that is the argument against homeopathy is that it can’t be of any value because there’s nothing there. It’s just sugar pills. It’s all placebo. So, how is it that it could be risky?

Paola:  That’s exactly right.

Joette:  Yes, so you can’t have it both ways when you’re trying to build an argument. But go ahead, sorry.

Paola:  But what’s also alarming is the amount of prejudice and the coordinated attack that has come from mainstream media. Do you realize that in that press release, they associate homeopathy with rat poison? I mean, it is prejudice. I pulled up five articles, press releases that the FDA has done on Tamiflu. Tamiflu reduces your 7-day flu to 6.3 days. Okay? So, I compared five press releases that the FDA put on Tamiflu and this great, super awesome drug that reduces your symptoms from 7 to 6.3, and the language was so soft. In the one article that they do — the one press release they do on homeopathy — they compare it to rat poison; they say it’s ineffective. I mean just go on and on. They’ve mentioned deaths. What deaths?

Joette:  Well, the FDA stimulates, and then the media carries it along.

Paola:  Yes, that’s right. So, you get articles like from NPR, “FDA cracks on homeopathy.”

Joette:  Well, of course … NPR, hello!

Paola:  That’s right, or you have NBC said, “FDA cracks down on snake oil homeopathy.” So, neither of us are delusional here, Joette, in saying that the FDA is launching a smear campaign.

Joette:  Here’s one of the problems. If people understand that basically what this is, is a market square. And I remember — I know we’ve got a lot to talk about, but I have to recall a time when I used to work for NBC. One of my big accounts was Pepsi-Cola. It was my, as we used to say in the business, my “bread and butter account.” It was the account that was the basis for my income for years.

One morning, it was a Tuesday morning, I picked up the phone and said, “Joette Calabrese here.” On the other end of the phone, the person said in a very clear voice, “Get it off the air.” I said, “What? Get what off the air?” Now, I recognize the voice because she was my account executive from the agency that represented Pepsi-Cola. I said, “Get what off the air?” She said, “That program last night on the detriments of sugar in children’s health. You know you’re going to be playing it again tonight, Tuesday, and then all through the rest of the week— get it off.”

So, at that time, this was back in the ’80, ’81, 1981. I didn’t have a family. I didn’t have children. It never even crossed my mind what sugar could do to children. None of this was of importance to me at any level. So, she said, “Get it off the air or we put all of our advertising dollars into ABC and CBS.” Goodbye to local NBC station in Buffalo, New York. We were the 29th market at that time, which is a pretty big market — television market.

So, I very dutifully went to my sales manager, and we both walked down to the news department. My manager sparred with the news department manager and said, “Get it off the air.” He said, “What? Are you kidding me! We’ve been working on this exposé about the detriments of sugar in children’s lives for three weeks. Are you kidding me? No, we’re not!” He said, “Get it off the air.” He picked it up — it was in a reel in those days —  and threw it into the trash can. And, that was the end of that.

Now, that’s just one little television station. So, if it affects the advertisers, it will affect what is said, and how it is said, and what is publicized out there. So now, multiply that by billions and billions of times, perhaps, in all kinds of industries — whether it’s the sugar or the Coca-Cola or the Pepsi-Cola or the pesticide or the drug, or whatever industry it is we’re talking about — that advertisers matter. News is not as pure as the news people would like to think it is. It is advertiser-driven.

Paola:  Going back to the FDA then, it’s really unfortunate that homeopathy right now is at this newly disconcerting relationship with the FDA, because for 80 years — or I guess technically 75 years or so now — homeopathy had a really good relationship with the FDA. And then in the last five years since 2015, it just the tide suddenly shifted. So, in light of what we’re reading and seeing from this draft guidance from the FDA, my organization, Americans for Homeopathy Choice reached out to many key players in the homeopathic community. If you to our website, HomeopathyChoice.org, you can read a three-page document that outlines these things.

But first, the FDA is saying that they’re going to look at the potential risks that certain categories of homeopathic products carry. So, they’re starting to look at things like nosodes and combination remedies — not limited to, they can look at other things. This could apply to all categories of homeopathy, but right now, they’ve started with things like nosodes and combination remedies. The second thing they’re going to do is they’re going to withdraw something called the Compliance Guide 400.400.

Joette:  It’s known as the CPG, Compliance Guide 400.

Paola:  That’s right. So, that’s the second thing they’re looking — which on this document is something created by the FDA for the FDA. But interestingly, it’s been a great document for homeopathy for over 30 years. The FDA uses this compliance guide, the CPG, to make sure that remedies have standardized manufacturing and marketing. It’s a fair document.

Joette:  Yes, yes, it is. Yes.

Paola:  It’s been good to homeopathy. It’s one of the reasons we’ve been able to grow to the level we have. So, that’s the second thing. Once this draft document becomes final, they’re pulling the CPG. Then the third thing that we take issue with this draft guidance is that it opens a door to force homeopathic products to go through the same approval process that conventional drugs have to go through. So, as you can imagine, this would make the production of homeopathic products so expensive that it would maim the industry. We don’t charge, like you said, $500 a pill. So, we can’t pay millions of dollars for research to test each product. Joette, the cumulative $3 million that we make wouldn’t even cover one product’s testing.

Joette:  Right. Well, it’s different kind of research. We’ve done all our research for the last 230 years. That’s all done. That was all established through provings. It’s all recorded and documented. So, we don’t do the kinds of research that conventional meds have to go through because they’re coming up with new ones all the time. We generally use the same … I mean, certainly new homeopathic medicines come up from time to time but for the most part, our medicines have been established. If your child had a fever in 1799 that was really high, you might use Eupatorium or Belladonna. You would do the same thing in 2018! It’s the same medicine, same potencies, same frequencies, spelled the same! The pills look the same. So, that was established a long time ago. So, there’s nothing capricious, shall I say, about homeopathy. It’s been established for a long, long time. It will hopefully stay that way. But go ahead, Paola.

Paola:  Yes, well, that’s right. So, if this draft guidance comes across and forces homeopathy to do the same testing as conventional drugs, we can’t afford it and like you just said, we can’t apply conventional drug testing methods to homeopathy because it simply wouldn’t work. It’s their own system of medicine. It’s different.

Joette:  It is different, completely different. That’s right. That’s right. So, you mentioned three main areas that the FDA is targeting in their guidance. Share a little bit more about their focus on nosodes and combination remedies, because I really encourage folks to buy combination remedies from Wal-Mart and Wegmans and those kinds of stores. I like them very much. It’s a great way to start using homeopathy.

Paola:  Yes, it’s a gateway remedy in a good way.

Joette:  Yes, right.

Paola:  Sure. Yes, I’ll talk about that. So, if you’ve taken any of Joette’s classes, you know how important nosodes are to Banerji Protocols. The FDA is saying that these remedies are going to potentially be “potential to be pathogenic.” There’s no risk for homeopathic nosodes to have the potential to become pathogenic. Because — this is why — the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act states under the HPUS … so, the HPUS is the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States. It’s a piece of the FDCA law. It says the minimum amount that a product can be diluted. So, how can a nosode which is made from disease tissue have the “potential to be pathogenic,” if it’s legally prepared according to the tables — the minimum dilutions that the tables require from the HPUS? The FDA already monitors and enforces this. So, if they’re doing their job, there’s no chance that a remedy, a nosode, can have the “potential to be pathogenic,” as they say. So, the fact that the FDA is rating this issue is a concern because 1.) it’s unnecessary, because they can already police this, and 2.) it’s pretty suspicious.

Joette:  Well, you hit the word: the verb is to “police.” That is scary, and I don’t know that that’s what they’re doing. But, I’m always suspicious when a government arm is saying, “Hmm, I think we’ll check this out.” First of all, they have funds and the wherewithal. They have very, very, very deep pockets. You can’t fight city hall. It’s pretty difficult to do. Secondly, I don’t like heavy-handed government. That’s what we’re moving more and more towards in our world. I’d like to see that stop, particularly in religious freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of being able to choose what to write for our families.

Paola:  Again, it makes no sense that they would even be targeting nosodes because of the “potential to be pathogenic.” Because if they are legal remedies under the law, there’s no way that could even be possible because they have to be diluted to a point where it’s no longer that way. So, it’s frustrating.

Then going on to combination remedies. They’re targeting combination remedies. When we talk about combination remedies — this is something that’s important — people don’t realize how important combination remedies are to the survival of the American Homeopathic Industry. You were saying the word “bread and butter.” These combination remedies are the bread and butter of the homeopathic market. They would not be able to sell those single remedies in the store if the combination remedies weren’t being sold because that’s the bread and butter.

But, the FDA wants to overregulate these products. So, now these products would have to go through, for example, extensive testing that drugs need to go through. That’s according to the draft guidance. So, if these combo remedies become cost prohibitive to even produce, then pharmacies won’t be able to provide all their other products like single remedies. Like I’m saying, the combinations are the backbone of these companies. So, the FDA’s potential regulations can really make the US an unfriendly place for homeopathic companies. We will begin to see homeopathic manufacturers leave.

Joette:  Which has already started to happen.

Paola:  That’s right. Heel Pharmacy left. We have TJL, Nova. I mean, you left New York, Joette. Why? Because you felt like the laws weren’t friendly to small businesses, and you’re off in Florida — somewhere else. I mean the same thing is going to happen but not from a state-to-state place, but from leaving this country completely.

Joette:  Federally, sure.

Paola:  Right. So, that is taking our right away from having access to a thriving homeopathic industry in the US.

Joette:  We don’t know how far this would go. But, we don’t want our choices — that’s the keyword, that’s the keyword — we don’t want our choices taken away from us.

So now, tell me about the second issue: withdrawing the Compliance Guide for example.

Paola:  The more I learn about this, I think this is an even bigger issue. When the final draft of the guidance document comes out, the FDA says they will rescind — you know, withdraw — the CPG, the Compliance Guide. So, as I mentioned before, this has been a blessing on homeopathy for over 30 years. Let me give you a little analogy, Joette.

Let’s talk about American football. First, you have the rules of the game. That’s the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. That’s what Congress gave us.

Within the FDCA, the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, there’s the HPUS, the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States.

Together, these two parts of the law create the rules of the football game, right? So, they’re made for Congress to specifically protect homeopathy as a separate system of medicine from conventional drugs because the HPUS is separate from the conventional drug pharmacopeia of the United States, right? They’re separate!

Joette:  Because the rules are different.

Paola:  They are different. So, we have the rules of the game. We have these laws. Then in the football game, you have different teams in the game. One of those teams is the FDA, and their playbook is the Compliance Guide which we were just talking about, the CPG. The Compliance Guide has been around for 30 years, and it helps the FDA execute plays or regulations that fit within the rules of the game — that fit within the law.

Joette:  Yes, the laws that make it clear everything’s on the table. It’s clear what’s expected of everyone.

Paola:  That’s right. Honestly, you have to think of the FDA not as an American NFL football player. No. You need to think of the FDA (as far as homeopathy goes) as a Brazilian soccer player. They know nothing about homeopathy. They know nothing about this game. They’re stepping onto the field knowing nothing. And without a playbook, they’re going to screw up. So, because the FDA isn’t a lawmaking entity …

Joette:  I didn’t know that. They don’t know how to play those games in Brazil?

Paola:  No, are you kidding me? My brother bought a football to Catholic school in Brazil once, and everybody was like, “Oh my gosh!” They’re all huddled around him looking at this egg-looking ball. They thought it was the coolest thing ever. So yes, in Brazil, we love soccer, not football.

Going back to the FDA, the FDA is not a lawmaking entity. It’s in the executive branch.

Joette:  Right.

Paola:  So, they can only enforce the law.

Joette:  Enforce the law. That’s right, not make them.

Paola:  So, without the CPG, you have a Brazilian FDA soccer player.

Joette:  A rogue Brazilian …

Paola:  Yes, that’s right, that’s right. We wouldn’t have a really good one, right? It would be like them playing football, running around the field, calling out new rules to the game, breaking all the rules. Not only that, but they’re using a different playbook to play the game. They’re using their soccer playbook. They’re using the conventional drug playbook to try and play the game of homeopathy.

So, they need the CPG really bad to be able to run plays that align with the rules of homeopathy and align with the law. So, they can’t do that. The FDA can only enforce regulations that align with the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the HPUS, and they don’t know how to do that. The worst part is they’re using rules for conventional drugs to try and do that. So over 30 years, the compliance guide has helped the FDA ensure that homeopathic products have been manufactured in a safe, effective, standardized way. It’s been their major playbook in the game of homeopathy.

Joette:  Yes. I think the pharmacies welcome it. That’s what we’re hearing. The manufacturing pharmacies welcome it because they know exactly what’s expected.

Paola:  The homeopathic.

Joette:  Yes, the homeopathic manufacturers, they know exactly what’s expected of them. Their pharmacists take the courses and follow the rules and probably are … I don’t know this for certain exactly how it’s done … but I’m sure that every few years, they go back and make sure that they’re in compliance. And the government comes in and checks on them as well.

Paola:  Right.

Joette:  To make sure that they’re in compliance.

Paola:  Right. So, in recent years with this new draft guidance that the FDA has come out with, if you read the draft guidance, it is proof right there that the FDA has shown us that they really don’t understand homeopathy. That’s why they need their playbook, the Compliance Guide. They don’t know homeopathy well enough to enforce compliance without …

Joette:  Without the guide, without the Compliance Guide, certainly. Yes, we need that Compliance Guide.

Paola:  It says right there on the draft guidance: when this becomes final, we’re throwing it out. So. without the Compliance Guide, homeopathy is in reality at the whim of the director and his deputies.

Joette:  So, personalities matter.

Paola:  That’s right. If they throw out the Compliance Guide — which they say they will do once the draft guidance is final — our only recourse would be to hope that the game’s referee — in this case, Congress — cares enough about homeopathy to call “foul” when the FDA breaks their rules of the game … or an out, or a penalty, or whatever they call it in football. I don’t think that any of us want to be in a position where we have to hope that Congress cares enough about homeopathy to keep the FDA in check. I mean, I’m having a hard enough time getting them to listen right now.

So, have I convinced you?

Joette:  Oh goodness, yes. No, no, it’s concerning. There’s no doubt about it. I get the point. This is very important that they keep this compliance statement intact. No doubt about it.

So, why do you think the FDA is doing this, Paola? I mean I have my thinking, but I’d like to know what yours is. I mean you’ve been doing a lot of reading, a lot of research, and interviewing a lot of people. Tell me what you think.

Paola:  To me, this is the bottom line, and I’ll prove it. Joette, the bottom line is the FDA thinks homeopathy is a big, fat sham. They think that people are going to forego heroic, lifesaving medical treatment because they’re dinking around with homeopathic products. They say it in black and white in their press release. They say, “People may be placing their trust and money in therapies that may bring little to no benefit.” And then they say, “The FDA has the responsibility to protect the public from products that may not deliver any benefit.”

Joette:  Oh my gosh! I don’t know what I’d do without that FDA? Could I mother, do you think? You think I could still make decisions for my family without a government arm making a decision as to what is proper for my family and what is not? Really, the audacity, it’s supercilious. It’s audacious. It’s very frustrating. And it’s becoming more and more acceptable to hear this kind of talk coming from the arms of the government. It’s unnerving, to say the least.

Most people come to homeopathy because the heroic measures they sought haven’t worked. It’s not keeping them from it. Nobody starts with homeopathy. They always say they don’t come to homeopathy; they come crawling to homeopathy. Homeopathy always turns out to be the last resort. It should be the other way around. But unfortunately, homeopathy doesn’t have the press and big industry behind it nor, especially here of course, the government behind it. So, people find it by digging around and overturning every stone that they can in order to resume their lives and figure out what is wrong with their health or their child’s health.

Paola:  Yes. That’s right. People are definitely not forgoing lifesaving, heroic treatment.

Joette:  Well, I would never urge someone to do that anyway.

Paola:  Right, right.

Joette:  Of course, they should get to a doctor when there’s something that’s really … you need to have a diagnosis. I would never say that. And I don’t know very many homeopaths who would say if someone is going through a serious condition or potentially serious, “No, I think I’ll take full responsibility.”

Paola:  Yes. “Let’s just keep you home today.”

Joette:  Absolutely not, of course. I mean, just for legal reasons alone, if nothing else, because we live in such a litigious society.

Paola:  That’s right.

Joette:  It makes so much sense for someone to say, “Look, get your opinion of your doctor. Let’s find out what your doctor says.” I say it every day, all day long.

Paola:  Okay, that’s totally right. Now, let’s look at this logically. I’m suspicious that the FDA thinks homeopathy is nothing but magic water. That we could potentially die because we’re using this instead of getting conventional medical treatment. So, let’s look at this logically … we have a few problems.

First, that scenario isn’t even possible! Did you know that the FDA prevents products —  over-the-counter products — from making claims about treating serious, life-threatening illnesses? So, for example, you have asthma. This is a condition that can be potentially life-threatening, right? Any legal, over-the-counter homeopathic product cannot make that kind of claim on the label because it’s a life-threatening claim. So, the FDA doesn’t need to create any additional action, because they’ve already created an environment where people aren’t going to walk into Walgreens and die from an asthma attack because they’re taking a combo remedy that is advertised on the label to say, “This is great for asthma attacks.” So, there’s no need for additional protection. You got it covered.

Joette:  It’s so frustrating because it leads us to believe that we’re just idiots.

Paola:  Yes, that’s the thing.

Joette:  We can’t do our homework. We don’t know how to crack a book. We don’t know how to ask questions. We don’t know how to go online. We don’t know how to figure out what’s best for our families. It’s the arm of the government that tells us what we should be taking and not taking.

Paola:  Right, exactly. I mean that’s exactly right, because they’ve already created an environment where we’re not accidentally going to try — like I said — take a homeopathic in the Walgreens store, when they’ve set up in a situation that we can’t put ourselves in the position with an over-the-counter product to try and do that. Okay, so that’s the first thing.

The second thing goes right into what you were saying. Just because the FDA so very clearly prefers conventional medicine, it doesn’t mean that they can exercise their legal capacity to prevent us from choosing our own medicine. The FDA’s job is to ensure that homeopathic companies manufacture safe, standardized products. They don’t get to say, “No, people are too stupid to understand what homeopathy really is — what the FDA believes to be ‘magic water.’ We, as the FDA, better protect the public from accidentally using what we think is ‘fake medicine’ when they really should be using ‘real’ treatment.” No, they don’t get to say that to us through their actions!

Here’s the thing. I am a mother, and you are coming into my kitchen now telling me how I can cook my own dinner, and how I can make my own family’s food, and how I can take care of my kids’ bodies. That is maddening to me!

Joette:  Okay, Momma Bears out there!

Paola:  You should not attempt to regulate whether or not someone has the ability to discern the medicine they use …

Joette:  … make a decision.

Paola: Yes. It reminds you of the sterilizations they did back in the day when, “We think you’re not a fit mother, therefore we will sterilize you and make sure that you never have children again.” It’s like you can’t get into my head and assess if I’m smart enough for you, okay? This is the thing. This sets precedents. If they feel like homeopathy isn’t the right way to address fever, what else are they going to pull out that they don’t agree with?

Joette:  Essential oils and elderberry syrup and Vitamin C, and it goes on and on, and supplements. It just goes on and on and on. But they go after, of course homeopathy, I think because it is such an important industry that has been growing and growing in the last decade or so.

Paola:  That’s right. That is what our organization is about, HomeopathyChoice.org. We have the right to choose.

But, there’s one more thing, Joette. The FDA can’t have it both ways. We were talking a minute ago about the “dangerous nosodes and potentially dangerous combination remedies,” right? On one hand, they infer that homeopathy is “magic water” that does nothing. While on the other hand, they claim through their draft guidance that homeopathy is “so potentially dangerous and toxic” that they need to reassess the risks of these unproven remedies.

Well, how about a third option? Homeopathy is safe. It is effective. It’s natural, non-toxic, gentle form of medicine that has been used for over 200 years. Multiple deaths to homeopathy? It’s never been documented.

Joette:  Oh gosh! Well, this is nothing new, Paola. This has been going on for a very long time, a very long time, this kind of thinking. Their arguments are often flaccid. You’re right, they can’t talk out of both sides of their mouths and make an argument that stands to any reason.

So, it’s up to us, right? I mean, let’s get down to the bottom of this, Paola. What do we do? What actions? You’ve got your hand on the pulse of all of this. What are your suggestions? I have some ideas but tell me what your suggestions are.

Copy, paste and send

Paola:  Well, first of all, we need you to come to our website, and stay on our website, and do some action. We’ve made it as easy as it is flipping possible for you to come to our website and take action. So, if you go right there on our homepage, you can see the first thing we want you to do is we want you to contact the president. We want to get him onboard.

We have a whole action plan. But listen, if you’re going to go on my website and leave, — don’t leave! Please! Just click on that button to go to the president. Copy and paste the letter. Pop it in and send it over to him. I would love for you to tweak that letter if you want a little bit, but you don’t have to. If you’re going to just come and leave, stay for a minute.

Joette:  Copy and paste.

Paola:  Click on the button.

Joette:  And then you send it off to President Trump.

Paola:  Trump hates over-regulations. We need to think …

Joette:  That’s why this one, this president is important. This one is different.

Paola:  We really think that the president just doesn’t know about what’s going on. But here’s the thing, you guys. He is the one that appointed Scott Gottlieb. He’s the head of the FDA. So, he’s got the power. President Trump has the power to call Scott Gottlieb on the carpet and say, “Hey Buddy, what’s going on here? You want to stop what you’re doing.” So, that’s why we want President Trump.

Now beyond that, I would love for you guys to contact some senators. Usually if you’re a senator, you don’t want to hear from people from all over the country. You want to hear from directly your constituency. But, we have identified a group of senators and congressmen who are willing to listen to anyone. So, go on to step 2 and copy and paste our letters. Send it to Orrin Hatch, Mike Lee. We have Andy Biggs and a few others, Diana DeGette from Colorado. These are senators and congressmen that are willing to listen to you no matter where you are.

Joette:  You don’t have to write it, is what you’re saying.

Paola:  Copy and paste it.

Joette:  You’re just going to copy and paste and send. Copy and paste and send. And then share, share, share, share, share.

Paola:  That’s right.

Joette:  This is where grassroots counts … is when we let others know. Let me also say — I don’t know if you were going to say this anyway, Paola — but I would not urge people to write to the FDA. I don’t know that that would make any difference. Maybe it would. But if you decide — let’s say you decide to do that — please don’t write in an angry fashion because we don’t want to lose our credibility. We want this to be clearheaded and straightforward and super, super simple. If you decide to do this, and I would urge you, folks, to do this, this is where our dollar-power and our mothering-power where the rubber hits the road. This is important that we do something at this point.

Paola:  I totally agree.

Joette:  Before it becomes bigger, and it could easily become bigger because that’s what government has a tendency to do — is to become bigger.

Paola:  Here’s the thing: If you are really concerned about this which you should be, you guys, this 2018 can make or break homeopathy. It can be the beginning of that frog in the water …

Joette:  What’s the date on it, Paola?

Paola:  It’s March 16th, I believe.

Joette:  2018, in case people hear this a couple of years from now.

Paola:  Now, let’s say you’re listening to this, and you’re not going to be one of those people that just pops on the website and just wants to send one letter to Trump. You said, “Paola, what if I want to do everything in my power to help?”

Well, send that letter to Trump. Go ahead and contact those senators that are willing to hear from anyone, regardless of where they live. That’s right there on our website — right next to the button to President Trump, you know, do more. So, go over there. Send it to those people. If you want to go the extra mile if you want to do all you can do that would be to contact your local representative. I promise you this helps. You’ve got a great opportunity to go to the extra mile. Get all your friends to write.

Joette:  Copy, paste, send. Okay, love it. Love it! Life couldn’t get any easier. I remember when I used to write the letters by hand.

Paola:  That’s right. Thank you. It’s very easy and you can do this. I promise you.

Joette:  Then you’d have to lick the envelop and stick the stamp on.

Paola:  Here’s the thing. Listen, we are going to Washington. The vice-president, Mindy McLane and I, we are both going to Washington. We are scheduled to go.

Joette:  No one’s paying you to do this, Paola.

Paola:  No, it is right from my own little pocket. The donations that we’ve gotten for this organization are not paying for my flight. That’s paying for Facebook ads, and trying to get some help with lawyers to look at our paperwork.

Joette:  So, is there a place where we can donate?

Paola:  Yes, there is right there on our website, HomeopathyChoice.org.

Joette:  Okay.

Paola:  So, we’re going to be there that last week in February. Listen. If you guys do your job and you send these letters to the senators in advance …

Joette:  In advance, so that when you get there, the road has been paved.

Paola:  That’s right. When I walk in the door, and I say, “Hi. I’m Paola Brown from American Homeopathy Choice.

Joette:  “Oh, it’s you!”

Paola:  Aha! That’s exactly what we need, and we want. We have a whole action plan on how we want these senators and congressmen to call the FDA on the carpet, and we’re ready to do it. And we’re not scared to!

Here’s the thing, Joette. A lot of these homeopaths, they’re a little bit afraid to come out and speak against the FDA.

Joette:  I know. I know. You know, we all worry because we don’t want to be targeted. But on the other hand …

Paola:  That’s right. So, let me be the bad guy. I’m happy to do it.

Joette:  And you know what, Paola, I’m not that young anymore.

Paola:  Oh quiet, you have plenty of energy. Shush.

Joette:  Oh no, I got tons of energy. I got tons of energy. But, I’m hoping to have grandkids one of these days. I want to be there for them on a day-to-day basis. So, I’ll do as much as I can as fast as I can. Everything in life is about speed, as far as I’m concerned. I believe in speed. I want performance. I want stuff to happen quickly. I can’t stand pokiness.

So, what I’m going to urge everyone to do when they hear this tonight is right now while you’re talking to us, link right now, link to HomeopathyChoice.org. HomeopathyChoice.org, love it, HomeopathyChoice.org, folks.

Okay, everyone. Please, if I ever ask anyone to do anything — I give a lot of information away for free and I don’t ask anything in return but to share and get other people involved —  and this is one of those times when what you do today, what you do tonight, what you do tomorrow to help this cause really matters. So, I’m going to ask a favor of all of my listeners, my students, my clients to please do this. It’s important. It’s important that we do it with grace, we do it with intelligence, but we do it.

Paola:  That’s right, Joette. I just want to thank you for your passion. I’m a healthy mom. I don’t have perfect health, but I’m a very healthy mom. I live a robust life. And Joette, that is in direct relation to what you have taught me and what you’ve given me. I just feel that this is the least I can do to provide my grandchildren and my great grandchildren with a homeopathic industry that is healthy and thriving, that promotes future homeopaths to come into the business.

Joette:  We should have a homeopath on every corner. I so wished that we had more homeopaths. It’s like that in Europe. It’s like that in India. It’s like that in South America where you’re from. We need homeopaths.

Paola:  Good ones that can do it full time, that can create a business that sustains their life, that pays the mortgages, that pays the bills. The only way that’s possible is a thriving homeopathic organization.

Joette:  You go, Paola!

Paola:  Yes!

Joette:  I love you, Paola.

Paola:  Thanks for having me.

Joette:  Great, oh I love it.

Paola:  Alright, thanks a lot.

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 and nutrient-dense nutrition. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Stitcher, and TuneIn 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.

*Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

01:24    Joette shares some advice for the New Year

07:03    Pulsatilla

16:34    Goals or tips for the more experienced

20:06    Listen and observe

27:42    Choosing between Aconitum and Ignatia

37:04    Know the homeopathics that your family needs

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Gateway Guided Study Group

Pulsatilla

Hepar sulph

Arnica

Cuprum

Aconitum

Homeopathy kits

Thanksgiving in Stitches (blog)

Joette’s Facebook Page

Mercurius viv

Arsenicum

Rhus tox

Antimonium crud

Hypericum

Allergic?! course

Ignatia

Aconitum

Hypericum–Arsenicum

You are listening to a podcast from joettecalabrese.com where nationally certified American homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese, shares her passion for helping families stay healthy through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition.

Joette:  One of your commitments to the New Year is to learn how to crack the code for your family’s illnesses. Take it on, really make this your focus. Because it’s inevitable that if you make it into a focus, it will turn into reality.

Kate:  It’s Podcast Number 43 at joettecalabrese.com. In this podcast, Joette gives us some of her secrets to setting goals and strategies to become unstoppable using homeopathy. We will learn more about homeopathy for ear infections, cold sores, deep sorrow, and how to determine when to use Aconite and Ignatia. Now, let’s get started.

Welcome, Joette. It’s a new year, 2018. I know you’re very excited about the things that you have planned for the coming year. I’m excited as well. Today, let’s spend a little bit of time just talking about goals and how to achieve those goals, and how we want to help our families.

Joette:  Yes, that sounds like a great topic.

Kate:  Joette, looking forward, be our visionary. Guide us as we go into the New Year in how to help our families using homeopathy.

Joette:  Well, let me start by saying that homeopathy, classical homeopathy, and homeopathy in general is a very vast, in-depth subject. It can seem overwhelming. In fact, it is overwhelming. What my goal always is — my personal goal and my professional goal — is to make it as easy as I possibly can for my students, my clients, my readers and listeners to try to get the complex and bring it down to something really simple. There’s actually a word in Italian. The word is sprezzatura. It means getting the complex or the lofty and huge and bringing it down to a level that makes it look like it’s effortless, even though there’s a lot of complexity behind it. So, I love that word because it kind of touches on the fact that we’re getting something — human health and a medicine that approaches it so elegantly — and making it simple and doable and breaking it down and parsing it into pieces. That’s always my professional goal — not just for myself for years in the past but also now for my students and readers and listeners.

I believe that it’s very doable. We can get something that’s complex and make it simple by approaching it, not by saying, “Gee, I want to cure cancer.” You know what I mean? No, no. You want to start from small. You want to start with your own family members. I always encourage folks to number one: try to work with others, if you possibly can. Join a group. Join a study group. Start a study group. I mean, I always talk about the study groups that are available, our Gateway classes that are available through the website and then meeting with people from all over the world, for that matter, or all over the country or just those in your neighborhood, your church group. It’s not the only way to do this. There are many ways to do this. But, once you join a group or start a group, you’ll be surprised at how quickly you will accomplish what seems like the impossible.

Kate:  So Joette, I want to interrupt you really quickly here because I think a lot of people are intimidated, or some people are anyway, by starting a study group. They think, “Oh, I have to be at a certain level to start a study group.” That’s really not true, right?

Joette:  No. It has nothing to do with level at all. You don’t have to have any understanding of homeopathy whatsoever. All you have to have is a will to want to learn. That’s always at the core of everything is to want to improve yourself. Once you have that ability to find that in yourself and pull it out from deep inside and say, “I want to learn this. I don’t anything about it, but let’s all learn together.” Even if you bring in people who know more than you, that’s great. All you have to do is be the organizer — or join in and not be an organizer at all and just be a neophyte or whatever level that you’re already at.

My teachers always said when I was first starting to study homeopathy, they said, “The only way you’re going to learn — really, really learn — is if you step outside of your little world. Either go into practice or start treating people around you.” What he meant — it was Jeremy Sherr actually who I first remember saying that — what he meant was that the only way to learn is if you do a lot of it. You can’t just do … if you have one child, you’re not going to get an awful lot of experience in this. But, if you have a child, and a dog, and a husband, and a mother-in-law, and a sister-in-law, and a church group, or you join a group of others who are doing the same for their families, you’re going to expand your knowledge just by being exposed to other people’s problems and other people’s illnesses. It’s the only way to do this.

So, I find that the folks who learn the fastest — who are treating their families — are the ones with really large families, six kids, nine kids, twelve kids, or lots of animals, lots of livestock, lots of pets. People who are in a group, a church group, or who study together with others — those are the ones who learn the fastest. And of course, motivation! You got to have that motivation. You got to have that will, that burning desire: “I am going to figure this out! I’m tired of these ear infections in my kids. I’m tired of the chronic strep throats. I’ve had it with the boils. I’ve had it with the eczema. I have got to figure this out. I’m tired of the drugs, and I’m tired of the can being kicked down the road.” That kind of motivation is unstoppable. Once you have that fire under you … especially if it’s a mother or a grandmother. No one can stop a mother or a grandmother from being highly motivated to take care of their families. We’re like lionesses.

Kate:  Right. But, you have to be determined, too. You have to have some guts, spunk, and moxie in order to do this because it’s not always easy. There are going to be times where you don’t hit it right away and get the right remedy. So, you have to set some goals, have to be determined. Right? That is where being within a group of people —  whether it’s a study group or just a group of friends or your church group like you said — that’s helpful because you can bounce ideas. They can support one another. You’re not alone doing this.

Joette:  Right, right. Inadvertently, you’ll learn by listening to someone else’s troubles. Your child may never have otitis media, but another mother’s children have them all the time. You think, “Oh well, I don’t have to worry about that because my kids don’t get otitis media. Instead, my kids have got food intolerances.” You’ll listen to the mother. You’ll listen to how she uses Pulsatilla for her child’s ear infection, and it works beautifully. It’s especially useful for when the child has just had ice cream or a lot of foods from restaurants. She gives her Pulsatilla, and it cures the otitis media. You know that your child has a problem with food intolerances, and you just learned that Pulsatilla is a great medicine for food intolerances, especially foods from restaurants and from too much ice cream or too much dairy or too many creamy foods.

You just pulled from the hat so to speak, pulled from your classmate’s or your friend’s experience. Then you synthesize that, and you find that Pulsatilla is great for both food intolerances that cause whatever — stomachaches or whatever — that are related to, as I said, eating too much dairy or having ice cream the night before or earing at a restaurant. Then it causes stomach issues, and it can cause ear infections by doing the same. What do you know? You now know some very important keynotes to the remedy, Pulsatilla. So, even though it may never seem as though that particular condition will come your way —  that otitis media that her family is suffering — you have just learned how to apply the knowledge that she gained and is spreading through your little community and using it for yourself. It’s gorgeous.

There are unifying threads in homeopathy that can help us pull it altogether. This is the way I imagine it sometimes: a blue satin ribbon from one family to the next family to the next family. It goes round and round and it just floats between the families. And we all connect to it. It’s beautiful. So, instead of it being a burden, now it becomes an excitement. “I get it!” There’s nothing like that light bulb coming up over your head and you’re saying, “Oh my gosh! I get it. Look at what Pulsatilla does.”

Then what you do is you go to your materia medica. If you don’t own one, you go online to the free materia medicas. What should you read? Pulsatilla! What do you know? Then you learn not only is it good for otitis media after having had ice cream, or stomachaches after having had ice cream or eating at a restaurant, but it’s also great for girls who are going into menarche and had irregular menstrual cramps and menstrual periods. We can go on and on and on. Once you make that your medicine that you want to understand, you will not miss a case with Pulsatilla, most likely. You’ll know it.

So, that’s how you take off one bite instead of thousands of bites at once. You can’t cure cancer, but with a little bit of knowledge on homeopathy — although it’s done all the time at the Banerji Research Center in Kolkata — but, you can treat these kinds of conditions and learn that medicine. Now, when you finish with Pulsatilla and you’ve got that down, chalk it up and now you learn another medicine that is related to it.

How do you go about doing that? Well, let’s say that woman comes back again, and she says, “Well, my daughters are helped by Pulsatilla, but my son, boy, every time they get an ear infection, I use Hepar sulph.” You say, “Whoa, whoa, wait a minute.” Now, that’s connected. Hepar sulph helps with ear infections. What else would it help with? Then you start studying Hepar sulph. Now, you’ve got two medicines that you want to understand.

I always urge folks to write them down on 3-by-5 cards. I know that’s very retro. But, it really works. I’ve got 3-by-5 cards all over my house. I had more of them on homeopathy before. Now, they’re saying for my family and me to live by, or something I want to remember, or a word that I want to learn — a vocabulary word. Well, I’ve got them pasted up all over the house (you know, double-sided Scotch tapes, that kind of stuff).

Kate:  We have those remedy cards that you can print out from your blogs.

Joette:  Yes, yes, the remedy cards, absolutely. Make a copy. Put one in a book. Some people put them in a three-ring binder. These are all free folks, right on the blog. So, you can put them in a three-ring binder and organize them according to condition. Some people tell me they put them in little recipe boxes. Then if you make a double copy then you have another one because this is an important one that you want to memorize, for example. You stick it onto your rearview mirror in your car. So, every time you get in the car, you look at it again. After a while, you’ll learn it. Then all you have to do is hear someone who is helped by it and how they went about doing it, and it then becomes yours. With this, step by step, inch by inch, you’re growing your garden of knowledge in how to cure others and yourself. It’s a beautiful avocation.

Kate:  I have a friend that she gets up every morning, and she has a commitment to herself to just spend — whether it’s a half an hour or an hour — just looking at remedies in the materia medica. Just learning about even one remedy like you were saying — one medicine that she just looks at every day. So, by the end of the year if you did that every day, you would know quite a lot about a lot of different medicines.

Joette:  Well, I’m not so young anymore. So, I can’t memorize one and consider it committed to memory forever. I mean, now I do have them committed to memory pretty much, because I did it when I was much younger. But, I know my memory is not as good as it used to be, and I can’t hold things like I used to. So, I might need to study a remedy for two or three days if I were to start this afresh now. But nonetheless, even if you took three days to learn one medicine and just the keynotes — not the whole thing, not every aspect of it — but the keynotes and those aspects of the medicine that are useful for your family. That’s what you want to study.

You want to know what is going on in my family. My husband gets shin splints. You need to know the remedies for shin splints. Your daughter gets menstrual cramps? You need to know the medicines for menstrual cramps. Your son is prone to impetigo? You need to know the remedies for impetigo. Not just know them, you need to own them. Because what good is it if you don’t have the medicine and you got to wait a week before it comes in the mail. So, owning and understanding. Owning on that intellectual level is really key.

Now, it doesn’t mean you have to memorize constantly. You don’t have to just memorize. I mean there are books. My books? I’ve got them right there. You can just look them up. You can look these medicines up. You can look them up on my blog … what to use for impetigo, what to use for otitis media, menarche, painful menses and menarche. You can look them all up. But to know a few, a handful, of really important medicines. Like if somebody has a head injury. You don’t want to have to look that up. If your husband has a skiing accident or falls off the roof while he’s cleaning the gutters and he has a pretty serious head injury, on the way to the hospital, you don’t want to be paging through a book. You want to know you’re going to give Arnica or Cuprum or Aconitum ASAP, and continually give it, and know how to give it.

Kate:  Not only that, but you have to have those in your purse, in your pocket, somewhere you have to have those remedies.

Joette:  Yes. Well, if you own a kit, a little homeopathy kit — and we sell them in the office, but you can get them online, you can get them in many places with 100 remedies in it (the small) — you just throw that into your purse on the way out and into the ambulance or whatever. You should throw that in there. Now, you know you’ve got everything. You’re all set. So, no matter what comes your way, you’ve got your phone with you. You’re going to look this up.

If you’re part of a study group, you can look up… We put a blog up recently of someone who had been, I think it was Portugal, and her husband — is it Portugal or Spain? Well, they were at a wine tasting event, and he cut his hand very, very severely. She was part of one of the study groups that we run. She got online and went to Facebook. She was telling people what was happening. People were responding and telling her exactly what to do! I mean, those were like her buddies for life now. These are people who she now owes a debt of gratitude, and she understands that. She really is very grateful for how responsive and helpful they were. Beautiful! You don’t even need to look it up. There’s someone right there — in there waiting.

Kate:  Yes. I find that over and over again. I hear stories of that, and I see it personally. You’re out and about. You can’t keep your wits about you. You go to that Facebook page, and you just type something in and someone is always responding super quickly.

Joette:  It’s great. People love to help! Because not only are they helping because it feels good to help others, but also because it’s nice to say, “Wow! I know the answer to that!” It’s like raising your hand, “I know! I got it! I got it! Ask me! Ask me!”

Kate:  It’s like you’re in class.

Joette:  When you accomplish something, you want to use it. There’s nothing like that sense of accomplishment, whether it’s learning how to play a sonata or learning how to make a great chicken pot pie from scratch. There’s nothing like that sense of accomplishment.

Kate:  We have a wide variety of listeners to this podcast: people who are new to homeopathy, people who have been using homeopathy for many years, people who are practitioners. So, I think we’ve addressed some of the newer students in how they might set some goals. Can we talk for a few minutes about those who have been doing this for a while? What kind of goals or what kind of tips might you have for them for the New Year?

Joette:  They’re not all that different than the goals I just suggested for someone who’s a neophyte. Really, if you’re learning homeopathy, you want to know a whole array. For my exam, I had to know 300-some remedies in order to be able to pass the exam. I needed to understand all the keynotes and even the more unusual medicines. So, you still want to know these things. The more you have memorized, the more fluent you become in the language of how to handle things.

When I used strictly classical, someone would say, “Do you have a remedy for cold sores?” I would think to myself, “Oh my gosh. They think this is easy. That I just have a remedy and here you go.” But with classical, you got to take an entire case, and that can take 45 minutes or an hour. I’d say, “Oh my gosh! How am I going to do this? I can’t keep answering these kinds of questions,” (whether they’d be like a neighbor or friend or something). But, I did it anyway, because it was an exercise in repertorizing and learning how to do this. So, I was hoping to see a pattern.

Now, though, with these protocols — Banerjis and otherwise — this Practical Homeopathy® that I teach, you know, you could just rattle it right off, super easy. It’s Mercurius viv and Arsenicum. How easy is that for a cold sore? Beautiful! That’s a gorgeous thing. You can actually say, “Or you could use Rhus tox, or you could use Antimonium crud 6.” I’ve memorized those because I consider them important enough. Now, when I get an email from someone, a relative (and I’ve got plenty), and they send me an email, I don’t have to go back and repertorize. I don’t have to look in my notes. I just know which ones they are.

Kate:  Right. Hypericum is another one for cold sores too, right?

Joette:  Yes, it is … if it’s painful, absolutely.

Kate:  Yes, that works beautifully sometimes.

Joette:  Yes. For those who have been around a while, our practitioners or they’ve been using homeopathy for a while, you can never stop learning. That’s the best part! It’s like music. You never stop learning. You start by … with the center C and you then move from there. You learn the C scale, and then you’ll learn an arpeggio, C, E, G. And then even if you’re a skilled classical pianist — or whatever kind of pianist you are, a jazz pianist — there’s always more to learn.

Kate:  You’re always going back to those scales. And you always need to repeat those basics, your technique.

Joette:  You bet. And the same thing with cooking. Think about cooking. You could go classically French. You could be wild and woolly African. I mean, there are so many ways to go. That’s what I love. I like to know that whatever discipline I’m studying or that I’ve embraced, that there’s more to learn. Because I don’t want it to end, I want it to keep going. I want to do this well into my 90s, if I make it that long.

I think it’s a good idea to make a point of being a good listener. Not only will that reap you better results, but it makes you valuable to your family member, for example. You have to listen, and you must observe. If you’re not listening, you’re not going to get the case. If you’re not observing, you’re not going to be able to pick up on what you need. And I think it’s always better that when you’re working with a family member that you don’t ask too many questions, you just mostly observe.

“Wow, that person is still getting those bloody noses, for goodness sakes.” And you’re observing. What did they eat yesterday? Maybe that was it. Or maybe it’s the cold weather. When they start to tell you … say “Talk about those bloody noses,” and they start to tell you about it, you are being a really good parent — because you care. It’s not that you can say, “Oh well, we’ll talk about it later.” Because if the child or the person has a bloody nose, you’re about to pay attention. You want to fully pay attention and not freak. You don’t want to freak out and say, “Oh my gosh! We’ve got to get to the pediatrician or the ENT.” No, no, no.

You want to stay cool and just think of where you need to go to get this information. One of them, of course, is my blog. But if you’ve got some books, you can look it up in the books. If you’ve got my Allergy course, it’s in the Allergy course. You can just go online. I mean, thank God for the internet. Let’s hope that it stays as clean as it is so far because there’s a lot of great information. It’s important that we know where to find this stuff so that when the time comes, and you need it, you’ve got that at your fingertips.

I also urge people not only to listen but to not wing it. Don’t wing it. Have a rationale. Don’t go too deep in your rationale. Don’t go too deep in terms of saying, “Well, this bloody nose is because the person has heavy metals. They have the MTHFR gene. It’s because they probably have yeast and parasites.” Wait a minute. You’ve just missed the whole point. What happened to the bloody nose?

Just use the information. “Just the facts ma’am.” The bloody nose. Now, what do you use for bloody nose — regardless of the etiology, regardless of the cause, regardless of whether or not it is from heavy metals? If you know that this bloody nose happens every winter, okay, you can say it’s from winter. Is it because the heat goes on? Well, some people assume that it’s the heat. Oftentimes, it has nothing to do with the heat. Oftentimes, it’s simply the change of the season into winter. So, don’t dig too deeply and run down rabbit holes. Stick with the facts but don’t jump on an idea and wing it. Make sure it’s substantiated to a certain degree, that you know what you’re looking at. This is a bloody nose, not hemorrhaging (unless of course it is hemorrhaging). But, you want to observe and make note and be as scientific as you can, leaving the emotion to the side.

Kate:  I think that’s a mistake … well, I wouldn’t call it a mistake. But, in the beginning when I started using homeopathy, I probably drove my kids crazy with the questions. “Well, okay, let’s see. What do you feel? Do you feel better when it’s cold, when it’s warm?” When you look at this classically, there are a lot of questions that you can ask and a lot of things that you can observe. But now with the practical protocols, the Banerji protocols, I love it because, you’re right, it’s so much cleaner and easier. If I’m observant and really look at what is surrounding the circumstances of that child’s bloody nose, I don’t have to ask a lot of questions. I can just look at the protocols, observe what’s happening, and give them the remedies.

Joette:  Absolutely. It quiets your mind. Those 2 a.m. disquieting moments — disquieting thoughts can drive you and your family crazy. In fact, if you’re feeling like you are going crazy, and you’re not sure what to do, you get Ignatia 200 first. It’s like being in an airplane, and you put the oxygen on your face first before you tend to your child. You need to be the nucleus and be clearheaded about this. Sometimes, if you feel like you’re freaking out, the best thing for you to do is to take Ignatia 200. So that needs, of course, to be in your kit.

Kate:  And Aconite, too, because if you’ve just witnessed your child having an accident, you might be needing some Aconite first for you, and then you can think about what to do.

Joette:  Well, I love Aconite as a primer. It’s one of the first remedies we always think of. If your child has just had an accident or someone has witnessed an accident, now somebody’s sick or has a condition as a result of it, Aconite is our first remedy. So, if we’re going to talk about a particular remedy, we talked about Pulsatilla and Hepar sulph already. But, I love for people to know all about Aconite, and it’s one of the first medicines in most homeopathy kits.

So, if you study anything, that’s a great place to start is with Aconitum. It’s Aconitum napellus, and we call it Aconite for short. That’s a beautiful one. And even if you have a good amount of experience in homeopathy, go back to it. Read it again. Go back to your materia medica. Read it over and over and over and over and over again because you now understand the keynotes, but what about the subtleties that you might be able to pick up on — the nuances that will help you at some point.

Kate:  Right. And every materia medica will have a little bit of a different spin to a remedy. I was just reading through your materia medica last night, Joette. I forget why I initially picked it up, but I picked it up and I had to look up something. Then I just caught myself reading through all the different remedies and looking at what you had written. Like you said, I cannot probably ever look at Aconite enough in a materia medica because I’m always going to pick up something different in there.

Joette:  Yes. Because as we learn, we learn a couple of pieces here and there and then other parts of what we’ve just read fall to the wayside. Next time around, we already know those new pieces, and now we can add to our knowledge. They’re building blocks. It’s the best way to learn — unless you have a photographic memory. You know, our brains turn to mush when we’re freaking out, when we see someone suffering, someone we love or even if it isn’t someone we love.

Someone was just telling me yesterday. This person is a hunter. They saw a deer caught in a fence. Although they deer hunt, the thought and the vision of that deer struggling was just horrifying for them. It was horrible. They don’t want to see an animal struggle. No one wants to see that. If that stays with that person all day and into the night and the next day, they’re still thinking about that poor struggling creature, they might need Ignatia 200 for themselves to quiet their mind or they might need even Aconitum, if it was severe enough. (By the way, the upshot of the story was that they got the deer out and he was free.)

Kate:  Oh good. Let’s talk about that just for a minute, Aconite versus Ignatia. In a situation like that, what might be the determining factor which one to pull out and use?

Joette:  Yes, good. That’s great. I’m glad you brought that up.

Aconitum, I call it “first shock.” So, it comes on quickly. If someone’s driving their car, everything is just hunky-dory and they’re driving down the road, and BAM! They run into a truck. That is a shock. You don’t have to go into shock, as in what might be determined from a medical point of view “into shock,” but certainly it’s shocking. So, anything that’s shocking that comes on hard and fast. One minute everything is fine and the next minute, life is now taking on a whole new reality. That’s Aconitum.

So, that happens with accidents. It can happen with children (or anyone for that matter) who is outside in the hot sun. They get really, really warm. Then they jump into a very cold quarry or something, and they get a chill. It shakes you down to your core. Or someone who’s walking outside in the autumn wind, and they don’t have a hat on, and their coat is opened up and unbuttoned and they get a chill. Shortly after, they get a flu or a cold; that night they get a fever. Or when that person has had a good cold dive into a quarry, that night they get sick. They feel nauseous or they feel like they’ve gotten a deep chill. Those are all opportunities to use Aconitum. A cough that comes on pretty quickly, that’s Aconitum.

Ignatia, it’s more on the psychological side. It has more to do with the mind that’s very, very busy and very worried and nothing is right. Life just stinks. “What am I going to do? This is horrible. Maybe I’ll do this. No, maybe I’ll do that. I asked her what she would do, and she said this. No, but he said that.” The mind is just busy, busy, busy worrying, freaking, grieving, frightened, lots of fear, fear of this, fear of that. That is often Ignatia 200. It’s especially useful for sadness and deep sorrow and grieving.

I’ll never forget when my aunt passed away, my uncle (and he was in his upper 90s) he’d only had her all his life. They never had children. It was just the two of them. She passed away. He went into such deep grief. I’ve actually talked about this. He went into such deep grief that he was becoming delusional. Now, my uncle was a pretty sturdy guy, six feet tall, stood squarely on the ground, pragmatic. To see him crumble like this was really — talk about disquieting in my world — seeing him like this was surprising to me. But, he was really crumbling.

He was seeing my aunt. He kept saying, “I see her. I see her. She’s on the couch. There she is. She’s on the couch.” And I’d be on the phone with him. I’d say, “No, no, Uncle Tony, no. She’s not on the couch. Go get the remedy kit that I gave you. Get in that kit and get Ignatia out.” He would take the Ignatia and he’d be just, “No, I know I saw … But wait. No, it was just a raincoat. I left my raincoat there.” Then he’d come back and sit down in his easy chair. Then a minute later, he’d say, “I see her. I see her. I know she’s here.” He would be all shaking. His voice was wobbly. It was awful, awful to witness.

So, meanwhile, while we were on the phone, I would talk to him, while we were on the phone and help him calm down and tell him to take a dose of that Ignatia. Now, we waited another 15 minutes later. Normally, I don’t say to use it so soon, but in this case, he was in such a state that I urged him to take another dose in 15 minutes. After the second dose, he started to cry. He came back to his wits. He was grieving, no doubt. But it was the awareness that no, she was not there. He was no longer delusional.

We don’t know if we think of Ignatia as a remedy for delusion. But in his situation, that’s exactly what happened. Then we talked, and the crying and the sobbing would turn into just, “Oh, I miss her so much. I wish she was here.” Now, it was becoming more within the range of normal.

Then I wouldn’t hear from him for a couple of days, and then it would start off again. Only next time it wasn’t as severe. “I think I saw her. Maybe … did I see her, Joette? Just tell me. Am I seeing … I think I’m seeing things.” So, he had one foot in reality and one foot in this delusion. Then he knew that to start taking Ignatia, and he would start taking it. He took it every day then, sometimes, two, three, four times in a day when he was in really severe sadness or really more delusion, as I said in the beginning. Then later on, it just turned into sadness.

Eventually, he got over it. By eventual, I mean, it took weeks for him to get out of the heavy-duty grieving and got into “Okay, what am I supposed to do with my life now? What should I do? Should I sell the house? Should I be moving into a home for the elderly?” So, he started to become more pragmatic and get back to his old self. But Ignatia did wonders for him. It got to the point where I bought him a few bottles of it. He swore by it. He was very delighted that he had something that could help pick up the pieces.

Kate:  What a sweet story though. How he missed her so much. But, what would he have done without that Ignatia? Think about it.

Joette:  Oh yes. Well, he would probably become more recluse. If he were to call the doctor, he’d be on tons of antidepressants. He’d be on a lot of drugs. Then he’d have new symptoms, most likely, because that’s what a lot of those psychotropic drugs do. They just give you a new set of symptoms. He would have had sleeplessness, or constipation, or hives, or whatever else these things cause, or suicidal thoughts because sometimes those drugs can cause that. Now, I’m not saying you never ever, ever take psychotropic drugs. But that’s not the goal here. You don’t want to be propped up with synthetic stuff that causes more trouble later. You don’t want to kick the can down the road. We want to correct the problem. That’s exactly what that Ignatia did for my uncle.

Kate:  I think it’s good also to remember Ignatia. I have several friends who use it every winter when they start going down that … there’s less sun; it’s just you’re inside more. They use it every winter, and it takes them out of that winter funk.

Joette:  Well, you know what’s interesting about this is that if you ask a naturopath or a clinical ecologist or a functional MD, they would say, “Well, it’s just Vitamin D. You got to take more Vitamin D. You’re low in Vitamin D.” Well, what about those people who … and I get people who are really up on nutrition. They’re taking cod liver oil and eating liver and eating tons of carrots. They’re getting in the sun. They’re working out. They’re running in the outside even in the snow. And yet, there’s still a problem.

So, they come to homeopathy thinking, “I need a remedy that’s going to help me with my Vitamin D,” when really homeopathy is not about the Vitamin D (because we don’t know necessarily that is the cause). It could be something else that we don’t know about yet. We just automatically assumed that it’s Vitamin D — a loss of Vitamin D. But they come to homeopathy looking for really the bottom line — that they’re thinking is Vitamin D — when what it really is sadness as a result of the winter or sadness that happens in the winter. Maybe not even the results of … sadness in the winter.

So, what’s sadness? Often, it’s Ignatia 200, twice a day. Now, does Ignatia then increase our Vitamin D uptake so that now when we eat foods high in Vitamin D, such as cod liver oil or butter or lard or something like that, then our Vitamin D is increased or that we can absorb it now? Perhaps. But what matter does it make? Really in the end, if the condition is corrected by Ignatia 200C (a bottle of it costs what, $8, $9), they can correct that and not have problems with that — within a few days or even sometimes within one dose. What difference does it make? Because in the end, perhaps it wasn’t Vitamin D or lack of Vitamin D, perhaps it wasn’t any of those theories.

So instead of theorizing, we use what we see. That’s when I say, “Give me the facts, ma’am.” Because a lot of times, people will say, “I have a Vitamin D problem.” But what they’re really saying is, “I have anxiety and depression.” So, we give them Ignatia, and it uproots it. It’s so much cleaner. It’s so much easier because to try to figure out the cause is often running down a rabbit hole. Another way of saying it is, it’s chasing rainbows. Good luck.

I mean what’s the reason for a bird to sing? How do you know, really? How could we possibly know the physiology to that degree in a human body for every single condition? When my car is broken, and I take it to be analyzed, they can’t even figure out my car! They can’t diagnose why it won’t start. We think we can do it with a human body, and we can figure out the cause. Well, if we can, great. But if we can’t and it often happens that we can’t, that’s when homeopathy comes in.

Kate:  So, as we come to a close in this podcast, Joette, give us some final words of wisdom for 2018.

Joette:  For me, 2018 is about moving. I’ve moved from one state to another. I’m rearranging my household. So, I can’t stop thinking about housekeeping this year. So, I came up with the idea that what we really all need to do is to do some serious housekeeping this year for 2018. I urge folks to rearrange the furniture in their lives but the furniture in our minds.

In other words, don’t just question the medicine you’ve grown up with or that you’ve known for all these years. Get way past that. Rearrange your thinking and take a much bigger, giant step ahead. Make your goal this year to own at your fingertips every alternative that modern medicine has given you. Find the alternative homeopathically. There is an alternative for most everything that modern medicine has claimed is the only answer.

So, instead know that Hepar sulph or Hypericum–Arsenicum is used instead of antibiotics. That’s the alternative to antibiotics. It’s not the only — these are not the only ones — but these are the main ones.

How about knowing that Sepia is the alternative to synthetic hormones for women or that Apis is fabulous instead of Benadryl. You want to know this. You want to rearrange your thinking so that these are not only a part of your new way of looking at life for 2018 but that you know them at your fingertips, those that impact your family and you.

Kate:  You just listened to a podcast by joettecalabrese.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shared her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Stitcher, and TuneIn radio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. If you liked it, please share it with your friends. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit in your health strategy, visit joettecalabrese.com.

*Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

03:54    How Gina started with homeopathy

08:50    Allergy: Apis and Carbolicum acidum

14:42    Dislocations and cell salts

16:09    Gout

18:53    Tools/Resources to use

25:15    Migraines

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Feminopathy course

Survivalist course

Apis mellifica

Gateway to Homeopathy study group class

Pulsatilla

Teen Hormones and the Gut

Nat phos

Joette’s Free Resources page

Phytolacca

Students of Joette Facebook group (students only)

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

Allergic?! class

Sanguinaria 30

Natrum muriaticum

You are listening to a podcast from Joettecalabrese.com where nationally certified American homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese, shares her passion for helping families stay healthy through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition.

Gina:  One of my daughters had tonsils that were really puffy and swollen and they looked really bad. A couple of hours later, I got out my flashlight and looked at the back of her throat and like, the white patches are gone! The tonsils are about half the size they were before.

Kate:  You are listening to Podcast Number 42 at joettecalabrese.com.

Joette:  Each day from my office, I get to see how homeopathy is transforming lives all over the globe and I want to share them with you. Some of my students have really caught my eye. Some of you have done all you can to learn how to cure those around you using homeopathic medicines. Your successes inspire me. They’re glorious and powerful. I can’t keep these successes a secret any longer. So, with help from my roving reporters, we bring you a mini-podcast series that I call “Moms with Moxie.” Sometimes we even interview “Dads with Audacity.” See how regular mothers and others, average people who want to cure those around them have gone from freaking to fabulous with homeopathy.

Kate:  Today, I’m here with someone that many of you already know and may have actually communicated with on Joette’s Facebook page. My friend, Gina Conrad, joins us today from her home in Iowa. Gina has such a sweet and giving heart. She is so generous with her time and her knowledge of homeopathy. Gina, I want to welcome you to the podcast. I’m excited to be here with you today and to have a conversation with you.

Gina:  Thanks a lot, Kate. I’m happy to be here.

Kate:  Gina, tell us a little bit about yourself and what your background is and maybe a little bit about your family. Help us to get to know you a little.

Gina:  Sure. I was born and raised in Iowa. I have four children. I’m a homeschooling mom. I actually went into homeschooling kicking and screaming. I didn’t think it was a good idea. And, here I am in my 13th year of homeschooling. So yes, and I’m still learning as we go through it. My reasons for starting homeschooling have changed. I think everybody homeschools for different reasons. I went into it thinking, “Oh, we’ll just do this for one year then put the kids back in school.” It didn’t turn out that way. It’s actually been a very good experience. I keep learning. Every year, I learn something new.

Kate:  We are always learning, aren’t we? Especially when it comes to homeopathy. So, you are a nurse. You consider yourself forever a student, right, a researcher, a student? You love to research and to help other people. When they write about a condition that they have, you love to look it up and to share what you learned with other people. Gina, that’s what I appreciate about you. You are just always so willing to give of your time.

Gina:  I actually went into nursing because I was curious about health and how to maintain health. Once I got into working as a nurse, I realized that the medicine wasn’t always bringing people to health. I actually found that the fewer medicines people took, the healthier they were. I thought that was really odd because I always thought the way to get to health was to go to the doctor and take the medicines they always told you to take.

I guess my experience with medicine evolved over time because I would see people take the medicines. Oftentimes, they would get very sick from them. Sometimes they got very much better. I mean, there is absolutely a time and a place for medicine. I’m thankful that we have the hospitals and the doctors that we do. I guess I see a blending between the two worlds, between the medicines and the hospital and the things we can do with homeopathy.

Kate:  Tell me Gina about when you found Joette and sort of your journey into using homeopathy.

Gina:  I originally heard about Joette through the Wise Traditions newsletter. In 2003, my son had his 15-month shots and he became very ill after that. He had chronic diarrhea. He had eczema from head to toe. He lost almost nine pounds between 15 months and two years.

Kate:  Wow, that’s a lot.

Gina:  It was a lot. It was really hard to parent him because he would lay on the floor and spin and scream. I took him to five different doctors to try and figure out what the heck had happened. I’m like, “This is not the kid that I had a few months ago.” He was suddenly allergic to so many foods. He couldn’t eat corn, or dairy, or soy, or nuts, or wheat.

My sister-in-law introduced me to homeopathy back in 1991. I had been using the Hyland’s teething tablets. I’d used Chamomilla. I knew how to use homeopathy in an acute situation. But, I didn’t know you could solve some of the bigger, chronic issues. It wasn’t until the Feminopathy course that Joette was advertising that I figured out, “Oh wait a minute! Some of these big problems, you can handle with homeopathy.”

Joette actually showed me that you can solve some of these chronic issues on your own at home, and then when to give the remedies. That was something I didn’t quite understand. Because with the traditional, constitutional remedy, they would give it to you, and then you’d wait several months and take the remedy again, if it was necessary. But, I learned from Joette that you can take the remedy when you need it and when to read the signs to re-give the remedy.

Kate:  So, actually, did you consult with Joette first or did you take a class first?

Gina:  I consulted with Joette first. My son had a cyst, a ganglion cyst on his wrist. He had asthma and several food allergies. We had seen a physician locally. After several years of not getting anywhere with traditional medicine, we had done a program similar to NAET, which was an allergy elimination program. That seemed to help her a while, but after a couple of years, some of those allergies crept back. Joette was able to help me with homeopathy. We’re to the point now … we were on GAPS for about eight years with many, many foods. There were 56 foods that we had to avoid for a long time.

Kate:  56!

Gina:  I know. That’s a lot. It was really horrible: corn, soy, dairy, all nuts, anything green, beans, legumes, all legumes and beans and I don’t know, pulses. It was a long list. But, we’re to the point now where we can eat anything. We can go into any restaurant and he can order anything off the menu and not have an asthma attack. Before, if he had an egg, we often end up in the ER with an asthma attack. I learned how to treat the asthma at home. I kept an inhaler for a long time, just in case the homeopathy didn’t work. But, I haven’t had to use it. Actually, it expired, and I have not renewed the inhaler. We just haven’t needed it. He’s had I think one episode of wheezing last summer when the fireworks were going off and the air quality was really poor. He got a little bit wheezy, and I gave him a homeopathic remedy and it worked really well.

Kate:  That changes your life, didn’t it Gina?

Gina:  It did. My daughter has a friend who unfortunately passed away this past summer from an asthma attack. I guess I didn’t realize that you could actually die from an asthma attack. As a mom, to be able to know that you can treat your kid and teach them how to treat themselves in the future — so that, hopefully, they can pass that message along and pay forward and say, “Hey, you don’t have to take these medicines that can be really harmful for you.” Which, for us, the inhaler would cause his heart to race. It was just really scary. So, the homeopathy has been such the game changer for us.

Kate:  Oh, yes. We’ve been there, Gina, the same exact place. It’s terribly frightening to watch your child struggle to breathe and have those allergic reactions. Yes, I have been right there. Joette has helped us so much with that same thing with my daughter. So, I know it gives you freedom, right? I think freedom is a word. You feel empowered. You’re not afraid to go out, and you’re not afraid anymore if he has a reaction because you know what to do. You have the remedies. You carry them with you, right? You carry them always with you?

Gina:  I do. I carry this smaller, half dram size in my purse — for myself. I also have had an allergic reaction. I went to the allergist, and they couldn’t really pinpoint exactly what I was allergic to. So, I found that if I eat pine nuts, my throat will get really tight and it hurts to swallow. My tongue gets really heavy. I get really angry. I get irritable and I start yelling at my kids which is unusual. They’re like, “Mom, are you having an allergic reaction?” I’m like, “I think so!” I just felt really irritable and angry. My heart starts racing.

There are two remedies that I carry with me just in case of an allergic reaction for myself. My kids, the asthma stuff, I carry that with us. We just haven’t had to use it. But, for myself, I carry … I learned about in the Survivalist course that Joette put together. So, the two remedies I carry for myself are Apis 200 and a 1M (if the 200 isn’t strong enough, then I will use the 1M). I also carry Carbolicum acidum in a 6C. That, I learned about in the Survivalist course. I think the keynote for the Carbolicum acidum, for me, is “almost impossible to swallow.” So, when I have throat symptoms that matched that — that it’s really, really painful to swallow and I can’t hardly swallow at all — then I’ll take the Carbolicum acidum. But, most of the time Apis takes care of an allergic reaction for me.              

Kate:  That’s beautiful! Gorgeous to know that you can have the power to help yourself and you don’t have to resort to rushing to the ER.

Gina:  Well, I found when I had an allergic reaction, my doctor was not able to tell me this is what you’re allergic to. He told me you’re going to need to monitor what you’re eating. If you have an allergic reaction, take Benadryl. He didn’t think that my allergy was enough to prescribe an EpiPen. So, he told me to just take Benadryl and Zyrtec together. But I found that when the Benadryl wore off, my symptoms returned. My throat would still swell. My tongue would get very thick and heavy, and it was hard to talk. So, I would take another dose of Benadryl. For like a week —sometimes two weeks, it depended on how severe the reaction was — but it could be up to two weeks that I would have the throat pain and the heaviness of the tongue.

When I did go to the doctor and I went to the allergist, they said, “There’s really nothing else we can do for you. You’re just going to have to work through this. Always carry Benadryl with you at all times, in case you have an allergic reaction.” But, once I started using the homeopathy, I found that if my throat got really sore and it hurt to swallow or my tongue got really heavy, and thick, and it was hard to talk, and I got really angry and my heart would race — if I took the Apis, within a couple of minutes that swelling and the soreness was gone. I would say down by 50%. If it started to come back, I would take another dose of the Apis, and maybe five minutes later when it returned again, I would take another dose of the Apis. Within 10 minutes or so, I felt so much better. I could swallow. I could talk. Those symptoms did not return.

I think I’ve pinpointed it to certain foods. Sometimes it’s like a mango that comes from South America. I suspect maybe they spray it with different pesticides than we do in the US. It might be like a pesticide exposure that seems to cause this reaction.

Last spring, I was walking through the grocery store and they have little samples of water in the health food market. They handed these samples out. I took a drink. Within a minute, I could feel my throat was swelling and my tongue was getting really heavy. It hurt to swallow. I went to talk and my voice was really deep. My heart was racing. I thought, “Oh my goodness. What in the world did I eat?”

I pinpointed it to this. It was erythritol, the sweetener that they used in this “healthy” alternative-water-drink that was in the grocery store. I pulled out my Apis. I took a dose. Three minutes later, I needed another dose. But, within 10 minutes, I felt back to normal again. My throat was no longer sore, and it didn’t hurt to swallow. Have you ever had an allergic reaction like that, Kate, where your tongue gets really thick and heavy? It’s really hard to talk.

Kate:  No.

Gina:  I wonder in little kids, if they would be able to express those feelings if they were having an allergic reaction. I think I’m to the point where I can realize that really quickly and do something about it.

Kate:  Well, how would you know? If there’s a young child and they can’t … they don’t know what’s going on. They’re probably just really irritable. When we see kids that are acting up emotionally, that maybe there are allergies or things that are wrong physically, but they don’t know that that’s what’s causing the irritability.

Gina:  Exactly.

Kate:  We got to know each other a couple of years ago, right? We were in a Gateway class together. I’m so glad that you joined my first Gateway class! It was a couple of years ago. So, we’ve been friends since that time. I feel like we’ve been through a lot together health-wise, with homeopathy, through these last couple of years. There are so many stories I know that you have that you could share with us. So, Gina, you were telling me that you were cleaning out a closet and you came across a sling. You thought, “Whoa! I just remembered that I don’t need my sling anymore!” So, tell me about that.

Dislocation and cell salts

Gina:  Yes. I dislocated my shoulder, my right shoulder in high school. Since then, I’ve had chronic dislocations. I’ve had surgery twice to put my shoulder back together. The last time was in 2013. But, always for those many years, if I picked up a purse wrong or I put my coat on wrong, I would throw my shoulder out. I wasn’t able to do regular stuff. After working with Joette, she recommended some cell salts for me to help strengthen the joint tissue. I thought, “Yeah, right. This is really going to work.”

So, I’ve dealt with this for 30 some years. I really didn’t have much hope. But, I always kept a sling in my car, and I kept a sling in my drawer. I kept a sling in my closet because if I was having a really bad day, I would pull the sling out and just rest my shoulder. I was cleaning my closet and I found this sling, and I thought, “When was the last time I used this? Oh my gosh! This was before I used the cells salts.” I think it was Calc fluor 12X and Calc phos 3X. I think that was the combination that helps strengthen the ligaments. I just saw that sling today. I’m like, “Oh my gosh! I am so excited. I don’t need this anymore. I’m going to pack it away.” So yes, that’s homeopathy and cell salts.

Kate:  Yay! That made you a believer in cells salts, didn’t it?

Gout

Gina:  Yes, absolutely. The gout, oh my goodness. So, I knew what gout was … my neighbor had gout years ago. I’m always curious about these things like, “Oh, you have gout. I’m going to go home and look it up in my medical dictionary and find out about it. Because if you have it, there’s a chance that someone else in my life someday will have it.” So, I kind of knew what gout was. I knew it affected usually the great toe or the joint next to the great toe.

I was out choring this last spring. I came into the house and one step was normal and the next step was so excruciatingly painful, I could not breathe. I pulled my boot off. I thought, “Well, maybe I stepped on a spider or I was bitten or something.” The joints on my left foot was red and swollen and sore. I could hardly step. I thought this is crazy. So, I used homeopathy to resolve that.

Again, in the Survivalist course, Joette talks about Nat phos, and I decided to try that. I think I used that 30C potency once a day. Within a couple of weeks, it seemed to resolve.

Kate:  Gout is really painful, too, from what I’ve heard other people talk about.

Gina:  Yes, very painful.

Kate:  Yes, yay for homeopathy.

Gina:  Absolutely.

Kate:  One of the stories that I love that you talk about, you talk about your daughter and how you like to use a remedy with her. I love to listen to it. So, can you share with us about your 12-year-old daughter?

Gina:  Oh, my gosh. She’s so sweet. She’ll come into the kitchen just crying a sea of tears, tears flowing down her cheeks. I’ll ask, “What’s wrong?” Oh, I don’t know. Somebody looked at me wrong or my brother looked at me wrong. I can’t find my sock or something. I’ll say, “Okay, do you think maybe we should use some Pulsatilla today?” She’s like, “Yes.” I’d give her a dose of Pulsatilla 200 and within minutes, it’s like magic. I don’t know. Her disposition changes, the tears stop. She’s joyful. She’s singing, and twirling and dancing again. It blows my mind that one remedy can make such a huge difference in her disposition and behavior. It also helps with food allergies. I didn’t know that. It helps with dairy and fat, and just the way her body uses that. I just find that absolutely amazing. I would not have known about that had I not followed Joette’s blog and read her emails. I love her emails. They are so helpful. I look forward to them when they come out.

Kate:  Yes. There is so much information in her emails and her blogs. The podcasts, listen to those. If you can’t afford to take a course, you can learn so much just by reading the blogs and the podcasts.

I just was talking to a friend today, and she did not know about that free resource page. If you go on Joette’s web page, joettecalabrese.com, you can click on the free resources tab and scroll down to where it says Free Community. In Free Community, you enter your name and a password, and then you have access to a ton of research and information. So, if you haven’t already done that, I just want to urge everyone to check that great resource out.

So, Gina, you probably don’t this — or maybe you do — but I talked about you in one of the podcasts that I did with Joette. I said, “My friend, Gina, she gets up in the morning and she just likes to read through her materia medica or repertory and just learn new remedies.” I feel like you are really good with homeopathy. Can you give us any tips about how you like to study and learn more about each remedy?

Gina:  One of the resources I love is our Students of Joette group on Facebook. That’s one of the places I check throughout the day because people ask really great questions. They also share their stories and remedies that work really well for them.

One gal, she had woken up and had some significant swelling around her eyes. I loved her story of how homeopathy healed her. She had been trying to figure it out on her own. She finally went to a homeopath. The homeopath had recommended Phytolacca. This was a remedy I wasn’t familiar with. So, I got out my materia medica, and I’m reading through there. It talked a lot about glandular swellings, and the tonsils being swollen and sore, and also the lymph nodes in your throat or along your neckline. The lymph nodes, it helped drain that glandular tissue. I thought that’s really interesting. I need to remember that remedy.

One morning a couple of months later, I woke up and my right eye was super swollen and my face hurt and my sinuses were on fire. The remedy that I normally go to for that type of sinus pressure is Sanguinaria. But, that didn’t do anything for me. I took four doses and I still had a lot of pain. I thought, “You know what? I’ve got this puffy right eye, I’m going to try Phytolacca.” So, I took a dose of Phytolacca 200, and 10 minutes later, my eye … I could feel the pressure relieving from the area around my eye. My face started feeling better. My sinuses started to feel relief. I thought, “I’m going to take this Phytolacca and I’m going to hold it in my hand for the rest of the day because it’s so wonderful. It just makes me feel so good. I don’t want to lose this. I don’t want to let go of it.”

Kate:  My new best friend, Phytolacca.

Gina:  My new best friend. I think it’s important to read those remedies and learn just some of the short keynotes about that remedy, but also learn how could you use it in your own life.

So, one of my daughters had tonsils that were really puffy and swollen. She had white patches on her tonsils. They looked really bad. I thought, “You know what, Phytolacca! I’m going to try that.” So, I gave her a dose of Phytolacca 200 and that was all she needed. A couple of hours later, she’d forgotten that her throat hurt. She’d forgotten that her tonsils were swollen. I got out my flashlight and looked at the back of her throat and like the white patches are gone. The tonsils are about half the size they were before. I’m like, “Okay. I’m not even going to do anything. I’m just going to let her immune system take over.” That’s all it needed was one dose of Phytolacca.

I love our group because we share information. It doesn’t matter if it’s day or night, because there’s somebody all over the world. There are students in the Philippines, and Australia, and Central America, and Canada, and United States, and Europe, and Finland. We all join together. You know within a couple of minutes, somebody else is going to read that. If they don’t have the answer, maybe they’ll have a resource or a link for you. I love that support in our community.

Kate:  I know. I do, too. I think it is so valuable to have a community that you can share and support one another. I can’t say enough about it. I’m so thankful that Joette has that resource.

Gina:  Also, you had an experience earlier this fall. I remember somebody in your student group posted, “Hey, what would you do if somebody fell and dropped a glass jar and cut themselves? It’s a pretty deep cut.” You’d cut your wrist and your hand. What did you cut? You cut your hand and your arm, right?

Kate:  I tripped on a forklift, okay Gina? How do you trip on a forklift? I don’t know. It’s a forklift. Yes, I fell on broken glass.

Gina:  I like that in the support group, one of your friends — local friends — had typed in and said, “Hey, Kate fell. I’m not sure what to do neither of us are thinking clearly. We need help.” Immediately, we had support from our group. This is what you should do. I pulled out my Survivalist Guide. I’m like “Okay, this is what I would do, ding, ding, ding, ding.” That’s what we need in an acute situation. We need somebody who can think clearly and help us out, and that’s why I love the Facebook groups. I find so much support there.

Kate:  Like you said, someone’s always available, willing to help out. So, yes, it’s a great resource. That is available to anyone who has taken one of Joette’s courses. So, if you aren’t a member of the Students of Joette Facebook group, you can request to join that group.

Joette has another Facebook page and that is Joette’s Study Group, Find Your New Study Group Friends. That one is for people who want to connect with other people who are doing the Gateway to Homeopathy curriculum. You can go on there and say you’re looking for a Gateway group or you want to start a Gateway group — a study group —  and connect with people that way.

Gina:  That’s how I found your study group is through that find your study group friends.

I just want to share what I’ve learned about migraines, because I know not everyone suffers from migraines. But, my first migraine that I remember, I was four years old. I was lying under our coffee table in the living room with both of my hands over my head crying and crying because the pain in my head was so intense. I found a neurologist for my migraines. I had taken prescription medication for many years. I found that some foods were triggers and assuming there were some allergy issues there as well. But, I didn’t know how to get over those migraines.

As I got older, my migraines were worse and worse. It got to the point where I was taking Tylenol and ibuprofen back-to-back to try and manage that, along with prescription migraine medications. In the Allergic?! class that Joette taught, there’s a beautiful list of migraine remedies. When I took that class, I don’t think I appreciated how awesome that list was. I figured out how to manage my migraines completely with homeopathy.

I didn’t have just one type of migraine. I’ve had several types of migraines. So, the type of migraine that I suffered when I was little I believe was a Sanguinaria migraine or massive headache. It was about two years ago. I was lying on the couch. I had been on the couch for about 10 hours. I had tried a long list of remedies. Nothing was working. Finally, I tried a dose of Sanguinaria 30. Within about 5 minutes, I could feel the pressure just release from my sinuses and from my head. I thought, “Wow, really?” So, I took another dose and then within 10 minutes, after being on the couch for all day — from 7:00 in the morning until about 4:30 in the afternoon — I took two doses of the Sanguinaria. Then I was out in the kitchen, and I was able to make dinner. I could breathe again. I could think again. It was so awesome to be able to overcome a migraine like that. Sanguinaria is one of those remedies that I carry with me at all times because I know if I get that type of a headache, it is fast and furious and horrible. Sanguinaria will take it away from me.

Kate:  I think headaches can be hard. There are so many different types of headaches like you said and so many different remedy possibilities. But yes, when you get that right one, it is amazing.

Gina:  Another one that I really, really love that I also carry with me is Natrum muriaticum. I have a little sheet of paper that I carry with me in case my brain goes missing. Because when you have a migraine, sometimes it’s really hard to think straight. But Natrum muriaticum, one of the keynotes for that is tiny hammers. I have migraine attacks during menses with tiny hammers. I could feel like my hair; the crown of my hair just hurts. It feels like I have tiny hammers pounding all over my head. Again, it’s a different type of migraine. I get it in a different time of my cycle. It’s usually within a couple of days before I would normally get my menstrual cycle.

So, I love the homeopathy. But, you do have to play with it a little bit and figure out which ones are going to work for you. Sometimes I don’t know. Sometimes, I’ll try four doses of one remedy. If I get no relief at all then I’m going to the next remedy. But I’m to the point now, it’s probably been two or three months since I had a migraine. The last one I had was nowhere near as bad as the ones I’ve had previously. So, they’re not coming as frequently. They’re not as severe. They don’t last as long when they come. So, instead of having a migraine that would keep me down for two or three days, I have a migraine that keeps me down for ten minutes.

Kate:  That’s great. We could sit here and talk for hours, I think, about all of our homeopathy success stories and how much we love it and our favorite remedies. We do often, right Gina? We talk for a long time.

Gina:  We do. That’s another thing. The greatest benefit that Joette has provided is to have people who are just as curious and just as committed to learning more about homeopathy as I have been. We learn and we grow together. Oftentimes in our group, I’ll read a post. Someone will say, “Oh my gosh! I found the greatest remedy.” They’ll share that information. Their story is something I can carry with me. I can teach to my children in our homeschool because I want them to know these remedies are amazing. I want them to know, so that they can be empowered to heal themselves and my grandchildren — hopefully, someday I’ll have grandchildren.

Kate:  Gina, it’s been so fun hanging out with you and talking about homeopathy and hearing your stories. So, thanks for taking the time to be with us today. We’ll look forward to your posts on the Facebook page.

Gina:  Thanks so much, Kate.

Kate:  You just listened to a podcast by joettecalabrese.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shared her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Stitcher, and TuneIn radio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. If you liked it, please share it with your friends. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit in your health strategy, visit joettecalabrese.com.

*Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.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    Joette talks about Christmas traditions    

12:09    Little tips from Joette

20:14    Being relevant in your kids’ life

26:24    To take or not to take remedies

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Joette’s Bone Stock Recipe  

Aconitum 200 mixed with  Bryonia 30

Coldcalm by Boiron

You are listening to a podcast from joettecalabrese.com where nationally certified American homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese, shares her passion for helping families stay healthy through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition.

Joette:  One thing that I hear frequently and I think it’s human nature to a certain degree is that whenever someone is sick, particularly when it’s a chronic illness but a lot of times when people are sick, they think they’re the only ones who get sick like that. They feel as though they’re very unusual.

Kate:  It’s Podcast Number 41 at joettecalabrese.com. Today, we get to listen in as Joette shares with us some of her family’s holiday traditions. In addition, we get to hear how our suffering may not be so different after all! Finally, Joette shares a recent experience she had helping her son with a cold virus, and how to know when it might be pertinent to employ homeopathy and when to let a virus take its course. Now, let’s get started.

It’s Kate. I’m here today with Joette. We’re excited to bring you another podcast. Joette, welcome.

Joette:  Thanks for doing this, Kate, as always.

Kate:  It’s the holiday season, and I’d like to know from you Joette, what are some of your family traditions?

Joette:  You told me you were going to ask me this question, and I had to really think about it because I don’t think there’s anything really that unusual about our family traditions. We just all get together — my sons and my parents. My father, unfortunately, just passed away a couple of months ago. But, it would have been with my parents, and my brother and an occasional stray cousin. Now, it’s everyone the same — minus my beloved father.

I might add, it just so happens the day we’re recording this (it’s not when this is going to be running), but today happens to be the first day of Hanukkah. So, shalom to those who are celebrating the Hanukkah holiday. But, for you and me, it’s Christmas.

My holidays … my Christmas is not that much different, but I do remember when Christmas was different. My father came from a very large family. There were 14 children. My father was the second youngest. When I was growing up, we used to get together on Christmas Eve, all of us. When I mean all of us, there were probably close to 100 people. All it was was food, and fun, and playing, and staying up until really late. We got to stay up until we fell. We went to midnight mass. Then we’d come back to my aunt and uncle’s house. They had five kids. There must have been — oh, I don’t know — maybe 50 kids. They were all my cousins. Some of them were first cousins. Some of them were second cousins. It didn’t matter after a while. You kind of lose track. It was an absolute blast. We did this every year, my entire growing up years.

For me, especially having just lost my father — and he was the last one in the 14 children including all of their spouses — it’s a different kind of a Christmas. It’s a reflective Christmas. I will be spending time with some of my cousins who I’m still very close to. Most of them, of course, have their own families. So, it’s not like they’re going to be coming to visit us necessarily, but I will see them during the season. So, they’ll stop by, and we’ll eat, and we’ll hug. We’ll all cry, because we’ve had a couple of deaths besides my father in our family this year. It’s always hard to say goodbye to those that we loved so much.

So, that’s my Christmas this year. It’s still going to be a good one. I have my beautiful sons, and my wonderful husband, and my mother, and brother. That will all work together. I think it will still be a pretty nice tapestry of a celebration.

Kate:  That sounds really nice. I know it’s probably a sad holiday this year, maybe more than others for you, but it is so nice to still have family get together. I think that’s one of the things that brings us comfort is having family together during those times.

Joette:  We couldn’t do it without them. I couldn’t do it without them. Just being with my cousins over the last couple of months, not only the wake and funeral, but we hang out together. We go to dinner together. They come over and stopover. We’re always calling each other. I have so many cousins I can actually get to pick and choose.

Kate:  Wow! That’s great that they all live so close to you!

Joette:  Oh yes, it’s great.

Kate:  I don’t think that happens very much in families these days.

Joette:  No, it doesn’t. And even for those who are in other states, we still stay in touch and they come in. Now, with Facebook and of that business, we all stay more in touch — even in today’s world.

Kate:  So, New Year’s Eve, where did you usually go? Because with 100 people in your family, where would you stay?

Joette:  Well, we would just sleep on the floor. Wherever you ended up, you just slept there. There were mattresses all over the place for the event. There were lots of blankets. My parents would bring pajamas (we’d be in our nice … our good clothes … that was Christmas Eve). We went to midnight mass. Then, when we got back from midnight mass — depending on our age, of course — then my parents would bring our pajamas. A lot of the kids would put their pajamas on, and then we just hang out and play all night. It was such a blast. It was so great until we just dropped … from all the fun, and all the food, and cookies and stuff that we normally wouldn’t eat as much of.

Kate:  And pasta.

Joette:  Pasta and meatballs and braciole. I mean you name it, we had it all. Cardoons that were made — that were picked in the spring and saved for then. You name it, we had it all. Eel! Eel is a very big thing in Sicilian … I know you’re making a funny face … I love eel, actually. We eat eel on Christmas Eve. That’s a Sicilian tradition. So, sometimes there’d be eel (sometimes there wouldn’t), and the kids would go, “Eeeew, eeeeeel, yuck.” But, since that time as an adult, I’ve made eel on Christmas Eve because I want my kids to hold on to some of those traditions: the food, the religious and the family traditions. I think it’s important.

Kate:  So, how do you purchase eel? You go to the grocery store and you say, “Can I have one eel please?”

Joette:  Yes. You go to the eel store.

Kate:  I was trying to imagine where you buy an eel.

Joette:  Well, listen. In Buffalo, New York where I live, there are a lot of Sicilians. So, there are certain stores there who cater to specific ethnic groups. So, I go to the store where they cater to Italian and Sicilian. And, then you find chestnuts — that’s a big thing in Sicilian families. Chestnuts — and you roast them on the fire, that kind of thing. There are lots of nuts, lots of almonds. Lots and lots and lots of almonds everywhere. There are almond shells all over the place. Gosh, they’re such a mess. So, that’s a big part of it, too. I’m trying to think of what else we do. There’s always fish on Christmas Eve, and eel is probably one of the most important.

Kate:  That does not sound very appealing. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t sound really great. But, probably how you cook it, it is good.

Joette:  Oh, it’s absolutely delicious. I will tell you that I love foods like that. I like the strange stuff. I like sweetbreads. I like Rocky Mountain oysters. I like liver. I like kidney stew. I love those kinds of foods. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t get enough of them. I love tripe. That’s also very Italian.

Kate:  Have you ever had blood soup?

Joette:  Yes, duck blood soup. That’s Polish.

Kate:  Yes, it is. I’m Polish, and that’s what my family grew up with. But, you tell people that, and they sort of freak out.

Joette:  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys just eat your Twinkies, okay. You put them in your microwave, and then hit the diet soda. Then meanwhile, I’m going to eat my duck blood soup and be hearty, and strong and reproductive.

Kate:  Right. So, do you make any New Year’s resolutions?

Joette:  It’s always about eating. I’ve got to stop the chocolate. Most often, that’s my New Year’s resolution. Then by March, it’s dead.

Kate:  Well, three months is pretty good.

Joette:  Yes, it is. Actually, it’s pretty good. So, it’s either chocolate, or I love sweets. It’s just one of my downfalls. I don’t eat junky sweets. I make them myself. I make cannoli from scratch. I mean that means you’re getting the little dough — I make my dough — roll it out; wrap it around little rollers. I make sfingi which are little donuts, little Italian donuts. I make everything from scratch. So, it’s hard to resist, when I’m making that for my family to stay away from that. Once I trigger that desire for those sweets then it’s very hard to stop. I can’t just eat them Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And, then I have a son who makes a Yule log from scratch every year. He uses mascarpone cheese. I mean it’s just heaven!

Kate:  Wow! That sounds amazing. I know your son’s cook, don’t they?

Joette:  They do. They do. They all live together, and they cook meals every night — at least that’s the last I heard a couple of weeks ago. They’ve been telling me they’re still doing that. They make chili and stock. They make roasts and roast chicken. Everything is from scratch. I have one son who loves to make pastries. He’s the one who makes the Yule log. He makes everything from scratch, no mixes. There he is, whipping away. When I used to homeschool our kids, when he finished his day of work, he would go into the kitchen and whip up like challah bread or something like that. My kids are really into cooking. I think it’s my fault.

Kate:  Wow! That’s amazing. That’s great.

Joette:  Yes, it is great.

Kate:  It’s a wonderful thing to pass on to your children.

Joette:  Yes. Well, unless they all turn fat. Then we’re in trouble.

Kate:  They’re young boys.

Joette:  Which could happen. At this point, they’re pretty lucky — but it could happen.

Kate:  So today, I was meeting with a friend. We were watching our children as they rehearse for a choir concert. We were talking about homeopathy. She was saying how her daughter had come down with another cold-fever type thing. Every year during the choir concert season, she always gets a cold and virus. Something goes around their family. So, she said, “Boy, I was so glad that I had taken the Gateway to Homeopathy last year. I had kept excellent notes of what we did exactly last year during the choir concert when they came down with something. Because now, this year, I just went back to my notes and I was able to figure out what I gave her and what helped. So, this year, I didn’t have to think about it!”

Joette:  Exactly. You don’t have to look it up again. You go back to your daughter’s notes. You go into her file and look it up. There it is.

Kate:  So, I think that’s really important. We all get lazy, right? We stop writing things down. Then, later on, we have someone ask us, “Well, what can I do for the same condition?” Now, you don’t have notes. It would have been so easy, but now you have to go and do the research again.

Joette:  Yes, don’t reinvent the wheel. Just jot it down. You don’t have to write copious notes. In fact, copious notes is what I discourage people from doing. Because if they do — if they write too much — now it’s like a quagmire they have to get through. Just simple: the date, what the main condition was, what remedy you used, what potency, what frequency. Then come back after it’s done and say okay: within five hours; within three days; (and these are acutes I’m talking about, of course) very much better; only partially better; or then you went to the next one because the diarrhea then stopped, but now we’ve got fatigue; so now, we go to the next remedy. Those are very simple. Keep it really, really simple because otherwise, you’ll be discouraged from wanting to go through all that reading again.

Kate:  What are the common things that you see from your students or your clients that you wished that you could say, “Here’s what you can do in a different way, or maybe to help yourself and your family?” You know what I mean? Are there maybe little things like that: tips that you want to give us, things that you see over and over again that people could do just a little bit differently, and it could really help them.

Joette:  Well, one thing that I hear frequently — and I think it’s human nature to a certain degree — is that whenever someone is sick (particularly when it’s a chronic illness, but a lot of times when people are sick) they think they’re the only ones who get sick like that. They feel as though they’re very unusual. The reason they feel that they’re unusual is — I don’t believe — it’s self-absorption. I believe that it has to do with they look around, they’re suffering and no one else looks like they’re suffering. So, they conclude that, well, it must be because everyone else is well, and I am not. So, I have an unusual case.

So, when I tell them for example that a particular protocol works for approximately 80% to 85% of the population, the first thing people say when I say that (or what I know that they’re thinking because later on, they share it with me) is that, “Oh I must be part of that 20%. What if I’m part of that 15%? Then I won’t be helped!” So, because they’re thinking like Eeyore, “Well, I guess life just stinks.” And, that’s the way we feel when we’re sick. You know what I mean? We do feel that way.

We have to remember that we’re much more alike than we are different. We live in a society that has emphasized our differences. I tend to disagree. We’re really very alike in many, many ways, even across other societies, other parts of the world. Generally speaking — the cultures can be quite different — but human experience, human suffering is across the board, and so are fears and anxiety, et cetera. The fear of suffering can also be universal. Some people are more fearful than others. Sometimes, it’s because they’ve become shopworn, I guess, or maybe gun-shy is a better way to put it. They’ve had so many illnesses, one after another. They’ve had so many failures with drugs and efforts that they’ve put into it, and they’ve still come up short, that they believe that is the evidence that indicates that they indeed are a difficult case. When really what it is, is they just haven’t employed homeopathy.

Unfortunately, homeopathy is the last place people go in the Western world, especially in North America. We’ve got it all backwards.

People go first to get the colonoscopy. Wait a minute. There’s nothing wrong with you. Why are you going for a colonoscopy? Why would you do that? Why would you subject yourself to that— if nothing other than the inhumane way you get that kind of a test? For crying out loud, who’s willing to do that?

Well, somehow, this marketing has taught them, “No, this is what you do when you’re 40 years old plus.” No, no, no, you save that colonoscopy for when there’s something really wrong. Now, we use technology, and general anesthesia, and drugs to find out what’s going on. Even then I would say if you’ve got some time, you use something else. You use homeopathy or change your nutrition before you go. We’ve got the pyramid upside down.

Kate:  Joette, what about those people that say, “But there is a history in my family of colon cancer,” or things like that. What do you say to them?

Joette:  Oh, well, if you want to list histories, you’ve got everything in your family! We’ve got colon cancer in my family. We’ve got diabetes. We’ve got breast cancer. I mean I’ve got a long list just like anybody else. But, if I followed that list, all I would do is spend time in waiting rooms and go for testing. For me, that’s not a way to live. I would much rather be hanging out with my husband. I’d much rather be hanging out with my kids, traveling. I’d much rather be walking on the beach or making a meal, not sitting in a waiting room to be manhandled.

And excuse me, I mean I know that there is a time for that. So, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think it’s always wrong, but it’s grossly overused — these tests, grossly. Mammograms. Really? Mash the most sensitive area of a woman’s body so that it then hurts to find out if she’s got breast cancer? So, how about just palpating? There’s an idea. What do you know? They used to use that. Were the doctors stupid then, and now they’re smarter? No, they just have machines now. How about just using thermogram, thermography? How about just assuming that life is good and stop digging for an illness?

Stop trying to find illness. If you keep searching, you’ll find something. You’ll find a polyp. You’ll find a precancerous … you’ll find something if you dig hard enough. That is a prescription for a life of angst. A life of angst is not a good life.

Kate:  I think what happens is we see people, whether it’s friends or family members and we see them going through whether it’s cancer or things like that, and then we start to fear those same things, right? And, we start to wonder, “Well, what if this cough or this feeling, this pain that I’ve had, what if that’s cancer or something else?” Then we go down that path. Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about just being positive. Just trying not to worry and go down those paths. I know we’re talking about homeopathy, but I also think that it’s important like you said, we always think that we’re that 20% or that 1%. Let’s just try …  I think if we try to be more positive that we’re going to feel better.

Joette:  Someone told me the other day that they had a condition, and the doctor had told them that it’s a 40% chance that it’s cancer. I said, “No, no, no, no, no. It’s a 60% chance that it’s not cancer!” You’ve got to turn it around. If you’re saying, “stay positive,” I think that the real way to do that is to do useful work. Do purposeful work. Make a meal for your family. Go to a neighbor’s house and help someone who’s sick. Take soup. I’ve got a friend whose father is sick right now and she’s tending to him. I’m bringing soup over there tonight. Go to church. Go to temple. Be active. Do good work on a day-to-day basis. The less you do, the more your brain goes cockeyed. So, be active.

Listen, I don’t have to tell most of the people who follow me, because I know what kind of people follow me. They are the “doers” in the world. I know them because they’ve become my clients. They’ve become my students. I hear them, and I see how hardworking they are. Many of them are homeschooling moms — and fathers, too — but mostly it’s mothers. I see how hard people work where they have ranches or they have farms, and they are tending to livestock. These are not the people who are sitting back and letting someone else take care of them. These are the people who are the underpinnings of society. This is what girds our society, is people like that.

So, I’m kind of preaching to the choir. But, the point is that if you have a moment of that in your life: fill it with something. Fill it with something lofty. I always say fill it with prayer work. Fill it with reading your Bible, your Catechism, your Torah. That’s what you fill with. Fill it with beautiful music by Mendelssohn and Beethoven. That’s how you fill it. Fill it with loftiness. Forget the stupid television shows that are on.

Kate:  Right.

Joette:  They just bring us down. They’re immoral, and they just bring us down.

Kate:  So, let’s dive into the mind of Joette Calabrese for a moment, and let’s hear …

Joette:  Oh, God, that’s not very deep. I hope you like shallow water!

Kate:  Joette, you’re so fun to be with because you’re funny and you’re passionate. So no, it is fun to dig into your mind. But, let’s talk a little bit about a case and see how you processed it. You said a little bit about your son, how he got …

Joette:  Oh, yes, even before he started that because I knew I’ve talked about this so many times in the past, but it is definitely worth repeating. I always say make sure you’re relevant. Get relevant now. As a mother of children who I homeschooled, and the last day when I finished homeschooling, I cried like a baby as I closed up the cabinet and started giving the books away. My kids were laughing at me. But, I was crying. I was like a blubbering idiot crying because it was over! The whole thing was over. My son was going to college. It was all done. I’m thinking to myself, “Who am I to them now? I’m no longer their teacher?” I mean, obviously, I’m their mother but the point is that you vest so much into them to just say, “Okay, off you go now.” No, that’s not my style. I want to be relevant in their lives. I’ve said this before, and excuse me for being repetitive, but a good way to be relevant is to have the stuff they want.

Kate:  Not just the food, right?

Joette:  Not just the food — although food is important, too — but you got to have the stuff they want. What do they want? “Mom, I don’t feel well.” Now, you tell them exactly what to use. Of course, they’ve got their own remedies. I make sure they’ve got the kits, and they own as many remedies as we can stuff into their medicine cabinet. But, I’ve got the answers. That’s what we all want to have for our children. We want to be able to give our children answers even though they’re adults. My children are adults.

Not more than half an hour ago before you and I started this podcast, my oldest son who is 31 — he’s a pilot — Skyped me. He Skypes me almost every day, which is great. He said, “Mom, I’ve got this chest cold that’s coming on.” Now, he knows some of the medicines, but he wasn’t so sure about this one. So, I got to talk to him for 15 minutes. Not just about his chest, but about, “Okay, when is your next flight?” “Oh, I’m leaving tonight.” “What are you doing now?” “Oh, I’m making my dinner so I can take it on the flight.” So, I get to be a part of his life. Meanwhile, I’ve just given him the name of the medicine and how to use it. So, I told him Aconitum 200 mixed with Bryonia 30, and to take it every 3 to 12 hours depending on how severe it is. And, get into bed, please. Get into bed when you get home from that flight. Drink some Kombucha and maybe some bone stock, and you’ll probably be fine by tomorrow. So, I get to be close to him. I told him I was going to talk about this today on the podcast.

Kate:  Oh, what did he say?

Joette: “Yes. You still have us, don’t you?” I said, “You bet. I’m going to do whatever it takes. I want you part of my life.” Listen, when he gets married and has kids — which I’m waiting for — my guess is they’re going to be even more a part of my life. Because that’s what happens when kids get married and have their own children, then they become closer to their parents. But meanwhile, while they’re still single, I don’t want to lose those years. I want them close by. It’s a great strategy. It’s a mothering strategy. So, we’re imparting our wisdom.

Look, you don’t have to be an expert in homeopathy, although it doesn’t take too long to get that way — especially if you’re just using my blog. Really, it’s all free! Remember folks, just use that blog. I mean, what I just gave to my son is right on my blog. So, you don’t have to be an expert. You don’t have to be good every time or be correct every time. But, if you can hit it 80 — let’s go back to 80% again — 80% of the time, those are good numbers.

So, how did I think it through? It’s this simple: chest. Had he said “cold” like cold in his nose or sinuses, I would have said Coldcalm by Boiron. Super easy. Or maybe some Ferrum phos, or maybe some Sanguinaria and Belladonna. If it was painful, we might use Sanguinaria 200 with Belladonna 3. That’s a Banerji Protocol. They use that. And so is the Aconitum and Bryonia, a Banerji Protocol for that matter. But, because he said chest and cough, I immediately went to Aconitum, Bryonia.

Kate:  Had this just started with him?

Joette:  Yes, last night he said it started.

Kate:  Okay.

Joette:  I’m not looking for them to say, “Oh my gosh, I’m sick. Call Mom.” I don’t want someone hanging on my apron strings. I want someone who says, “Oh, I’ll just go bed and see how it goes. Maybe I’ll just take a bath or something, an Epsom salt bath, and see how I feel in the morning.” But, he knew he had a flight today. My gosh, they’re exposed to all kinds of things in those flights.

Kate:  Right. But I have found that the quicker that you can get the homeopathy in, the better your chances are of really aborting an illness.

Joette:  Yes, yes. It’s the same thing if you use Vitamin C. The faster you get that Vitamin C in, or the faster you use that … some people use Alka-Seltzer Gold or whatever … it’s true for everything. If you catch something in its infancy stage, you’re more likely to be able abort it in its center stage.

Kate:  So, Joette, you’ve talked before about just sometimes they’re colds. Our bodies … it’s a way that we can flush out toxins. We’re going to get colds, and just letting them ride out. I know I struggle, and I imagine some of our listeners struggle … how often to just jump right in with the Aconitum and Bryonia, and when do we just let it ride? So, maybe help us think through that picture a little.

Joette:  Yes. Well, it’s for him because he had to work. I mean, he doesn’t have to. He could certainly take a sick day, but he prides himself in never taking sick days. I know how he feels about that. He was like that his whole life. So, it would be nice if he could take it easy, but he can’t or he won’t. So, I know he won’t. So, it’s better that we give him something now than to let it ride itself out.

Plus, the chest is a different area, of course. If you’re getting a sinus infection or a little dripping in the post nasal and it’s causing a little sore throat, that’s a little different than something going to the chest. Lungs matter, obviously. So, little conjunctivitis or a little cough or cold that’s on the upper end of the respiratory, then I’m not so worried about.

But, what I like to caution folks about is to not freak. Because children — now he’s not a child — but, children get sick, and they’re supposed to get sick. That’s part of their education! I mean, there’s controversy about this and I’m sorry — I believe they’re supposed to get sick. The way that I came to this had nothing to do with what I read but rather what I experienced in my children.

What I often found was that, for example, my other son was having difficulty riding a bike at one point when he was a youngster. I can’t remember exactly how old that was. He just couldn’t do it. Then he couldn’t do it … he couldn’t do it. He’s very frustrated. Everybody else was riding their bike, but he just couldn’t do it. Then he got sick. He got an ear infection. After the ear infection, literally right after the infection was gone, a couple of days later, he felt well enough to go back outside and play. He got on his bike and rode it. He was on his two-wheeler.

So, Rudolf Steiner, who many people follow his work, he was from the turn of the last century in Germany. He believed that it was important — not that I follow necessarily all of his works — but, he believed that it was part of their education. And, that there’s a growth spurt that is a natural growth spurt.

I’ve seen the same thing with another child who was having difficulty reading. He couldn’t read … he couldn’t read. He could read a sentence, but he couldn’t read two sentences. He got sick. It’s almost like they’re going to push through the eye of a needle. Once they get to the other side, they’ve cleared it. He couldn’t read … he couldn’t read. Got sick, had a sore throat, on the other side of the sore throat — bam, able to read.

So, it’s like a psychological connection or a mental connection to a physical experience. To me, that makes a lot of sense. If you’ve not seen that, if you’re not a mother and you’ve never watched that, you might question it. But, I’ve seen it too many times to question whether or not there’s a reason for these colds. It is a good thing — completing their education. We’re building their immunities so that as an adult they’re not getting chicken pox. As an adult, they don’t get these colds and flu. They get them as children as they’re supposed to do … as has been done through the ages.

Kate:  So, if it’s just a minor cold, sniffles, a little bit of a sore throat, maybe let it go for kids. But now, if you have someone that has a history of pneumonia, and they’re coming down and it seems a little heavier, then …

Joette:  Oh, you do it, absolutely treat them. Absolutely. Even if it’s just a little sore throat and minor cold, you might just take Coldcalm. I love that medicine. It’s Coldcalm, C-A-L-M is the second word by Boiron. It’s excellent.

Kate:  Right. I know a lot of my friends have been using that this season and loving it.

Joette:  Yes. Also, Oscillococcinum made by Boiron. That’s another good one. There are a lot of great remedies. Listen , folks, I always tell people, make sure that you’re getting those combination medicines. Buy them all. Buy everything Boiron owns as a combination. Buy everything that Hyland’s owns, all of those combination medicines. They are really smart. It takes a lot less intelligence or study — maybe not intelligence is the word — but study to use those than it does to try to figure out exactly the medicine, because they figured it out for you. If it acts, you go back and look at the ingredients and say, “Hah, no wonder why I got rid of that fatigue. Gelsemium is in there.” Or if you don’t know that, you’ll look up in your materia medica every one of those medicines and learn them. That’s how you learn this. You just investigate, investigate and be curious.

Kate:  And, you’ll be glad you have them if you’re sick, your family is sick, you can’t think straight. You don’t know what to give them. You just reach for those and say, “Hey, go take one of those combinations.” And, it’s simple, right?

Joette:  Well, when I get sick, my mind turns to mush. I’m useless. I mean really, I can’t even think of what I’m experiencing. So, I know what that’s like for folks. Then I turn to my husband who doesn’t know an awful lot of homeopathy, but he knows enough about me to be able to figure out somewhat what I should be taking.

Kate:  Nice. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today. I’m excited for the listeners to get to hear a little bit more about what goes on in your brain as you think about cases. So, thank you, Joette.

Joette:  Yes, it’s always fun, Kate, looking forward to next time.

Kate:  You just listened to a podcast by joettecalabrese.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shared her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Stitcher, and TuneIn radio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. If you liked it, please share it with your friends. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit in your health strategy, visit joettecalabrese.com.

*Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

03:51    Courtney’s story: being an herbalist, using remedies for breech birth, and being a doula

11:40    Bursitis, arthritis, food allergies and their remedies

22:19    Nola’s story with the vole: Ledum and HyperArs for an animal bite

27:30    Reacting versus responding: Don’t panic

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Birthing Series Part One: Turning a Breech Baby

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

Surviving Infections on the farm with Homeopathy

Podcast 34 – Dads with Audacity: These Fathers Know Best!

The Secret Life of a Colicky Baby

You are listening to a podcast from joettecalabrese.com where nationally certified American homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese, shares her passion for helping families stay healthy through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition.

Courtney:  The moment you start panicking, you’re freaking out and thinking of all the things you have to do and making that mental list. You know, take a deep breath and just realize that the best thing to do is nothing. Just wait. Just wait until you can make that choice rationally.

Kate:  You are listening to Podcast Number 40 at joettecalabrese.com.

Joette:  Each day from my office, I get to see how homeopathy is transforming lives all over the globe and I want to share them with you. Some of my students have really caught my eye. Some of you have done all you can to learn how to cure those around you using homeopathic medicines. Your successes inspire me. They’re glorious and powerful. I can’t keep these successes a secret any longer. So, with help from my roving reporters, we bring you a mini podcast series that I call “Moms with Moxie.” Sometimes we even interview dads with audacity. See how regular mothers and others, average people who want to cure those around them have gone from freaking to fabulous with homeopathy.

Kate:  Today, we have a very special guest joining us. I’m excited to welcome Courtney here with me today. We’re going to be talking about how homeopathy has really changed her life and her family’s life. She’s going to share with us a lot of stories that she has about how she uses homeopathy with her family, everything from animal bites to bursitis, arthritis, and birthing those babies. Courtney, thanks for joining us today.

Courtney:  Thanks. It’s great to be here, Kate.

Kate:  We’re excited to hear about your story and get to know you a little bit. Because it’s always, I think, fun for people to get to know some of the people that work with Joette behind the scenes. I’m excited for people to get to meet you and to hear about your story. So, Courtney, where are you from?

Courtney:  I’m from New York. I live probably about an hour and a half south of Buffalo.

Kate:  So, you live sort of near Joette?

Courtney:  Yes, I don’t live far from Joette. Joette lives just outside of Buffalo as well.

Kate:  You’ve gotten to know Joette by working with her. How many years have you worked with Joette now?

Courtney:  I’ve worked with Joette for about six years now. I assist in marketing. So, I’ve done Joette’s social media. So, a lot of people who have taken Joette’s classes and are on her student forum page — because Joette, if you’ve taken her class, you can join the online student forum which is hosted off Facebook. I moderate that group along with another girl. So, a lot of her students will probably recognize who I am because I’m often posting on there or commenting on posts or answering questions, that kind of a thing. Also, anytime Joette has a new course that we’re launching, I help launch it, and I take out advertising for it and that sort of thing.

Kate:  A lot of people probably hear from you but they don’t know that they’re hearing from you.

Courtney:  Yes. Now, they get to hear my voice. They see my picture. They’ve heard of me that way but now they get to know a little more about Courtney.

Kate:  Exactly, exactly. I think that’s really fun.

It’s interesting. When we were talking, you told me a little bit about yourself as far as your background in natural medicine. You have some pretty interesting things. You’re pretty wise, I think. I look forward to learning from you, because you are a certified herbalist, right?

Courtney’s story: being an herbalist, using remedies for breech birth, and being a doula

Courtney:  Yes, that’s right. Before I came to homeopathy, I was actually really interested in herbs and did a lot of wildcrafting. We live out in the country. So, I would find herbs and make tinctures out of them, and use that as medicine for myself. That was probably right before I had kids. So, I wasn’t really using herbs a lot with my kids. Now, we mostly use homeopathy and have been. Homeopathy is our family’s main source of medicine. It has been for a good five or six years. I found it right before I started working with Joette. We’ve had some really good results — especially with little kids. I have three little kids. I don’t feel like herbs are always the best choice. They can be harmful. Homeopathy is gentle. It has been really good for us in the last six years when I’ve been pregnant or my babies are really little. I never think twice about using homeopathy.

Kate:  One of the reasons you liked homeopathy is that when you were pregnant, you didn’t have to worry about using homeopathy. But herbs, it was a little tricky — which ones to use during a pregnancy or not. So, that was probably a selling point — one of them for homeopathy for you, right?

Courtney:  That’s exactly right. Herbs, you have to be careful. There are things that you can’t have when you’re pregnant; obviously, can’t give it to your newborn baby. So, homeopathy is a perfect fit for that time, the childbearing years. It’s such a nice thing to have a kit when you’re pregnant so that if you come down with the flu or even if you’re having like, sciatic issues, you don’t have to worry about resorting to allopathic medicine. Herbs — the solution isn’t always herbal because herbs can be too harsh to take when you’re pregnant. So yes, that was a big turning point for me, honestly. It’s just when we started having a family, I needed something that I could use for my babies and use on myself. Homeopathy was the ticket.

Kate:  Courtney, I think that is a really good point because a lot of people ask. They want to know: Can you use homeopathy when you’re pregnant? And say you have a baby or a young child, they’re concerned about are there cautions for using homeopathy with young children or when you’re pregnant? I know there are a couple of things. So, maybe we can talk about that for just a minute.

Courtney:  Definitely, that’s a good point. There are some remedies that Joette advises that people be careful about using or just avoid during pregnancy. The ones to be aware of when you’re pregnant are Pulsatilla, Apis and Sepia. I will say that during my last pregnancy, I was using Pulsatilla. So, I don’t really think that it’s a matter of something like dangerous — avoid them. But, like it’s not something you want to use in excess. Like if you really need Pulsatilla, you could probably talk to a homeopath and find out what the safe way to use it is. I just think that sometimes we make blanket statements like, “Be careful around these remedies.” Because you don’t want just anybody to come and read a blog about it, and start taking big doses or high potencies and possibly get themselves into trouble.

Pulsatilla is one that’s actually used to turn babies. So, you can use that in pregnancy. Actually, the reason I used it was to turn my baby. Because I think it was 34, 35 weeks at least, Avery, my last baby that I was pregnant with was breech — completely breech, like head up and not even transverse. He was straight up breech. I was planning to birth him at home. So, all of my babies have been born at home. My midwife, I came in for my appointment and she was like, “Oh my goodness. He’s breach.” I was like, “Oh, what does that mean?” She said, “Well, you might not be able to have him at home,” which was really kind of scary for me. So, I talked to Joette, and she told me Pulsatilla. I think I only took two doses of it. It works very quickly.

Kate:  That’s amazing.

Courtney:  I had, previous to that, tried things like there’s [An incorrect website is mentioned in the podcast. The correct website is spinningbabies.com], I think that’s the website. But, it was very overwhelming to me, Kate. I didn’t have that much time to kind of get things moving. When you’re that far along and your baby’s breach, even the homebirth midwives were like, “Yes, Courtney. You need to do something.” I felt like, “Oh my gosh, I have to hurry up and act. I have to do something.” So, I first tried this website. When you go to that website, it gives you all these factors like hundreds of things you have to do. It was very overwhelming to me.

The nice thing was as soon as I was thinking clearly, I messaged Joette. She was like, “Yes, that’s an easy one, take Pulsatilla.” It just seems so simple, compared to what I would have to go through laying on an ironing board upside down and moving this way, that way, and doing all this stuff. I was just like, “Oh my gosh, that is so easy. Take a little tablet and you’re done.” You know what I mean? It was so beautiful to know that that’s all that I would have to do, and it honestly worked. It was amazing.

Kate:  Wow. That’s so awesome. And I know Joette, I think, has written about that in her blog. She has some information on that too. So, you actually have helped people deliver babies, right?

Courtney:  Yes. Before I worked with Joette, I was certified as a doula. A doula is a support person during birth. It’s very different from a midwife. You don’t deliver babies, but you actually just support the mom through labor. For many years, I did that. I had a natural childbirth course that I wrote, and I taught that. So, I had lots of people come through that with me. I had all my babies at home, so I really understood that. I went to a lot of home births with a couple of the local midwives here.

Kate:  I imagine that you probably used homeopathy, did you when you were attending some of these births and helping the moms?

Courtney:  Oh, definitely. Gelsemium 30 is one that I’ve used many times for exhaustion in labor, especially with first-time moms. It’s very common for birth to take a long time. My first birth was 36 hours. I know Joette talks about her first birth being long. Gelsemium is a great remedy to have because obviously labor is the hardest work we do. It’s so tiring. So, I’ve used it many times with women in labor. I’ve also used Joette’s Gatorade recipe. I don’t know if you know that one, Kate, with the cell salts.

Kate:  Yes, I do.

Courtney:  That’s a great tonic for getting the electrolytes and just boosting energy when you’re not only working outside and it’s hot, but when you’re giving birth.

Kate:  That’s a great idea. I never thought of using that with birth, but that is really good.

Courtney:  If you go to Joette’s page in the upper right corner, there’s a search bar. If you enter Gatorade or “Ditch the Gatorade” which is the actual title of it, it will definitely bring it up.

Kate:  Tell us a little bit about your family. I know you’ve used homeopathy with your children and even your husband. We heard, actually, from your husband in another podcast. But people probably don’t know this. But your husband was on one of the “Dads with Audacity” podcasts, wasn’t he?

Courtney:  Yes, he’s Mark in that podcast. Mark is he’s very athletic. He likes to run. He has a lot of sports-related injuries. We joke in our family that Symphytum is Mark’s spirit animal, because he’s had a lot of good relationship with that remedy. It has helped him a lot. Bursitis is one that we dealt with, that includes Symphytum. Bursitis is like inflammation in the knee. Mark used to have repeated bouts of bursitis. I think that seems to be the case from what I’ve heard is that it tends to come and go and flare up. It’s that kind of infection type thing. The protocol for that that I got from Joette is Symphytum 200 mixed with Rhus tox 30. You just take it twice a day.

Kate:  Then how long does it usually take before you see some change in his symptoms?

Courtney:  For Mark — and actually my little boy, he had it one time too. I was so nervous because he came down with it the night before we were going to get on an airplane and travel. I was like, “Oh no.” He’s getting this knee thing. It was hot to the touch. It was painful. Previous to that experience, Mark had had a flare up. For Mark, it doesn’t last too long. It’s maybe, like with this protocol, three days to a week. Then he can kind of stop taking it.

For other people, if it’s happened for a long time, they have to take it probably longer. Usually what happens is they’ll have another flare up after that they will be less severe, and maybe go away quicker. There even may be another flare up after that but then, they eventually, if you employ this protocol, you never have it again. Like, that’s kind of the trend which is usually the trend with homeopathy. It sort of roots it out completely.

Kate:  Right, that’s what I love about homeopathy that we don’t get with many other natural medicine options. I mean sometimes, but homeopathy really gets to the root of the cause. I know for instance my daughter and her asthma, we’re really seeing a change using homeopathy where before it was just managing the symptoms.

Courtney:  Yes. You’re not managing the symptoms. You are actually rooting it out. That is also different from allopathic medicine, but also herbs, a lot of times, it’s just managing symptoms. They have to keep taking the turmeric or whatever it is you’re taking over and over again.

Kate:  Right. So, I think people need to remember that a well-chosen remedy can really make a change, not only in just the symptoms but for the long term — that eventually, that whatever, bursitis, hopefully, Mark won’t have it in the future.

Courtney:  He hasn’t either. It has been a year, and I want to say three —maybe a year and six months. So, we have not had any sign of it. It’s pretty awesome.

Kate:  Prior to that, how often did he use to get it?

Courtney:  Prior to that, he would get it possibly twice a year at least. So, we’re having a good run of it right now, definitely.

Kate:  Your mom, too, she also had some good success with homeopathy.

Courtney:  Yes, definitely. So, my mom, she has had hip replacement surgeries on both of her hips. I think she’s currently up for another hip replacement. She’s trying to kind of stave herself off for a while so she can get through and just pushing it into the future a little bit. So, last she visited, let’s see, I’m trying to think. It was last month. So, a little over a month ago, she came for a visit. She was having a lot of pain. It’s hard for her to sit still for a long time. So, if we’re on a car ride or something like that, she can get achy because she has arthritis.

I started to give her Rhus tox. A lot of times when my family is in town, I’ll start to just give them homeopathy if something’s going on, somebody’s got a stomachache or whatever. I gave her Rhus tox, twice a day while she was with us. I just gave her Rhus tox 200 because that’s what I had. But I probably gave it to her for like four, five days, I don’t know, something like that. So then, she went home and I kind of like, “Well, I might not hear from her about this. But if it helps, I’m sure she’ll get a hold of me.” Lo and behold, a couple of days after she got back home, she was like, “What did you give me?” I had her order Rhus tox off the internet. I sent her a link. I messaged her a link right to where she could order it with the right potency so that there wouldn’t be any confusion at all. She could just have it sent right to her house.

Kate:  Great. So right now, she’s kind of holding steady putting off that hip replacement surgery, right?

Courtney:  Yes, so far so good. We’re hoping to get her through some more months as long as we possibly can. Because hip replacement surgery is like a lot of surgeries, they don’t last forever. She’s already had her hip replacements done, and she wants to make sure she can kind of put it off as far into the future as she can.

Kate:  Let’s talk a little bit about your son. You have — how many children you have and tell us a little bit about your children.

Courtney:  So yes, I have three children. My oldest is 9. I have a middle girl and she is 6. My youngest son is 3.

Kate:  So, one of your children, you used a remedy with them, because I think I remember you telling me that they were really colicky.

Courtney:  Yes. My first born was very colicky. I didn’t really understand what was going on. I mean I felt like I was in a daze for several months after I had him. Like, “Oh my gosh, what’s going on?” I didn’t know the difference between him and other babies, like, what was normal. But it ended up the symptoms became very, very clear. It was every single evening for four or five hours at least. He was just inconsolable. I actually had this routine where I would sit on a big exercise ball, and I would bounce him and at the same time kind of pat his back while I was bouncing him. That’s the only thing that would really soothe him.

Kate:  Oh my gosh.

Courtney:  I would do that for hours.

Kate:  Oh my gosh, you are so bringing these memories back that I had with my daughter. I had an exercise ball, and we would do the same thing. I didn’t know about homeopathy when she was first born. Oh, my goodness, I wish I had.

Courtney:  I believe he ended up having food allergies. The first thing I did was eliminate food from my diet to just kind of test and see, truly, if this was the issue. It ended up being that way. Like I ended up realizing that almost everything was causing him pain. It was just really frustrating. I didn’t have coffee at that time. I really liked coffee. Chocolate bothered him. He was like the meanest baby ever, I swear. I couldn’t eat anything that I liked to eat. I couldn’t have milk. I couldn’t have sweets.

Ultimately, what we realized is that he had an allergy. The biggest one was wheat. So, of course, I’ve taken all of Joette’s courses. I took the Good Gut, Bad Gut course. I immediately realized he needed to be on Bovista. I started giving him Bovista, and his sensitivities have pretty much, I mean, he can pretty much eat anything. We are very careful still with wheat. We don’t go overboard. But, I will tell you right now. He’s on a bagel kick. It’s probably been for like two weeks now. He has a bagel, a big, wheat-filled, crusty, delicious bagel every single day — and has not had an issue. If I’ve done this a couple of years ago even, he would have had diarrhea. It would have been horrible! So, we’ve had so much progress with Bovista with him. It’s amazing.

Kate:  Also, what do you give him for the diarrhea then?

Courtney:  For diarrhea, we were giving him Nux vomica 30, twice a day. If he had eaten wheat and got diarrhea, we would start the Nux vomica, or just continue him on it if we were already doing it. We don’t give him Nux vomica anymore because he doesn’t have diarrhea the way he used to have. He’s much better. He just, right now, is taking the Bovista, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to start weaning him off that even.

Kate:  We found Nux vomica to be helpful as well with when kids have tummy aches kind of regularly, and I think it’s something that they ate. It’s been very helpful for us as well. What did you use for your son when he was colicky? Why don’t you tell us about that?

Courtney:  When he was colicky, I gave him Colocynthis. I think I just gave him a 30 dose on that because, at that time when he was a little baby, all I had was the 100-remedy kit.

Kate:  Which is a great kit, I mean that’s a perfect kit to start off with.

Courtney:  Absolutely. That’s the perfect gift to get any expectant mom. Instead of coming to the baby shower and bringing some diapers and an outfit, give her a homeopathy kit. Or get a couple of people together and put in for homeopathy kit. That’s a lifesaver. To know that you’ve got something when your baby is upset or something happens, that’s the best gift that a mom could have.

Kate:  I agree. It’s been a lifesaver, literally, for us.

So, your daughter, you had an interesting experience with your daughter that I want to hear about. Go ahead and tell us about Nola.

Courtney:  So, Nola’s six. Last summer, this story, it really kind of summarizes her personality completely. Every time I think of it, I’m like, “Of course, this happened to her.” We live in the country. We have goats. We have a little farm. My kids are always running around outside. We have a cat. The cat actually got a hold of a vole. So, the whole family got to learn what a vole is and the difference between a vole and little mouse. Because at first, I thought it was a mouse. But it wasn’t, it was a vole.

Kate:  Are you talking about a vole, V-O-L-E, not M-O-L-E, right?

Courtney:  That’s right, a vole. A vole looks like a mouse. If you actually Google it, you’ll see a picture. It’s just a little bit different. So, anyway, the cat was playing with it. It wasn’t dead. Nola saw the cat playing with this vole and saw how cute it was, and she could not help herself. I was sitting right on the porch with her. I couldn’t really figure out what was going on. But, she ran off to the cat and she’s like, “Oh my gosh, so cute, so cute.” I think she’s talking about the cat, but she’s talking about the vole. She goes to grab the vole, and it literally latches onto her finger. She’s like trying to shake it off of her finger — like throwing her hand around and stuff and screaming at the top of her lungs.

I’m running off the porch like, “What is going on?” I see this thing. I take her hand and pulling it really hard one time and the thing goes flying. Of course, I’m just … oh my gosh. My mind just started to run. It was just like what is this now? I have to deal with this. She can have rabies. What do I do? What do I do? I’m like I need to call the pediatrician. I need to call the disease control people. I need to get her rabies shot. I don’t know what is going to happen here. This is a kid that’s never gotten a vaccination at all nor had any antibiotics. I am just losing my mind.

Lo and behold, this is a piece of advice I’ve heard Joette actually give people before. And, I don’t remember where I heard it; it might have been in one of the courses. But she said, in the moment of an emergency, your first response — especially as a mom — is to lose it and freak out, and think of all the things you need to do. For some, like, “Hydrogen peroxide, let’s clean this out. Let’s go!” Or whatever. I remember her saying, “Actually, the best thing to do is nothing.” Just don’t. Because usually our first responses aren’t the best response because there’s a difference between reacting and responding. I think that I was totally reacting in that moment. I was like, “Oh my gosh, what do I do?” I called my husband. I called everybody.

I sent Joette this email. I still laugh at it today because literally I keep every single email and question that I’ve ever asked her in a file. This one is hilarious. The subject line has like asterisk and it’s like, “EMERGENCY.” If you read this email, it sounds like I’m a crazy person. I’m like, “Nola just got bit by a vole.” I don’t think at the time we even knew it was a vole. We ended up touching it, and we weren’t sure if we needed to have it to test it or whatever. We ended up touching it and putting it in this little box. Then we could actually release it later because we didn’t have to worry about rabies.

I did talk to someone from CDC or something — the health department, that’s who I talked to. I talked to someone from the health department and they were like, “Okay, ma’am, you do not need to bring her in for rabies shot. You do not need to worry about rabies. If it was a bat, that would be different. But, an animal like a mouse (that is so tiny like this), if it did indeed get bit by another animal that had rabies, it would have died. It wouldn’t have made it through that attack. So, the chances are so low that you would actually be putting her through worse things if you took her to get rabies shots.”

But, I didn’t really worry about that so much anyway because there’s a protocol for rabies. I mean I just feel like I’m pretty lucky to be able to work for Joette. I can take her courses. I know homeopathy so well now. I am just grateful, so grateful for it. So, I had the remedies I needed. I emailed Joette. She messaged me back. She said take Hypericum 200 mixed with Arsenicum 200 twice a day. That’s the typical infection kind of protocol. Then I also did give her Ledum 200, twice a day for one week because the bite is a puncture wound. Ledum is what you want to give any time there’s that kind of a wound.

Kate:  Great thinking. So, good, okay, what a scary story. I think I would have done the same thing. Courtney, that’s what I love about talking to you — is that your message, I feel like as a mom and as a doula and all the things that you’ve learned working with Joette and your experiences, you’ve learned not to panic. Even if you do, then you think about it a little bit and think, “Okay, I can just really take some time and think about these things before I have to react.” Then you can actually, like, not react but …

Courtney:  Respond.

Kate:  Respond, yes. Good, I couldn’t think of the word.

Courtney:  That’s how I like to think of it, responding versus reacting. There’s such a big difference.

Kate:  Yes. You talked a little bit about that, too, even with birthing and everything. Just how when things like that happen, an emergency like you went through, you feel like, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I got to do something right now!” We can think, “No, just calm down. I have some time. I’m just going to think clearly about this.” But, I think that’s hard for moms, don’t you think?

Courtney:  Absolutely. That brings in full circle because that was a lesson I learned early on as a doula. In the hospital setting especially, that’s one of the worse things. When you bring a first-time mom into the labor room — and one of the things that almost any doula will tell you, is that you never bring a mom in when she’s in early labor. You got to set up your little tricks at home, to kind of get her through the early stages of labor. Because the longer she’s there at the hospital, the more likely that the doctors — and I don’t mean that these doctors are like out to get people, it’s just a part of what their procedure is — but, the more likely it is that they’re going to have an intervention, whatever it’s going to be. It’s going to be an IV, a drug, a C-section. You definitely want to wait it out as long as you can, so that that’s less likely to happen.

But lo and behold, there are many times when Mom decides she wants to go in absolutely without a doubt early. Or something goes down and the doctors are going to put that forward that, “Hey, we need to make a decision on this right now. You need to have C-section. This is what we think.” The pressure is on. It is incredibly hard to get through those moments, because you do feel like you’re in an emergency. They know what they are doing. I remember early on using that technique of, “Actually you don’t own this time. We get to make the decisions here.” When you are able to stay in your power about it, you get to dictate the courses, what’s going to happen.

So, that’s a trick that I learned is to say, “Well actually, we need about 10 minutes to talk alone.” If you don’t tell them that you want to be alone in the room, they’ll stand there and watch you talk. Asking them to leave is very important and to have that time. Because literally, 5 or 10 minutes can be the difference between a C-section or not a C-section. You sit there and you talk to the mom and give her the options. Discuss what her plan is, and remind her of her intentions and that kind of thing. It can really make the difference in a situation like birth. So, it’s a nice thing to start learning when you’re pregnant or early on, to not freak out. The freak out moment really doesn’t help anything —  even though we all do it. That’s what kids do to us. They tend to push the buttons just the right way so that we can get upset about things.

Kate:  I think that happens even when our kids have come down with the bad flu or cold or something. They get a really high fever or they’re in a lot of pain. We start to panic, right, and feel like, “Oh my gosh!”

Courtney:  Yes, definitely. I think that every family has their trigger. If your family was dealing with an ear infection and it was really freaking you out, I would just be like, “Oh yes, no. I’ll take an ear infection any day. That’s fine. We’ve gone through multiple ear infections with homeopathy.” Strep throat, that might really freak a lot of people out. You always get the ones you don’t expect. So, it’s easy to theoretically talk about, “Oh yes, we’ll do this and whatever.” But when it comes down to it, it’s usually not the easy one that you get. I never expected to have to deal with rabies. I’m prepared for strep throat, not that. That really was ridiculous.

Kate:  That again just leads to what we were talking about, don’t panic. You have time. You can think about things. Just take your time.

Courtney:  That’s right. If you can instill that into your head that the moment you start panicking, you’re freaking out and thinking of all the things you have to do and making that mental list — take a deep breath and just realize that the best thing to do is nothing. Just wait. Just wait until you can make that choice rationally. Then if you’ve got the information from Joette’s blogs, you’re one step ahead. You can just go on and do a search and help yourself out. You don’t have to go into the panic mode. So, homeopathy is like, when you’ve got that in the bag, it’s so nice to just be able to do something that you feel good about.

Kate:  Right. And, that doesn’t have side effects.

Courtney:  Exactly.

Kate:  Things happen. So, I don’t know. People laugh at me. But when I go anywhere, I take a lot of homeopathic remedies. And when I travel, oh my gosh, one suitcase is usually half-filled with homeopathy. I remember people teasing me like my husband or whatever. I’m like you’re going to thank me if something happens and I have the right remedy. Do you know what? It has happened. Emergencies have happened. I’ve had the right remedy. Otherwise, it would have been a trip to the doctor.

Courtney:  I’m the same way. I have a whole cupboard at home of remedies and things. I have a habit of buying remedies. I have many kits, you know, keep them around. You have remedies lying around or whatever in places that you think you’re going to need them. Almost anytime I go to Wegmans, I buy Arnica and Pulsatilla, because I just know those are popular ones in our family and might as well have it. I’ve got a little travel kit that always comes everywhere. I just keep fresh ones in there every time. There are certain ones that I feel like we definitely go through. That’s the beauty of homeopathy, too, because it’s not expensive. So, paying 5 to 10 bucks for one remedy that’s literally going to get you through a moment is super inexpensive.

Kate:  I know. Courtney, thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge with us and giving us some of the examples of how you’ve used homeopathy. Because I think the more we can share our stories, it’s just so helpful for other people to be able to hear about how we used homeopathy. It gives us more confidence.

Courtney:  I think that’s what’s given me more confidence, too, is hearing other moms deal with the same things, and that they used homeopathy and everything was okay. So, that is really what it takes. I agree. And, thank you for having me. It’s been really fun to talk! cx

Kate:  You just listened to a podcast by joettecalabrese.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shared her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Stitcher, and TuneIn radio.

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. If you liked it, please share it with your friends. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit in your health strategy, visit joettecalabrese.com.

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

*Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com