Joette Calabrese Podcast

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

02:25   There is a price for convenience

06:40   Doctors Joette follows

            Dr. Ken Berry

            Dr. Shawn Baker

            Dr. Robert Kiltz

            Dr. Anthony Chaffee

            Dr. Ben Bikman

            Dr. Annette Bosworth

            The Weston A. Price Foundation®

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

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

15:34   “But my doctor said …”

18:44   Questions for the doctor

21:06   The specialist referral

23:27   Closing advice

            Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)

Joette’s Learning Center

The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

PracticalHomeopathy.com

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

Joette’s Mighty Members

FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

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

Joette:

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

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

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

Kate: (01:00)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hi, Joette.

Joette:

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

Kate:

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

Joette: (02:25)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate: (06:40)

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

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate: (09:31)

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

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

Joette:

Sure, please.

Kate:

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

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

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

Joette:

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

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

Kate:

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

Joette:

Yeah.

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

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

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

Joette: (13:06)

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

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

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

Kate:

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

Kate: (15:34)

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

Joette:

Yes. Yeah.

Kate:

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

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate:

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

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

That is a huge difference.

Joette:

Yes, it is.

Kate:

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

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

Joette:

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

Kate:

That’s true.

Joette:

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

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

Kate: (18:44)

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate:

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

Joette: (21:06)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joette: (23:27)

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

Kate:

Right? That’s the question.

Joette:

So, what’s the upshot?

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s well worth your effort and your time.

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

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

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

Kate:

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

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

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

02:06   My parents were very strict.

05:02   Fast-forward to raising my own children

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

11:44   A new role: parents of adult children

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

16:23   Closing advice

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)

Joette’s Learning Center

PracticalHomeopathy.com

Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

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

Joette’s Mighty Members

FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

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

Joette:

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

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

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

Kate: (01:00)

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

Joette:

Hi, Kate.

Kate:

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

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

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

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

So, talk about that for a bit.

Joette: (02:06)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joette: (05:02)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate: (10:11)

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

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

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

Joette:

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

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

Kate:

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

Joette:

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

Kate: (11:44)

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate: (14:28)

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

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

Kate: (16:23)

Sure is.

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

Joette:

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

Kate:

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

Joette:

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

Kate:

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

Joette:

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

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

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

Kate:

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

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

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

02:57   How do you give homeopathy to cows?

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

            Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

            Joette’s Learning Center (Protocol Courses)

            The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

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

            Gateway to Homeopathy II

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

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

10:23   Success Story: Newborn with blood sugar issues

11:20   Success Stories: Chronic Pain

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

15:53   Success Stories: Animals

18:47   Tick prevention on the dairy farm

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

           FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)

PracticalHomeopathy.com

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

Joette’s Mighty Members

Kate:

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

Joette:

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

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

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

Kate: (01:00)

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

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

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

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

Melissa:

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

Kate:

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

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

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

Melissa:

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

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

Kate: (02:57)

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

Melissa:

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

Kate:

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

Melissa:

Yeah, for sure.

Kate:

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

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

Melissa: (03:33)

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

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

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

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

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

Kate:

Yes! Yes!

Melissa:

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

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

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

Kate:

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

Melissa:

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

Kate:

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

Melissa: (05:45)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate:

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

Melissa:

I have seen that protocol work many times.

Kate: (06:57)

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

Melissa:

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

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

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

Kate:

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

Melissa:

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

Kate:

Good. Alright. Tell us some more.

Melissa: (08:21)

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

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

Kate:

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

Melissa:

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

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

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

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

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

Kate:

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

Melissa: (10:23)

For sure.

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

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

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

Kate:

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

Melissa: (11:20)

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

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

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

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

Kate:

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

Melissa:

She is very grateful.

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

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

Kate:

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

Melissa:

Rhus tox.

Kate:

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

Melissa:

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

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

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

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

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

Kate:

Wow! That’s so great.

Melissa:

He was very excited, to say the least.

Kate:

Yeah.

Melissa:

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

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

Kate: (14:58)

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

Melissa:

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

Kate:

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

Kate: (15:53)

Let’s move on to animals.

Melissa:

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

Kate:

What?

Melissa:

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

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

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

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

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

Kate:

So, how long did that take?

Melissa:

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

Kate:

Still pretty good.

Melissa:

Yes. My next cow story is another abscess story.

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

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

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

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

Kate:

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

Melissa:

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

Kate:

Yeah. Wow. You saved the cow’s life.

Kate: (18:47)

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

Melissa:

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

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

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

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

Kate:

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

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

Melissa:

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

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

Kate:

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

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

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

Melissa: (20:52)

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

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

Kate:

Yes, good point.

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

Melissa:

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

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

Kate:

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

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

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

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

Melissa:

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

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

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

Kate:

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

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

Melissa:

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

Joette:

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

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

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

Kate:

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

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

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

03:28   Falling Back Into the Status Quo

05:04   When the Symptoms Return

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

08:58   Staying on Track With Homeopathy

            Joette’s Learning Center (Protocol courses)

            Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

            The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

13:20   It’s All About Keeping Notes

15:47   What Is Our Goal?

17:15   Closing Advice

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)

PracticalHomeopathy.com

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

Joette’s Mighty Members

FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

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

Joette:

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

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

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

Kate: (01:00)

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

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

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

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

Hi, Joette.

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

Kate:

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

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

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

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

Joette: (03:28)

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes.”

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

“Yes.”

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

“Yes, that’s correct.”

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

“That’s correct.”

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

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

Kate:

Right, me too.

Joette:

This is just human behavior.

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

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

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

And what changed?

“Well, I stopped using the medicine.”

Kate: (05:04)

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate: (06:36)

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

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

Joette:

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

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

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

Kate:

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

Kate: (08:58)

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

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

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

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, we have to make a note of that.

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

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

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

That’s how we do it.

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

Kate:

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

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

Joette: (13:20)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate: (15:47)

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate: (17:15)

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate:

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

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

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

02:00   Personal Experience Dealing With Fibromyalgia

            How I Cured My Fibromyalgia With One Simple Medicine

03:43   Symptoms of Fibromyalgia

07:50   The Most Valuable Homeopathic Medicine for Fibromyalgia

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

11:30   Where To Buy Homeopathic Medicines

12:16   Causes of Fibromyalgia

14:48   What if Fibromyalgia Returns?

16:20   Homeopathy vs. Conventional Medicine

19:14   Closing Advice

            Joette’s blog

            Joette’s podcasts

            Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)

           Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Joette’s Learning Center

The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

PracticalHomeopathy.com

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

Joette’s Mighty Members

FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

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

Joette:

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

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

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

Kate: (01:00)

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

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

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

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

So, let’s get started.

Hi, Joette.

Joette: (02:00)

Hi, Kate.

This is one of my favorite subjects, you know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate: (03:43)

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so, we see a lot more tinkering.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate: (07:50)

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For how long?

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

Kate: (10:17)

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

Joette:

Yes. It matters not.

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

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

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

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

Kate: (11:30)

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

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

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

Kate: (12:16)

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

Joette:

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

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

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

So, it’s not always from drugs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate: (14:48)

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate: (16:20)

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

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But it does not.

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

Kate: (19:14)

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

Joette:

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

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

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

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

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

Kate:

Great. Joette, thanks so much for the information.

Joette:

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

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

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

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

Kate:

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

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

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

03:27   It All Began With a Diagnosis of Neurofibromatosis           

04:45   A Slightly Overwhelming Introduction to Classical Homeopathy

07:06   Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®

            Gateway I and Gateway II courses

08:56   The Brain Surgeries

            Surgical Protocols

12:48   A Horrible Accident

15:32   Aconitum for Shock

16:30   The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

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

            The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

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

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

            What To Expect When Using Homeopathy: Part 1

21:00   Success Story: Elevated PSA

22:30   Closing Thoughts

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

Kate:

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

Joette:

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

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

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

Kate: (00:58)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shannon:

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

Kate:

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

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

Shannon: (03:27)

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

Kate:

What is neurofibromatosis? Did I say that right?

Shannon:

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

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

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

Shannon: (04:45)

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

Kate:

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

Shannon:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shannon: (07:06)

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

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

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

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

In between all of this, I started learning about Gateway I and Gateway II courses through Joette, which I took with you and Michelle. I started learning about Joette’s blog and a different way to use homeopathy, and I was really intrigued.

And during — it was Gateway II — I actually finished that course in the hospital because in the interim with all of this, my son got a rare brain infection, and he was really sick. And it was actually four years ago, around this time, that he went to the emergency room. I had thought he had the flu, and he was just really sick. Very sick, very sick.

I honestly, Kate, I do not run to the doctors unless I feel it’s absolutely necessary. I try a lot of things at home, and this warranted an emergency room visit. And I was even doing homeopathy at the time, Kate, trying something. Again, all I had was the — which I’m thankful for — I had the kit of 30th potencies. I wish I had more, but I didn’t at the time.

And we went to the emergency room, and I’ll never forget when … here I’m thinking my son’s going to get … maybe he’s dehydrated or what was going on.

And I’ll never forget them telling me they did an MRI, and they came back and they said, “Well, the good part is it’s not any of the neurofibromas in his head because he does have tumors throughout his body, so it’s not that causing an issue. It’s an infection, a brain infection.”

I was like, “Wait, what?” I’m like, “Okay.” So, I’m thinking brain infection. I’m thinking infection. I’m thinking, “Okay, he’s going to be on some type of antibiotic. And my son has never been on an antibiotic ever in his entire life.” And I was like, “Okay.”

I went back to the emergency room, the ER doctor comes in, and he’s like, “Yeah, so we’re going to prep him for surgery. He’s going to be getting brain surgery.” And I was like a deer in headlights.

I’m like, “Wait, what?”

Shannon: (09:53)

So, he ended up having four brain surgeries in total.

They tried two surgeries to drain the infection. And then the third, because the infection was so bad, they needed to relieve the pressure in his head because the antibiotic wasn’t getting there fast enough.

So, his third surgery was removing the part of his skull to help relieve the pressure in his brain, or he was going to die. So, we opted for that, obviously, and thank God he survived the surgery — all of the surgeries. And after that surgery, he started to make a full recovery.

He had to wear one of the helmets on his head because he had nothing protecting his brain for three months.

So, the time came three months later — remember it was right around Christmas — he was to have the surgery to have his bone flap (they call part of the skull put back together). And at this time, I finished Gateway I. I finished Gateway II with you guys, and I was really into Joette’s blog daily and researching.

I came across her surgery protocol, and I was like, “I’m using this.” And one thing I did learn after my son’s bout in the hospital. He was in the hospital for about four or six weeks, and he did make a complete recovery, which I’m so thankful for.

Kate:

Yes.

Shannon:

And Kate, I ended up buying so many kits with different potencies at that time. So, I knew that I was going to be prepared in the future for whatever was in store.

I’m so glad I did because I used — when he went back for that fourth surgery — I used the surgery protocol that Joette has on her blog.

I used Arnica the night before. I used Arnica the day of the surgery. And when he got done surgery, I even gave it to him while he was in the hospital.

And he was supposed to stay overnight for observation to make sure everything was okay. And he came home that night! It was awesome, Kate! The doctors could not believe how well his surgery went.

Kate:

Oh, that’s so great.

Shannon:

It was so exciting because he just wanted to be home. I mean, he did have some pain that night, and Arnica helped with that. But in hindsight of everything that he went through with that surgery, Arnica took care of it. I didn’t have to use anything else. And he was back to himself within probably a couple days.

Kate:

That seems inconceivable, honestly.

Shannon:

Yes. He still has NF even with all of this going on. So, after all of that, we’re still dealing with the neurofibromatosis with him.

And a few months after that brain surgery, he became a client of Joette’s. That was an answer to prayer. And he is still on this health journey. With Joette’s help, he remains stable, and the tumor that was of concern by his trachea is not causing any issues. So, he is stable right now, and I am so thankful for that.

Kate: (12:48)

Wow. And then I can’t even believe what happened after that.

Shannon:

Right! His last brain surgery was in December.

April, which was only a few months later, my husband was in a really horrible accident. He was crushed by a 14-ton steamroller that tipped on its side and fell on him and crushed him.

Kate:

How did he survive that?

Shannon:

Well, Kate. God. That’s how he survived it.

But when they checked his pulse — the EMT wasn’t there yet — but when the gentleman that he was working with were checking him for a pulse, he didn’t have a pulse. He remembers feeling this amazing peace.

I remember him saying he prayed for all of us, and he was just excited. He was excited! We love the Lord. And he was excited to be with Jesus. And then he remembers, all of a sudden, extreme pain. He was like, “Oh, wow.” He was in so much pain, Kate.

And I remember when that day happened, I was having a hard time getting ahold of him. I needed to get ahold of him for something, and I couldn’t get ahold of him on the phone. I’m like … I don’t know. Something just did not seem right. I texted him; I called him. No answer.

I was like, “What is going on?” I kind of dismissed those feelings, but it was still there, that nagging feeling that something wasn’t right.

And my brother and sister-in-law pulled up in the driveway because we live near them. And Kate, I knew at that moment that something wasn’t right.

And they walked in. I said to them, “Is Derek alive? Is my husband alive?” And I said, “Wait, don’t tell me anything.” And I took a dose of Aconite.

I took a deep breath, and then I was ready for them to tell me whatever news it was going to be.

And I said, “Okay.” I said, “Is he okay?”

And they said, “I don’t know.” They’re like, “We need to go to the hospital.”

Kate, I had no idea what I was walking into.

Kate:

Wow. You didn’t know if he was alive even.

Shannon:

I didn’t. I didn’t.

They said he was in a really bad accident, and they took him to the hospital.

I said, “Okay.”

So, I took another dose of Aconite — another amazing medicine, Kate — and I was able to drive to the hospital, and I walked in.

He was alive and in very bad shape. But I was able to process the information that I needed to hear at that moment because I was also having moments of PTSD from all of the information from my son that happened just a few months ago — within six months ago.

And when you have these things happen, the doctors are talking to you, and they’re trying to tell you what’s going on. And I’m trying to … I was just was having a hard time, just kind of like, “Alright, just give it to me straight. What’s going on?”

Kate: (15:32)

So, for those people who are listening and are new to homeopathy, Aconitum napellus is a great medicine for shock. So, that’s why Shannon chose that medicine.

Shannon:

It was amazing because I was able to function. I was able to process everything, and I was able to function with what was now going to happen with my husband.

So, after that — that was three and a half years ago — he survived with long recovery. He crushed his pelvis. He has permanent nerve damage, but he is able to walk today with a limp.

He’s in pain every day, but the pain is manageable, and he has permanent muscle damage and permanent nerve damage. But in hindsight of everything that happened, it’s a miracle that both my son and my husband are here today. Yeah.

Kate:

Wow. You have been through so much. Your family has been through that. And then on top of that, then you decide, “I need to know more, and I need to dig deeper in homeopathy.”

So, then you decided to join The Academy?

Shannon: (16:30)

I did. Kate, I did. While all this was going on after Gateway — Gateway I — my husband was recovering. I was like, “You know what? I want to purchase the Good Gut, Bad Gut course. I really wanted to start diving in.” But Kate, with his recovery and everything going on, honestly, I didn’t have a chance to do the course.

So, I remember The Academy was starting. It was a couple years that The Academy has started, and I’ve always said to my husband, “I really want to do this.” And it never seemed like the right time, Kate. Never.

Well, I chose to do The Academy at probably the most inconvenient time ever in my life because it was a struggle for us financially. My husband wasn’t working; he was still recovering. And I remember looking at him, and I said, “I really want to do this.”

And he goes, “I really want you to do it. We will figure out a way. Just enroll.”

And Kate. I mean, look! I’m going to graduate Mastery!

It’s nothing but wonderful things that I have. The information that I have learned through The Academy and Mastery is priceless. It’s priceless. Even if I never was able to help anybody else, just the information I have to empower myself and my family is something that I am forever thankful for.

Kate:

So, for those listening, again, who don’t know what The Academy of Practical Homeopathy® is, it’s a yearlong online school that Joette leads. And it’s an immersive school where you learn all about Practical Homeopathy®.

And then there’s a second year for those who choose to go on to what we call the Mastery program. And so that’s what Shannon is going to be graduating from soon.

And Shannon, you’ve been taking some cases of some of your friends, family members. You actually, as part of Mastery, are going to present a case coming up here as you finish Mastery.

You’ve already done one in your Mastery program, but tell us about some of those cases and what you’ve seen and how you’ve used homeopathy.

Shannon: (18:24)

Sure, Kate. So, the case that I presented to the class in Mastery was a friend of mine, and she was having some issues. She saw a few doctors (natural doctors, conventional doctors), and she was getting better, but she was still struggling.

And I said to her, “Would you like me to help you?” I said, “I can try. If you’re okay with it, I’d like to present it to Mastery so I can get some feedback from them.”

So, she came to me, and she was sharing with me what her symptoms were. She was diagnosed with chronic Epstein-Barr, chronic Lyme and mold toxicity. And what I was doing was basing off of the symptoms that were presenting and the diagnosis that she was given … is what I base the homeopathic remedies on.

So, she was experiencing chest tightness, fatigue, irritability, brain fog, sensitivity to light. She’s having ear ringing, headaches and muscle cramping. And a lot of these on a number scale with 10 being the worst … a lot of these were an 8, a 9 or a 10, Kate.

She was also on a hormone replacement therapy drug for many years. With everything that I’ve learned from Joette, I used the mold remedies Joette teaches in the Detox course of Nat sulph and Arsenicum album.

I used Gelsemium for the brain fog and fatigue, and Chamomilla for the irritability, as well as some other remedies that have been mentioned — especially the one for headaches, which Joette mentioned on her blog of the Banerji protocol of Picric acid mixed with Belladonna.

I presented the case to Mastery, and it went very well.

And I had a follow-up with her a few weeks ago. We went over everything in the consult, and, Kate, she was so encouraged because after she told me how well she was doing, I was able to kind of tell her what her numbers were from about eight weeks ago. And her numbers went from a 10 to a 1 and a 2, in almost 90% of her symptoms.

So, the only thing that she’s really struggling with right now is brain fog. Everything else? There was significant improvement, and she was so encouraged to hear this.

Kate:

That was only a matter of weeks!

Shannon:

About eight or nine weeks, yes, by the time we had our follow-up.

Kate:

Good job, Shannon.

Shannon:

It’s encouraging for me, but it’s encouraging for her. But Kate, as Joette says, “It’s God’s medicine.” It’s the remedies and just the tools that I have been taught — of how to use them — is priceless, Kate.

Kate: (21:00)

Yeah. And you have another one with a man in his fifties, I believe it was.

Shannon:

I do. So, he is in his fifties. There is a history of a lot of prostate cancer in his family. And he went to the doctors, and his PSA levels were rising. And his conventional doctor said, “If these continue to rise, my suggestion would be to do a biopsy.”

And he really did not want to do that, Kate. So, he asked me is there anything that I could help him with his elevated PSA levels? And I said, “Sure.” So, I said, “We can try it.”

I suggested that he try Conium and Thuja. And I learned about these medicines for elevated PSA levels in a men’s health lecture in The Academy, and how beneficial they can be.

And he just had a follow-up appointment with his doctor. His PSA levels are now within normal range. Kate, he was ecstatic. And the doctor said to him, “Whatever you’re doing, continue to do it!”

Kate:

Wow. You know, whenever I talk to people about homeopathy — like you — it is incredible the stories that they tell and how homeopathy has changed their lives and the lives around them. And I get tears in my eyes every time I hear these stories. You’ve been through so much, and now you are taking what you’ve learned and helping other people. What a rewarding thing to do, Shannon.

Shannon: (22:30)

It is Kate.

And I wanted to share that there is another way to do things, and especially when it appears no other way. I mean, as I shared in the story, there was no other way for my son.

There was a way, and there still continues to be a way with homeopathy.

And it just doesn’t need to be with my son. It can be with anything. Homeopathy has given me hope, Kate, in a place where I didn’t have any. I had very minimal hope, and I am so thankful for this medicine.

Kate:

Well, Shannon, thank you so much for your willingness to open up and share your life and the life of your family with us and what you’re doing. I appreciate you being here and look forward to hearing about all the other things that you accomplish now with what you’ve learned. Thank you so much.

Shannon:

Kate, thank you so much.

Joette:

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

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

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

Kate:

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

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

01:00   Introduction: Homeopathic Stramonium for Violent Tendencies

04:18   Arnica for Head Injuries

04:45   Stramonium for Violent Tendencies

            Monday Night Live: Rage

07:18   Homeopathy Works!

            Stramonium 200C

08:36   Employing Homeopathic Medicine Until It’s No Longer Needed (Very Much Better)

10:32   How Often to Consider Utilizing Stramonium

11:51   Homeopathy Addresses Physical, Psychological, AND Emotional Conditions

 Joette’s video reel regarding Stramonium on YouTube or Facebook

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)
Joette’s Learning Center
The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®
PracticalHomeopathy.com
Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum
Joette’s Study Group, Find Your New Study Group Friends
Joette’s Mighty Members
FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 153, with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:

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

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

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

Kate: (01:00)

Hi, and welcome to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast. I’m Kate, and I’m thrilled to be here with you today as we explore the wisdom and real-life applications of Practical Homeopathy® with Joette, where homeopathy is distilled down to be practical and accessible to moms, dads, grandparents, and even busy college students and skeptical uncles who just want results.

Joette has spent her decades teaching families how to take the reins of their health using time-tested homeopathic protocols that are simple, effective, and most importantly, doable.

Hi, Joette.

Joette:

Hi, Kate. We’ve got an interesting case to go over today, haven’t we?

Kate:

Yes, we do.

So, we’re going to talk about how to find the right medicine. So, turning the tables a little bit. I think you are going to ask me some questions about a case that I’ve encountered recently.

So, let’s get started.

Joette: (01:57)

Yes. As I recall, this was a case of a young man, right?

Kate:

Right. Yes.

Joette:

And he had some behavioral problems. Kate, why don’t you explain what behavioral and plaguing thoughts and then an interesting history.

Kate:

Right. So, we’re going to focus on some of the emotional components of this case. There are some other things that came into play, but as you say, Joette, “Look at what symptoms are the most prominent.” And it’s clear in this case that the emotional component was definitely the most serious — the most dire — of the symptoms. So, I’ll talk a little bit about it.

There was some violent thoughts, like wanting to kick people — so, almost rage. And the person was embarrassed by the fact that they’re thinking this. They don’t know where it’s come from, but it was really plaguing thoughts of just wanting to reach out in anger.

And I don’t know if this person actually kicked the door at one point or not, but it was pretty severe as far as the almost depression and the rage.

Joette:

And he was about how he wanted to do that. He wanted to hurt someone.

Kate:

Yes.

Joette:

He wanted to kick someone or harm someone, and it turned out that he kicked the door. But that’s as far as he went, at least as far as we know.

Kate:

Right. Yeah. I don’t think it was action as much as just those plaguing thoughts.

Joette:

Plaguing thoughts. Right.

So, how has this case opened, Kate?

Kate:

The person is someone that has used homeopathy on and off for years. So, they did, at one point, take Camphor.

Joette:

So, this is a person whose mother has been using homeopathy on and off for years.

Kate:

Yeah. Correct.

Joette:

Right. It’s in his blood of sorts. He knows enough to start thinking this through and asking for some help homeopathically.

Kate:

Right. And when the mother started thinking about it, she realized that at one point her son had a head injury, and so that played into it. But even though it was a pretty prominent head injury, where there was actually some broken bones in the back …

Joette:

And so, do we know how long ago that injury occurred before the case was taken regarding these?

Kate:

I think it was about a year or so.

Joette:

Okay. My guess is, if the mom knew — I’m just going to take a guess on this, and correct me if I’m wrong — she knows enough homeopathy, she probably treated that injury.

Kate:

Yes.

Joette:

At the time, correct?

Kate:

Correct.

Joette:

With Arnica first and then Natrum sulphuricum next, and that kind of thing, right?

Kate: (04:18)

Correct. Yes. So just if people are wondering, Arnica is so good for so many things, but head injuries is one of them.

Is that what you normally go to first?

Joette:

Yes. It’s the first thing we think of for hematomas and the shock of it. Pain, of course, but especially hematomas. That’s the concern that we most have. Yes.

Kate:

Okay. So yes, that was a long time ago, and now there are these emotional components that are coming to the fore.

Joette: (04:45)

So, when the mom was taking the case — essentially, she was taking the case, and she was relaying to you — that she looked at violent tendency.

Now we don’t know whether or not he was actually violent (but for the kicking of the door). Right? But he talked about how he wanted to punch someone or kick someone and harm to someone.

Kate:

Right.

Joette:

Yes.

Kate:

Right. And so, she looked up in the repertory under “Mind-Emotions and VIOLENT.” And I know you talk about how the remedy Stramonium is pretty prominent when there are violent behaviors.

Joette:

It certainly fits. It fits that, for sure.

But now let’s look at what Stramonium also represents. It represents a shock to the system.

Buster, when he got that injection from the vet, went into a Stramonium state. (I’ve talked about this before. I’ve written about it. Actually, it was a Monday Night Live that I talked about it.) That injection was a shock to the system, and that’s the way I saw it.

Shortly after that, within weeks or so, he became a very violent dog. He’d never been violent. He was really passive and sweet, but he became aggressive towards me. Wouldn’t let me in the bedroom; wouldn’t let me near my husband; snarled at me; showed me his teeth and actually snapped at me several times. My husband had to grab him by the scruff of the neck a number of times.

And so, I knew that the cause of that was likely the neurological shock to the system. I used both medicines specifically for that injury to the system, as well as how he was behaving. I gave him, Stramonium …

Kate:

Turned him right around, as I recall.

Joette:

It did. Immediately within a day or two. It was really fast.

And then it came back again a couple weeks or a month or something later, but not as severe. He didn’t snap this time. He showed his teeth, and he wouldn’t let me near my husband or let me in the bedroom. My husband had to grab him again, and then I knew it was time to give him the Stramonium again.

So, it was a neurological shock to the system, and we could say the same, perhaps, for this young man … that there was a neurological shock. And that can happen after an accident, after an injury (especially a head injury), something that is extreme to the body can often show up later in this kind of behavior, anger, desire to do harm, violent thoughts, et cetera.

So, Stramonium fits both the fact that this behavior is presenting, but it also fits because of the etiology — the potential cause of the condition in the first place — which, indeed, could have been the head injury.

Kate: (07:15)

Yes. And so, interestingly enough, the mother reports that the Stramonium acted, and it acted so quickly and so beautifully that within one dose, this boy stopped having those (the thoughts of rage), and he calmed right down and was doing really well.

Now, when he stopped taking it — and I believe, he was taking it … at first, it was twice a day, and then gradually going to every other day — but when he didn’t remember to take it, those things crept back in. Right?

And so, when he took it again, they went right away. It’s so incredible. I mean, every time we talk, Joette, we talk about these medicines and how amazing they are.

Joette:

God’s medicine. There’s no doubt about it. No side effects, et cetera. It was probably 200?

Kate:

Yes.

Joette:

In a 200C. So, Stramonium 200C. And so, used it a couple times a day for what? Probably a week or so?

Kate:

I would say yes.

They tried to go to the Stramonium every other day, but it didn’t seem like enough. So, they went back to the twice a day. And I didn’t follow the case, so, I don’t know what they’re doing now, but I know that this boy is doing really well.

And whenever he starts to get those thoughts again, he just takes the Stramonium. Or if he’s taking it regularly, then those thoughts don’t even creep in.

Joette: (08:36)

So, the upshot of this is that you use it until it’s no longer needed, and then you test it out. We’re not using it for years; we’re using it for days. And then when it’s clear that the condition is much improved, then we back off.

When we see that it’s not time to back off because the symptoms return, then it’s time to return to the original schedule or a schedule that’s perhaps not as tight as twice a day. Maybe they just use it once a day, see how it goes.

So, we’re always looking for that tipping point to find a place where it’s just right. And it could be taken for a long … it could be taken weeks, perhaps even a month.

Again, we test. We check and see how it’s going without it again. And after a while, the person will no longer need the medicine, and that’s how we know that the medicine has done its job.

Now, just like Buster. It happened months later that he started to behave like this again. It’s almost as though the body said, “I’m ready for another couple doses of this.”

We used the medicine … we loaded up front twice a day for several days. It became much better. I backed off, and we halted the use of it because it appeared to be completely resolved.

Then months later, it started up again. I started right where we left off: twice a day every day for another week or so.

And I don’t remember exactly how long it was because, my friends, it doesn’t matter. People ask me, “So, for how long?”

Well, that is dependent upon what you’re observing. So, once I saw again that he was much better — we’re talking about Buster now — that it’s time to back off the medicine again. And if we see that it reared its ugly head one more time, I would’ve started again.

As I recall (it’s been years now), I don’t think I needed it a third time. But if I had needed it a third time or he needed it a third time, I would’ve done it again. And each time I would’ve expected just what happened … a little bit less, the next time. The symptoms are not as intense. They’re not lasting as long, and there’s a larger space between each of the episodes of the behavior.

So, that’s what apparently happened with this young man. Right?

Kate: (10:32)

So, I’m wondering, Joette, if there’s a case that you had and the symptoms were leading you towards the use of Stramonium, do you think about the severity? And if it’s more severe, maybe you would use it twice a day in the beginning? Or would you start with every other day? Or how often do you like to use Stramonium?

Joette:

Well, it can be used every other day if it’s a rather milder version. But usually, when we’re using a remedy like Stramonium, it’s pretty intense. Because they’re already in depression. That’s intense. And they’re experiencing violent thoughts. I would say that’s worth repeating it twice a day for a while.

These are serious conditions, and it is something that needs to be addressed by someone who’s experienced, a seasoned homeopath, a health care professional, someone like that.

But I do want people to learn how this is done because it gives us freedom from worry that this could never be resolved, or now they’re going to need drugs, et cetera.

Kate:

And it can change someone’s life in amazing ways. So, thanks to these medicines that are so inexpensive. It’s really unbelievable.

Joette:

Yet, in this case, it changed at least two lives. We know about the mother and the son. My guess is it changed the life of his father and his siblings and his friends and his classmates and et cetera.

Kate: (11:51)

Joette, thank you for helping us understand the use of Stramonium and how to think about these emotional cases that can be complex. I appreciate your thoughts, and I think it’s clarified some things in my mind, and I hope the listeners’ as well.

Joette:

I like the point that we’ve brought to the fore today, and that is, most people don’t know that it’s possible that homeopathy can treat emotional and psychological conditions and events as well.

Most people have believed that homeopathy is assigned to acutes, like a cold or a flu or an ear infection. But no, there’s even this.

So, this just helps people understand the universal ability of this medicine. So yeah, it was an interesting case. Thanks for bringing a case.

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

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

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

Kate:

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

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

01:00   Introduction: I Can Predict Your Future

02:21   The Art of Observation: What Are We Looking For?

05:34   Just Observation, Not Assumptions

06:30   Real-Life Examples of Observation

08:29   Prediction by Looking at Clues

12:12   We Have to Fight for Our Own Health, Yet Not Everyone Is Ready

18:07   How Can We Change?

            Aurum metallicum 200C

21:20   One Step at a Time

23:58   Closing Advice

            Joette’s Learning Center

            Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

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

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)
PracticalHomeopathy.com
Joette’s Mighty Members
FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 152, with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:

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

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

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

Kate: (01:00)

Welcome back to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast with Joette Calabrese. I am your co-host, Kate. And I’m thrilled to be here with Joette, our homeopathy expert, who always shares her wisdom and practical insights and experiences so that you can become a confident healer in your family.

Today, we’re diving into a fascinating topic: the art and power of observation and homeopathy, or what we’re calling “I Can Predict Your Future.” I know you’ve got some insights, Joette,  to share about how observing people — and even pets — can reveal so much about their health and guide us to the right remedies.

So, let’s get started, right?

Joette:

Yes. Hi, Kate.

Kate:

Today, you’re going to tell us how we can predict our future or the future of someone else.

Joette:

That’s right. As you know — I have to say this — that one of the most powerful tools in homeopathy isn’t a remedy bottle necessarily, or repertory, or even a materia medica. It’s our ability to observe.

So, within a few minutes of meeting someone, I can often get a sense of whether they’re headed toward a robust, vibrant life or if they’re veering towards illness.

And it’s not about judgment. It’s about noticing patterns and priorities that tell a story about their health and their thinking.

Kate: (02:21)

That’s so interesting. Tell us more about that. What kinds of things are you looking for when you observe someone?

Joette:

Well, sometimes it starts with the little details.

For example, what are they drinking? Are they sipping sparkling water, or is it a martini? (And maybe the second or third one.) What they choose gives a window … What they choose to drink gives us a window into their priorities.

Are they reading a book on self-improvement? You can find that out by talking to them and asking them what they do in their spare time.

Are they consumed — you can see this immediately — by gossip or about complaints.

And are there conversations focused on problems like an upcoming … an event? Caring for a loved one? And it depends on how they care for that loved one. Is it done with joy? Is it done with humor? Is it done with a burdened attitude?

Or raising their children. Raising their children with intention or saying, “Well, I don’t know how to do that, so I just go to the doctor and get a medication for the child. I don’t have any interest in learning how to take care of this or that. That’s the doctor’s job.”

But I also notice physical cues, and those are the ones we see right away. I mean — these others that I’ve just discussed — are, really, once you get into a conversation with someone.

But physical cues: Where is their weight distributed? For example, if the weight is all in the belly, then we start thinking about insulin resistance.

How they carry themselves: Are their shoulders back or their shoulders leaning forward?

And how they speak: If they look you in the eye, and they speak to you with intention.

These things aren’t just random. They’re clues to their overall, I don’t know, shall we say, vitality and their overall attitude towards life.

Now, I don’t want to be unfair. I have to say this, that there are times when we all have downsides in our lives. To catch a vignette of someone’s life could be unfair.

They might’ve just gotten really bad news. And they’re normally buoyant, but right now they’re thinking differently, and it feels as though the weight of the world is on their shoulders. And so, we do have to take that into consideration.

But generally speaking, observation is our cornerstone.

It’s like being a detective. When you’re taking a case and working on someone to help them with using homeopathy, it’s actually even more important to observe the person or the animal or the baby than it is to ask questions because the baby, the animal, the sleeping person can’t give you an answer. So, we must spend a lot of time concentrating on observing people or animals: what they do when they give us information about themselves.

And it doesn’t have to be verbal, as I’m saying, it’s just observational. They’re really handing us their pearls, their unique symptoms and behaviors. And as long as we’re there to observe on it, we’re not going to interpret. We’re just observing.

We’re not thinking, “Well, that person must be toxic,” or “That person must have parasites,” or “That person must have, et cetera, et cetera.”

We’re only going by what we observe.

Kate: (05:34)

So, we’re not making assumptions.

Joette:

That’s right. We’re not making assumptions.

If we were taking it as a case, we’re just jotting down what is noticed, not what we think it is that’s causing it. Now those details guide us to the right remedy.

And what I’m talking about is when someone walks into my office or when I meet someone on Zoom the first time taking a case, but I’m also talking about meeting someone at a party. You can get a lot of this information just by meeting someone, talking to someone after church over a cup of coffee. You can get a lot of where this person is headed, where they are, where they’ve been, and where they’re headed by just observing and listening.

Kate:

That makes so much sense. Joette, I love how practical this is. It’s about paying attention to what’s right in front of us, from what you’re saying.

So, I’d love to hear an example of how this can play out in real life.

Joette: (06:30)

Well, yes. I was taking the case of a woman not too long ago, who I noticed her eyes were kind of half-masked. They were not open all the way. She pointed it out to me, but I had just noticed it not too long before she said it.

It wasn’t because she was tired necessarily, although she does complain of fatigue from time to time. But it really has to do with what medicine we’re going to choose for this.

So, it might look to others as though maybe she’s on a drug or something. I know she’s not, but what I’m looking at is … I don’t know exactly the reason why, but I do know that eyes that are half-closed while speaking is a specific medicine, and it’s often Gelsemium, for example. And Gelsemium is also wonderful medicine for fatigue that she also complains about.

Now, let me also go back and say her eyes were not half-closed because she was fatigued. Even when she wasn’t fatigued … even when she isn’t fatigued, her eyes are half closed.

So, we might also chalk it up (if we were not homeopaths) to saying, “Well, that’s just the way she is. Her eyes have always been like that. Perhaps her father’s eyes were like that, et cetera.”

What we’re looking for is noting characteristics, idiosyncrasies, little issues that can be useful to us.

Someone, for example, who’s always licking their lips might be because they have excessive saliva, and then we think of something like Mercurius sol. Or they might be licking their lips because their lips are dry.

So, once they start licking their lips, the next thing that should be noted by the homeopath is to see if the lips do look dry. Is it because it’s dryness and the person is trying to relieve that discomfort?

Or is it when they speak that they kind of suck in saliva or that it collects around the corners of the mouth, and they’re compensating by licking their lips?

All of this is very useful information for us as homeopaths.

Kate: (08:29)

Okay. Joette, let’s expound more on the prediction part of our message. And how can you predict, looking at these clues, what is going to happen in someone’s life?

Joette:

Well, one of the greatest predictors is what people are interested in and how they spend their time during the day … and the night, for that matter. So, what they’re reading, what their interests are.

If we are talking to someone who doesn’t seem to have any interests, then that’s a clue that we have somebody who may not have the wherewithal. Maybe they’re not well enough to reach out and look for an interest or a hobby.

And then again, in juxtaposition to that, when we talk to someone and they can expound on history, and we note that they read a lot about history, you don’t even have to ask that question. You simply note their level of understanding of history. And so that tells me that the person — generally speaking — has a more robust intellect.

Now, it doesn’t mean that for the person who doesn’t have a robust intellect that we are casting dispersions.

What we’re saying is that, as I said, it might be they don’t have the wherewithal. They have a foggy mind; they have difficulty processing their meal; and now their thinking is foggy. Or they don’t have enough energy to get through their day and then read as well.

So, if someone is interested in a subject that would bring them to the point where they become nearly an expert — at least socially — on the subject of say, history or health, for that matter, then we know that they are more likely to when they chomp down on a subject, they’re going to go all the way.

And so that gives me a measure of information telling me that if I suggest to them that they watch this particular video or read a paragraph that I send them in an email or something like that, that they’ll actually view it or read it and then follow through.

Because a lot of health has to do with follow-through, and that is a predictor — that behavior can predict whether or not that person is going to follow through.

They often can look burdened. And when someone is burdened, I actually hope that there’s someone nearby — their spouse, their parent, their adult child — someone to hold their hand and carry them through this difficult time in their life that may have been happening for a long period of time — it could even be years — will carry them through. And they will make sure that this person is carried through to a better state, eating better meals, cutting out superfluous drugs, learning how to use a couple of homeopathic medicines that could be of use, knowing that it’s important to get outside and exercise, walk, move, et cetera.

Kate:

So, Joette saying that when a person is involved in learning in outside activities and they have a desire to be active, whether it’s mentally and/or physically, that is a prediction of the fact that they are probably — even though they’ve come to you with a health concern — they’re probably going to take that seriously and dig in and use the medicines and likely do well with using homeopathy as their medicine.

Whereas if the other person, maybe, is just not in a place where they’re learning and growing and active, then you’re not saying that that person cannot heal. You’re just saying that, then, that tells you some information about the homeopathic medicine to use, and also seeing if there’s someone in their life that can get involved and boost that person and encourage them until they’re well enough or have the capacity to do these things on their own.

Is that what you’re saying?

Joette: (12:12)

That’s exactly what I’m saying. Because if we want to find health, we pretty much have to do it ourselves … unless we’re lucky enough to have a spouse, a parent, an adult child to carry us along until we can get to that point.

But it’s really unfortunate that many times people believe that it’s not really their job. It’s up to the doctor to figure it out. It’s up to the drug company to give them something that makes them more comfortable. It’s up to someone else. It’s up to the government. It’s up to someone else.

As I say, I can predict whether or not they’re going to fight their weight to the finish, or they’re going to be nonchalant about it.

Now, I’m kind of giving an extreme example of someone who’s kind of soporific — not very excited about life at all. And that is when we see those people really need someone else to take their hand and carry them through.

But you can also tell by people who are just not interested in learning a little bit more.

For example, if I’ve met someone — and this has happened to me socially, especially when family events (have come from a big family of a lot of cousins, et cetera) — and they often, they’ll ask me about a homeopathic medicine for a specific condition. They might say, “I have this indigestion, do you have anything for that?”

And I would tell them, “Yes, there’s Nat phos, or there’s Iris ver,” or something like that. And when I say it, I can see that … I can tell by whether or not they’re going to go ahead and use it by the fact that they’re going to write it down.

“Where do I get this?” And I tell them where to purchase it.

“How often do I use it?” Et cetera.

I can tell by the way they act whether or not they’re going to carry through … that they’re going to carry out this plan that we’ve just put together in our conversation.

Now, others might say, “No, that’s what I get. Yep, yep. That’s how I … and I take my Rolaid. I take my Rolaids or something like that, and then, you know, it works well enough.”

Now, my prediction is that that person’s gut issue is going to get worse because they’re depending on drugs. They’re not willing to learn something new that could be useful to them.

Yet the person who’s written down the remedy — and sometimes I write it down, but I find that if I tell them to write it down, and I spell the word to them (even though it’s slower getting it out because our homeopathic medicines are all in Latin) … I find that if they write it down, however, it entreats them to make the move to go further.

But I also have to say that if they don’t ask any more questions of me or they don’t … when I watch what they’re eating at the picnic, and I see that they’re eating Twinkies, or I don’t think … they’re eating food that’s really not very good for them, I can tell that — even if they purchased the remedy or even if they have it written in their pocket — they’re probably not going to follow through.

I can tell that they don’t want to know more about this and understand further. They’re not at that point now.

And again, I’m not disparaging them. They may not be sick enough to have to go that far, but I can tell that where they’re headed is not going to be very good.

And it’s not just a simple prediction that I’ve just thought I’d make up. I see it over and over and over. And I hear from them later, or I run into them, or run into someone closely related to them … ask how they’re doing. And now they have, “Well, that gut problem really got worse. Colitis and then ulcerative colitis,” and now they’re in the hospital.

I could have guessed because of the lack of interest in the subject to figure it out themselves or to learn something new.

Let’s say I’m invited to that person’s house. Let’s say it’s a relative. And I go into the living room — and I know this is probably going to upset some people — but I see a huge television screen. And what’s on the coffee table are, I don’t know, Hollywood magazines.

I have to say that I don’t expect that this person is a reader, a striver, someone who wants to learn more, who wants to delve deeper into subjects that are meaningful. Perhaps it’s meaningful to me, but it should be meaningful to anyone in society to want to strive.

If they’re spending their evenings watching movies or only watching sports, and their reading material is fluff, then I expect that their decision to move forward and take control of their lives has already been made. It’s unlikely that that’s going to change.

And so, I would predict that indeed, that person is probably going to have a life that’s probably a good amount of struggle, particularly in relationship to health, but also other areas as well.

On the other hand, if I go into someone’s house that I’ve been invited into, and I don’t find a big screen TV. Or when I look at the books, I see books on Aristotle, or there’s a piano, and there’s  sheets of music there, and I can see that how they’re spending their time … or cookbooks or areas where it indicates that they have a desire to learn and to grow and to strive.

Now, I say there’s hope in this person’s life. There’s hope that since they enjoy learning and growing, that when you bring a new idea to them … such as the importance of staying away from certain foods and concentrating on others, or the importance of trying to stay away from as many over the counter or even prescription drugs as possible and replace them with something wholesome, homeopathy or herbs or something like that, or just exercise. That indicates to me where this person’s headed.

And so just by looking around their environment, we can see: Are there bags of chips everywhere? Are there bags of cookies? Are there cookie jars with Oreos, et cetera?

Or are there items such as butter or meat in the refrigerator? And it’s clear that this person does a lot of cooking and doesn’t go out for all the meals at fast food places, and then comes home and has Oreos.

It’s easy to predict what’s going to happen forthright.

Kate: (18:07)

Okay, so Joette, let’s just say that I’m the person listening to this podcast. I’m the person that really has a low amount of energy. I spend my time watching movies. I’m not getting a lot of exercise. I know I’m not eating as well as I should. What do you have for me that could change the trajectory of my future?

Joette:

That’s a good question, Kate.

I would say that it sometimes can look insurmountable. When we look at all of these areas of someone’s life — what they eat, what they read, what they view, what their energy level is like, I would even go as far as saying that the house is untidy, et cetera, if that’s all part of this too — that it seems insurmountable.

But I would suggest that for someone who is in this predicament — perhaps it’s long-term, maybe they’ve always been like this, maybe they grew up this way, or maybe it’s short-term because they’ve just given up after some bad events, some bad luck — is to take one step only. Just do one thing, one thing only.

And that would be, for example, getting some good food in the house and making the meal yourself. And I realize that if someone is greatly fatigued or depressed, that they might find that too grand a step to take, but it isn’t.

And it’s as simple as something like getting some hamburgers and putting them in a frying pan. End of discussion. That’s it. That’s all that needs to be done.

Or getting a dozen eggs and throwing some eggs in the frying pan with some butter or some bacon.

So, what I’m saying is that nothing has to be elaborate, just very simple. Burgers. Burgers every day. Bacon and eggs every day. And that might seem strange to some people. How is it that you could go without vegetables on the side, for example?

But no, the most nutritious food on earth, as far as I’m concerned, is red meat and eggs. So, that’s one place to start.

Another is to learn that there are homeopathic medicines. Let’s say this person is listening to this, and the person is just too depressed to even go any further. Then we always think about the medicine, Aurum metallicum 200C, and that’s often used every other day.

That can snap someone out of this inability to move forward, this inability to strive and to plan ahead in their lives and to note that what they do today will make a difference into tomorrow.

And then I guess the third would be turn off the television. Put away the fluffy magazines. Throw them away. Don’t put ’em away. Throw them away.

And if it means going online and looking for people who are inspirational, Jordan Peterson, for example, someone who can help kick their life into action, even if it’s only for a day or two, starting with something small.

Jordan Peterson always says, “Start your day by getting out of bed and making your bed. That’s the first accomplishment of the day.”

Actually, it’s the second one; the first one is getting out of bed, I suppose. But get out of bed and do something, do something of measure.

Then the next thing might be do some squats. And even if that feels awful, then do simple leg lifts. If that’s still too much, then go down the stairs and then go back up the stairs once.

But these little tiny accomplishments …

And then when you go back down the stairs, you get the frying pan out and get the eggs and the bacon or the hamburger out.

Joette: (21:20)

It’s the little steps that we can take that really make a measurable difference, because that’s all life is anyway, is one minute, then two minutes, then an hour, then an afternoon, then a day, then a week.

And even if we have two or three days that push us back again, start again. We have no choice.

I will tell a story about my father having come over to spend the afternoon with me one day. And I had my three sons who were in the house, and I think two of them were, maybe all three of them were sick, and the house was a mess.

We had a litter of puppies at the time, with three puppies and the mother dog, and I was absolutely overwhelmed. Dinner wasn’t made. My husband was coming home soon. The kids were very needy. And I turned to my father, said, “Dad, I can’t do this.”

And he turned to me, and he said, “Honey, you have no choice.”

And he was absolutely right.

Now, I knew that. But to hear it from someone that I held in regard was much different than my saying it to myself.

So, sometimes we need to hear it from someone else, say, “You have no choice. You’ve got to do this. You’re the only one. What are we going to do? Get another mother, find someone else to do this? Can’t be done.”

So, it straightened me out. And it got me thinking that when he came into the house that day, he might’ve predicted that my future was going to be an absolute mess. And that’s, of course, why I mentioned parenthetically earlier that it might only be a vignette.

And it was. It was a vignette that probably lasted for months because of the dogs in the whelping box — the puppies — and my kids having been sick all at that one time.

But whether this is what I’m describing is someone who’s been in this quagmire, in this quicksand for a very long time, or it’s just a moment in time, it is only up to us. We are the only ones who can change this.

And so, I’m delighted that my father didn’t predict that I was going to be a bad mother — an overwhelmed mother — forever. He said, “Just do it. Pick yourself up and do it,” basically. He didn’t have to go any further. He didn’t have to say anything else.

And I so got it.

And so, then, my next job was to do something about it. Get the dogs out of the whelping box in the living room and put them in the garage. So, at least if they make a mess, I’m not seeing it right now.

Then take care of each child one at a time.

Get the hamburger out, throw it in the frying pan, and start making hamburgers for the dinner. Or throw in some eggs with that, too, and make it simple and nutritious and move to the next step.

Okay, now dinner’s made; the whelping box is in the garage; now I can sweep the kitchen, et cetera, et cetera.

One step at a time. Not all of it at once, because all at once is too much.

Kate: (23:58)

So good. Joette. I am sure this will encourage some people out there. I feel encouraged and inspired.

And I wanted to add that if you are feeling like you’re in this alone, and you want some people to “do life” with, really, and learn maybe what your next steps are, or to be encouraged, or to learn homeopathy together, join a study group. There, you’ll find a group of people that will support each other, that will learn together, that will be there to cheer you on.

So, if you go to JoettesLearningCenter.com, you can find the resources that you need to purchase a Gateway to Practical Homeopathy® study guide and Joette’s Find Your Study Group Friends Facebook page. There, you can find a study group that is meeting and that works with your schedule, and connect with other people who support each other and do life together.

Joette:

Yeah, I think it really makes a difference who you spend your time with, too, and looking to someone who is ahead of you and emulating that. And that’s what comes from community, such as our study groups.

We hear time and again, don’t we, Kate, how people are so encouraged and feel so embraced. And when they’re down, their classmates are right there for them and come back around and pick them up and carry them through.

Yeah, it’s pretty powerful stuff. That’s why we’re all on this earth together. But you just have to find your little group that makes the most sense, or you have to depend on yourself to just pick yourself up. And because “Joette, you have no choice.”

Kate:

Good. Well, thank you, Joette, for sharing your wisdom and insight. As always, we appreciate you.

Joette:

Thanks, Kate.

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

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

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

Kate:

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

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

In This Podcast, We Cover:

01:00   Introduction: Chronic Fatigue Through the Lens of Practical Homeopathy®

01:31   “Syndrome” Sounds Scary

02:23   Challenging the “One Size Fits All” Definition of Chronic Fatigue

04:55   Practical Homeopathy® Offers Medicines to Consider

07:15   Is a Conventional Diagnosis Necessary or Even Helpful in This Situation?

09:19   When Might We Use the Protocol for Chronic Fatigue?

10:25   Closing Advice

            Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

            Joette’s Learning Center

            The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

Additional Resources:

Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)

PracticalHomeopathy.com

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

Joette’s Mighty Members

FindAPracticalHomeopath.com

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 151, with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:

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

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

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

Kate: (01:00)

Hi Joette.

Joette:

Hi, Kate.

Kate:

Today, we have a subject that I think a lot of people encounter, and that is chronic fatigue.

We just had a long conversation about it, and you have some amazing insights of how people can think about chronic fatigue, because that diagnosis can sound scary. But it can also be a little misleading and not help us to get to what we should use homeopathically.

So, can you let us know how we should think about it if we hear the words “chronic fatigue?”

Joette: (01:31)

Well, often, it’s called “chronic fatigue syndrome, which means that there are other aspects to the condition other than just the fatigue.

Kate:

Well, and it makes it sound scary too, right? “Syndrome.”

Joette:

Yeah, syndrome, I know.

But syndrome doesn’t necessarily mean that.

It means that there are a couple of additional conditions that are associated with the main condition — kind of like satellite conditions.

In the world of Practical Homeopathy®, knowing the name of a condition or a diagnosis can be useful. After all, there are well-established protocols for many ailments. But sometimes those labels can be misleading, especially when they come from a medical, a conventional or a functional medicine approach.

And they might sound super-precise, but they often fail to give us the true nature of what’s going on so that we can make a good decision on choosing a homeopathic medicine.

Kate: (02:23)

Well, today we’re going to challenge some of that thinking and those intimidating diagnoses, Joette.

So, help us to reframe our thinking when we hear chronic fatigue or chronic fatigue syndrome, and how do we zero in on the symptoms that really matter?

So, help us to know how do we think about it? How do we frame our thinking so that we can dial in on and find a correct homeopathic medicine?

Joette:

Sure. Well, chronic fatigue. There is a protocol — and there is a Banerji protocol — for chronic fatigue, and you’ll find other protocols as well for chronic fatigue, in general.

But what’s probably more important in this particular situation is what’s happening in that person’s life?

Is this a person … let’s say a woman who just had her third baby, and the baby was born, say, five months ago. And she still feels fatigued after the birth.

We’re really not even supposed to feel fatigue after a birth. We should feel exhilarated, but she’s feeling fatigue after the birth.

We can call that chronic fatigue, but there’s an underlying hormonal issue here.

How about people who eat a lot of carbohydrates? They have Kix for breakfast with skim milk, and then for lunch they have a peanut butter sandwich, and then for dinner they might have a little protein with rice or pasta on the side. And they have chronic fatigue, thinking nothing of those kinds of meals that could be potentially causing a fatigue that’s related to what they’re eating.

And then what about someone who has just come out of surgery — say, a month ago — and ever since then they’ve been fatigued?

Well, first of all, surgery is like World War II on your body. That’s a big deal. You’re being generally anesthesed. You are being cut open! You are being given an antibiotic. You are given an anti-inflammatory, steroids afterwards, et cetera, et cetera. There’s so many drugs: tranquilizer to fall asleep because you’re restless after.

And many times, people are normal. They have a normal amount of energy until they have surgery.

So, it could be the shock of the surgery. But it could also — and this is super common — be a result of the number of medications that they were given. And it may not even be the sheer number (although that would be certainly a priority to consider), but it could have been one particular drug that did it.

We don’t know which one it was. Maybe it was just the general anesthesia. And ever since then, the person is fatigued in hindsight.

Joette: (04:55)

Now, I’m going to attach some medicines to this. Because in that situation, we might consider Phosphoric acid, where with a mom who had her baby months ago and who still has fatigue, we might consider Sepia.

For someone who’s had a lot of pasta and breads and carbohydrates during the day, you might want to consider Helonias.

But then, let’s go to another condition. How about anemia? What if the chronic fatigue is low-level anemia, and that simply wasn’t tested?

How about someone with chronic insomnia? Now, that would make sense of course, that you’re going to be fatigued if you’re not sleeping properly.

But sometimes the person is getting eight hours, but they’re broken up because they go to bed; they fall asleep; then they wake up; then they fall asleep again; then they wake up; now, they’re up for two hours; then they go back. So, the sleep is broken up, so their rhythm is off. That can cause a concern. And then in that case, we’re talking about perhaps something like Coffea.

And then how about if it’s chronic fatigue resulting from depression? Sometimes people don’t even recognize that they’re depressed. They feel low, loss of interest in life, loss of interest in their work. They have no desire to strive, and they’re fatigued, and they just feel, “I don’t know, I just don’t feel up to it.” That could be something like, for example, Aurum metallicum.

Or how about this? How about just dehydration, living in a hot climate where they’ve perspired a lot. And they’re drinking, but they’re not drinking enough. Or they’re drinking, but they’re drinking only water. They’re not drinking anything with electrolytes or any salt added, and so they’re losing minerals as well. So, they’re dehydrated. In that case, we might consider China.

And how about overstudy? Let’s talk about that one. A lot of times people get fatigued — students get fatigued — from over-studying, staying up too late, thinking and thinking and thinking and memorizing and trying to put to memory many, many concepts into one brain in a short amount of time … say, cramming for exams. In that case, we’re going to consider something like Kali phos.

So, chronic fatigue is really an umbrella for what could be many conditions, and I’m sure there are others here that we could think of — that if you thought about it, what could be causing chronic fatigue?

Joette: (07:15)

And so, it’s nice to know what it is, I guess. But if you’ve gone in to see your medical provider, and you are going in with a complaint, and the complaint is, “I’m tired all the time,” … I’m tired all the time means chronic fatigue. Means you really didn’t even need to go in to get that diagnosis because all that’s happened is that a label has been placed on top of what you already knew was happening.

You walked in knowing you were always tired, you walked out knowing you have chronic fatigue.

Same thing.

So, if we understand that there are many ways to — I used to say “skin a cat,” but I don’t say that anymore because I’ve been chastised by people who love cats, and I mean, I like cats, too. So, I’m calling it baking a biscuit. There’s more than one way to bake a biscuit.

So, that’s why I want you to look at this from a couple of different angles. Make sure that you’re considering the circumstances.

And not always do we consider circumstances in choosing homeopathic medicine. But certainly, in chronic fatigue, we do want to consider what’s happened before, what led up to this and what the person is suffering from even now as they’re suffering.

So, oftentimes, I do tell people they should know the name of the diagnosis, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to know it in every single case.

So, in this situation, it’s valuable to know the name that you would’ve given it. “I am fatigued.” You already know that. Now we need to look deeper and see what else needs to be considered.

Kate:

Right. So, although we could use the protocol for chronic fatigue, it’s beneficial to look deeper.

Joette:

Particularly in this kind of a condition. Yes.

Kate:

Yeah.

Other times, it might be the reverse, where we get too specific of a diagnosis that can lead us down a rabbit hole.

But in this case, with chronic fatigue, you are saying, Joette, that it’s important to look at the circumstances surrounding that, and that can be useful as well.

Joette:

Yes, that’s so.

Kate: (09:19)

When might we use, Joette, the protocol for chronic fatigue?

Joette:

When we look at all of these possibilities that I just named: the anemia after birth, overuse of drugs, a poor diet, et cetera. When all of those are not showing up in the case and simply no place we can actually hang our hat, then I would say you might go ahead and utilize the chronic fatigue protocol. But be certain that there isn’t something that’s obviously underwriting this.

Kate:

So, Joette, if we’ve looked at the surrounding circumstances to the chronic fatigue, and we haven’t identified anything in particular as you discussed earlier, that might be causing the fatigue, what is a medicine that we might consider?

Joette:

There are a couple to choose from, but one of the top ones is Aurum metallicum. But I would not just jump into using something like that until I knew that all the other possibilities have been eliminated, just as you said.

Kate: (10:25)

So, if you want to learn more about the medicines and the conditions that Joette talked about today in this podcast, you can learn these things by joining a study group and going through the Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®, or taking some of Joette’s Practical Protocol courses, or even joining The Academy, which is a year-long study of homeopathy in depth. And we just started another year, too. So, that’s exciting.

But this is the way that you will learn about the medicines and how to distill your thinking down and really get to the medicines that would distill the information you’ve been given as a diagnosis into what homeopathic medicines can work for you.

So, Joette, what’s the upshot?

Joette:

So, the upshot is it boils down to study, my friends. Learning this.

Even if you can’t join a Gateway to Homeopathy class, even if you can’t join The Academy, the information that I leave available here for you, as your resource, is voluminous. These podcasts and blogs have been published now for well over ten years, and they’re every single week, so take advantage of them.

I believe that when we strive to become the best version of ourselves — to become the person who is the one looked to for help from suffering — that we elevate not only our status in society, but our intelligence and our self-reliance, so that this becomes a lifestyle: knowing how to treat and how to approach all different kinds of illnesses, even those that might be confounding in their title.

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

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

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

Kate:

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

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

01:00   Introduction: Silicea Helps the Body Successfully Push Out Painful, Embedded Foreign Objects and Much More

01:30   What Is Silicea?

            Silicea 30 and 200 — https://www.boironusa.com/product/silicea/

            Silicea 6X — https://hylands.com/products/hylands-silicea

02:10   Silicea: Bunions (and Pushing Out Glass From an Old Car Accident)

            Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

05:13   Silicea: Straightening Bowed Legs

08:21   Silicea for Pushing Out an Inch-Long Splinter

            The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

11:30   Silicea for Pushing Out Cactus Barbs

15:38   Silicea for Pushing Out Recently Embedded Glass (and for Fear of Pins and Needles)

19:09   Silicea for Pushing Out Hair Splinters

            Gateway to Practical Homeopathy® II

21:25   Silicea for a Dog Riddled With Porcupine Quills

24:55   Joette’s Closing Thoughts on Silicea

            Free online materia medica — https://www.materiamedica.info/en/free-materia-medica-books.php

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

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

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 150, with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:

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

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

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

Kate: (01:00)

Welcome to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast. I’m Kate, and I’m here with Joette.

Hi, Joette.

Joette:

Hi Kate, and actually, hi to many, but we’re going to find out more about that in a minute, right?

Kate:

Yes. Today, we have a very special gathering of some of your inspiring students who are going to share their real stories, their successes, surprises and heartfelt moments. And they’ve been using a homeopathic medicine called Silicea, along with many others. So, we are going to welcome them here to share their stories.

Joette: (01:30)

Hi, ladies.

So, we’re going to talk about Silicea, and there are the top 100 homeopathic medicines we can use. There are the top 300, if we want to go a little bit deeper. There are the top thousand. Silicea is just one of them.

But it was so fascinating when we started to talk about this in one of the classes. Everyone just came up with fascinating stories of their use of Silicea, which is made from flint.

And for those of you who know anything about homeopathy, it is a cell salt. Doesn’t mean it’s any different than any other medicine. It just is in its own special little category.

I’m dying to hear the stories. I’ve kind of heard little bits and pieces, but I haven’t heard the full picture, the full measure of everyone. So, I’m looking forward to getting to know what these stories are.

Kate: (02:10):

All right, so let’s start with Christy. Welcome to the podcast, Christy.

Christy:

Hi, Kate. It’s so fun to be here today. See everyone and meet some new faces.

Joette:

Christy, you have a story about your mom.

Christy:

Yes, I do.

Joette:

And glass, please relay that. I remember that story. It’s pretty interesting.

Christy:

Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. Yeah. My mother and I were going through the Gateway courses, and we were studying the cell salts. And she’s a nurse, so, she’s pretty self-reliant and used to practicing things on herself. So, she wasn’t shy about diving right in, and she noticed all the things that Silicea was appropriate for.

So, she began to take Silicea, especially for her bunions. After about two weeks, the strangest thing started to happen. She had tiny shards of glass coming out of her face. So, at first, she didn’t know what it was, and then she realized it was glass from a car accident she had been in over 25 years ago. So …

Joette:

She was working on bunions on one end and on the other end …

So, did it frighten her?

Christy:

No, it didn’t frighten her. She kept taking the Silicea, and more and more glass started coming out of her face and her head.

But after a while, she was kind of getting tired of it, so she decided maybe she’d try some higher potencies to see if it moved things along. But what she noticed was that larger pieces were coming out, but that became a little bit uncomfortable. And she just stuck with the 6X because it was working.

Joette:

That’s an amazing story, but it’s not unusual. It’s amazing to anyone who doesn’t know anything about Silicea, but this is what Silicea is known to often produce.

Christy:

Exactly, exactly. So, yeah.

Joette:

She was using 6X. Was she using it once, twice a day? How did she …

Christy:

She was using it a couple times a day for a long time.

This has been over a year now. She still has glass coming out. She even stopped taking the Silicea for a while, and it’s still coming out.

So, we don’t know how much more glass is going to come out, but I’m sure you’re wondering: Yes, it did help with the bunions.

Joette:

Yeah, that is the question, isn’t it?

Christy:

Yeah, it did. In her face, her skin looks amazing. She has less wrinkles than most people her age. She looks great, but she’s ready for the Silicea to finish.

Joette:

To finish. Yeah. All right, “We’re finished now. Can we stop this job now?”

Yeah. What a fabulous story, Christy. So, now she’s hooked.

Christy:

Oh, absolutely.

Joette:

Yeah. That’s what happens when you realize that. And Silicea, then, is known for pushing, causing a superation around a shard, such as a branch, a piece of wood, a sliver, an old needle, a pin, glass. That’s the most common. I love to hear these glass stories.

Thank you, Christy. This was really fascinating.

Christy:

That’s fun. Thank you.

Kate: (05:13)

All right, next we have Franicia. Welcome, Franicia.

Franicia:

Hi. It’s so exciting to be here with all of you. I got to do the interview with Kate, and I get to see everybody.

So, this is one of my favorite stories to share. I’m married, and I’m a mom of 10 children with age ranges of a young adult in her early twenties down to the baby who’s almost three.

So, around three and a half years ago, I had most of my children and noticed that one of my little boys had a different kind of walk. He was barely a year and a half, and my son had an unusual way of walking that seemed different than what I was used to as a parent.

And when he would walk, his feet were turned inward and his hips would sort of twist, and he almost looked like he was about to fall. So, not only were my son’s feet pointed inward, but his feet came together, and the rest of his legs were far apart and were bowing. Almost looked like parentheses.

I had been taking Gateway to Practical Homeopathy® classes and was slowly buying remedies and also got a cell salt kit. And when I first bought it, I had many health challenges and found relief by taking some of the cell salts. So, homeopathy was helping me so much that I always wanted to learn more.

So, one day I was reading the handout that came with my cell salt kit, which were all in 6X potency. And I was reading the keynotes and symptoms for each cell salt and noticed it says something like “rickets” under a cell salt called Silica (or Silicea). And I knew it was helpful for teeth, bones, growing children, among many other things in age ranges (and, you know, if it matches). And I decided to try it for my son.

I gave him about two doses in two days, and his legs straightened. And they looked like parallel lines when he would walk, and his hips weren’t swaying like they used to. His feet? They weren’t turned inward anymore. They were turned forward, and he didn’t look like he was going to fall anymore.

And our neighbors even noticed and said something to us. You wouldn’t have known he had a problem walking before, and he hasn’t needed that remedy again for his legs since then.

As a mom, I’m so thankful to learn these things.

Joette:

Franicia, repeat that. In two days?

Franicia:

Two days, two doses. This was three and a half years ago, and I have the videos to prove it. I have videos if you ever want me to share that — privately. It is amazing.

Joette:

That is amazing. Have you noticed anything else with his walking now? You said his legs are parallel. How about your other children? Anything with them?

Franicia:

One of them does have a slight twist, and she’s a fast runner. She’s taking the cavity protocol, which has helped her, but she’s the only other one. And a lot of my children are fast runners, and they love to run. But this boy, he loves to run, and he runs straight. Everything’s straight and parallel.

Joette:

Well, we expect miracles with homeopathy, but each time we hear one, it’s still just as exciting as though we wouldn’t expect it. It’s really fabulous.

Thank you so much for sharing that, Franicia. That’s a beautiful story.

Franicia:

My pleasure.

Kate: (08:21)

Alright, next we have Tia. Welcome, Tia.

Tia:

Thank you, Joette. Thank you, Kate.

My story starts while I was in Academy. I had been in karate with my youngest daughter, and one of the little girls was selling Girl Scout cookies. A few weeks later, the mother was dropping them off to me, and I hadn’t been there in a while because Academy was taking a lot of my time up.

And she happened to say how she hadn’t been in karate (mother) because she had been walking around her house one day, and there was a mat (it was like bamboo or something like that). She stepped on it, and she got a splinter in her foot, and it was so bad that she was on crutches.

She went to the doctors, and they said that they wouldn’t do surgery ‘cause it could cause damage. So, she was at a loss.

She tried other things, different oils, and she’d been soaking her feet and all that stuff, and nothing seemed to help.

And she knew that I had been bringing my books every day when I was in class for karate. And she says, “Is there anything that can help me? This is awful. I’m on crutches. It’s been weeks.”

And I said, “Well, yeah. There’s this little thing called Silicea.” And I told her, “Get some in 200.”

And she took it for a week or a week and a half, and it came out. And it was an inch long.

Joette:

Whoa.

Tia:

But it was all the way up in her foot. Yeah, it was like where the arch and the ball of the foot meet. Like I said, the doctors wouldn’t touch it, and she was in so much pain. And it just came out! It had been in there for five weeks.

Joette:

Ooh, that’s a long time.

So, what was left at the end, Tia, when it came out? What was she left with? Was there still an infection? Did the infection just smooth over? Did it just clear up with no residual issues remaining?

Tia:

Nope. It was fine. Absolutely fine. You could just see the hole where it came out. She sent me a picture and everything. Yeah.

Joette:

I’ve seen that picture. I’ve seen the picture of the actual sliver — an inch. That’s a long way to go into a foot. Nice job.

Now you chose 200, instead of a 6. Tell me why. What were you thinking? I’d love to hear your rationale.

Tia:

Well, because you’ve always said that you like 30s and 200s, and I tend to lean more towards 200s.

She was in a lot of pain. It had been in there for several weeks, so she was tired of it and wanted to get it out.

So, I figured, “Okay, let’s hit it a little harder.” And it came out.

Joette:

So, it only goes to show we’ve got two stories of 6s and now a story of a 200. Silicea is Silicea, is Silicea in whatever potency you choose.

So well done.

I just have to ask this question. You brought your homeopathy books to your karate class?

Tia:

Yes. Yep.

Joette:

Did you learn how to chop them or …

Tia:

Well, my youngest would be in class, and then afterwards they would …

Joette:

So, he was in class, and you were studying, right?

Tia:

Yes.

Joette:

That’s the way it works.

Tia, great story. Good job. Thank you for sharing that.

Tia:

Thank you.

Kate:

That’s great.

Kate: (11:30)

Alright, next up is Sara. Welcome, Sara.

Sara:

Hi, thanks. Hello, everybody. Super excited to be here, too. That’s kind of got some nerves going, but it’s all good and all fun.

So yeah, my story is a little different. We live in an alpine desert of Colorado, which sounds opposite. Everybody thinks mountains in Colorado, but there is a high alpine desert with tons of cactus and sand, and can get very, very hot here.

Where our house is, we have a little small hiking trail. And my husband — it was a couple of years ago — took our two boys — they were about three and six — out for a quick little hike through the backyard of the house.

And the three-year-old stumbled and fell right into a cactus patch. And this particular cactus patch is one called fishhook cactus. So, it does have the fishhook barb on the end of it and makes them really difficult to remove.

Well, you also have a three-year-old, who gets up out of the cactus, and he starts screaming and crying. But then he starts rubbing wherever he landed in a cactus. And if you know anything about cactus spines, if you rub it, they break off at the surface of the skin instead of pulling out or coming out or anything else.

So, he broke off most of the top pieces of the cactus, where I could pull them out with tweezers. So, we were dealing with a lot.

And a lot of people are like, “Oh, try glue; try duct tape; try all these things.” Of course, that wasn’t going to work. And I knew it because I knew a little bit of homeopathy and knew what Silicea does. I sat him on the little counter, and I was able to pull out a few of them, but I just started to dose him with Silicea in a 30.

I chose a 30 because my only Silicea in a 6 was in Bioplasma®, and I wanted the strict effectiveness of Silicea alone. So, all I had was my kit with 30 in it.

And I gave him two doses over the course of about four or five days. And every single day, I would pull five or six little, tiny spines out of him. And then the next day, same thing, five or six little, tiny spines out of … it was all over: in his arm and his ribs and his leg. I mean, he face-planted pretty much into this poor little cactus thing.

But after about a week, we finally got the last little barb out, and he was so happy about it. He wasn’t in a lot of pain, but he thought that was really cool.

So, now he knows. And he looks at the cactus, and he is like, “Oh, Mom, make sure you have your Silicea in case we go by the cactus again.”

So, he is well-versed now in all of the homeopathy help.

Joette:

What a fun story. Well, it’s fun now. It wasn’t fun for him at the time.

So, let me make sure I understand. If Silicea didn’t push out the barb, you think they would still be embedded in those areas in which he had rubbed and broken off the tops?

Sara:

It very well could be. Sometimes we’ve had them kind of fester up. But they’re really hard to get to fester up. I think for the most part that, yeah, they would be stuck in his skin still to this day. And that was a year and a half ago.

Joette:

Interesting. Wow. Excellent.

So, what would they have done, do you think, if you had taken him to the emergency room?

Sara:

They don’t do much. A lot of times, they will just say, “Hey, we can try to tweeze out what we can. Hopefully, the body does something with it, but …”

Joette:

Hope the body pushes it out on its own. And Silicea did just that. It stimulated the body’s natural ability to do that.

Sara:

Exactly, yes. And made it faster, too. Because my mother-in-law had had this similar thing happen to her years and years ago. And she would visit the aesthetician weekly for them to try to pull them all out, and it took months upon months for her to get them all out.

Joette:

Wonderful. What a great story. The cactus story. So good. Who would think that cactus have barbs that you wouldn’t even think …

Sara:

Those ones are tough.

Joette:

Yeah. Yeah. Great story, Sara. Thank you.

Kate: (15:38)

Next is Amanda. Welcome, Amanda.

Amanda:

Thanks, everyone. Happy to be here and hear everybody’s stories.

It was probably a year and a half ago, I gobbled up all Joette’s podcast, too, and was like, “When’s the next podcast coming out? I can’t wait for the next one.” So, super-excited to be here. So, I’m glad I wrote up my story because otherwise I think I’d just forget what I was going to talk about.

We’ve been using homeopathy for our family for over 15 years, and with six children, we’ve had plenty of opportunities to use it. So, this story tells the cautionary tale of our three girls who shared one large bedroom. I can’t say they are known for wild antics, but one day, all I heard was a great smash and some blood-curdling screams.

I ran to their room and discovered they had set up a mattress and decided to invent their own bedroom slide, propping it up against another bed.

Well, the fun was quite short-lived as my daughter slid down right into the glass-doored bookshelf, which smashed all over her feet and legs. It was a bloody mess, and shards of glass everywhere, including many stuck all over her legs, plus two large gashes.

I plucked out each glass piece I could see. But, much to her horror, we did have to bring her into the emergency room for some stitches. This child carried big fears of needles. So, that process alone was an event. But many months later, this same daughter started to have a tender spot when putting any pressure on her leg.

So, thinking maybe there was some remaining glass embedded, I gave one dose of Silicea 200, and no more complaints. We kind of totally forgot about it.

A month later, out popped a shard of glass right out of her leg. It was incredible. No bleeding, no pain, no big deal … from the girl who normally went into full freaking mode with any puncture wound. She took it out, and the skin simply just closed up right around it.

And it happened again. It was like, “here a shard, there a shard” for a time.

So yeah, I’m always in awe of homeopathy’s little miracles. But this was just another example of a wonderful result of Silicea’s superb skills, gently putting things out of the body that don’t belong.

Joette:

Well put. So well put, Amanda.

And you know what I think is fascinating about your story? In addition to where we’re going with the shards is that if you look at the psychology of someone who needs Silicea — not necessarily for injuries like this, but if you’re using Silicea for other reasons, such as to give someone kind of more grit. They often — people who need Silicea for whatever reason — they have a tremendous fear of pins and needles. Of stepping on them, of being injected with them.

And they often have … if someone is sewing, they don’t want to be around the pins, or they make sure the pins are all put into the pin cushion in a very tidy fashion because they’re very uncomfortable with it.

And the fact that after you having given her Silicea, she no longer had that fear. Beautiful. It touched her on many levels.

Amanda:

Yeah, I’m so thankful she could see the power of homeopathy. And now if she ever has an issue, her first question is, “Mom, what remedy can I take for this?” And of all the never-ending questions my kids ask me, this is definitely one of my favorites. So, thanks.

Joette:

Yeah, and this is the way to raise them. This is the way to raise kids. There’s no doubt about it.

Good story. Thank you for sharing, Amanda. That was great.

Kate: (19:09)

Okay, next is Jessica. Hi, Jessica.

Jessica:

Hi. Thank you guys for having me. I’m excited to hear the other stories, especially Christy’s mom. I have bunions, so … I want my wrinkles to go away. So, I’m going to start the bunion protocol, and then maybe my wrinkles will go away, too. So, thanks for your story, Christy.

Kate:

Well, for those of you who can’t see Jessica, she does not look like …

Joette:

She doesn’t have wrinkles.

Jessica:

No, they’re here.

Kate:

She’s gorgeous.

Jessica:

My Silicea story is actually a friend of mine. She’s a professional hairdresser, and so is her son. He works for her business, as well.

She was taking my Gateway class. And in Gateway II, we talk about the cell salts — Silicea specifically, as we went through the discussion.

He had been having foot pain, persistent foot pain, and she kept asking me, “What could we do  for heel spurs?” Or there were a few different things she was looking at.

And I was like, “Well, we really need to know what’s going on. You might need to go see a podiatrist. We need a diagnosis.”

Well, when we got to the Silicea lesson, she was reading about it. After hearing more about Silicea, she gave him a few doses over a few days. What happened next is wild!

Hair splinters started coming out of his foot, eight in total. So, eight hair splinters came out of his foot. Once they were out, the pain was completely gone.

So, it turns out hair splinters in feet are pretty common amongst hairdressers. I didn’t realize this, and that’s what it was. The foot pain was from the hairs when he was doing haircuts that got into his feet and were causing the pain. So, after that, he’s not been in any pain. It just completely went away.

Eight hair splinters.

Joette:

That’s fascinating because you don’t think of those kinds of problems that are associated with specific occupations. But yeah, I’ve heard that before about hair.

So, they can’t really wear sandals without socks or something because they can often get embedded. And it depends on what kind of hair it is, too. Is it thick? Is it sharp? Is it … et cetera.

Fascinating. So good. So good. Thank you for sharing that, Jessica. It’s a great story.

Yeah, and bunions, we know Silicea is great for bunions. There’s no doubt about it. Yeah, we’ve had some good reports on that as well. Thank you.

Kate: (21:25)

All right, let’s finish up with Heather. Hi, Heather.

Heather:

Hi Kate. Thanks for having me.

My story’s regarding my dog. One of my three dogs, Ice, he got into a little bit of a tiff with a porcupine and showed up at my doorstep with 12 quills in his cheek and nose. So, luckily, it was only 12.

And my husband, my daughter, and I had to pin him down and pull them out with pliers. He’s 130 pounds, so a force to be reckoned with. After a while, he did not get used to us. He would run every time he’d see us. So, I had to be quite sneaky pulling them out time and time again. I’d catch him sleeping and rip one out.

I got to the last three, and the last one I broke off in his cheek, so I was quite mad at myself. But then I remember listening to a podcast regarding Silicea and how a little girl got glass in her face, and it forced the foreign objects out of her face. So, I thought, well, this is a perfect opportunity.

So, I had Silicea 30 on hand, and I just dissolved it in water and put it over his food once a day. I wasn’t very equipped with homeopathy at the time. So, I did that once a day for maybe five days a week, here and there, for about four weeks. And then I just figured maybe his body absorbed it. I have no idea. And I gave up.

About five weeks after that happened, he came up to me, and I noticed a hair coming out of the top of his nose. And I thought, well, that’s unusual because the top of a dog’s nose is quite flat and soft. So, it looked as thick as a horsehair. So, it was coming straight up. And I’d try and brush it, and he’d run away from me.

And then finally, after about a week of seeing it grow and grow and grow, it got to about a quarter of an inch high. And I was able to just be petting his ear, and I ripped it out with my thumb and my finger. And sure enough, it was the rest of that porcupine quill. But it had went in the side of his right lip and came out the very top of his nose.

Joette:

Gosh, it migrated.

Heather:

Yeah, it was really cool.

Joette:

Wow. And they’re barbed too, speaking of barbed quills. Yeah, porcupine quills are barbed. I just looked it up. I thought they were. So, did you find the barb? Was it … Did it …

Heather:

Yeah, it was the end that was stuck in. So, it came out the same way that it broke off. It’s really crazy.

Joette:

Amazing. Does he get it? Does he understand what you did?

Heather:

Oh, well, he now doesn’t go near the porcupines. So, I think the lesson …

Joette:

That’s the lesson. Yeah, because dogs sometimes really understand this. And they know that when something’s wrong, they go to the person who has the remedies.

Heather:

Oh, yeah.

Joette:

Great story, Heather. That’s wonderful. And so, it closed up, no infection was remaining.

Heather:

Nothing. No. Being farm dogs — that’s my husband’s thing — is they stay on the farm. We’re not taking ’em to the vet. So, everything I have to treat. So, it’s nice to become their veterinarian from home because I love them like my children.

Joette:

It’s up to you. It’s up to you, Heather. Yeah, that’s the way we all think here, isn’t it? It’s up to us to figure this out.

And the beauty of all of this, too, is that Silicea is wonderful for abscesses. So, if there is the potential of an abscess, or if an abscess begins to form, Silicea can often release that, abscesses in the gums and other areas on the skin as well.

So, great story. Thank you for sharing that. Good one.

Heather:

Thank you.

Kate: (24:55)

Thank you to everyone who came today and shared their stories. I know it’s inspiring those of the listeners who are thinking about bunions or something that’s embedded in the skin. I really appreciate you being here.

Joette, any final words about Silicea or …

Joette:

Bunions? Abscesses, wrinkles. Right? Pushing out shards, causing a superation to push out shards.

It’s a great medicine for shoring up somebody’s angst and even bones that are forming.

It’s great as a remedy for teeth that are growing and for bones and children.

There’s so much involved in this medicine that I urge the listeners and viewers to crack open their materia medica. And many of them can be found free online, or my materia medica. Wherever you can get this information and read up on Silicea, sometimes pronounced “sili-cia,” depends on whether it’s the Latin version or the English version.

So, this is a great wrap-up. I love what all of you have said. I can’t thank you all enough for sharing this, taking the time out of your day to share this with everyone.

And for those who are listening, thanks for joining us.

Kate:

Yes. And if you want to learn more about other Silicea stories or other homeopathy stories, just go to JoetteCalabrese.com. That’s J-O-E-T-T-E-C-A-L-A-B-R-E-S E.com. And you can type in the search engine at the top of the page and find what to do for colds and sore throats and many other conditions.

So, thanks for being here with us today, everyone.

Joette:

Thanks, Kate.

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

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

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

Kate:

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

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