Joette Calabrese Podcast

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

01:30   Introduction

02:50   Know the Medicines for the Most Common Emergencies

07:20   Quick Onset Emergency: Aconitum Napellus

09:01   Aconitum Napellus for a Fright That Has Been Held for a Lifetime

12:51   Example: Anxiety Erupts Years After Trauma

15:18   How Often Is Aconitum Napellus Utilized?

18:09   The Survivalist Guide to Homeopathy

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®

Joette Calabrese on YouTube

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 119, with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:

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

So, for the next few minutes, let’s link our arms together and embrace health care freedom.

Join me as I demystify homeopathy — what was once considered an “esoteric” paradigm — into an understandable, reproducible, safe and effective health care solution available to everyone. This is the medicine you’ve been searching for – my unique brand of homeopathy — PRACTICAL Homeopathy®.

Whether you have tried homeopathy in the past and were frustrated, or you are examining the possibilities of caring for your family yourself for the first time — you’re in the right place.

In this podcast, I will offer you my decades of clinical experience as a practicing homeopath and years of teaching tens of thousands of students, so that you can become the hero of your family and community.

This is true health freedom, my friends. This is my PRACTICAL Homeopathy®.

Kate: (01:30)

Hi, Joette.

Joette:

Hi, Kate.

Kate:

Hi. We’ve got so much information to cover today. So, let’s get going. Today, we’re going to talk about emergencies and a great remedy to have on hand.

So, Joette, I think we should start out by first talking about what is an emergency — or how are we defining an emergency?

Joette:

When you think about the very nature of an emergency is that you don’t know it’s coming. You don’t know when it’s going to happen. It comes out of the blue. And given that makes it an unknown, it requires something important. What is that? That we plan in advance? That we’re prepared in advance.

So, if there’s anything we know in life is that we will encounter an emergency at some time. Someone is going to get a burn, a stomach flu, someone’s going to sprain their ankle. So, it would behoove us to not only know the medicines for the most common emergencies but also to own them in the corresponding potencies. Know exactly what the medicine is and have the right potency on hand.

Kate:

So, Joette, yeah, how can people do that? I mean, that’s the next question, right?

Joette: (02:50)

Yeah. The way they do that — the way I did it when I was first learning homeopathy — was that I figured what were the most likely emergencies to occur with my family at that time with only one child, and then I chose medicines accordingly.

So, until we get to that point, though, when we’re unprepared, we worry all the time: that the child will get sick, that the child will get strep throat or chickenpox or conjunctivitis or something like that. But we should not worry because these illnesses — especially childhood diseases — are not what the most concerning aspects of childhood are.

The real concern that mothers should have are the dangers to babies and children due to accidents. So, we’ve got two categories that I like to look at.

Number one: regular childhood illnesses. And we need to know how to deal with these to make the mother less worried. You just have to learn how to … you have to know how to do this.

Now, we’re not going to be talking about regular childhood illnesses today, but instead we’re going to talk about the concern of accidents, emergencies, because those are the true greatest threat to children and babies. Most people think that it’s infections; it’s sore throats, et cetera. No, it’s emergencies, accidents, burns, et cetera.

So, as I said, where do we begin? You asked me, where do we begin? Well, it’s with the composition of your family and those around you. So, if you live in a retirement home or those around you are older, you should know the homeopathic medicines for issues such as insomnia or grief or urinary tract infections or even lacerations, arthritis, preparation for surgery. You need to know this.

So, if you’re a grandparent that frequently watches your grandchildren, you need to know the remedies, for example, injuries from falls.

But if you’re a middle-aged woman and you’ve finished with menopause, you want to know the remedies — how to use them — for, say, allergies or ailments from disappointments or menopause. You want to know the remedies that are specific for weight gain or hair loss or insomnia.

You see, each one of these are categories depending on your life, your lifestyle, where you are in your life, who you’re caring for. So, if you’re a middle-aged man, for example, there might be gut issues, ED, those kinds of things. You want to know those medicines and how to use them … homeopathic medicines.

Kate:

And I want to add in there that if you are someone who is very active and, say, you go to … maybe you do scuba diving, or you’re in the ocean a lot. Those might be another set of emergency medicines to know versus if you are a golfer and/or if you like to be out in the woods, and you hunt.

So, there’s different remedies to have. For instance, you’re in the ocean, and you might get stung by something there, than if you’re going to sprain your while you’re golfing. Right?

Joette:

That’s exactly so. I live by the ocean, and there was a time when I would swim in the ocean every single day. I swam one hour. (I’m bragging, but now I’m going … taking it all back because I haven’t done it in a few years.) But I actually did that. And I had to know the medicines specific for jellyfish stings … for man o’war stings. Because they were in the ocean and people would have problems with them, and I needed to know what those medicines were and have them on hand.

And I don’t get sunburned, but people who come and stay with me often do. So, I need to know — because I’m in southeast Florida — what are the medicines for sunburn and what potency? And own them! Not only know what it is — what the best one is or what the top two are — but own them as well.

So, it all depends on the stage of life, your lifestyle, where you live, that we need to have those medicines on hand.

But today, we want to talk about medicines for emergencies. Specifically, I think we’re going to talk mostly about injuries of sorts, right, Kate?

Kate:

Right? Yeah. I think that’s our focus today is helping people to be prepared for an emergency situation.

Joette:

Yeah.

Kate:

So, give us one of the top homeopathic medicines for emergencies that people can just get right now and have on hand.

Joette: (07:20)

And own it. That’s right. Not only own the medicine but own the knowledge.

So, the top medicine that I always think of for the onset of an injury or something that has come on quickly — or it may not even actually be a physical emergency, it might be even a psychological emergency — is Aconitum napellus. Aconitum napellus: two words.

I actually keep this in my purse. Because should my husband or I be in an accident, we might use something else for the pain later or broken bone or laceration. But Aconitum is great for a shock.

It’s also one of our best medicines for a vascular event.

It’s a great medicine for when something comes on hard and fast, even if it’s just a cold. One minute, you’re fine. The next minute you feel, “Oh my gosh, I feel like I’m going down fast!” Aconitum napellus.

And so, as we know in homeopathy, there’s a number. It tells us the potency that needs to be considered. We’re not going to use plain old, garden-variety, gross Aconitum napellus. We’re going to use it in a 200C.

So, I keep that in my purse at all times. It can be useful for so many unexpected, almost shocking incidences.

Kate:

Joette, we have a blog that you did, and it’s titled Emergency Remedy Series: Aconite in My Purse. So, if you’re listening and you want to read a little bit more, you can go to that blog, and we’ll have it linked for you on your website as well.

Joette: (09:01)

Yes. So, yeah, but we also want to know many different ways to use this. But there’s a whole classroom of students and everyone has the same paints, the same light, the same canvas, the same teacher, the same model. But in the end, it’ll be slightly different because we all have a slightly different point of view.

So, I’m going to read to you from Roger Morrison’s materia medica called “The Desktop Guide,” and this was such a valuable statement when I read it back in 1996. It’s when — around the time, shortly before that — I just purchased this book, and it gives a description of Aconitum napellus.

I’m going to read directly. He penned, “Anytime that a violent or frightening event occurs (such as an earthquake or a car accident) we often must give Aconite first, even if we will need other specific acute remedies later.”

And here’s the statement that really took me to the next level of understanding this. “Aconite,” says he, “can release a shock or fright that has been held in the body or mind for a lifetime.”

Now, what does that mean? Does it mean that if someone had an experience such as witnessing an atrocity or, getting stuck in an elevator for three days, or being stuck in the basement during a hurricane for a few days? And it’s so frightening, but it was 30 years ago. Now, it’s a distant memory. It doesn’t bother them.

But! If it’s stuck — held in the mind or body for years … In other words, now, ever since that time 30 years ago, that person is now having panic attacks. They don’t even think about that event in the elevator. They don’t even necessarily make that association. But for some reason, now they’re having anxiety attacks, sleepless nights ever since that event. “Aconite,” says he, “can release a shock or fright that has been held in the body or mind for a lifetime.”

That was so profound to me that I actually wrote down in the book the date that I found this to be useful, not only for myself but also for many others — for my clients and my students. So, that’s a very meaningful statement.

That means that homeopathy can release a shock or a fright that’s been held in the body — body, too — or mind for a lifetime. Not only is that exciting for me, but it’s exciting to know that I can teach that. It can release so many people of anxiety attacks or insomnia or feeling worried about things that are not even that worrisome, or believing that somebody’s going to break into the house and worry about it all the time — even though it’s not very likely because they’re on the 12th floor or something.

So, this can be a medicine that we can use to help uproot something that’s turned into a chronic, such as what we’re describing, or it can be used at the moment of an event that presents itself such as an automobile accident or witnessing an atrocity or being hit very strongly with a shocking (so to speak) a shocking respiratory infection that’s at hand.

Kate:

I think you have a story about a woman in her 80s who had panic attacks and how she used Aconite. Can you tell us that?

Joette: (12:51)

Yes. This was a woman who came to me; she was in her 80s, as you said. And during World War II, when she was a teenager, she had been raped. And she didn’t talk about it to me. She just was telling me that she couldn’t sleep very well. She was having panic attacks. And she’d had these panic attacks for years, and they precluded her being able to fall asleep comfortably.

So, I tried a couple of medicines. She hadn’t said anything about this event so many years — 70, 65 years — previously. I asked her, however, “Was there ever anything in your life in which there was such an extreme situation with fear or panic that you associate with this or that feels like this kind of panic?”

And she relayed the story to me that when she was 17 years old, she had been attacked, and she was certain she was going to die, and she was very frightened. And through the years, it was a distant event of her past.

But once she hit menopause, something shifted. And from that time forward, she was having these panic attacks. And she relayed that these panic attacks were very similar to the feeling she had when she thought she was going to be killed that night and, indeed, had gone away for a while but now were back presenting themselves.

So, I suggested the medicine Aconite 200 once a night before bed for several nights in a row. And when she reported back to me, she said the panic was gone for the first time in about 30 years. She no longer had panic attacks. She no longer had insomnia associated with anxiety — even though during those panic attacks, she wasn’t thinking about what happened back when she was 17 years old. She was simply having panic, and she couldn’t even explain why.

“I don’t understand why,” she would repeat to me. “I don’t have any reason to believe that I should be panicking. All I want to do is go to sleep.” Yet, it was held in her body and her mind for nearly a lifetime, and it released her of that. Aconitum napellus, 200C. And she took it for several days until she felt better.

Kate: (15:18)

That’s what I was going to ask you, Joe. What do people usually do as far as frequency of taking it? Is it just one time, or is it over several days, or how is it usually used?

Joette:

It can be used only once. Some people report to me, “Oh my gosh, just one dose, and I’m right as rain!”

Other people report to me, “I feel better when I take it, but you know what? The next day I need it again. It feels like, can I take it again is the question?”

Yes, indeed. You may take it again.

And so, we take it according to the need. We would not take this medicine for long, long periods of time. We would use it until it’s no longer needed. It’s not a bad idea to test it out. Kind of give it a real test.

On Friday night, sleeping better; panic is gone.

Saturday, “How are you doing?” “I’m doing better. I feel good.”

Okay, Sunday night, “Uh-oh, I feel it again.” Okay, take it Sunday night.

And so, you might want to find that tipping point. Or simply use what I suggested earlier, which is once a night before bed for several days and see how it goes.

And if it comes back? Let’s say you stop using it because there’s no need to use it any longer. The medicine has acted.

Now, let’s say six months later, had she come back to me and said, “Oh my gosh, it’s back again! Oh no, the medicine’s no longer working!”

No, that’s not what it means. It means the medicine did act according to what it’s supposed to do, but it’s needed again. We’re not done.

So, she starts it up again. Aconitum 200 once a night before bed, for example … and for a few more nights and see how it goes. And each time she needs the medicine in another episode of need, it generally shows up as a milder version.

So, the panic is no longer panic. Now, it’s just some worry. The insomnia is not hours and hours of inability to fall asleep. Now, it takes a little bit longer, but she can fall asleep.

So, the medicine is going deeper and deeper each time, each episode in which it’s needed.

So, instead of saying, “Oh no, it’s back again,” instead, we are excited to teach this woman — or anyone who needs this — that they can use the medicine again. This is an opportunity to use it again and go deeper.

Because these medicines, as they’re used — not all of them, but most of them, depending on how they’re being used and for what condition — often go deeper as there is repetition.

Now, it does not mean, however, that we use it willy-nilly. These are medicines, my friends. These are not essential oils or supplements or vitamins. They need to be used with great respect. And we stop when there’s improvement, and we commence again when it’s needed again.

Kate: (18:09)

So, if you want to know more about using Aconite or other homeopathic medicines for emergency situations, a good place to start is that blog post series. And you would just take a three-by-five card and write down the remedies that are listed on that series and how they should be used and carry that with you along with the medicines that are required for emergencies.

And if you want to go even further, Joette, I think a great place would be the Survivalist course. Is that what you would recommend?

Joette:

Yes. My course titled Survivalist Guide to Homeopathy offers information, the remedies, the potencies, the frequencies most often used for specific conditions that are extremes.

So, for those who are interested in survivalist methods, or even for those who aren’t even thinking that way but want to know medicines and how to use them — what potency, what frequency for common and very uncommon situations — you might want to check out my Survivalist Guide to Homeopathy.

And the way to do that is to go to JoettesLearningCenter.com. (There’s no apostrophe for Joette’s). J.O.E.T.T.E.S L.E.A.R.N.I.N.G. JoettesLearningCenter (C.E.N.T.E.R) .com. And scroll down to homeopathic “Survivalist Guide.” And from there, you’ll learn not only how to use Aconitum in other ways but other medicines for specific extreme conditions.

Kate:

Thank you, Joette, for talking to us today about emergencies. And I’d like to wrap up by saying that homeopathy gives you the wisdom and the tools that you need so that you don’t have to be afraid of “what if” an emergency happens, right, Joette? I think it’s been …

Joette:

No doubt about that.

Kate:

Yeah, you’ve heard your students say over and over again that students no longer fear.

Joette:

That’s one of the great aspects of using homeopathy. It’s more than just treating that panic attack for someone. It’s also you’re not having the angst and fear of not knowing what to do in the future.

We live in a society that’s loaded with synthetics and chemicals and additives and fake fragrances. It keeps going that we’ve lost track of what’s pure. Homeopathy is pure. That’s why I call it “God’s medicine.”

Kate:

Well, thank you, Joette. We look forward to the next time when we meet again.

Joette:

It is my honor to share as many Practical Homeopathy® protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising — here in my podcasts, 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.

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:

02:13   Introduction

07:43   Why Join The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®?

11:13   The Power of Study Groups: A Dramatic Success Story

21:36   Freedom From Fear

23:42   How to Join a Study Group

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

JoettesLearningCenter.com

Kate:

Joette:

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I say a podcast is priceless.

I want you to hear — in their own words — how regular people just like you have reshaped their lives using the practical protocols I teach in my Practical Homeopathy®.

So, with the help of my reporter Kate, I bring you this podcast series featuring interviews with moms, dads, teens, health care practitioners and Academy of Practical Homeopathy® students from all walks of life.

With education, you can follow in these students’ footsteps. You can eliminate your fear of illness and injury by learning how to care for yourself and your family. Like them, YOU can be in control — without acquiescing to authority — to live healthier, more autonomous lives. Indeed, you, too, can heal yourself and your family through my brand of homeopathy — Practical Homeopathy®.

INTRODUCTION

Kate: (01:30)

I met many of my dearest friends through Gateway to Homeopathy study groups, and it’s just been an amazing relationship that I’ve had. And it sounds funny to say, but some of my closest friends are really all over the United States and the world.

And so today I want to introduce you to two beautiful women who have met in study groups, actually through the Academy of Practical Homeopathy®. And so, I want to welcome you to the podcast. Robin and Katie, welcome.

Robin and Katie:

Kate:

Robin:

We are very much of a people who like to take ownership of our health and of our lives, and so we take the time to really dig into that.

But for a while, I just didn’t know why we were even here. And here we are, and I’ve been able to meet Katie, and it’s been a blessing to be here.

Kate:

Robin:

And with that, too, Academy of Practical Homeopathy® — both Katie and I joined last year. So, it has been a fun ride. We’ll dig into that a bit during this podcast.

Kate:

Katie:

Kate:

Katie:

Sometimes I’ve had relatives that have had to be taken by Life Flight because of emergencies. Really glad that we have it when it’s needed. But for the rest of the time, we just learned how to be self-sufficient for our health, and I’m so grateful for that.

So, I didn’t know what to study in school. I tried massage. And then I got a degree in sports medicine and tried to learn more about supplements, herbs, essential oils. And finally, finally, I was introduced to homeopathy, and I have found the ultimate medicine, and it’s wonderful, and I love it so much.

Kate:

Katie:

Kate:

I know Joette talks about that. This is the medicine we’ve all been looking for, and it’s really so true. It’s so much more efficacious, I have found, than any other healing paradigm. So, yeah.

Well, one of the things that I wanted to ask you about today is what really got you into homeopathy? What medicine really worked that sold you on homeopathy?

Katie, you want to share that with us?

Katie:

We went to the beach, my family, and one of my daughters got stung on her leg by a jellyfish. After a quick panic, thinking, “What can I do about this?” She was screaming in pain. She was in so much pain and so upset.

And then I remembered my homeopathy kit, and I gave a remedy. And it was Apis that comes from a honeybee, and that really worked for the jellyfish sting. Within five minutes, she was back playing in the waves.

After that, I wanted to know everything about this medicine. I don’t know a single other medicine that I had ever heard of that could have done that.

Kate:

Katie:

Kate:

Katie:

Kate:

Robin:

We didn’t know at first what had happened — if she had been bit by a snake, what the injury was — but it was completely swollen. She had a pretty massive limp. And even though my husband took Gateway to Homeopathy, and he believed in the power of it, I think he had a moment of doubt of like, “Well, is this going to work?”

Because she was in such bad shape with labored breathing, and so we gave her a combination of three different medications — you know, homeopathy — and Arsenicum, Hypericum … there’s a third one. And within the third dose, it was later that day that she was up walking around, back to her old self. When it returned a month later, for some reason, we re-dosed her. She was fine. It was incredible to see.

So that’s just one of many stories. I love homeopathy in that it treats the root cause. It’s just so simple, and yet it is God’s medicine. It’s like what Joette talks about all the time.

Kate:

Katie:

WHY JOIN THE ACADEMY OF PRACTICAL HOMEOPATHY®?

Kate: (07:43)

So, you both recently have joined The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®, and I would love to hear a little bit about what prompted you to join and what you’re finding with The Academy. What you love about it, and what you want to tell people about it? Robin, you want to share with us?

Robin:

And then I think probably Katie for you, too, being able to funnel that information down to the kids of, “Hey, in the event that something happens, here’s what you need: Aconite, Arnica, whatnot.”

So, I think a lot of it is just making sure that we have the information that we need. It’s really the toolbox, I think.

Kate:

Robin:

If you have that knowledge and you have that understanding, then you’re able to turn to your loved one in a time of need and say, “Here’s what you need.” Instead of, “I don’t have the knowledge; I’m sorry.”

It was that time to realize if it’s not now, when is it going to be? And sometimes we can get in that mode of it’s not ever convenient … and it’s not. But at some point, you’ve got to realize, just jump in.

For anybody out there listening who feels like it’s not the right time … you’re overwhelmed. There’s no better time than right now. And you’ll figure it out, and you’ll make the time for it because it’s a priority. But this knowledge is too important to let it just sit there for another year until it’s going to be a better time. We’re going to always be busy.

Kate:

Katie, what about you? Tell me what your thoughts are about The Academy, and what you’ve been excited about.

Katie:

There aren’t homeopaths everywhere. And certainly, I don’t know any in this area. And I just felt like maybe I just need to do it. Maybe, you know? And so that I can be that point of contact — that reference — for all of these people that are already coming to me anyways, and I have to do all this research. Why am I holding myself back by not rounding out my education? And so that’s why I decided to get into it.

I actually joined The Academy late. I was four weeks late getting in, so I felt like I was so behind, and I didn’t know if I was ever going to catch up. But I’m so glad that I was put into a study group … where I was allowed to join a study group. They hadn’t solidified those study groups yet, and I got into the one that I was in, and I’m so glad.

THE POWER OF STUDY GROUPS: A DRAMATIC SUCCESS STORY

Kate: (11:13)

So, go ahead, Katie. Tell us what happened, and you guys came together into the study group. I know because one of our team members said, “Hey, Katie, you should join the study group because you live in the same area as Robin.”

So, since you guys lived in the same area, you were kind of suggested to be in the same study group. Tell us why that was important and what happened. Katie,

Katie:

And the doctors tell me, “It’s a febrile seizure; there’s not really anything we can do. Just try and keep her comfortable and safe and don’t worry about it. Just keep her temperature low, make sure that you’re keeping her on Tylenol and ibuprofen and keep that temperature down so that she doesn’t go into these seizures.” And that was as good as they could tell me.

So, when she got sick again … and it was just a fever. There was no runny nose; there was no cough; no nothing to suggest that it was a cold or a flu of some kind. It was just a fever and extreme fatigue. She was just very weak, tired, but she had a hard time sleeping. And so, it was a worrisome time. She wasn’t eating, but she at least was drinking, and she would have these seizures.

So, I was giving her just a basic flu remedy for the kind of symptoms that she was having with being so weak. And that was helping, but it was not … I don’t think that it was shortening the disease.

And so, I looked up in one of my reference books about fevers of unknown origin. The Drs. Banerji, in their book, talk about that. And so, I looked for my remedy that they suggested, and I didn’t have it. I thought I had it. I did not have it. And I think that’s because I gave it to either my mom or my grandma when they were having trouble. And so, I didn’t have it at home, and they live a long ways away.

So, I immediately got online, and I ordered the correct remedy. But it was a weekend. Even though I ordered expedited shipping, I knew it wasn’t going to get to me for a couple of days. And so, I thought, “Well, we can tough it out for a couple of days. Keep her on this remedy that’s sort of helping and use another one for the seizures and just try and keep things under control until that one gets here.”

Well, I checked every day. And Tuesday came; it hadn’t even been shipped! I was trying to track the order and stuff, and it had not even shipped yet.

That night, she had some of the worst seizures that I have ever seen in my life. Some of them lasting up to 45 seconds … a minute. And I don’t know, I haven’t seen a lot of people have seizures, but she doesn’t breathe very good when she’s having a seizure. It’s very scary. And her lips turn blue, and then when she’s done with it, she’s so, so, so tired.

And at about 4:30 that morning … I had been up all night … again. I thought, “I really need some help. I wish there was somebody around here that had this medicine.” And then I thought, “Oh! Maybe one of my study group members that lives nearby, Robin, might have this medicine.”

And so, I texted her at 4:30 in the morning. She didn’t see it until the next day. Isn’t that right, Robin?

Robin:

Katie:

Kate:

Katie:

But I saw an immediate change. And so did you, Robin, right?

Robin:

Katie:

Robin:

But it was seconds. It was shocking.

But having you call out for help, one, I think is important. Sometimes we can get into that mindset of like, do I really need help? I don’t want to inconvenience. But it was never an inconvenience to just reach out and say, “Hey, do you have a medicine?”

And I went through Joette’s blog earlier that year — even the year before — and just documented all the different medicines that Joette had written about of the “have to haves.” And I had these medicines, and I brought Cocculus to you as well, which Joette had a blog about it. And if you’re a caregiver, this is what to bring or to take to somebody who’s a caregiver. And so, I immediately thought, “Hey, this could be something that’s helpful.”

But also, it’s just the connection with our other study group member, our study group adviser, Erin, who has been a complete godsend. I reached out to her when you reached out and said, “Hey, can you start a conversation with Katie? I’m on the road, so I’m not going to be available, but let’s make sure that we’re thinking through all of the different medicines. But I’m going to bring some different ones, including one for Katie.”

But having her eyes on that too was really neat to see.

Katie:

I just needed a little bit of guidance, a little bit of help through this because I couldn’t think anymore. My brain was fried. I had been up for four nights in a row, and the only time that I ever ate anything was when I could walk around holding my baby and find whatever was available on the shelf in the kitchen. (Not that my family doesn’t care, but they just didn’t see the need. It never occurred to them to bring meals in. And I never thought to ask. I was in a bad state. You know?)

Kate:

And like you’re saying, it’s great to have that connection, somebody that you can reach out to that can help you think — that’s the bottom line — and just kind of be with you. Even someone just to be there, you know? That you know someone is on the phone or on the way, and just that right there is a huge relief, I think.

So, Katie and Robin have been talking about the importance of connection and being involved in a study group. And they’re both in the study group for The Academy, but there are many study groups that you can be a part of … the Gateway to Homeopathy study groups that I talked about earlier.

But I think we wanted to just emphasize that importance of not trying to buckle up and go it alone. Maybe Katie was doing in the beginning that you had that study group there, and you did reach out and the importance of that. So maybe you guys can talk about that a little bit and what you want to share with the listeners.

Katie:

Kate:

Katie:

Kate:

Katie:

I wanted to spare her that if I could, but I wasn’t going to put her life in jeopardy so that I could stay home and say that I handled it myself. I would’ve gone. I would’ve gone. But I am so glad that I didn’t have to.

She was spared all kinds of horrible traumas that some of my other children have gone through. To be catheterized is traumatic, I don’t care who you are. But especially for a small child, it’s terrible. Some of the tests that they have to endure to figure out what’s going on so that they can get the right treatment …

FREEDOM FROM FEAR

Kate: (21:36)

And I think another thing too is to not have the fear, right? Because we have tools that we can use … and that I know has been important in my life.

I remember you guys were talking about your daughter being stung by a, what, a jellyfish?

Katie:

Kate:

And we used homeopathy for that. And just knowing that I had some tools there that I could use really … well, one, you never know what would’ve happened if you didn’t have that in that instance. How long would it been until you got care and then would it have been in time?

I mean, it’s literally been a number of times where homeopathy, I can honestly say, has saved one of our lives in my family. It helps with that fear.

You need that connection. I’m connected to all these beautiful women who are willing to help at any time. Like you said, Katie, these people that you meet in these study groups, they are selfless, and they are willing to be there day or night and to help. And so that’s a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Robin, did you want to add anything to that?

Robin:

And I just encourage people to reach out, connect, ask questions. Like, don’t go at this alone. If there’s stories, share them. I think that that’s how we all learn, and we can apply it to our daily lives, too.

HOW TO JOIN A STUDY GROUP

Kate: (23:42)

One of them is through homeopathy study groups, whether it’s in The Academy of Practical Homeopathy® or Joette’s Gateway to Homeopathy study groups.

But if not there, then find your people that you can be connected with … that you can do life together and that you have each other’s backs. I just think that’s super-important, and I know that’s what you guys have found with this as well.

I just wanted a quick mention: If you’re looking for a way to connect with other people through Joette’s Gateway study groups, you can go on the Facebook page, Joette’s Study Group, Find Your New Study Group Friends. So that’s a Facebook page. And if you join there, you’ll see all the people who are offering study groups and connect with someone there.

So, I want to thank you guys today for sharing your story. And I know it was emotional and hard, but I know that people are going to be just really thankful that you took the time today to share your story and to encourage those who are listening. So, thank you so much.

Robin:

Katie:

Kate:

Robin:

Kate:

Robin and Katie:

Joette:

I hope listening to this podcast has inspired you to follow in their footsteps.

But this podcast is only a start. It’s critical that you learn how to use these homeopathic medicines properly. So, peruse JoettesLearningCenter.com to find fun study group opportunities and in-depth courses developed by subject.

With the proper training, you can join the tens of 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:

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

02:13   Introduction

05:07   The Academy of Practical Homeopathy® (Join Founders’ List for more information)

07:07   Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

09:22   Joette’s Study Group: Find Your New Study Group Friends’ Facebook page

10:35   Joette’s Mighty Members

11:03   Monday Night Lives on Joette’s Mighty Members site or our simulcast network through the Joette Calabrese Facebook page, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), Rumble and now, Instagram

11:50   Joette’s free blogs

13:26   Quebracho

14:39   Dr. William Boericke’s “Pocket Manual of Homœpathic Materia Medica & Repertory”

18:15   Carbo veg

20:26   Materia medica for free online

21:24   Joette’s closing message on her movement and the global popularity of homeopathy

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

JoettesLearningCenter.com

Kate:

This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 117, with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:

This is 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 family’s health with Practical Homeopathy®.

So, for the next few minutes, let’s link our arms together and embrace health care freedom.

Join me 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 called Practical Homeopathy®.

Now, whether you’ve tried homeopathy in the past or were frustrated, or you’re examining the possibilities of caring for your family yourself for the first time — you are in the right place.

In this podcast, I’ll offer you my decades of clinical experience as a practicing homeopath and years of teaching tens of thousands of students so that you can become the hero of your family and community.

This is true health freedom, my friends. This is my Practical Homeopathy®.

Kate:

Hi everyone, I’m Kate, and I am here today with Joette Calabrese. Welcome, Joette.

Joette:

Thank you, Kate. Welcome to you, too.

Kate:

Yeah, it’s your podcast, but I’m welcoming you!

I wanted to just say a little shout-out: Hello to those who might be new to your podcast and those who have been listening. But we’ve taken a little break from podcasts, and so we would just want to welcome you back or welcome you for the first time.

This is a podcast all about Practical Homeopathy®. So maybe, Joette, just take a minute and tell us who you are and what this is about.

INTRODUCTION

Joette: (02:13)

Well, my name again is Joette Calabrese, and we have kind of this little universe of information on our website and associated with the website. So, we’re going to talk about each of those components that we’ve put together for the past many years, and then what we’ve been doing recently.

So, I’m a practicing homeopath. I have been for 36 years, actually teaching for 36 years … probably more in practice closer to 34 years. And now since that time, I’m spending a great deal of time teaching. It’s one of my great joys.

Kate:

And your goal — one of your goals … your big goal — is to bring homeopathy …

Can you share that with us?

Joette:

Yes. My goal has been to bring homeopathy into every home and especially in the hands of the women — the moms, the grandmothers, those who are the caretakers, those who take care of children and grandchildren — but also for those taking care of their elderly parents, their pets, their livestock.

So, whatever your family is comprised of, you, as the person in the home, need to know this information.

Now, this does not mean that we don’t also have many people who are in our courses who are medical doctors and naturopaths and functional M.D.s, conventional M.D.s and nurses and chiropractors and physician’s assistants and et cetera, et cetera, but …

Kate:

Dads and EMTs.

Joette:

Yeah. We also have dads and EMTs. That’s right. We do.

But the focus is to get this information to the hands of those who are at home, taking care of the family. That has been stripped for a long time from the hands of women, and now we’re going to put it back into their capable hands and give them the tools, so they don’t feel as though they need to run to a professional at every turn or that they need to use drugs at every turn. And the more — I always tell folks — the more they learn, the less angst there will be in your life.

Kate:

So, Joette, I know on your website you offer something for everyone — every budget — starting with blogs and podcasts, which there’s no charge. And you’ve been doing your blogs for how long now?

Joette:

You know what, Kate? I’m not sure. I think it’s 14 years — every Sunday night.

Kate:

Yeah, it’s a long time. So, there’s a ton of information. I often say that if you just go through all the blogs and podcasts, that can be taking a course, honestly.

So, you also have available a group called Mighty Members, and that’s something that’s newer that you’re doing. And then you have your Gateway study groups and your courses and now something pretty significant that we’ve been working on for the last couple of years.

Why don’t you tell us about that?

THE ACADEMY OF PRACTICAL HOMEOPATHY®

Joette: (05:07)

Well, that is the ultimate piece. It’s The Academy — The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®. It is a very specific kind of medicine that I have procured by using Banerji protocols and French protocols and other protocols — my own protocols — but protocols from other homeopaths to make homeopathy much easier.

So, instead of using classical, we can come up with a medicine much more quickly, including the potency and frequency. And we focus very deeply on that subject in The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®.

It’s a year-long program, extremely intense. Let’s put it this way: I would call it rigorous. And it’s done online but live as well. That carries the student through each step of what needs to be understood and known regarding homeopathy.

And then we have a second program — a second year, which is called the Mastery™ — and that is once the first year of The Academy is completed. Then, the student can move on to Mastery™.

And then, we have a third component, and that is the third year, which is also 11 months long. And that’s what we call Mastermind.

So, a person could decide to go through all three of these programs all at once — determine that they’re going to do one year after another for three years — or they can choose just one year, or they can choose just two years, et cetera.

Kate:

Yeah. So The Academy, if you are interested in joining The Academy or finding out more information about that in particular, you can go to AcademyofPracticalHomeopathy.com and there’s a Founder’s List that you can join. And when we are offering our next class — when that will start — we will send out some information before it begins.

So, Joette, there’s some other things that are new as well that we’ve done in the last couple of years. And one of those is the Gateway to Homeopathy Study Guide. There is now a second edition. Can you explain about that?

GATEWAY TO PRACTICAL HOMEOPATHY®: A GUIDED STUDY GROUP CURRICULUM

Joette: (07:07)

Now, that’s what this looks like. It’s a pretty hefty book with tons of information.

And the way I learned homeopathy originally back in the ’80s was some friends and I formed a group. We met every Thursday night, and we studied homeopathy so that we knew how to treat our children, our husbands, our parents, our pets, our relatives and our friends in general.

And we stayed together. We met every Thursday for four years. It was a foundation for me that not only taught me how to use homeopathy — at least the first steps in using homeopathy — particularly for acute conditions but also for some chronic conditions.

But it also built a natural support system so that my friends and I could count on each other to get help should something occur. Then we could go to each other and ask for help. And it was a very important part of my life.

I never missed a Thursday night for those four years. None of us did, especially our main group. We considered it so valuable that nothing would get in the way.

And so based on that paradigm — on that program or that idea — we set up a program called Gateway Study Groups where folks can join a study group. They can either make their own — come up with their own friends — and then we give them the information on how to do it. Step-by-step guide. And then each of their study group members purchases this book. It’s quite reasonable in price, and it’s something that can be used regularly even after the student has finished the course. It’s a great reference.

But during the course, this is a lot of information that will be used very deeply. It teaches you which homeopathic medicines to use under what circumstances, what potency to use, how frequently to use it. So, it’s not giving you guesswork.

It tells you under this condition — when a child has or someone has otitis media — this is the medicine, this is the potency, and this is the frequency.

And so we go step by step to teach folks how to use this at home. And so, to join one of these groups, we’re going to have that listed below, right, Kate, so that folks can hop in and get into the Gateway study?

FIND YOUR NEW STUDY GROUP FRIENDS’ FACEBOOK PAGE

Kate: (09:22)

Yeah, there’s a Facebook page where it’s Joette’s Find Your Study Group Friends Facebook page. And so that’s how you can find someone who’s leading a study group.

Or, like Joette said, if you want to start your own study group, you simply purchase the book, and it walks you through how to lay out a study group, how to invite people, gives you some examples, and, at each study group meeting, what you would say and what questions you would ask about the different lessons in the book.

So, I just wanted to emphasize one of the main things about these study groups like you were talking about earlier, Joette, is the relationships that you develop. Really, I have some of my best friends now; I met them through the study groups. And so, that is really a very valuable piece of joining or starting a Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®.

Joette:

Joining or starting. Yes, you could go either way. Yeah, you’ve taken a number of groups through, haven’t you, Kate?

Kate:

Yes. There’s really people all over the world who join these study groups. When I led mine, I had people from different countries in the study groups, and it’s really great to be able to develop those relationships.

All right, let’s talk about Mighty Members because that’s fairly new as well. Mighty Members  … can you explain that a little bit, Joette?

JOETTE’S MIGHTY MEMBERS

Joette: (10:35)

Well, it’s a subscription site, and what folks do is they join in, and they get information from me a little something every day.

And then every week, we give them things that I would not normally say to the general public — something that might be a little bit more controversial, perhaps, or even a little more personal. I am willing to give that kind of information out a little more readily in Joette’s Mighty Members.

Kate:

It’s hosted on your own …

Joette:

A private … yes, it’s a private server.

MONDAY NIGHT LIVES

Kate: (11:03)

… private server. And so, it’s kind of like our own private Facebook page, in a way. We’ve added something you put out called “Mighty Musings,” which are videos just for those who are part of the Mighties.

And then there’s a Social Center so the people on this site can communicate with one another — ask questions. You jump in there once in a while.

There’s a library archive, I know, of your Monday Night Lives, and sometimes you pop on and just talk to the Mighties after your Facebook Lives that you do weekly on Mondays. So that’s another benefit.

But yeah, it’s another option for those who are looking for something that’s a little bit like a step beyond the blogs and the podcasts. Or we have students who are in The Academy and Mastery™ who are also Mighty Members. So, there’s really something for everyone if you’re…

JOETTE’S FREE BLOGS

Joette: (11:50)

For all different palettes and for all different budgets. Yeah, absolutely.

Because the blog is free, I encourage people to use the blog when there’s a condition that comes up. You simply put in my name, “Joette Calabrese, otitis media,” “Joette Calabrese, shin splints,” “Joette Calabrese, strep throat,” et cetera. And find the article that I’ve written about it with the name of the medicine that is one of the most common medicines to be used for that, the potency and the frequency.

And then we direct you — I direct you — to where you can purchase it. And I have no affiliate program. In other words, I don’t get paid by those places that I send you to. I don’t believe in that method or that concept.

Instead, I’d rather just give you the information and encourage you to consider learning more.

And that’s really what all of this is about, is to move you up the ladder into a more in-depth understanding of how to use homeopathy, so that you have comfort when someone is suffering in your family. You’re not freaking.

You’re going from freaking to fabulous, to be honest.

Kate:

I want you to tell a funny story about your kids. And when they are in need of a homeopathic medicine, where do they go?

Joette:

They go to the blog! They actually say the next day, they say, “Mom, I went to the blog, and I keyed it in, and I looked up the remedy, and it helped. Thank you so much.”

Or “Mom, I went to the blog, and I’m not sure I understand what I’m supposed to do here. Could you clarify it for me?”

And they send their friends there, and they help their friends, their pets, et cetera, and their spouse, et cetera. It’s really great.

So, even my family — even my father — was using my blog at one time.

QUEBRACHO

Kate: (13:26)

That’s funny. I love that story.

All right, let’s switch gears and talk about a homeopathic medicine that is going to be helpful, especially during this cold/flu season, and that is Quebracho. And I’m going to spell it Q-U-E-B-R-A-C-H-O. And that’s a homeopathic medicine that comes from a hard tree.

So, tell us a little bit more about that medicine.

Joette:

Yeah, it’s an interesting remedy. As we know, homeopathic medicines are often derived from plants. Not always — they can be from minerals; they can be from the periodic table, et cetera, et cetera. But this one happens to be a plant that’s found in South America, mostly in Argentina.

And it’s a tree that’s used for tanning, even all the way back since the 1800s. So, it was used for tanning leather, and it was a red-brown color. Not that that’s really important, but it’s interesting to learn this. And it was used for waterproofing leather. So, I think that’s pretty interesting.

So, then we come to some information on Quebracho — excuse me, it looks like it’s pronounced “qwe-bracho,” but it’s actually “ka-bracho.” It’s a Portuguese word.

Joette: (14:39)

And we go to William Boericke; I’ve got his book here. And Dr. William Boericke was a homeopath back in the 1800s and 1900s, and he was best known to be an editor of the Pocket Manual.

I actually have another book of his; hold on.

Kate:

He was also a physician, wasn’t he?

Joette:

Yes, he was. He was a medical doctor. Well, that’s what all homeopaths were. They were all medical doctors.

And so, this is his book, this particular version. This particular edition is not available, but you can still get it in paper. This happens to be in leather.

And so, he says of Quebracho that it is “Digitalis of the lungs.” Now he’s quoting that from Dr. Hale, who was another medical doctor homeopath from 1877. And what that means is Digitalis, of course, is for the heart, but Quebracho is for the lungs.

So, when it comes to the heart, we use Digitalis. When it comes to the lungs — this is a very generalization here — when it comes to the lungs and especially a concern about colds and flus that go to the lungs, Quebracho is a really good choice.

So, this is what he says here. I have it written here, and I also have it up on my screen. He says, “It increases oxidation, removes temporary obstruction to the oxidation of the blood by stimulating respiration centers, increasing oxidation and excretion of carbonic acid, pulmonary stenosis for thrombosis of the pulmonary artery, and is an effective remedy in many cases of asthma. It stimulates the respiratory centers and increases the oxygen in the blood.”

And one of the ways that we would consider using this is if someone is in need of air. So, “want of breath” is the way it’s put in homeopathy — particularly during exertion. That is one of the guiding symptoms for the use of Quebracho.

So, it’s also great for cardiac asthma. And so cardiac dyspnea, which is also … dyspnea is breathlessness. And so, if there is a cardiac sensation, perhaps the heart is pounding hard because the person is having a difficult time — not a serious time necessarily — but a difficult time breathing; they need to catch their breath; they need to slow down. The medicine would be Quebracho.

Now, how do we use this? Do we use it only at that moment as an SOS? Do we use it on a regular basis because this person is suffering from this on a regular basis?

I’m going to say that it can be used in both situations. So, if someone has asthma or a respiratory condition such as a cold or a flu, and they have a “want of breath” — particularly after exertion or during exertion — Quebracho would be useful.

If it’s on a regular basis, we would use this on a regular basis. I would personally use this, say, once a day in a 30th potency for a few weeks until we see a shift — until we see that that condition has resolved enough.

Now, if it’s only an occasional event that this person has this “want of breath” during exertion, then we’re going to use this as needed only. And again, I would use it Quebracho 30, potency 30C (or 30X if that’s all that can be obtained) and use that every few minutes or every 15 minutes or so. And stop as soon as there’s improvement or stop if we see no improvement after, say, four doses.

Kate:

Now, Joette, can you explain: Carbo veg also has that want of air, lack of air. So, what might be the difference?

CARBO VEG

Joette: (18:15)

Yes, Carbo veg does have that “air hunger.” It’s a little different, air hunger. I know that sounds like we’re splitting hairs, so to speak. But Carbo veg is more air hunger, where it’s not that it’s during exertion necessarily or that they can’t get the breath, but it’s still remaining unsatisfactory. The air that they are getting in is not a satisfying breath.

Carbo veg does not relate as deeply as Quebracho in relation to the heart as well. And Carbo veg is specific for having had an experience — not always — but having had an experience with being exposed to carbon monoxide.

Quebracho is as a result of having had an experience with a cold or flu.

Now, these are not hard and fast, but if you’ve got any one of those two pieces, then you know which one to consider is more in the running.

Kate:

So, as far as owning potencies, you’ve talked about a 30C. And I know you’ve mentioned before about using Carbo veg for an asthmatic reaction to something, and Carbo veg is one of the remedies that can be useful in that situation. And we use it often in a 6C in that situation.

Would you ever consider the Quebracho in the 6 to have a …

Joette:

Yes. Yes, I would consider that to be used in a 6C. And then in that case, I would use it once a day over a longer period of time.

You know, in Robin Murphy’s materia medica, he says to use it for dyspnea, of course, emphysema, for pulmonary stenosis. There’s a whole list in Robin Murphy’s materia medica on how this medicine is used. Shortness of breath during exertion, again, respiratory paralysis (a feeling of as though the lungs are just not moving as they should), slowed heart. And that combination can be very, very useful.

And should you be interested, I always urge folks to get a hold of a materia medica and start studying — start reading the particular medicine — so that you have a real good understanding of what the capability of this medicine is.

MATERIA MEDICA FOR FREE ONLINE

Kate: (20:26)

And you can find materia medica for free online as well. If you don’t have one, you can just search “materia medica” and then put in “Quebracho” or just “materia medica,” and then some will come up. And you can look at the medicine that way if you don’t own a materia medica.

So, Joette, I think this has been a really good little introduction to Quebracho and an explanation about what you do and all the things that you offer. And so, thank you for sharing with us today.

I hope this gives your listeners just a little taste of what you do.

And hopefully we’ll see you somewhere in a study group or a Mighty Members or The Academy. We’ll put all the links that we mentioned — these different things that we offer — we’ll put the links on the website. So, if you’re looking to find out information, you can go there.

Joette, you always have words of wisdom as we close things. So, what would you like to share with your listeners as we finish out this podcast?

JOETTE’S CLOSING MESSAGE ON HER MOVEMENT AND THE GLOBAL POPULARITY OF HOMEOPATHY

Joette: (21:24)

Well, I would like to say that I think it’s impossible to overstate the significance of this information and of this movement — because it’s actually a movement.

I think we’re at a crossroads in history. People are disgusted with Big Pharma. They’re tired of the old way. Folks are saying, “I don’t want to take the synthetic stuff anymore. The drugs of commerce, they make me worse. And I know there’s got to be another way to do this.” But they don’t know what to do.

They often say, “I don’t want to take this, but I don’t know what else.”

Enter Practical Homeopathy®.

And so, in searching for an alternative — and I don’t like to call this “alternative” because this medicine is the second most used medicine on this earth.

First is Chinese Medicine — by the sheer numbers of Chinese in China and that area of the world.

And the second most used medicine is homeopathy.

And behind that is conventional, synthetic drugs of commerce.

But for those who have lived in North America and some parts of Europe — many people don’t realize this! But the earth is wide, my friends. And I urge those who have not cast their vision out further that they’re missing out on an entire medical paradigm — without side effects — that is available to be readily learned and noted how valuable this medicine is because it’s so inexpensive, so readily understood, and it simply works. Practical Homeopathy® works.

Kate:

Joette, thank you so much. It was a great podcast, and I look forward to the next one.

Joette:

So do I, Kate, thanks.

It’s my honor to share as many Practical Homeopathy® protocols for single conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or even advertising — here in my podcasts, 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 and find fun study group opportunities and in-depth courses developed by subject.

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:

03:47    Introduction

11:03    Zoom Meetings

19:33   Success Stories

39:46    Joining the Study Group

46:14     Benefits of The Study Group

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

“Carle has asthma” [Four Homeopathic Medicines for Asthma]

I Was an Itchy Little Girl

Allergic?! Escape Allergies, Sensitivities, and Intolerances, with Homeopathy

The Ultimate Cool Kids’ Guide to Homeopathy: Become a Revolutionary, Independent Thinker with Practical Homeopathy®

Where There’s Fire, There’s Smoke

Joette’s First Aid Chart

S is for Staphysagria

Liver Vitamins are Like Jewels

Repetition is Good ‘til Causes Painful Hands

Podcast 76 – Here an Itch, There an Itch, Everywhere an Itch-Itch

[Symphonic] Symphytum for Pain

Snap!

Teeth Worthy Tips [Sign in and scroll down through the list.]

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

Joette’s Study Group: Find your new Study Group Friends’ Facebook page

My blog, podcasts, Facebook Live events and courses

Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 116.

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

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

Kate:  Hi, this is Kate. I want to welcome you to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast. I have a lot of Moms with Moxie with me today. I’m so excited to hear their stories. I haven’t had much of a chance to get to know these ladies, but I do know one of them pretty well. We’ve gotten to know each other over the past year.

I’m very excited to hear what you all have been doing with your group. You’ve been meeting together now for a while, studying homeopathy together and kind of “doing life,” because I understand you met through a homeschool group. So, you’ve known each other for quite a while, and you’re on a journey together. I would love for the listeners to hear your stories and how you guys interact, how your study group works and what you guys do. I want to welcome you to the podcast.

And I want to first introduce my friend, Beth. She’s here, and she’s going to tell us a little bit more about the group and introduce you to these lovely ladies.

Beth …

Beth:  Hi, Kate. Thanks so much. We’re all very excited to be here. I’m here with five of my good friends, and we meet about once a week. We just love homeopathy. It started with one of our homeschool moms mentioning it in our group and telling us, you know, “This is really cool.”

We were like, “Oh, well, we’ve got essential oils. We’ve got all these other things.”

She sent us to Joette’s website, and we’ve all just fallen in love with it. We’ve had so much success. And just being together once a week and talking about things and supporting each other through text messages has been amazing.

Kate:  I know that you guys all met, like you said, through homeschool group, and then Suzy’s enthusiasm was contagious.

Beth:  Yes.

Kate:  That’s awesome. Actually, there are two Suzis on the podcast today. That’s going to be a little interesting. We have Suzy with a Y and Suzi with an I.

It’s Suzy with a Y that got you guys all fired up about homeopathy. I love that you said, “Oh, we have our essential oils. We’re fine. We have all these other natural modalities.” I think you said when we were talking earlier, Beth, that it’s like, once you find homeopathy, you’re like, “Ahhh!!”

That’s it! I mean, that is what you’ve been looking for all this time, right? Is that how you all felt?

Beth:  Yes, absolutely.

Kate:  Can you just introduce us to these ladies, and maybe you all could share a little bit about where you’re from and your story or your family? We would love to get to know you.

Beth:  I’ll start with Suzy with a Y, our enthusiast. Suzy is still a homeschool mom. A couple of us are alumni, but she’s still doing homeschooling. She has a background in working in business and got into hospice and really loves to help people that have different issues. And homeopathy just fits her really well with helping people to be better. Anyway, Suzy …

Suzy:  Thanks, Beth. Hi, Kate. It’s great to finally meet you. I’ve been listening to your voice for years, and it’s great to finally meet you.

Kate:  Oh, put a face with the name, right?

Suzy:  Yeah! I’ve been homeschooling two boys for the past 10 years now. Our homeschool group has gotten pretty close. We share in each other’s lives. So, we know when our kids are sick or whatever. We’ve been sharing health tips for a long time.

I feel like mine has been a journey. Like Beth said, I started out with essential oils, and then I dabbled in colloidal silver. Then a friend of mine sent me an article from Joette regarding allergies because she knew my son suffered from debilitating allergies, respiratory, skin, asthma (resulting in asthma and hospital visits). So, I had just really dove into the website and started learning. The “Carle has asthma” [Four Homeopathic Medicines for Asthma] was very helpful. “I Was an Itchy Little Girl,” — some of the articles that Joette had put out.

I started listening to podcast after podcast. My family didn’t know what happened to me because I kind of disappeared mentally from them for a while because I just couldn’t get enough of the information I was being fed. It made so much sense. I was finding results pretty immediately with the itchy nose and the sneezing.

It took me a little longer to clear some of the asthma issues. I wound up taking the Allergic?! course so that I could dive in a little deeper and get to the chronic issues having a little more confidence. Certainly, the website and the blog is a great starting point to jump in and start testing and using. I’ve just loved it ever since.

So, in our group, I started sharing that passion with Beth who I knew her daughter had some issues — some health issues. She started looking into it, and just all the other moms started to kind of jump on board, and some of them really caught the bug.

Beth:  The next person I’d like to introduce is Debbie, because without Debbie, we wouldn’t have this group. Because Debbie was learning from the website and from Suzy and from us talking and she’s like, “Beth, you got to start a group. You got to start a group.” She’s the one who talked me into getting the group started and has been involved ever since we’ve been meeting like two years now. Debbie …

Debbie:  Hi, my name is Debbie. I’m a wife and a mom of two, a son and a daughter, and I have a stepson. I’m a homeschool mom alumni. Both my kids are going to go to school this year. One’s a senior, and one’s going to be a sophomore. I was introduced to homeopathy through Suzy when my son had a major head trauma. That’s what got me into homeopathy. Then I’ve seen the results of her and her son and one of the other girls that had a lot of allergies and also with Beth. That’s what got me started.

Beth:  Thank you, Debbie.

Debbie:  You’re welcome.

Beth:  Next, how about we go to Suzi with an I. Suzi is our newest member. She joined us with the last class we did. We’ve done Gateway I, Gateway II, and Allergic?! She joined us for Allergic?! Suzi had been looking at Joette’s stuff and learning things, but I think the group really kind of solidified it for her. We’re really glad that Suzi’s here.

Suzi:  Yeah. Thanks, Beth. I’m so glad to be here. I’m also a homeschool mom. I’m still in the midst of it. I have a five-year-old all the way up to a 15-year-old.

I’ve been doing homeopathy through Joette’s site for about three years. I’ve been really happy to be able to throw out a lot of drugs out of my home, to be able to take care of the family, my family. But this last year, I finally agreed and just was dragging my feet timewise to join a group with them. From there, it just exploded. I’ve been able to go into uprooting some long-term things, and it’s just been a blessing to my family. My confidence has just soared with homeopathy.

Beth:  Thank you, Suzi.

Next, we’re going to go to Karlin. Karlin wasn’t part of our original homeschool group, but she’s been my friend for a very long time, and we homeschooled our daughters and sons together. So, Karlin has seen some really great success also and is a good center for us in our group. She gets us back on track sometimes when we start going off. Anyways, go ahead, Karlin.

Karlin:  Wow. I appreciate that introduction. That was sweet of you. I have two college-aged kids. My husband and I have been married 29 years. But I am very new to homeopathy. I probably missed some of the sweet spot for helping my kids through childhood illnesses. We did do the regular route — the allopathic route. But I’ve had a few little successes with insomnia for my husband and general upset stomach. I am definitely still on the upward part of the learning curve trying to learn as I go, and this group has been so helpful to me as a newbie.

Beth:  Thank you, Karlin. And last but not least, of course, Birgit.

Birgit:  Hello, everybody. My name is Birgit. I know these beautiful ladies, most of them through homeschooling. It was Suzy who got me interested in homeopathy about two years ago, but I got really serious about it through Beth and our beautiful group.

I’m a mother for three children. I have a 15-year-old daughter and 11-year-old twins. Homeopathy has helped us so much with our allergies. We’ve had a lot of success with rashes and eczema. Homeopathy has given so much hope, because we struggle a lot with various allergies and stomach pains and all this, and homeopathy has been Godsent to us.

Beth:  Yes, and I’d like to add that Birgit’s daughter did the Cool Kids’ class with me this year, and it was awesome. Emma was great. She did a beautiful little presentation at the end. So, they’re all getting involved.

Kate:  Thank you, everyone, for sharing a little bit about yourself and your families. I think what’s really interesting about this group is you all meet on Zoom, yet you live near each other.

Groups can really look differently. I know a lot of them that are far apart, and they meet on Zoom. But I find it interesting that you guys are local, but it’s just easier — I would assume, right — for you guys to meet on Zoom. Do you fit it in better that way? Tell me why you meet on Zoom as opposed to in person?

Beth:  Yes, I would say that our families are still coming in the room. There’s still noise and things that are going on, but if we do it Zoom, we’re much more likely to meet where if we have to leave and go somewhere and try to find a central location, it just became more complicated. This way, you know, it’s no big deal if our kids run in the room and start screaming. I think it’s great.

Suzy:  It’s kind of neat, Beth. It’s neat because Beth prepares slideshows, and she can put them up on the screen. We’re all sharing and seeing the same information, and we don’t have to crowd around. The technology has really just helped us not skip meetings as much as we may have if we were having to travel 30 minutes or so to go meet with each other.

Kate:  Let’s hear a little bit about your individual success stories with homeopathy. I know you all have your own stories to share with the listeners. So, maybe, Beth, can we start with you, and you tell us a little bit about how you’ve used homeopathy over the years?

Beth:  Yeah, I think I “think” in homeopathy now, like anytime I’m out somewhere, and I see something, I’ll think of something. Like someone’s on a tube and out in the lake, and I see them, and I think, “Oh, that kid’s going to need Arnica because of his head.” You know? And I just kind of think that way now because there have been so many amazing success stories.

One of the biggest ones for me is my own where I have two big dogs, and they were wrestling. They slammed into the side of my leg and tore the ligament on the side of my leg. There’s really not a lot to do for that, and it’s very painful. I went to a couple of doctors just to make sure nothing was broken. And it was amazing that in two months, that was healed. I just haven’t had any problems at all.

It just still amazes me.

As you get older, you kind of feel the things that happened in the past. I don’t feel that one at all. That was a big one for me.

Another one is a friend’s son who really has problems with dairy. Every time he would have dairy, he’d have to run to the bathroom. In just a few weeks of helping him, he was able to eat dairy, and he’s been fine. He can eat as much dairy as he wants now which is amazing! His mom was just really blown away with that.

Kate:  I’m going to stop you right there for a second, Beth. I’m sure everyone wants to know. What did you use for your ligament injury?

Beth:  For the torn ligament, I used Ruta and Arnica together. It’s a Banerji protocol, I believe. Then I later added a little bit of Symphytum, and it only took about two months.

There was another one where a man couldn’t catch his breath. I went in, and I looked in the blog, it’s “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire” [“Where There’s Fire, There’s Smoke”] and it talks about Carbo veg. I don’t remember exactly what was happening with him at the time, but I just remember he couldn’t catch his breath. I did go in, and I found that blog, so that helped.

There’s an older man who has nosebleed issues. He’s on blood thinners … and several other reasons. I got out the first aid chart that Joette has, and I only had the remedies that I carry in my purse. In the first aid chart, they recommend Ferrum phos. I gave it to him only twice, and it stopped. He couldn’t believe it. He can’t usually get it to stop. He’s gone to the hospital because he can’t get his nose to stop. That was a really big one!

So, Suzy, do you want to share some of the successes you’ve had?

Suzy:  Sure, I’m happy to. You know, that’s what’s part great about this group is that the people in this group actually care. Sometimes out in the world, some people don’t even really, they’re just looking at me strange, but sure.

One of my favorites is my dad, he got really sick, and he had to go to the hospital, and he was catheterized. When he came home from the hospital, he couldn’t urinate after being catheterized. It was, I don’t know what that is, swelling or whatever, but I had just remembered reading an article on the blog called S is for Staphysagria. They mentioned that that remedy almost never fails for that reason.

So, I had Staphysagria 30 in my red box kit, and I gave him a dose of that. I waited 30 minutes and gave him another. Then he started, he just was able to go to the bathroom, and it was never an issue. That was one of those that was really cool because he’s elderly. I’ve seen people have to go back to the hospital for those issues, you know? So, that’s one of my favorites.

Another one is a neighbor friend of mine. They had just moved here, and their daughter suffered from chronic ear infections and strep throat. They hadn’t gotten a doctor yet here. We’ve been under the pandemic and getting to the doctor was a little issue. So, she called me at 10:30 at night, and I just said, “I’ll come over. I have a few things if you want to try it.”

She said, “Sure.”

Also from the blog, I was able to pull something up on chronic strep throat and Hepar sulph 30 — I think — mixed with Belladonna for the pain was what was recommended. So, I ran that down to her.

Two hours later, she’s texting me at midnight saying, “I can’t even believe it! The fever’s down. She’s sleeping. There’s no coughing.”

They’d never even heard of homeopathy before. So, to see a tiny little sugar pill do what it did, they were astounded. She’s now interested in learning more. Those are two of my real favorites.

Another one was a friend of mine, who was living with me at the time, suffered from hepatitis. I had gone with her to her doctor, and her doctor said, “Well, you know, there is this new drug that’s out, $75,000 a dose or whatever.”

Both our eyes were just opened, and I just mentioned, “I’m a student of homeopathy. Do you think that I have enough time to try my methods before you might consider being aggressive with whatever therapy you have?”

He kind of shrugged me off and laughed at me a little bit because he’d never really heard of anything besides his methods of helping, but he did give me the chance to say that there was time to try something.

So, after researching on the blog, I found an article called “Liver Vitamins are Like Jewels” and homeopathic remedies for liver disease. On there, they suggested using Chelidonium, which I did for several months. When she got retested, there was a slight improvement on her numbers, but she still was testing positive for hepatitis.

Once I was a student of Joette and had taken a class, I’m able to get on to the Students of Joette Facebook group and started asking questions and researching the blog and found a Banerji protocol by adding Thuja 30 into that protocol with the Chelidonium. After five or six months, she was retested, and she tests negative now for hepatitis — where she never thought she would be rid of this disease.

Kate:  That’s incredible. Wow. Wow!

Suzy:  Debbie, why don’t you talk about Zach’s head injury? It just so happened though with Debbie, I was just learning. I always took around a little kit with me, so I always had the red box kit and all this stuff. So, when her son was bleeding all over, I just ran and grabbed my bag and just handed Debbie the bottle of Arnica and just said, “Dose this every 15 minutes until everything starts to improve.”

And then I’ll let you take it from here, Deb.

Debbie:  We were at a jump place, and my son was on an obstacle course and the metal bar came and smacked him square in the middle of his forehead. He had an inch laceration. He was bleeding all over. I had asked her son, Noah, I said, “Go get your mom quick” because I knew she was full of everything.

She gave me some Arnica. She gave me a little butterfly stitch. We stitched it up, and she gave me the Arnica, and we went home obviously after that.

I was in a bad car accident, and I didn’t really want to take him to the emergency room and have all that trauma. We decided to stop on the way home at Whole Foods, and I got Colloidal Silver Gel and vitamin E. Then we continued to do the Arnica.

And his head did not swell at all!

He had fallen one time in a babysitter, and he had a big knot because he hit his head (from a different injury) because I didn’t know about Arnica.

But then after Suzy gave me the Arnica this time, we didn’t have to get stitches or anything. We just did use the butterfly and the other Colloidal Silver Gel and vitamin E. There was a little bit of infection here and there, which maybe I could have done Hepar sulph, knowing about it now. But it all cleared up, and there’s practically no scar whatsoever there. That’s what started me in the homeopathy.

Then I have so many other stories in addition to that one.

Kate:  Well, tell us a few more.

Debbie:  My husband, he’s a painter, so he would get carpal tunnel quite a bit. His wrist would be super knotted up from carpal tunnel for six weeks, and he’d be in excruciating pain. So, I decided to look it up on Joette’s site the carpal tunnel. There’s one on there for “Repetition is Good ‘til Causes Painful Hands.”

On there, it talks about using Symphytum 200 and Rhus tox 30. We tried that, and every time he comes home — when he comes home and he complains about it — he’s like, “Give me that stuff. Give me that stuff!”

It has worked miracles because he has not had any of the other issues since then. He starts using it as it starts to irritate him, but other times, he literally would be in excruciating pain for six weeks or more.

Then recently, my dog had a spinal cord injury. She had a fibrocartilaginous embolism. She was having a really difficult time walking, and they call it “knuckling.” Their paws slide and would get all scraped up when she walked.

I called or texted Beth. I think I texted her and asked her about what to do for this injury. Within 48 hours, she made such a turnaround. Beth helped me out, and we used Symphytum and Hypericum. She’s running all over the place. She still has a little bit of a problem.

She went on vacation with my husband, and we stopped it for a short period of time. And I think I’m going to start it again because when she sits, her leg will slide out a little bit, but before, she could barely walk.

Within two days of giving her the protocol … I had taken her to the vet and stuff, and he didn’t know what to do. I looked it up online. Like the dogs couldn’t walk for a year or so — depending on their injury. She didn’t have a substantial injury, but she did have a pretty bad one. It worked for that also.

Suzy:  The neat thing about Zach’s injury was, Debbie was sharing photos the very next day of the wound. I had the before and the after picture of the wound — in just one day, which was miraculous because it’s gushing and open and bleeding on day one. And on day two, it had already fused together — the wound on his head.

When we were sending those pictures around our little group, people were just oohing and ahhing. They couldn’t even believe that the injury they saw the day before had already started closing, and there was no swelling or bruising or anything. Debbie took great care of her son that day. It was really encouraging.

Debbie:  My son also had a friend that had a major injury to the head, also, that I gave them the protocol. It was probably five or six o’clock at night; he went to the hospital. He had been diagnosed with a concussion. That was a Saturday night, I believe. (It might have been Sunday — Saturday or Sunday night.) My son said to me, “Mom, did you give them the protocol?”

I’m like, “No,” because I had told her something for her husband’s Achilles tendon, but it didn’t seem like she used it.

But he’s like, “Well, mom, maybe you should tell her.”

I’m like, “All right. I’ll tell her one more time, and after that, you know, I’m not going to, like, force things on her.”

So, she went out to the store that night; it was like 8:40. She runs to the store and gets the protocols. Before he went to bed, he had a big black and blue, also. He said by the next morning, the black and blue was gone.

They went to the hospital on Tuesday to confirm about his concussion, and it was gone by using just the protocols for concussion. That was another one in addition to Zack’s.

Beth:  Birgit also had some. I have some photos that I just love with her daughter with the eczema.

Birgit:  That was quite a sight. Her eczema behind her knees got so bad. I had to take her to the doctor, and the doctor prescribed steroid creams which I refused to use.

With the help of Beth, she found me a good protocol from Joette’s site, which we did. It was Arsenicum 200C, three times a day, and also Hepar sulph 200, every other day. I think within a few days, it cleared up. It was incredible. She was so uncomfortable. It was super itchy; it was also so inflamed; it was bloody from scratching.

She’s also on Bovista and Calc carb, actually, (200) on every other day for general allergies.

If I could also share the story of my rash. I broke out in horrific rash all over my body — my arms, my legs, my stomach, my back. The doctors suspected pityriasis rosea which is also called “Christmas tree.” They did biopsy, and they didn’t get confirmed. They said it’s just the dermatitis.

I was really devastated because I’m a realtor, so I have to meet with my clients, and I was covered with this rash.

I looked at Joette’s Facebook videos. She was mentioning in one of her videos that she had bad rash and the regular rash protocol which is Antimonium crudum 6C with Arsenicum album 200C didn’t work for her. She mentioned that she tried Sulphur 200. [Discussed in Podcast 76 – Here an Itch, There an Itch, Everywhere an Itch-Itch.]

I couldn’t believe! I just took one or two doses, and it completely cleared up. I was suffering with it for a couple of months. Even after the first dose, like, it calmed. I immediately felt, “Oh, it’s calming.” It calmed everything down. It’s just amazing.

But I think what the miraculous story of all is my neighbor. I ran into my neighbor, and she mentioned that she has herniated disk, and she is going to have a surgery.

I said, “If you’re open to homeopathy, I can look up in Joette’s site some protocols.” She was very eager to find out about it.

I found two great articles. One was “[Symphonic] Symphytum for Pain” and the other one was “Snap!” And, I found protocols. For … herniated disk, it was Symphytum 200 mixed with Calc phos 3X, twice a day. Then also it was Hypericum 200C, twice a day for pain.

She was taking these for three weeks before she saw any results. But then within one week, the pain was completely gone, and she was able to cancel the surgery. She’s now such a strong believer in homeopathy. She’s taking courses and helping her whole family. It’s been amazing to see her getting into it through her own experience.

Kate:  That’s so great. I love how Suzy helped you. Then now you’re able to help other people.

Birgit:  That’s right.

Kate:  I also feel like it’s important to point out that the protocols sometimes take a while. We can be impatient. It’s great how you took the Sulfur, and within … you said, I think, a day or two … you really noticed drastic results. But it doesn’t always happen that way.

Thank you for sharing that story about how she took that protocol for the herniated disk, and after, I think you said, three weeks…

Birgit:  Three weeks.

Kate:  Yes.

Birgit:  I would have given up, but she kept taking and exactly at the same time every day, morning and afternoon at the same time. That was the key. It looks because like she stayed with it until she solved it.

Kate:  Yes, just wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you.

Beth:  So, Suzi with an I, would you like to share something? I love your cat story. I had that in my head.

Suzi:  Yes. I can definitely attest to the waiting long. It’s great to see some “instant” results, but I’ve also uprooted some things that I never thought possible. I was able to do a lot of short-term things with my family when I was just pouring over Joette’s site, and it was such a blessing.

But finally, when I started this study group and I took Joette’s Allergy class, I started to gain the confidence. And I’m like, “All right, I’m going after the allergies in my family.” And there were quite a few!

Cats were, like, number one, especially for my husband. He goes into someone’s home, and I mean, really, he’s not able to breathe for like two days later. It can be scary.

For two months at least, we follow the protocols on Joette’s Allergy class. We hadn’t tested it out; we hadn’t been thinking about it. But we were very well, methodically taking it.

We visited a family member who had two indoor cats. We were there for four hours. Of course, we’re careful not to touch our faces and such like that. But as we’re driving home, I turned to my husband, and I’m like, “You’re not dying. You’re okay.” We’re able to breathe.

Normally, we’d drive home from that home, and our heads are just pounding, and he’s barely in and out of consciousness, honestly. And I’ll even drive home because he can’t drive from the cats!

And I was, like … it just felt like a miracle! It felt so miraculous. It was such a blessing. I’m like, “It’s homeopathy!” There was nothing else going on. I think we can easily forget about little things, or “Oh, you know, I didn’t touch my eyes as much this time.”

There is no doubt in my mind that it was the homeopathy, and we were just blown away. 

Kate:  I like how you said that sometimes we forget about things when we are healing. We forget how bad it is, or how bad the condition was. We talked about that in the Gateway I study guide that that’s a phenomenon that you tend to forget the pain of the past.

Suzi:  Yes, I think for 10 minutes we talked back and forth to each other, “Yes, I used to feel like this. I would feel like this on the way home.” The more we talked about it, the more we felt more and more confident in how we were feeling.

We weren’t perfect and that’s okay, but we came a tremendous way.

Suzy:  I think I could add a little bit to that with some stuff like that. My son got braces, and the pain from his braces was just awful every couple of months when he gets his braces tightened. I think Joette has an article called “Teeth Worthy Tips.” [Sign in and scroll down through the list.] She gives a few remedies listed that could help with certain orthodontic procedure, pain and whatever.

So, I put a few remedies in a water bottle for him because he didn’t even want to put anything in his mouth. But water seemed to really work for him. Where he couldn’t eat for a week before that, I was giving him soft foods for a week to feed him. When I just started giving him — I think I mixed Belladonna or alternated Belladonna with Arnica. Within that night, he was already eating real food.

He doesn’t want to say that it was the homeopathy, either you know? But I mean, I know because I’m the mom, and I’m the one who has to deal with a non-eating, compliant, feels like a child who is being very difficult.

So, that was amazing. I know a lot of people who are taking lots of ibuprofen and acetaminophen for issues like that because tooth pain is just unbearable a lot of times. It’s great to have that protocol in my arsenal for myself. That’s what I’ve learned.

I have another story recently with success for my younger son who suffers from motion sickness — especially on boats, he gets very seasick. We were traveling a few weeks ago from Virginia to South Florida by boat, and within a few hours of rocking back and forth, he was starting to complain. He vomited a few times.

I used Arsenicum album 30 alternated with Nux vomica 30. It probably only took two doses of both before he was fine and running all over the boat again. So, you know, that was a real plus because we had no choice but to stay on the water all the way home. He could have been miserable, but homeopathy to the rescue again in that circumstance.

Suzi:  I think it might be my favorite when my kids instead of saying, “Oh, where’s the ibuprofen?” just say, “Where’s the Arnica, Mom? Where is it?” That’s a huge plus in my book.

Beth:  Absolutely. Absolutely. Now all the other kids, all the other kids, they come around, too.

Suzy:  It’s great now that our kids … because now our kids are sharing the information with other children. And with the Cool Kids class … I’m hoping to get my son in it as well in the next few months.

It’s neat to pass this information down to our children and to have them have access way in advance to what we had and to get their bodies healthy and more able to withstand illness in the future.

Kate:  I think that has to be one of the biggest joys as a mother. I’ve heard my daughter say that recently, too — the same thing — that she says, “Mom, I helped my friend with this condition. And I helped my friend with this condition with homeopathy, and she says she’s never been this well with this certain condition. And now it’s totally changed, and she’s doing better!”

Isn’t that so exciting to see the next generation, that we can give them an advantage over …? I don’t know about you guys and your whole story, but it was many years before I came to natural medicine and specifically, homeopathy. I’m just so thankful that we can teach this to our children, and they have a better start in their life with this medicine.

Suzy:  Absolutely. It eliminates so much fear and anxiety for me, knowing that I have so much at my hands with the knowledge of how to use it now — and to not feel helpless in so many situations. I’m not going to say it’s perfect in every situation, but 90% of the time, I almost have an answer for everything that comes up.

My little boy, one day he comes home, he’s swollen, he’s got these big, watery edemas, eye — full of water. I don’t know where it came from. I learned from the blog that Apis mellifica 30C is great for watery swellings.

So, where other friends or other times in my life, I would have definitely rushed to the hospital or to the doctor because it was so severe looking. Then the next day, it moved to his lips, and then other parts of his body.

But each time, I met the swelling with Apis, and it just disappeared within a few hours.

And now they don’t happen anymore. I don’t ever know what it was. I never had it diagnosed or anything, but it doesn’t happen anymore. I know, Beth, you have a story about Apis and your throat closing.

Beth:  That’s true. We went out to dinner — I forgot about that one — Suzy, thank you. We had a big, like, all these hors d’oeuvres that everybody ordered. (It was a whole bunch of us out to dinner.) I just had a little bit of everything. So, I don’t know what caused an anaphylactic reaction, but I had an anaphylactic reaction!

I remembered from Joette talking about her dad where she would give him the remedies, and they would sit in front of the emergency room, right?

I get in the car, and I get out my remedies. I take Apis and Aconite, I think it was. I drive over to the emergency room. I sat outside the emergency room. It wasn’t very far away. (I probably shouldn’t have been driving, but I did.) I sat there and after about 15 minutes, it went away.

I was like I have been in the hospital for anaphylactic reactions before. And the medications, they put me out for three weeks easily. It’s just they’re so strong! And for me not to have to go through that, then just to be able to go back and go on with life, that was amazing! That was very early on when I was learning about Joette.

That was because one of our other homeschool moms, her daughter had allergies, and we saw amazing changes with her. So, she had actually taught me how to do those remedies.

Yes, that’s right.

Suzy:  Beth, you had another story like that. I think you were at a bee farm, or you were somewhere where an elderly lady got stung by a bee or something happened. And, you also gave her Apis. Am I correct?

Beth:  Oh, yes, the Master Gardener. I did the Master Gardener Program, and part of it is you have to go help with the gardens. There was a woman there who had terrible, terrible allergies. I didn’t know at the time, but she was bending over to weed and everybody else had taken a head spray, bug spray except for her.

I had actually taken Ledum before we started weeding, and I think Apis, too. I was trying not to get stung.

But anyway, she bent over, and all these mosquitoes just came right at her because she was the only one that hadn’t done anything.

She just started swelling up, I mean, just swelling and swelling. I was like, “Oh, I have something I can give you if you’re willing to try it.”

She was telling me she’s on all different kinds of medications for allergies. I gave her Apis. It was amazing. She came back, she’s like, “What is this stuff? How do I get this? This was just amazing.”

I only gave it to her, like, twice, but she had had allergies her whole life. That was a really amazing one. Then everybody wanted to know because everybody was a gardener, and they’ve all been stung by different things. Yes, that was a good one.

What about you, Karlin?

Karlin:  I don’t have super amazing stories because I am newer to this. However, I will say that I have really enjoyed being able to feed off of what these other ladies have said in the groups as we’ve gone through — and as we were doing and processing these study groups together. It’s been such a blessing to hear the mentoring that’s going on.

For me, though I am probably as old as anybody here, I’ve got kind of that biblical, “younger woman” thing going, and they’ve got the “experienced woman” going, and I’m trying to learn from them. It’s been really good.

In a sense, I’ll go ahead and tell you what I have had experience with, and that is my husband does sometimes suffer from insomnia. He’s been helped by the Coffea cruda 30C. That’s been very good. Additionally, at various times, we’ll feel ill to our stomachs, and the Nux vomica 30C has also been a help to us.

Also, I wanted to encourage anyone who may be thinking “Should I join a group? Would it work for me to join a group?” This kind of thing. I hope that you can because it really, really has been excellent for us to be able to bounce things off of each other. And for me, who doesn’t know very much, to just try to soak in as much as I can.

So, probably, whether you’re very experienced or not as experienced is a wonderful thing. Best wishes to you on that.

Suzi:  I agree with …

Beth:  That was really … Yes, go ahead. Sorry, Suzi.

Suzi:  I agree with the merits of joining the group. I did it on my own for about 2 or 3 years. It was great. Joette’s site, I mean, fantastic! You can glean so much, and I did.

But to gain the confidence in the amount of time of joining the group is just … you can’t compare. For me, I was listening to all this, I’m like, “Wow, how do they remember all this stuff? This is amazing!”

Then I was listening, we were doing the Allergy class together, so I was listening to Joette during the week. Then I was talking about it later in the week, and that’s, you know, that repetition, and I was like, “Oh, I’m starting to remember it. Oh, Apis, I’ve heard that before. Oh! Oh, okay!” All these different words that I, in my own mind have been saying quietly by myself, didn’t sink in as much as when you’re hearing … And you’re making laugh … we’re laughing, and you’re hearing these wonderful stories.

There’s nothing like joining the group. It’s fantastic.

Kate:  Debbie, what are your thoughts about joining the study group?

Debbie:  I really enjoyed our group. I knew Beth and Suzy (with a Y) were a lot more knowledgeable. Suzi (with an I) might have, too — been a lot more knowledgeable than I am. Any time we have questions, we have a group chat that we can ask questions, and they’re always so sweet and very helpful.

We all get together — I mean, get together on Zoom — to do our group study together. Like you said, it’s great because if you don’t have someone to ask, you’re kind of like, “What would I do?” Or when you get nervous, you’re not sure what to do.

Sometimes, like … one of the other things I’ve learned is writing things down. Karlin reminded me the other day about my index cards. I’ve read that somewhere in Joette’s site about writing it down on index cards because I don’t remember everything.

But it’s been very helpful for the group to get together and help each other and encourage each other along the way, so you don’t think you’re all alone.

Because, like, my daughter thinks it’s crazy here and there. She doesn’t think it works, but then she does. You know? She’ll ask me for things a little bit here and there, but she doesn’t want to admit it.

So, you have people that are supporting you through it all. This makes it much easier.

Kate:  I’ve heard you guys talking a lot about the benefits of a study group. I know when we talked earlier, you said that’s a point that you really want to make to the listeners is how important this study group has been to you. Is there anything that you want to add to that?

Suzy:  I think for me, (this is Suzy with a Y), it’s empowerment. Giving another mom a tool in her arsenal to help care for her family by herself, and then watching the success and then watching how the knowledge of homeopathy is branching out into our communities. It’s just so exciting for me, and it’s great to spur each other on the greater works. I guess that’s how I would put it for myself. I can’t talk about homeopathy enough.

Beth:  Yeah, and accountability. Like, we all were, like, kind of looking at the information, reading the blogs and stuff. But when you start getting into the classes, and you can get distracted really easily. So, us doing the classes together keeps us accountable and working through it.

Then as questions come up in the group, I’ll go figure out what the answer is and bring it back, or they will. It helps us to continue to learn even outside of what’s in the class.

Suzi: I love that my confidence just grew tremendously. Not only that, but when we are in the middle of talking, and someone says, “Oh, you know, we use this for sunscreen,”

I’m like, “Wait, what? I’ve never thought to even think about that.”

You know? And for me, that’s what it was helpful where you just … for me, it was just coming up with new ways to help my family and to have less chemicals or whatever it be, but to heal them was just … has been great for my family.

Birgit:  I have to say for me the group is everything because I don’t know how many times Suzy shared the protocols with me before for my kids’ allergies. I never really tried it until I joined the group.

I did the Gateway I, Gateway II. It gave me understanding of homeopathy first of all. Before I had the basic understanding, I really didn’t take it seriously.

We have a meeting every week. It keeps me on track. It keeps me focused. I live and breathe homeopathy! We have a meeting every week. Since then, it’s been super helpful. Thank you.

Suzy:  Another thing that it does is sometimes I’m impatient to wait for the protocol to work. When we call each other, “How long has it been?” “Well, you know, you got to give it at least two months.”

It’s, “Oh, yes. Okay.”

There’s accountability there because I have a tendency to want to jump, jump to the next, jump to the next. There’s some patience in homeopathy, too.

Debbie:  I want to piggyback off that with Suzy was I had plantar fasciitis several years ago. Whatever. And I used the homeopathy, and it went away. And then I’ve gotten it back, and it just won’t go away.

The same thing, I’m thinking, “Okay.”

I was looking up online Joette’s stuff, and people are like, “Okay, you got to wait, like, you know, it takes up to two months.”

I’m, like, “Oh, okay.”

So, I re-started it again and hoping it’s going to go away this time and stick to that at least for two months, two to three months.

Beth:  The other thing for us is we actually met once in person, and that was really nice, too, to get together and meet up and just connect even more. Like, connecting once a week is great, and then seeing each other, and we’ve all gotten closer.

The whole group dynamic has just been great for, I think, all of us. I think I can speak for all of us. We miss it. We haven’t been doing it this summer as much because it’s summertime. We’re ready to get started again.

We’ve decided that starting next, we’re going to do the Good Gut, Bad Gut class. We’re looking forward to that.

And start a kids’ class for some of the kids that want to do it — the Cool Kids class — which was so much fun.

We just love getting together and talking about homeopathy, and it’s just a blessing to be able to help everyone that we know live a better life.

Suzy:  Honestly, it’s been a great distraction from just the current affairs of the world. To continue to learn and get the intellectual stimulation and to just continue to grow is what’s helping me a lot to get through some of these more trying times that we’re in.  

Kate:  I can tell you that after meeting you and doing this podcast together, these women are so precious! They are just so sweet and genuine, and I have loved getting to know you. I feel like I’m already part of your group. I want to join in!

Suzi:  Join in anytime.

Beth:  Anytime, Kate.

Kate:  I just encourage if you’re listening to find a group. There’s Joette’s Find Your Study Group page. Connect with some people whether they are local or on Zoom far away. You’ll really be glad that you connected with other people.

Thank you all for being here and sharing your stories. I know it’s sometimes not easy. So, I appreciate you encouraging the listeners. Thank you.

Suzy:  Thank you so much, Kate.

Birgit:  Thank you.

Beth:  Thank you, Kate.

Joette:  As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising.

But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

In these podcasts, I focus on those students of mine who have already tunneled in and learned how to take care of themselves, family, friends, and pets, and even livestock using homeopathic medicine. Many of these students began their education by participating in one of my Gateway to Homeopathy study groups. And now, after taking one or more of my courses, they’re well-trained to use my specific brand of homeopathy.

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

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

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

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

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

09:33    Advice for Learning Homeopathy

11:58    Stories of Medicines Used for Animals

20:00    Stories of Medicines Used for Humans

32:15    Carry Your Remedies

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

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

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

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

The Survivalist Guide to Homeopathy

Joette’s Mighty Members

Sepia for Mother’s Day! This Time for Headaches

Double, Double Boil and Trouble

The Eyes Have It: Chronic Dry Eyes

Dental Infections and Bone Spurs

Let Me Google That for You

RuralHillCreations on Etsy

My blog, podcasts, Facebook Live events and courses

Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 115.

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

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

Kate:  Hi. This is Kate, and I want to welcome you back to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast. I have a very sweet friend here with me today. Her name is Elaine.

I’m excited to talk to you, Elaine, because we’ve just been chatting on and on about homeopathy. And, actually, I had to stop us because we were just sharing so much information — so much good information — that I wanted Joette’s listeners to hear what we were saying.

I’m excited because you have a lot of things to share. You’ve studied homeopathy quite extensively. You’re in school. You’ve taken quite a few of Joette’s courses. You help other people. You get calls. You just told me about a veterinary that called you. You have a lot to share. I am just thrilled to welcome you to the podcast, Elaine.

Elaine:  Thank you for having me, Kate. I’m really excited to be here.

Kate:  Yes. Tell us about your background.

Elaine:  Well, my background is I am actually a college instructor, a nutritionist. I mostly teach nutrition. Sometimes I teach a drug course for the criminal justice students. I love my job. I love working with older, college age, as opposed to young kids. I have two grown daughters. One seriously believes in homeopathy. One is torn, not sure. So that’s a little bit about me.

I’ve dabbled in homeopathy years and years ago when my kids were really little, but I really only knew a little bit about Arnica, Calendula, Oscillococcinum. That’s kind of about my limit. I knew I believed in it, but I really didn’t know where to go. I didn’t even know how to find a homeopath, if I’d wanted to.

Kate:  Right. You were telling me about the tubes, and all you knew was you pick up a homeopathic medicine and what it says to use it for on the tube.

Elaine:  I remember Thuja because Thuja, it is so common today. I’ve been hearing about it, but I remember picking up Thuja and going warts. Okay, I don’t have warts. I put it back on the shelf. There was only one thing on each tube. Now of course, we know each remedy takes care of multiple things, but they can only put, like, one thing on the tube. I was kind of confused by that, so I really left it alone. And they didn’t have all these wonderful books that they have today.

Kate:  Right, so many resources. In fact, we were just comparing materia medicas and repertories and having fun reading the introduction to those.

If you own a materia medica or a repertory, I want to encourage you, even the Banerji protocol book, go to the beginning and read because there’s a lot of extra information that you can learn in those books — just a wealth of information. So, definitely start at the beginning.

Let’s talk about how you found Joette and what you’ve done with homeopathy — kind of your progression throughout the years since you’ve learned that it’s more than just what it says on that little tube.

Elaine:  I guess the hardcore stuff started four or five years ago when my asthma got really bad, kind of peaked, and I had two really bad asthma attacks that scared me. So, I went to my regular doctor, and she wanted to put me on two different inhalers and one or two different pills — mostly steroid based — and I was very upset. I didn’t have a problem with the emergency inhaler, but I did not want to put steroids in my body.

I just said, “There’s got to be another way.”

Her comment to me was, “No, this asthma is a chronic condition. You have to learn how to live with it and how to treat it. There is no cure for it.”

I kind of left there thinking, “I’ll find a way.”

So, it started about that same time. I started doing a lot of research, a lot of digging. I actually did start taking a couple remedies on my own. Then I bumped across Joette’s website and kind of started reading a lot of her blogs and listening to her podcasts. And I fell in love with her take on homeopathy and decided to become a client.

It took me a while because I had fill out the paperwork and think about it, right? I finally sent the paperwork in about a couple years ago. I did meet with her as a client. It really did help me … I think I was on the right track; she told me I was definitely on the right track … help me come up with other remedies and some other problems that I was dealing with like migraines.

That’s about it. I didn’t really have a lot of health issues, but the asthma and the migraines were very, you know, very, say, frustrating. The asthma was very scary to me.

Kate:  Right. So, do you still have the asthma?

Elaine:  It is, I would say, 90/95% gone — or better. Occasionally, I have a … and I think it’s part of … there are some allergies. I have the spring allergies which I think is what triggered some of the asthma or spasms. But to be honest, some of the remedies I have taken have really helped those. Mostly S.O.S., I take Kali carb which has been wonderful when I have any kind of wheezing.

Kate:  So, what you’re saying is Kali carbonicum, and what potency do you use?

Elaine:  Kali carbonicum 200 will pretty much stop a wheezing attack right in the middle of it. It just stops. It’s really interesting, fascinating. Every time I take it, I go, “How long is this going to take?” And I’m surprised every time. It takes like 30 seconds — maybe a minute.

And then, sometimes, I often have a lot of clearing of my throat and mucus production due to allergies, and Ipecac 30C, literally, within one to two minutes, will clear my throat and everything will calm down. It’ll pretty much dissipate, go away.

Kate:  That’s great. I think a lot of people have problems with that. I don’t know if there’s just more allergies going on in the world or what, but it seems like a pretty common problem.

Elaine:  In so many people. I was what they call age-onset asthma. I didn’t have it my whole life. So, when I developed it probably 10 years ago, maybe 15 years ago, I just used the emergency inhaler once or twice when I’d have a cold, but that’d never go away. Then I had these two asthma attacks. I knew something else was brewing. I think it was just culminating, the combination of allergies with the asthma and all of a sudden … and my age, probably getting a little older.

Kate:  You’ve consulted with Joette. You’ve taken many of her courses. In fact, I think you said you own how many courses?

Elaine:  I think I have six now.

Kate:  Six.

Elaine:  Not counting Gateway I and II. I actually started with the Gateway I, and I ran the class myself. I got just about five friends of mine and myself, and we had a ball with it. I was going to do the Gateway II when we saw you had a class online. We thought, “Let’s not wait. Let’s take the class with Kate.” So, we actually all took the Gateway II with you.

I had already purchased the Skin class. I was kind of working on the Skin class while doing the Gateway II, and I really enjoyed the Skin class.

Then the next one was the Allergic?! Then the Pain class. I really wanted to take a live class with Joette just to see if it was different, right? It was really good information.

I have a few others. I haven’t finished all of them. The Survivalist is one of my favorites. I’m about a third of the way through that one.

Like I said, I have six of those done. I plan on doing all of them, but it takes time.

Kate:  Yes. And you’re busy. You’re also going to school for homeopathy.

Elaine:  Yeah, yeah. The nice part is its part time, (so you can go part time, because I still work full time), but it’s very interesting. Doing that and taking Joette’s classes, it’s pretty much my spare, my free, time is homeopathy.

Kate:  Right. Looking back Elaine — how you started and the classes and consulting and going to school — maybe give us some advice. Looking back, what would you do or what would you recommend that people do? Because you’ve gone through a lot of trial and error, you’ve done so many different things. Tell us what you think would be helpful.

Elaine:  That’s a good question because had I known, I think my sole research was good because I was really getting into some good stuff and some good books. But had I known, I really would have started with the Gateway classes right away because I learned so much basic information that I already had, but I had it from like 10 different sources. Everything was in Gateway I and II. I would tell anybody, do that first.

Also, I think the Facebook Lives and the podcasts are wonderful. I would tell everybody to be part of those. If you want to go a little bit deeper, I belong to the Mighty Members, Joette’s Mighty Members. That’s kind of fun, a little more detailed, a little more depth than the Facebook Lives, but I would start there.

Then when you really want to delve in, take one of Joette’s courses. I did it kind of backwards.

Kate:  Yes. Then if you’re interested in pursuing education maybe from there, you would say?

Elaine:  Yes. Absolutely. Well, you and I were saying earlier, there’s so much information out there on homeopathy. Taking a couple of classes through Joette would be the best, a good secondary step or third step before you really contemplate going to college or going to further your education (like going for a certificate), because that is trying to say, where do you want to go? Do you want to go online? Do you want to go international? Do you want to stay in this country?

Of course, I’m really looking forward to Joette’s Practical Homeopathy® Academy when that starts.

Kate:  Yes. You said you’re going to fit that into everything else that you’re doing.

Elaine:  I hope to. I hope to. So, just pick and choose but start small and then add on. There’s plenty to do just with Joette’s Mighty Members, her website, and her courses.

Kate:  So, let’s get into some of the nuts and bolts of how you’ve used all these medicines that you’ve learned about over the years. Tell us some stories.

Elaine:  Okay, well, I guess I could start with some of my cat and dog stories. I have two dogs and two cats. I kind of started with them. Your own kids or your own animals are your kind of like guinea pigs. I’ve saved so much money not going to the emergency clinic for my animals.

My cat … Cats are interesting. Cats can’t throw up or get sick because they can get dehydrated really easily, whereas dogs, it’s not that big a deal. My cats, on occasion, about twice a year, they will throw up. They don’t go outside. They’re indoor cats, but they still get stomach aches occasionally. I just gave them Nux vomica one time and within 5-10 minutes, they were back to normal. I was like, “Okay.” I used the Nux vomica on my cats every time they throw up and don’t want to eat.

Kate:  Hey, that’s a good tip. I’ve used Arsenicum album. I think I’ve used it in the 30th potency when I’ve had a cat that has thrown up, and it stopped it. What potency did you use of the Nux?

Elaine:  I think it was 30. Yes, just 30.

Kate:  Okay.

Elaine:  Then one cat, I couldn’t get it in his mouth no matter what. I know it’s best to get it in their mouth. A friend of mine told me you can also put it in a water solution and wipe it in their ears or the top of their head. But, I sprinkled it on their food, and he ate it, and he still got better.

Kate:  That’s good. Yes, I put some drops in some water, and then I put the cat’s face near the water and splashed it on the mouth area.

Elaine:  That would work. The other cat, I put it in his mouth real easily. But the one …

Then my daughter called me one day kind of nervous because her cat was acting really funny, not eating and kind of salivating and making funny noises with its mouth. She was getting ready to rush her to the emergency room. She said, “Do you have anything I can try?”

I’m like, “Try the Nux because it sounds stomach and same kind of symptoms.”

Sure enough, she texted me back in 10 minutes. She was, “You’re not going to believe this. She’s totally normal and eating her food.” So, I probably would have done the Arsenicum album, like you mentioned, if that one didn’t work. But it worked on her cat and my two cats.

Kate:  Yes, I think the other thing about with Nux vomica, I’ve used it with our dogs as well, because when they go outside, who knows what they get into. Even the cats indoors like, what do they actually ingest because, you know, cats tend to play with and eat a lot of things that they’re not supposed to. So, that is it. A wise choice. Yes.

Elaine:  That’s a perfect segue to my dog, my one dog, who’s a Staffordshire Terrier who likes to eat anything. He was down in the basement with the kitties. And he loves the cats, but he ate one of the cat toys. We didn’t know until he couldn’t pass it about a week later. He couldn’t throw it up, and he couldn’t pass it.

So, we took him to the emergency. Sure enough, he had swallowed a fuzzy catnip toy. It was stuck in the very early part of his intestines in the duodenum area. So, he had to undergo emergency surgery to remove the cat toy.

It was complicated because he has Addison’s disease. His body doesn’t produce cortisol. He does take a very low-dose prednisone. But it complicated the surgery. He was very sick. He was in the emergency room intensive care for six days. I finally brought him home on the sixth, and they didn’t release him because he wasn’t going to eat. I think he didn’t want to eat because he wasn’t home. Because as soon as we brought him home, he started eating, but he was very, very sick. His entire stomach was blood red from a bruising from the surgery. So, they were very good though. They let me bring in all my homeopathy kits and let me treat him.

Kate:  Nice.

Elaine:  Yes, I gave him Arnica for the bleeding. I gave him Staphysagria for the incision site. (I think that was a 200.) I gave him Calendula for the skin, the skin area. I’m trying to think what else. Hypericum for nerve. Dogs and cats don’t tell. They can’t talk, right? I gave him Hypericum. I do think they helped. He was stable. He just wasn’t allowed to come home because he wasn’t eating.

But the sixth day, we brought him home ,and he would eat small amounts. I really do believe that the remedies helped him stay stable while he was in the intensive care hospital. That was a really scary, a scary thing.

Kate:  Yes.

Elaine:  The chiropractor that takes care of … she does people and dogs. She had had a cat who seemed to have some issues and asked the cat’s owner if she would like to talk to me and my friend because we were both in homeopathy school. You know, we’re not homeopaths, but we are learning. Would we want to talk to her about her kitty?

We met with her, and we talked with her. Her cat was afraid of everything, hiding everywhere, picked on by the other cat. So, we talked about it. We repertorized it — meaning we looked in the repertory and tried to look up just the same as an animal is a person, right? We looked at fear, hiding, afraid.

We basically came up with Aconite 30, one dose and to try that. We asked her to have Thuja 30 on hand because he came to her as a three-month-old kitty having had like multiple vaccinations pretty much all done in the same day. So, we didn’t know if he was having leftover reactions from that. But the Aconite works so beautifully, she stopped there and didn’t go to the Thuja.

I said, “Call me if you have any questions. We’ll proceed if he’s backtracking or becoming afraid again.”

Kate:  Yeah.

Elaine:  That was kind of fun.

Kate:  That’s great!

Elaine:  Yes. Let’s see. My daughter has a dog who gets pneumonia. She has some health issues, and she gets pneumonia very easily. So, we gave her the pneumonia protocol which was really Kali carbonicum and Antimonium tart. I’m not sure, I want to say 200 each.

Within two days, her pneumonia was under control and not coughing. She uses that probably once or twice a year, and she can tell because of her breathing with allergies will get very, very raspy and mucousy. She will use the pneumonia protocol on her dog.

The only other animal one: I had a friend whose kitty cat … No, I’m sorry, it was her dog who had a very bad UTI, bladder infection. We thought she sounded more like Medorrhinum which is a nosode for UTIs. One dose — one dose — and the dog went to sleep.

Kate:  Oh, my gosh!

Elaine:  I know. We were surprised. The next day, she was totally fine. She was going to the bathroom every 15 minutes for about six hours.

Kate:  Before?

Elaine:  Before. Before the Medorrhinum.

Kate:  Wow.

Elaine:  That was a shocker.

Kate:  I know. I feel like when I’ve used homeopathy with animals, they’ve responded so quickly. So, people who talk about homeopathy being a placebo, and it’s the placebo effect, they clearly haven’t seen homeopathy work with animals.

Elaine:  Right. Right. Babies and animals. There’s no placebo.

Kate:  Right. Exactly.

Kate:  Let’s move to people. Tell us some of the stories with people.

Elaine:  I’m going to start with my favorite one because this was a shocker. One of my best friend’s husband had ankle surgery this past December. He had fallen off a ladder putting up Christmas lights on the house, and he broke his ankle.

She was really excited. She wanted to use the homeopathy and so did he! He didn’t want to do any of the traditional pain meds afterwards.

We had him mostly on Arnica 200 and Hypericum 200. I think I said he could take the Hypericum 1M if the pain got really bad. I don’t even think he used the 1M. I think he was able to keep with the 200. He did not take any traditional allopathic pain medications.

We also gave him Staphysagria and Calendula. I believe they were also in 200. The Calendula might have been 30C for skin health and the incision.

Calc phos for the bone because he had splintered … he actually broke the bone. Symphytum and Calc phos, and we think the Symphytum was the magic. He went to the doctor two weeks later. He was in a boot, but he had the boot on like one of those carts because he couldn’t put any weight on it at all. Two weeks later, he was going to the doctor. He was so frustrated with the boot. It was banging into everything, and he wanted to get off of it.

The doctor was like, “It’s very doubtful you will be putting any weight on your foot even with the boot on.” So, he went to the doctor that day and they x-rayed it and the doctor couldn’t believe his bone healing. They said, “You can walk around on the bone. You can walk around in the boot now.”

Kate:  Wow. Two weeks?

Elaine:  Two weeks with a shattered ankle. He had two plates in there and multiple staples, and he was allowed to walk with the boot and put pressure on it.

Kate:  Wow!

Elaine:  That was, I think … My friend and I, we were shocked by that. We thought that was amazing.

For my migraines, I used the protocol Picricum acidum 200 and Belladonna 6. I think the protocol is for 3C, but I couldn’t get 3C anywhere in the United States. I used the 6C, and it works amazing. Just within not even five minutes, the migraine will have calmed down.

I still get some sinus headaches. I’m a headache person. I get sinus headaches on occasion, definitely not migraines, and the Sanguinaria 30 or 200 … I try to go to 30 if it works. If it doesn’t work, I try the 200. The Sanguinaria works beautifully for any kind of sinus, forehead sinus pain.

Kate:  You can actually find some of those medicines on a blog called Sepia for Mother’s Day! This Time for Headaches. Well, that was in 2016 that that blog was posted but that I know has the Picric acid and the Belladonna on there. So, if you want to look up, and you need some other ideas, Joette writes about Sanguinaria as well on that blog. If you have headaches, you might want to check that blog out.

Elaine:  Yes, it’s an excellent blog.

I have two different friends who have … One friend has a chronic problem with cysts, boils, pimples — I guess they’re all pretty related. I had one friend who had an emergency cyst from a headgear that she was wearing where she teaches exercise classes. (They sterilize it, but she’s like, “I don’t know if somebody forgot to one day.” She said, “I have no idea.”)

She was going away the next day on vacation to Mexico. She was frantic because she didn’t have time to go to the doctor’s. She’s like, “Is there anything I can take with me?”

So, I suggested that she take the protocol … I sent her to Joette’s blog, Double, Double Boil and Trouble and to use the protocol for cysts or boils. It’s Hepar sulph and Belladonna. She actually emailed me the next day from Mexico and said it was almost gone after two doses. She stayed on it for a few more days, but after two doses, it was almost gone.

Now my other friend who has the chronic cysts, she said it works within three to four days. It probably happens two or three times a year. But every time, it works. And she thinks that the time in between the cysts occurring is getting longer each time. I told her that’s one of the hallmarks that it’s probably rooting out the problem in that she’s having it ess often.

Kate:  Right. Yes. That’s something you look for is how often the problem occurs or how long it lasts …

Elaine:  And the intensity of the pain.

Kate:  Yes. Those are what we call the three magic markers.

Elaine:  That’s the magic markers. How can I forget that? I knew that.

Kate:  Right, that’s in the Gateway study guide.

Elaine:  Yes, exactly. That’s why I love going to the Gateway book.

Kate:  Yes.

Elaine:  I have three really short, easy, acute problems that happened to me. They’re my stories I tell friends when I’m trying to get them interested in homeopathy.

I had a wasp sting — I know this has happened to many people. I picked up the hose last summer, and a wasp was on the handle. And just a horrible sting. There was no stinger in my hand, but it was immediately red, swollen, a big bump. I thought, “Well, I’m going to experiment on myself,” right?

So, I took the Apis 30 — just 30 because I had it handy — and I counted. I literally counted to 20. The redness was almost gone, and the pain was gone. About five minutes later, I had no swelling, no redness, nothing. I was like, “Okay, fast, fast.”

My other fun one was my dog slammed my finger — running full force slammed my finger — the first joint on the corner of a wall. It was, you know, how you get a bruise, a very bad bruise. It was immediately turning purple, swollen. And anybody who knows me, I have my nails done, I thought, “Oh God, I’m going to not only lose my nail, I’m going to lose part of my finger.”

I took the Arnica. I took Arnica 30C that night, and I thought, “Oh, I’ll do it again in the morning. I’ll just see how bad it is.” The next morning, all I had left was a very thin purple line long the cuticle. The swelling was completely gone.

I don’t think I even took a second dose. By the end of that day, you couldn’t even tell I hit my finger. That was kind of interesting.

Then my other acute one was I grabbed the pan — the potholders slipped in the oven. I was taking a pan out of the oven.

Kate:  That sounds horrible.

Elaine:  Yes. I got a blister almost immediately. It wasn’t too big. It was like moon-shaped on my index finger. I thought, “Oh, Lord.”

So, I took Cantharis 200 for burns. And I had some Cantharis in a cream also, so I put that on my finger. Again, within about two hours, the blister had gone flat. It was still there, but it was completely flat. The next day, the blister had completely reabsorbed. It was gone.

Kate:  Did you take the Cantharis again?

Elaine:  Yes, I took it once before bed because like I said it was still there but flat. I only took it twice. The next morning, it was completely absorbed.

Kate:  You know that would have lasted for days.

Elaine:  Yes, when you see a bruise appear that quickly.

I have a couple that I have used with my boyfriend. He has a chronic problem. He has a heel spur, a bone spur. I believe there’s a protocol for bone spurs. I think it doesn’t matter if it’s in the shoulder or the heel. He takes the cell salt called Calc fluor and Hekla lava 30C is the remedy.

It’s been about six months, but the heel spur is almost gone. You have to really push hard. He can feel it, but it seems like it’s almost gone now.

He also tends to have very … his eyes, the wind, too much computer … his eyes get very dry and very bloodshot. I used Euphrasia, Euphrasia 30, which is for eye health. There’s a really good blog Joette has called The Eyes Have It: Chronic Dry Eyes. The photo really stands out because the photo in the blog is a woman with really bloodshot eyes. We use Euphrasia 30 for my boyfriend’s eyes, and it works after maybe one or two doses. It’s pretty much gone the next day.

Kate:  Going back to when you were talking about the bone spurs, Joette did a Facebook Live, and I believe it’s called Bone [Dental] Infections and Bone Spurs. You can look up that Facebook Live video as well.

Elaine:  Right, and he did have shingles a couple of years ago. I mean, he had a good case of it, but he didn’t have it horribly. He really didn’t want to take any medication. I’m not even sure there is anything if you have an outbreak of shingles.

The protocol for shingles was Antimonium crud. We did that. I think it’s twice a day for a few days. And I would say by the fourth or fifth day, it was tolerable. The blisters were almost gone.

Kate:  Yes, a friend of mine had shingles, and I know she found Hypericum very helpful for the pain.

Elaine:  Yes, for the pain.

Kate:  Yes. This is a good learning point here. If ever you need to look up what remedy to use for a condition, just Google even Joette and then the name of the condition, and you’ll find things oftentimes on that condition and see what to use.

In our Gateway study group last night, we were just talking about this because people were asking, “Well, what would we use for this, or what would we use for this?”

We just said, “You know, just go and Google it.”

It’s good to learn to use Joette’s name and then Google and you’ll often find the information that you need.

Elaine:  I do that all the time because I want to share, I want to just not tell somebody what to take, I want them to read about it, so, I look it up for them if they can’t find it. But if they can find it on their own …

If not, I’m looking it up all the time and sending them the actual link.

Kate:  That’s great. You know that whole thing about teaching a person to fish.

Elaine:  Right.

Kate:  Because then you can tell them just Google “Joette Calabrese” or even just “Joette.” Her name is so unique that you can often just Google “Joette”.

Elaine:  Exactly, and it almost always pops up. There are usually two or three different things that will pop up, and I look at all of them to see which one is the easiest to understand or the most recent one that she’s written.

Kate:  Right.

Elaine:  The only other friend one that really pops out at me is I had a friend who had hot flashes and mostly hot flashes with sweating. I believe we used the Lachesis 30, and it worked beautifully. She just used it S.O.S. When she had a really bad hot flash, she took it, and they gradually diminished over a couple of weeks. She’s pretty much hot flash-free as far as I know.

Kate:  Nice. When you say S.O.S, explain what you mean by that.

Elaine:  Emergency, like I’m having an acute thing at the moment. Like I had a hot flash, so she would treat the hot flash at that moment. It wasn’t really a chronic because it wasn’t happening all the time.

Carry Your Remedies

Kate:  All right, thank you. Well, Elaine, you’ve really given us a lot of information. This is a packed podcast. But let’s just wrap it up and tell us anything else that you’ve learned from your experience over these years of study that you want to share with the listeners today.

Elaine:  I guess the only thing I would add to the earlier tips we talked about is to not leave home without some remedies with you.

I have two very small pouches that I carry some remedies in. One is just for me, for my asthma. And then I have another slightly larger one that has very common things in it like Arsenicum album, Apis, Arnica so that I can share it with a friend if they hurt themselves (hit their head, neck and give them some Arnica). I probably have six remedies in that kit, but they’re all emergency remedies. I almost always can help somebody or help myself by having those two little pouches with me.

Kate:  What do you put the medicines in?

Elaine:  I have little EMF-protected pouches that I think I learned about from you, Kate, from the Gateway II class. And I bought them from the woman that you purchased your little …

Kate:  Yes, my friend Sue. She’s so sweet. She has a store on Etsy called RuralHillCreations — all one word. She sells those. Yes.

Elaine:  I bought three or four from her. I have a friend who bought a bunch. I have one that I carry around. If I’m going to share a little remedy with somebody, I’ll put it in there so I can take it with them.

Kate:  Yes. Great. Thank you so much for your willingness to talk to us and share all of your wisdom. I look forward to talking to you again after you’re done with more of these courses and school that you’re doing. I don’t know. It was very fun talking to you today.

Elaine:  Thank you, Kate. I’ve enjoyed it immensely.

Joette:  As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising.

But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

In these podcasts, I focus on those students of mine who have already tunneled in and learned how to take care of themselves, family, friends, and pets, and even livestock using homeopathic medicine. Many of these students began their education by participating in one of my Gateway to Homeopathy study groups. And now, after taking one or more of my courses, they’re well-trained to use my specific brand of homeopathy.

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

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

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

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

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

04:09    Getting into Homeopathy

14:42    Recommendation for Learning Homeopathy

19:31    Venomous Bites Story

39:16   Amazing Birth Story

43:18   Other Remedies

50:23   Words of Wisdom

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

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

The Survivalist Guide to Homeopathy

Allergic?! Escape Allergies, Sensitivities, and Intolerances, with Homeopathy.

Practical Protocols to Get Your Life Back

Homeopathy Needs You and a Tip to Tuck in Your Toolbox  

What to Expect When Using Homeopathy: Part 2

Survivalist kit

Birthing Series Part One: Turning a Breech Baby

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

My blog, podcasts, Facebook Live events and courses

Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 114.

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

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

Kate:  Hi, this is Kate, and I want to welcome you back to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast. Today, I’m joined by a wonderful Mom with Moxie. This mom has moxie — let me tell you. Her name is Rachel.

Rachel, welcome to the podcast.

Rachel:  Hi, Kate.

Kate:  Hi. I’m so excited to have you here. This is going to be a gripping podcast. You are going to talk today about venomous bites, right, Rachel?

Rachel:  Yes, more than one.

Kate:  More than one. Not one, not two, but three different venomous bites that you have used homeopathy to overcome. I’m excited to hear your story, and also for you to tell us about how homeopathy just really meshes with — or is an integral part of — your life and all the important parts of your life; how it is really intertwined in each of those areas. I’m excited for you to share your story with the listeners today.

Let’s get started by having you just tell us a little bit about yourself, Rachel.

Rachel:  Yes, sure. I’m married with four kids and a whole bunch of animals. I live in California. Yeah, homeopathy just touches all the important points of my life: family, ministry, helping other people, helping my animals and my plants thrive, and also feeding me intellectually. Like Joette says, “Intellectually delicious.” It is! It feeds my soul. So, I am thankful to God for homeopathy. It does, it touches all of the important points of my life.

Kate:  I know when I had younger kids, it was so important to have that something that I could do with my mind that fed me and helped me to continue to grow — because, I mean, raising kids is amazing. I love being a mom. But it’s also nice to have that thing that you can do to continue to grow and learn and then turn around and use it to help your family and others like you said.

How old are your kids, Rachel?

Rachel:  They are 12 all the way down to two. So, I’ve got a houseful.

Kate:  You’re a busy mom. You don’t have time to figure this out as the situation occurs. You really need to know what remedies to use and have them on hand and be ready to go, I would imagine.

Rachel:  Yes, very well said. There are things that you can leisurely say, “Oh, I’ll go research that.” But sometimes, you got to know — on the spot — figure it out. And so studying ahead of time is huge.

Kate:  How did you get into homeopathy or come to find out about it?

Rachel:  Yes, our story is … it all started with a duck, actually.

One of our ducks, he was this special heritage breed that we had to wait like two years for the back orders to be fulfilled before we could get him mailed to us. He had a problem. It’s this thing that happens sometimes where they just keep getting abscesses on their feet.

We called the breeder, and he said, “Oh, I’m so sorry. Once that shows up, they never get rid of it. You can try to treat it, but they’ll just always get it again and again. And he is not good breeding stock. You don’t want to breed him.”

We were crestfallen! I just refused to give up on this guy. We had tried. Actually, we tried what the breeder said. We tried the antibiotics, and we cleaned out the wound. It was traumatic for us and for him. We bandaged it up faithfully every day. It actually went away, and then just like the breeder said, it came back a week later. We felt, “Oh, man. We’re going to have to put him down like the breeder said.”

But I said, “Let me just, I don’t know … let me just see if I can find something online.”

I just went online and started kind of a last-ditch effort to try to find something. I stumbled on homeopathy — or God led me to homeopathy. I thought, “I don’t even know what this stuff is.” No clue. I don’t even think I was pronouncing the word right. Never heard of it.

I was like, “Hey, babe, I don’t know, like I’m thinking maybe these two remedies.” I don’t even know where I was reading it. “Can you go to the store and go pick them up, and we’ll try it?”

We did. We caught the duck, and my husband was holding his little beak open — his little bill — and I was just about ready to put the pellet in, and I stopped. I looked at my husband, and I said, “If this works as good as it says it’s going to work, it’s going to change my life.” He kind of laughed. I was like, “No, I’m serious. If this works as good as it says, I’m going after it. I want to see what happens.”

So, we gave him the pellet then put him to bed for the night in his pen. You know, I didn’t know what to expect. I kind of expected nothing. It was just a last-ditch effort.

He was not moving. He stayed right where he was; he could not walk. He’d been like that for days. When I went out there in the morning, he was hobbling around — just from overnight. The infection was less angry and red and hot.

I thought, “What?” So, I gave him another dose. Then by that night, he was running. He was running!

I think the next day, maybe the day after, there was nothing. There was no infection whatsoever. It had completely gone down. He’s still running around outside to this day. He has never gotten it again. Needless to say, that was enough to convince me, and I have not stopped falling down the rabbit hole since.

Kate:  It’s deep and wide, that hole. I love that. It all started with a duck. If he only knew he changed your life, that duck did.

Rachel:  He’s a profound part of our family now.

Kate:  Yes. How did you come to find out about Joette?

Rachel:  I started to dig down, and I started to see a lot of good information online. But it was only half of what I needed. It told me all about these wondrous remedies, and then I said, “Okay, okay, where do I buy it? What do I do?”

Then I thought, “Oh, my gosh! There’s 6X and C and 30 and 200, and what and how often.” I started thinking I need something that can actually lead me through this. This is very complex.

I wonderfully stumbled on Joette’s website somehow. Then I thought “this.” This is what I was looking for. After I found Joette’s website, I prayed, and I talked to my husband. I said, “I think I really want to go after this,” because, you know, in my life, I want to be like Jesus was. He was always helping people. He was always healing people and helping people. I can’t do miracles, but this is about as close as I can come. This really helps people. It really relieves people’s suffering. My husband and I thought it would be good to just dive into her courses, and I have not looked back.

Kate:  So, where did you go from there?

Rachel:  From there, I didn’t have the funds at the time to do a course, which I immediately wanted to do. I did what I thought at the time was second best, and I decided to just start stalking her blog and reading everything that she’s ever written.

You know what? Everybody says it now and it’s true: it’s an education in and of itself. I have since gone on to take the courses which are fantastic, but I just started reading, and I just started absorbing.

The first class I took was the Good Gut, Bad Gut. I listened to it eight times through before I decided to actually start treating what was first and foremost in my heart, which is our family’s food intolerances.

Kate:  Wow! Eight times you listened to that course.

Rachel:  Yes. It is so chock-full that I wanted to just … Every time you kind of go a layer deeper, and so you just listen again and again. Finally, I felt like, “Okay, I got a handle on the overall picture,” and I felt competent enough to jump into our lifelong food intolerances.

Kate:  How has that gone since you started working on the food intolerances?

Rachel:  It has changed our life. I know that sounds all cliché or something, but I can’t even tell you. Our family — we were down to about, I don’t know, six or eight foods that we could eat. I had to make everything from scratch. I couldn’t even use baking powder because it had corn in it. I had to use only certain spices, and they had to be ground fresh because there might be mold on the pepper.

I mean like it was outrageously awful. It was like a prison. Our family did our best to try to help us with that. But, you know, it’s kind of a bummer, birthday parties and stuff. It was so awful.

We tried everything. We tried everything to take care of it, and nothing was touching it. If my children even had like a bite of something with wheat in it, they would blow up. They would get blisters from head to toe. I, as their mother, would not recognize them …

Kate:  Oh, my gosh!

Rachel:  … they looked so awful.

Kate:  So, we’re not talking about some minor food intolerance. We’re talking about debilitating food intolerance.

Rachel:  We’re talking working with the doctor and really, like, scary food intolerances. The reaction would last weeks. They were miserable. It was so awful. It was so hard.

So, we started on the protocols talked about in Good Gut, Bad Gut. I knew to not expect anything for a while, you know. I conveyed that to my family, but somehow one of my little ones didn’t quite … he misunderstood.

Someone had brought over English muffins (not sure why they brought them over to us), but my little guy, he ate one. I think we were on the protocol for about three months. He ate one.

And I was planning on, like, “Okay, we’re going to try like this tiny little bit on the tip of your tongue and not even swallow it, and then we’ll see. And, you know and like, make sure the doctor is there” and all this stuff.

He was like, “Hey, Mom, I just ate an English muffin.”

In my mind, it was like this red flashing light started going off and a siren, like, “waaah, waaah, waaah,” like glass doors went down. I was ready to jump into action.

Kate:  Oh, my gosh!

Rachel:  He saw the panic on my face. He’s like, “No, no, Mom, Mom, Mom, I’m okay. Look, I’m fine.” He showed me where his blisters usually start, and he was fine — completely fine. English muffins have everything that they shouldn’t eat. Every ingredient is bad, and they were fine.

Kate, seriously, like we can go out for pizza. We can eat birthday cake. I mean, the only problem now is not eating too much junk food because we can eat it all now!

Kate:  Rachel, this is incredible! I want to let everyone know that you did this by studying on your own with the information. It’s not like you consulted with Joette. You studied and studied and learned this stuff, and you are healing your family.

Rachel:  I cannot thank God enough. It literally has changed our lives. I think we were the weirdest family at the pizza place that first time because we all just sat there eating with our eyes closed and just silent. We were so in awe that we were eating pizza!

Kate:  I can picture that you all are enjoying every bite and savoring it.

Kate:  You’ve also, I know, joined in the study groups because you’re a part of our study group which is super-fun. So, I got to know you that way.

What’s great is that I remember you talking in the Q & A and asking Joette a question which relates to what we’re going to be talking about in the podcast today.

But tell us about the study groups and just kind of help people to know, since you’ve done the study groups, you’ve gone through all the information that Joette has for free. You’ve taken courses. What do you say for those people who are wondering, “Where do I go and where do I start?” What would be your recommendation as far as learning homeopathy?

Rachel:  Oh, boy! Hang out on her blog; listen to the podcast; soak up everything that you can; and definitely do the Gateways. My favorite part is the live Q & A at the end where you actually get to ask Joette a few questions. If you have a chance to hear Joette talk, just listen. Just do it. Be there. You will learn so much.

Kate:  Yes. It’s surprising to me when people don’t opt to participate in the live Q & A. There is always so much information and wisdom that is shared. Like you said, sit there and absorb it. Try to take notes and remember what was talked about.

And it’s always so different. I don’t know how it is for those of you who have taken other people’s study groups, but I think it’s the same way that once you’ve taken a study group, you can just join in again at no additional cost and keep participating in those Q & As. You can do that over and over again.

Rachel:  Yes, that is one of the best reasons to take a Gateway, in my opinion.

Kate:  Yes. So, that’s a great segue — the Gateway and the Q & As — into your stories. I know people are probably on the edge of their seats wanting to hear how you’ve used homeopathy with these venomous bites.

Do you want to just share your experiences? I know they are really amazing.

Rachel:  Yes, sure. The first one was a black widow spider bite. It bit this person two times. They tried various things to treat it. It just got infected and was getting worse.

This person wasn’t sleeping at night. Their arm and their thumb where they got bit was fiery red, fiery pain, just awful looking — so swollen, probably double the size. The thumb was double the size, and I kind of came across it after six days and said, “Oh, my gosh! Do you want some help with that?”

So, it was actually on one of her blogs. This was when I was just barely kind of getting started. I looked up “Joette Calabrese black widow spider bite” and crossed my fingers hoping that she’d written about it.

And she did! She had written about it.

I basically did what she said. The only thing I added in was I soaked it and cleaned it with diluted Hypericum tincture. I literally saw the difference in minutes.

It was, I think, a minute and a half or two minutes. This person’s shoulders were up around their ears, tense with the pain, grimacing with the pain. I literally saw within minutes the shoulders dropped down and relaxed. They started to talk and kind of chat.

Then you could see … I mean, there were like red streaks going from the wound up, like dangerous, you know, sepsis kind of stuff. You could watch the red line receding.

Kate:  Oh, my!

Rachel:  You could watch the red becoming a little less angry. Over the course of a few days, it began healing, and it was better within … oh, I’d have to check my notes. Within a week, it was clean and healthy-looking and on the mend. He slept that night for the first time. No pain meds (and pain meds were not touching it before).

It was wondrous to see.

Kate:  Rachel, that is a great story. It’s so nice when we can just Google “Joette Calabrese” plus “spider bite” or whatever it is. I love it when that information is easily accessible like that.

Rachel:  The next one was my turn. I stepped on a scorpion. It was wonderful.

Kate:  By wonderful, you mean horrible.

Rachel:  Yes, probably like feeling like I stepped on a red-hot nail. It just immediately started sending like lava pain up my foot and back up into my shoulder blades of my back. I started having kind of a tingling sensation in my mouth. It was this strange reaction.

I took the appropriate remedies. I yelled for my husband, “Get my kit. Get my kit!! Get my kit!” I just started popping the remedies every few minutes. Within 15 minutes, I remember I was able to sit down and start teaching school again.

Kate:  Oh, my gosh!

Rachel:  I was still taking the remedies every five minutes or so, but it wasn’t like, “Oh, my gosh, climbing on the walls” kind of pain anymore. The reaction went down. The blotchy rash went away. It just took it away, so fast!! It was amazing.

Kate:  Rachel, that’s incredible. You went back to teaching school 15 minutes after being stung by a scorpion!!

Rachel:  I was even amazed myself. I was teaching but in the back of my head, I was thinking, “Wow, God, thank you. Thank you for homeopathy.”

Kate:  Yes. How did you remember what to take?

Rachel:  You know, I had been studying what to take, in case for scorpion, just because they can be around here. I wanted to be ready. It just popped into my head when I needed it from the studying.

Kate:  That’s fantastic. It’s a good thing you were prepared that day.

Rachel:  I’m glad because that’s not the time when you want to start looking through your book.

Kate:  Right. Yes, that is such a good point. That’s what you were saying earlier is really to know the medicines and know the things that are in your environment that you could encounter. I mean, we can’t know everything, but that was very wise that you studied those things.

You had also prepared for the next venomous bite. Tell us about the question that you asked Joette in the Q & A.

Rachel:  Okay. Here’s the big enchilada one. I had been anticipating that someday at some point, someone, some animal, would be bitten by a rattlesnake because they are everywhere out here. I mean, just all over the place. You will encounter one at some point where we live.

I thought, “Yeah, I need to know what to do ahead of time, and I want to make sure I have the remedies ahead of time.” I learned about what to do in the Survivalist course for a rattlesnake bite, but I had some other questions and just kind of wanted to understand the thought behind the remedies a little more and ask her some questions.

And that is where those beautiful Q & As came in. She was so, so helpful. Yes, those Q and As, they are amazing. They’re my absolute favorite thing to do.

Kate:  Yes, I agree. You got the information from Joette. You felt like you were prepared if something were to occur?

Rachel:  Yes. I just kept studying the remedies that are involved so that I would really be able to recognize which one was needed. I put together a kit so that if we were out hiking or something, we’d have it on us. I felt as ready as I could be.

Then one day, I got a phone call. A horse had been bitten twice by a rattlesnake. Those suckers, they cause excruciating pain. This poor horse shaking, and the leg was swelling immediately.

I got called, “Is there anything that homeopathy can do?”

I thought, “Oh, my gosh! Here we go. All the studies that I’d done, I’m going to have a chance to try it.”

All that they had on them though, I was like, “All right, I’m ready. Okay, I know the remedies.”

They said, “We don’t have any of our remedies with us. We only have a few combination remedies.”

I thought, “Oh, boy!” So, I looked up the ingredients, the remedies in there. Thank God, one of them had Lachesis 30, which was one of the remedies that I wanted. Another combination that they had had Crotalus 30, which is the other remedy that I wanted.

They started giving the horse those two combination remedies that were not for rattlesnake bite, but it had the correct remedies in there. The horse started to improve.

But they were also giving steroids and pain medication and a bunch of other things. It’s impossible to tell what was acting. The owner, he made the decision that he wanted to do the antivenom.

They continued giving those combination remedies — with those two beautiful medicines in it — to the horse even after the antivenom. The horse was doing okay. Okay — not great, okay. Then they were running out of the combination remedy, and they thought that the horse was okay, and so they stopped giving it.

Pretty quickly, the leg began to swell and swell and swell until it was twice what it was before.

Kate:  Oh, my!

Rachel:  The horse started going downhill. He stopped eating. His head drooped down. His eyes were dull. He didn’t really care what happened to him. Then I got another phone call saying, “Is there anything we can do for this horse?” (That was a day and a half after the bite.)

I heard how he was doing, and I said, “Well, you can try this: Lachesis 30 by itself (not in the combination) and the Crotalus 30 by itself. Alternate them every five minutes because he was in dire straits, and I’ll come over there.”

I went over there. It took me about 45 minutes to get there. When I got there, I was almost thinking, “Did I come to the wrong stall?” because this horse’s head was up. His ears pricked forward when I walked up. His eyes were bright. I looked down and sure enough, he had this huge leg.

I said, “Oh, he looks better.”

They said, “I know. I know! After we started giving those remedies, he just picked up. He just perked up.”

Kate, they were telling the owner, they were talking to him and preparing him for euthanasia.

Kate:  Wow!

Rachel:  There were concern for compartment syndrome, and that the skin would actually split because it was still swollen. It appeared the only option left for him was more antivenom and a $10,000 surgery where they would keep him sedated in a sterile environment with his legs open, and the tendon to be cut open, and the wound in the sheath repeatedly flushed out for days — and hopefully not get an infection. But this was financially out of the owner’s reach. He was devastated, just devastated.

So, they were gently preparing the owner for the fact that euthanasia was the next thing for his beloved horse. I’m looking at this horse in front of me, and I’m thinking, “This is not what they were describing.”

I stayed there for half the night observing the horse. He began to put weight on the leg. He began to eat again. He started to be playful and nibble at our shirt then asked for a treat. It was astonishing, astonishing! 30 was what brought the change.

But here’s where things got a little complicated was his demeanor was night and day. He looked like a happy guy. He wasn’t in pain anymore that we could tell. His legs stopped quivering. All really good things, but the swelling wasn’t going down.

Then we went up to 200 — from a 30 to a 200. No change. Tried that for a little while. Then we went up to a 1M of both. No change.

I began to observe, and I had asked them before this, “Is he usually that itchy? Does he itch that much usually?”

Nobody there that was there at that time of night was very familiar with the horse. They said, “Oh, I don’t really know. I’m not sure. I think so. His owner mentioned that he is itchy sometimes.”

So, I kind of wrote it off. But then he began itching so bad. He was scratching his own hair off on the edges of the stall, in different places, beginning to do himself harm. He was itching so hard.

I asked again, “Is that normal for him to itch that much?”

They said, “You know, I was just thinking that’s pretty excessive.”

Then it dawned on me that we were no longer dealing with a venom problem. We were dealing with a reaction to the antivenom which can happen. Serum sickness can happen, and different things can happen — an allergic reaction. Then I began using some of the study that I put into the Allergic?! course and started using some of those things. Also on her blog, she talked about anaphylactic reaction.

As soon as we switched to the allergic remedy, then the swelling started going down. He immediately stopped itching — just immediately — and the angst stopped.

From then on, we no longer did anything toward venom but toward the allergic reaction.

One thing that was so helpful, and Joette never mentioned this exact thing, but she’s stresses this over and over in her courses, “Take good notes. Take good notes. Take pictures. Get the magic markers. I thought, “I can’t get magic markers from this guy. He can’t tell me how he’s feeling. How am I going to do it?”

And to take pictures of swelling in a shadowy stall, a horse stall, is kind of deceptive to be able to tell, “Is it going down?” So, we got one of those flexible measuring tapes that you use for sewing. We began measuring six different points along the leg like the fetlock, the pastern, the knee. We then began comparing.

Is the swelling going down?

That way, it wasn’t up to our eye or a memory, but it was scientific. With those numbers, we were able not just to conclusively prove that the remedies were working, but also it helped us to determine how frequently he needed the remedies. So, those numbers showed us that tipping point that Joette was always talking about — you know, balancing how often the remedy is given based on the symptoms. That was so helpful.

He got other remedies to prevent sepsis and other things. But he just kept improving in every way. Seven days after it looked like there was no hope at all for him, he was back with his owner.

You know, Kate, he only lost a little bit of hair right at the puncture site and had a little bit of scabs right there, but there was no necrosis. I don’t know if you’ve seen those awful pictures of the tissue death.

Kate:  Yes, I have.

Rachel:  They’re horrific! I mean, like, “viewer discretion advised.” They just look terrible after a rattlesnake bite. There was just simply nothing like that at all. He looks great. He’s running around, eating, playful, energetic.

And you know what else? I had to laugh because the owner recently contacted me and asked if he could possibly continue giving him those remedies because the horse’s yearly summer allergies are gone. He’s actually better than before the snake bite because of homeopathy!

Kate:  Wow! Now, when you say continue the remedies, you don’t mean continue all the remedies that you were doing, of course. You meant just the ones that would be for allergic reactions?

Rachel:  Yes. At the end, he had finished up with all the things that he was doing and was just on a simple allergy remedy to finish off the swelling. Apparently, it helped him in other ways, too, that we didn’t intend.

Kate:  That is what I love about homeopathy. It always does more than you expect it … I shouldn’t say always but quite often.

Rachel:  Yes. It was amazing.

Kate:  Yes, that’s an incredible story. You know what? It makes you wonder how soon that allergic reaction actually started, doesn’t it?

Rachel:  Yes. Yes, I do wonder. But he is good today. He is happy today.

Kate:  Yes, that’s great. Well, I’m thankful that you studied those medicines, and you asked the questions and were prepared. Just the other day, you were telling me earlier that your kids came super close to a rattlesnake. So, I mean, you’re surrounded.

Rachel:  Surrounded, surrounded! You know, while on the way to a hospital, I’ll know what to do. Maybe by the time I get there, they won’t be in such bad shape. It’s very empowering. Instead of being afraid of what is going to happen might they get bit, I just know what to do.

Kate:  Yeah. Yes, that’s great.

You have a lot of other stories about using homeopathy. Maybe just share a couple more, or tell us all the different things that you’ve used homeopathy successfully for and any other insights that you have.

Rachel:  Sure. Just real quick. There was an old dog, a rescue dog — old, old guy. One day, he just couldn’t get up. His back legs just wouldn’t work. He would try to stand up. He would yelp in pain, and his legs just sort of were paralyzed and just kind of fold under him like an accordion. He couldn’t get up.

If anybody tried to touch him, he would cry out in pain. He was in just agony. Nobody even knows what happened. He was like that for a while and the vet didn’t know what to do. They said, “Well, he’s just, you know, he’s an old dog. He’s lived a long life.”

Right before they were going to put him down, because he was just miserable, I said, “You know, maybe you could try this if you want.”

I kid you not. The next day, he was able to stand up. He had a little bit of a limp, but he was able to get his legs under him. He was moving and not looking like he was in pain. He was wagging his tail and looking happier.

Then the day after that, he was out walking around and even running after the car. That dog is literally alive still because of homeopathy.

Then another time, we have a dog, we named her Bella for Belladonna. And she, brilliant thing that she is, swallowed a big rock.

We didn’t know it. But all of a sudden, she’s not eating. She’s throwing up. There’s blood coming out the other end. And we’re thinking, “Oh, my gosh! What is this?”

So, because of all the fear and all of the stuff that’s going on right now, things weren’t open. The vets were not accepting anyone at this time. So, I thought, “Okay, I’m going to open up my Banerji protocol book, see if there’s something in here.”

My best guess was that she had swallowed something, and it was a bowel obstruction. So, I gave her those remedies, stayed up with her throughout the night.

My husband, he had been gone when all this happened. He came home right before I started giving the remedies. Her head was like … her nose was practically touching the floor. She was miserable, miserable, in so much pain. She looked horrible.

He said, “I think we’re going to lose her. I don’t think she’s going to make it.”

But I said, “Well, let’s try.” I stayed up throughout the night giving her these remedies, and she passed the rock, and she healed up. And she is 100% fine today.

Kate:  Rachel, what remedies did you end up using then?

Rachel:  I went with, in the Banerji protocol, the gastrointestinal bleeding and the gastric outlet obstruction protocols from their book. I made up water doses of each remedy and used disposable pipette droppers to deliver the remedy to her. It was easier for me, and she was getting dehydrated, so I figured the liquid was good for her.

Kate:  Yes.

Rachel:  I tell you, we were sure glad — that night in the middle of the night on a weekend — we were sure glad that we had gone through the Banerji protocol book and purchased ahead of time all of those remedies just in case we’d need them someday. Because that someday came, and it saved our Bella.

Kate:  Yes, I can’t even tell you the number of times I hear either the person didn’t get those remedies or the kits, the Survivalist kit, and they end up needing them or they did get them, and they’re so thankful. Yes, once again, get those remedies. Purchase the remedies above all else.

Kate:  Let’s switch now from talking about animals to humans, and you have a pretty amazing birth story that you would love to share. Tell us about it.

Rachel:  I would love to share it. I was invited to be at a birth where the parents used homeopathy. It was very incredible to see how many times — and then how many different ways — homeopathy came to the rescue.

It totally came through for mom and baby, but what I didn’t expect was that it also made all the difference in the world for the father, too.

This is a long, long, loooooong labor and the mom needed a lot of support. Much of this support was emotional, like, there were times that she had fears anticipating the upcoming pushing stage. Gelsemium 200 calm that anxiety right down. She would go three, four, five hours after dose. Then as soon as she voiced those fears again — and it happened a handful of times — Gelsemium would again bring courage. It was just beautiful to see her go from wanting to give up to having an “I’ve got this” attitude.

More than once I heard an attendant whispering, “What was that?” because the change was so dramatic.

Kate:  That’s so funny. Wow!

Rachel:  The mother also often showed a tremendous neediness for the father to stay exactly by her side, sometimes so extreme she couldn’t even bear to let him quickly run to the bathroom.

Kate:  For those of you who are listening who have been following Joette for a while and studying homeopathy, I’m just curious if you already have in your mind what remedy she could be talking about.

Rachel:  Right. It was the perfect picture of Pulsatilla.

Kate:  Yes.

Rachel:  Pulsatilla. She would say, “Oh, don’t leave. Don’t leave me. Are you going to leave me?” He was not going to dream of leaving her, but she was so clingy and needy.

Pulsatilla 200 just did its work beautifully. The clinginess disappeared, and if it reappeared again later, Pulsatilla resolved it each time. It also helped her with the nausea she was experiencing since the labor began.

So, Pulsatilla was a big help for the mom.

But what really impressed me was what the remedy did for the position of the baby. That was something. The baby was in a posterior position which means he was facing the wrong direction when labor started. After Pulsatilla was used, he rotated to the correct position. Everybody was happy, thought that that was finished, but that little guy was quite determined. He did not want to stay in the correct position.

Three more times, Kate — three more times, during active labor — he reverted back to the posterior position, and three more times, Pulsatilla corrected it. The birth attendants were very impressed by its action especially since the head was already very engaged down the pelvis. Babies don’t usually move at that point.

Kate:  That’s what I was going to ask you is how far along was she at that point, but the head was already down.

Rachel:  It was quite engaged in the pelvis. They were pretty amazed that the baby moved.

Kate:  I know that Joette wrote a blog about this very thing, turning a breech baby, and it’s called Birthing Series Part One: Turning a Breech Baby. In that blog, she does say Pulsatilla 200. Besides the Feminopathy course, there is information on birthing in Joette’s blog. So, be sure to check that out.

Rachel:  There were many other remedies that were used for stalled labor, weak contractions, fatigue, back labor, even after the delivery for the crippling postpartum depression that the mom experienced. But, like I said, it helped for father, too. I wanted to talk about that.

Since it was a really long labor, it was exhausting for everybody. This poor first-time father had been running around doing everything possible for his wife. He hadn’t really been eating and basically hadn’t slept at all for days. So, not surprisingly, it took a toll, and he began to feel a migraine coming on.

He was going down hard, and he was going down fast. It was so … the timing of it, Kate. His migraine started coming on towards the very end of the pushing stage when the baby was finally almost going to be born. After all they have been through, I mean, it really looked like he was going to miss the whole thing.

Kate:  Oh, my gosh!

Rachel:  He tried at first to push through it, but he was, like, green with nausea. The room was spinning, and he was getting unsteady on his feet. He was a mess.

After we promised that we wouldn’t forget to wake him up before the baby was born, he agreed to lie down. He decided to take Tabacum 200 and Cocculus 30. He promptly fell asleep. Later, when we woke him shortly before the birth, all his symptoms were completely gone. He felt fine.

Because of homeopathy, he was able to be by his wife’s side and enjoy that beautiful moment. Neither of us think he would have been able to see his first born entering the world if it wasn’t for homeopathy.

Kate:  Now, Tabacum is for nausea. It’s a great remedy for nausea. Cocculus is good also for dizziness and fatigue from caring for others. It sounds like it was a great remedy for him. Okay, and then just that one dose?

Rachel:  Just one dose.

Kate:  Wow! Great.

Rachel:  Yes.

Kate:  That’s wonderful.

Rachel:  Now, the baby, it had also been a long ordeal for him. He came out in distress. He was the perfect picture of panic. Eyes wide open and staring, arms up with his little fists tightly clenched and shaking. And I mean, nothing could console him.

His breathing was compromised from aspirating meconium. Despite suctioning and oxygen, his lungs were not clear, and his crying sounded garbled.

Remedies were tried but without much change. The parents were being gently prepared that he was going to need to go into the NICU if he did not quickly improve.

When it was observed that the baby was still quite cold despite all the normal warming method, Camphor 200 was given. Kate, within minutes, his pulse and breathing slowed down to normal. His little fingers unclenched, and his arms just relaxed down. His body warmed up. We could actually feel the difference in the temperature. He stopped crying.

That struggling little guy, he just melted in his father’s arms. He just laid there completely serene and content and just gazed up in his daddy’s eyes. The change was moving and incredible. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

Kate:  I’m getting emotional just listening to it. Wow!

Rachel:  Miraculously, when they listened to his chest again, his lungs sounded completely clear. I mean, totally and completely clear. There’s no more gargling, rattling, wet sounds at all.

They monitored him for quite a long time after just to be sure, but all the respiratory distress had vanished. He didn’t need any further intervention.

The staff all wanted to know more about homeopathy after that, and the parents tell everyone who will listen about how God used homeopathy to give them the birth experience they wanted. They say, “We don’t want to think what would have happened without it.”

Kate:  Right. Wow! Incredible. This is just an amazing story. What an amazing thing to be a part of, Rachel.

Rachel:  It was beautiful to watch.

Kate:  Are there any other stories that you want to share with us today, Rachel?

Rachel:  Oh, my goodness! I’ve so many more stories I could tell you. Our plants have even benefited from homeopathy.

My husband had watered in and sprayed a remedy on our tree to just completely get rid of leaf curl and fire blight.

Let’s see, there was someone who had gallbladder surgery scheduled, and they were able to cancel the surgery.

Knee replacement surgery canceled.

People on antibiotics forever for lifelong UTIs since she was like five years old, and she’s an adult now. She doesn’t have them anymore.

Like, regular migraines canceled. Just incredible.

One more story if I could share, if I have time.

Kate:  Yes.

Rachel:  Someone called me about rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus which is going around right now, and it is extremely deadly for rabbits. They were losing about one a day. They said, “Is there anything that can be done? There’s nothing that can be done that anyone knows of.”

Then I said, “Well, you know, you could try putting Hamamelis and Arnica, Hamamelis 200 and Arnica 3,” which is the Banerji protocol for vascular issues, “then also put in Crotalus 30 in their water. And you know, let’s try it.”

They were losing about a rabbit a day in their large rabbitry, and the deaths stopped — just stopped. Not one has died since and the ones that were looking a little off are fine now.

Kate:  Oh, wow!

Rachel:  They’re fine.

Kate:  That’s great. You have so many amazing stories. I feel like we could go on and on. I’m super grateful for homeopathy as I know that you are. I love hearing all the ways that you’ve used homeopathy successfully. I thank you, Rachel, for sharing that with us.

Rachel:  Yes, you’re welcome. Happy to do it.

Kate:  Before we finish today, I would love it if you could just share some words of wisdom with us about homeopathy.

Rachel:  I’d say just keep going, just keep studying. So much of what I’ve learned was while I was doing the dishes listening to the courses, listening to podcasts. Then every free minute I had, I have a materia medica in my lap and just studying. And there’s not always a lot of free time in my life, but you just keep studying, just keep learning.

We hear Joette’s amazing stories and look at her so seemingly effortlessly doing all these wondrous things, but she worked hard to get there. She put in the time to practice. If we do too, then slowly but surely, we become a little better and a little better. If you make the wrong choice, try again. Also, when something is above your head, then ask for a doctor to come in or a homeopath. There’s a lot that we can do.

The other thing is knowing what to do is only half the battle, and the other half is having the remedies right at your fingertips when you need them. So, buy remedies — lots of them. Take them with you. I don’t go anywhere — nowhere — without my remedies. I have, actually, (so that we can have a set in the car and a set in the house and even a set somewhere other than the house, in case there’s a fire or something like that) I have taken my main bottles of remedies and gotten a little teeny-tiny bottle that you see in the Washington Homeopathic’s kit. I have divided my larger bottles into those smaller bottles so that I can have some in my purse, and I can have some in the car, and I can have some in a snake kit, and I can have them all over the place so that they are there when I need them.

Lastly, I just want to say thank you to God for these amazing remedies. He is showing us His kindness and how much He loves us, I think, through these remedies, they just make my heart sing.

Kate:  That is beautifully said, Rachel. We’re just going to leave it right there. Thank you so much for sharing with us.

Rachel:  Yes, thank you, Kate. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Joette:  As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising.

But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

In these podcasts, I focus on those students of mine who have already tunneled in and learned how to take care of themselves, family, friends, and pets, and even livestock using homeopathic medicine. Many of these students began their education by participating in one of my Gateway to Homeopathy study groups. And now, after taking one or more of my courses, they’re well-trained to use my specific brand of homeopathy.

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

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

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

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

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

06:28    The Homeopathy Evangelist — Leading Study Groups

10:18    Memorable Homeopathy Success Stories

16:06    Homeopathy for family

22:58    Special Story

24:34    Some Tips

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Mindful Homeopathy: Practical Protocols for Mental and Emotional Conditions

Podcast 69 — “Life’s a Tragedy”

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

My blog, podcasts, Facebook Live events and courses

Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 113.

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

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

Kate:  Hi, and welcome back to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast. Today, I have a Mom with Moxie here, and it is very exciting. If you are at all interested in leading Gateway groups, you’re going to want to sit down and listen to this podcast because she has something exciting to share with you.

This Mom with Moxie — her name is Julie — and she feels called to the healing arts. I can see that in her. I’m very excited to get to know her better and to hear more about her story, as I’m sure you all are. I’d like to welcome Julie to the podcast.

Hi, Julie.

Julie:  Hi, Kate.

Kate: It’s great to have you here. I’m looking forward to hearing you talk about how you’ve transitioned from being a nurse to now using homeopathy which you feel is like Joette says, “God’s medicine.” I’m very excited to hear about your journey and how you’ve led nine Gateway to Homeopathy study groups in the past year, Julie.

Julie:  Yes.

Kate:  You just came to find out about Joette a year ago. You’ve already led nine groups along with a friend of yours through the Gateway I and Gateway II.

But before we get to that, I want to give you an opportunity to just introduce yourself to the listeners.

Julie:  Sure, Kate. I was a nurse for about 12 years in pretty much every area of the hospital that you could imagine. I did infectious disease. I did cardiac for a while. Emergency department was the longest. I did enjoy the emergency room, but I did a little experiment while I was in the emergency room.

I asked patients who came into the triage base what their medications were for. I said, “I know what they’re for, but do you know what they’re for?”

Invariably, they would tell me they did not know what they were for. Then we go to the next one. They would say, “Oh, that one I know what that one’s for, that’s to heal the side effects of this one.”

It just went on down the line. I started seeing a really clear pattern there with the medicines that we were giving through the system of medicine. Eventually, through some life circumstances found homeopathy and switched over.

Kate:  Tell me about that transition, Julie. You just decided, “I just can’t do this anymore because I’m not seeing these patients get better long term”? How did you make that switch?

Julie:  Well, the switch was with my son — my oldest son — he was getting croup. It was like clockwork twice a year. That would probably be my first really true introduction to homeopathy because I thought there has got to be a better way.

We would take him into the ER twice a year; his oxygen stats were super low. I’d have to rush there; I was so worried that they were going to have to intubate him every single time that we went. He would get shots of racemic epi which required heart monitoring. He would get Decadron which were steroid shots, and they were giving him horrible night terrors that we couldn’t wake him from.

It was taking forever for him to get well. I just knew that it was because he wasn’t getting rest. He wasn’t getting what he needed. His body, in some way, wasn’t getting what it needed.

So, I just had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that something needed to change. I prayed about it. There was one day that I thought, “I wonder if these little blue tubes of medicine could help.” I started searching on the internet, and I found a protocol for croup. It was really strange to me because you would give a certain medicine after midnight, a certain medicine after one and a certain one after two. But I thought stranger things have happened before, I’m going to try this.

The very next time he got croup — instead of trying nebulizers and medicines, then sitting in with the warm shower, going out in the cold — none of that help. Instead of doing that, I just gave him the medicines that were indicated for that timeframe. And it worked. I hate to say like magic, but it was truly like magic.

The next time he got it, he came up, and he seemed very fearful. So, I gave him Aconite. He went back to sleep like within a couple of minutes, and I never heard another croup cough from him after that.

Kate:  Wow, isn’t that exciting? It’s so funny how you said, those little blue tubes. You’re probably talking about the Boiron blue tubes.

Julie:  Yes.

Kate:  You told me earlier that you had been using homeopathy before this, but you really didn’t know much about it.

Julie:  I didn’t. I’ve been giving teething tablets and the stuff for colic and that kind of thing for babies. I had twins, as well as my oldest. I

 remember standing at the foot of their cribs and watching one of them sleep for 45 minutes, and one of them cry for 45 minutes — and then switching it up. We started giving him some homeopathy, and it kind of helped smooth things out for us. I knew there was something to this.

Kate:  You found homeopathy. You use the classical approach for a while. Then you had a friend call you one day. Tell us that story.

Julie:  Two of my friends from here — Shelley and Callie are their names — we get together quite often, and we go for walks. We were at the Nature Center and one of my friends (she just moved to Virginia at the time) but she texted, and she wanted for us to join a homeopathy group.

I was like, “Oh, I don’t know what this is even.” I was kind of confused.

She said, “You know, it’s a seven-week curriculum this other gal has written. Her name as Joette Calabrese. And we’ll just … we’ll study this together.”

I thought, “Well, it sounds kind of interesting; I’ll bite.”

The two friends that were on the walk with me, I said, “Hey, you guys. I just got invited to this homeopathy class, and you guys need to take it with me.”

At first, they were a little bit hesitant. But then I talked to them to doing it with me. The rest is history there because one of them actually, Callie, joined me in co-leading these classes. Because at the end, we both decided that we didn’t want to stop studying. We wanted to keep learning. We wanted to spread it to a lot of other moms and dads and teens and kids and anyone we could tell.

Kate:  Since that time, you’ve led how many study groups again?

Julie:  I think it’s around nine. This last one absolutely exploded on us. We have 23 people in our group. There was one previous that had 20. That was one of our first groups, and we have referrals. I keep a list now, that’s a waiting list for people that want to get into the next Gateway I. So, it’s exciting.

Kate:  That’s nine groups through Gateway I and Gateway II. It’s not just nine different ones. It’s all the way through that you’ve gone with nine different groups.

Julie:  Yes, it’s been great.

Kate:  Yes, that’s very exciting.

For those people who are listening and want to get their friends to know more about homeopathy because they want to share this with their friends, what would you say to them as to how to go about starting a study group or even looking for other people to join a study group?

Julie:  We like to say that this is “Generational Blessings” because we truly believe that when members of a family are on the same page, that it’s much easier to treat kids, grandkids. It’s so much easier to get on the phone with your mom or your grandmother or your aunt or somebody who already knows about homeopathy and talk about ways to heal your family.

So, in order to get a group together, what I would suggest is to ask those in your family first and ask your closest friends. Then it will grow from there because everyone else will see how wonderful it is, and they will refer others.

Kate:  So, how do you explain what this is? When you invite them into this group, what do you tell people?

Julie:  I tell people that it’s a natural way of healing that is nontoxic, completely safe. I just tell them stories of how many successes I’ve had with this in my own family and with my friends and pretty much everyone I meet.

My husband laughs at me because he knows I can’t keep my mouth shut about this. If anyone comes to me and starts talking about their health issues, he knows right away that I’m going to start saying, “Oh, well, you should do this. You should try this.” Eventually, they’ll end up coming to our house, and then we’ll talk about it more.

Kate:  That’s great. I love that, the Homeopathy Evangelist!

Julie:  Yes.

Kate:  Yes, we all who get to know and love homeopathy … so excited! You just can’t keep it to yourself. Thank you for sharing those tips.

All right, you have so many stories to tell. You wrote a huge list. You could probably go on for hours telling us stories. But why don’t you pick some of your most memorable homeopathy success stories and share them with us?

Julie:  Okay, I’m going to tell the first story about my great grandmother-in-law, Bernice, because I told her about being on this podcast, and she was so excited. She okayed me telling the story because she thought it was so incredible. She’s all in with homeopathy. She’s always calling and asking, “What can I take? Hey, I’m really tired today, is there something I can take?” She’s nearly 90. She’s 89 — she’ll be 90 in October.

She had some family over, and she fell. Their little four-year-old, I guess, started in front of her, and it kind of threw off her balance, and she fell over a chair. She didn’t break any bones, thankfully. But she got this huge hematoma on her leg. It was really hurting her.

So, she had me just feel it through her pants, and it was big. It was really sore for her. I had Arnica 1M with me in my purse, and I gave her a dose of that. She said within a day or two that it started, the swelling started receding, and she started feeling better. Within about five days, she said the bruise had gone down significantly.

Then we met with her the next week for a family dinner, and she said, “It’s still there, hurts a tiny bit, but not nearly as bad. This is way faster than any of my other injuries have gone away.”

I gave her one more dose of the Arnica 1M, and then by the following week, she said she was almost completely healed of that. She was really blown away because she said anytime she’d had a bruise that deep, it had never gone away that fast.

Kate:  How sweet that your grandmother loves homeopathy.

Julie:  Yes.

Kate:  Yeah, that’s nice. It’s very rewarding to be able to help our family members.

All right, tell us another.

Julie:  My family in Kansas really wanted me to tell this one. My brother …

Okay, so my mom has taken this class with us. I think she’s gone through Gateway I twice, and she’s gone through Gateway II once, I believe.

But anyway, they were getting ready to come out and see us, and my brother had just bought a bull. As you know for a farmer, that’s a huge expense. The bull got something called hoof rot, which is basically an infection in the hoof. He couldn’t just leave it at home. He really wanted to come but he said, “Well, I can’t just leave the bull home when he’s sick and expect someone else to take care of that.”

I told my mom, “I said you better get out the homeopathy if y’all plan on coming.”

We researched what to do for the bull. We finally decided on Belladonna 200, Merc sol (I can’t remember the potency on that one), Arnica. She also gave some Rhus tox and some Ruta, and she put them in his water trough. They also sprayed his hoof with the topical iodine and copper sulfate. They sprayed Hepar sulph 30 on his nose a couple of times a day.

They began that protocol on a Friday evening. By Sunday, they said there was marked improvement. Then he began putting weight on that leg. Then by the time they were ready to come, they were able to come because he was completely better. They didn’t have to even call the vet out.

Kate:  For those of you with cows, cattle, horses, take note of this story because I know it’s a big problem. I had horses, and it’s a really exciting story. Thank you. That’s awesome.

Julie:  Another story is that I had a family member who was having severe panic attacks. She was talking about her left arm hurting really bad. Then the top of her head felt like it was about to blow off and palpitations with her heart and her breathing was really fast. From working in the ER, I knew that it was either a heart issue or a panic attack because they look a lot alike.

I did advise her to just go into the ER and have a couple of rhythm strips run to make sure that her heart was okay. They drew some labs, I think, and they did some testing, and she came back, and she said, “No, they said it was anxiety, and they wanted to give me a prescription for that.” I guess she just took the prescription and went home, but she didn’t fill it.

I’ve taken the Mindful Course from Joette. I had no idea how useful that would come in, especially this last year with everything that’s going on. A lot of people are having anxiety and panic and many issues from everything. But the Mindful Course is where I got the Triple A anxiety protocol. And also, we decided that she had pretty severe depression. And so, I also started the Aurum 200, every third day on her.

She said within 24 hours, she felt so much more calm. And she ended up not needing the Triple A remedy after the first two or three doses in 24 hours, and the Aurum kind of took over.

It’s been a couple of months since this and she’s now saying that she feels like she could probably even go off the Aurum. Her anxiety has been kind of long standing, and it’s not something that has been related to this past year — although I will say the past year has contributed some to it. But all in all, she feels way better.

Kate:  For those of you who are wondering what medicine Julie is saying, she’s talking about Aurum metallicum. That’s A-U-R-U-M metallicum. Joette did a podcast where she talked about the difference between Aurum metallicum and Ignatia. That podcast is Podcast number 69. It’s titled, “Life’s a Tragedy.” If you want to hear more about differentiating between those medicines — Ignatia, Aurum metallicum, and Coffea — then that is a great podcast to listen to.

Julie:  Yes, because I debated between the Ignatia and the Aurum, but then after I listened to that, I thought it is absolutely Aurum for her.

Julie:  Another story — and not actually a story, but this is something I use regularly on my boys. They grow really fast, and so they’re always having growing pains right before bed. I give them Calc phos 6X plus Mag phos 6X. And they get relief from that really quickly, and they can go to bed and go to sleep then.

Kate:  Wonderful. What about your mom?

Julie:  My mom had some major health issues, and she’d been seeing a naturopath for them. They were mainly gut related. She’d been seeing a naturopath for about four years. She’d spent a lot of money. She was taking so many supplements that every time I looked at their kitchen table, I just couldn’t believe she could get all those down and still have room for a meal.

So, she walked into his office one day, and he told her that they were halfway there. She said, “You’ve got to be kidding me. Really, only halfway? I thought we were almost done.”

He goes, “No, we’re halfway there.”

She and I talked that day, and she said, “I just can’t continue to see him for another four years and spend another time, this amount of money that we’ve already spent.” But I could tell that she was still not feeling well.

The naturopath had gotten her to a certain point where she was off a lot of her medications. She was feeling better, but it just wasn’t complete. It had been such long, slow progress. I said, “Mom, why don’t you try doing homeopathy?”

We sat down, took her case and put her on a bunch of different protocols. I was a little bit unsure of myself yet at that point, because I thought, “Well, I know Joette says don’t do more than this amount of protocols.” I think we were like one over or something like that. So, I didn’t really know how it would go, but she was willing to be the guinea pig. We just kind of piecemealed our way through it.

She told me just the other day that within six months of being on the homeopathy that her issues were 90% resolved. There’s still a few little things that she’s working on. But I just got the Pain Course because one of her issues is pain. I think that that will really help to resolve the remaining issues that she has.

Kate:  Wow, six months versus another four years. I bet she’s thrilled!

Julie:  Yes, she is. She’s a believer for life, I think.

Kate:  I bet.

Julie:  Another time, my boys got some sort of really odd illness where they would wake up around at 2 a.m. just screaming in pain, and they were holding on to their legs. I thought, “What is this?” I’d never even seen anything like it, and then they had some sort of odd rash on their one cheek. It was very bright red and just kind of right underneath their eye. They told me that they were having cramping in their legs.

My husband is a firefighter, and he was working another 48-hour shift, of course, when this happened. I didn’t want to run to the store because I didn’t want to have to take them with me when they weren’t feeling well to go to the store. I was going to go to the store because I only had a few pellets left of Aconite and a few of Belladonna, and I knew that if they all three got the same illness, whatever it was that I wouldn’t have enough to give everyone.

So, I used Joette’s method of diluting or making an aqueous dose. I gave them each a teaspoonful, and they kind of fell like dominoes. One morning it was one kid early in the morning, and then the next day it was another kid, and then the next day it was the next one. After I gave them the two remedies that I mentioned, they fell back into a really peaceful sleep.

I decided on Belladonna because the redness on the one cheek was the rationale; and the Aconite because of the severe and quick onset, and they also seemed really fearful of the pain — which, they’re boys; they don’t really fear pain. But this seemed like they were very scared. They all three, after every dose of that, fell back into a peaceful sleep.

I was talking with a friend shortly after who’d been in our first Gateway I group, and she’d been having the same leg cramping. She had been walking around at night because she said, that’s the only thing she could do. It just was hurting so badly; it wouldn’t let up.

I said, “For how many nights?”

She said, “Oh, like the last five nights this has been going on.” She hadn’t been getting any sleep.”

I said, “Well, my boys are complaining of something similar, and so I decided on Aconite and Belladonna for them.”

She took it, and she texted me the next day. She said, “Oh my gosh, it actually worked. I was able to go back to sleep.” She said, “You know, I had to wake up once at night and take it.”

Then she was able to get, I think she said, like five hours of sleep that night. Then hers went away too — whatever it was.

Kate:  Wow! She was probably wishing she had that the first night that that started.

Julie:  Yes, I just think that she had no idea what it was. I mean, I thought it was probably some sort of viral illness because of the way the boys went down, one after the other.

Kate:  Yeah. What an odd illness.

Julie:  Yeah, I know.

We have had a rash of chickens die as well. My son, for his fifth birthday, wanted chickens. We got a whole bunch of chickens for him. He loves chickens. They just all started dying. It was this weird illness where they would kind of spread out one wing, and it looked like they were having trouble breathing, and then in a few minutes, they would be gone.

So, I called our county extension office, and they referred me out to a vet. He said that it sounded like Marek’s. I had the diagnosis. I thought, “Okay, this is what Joette says to do: find the diagnosis, and then look it up.”

That’s what I did. I found online; it was some sort of chicken rubric from India. It said for Marek’s disease for chickens to give Causticum. So, I dissolved Causticum in a little bit of filtered water, and I just put it in their water weekly. I just did it weekly.

We have had no more chicken death after that. The two that we have now look really, really healthy. I think we can finally get more chickens in the spring here.

Kate:  Awww. That’s so cute that your son wanted chickens for his birthday.

Julie:  Yes.

Kate:  Sweet.

Julie:  Yes, he says he’d like to be a farmer.

Kate:  Awww! Very cute.

You did exactly what Joette says to do when we don’t know what medicine to give. We can Google these things, right? You can put in the name of the condition and homeopathy and Joette Calabrese — or maybe if you can’t find it on her site, just name of the condition and homeopathy. There’s so much information on the internet.

Julie:  I got permission from a friend to share this one, too. I’m really glad she gave permission because it’s a great story.

Her husband recently had a hip replacement, and they gave him spinal anesthesia for the surgery. As a nurse, I know that sometimes spinal anesthesia can stop bowels and bladder from working properly after the surgery. When he woke up after the surgery, he couldn’t use the bathroom. He couldn’t urinate.

The friend that I lead Gateway I groups with, she actually was able to look up in her new materia medica because she said, “Oh, I just read this.” She looked it up, and it was Causticum for that one, too.

He took it, he fell asleep, which the wife said was amazing because he hadn’t slept in a long time. When he woke up, I guess he was able to go to the bathroom. It worked even after surgery because of the drugs he was given during the surgery.

Kate:  How many times did you say that he took the Causticum?

Julie:  I believe she said just once. She also said when he woke up that he was vomiting a lot. She gave him Nux vomica for that. That really helped with the vomiting from the anesthesia.

Kate:  Okay. Wow. I bet she was super excited about that.

Julie:  Yes.

Kate:  Julie, you’ve shared with us a lot of stories. These have been really fun and exciting to hear how you learned more and more about homeopathy, and you’ve led these study groups. Since you’ve gained all this wisdom over these last several years of using homeopathy, would you mind sharing with us some tips that you would have for the listeners?

Julie:  Sure. Some advice that I would give to others is something that we talked about just with the chicken advice. In that, if you don’t know what remedy to give, or maybe there’s not a protocol, that you can always Google.

You can use a repertory, and that’s what I’ve done many times to look up these remedies. I know it doesn’t give you a potency or frequency on them. But I normally will go with Joette’s advice on that and start with a 30 or 200 because she said those are pretty safe bets to start with.

My other piece of advice is that I really believe that it’s important to have Gateway groups so that you can surround yourself with homeopathy-minded friends and family. It’s been really a blessing in my life to have friends that I can call on when my kids are sick, or there’s something going on with some of my friends or my family. When I’m not thinking straight, they can think straight for me.

Kate:  Yes, that is so important. You’ve really been an encouragement, I know, to so many who are listening. So, thank you for taking the time to do this.

Julie:  Yes, no problem. Thank you, Kate. It’s been a delight.

Kate:  For those of you who are looking for a study group, I’m sure Julie will be offering more in the future.

Julie:  Yes.

Kate:  She’s very sweet. I’m sure you would love her group. Alright. Thanks again.

Julie:  Thanks, Kate.

Joette:  As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising.

But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

In these podcasts, I focus on those students of mine who have already tunneled in and learned how to take care of themselves, family, friends, and pets, and even livestock using homeopathic medicine. Many of these students began their education by participating in one of my Gateway to Homeopathy study groups. And now, after taking one or more of my courses, they’re well-trained to use my specific brand of homeopathy.

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

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

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

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

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

03:34    Road of Change

13:17    Homeopathic Medicines Used

27:44    Dr. Dale’s ALL FLU [Editor’s note: ALL FLU is now called Dr. Dale’s COLD GUARD PLUS.]

29:09    Tips for Caretakers

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Podcast 87 – Moms with Moxie: A “Spouse with Spunk”

Relish: activities for elders with dementia

Best Remedies for Seniors

Joette’s free resources

Mindful Homeopathy: Practical Protocols for Mental and Emotional Conditions

Role Reversal: Taking Care of the Elderly

Podcast 92 — Flu Got You, Too?

Podcast 110 — Moms with Moxie: Eavesdrop on Study Group Friends

My blog, podcasts, Facebook Live events and courses

Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 112.

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

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

Kate:  Welcome back to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast. With me today is a dear friend of mine. Welcome, Tracey.

Tracey:  Awww. Thank you, Kate. It’s nice to be with you.

Kate:  Thank you. For those of you who want to get to know more about Tracey, go to Podcast 87, and you can hear her story.

But today we’re going to be talking about something that’s near and dear to our hearts. Tracey and I work together — but not only do we work together, we share a very special bond that was created because of our moms. Tracey, you and I …we live far apart from each other, many, many states apart.

Tracey:  Yes.

Kate:  But Tracey, even though we’ve never met in person, I can honestly say that you’re one of the few people that “gets” me.

Tracey:  I feel the same way. You have been a lifeline for me more often than not. Thank you.

Kate:  Yes, like seriously, like tears are welling up in my eyes as I say that because you’re just so dear to me, and I know that you’re always there to listen when we’re struggling.

I’ll explain to you why that is in just a minute. But to give you a little background, our mothers both had a stroke several weeks apart a little over two years ago. Crazy, right, Tracey?

Tracey:  It was incredible, Kate, because one moment you were keeping me afloat by sending me your care and concern and lifting me up. Then a few weeks later, you were in the same boat. It was surreal. It was surreal.

Kate:  Yes. Right. I mean, that whole time seems surreal in my life. It still kind of does anyway, right?

Tracey:  Yeah. Yeah.

Kate:  Are we living in a dream?

Life has been extremely interesting over the last two years. I know you feel the same way; you’re nodding your head right now.

Tracey:  That’s one way to put it — extremely interesting.

Kate:  Yes, interesting. To me, this whole thing has made me aware that to live each day to its fullest because you never know when your life is going to change. It’s gut wrenching, and I don’t even know how to put it into words. How …

Tracey:  It almost makes it feel like life is fragile. I don’t mean that to sound pessimistic. We should be grateful for every day that’s going smoothly and well. But things can change in the blink of an eye. So, we have to be appreciative.

Kate:  Right. For both of us and our moms, I know that that has been the road. It’s been a road of change daily, just trying to navigate this.

But in case you haven’t noticed by now, Tracey and I are going to spend some time talking about what it’s like to walk along this road with our moms and to navigate their care. So, we’re going to spend this podcast talking about some remedies that have been helpful for us and just some tips about walking down this road in a way that is honoring to our moms and in a way that hopefully is helpful to them physically.

I thought we could start off by giving everyone a sneak peek into our days with our moms — what that’s like — and just to help people to understand what that looks like. So, when we talk about the homeopathic medicines, you’ll have a little bit of a picture as to what’s going on. Tracey, go ahead.

Tracey:  Sounds perfect.

Kate:  Tracey, go ahead and share with us.

Tracey:  Mom lives with us now. After the stroke, it became necessary.

Um, she … Let me back up a little bit and just say that her stroke occurred in her visual cortex. She could still speak. She could still walk. But she was basically blind on one side of her body. From her nose all the way over to the left, she could not see.

Since the stroke, that has reduced into just a small blind spot, but it’s not a blind spot she’s aware of. Her brain fills it in, but it doesn’t fill it in with accurate information always. Sometimes a dog will suddenly appear, and she’ll say, “Where did the dog come from?” And it’s just, he’s been in your blind spot until you get to the right place, and then you’re able to see him. You know?

It makes navigation difficult. I think it affects her confidence level — just because she’s uncertain of what she’s seeing. So, that was difficult.

That same region that was affected was also what — I had never heard this word before, and it’s a brilliant word — it affected her “sequencing.”

I never appreciated what a big thing sequencing is. It’s … if I tell you, Kate, “Hey, it’s time to go to bed,” you know to go brush your teeth, to put on your pajamas, to pull down your bed covers, to do all of that.

Well, that sequencing is gone.

So, we operate (getting back to your day-to-day questions), we operate on lists. There’s a getting up in the morning list: comb your hair; brush your teeth; put on your socks and shoes — just all these different things that have to be done in a sequence to help her along.

In the morning, she’s usually pretty good. She can get together her breakfast, which is the same thing every day. Then as we go through the day, a typical day includes a shower. She doesn’t do that on her own. I’m in the shower with her helping her sequence through the steps.

Crossword puzzles are a big part of her day. It’s no longer really working the puzzle. It’s flipping back and finding the answer and filling it in. But it’s cute and takes up her time.

She is starting to do jigsaw puzzles. I found this company that has amazing jigsaw puzzles specifically for people who have cognitive decline. It doesn’t say that anywhere on the box, so they don’t know. But the puzzles are easier, and the pieces are cut in a way that are designed to be helpful. So, she’ll do those.

Kate:  Tracey! I didn’t even know that existed. My mom likes to do puzzles, too, on occasion, and so you’ll have to fill me in after the podcast.

Tracey:  Yes. Well, I suppose I could say it now.

Kate:  Yes.

Tracey:  Yes. The company is called Relish, R-E-L-I-S-H. When you go to their website, they have different … you take a little test with things that are going on for the person, and they’ll tell you what stage they suggest. Then they have different stages … different puzzles, excuse me, for different stages. I’m thrilled with them because now she can finally do puzzles, again — jigsaw puzzles.

And we exercise. Mom does Pilates twice a week over Zoom. I assist her with that because she can’t … you know, it needs to be a little hands-on and somebody supporting her. I prepare the meals; keep her entertained; keep her on track. It’s just kind of a constant thing. Bathroom duties require assistance. So, I’m just kind of her Girl Friday.

Kate:  Yes, right. I don’t know about you …

Tracey:  What is your day?

Kate:  Well, what you just said there, it makes me think about how — do you feel this way, too — that you’re on a heightened sense of alertness?

Tracey:  Oh! Yes. Yes.

Kate:  You’re always watching and listening for the littlest indication that something is wrong, or they’re confused, or pain, or whatever. It’s just a constant.

Tracey:  Yes.

Kate:  What is the word I’m looking for?

Tracey:  High alert! That’s what I call it. I am on high alert all the time. It feels like the stress of an air traffic controller all day every day and barely get away from it at night — because I feel responsible. If any little thing happened, I’d never forgive myself. So, you’re right. I’m always listening. I’m always trying to read in between the lines.

Kate:  All the signs.

Tracey:  Yes.

Kate:  Well, our day is a little bit different because my mom is actually in a group home. My mom’s stroke affected her a little bit differently than your mom’s, in that my mom was lying out actually outside in 30-degree weather on cement with a car running right next to her for an hour before they found her.

So, she had her stroke. She fell down and was laying there. Her neighbor, thankfully, found her. They called the paramedics and got her to the hospital.

But it was six hours before they actually removed the blood clot from her brain. Half of her brain was without oxygen for that long, and her body temperature was extremely low. It took several days for it to come back up to a normal temperature.

I think that was a positive thing in a way because it slowed her blood flow down, and it probably saved …

I don’t know. Because really, it was a difficult surgery, I guess, to remove the clot. They tried three times.

So, after the surgery, then she was on a ventilator. And then it was every moment was like, “Well, is she going to come off the vent? Is she going to now be able to open her eyes and sit up?” I remember everyday thinking, “Okay, what’s the next thing?” You know?

My mom is still, she’s in a wheelchair. For the most part, she’s paralyzed on the right side of her body. She has aphasia and apraxia, so that means she has problems with speech. She also has problems with sequencing things — kind of like you said — where if you … like, she would know that she wants to pick up a paper. But then to get her brain to tell her hand to do it, and her hand to actually pick up the paper — it doesn’t always communicate effectively.

Her speech … she’s come a long way in two years, but she’s still as I would say, for the most part, nonverbal. She can say things, but it doesn’t always come out the right way. I’ve learned the “yes” that means “no,” and the “yes” that means “yes.”

Tracey:  I understand that.

Kate:  That’s where we’re talking about always being on high alert. Our days are a little different. I usually go there in the mornings. I help them with anything that she needs done.

We usually have some sort of appointment. Whether it’s a virtual speech therapy or in person speech therapy, doctor’s appointments, exercise, whatever it is. Because she’s still making progress from that stroke two years ago. She’s continually improving, even though it’s small improvements that she’s making at this point.

I will be with her about four to five hours a day, something like that. I do work at her place while she’s watching TV or eating lunch or whatever. So, just to be there to monitor her I guess because it seems like there’s always a need that she has.

There’s been a lot of health things that have come along the way and a lot of pain. Communication, like I said, is hard. So, just having someone there to read when she is in pain. Because I know you feel this way, too, Tracey, right — we’re connected to our moms. Like I almost feel like I can … I’m a mind reader! You know? Like we can communicate without saying a word. I can look at her face and know instantly if she’s in pain or what’s going on.

Tracey:  That’s an interesting thing you bring up, Kate, and I’d be more interested to hear more about that. How do you use observation to figure out what she’s trying to communicate and can’t?

Kate:  And that’s a big part of homeopathy, right? Is observing.

Tracey:  Right!

Kate:  That is the only thing I have. It’s like, when you have a newborn that can’t talk yet — you know, a baby, and you’re going to use homeopathy. All you have is observation, and that is so critical. We should rely upon that more with people. But I think we kind of skip over that and ask the questions instead of observing first.

Tracey:  That is very true because I think sometimes when I talk to my husband about what he’s experiencing to try to narrow down a remedy for him, I’d probably be better off observing. Because sometimes he can’t verbalize which kind of pain it is. Is it sharp? Or better for motion, worse for motion? You know, sometimes observation is — you’re so right — we should use it more with everyone.

Kate:  Yes.

We’ve kind of shared a little bit about our days. Let’s talk now about the medicines that we’ve been using with our moms.

Tracey:  Sure.

Kate:  The different situations where we found these medicines useful. If you don’t mind, I’ll let you talk a little bit about some things that have been important to you.

Tracey:  Sure. Because I’m dealing with cognitive issues that were triggered by the stroke, but being honest, were also occurring before the stroke. So, there has been a cognitive decline. Just for the listener’s sake, my mom is a lot older than Kate’s mom. My mom is about to turn 98. So, you know, with age come these issues.

I found on Joette’s site …  she has an amazing resource called Best Remedies for Seniors. You can find it in the free resource area. Hopefully, there’ll be a link to it in the podcast. But one of the first remedies that I started using with mom is Helleborus niger 30, twice daily. That was to slow the progression of the cognitive decline.

And I think it has really worked. It’s hard to know because she’s been doing that for a couple of years. Where would she have been had I not been doing it? You know, it seems like it’s kind of kept it at a fairly steady pace.

Recently, I noticed some more decline occurring. So, I did some more reading. Also, in that article I just mentioned is Anacardium 200, once every two or three days. And I added that to her regimen. That made a huge difference. I’m really pleased with how that’s working.

Originally, I was using it every three days, and I could kind of see an ebb and flow of her cognitive ability. I noticed that it was kind of too much of an ebb and flow. So, I narrowed the dosages to every two days instead of every three days, and that’s the ticket! It’s really helped a lot.

Kate:  Tracey, before we go on, I think it would be helpful for people to understand a little bit more about the Anacardium. Give us a picture of that remedy and why you used it.

Tracey:  First of all, it was introduced also in Joette’s Mindful Homeopathy course as something for dementia. That course is tremendous if you’re dealing with any of these kinds of things with a parent. But looking at online materia medica, it’s senile dementia, impaired memory, reduction of senses of smell, sight, hearing, absent mindedness, kind of a brain fog. That’s really the basic picture — just basically senile dementia. It’s made such a difference. I just can’t express.

Kate:  Yes, it also says in Robin Murphy’s, Alzheimer’s disease, which is interesting.

Tracey:  That’s interesting. Yes. Okay. Very interesting.

Kate:  Those remedies, you’ve seen a big change with your mom?

Tracey:  Yes, with the Helleborus, I feel like it kept her from progressing more rapidly into the descent. Descending more rapidly, I probably should say. With the Anacardium, I really saw it pick her up.

The other remedy that is fascinating because I stumbled on it by accident was Mom had somewhat of some bloating and gas, and so I tried Lycopodium. It worked for the bloating and the gas, of course.

The next day, she was more alert. I did some reading on the Lycopodium and discovered that it also helps with diseases of the mind. People that are extremely sensitive, headstrong and kind of obstinate when sick (that was a big one), a loss of self-confidence, failing brain power. It just had all of these things that I hadn’t even realized it had, and I discovered it by accident.

About every, I would say probably once a week, once every two weeks, when it seems like she just needs a little pick me up, I’ll give her the Lycopodium, and it works for the brain issues as well.

Kate:  That’s great. It’s wonderful in homeopathy, when you find that medicine. You had a little clue, right? That was the gas and the bloating, and you use that clue to choose a remedy, and that remedy has fixed more than that one issue — which I love that about homeopathy.

Tracey:  I really love that, too! And it was so inspirational because I realized that I haven’t prescribed to Classical Homeopathy. I’ve never gotten a constitutional remedy or what they do. But it just feels like this encompasses so many things about Mom’s personality and what she’s going through that this might be her constitutional. You know? At least it is in my mind.

Like you never catch me without Nux vomica.

Kate:  That’s because you’re overworked, Tracey.

Tracey:  Thank you. Yes, you are right.

Kate:  I think this leads us to another medicine that you can talk about a little bit, but we’re probably both living on Nux vomica. For just, I know, we’re both up late, burning the candle at both ends, just constantly on high alert like we talked about, exhausted all the time. Nux vomica 200 has been extremely useful for me.

Then what’s the other one, Tracey that we always used?

Tracey:  Ignatia, Ignatia, Ignatia!

Kate:  Yes, tell us why?

Tracey:  Just for the emotional upheaval that this causes. I mean, you and I wouldn’t be any other place than by our mother’s side. This is where we want to be.

Kate:  Absolutely.

Tracey:  But it’s hard! It can cause sadness. There’s a lot of things that have to fall by the wayside because of what we’re doing, and it’s sad. There’s a grief to it. There’s an emotional component to it. Really, you and I, text to each other “Ignatia, Ignatia, Ignatia,” quite often.

Kate:  Right?

Tracey:  It really makes all the difference.

Kate:  It’s very helpful. For those of you who are caring for any age person who’s going through a difficult time, and you’re the caretaker, Ignatia is probably a great one to have. I would add Aconite as well. Then the Nux vomica, of course, because Aconite for shock. There have been so many times where we’ve had to transport my mom to the ER because of extreme pain that she’s having.

Something interesting happens to my mom where, I don’t know, we’re not 100% certain if it’s a seizure. But she just kind of … when she has extreme pain, she shuts down. Like her whole body shuts down. She leans forward, and you can’t talk to her. There’s just no communication. Then we’re left guessing, like, what is going on with her?

So, Aconite and Arnica have been my lifesavers as far as remedies to use for my mom and then myself as well. When my mom gets in those states where she just isn’t communicating; she’s shut down; something’s going on. The first thing that I do is Arnica 200. That seems to bring her out of it most of the time which has been amazing.

My mom, just like your mom has a team of doctors, from seizure doctors, her regular doctor, speech therapists, all kinds of doctors. Doctor, doctor, doctor.

Tracey:  Yes.

Kate:  I’m not a person who goes to the doctor very often. But I know that my mom is, and so I respect her wishes. But I love — this is something I wanted to share with everyone — I love our team of doctors. All of our doctors are more than happy for us to use homeopathy. I’ve talked to them about it. They encourage it. My mom’s main general practice doctor who actually specializes in geriatrics, she will actually write it down. When my mom was in a nursing home, she would write down, “Give Dorothy this homeopathic medicine two times a day,” because otherwise, they wouldn’t administer it, right?

Tracey:  That’s brilliant!

Kate:  I want to encourage you that. I think it’s possible to find doctors that are supportive of alternative therapies because I think a lot of them now are coming to realize that they don’t want to just add another drug, another drug, another drug. You know?

Tracey:  Absolutely.

Kate:  That we need to have other tools, and so …

Tracey:  Forgive me for interrupting, but I think a lot of us feel like we can’t say “no” to doctors. That’s something that Joette has really bolstered us on that this is our health care, we can control it.

I’ve kind of always been that way. So, I agree with you; I’ve done the same thing. If a doctor does not want to listen to me about alternative or adjunct medicine, then they’re not my doctor. I leave and go to another doctor.

Kate:  Exactly.

Tracey:  I’ve switched doctors. Mom had a cardiologist that I did not like. We switched cardiologists, and I love the new one. And our general practitioner — love him!

So, don’t take no for an answer. Find another doctor.

Kate:  Yes, I agree. There are people out there I think that will listen and will be supportive.

Even pharmacists, I know we’ve talked about this on another podcast. But pharmacists are your friends. You know? They are a great resource. Joette likes to say, “Bake them brownies; bring them treat. Call them later when they’re not so busy. Pick their brains.”

I’m thankful to have several pharmacists who I consider to be my friends. They’re who I rely on when a doctor does suggest a medicine. I call them up, and I say, “What do you know about this?” (I look it up first, of course.) But then I’ll call them, and I’ll say, “What do you know about this? Have you seen this to be successful?”

Because the pharmacist, really, they’re the ones that are prescribing the medications. They have the monthly face-to-face with their customers, and they really know, I think, what’s going on with these medications. So, have a pharmacist that’s on your team as well. Don’t be afraid to talk to them about medications.

As we’re navigating this, Tracey, I know you and I are in the same boat where we use homeopathy, and we use other therapies, and we use allopathic medicine. We’re trying to navigate this with our moms. I feel like we’re doing a great job, Tracey.

Tracey:  I feel like we are, too. I think we deserve a round of applause for each other.

Kate:  I want to encourage those people who are listening that it can be done. Joette likes to talk about getting a diagnosis. I think that is important.

Like with my mom, she’s not verbal. I can’t tell! Has she had another stroke? Is she just in pain? One time it was a kidney stone that we were dealing with. A lot of things come up like she’s dealt with UTIs, constipation. (There it goes that Nux vomica again, although it’s in the 30 that you use for the constipation.) Speaking of that, there’s a good blog, and it’s called Role Reversal: Taking Care of the Elderly.

Tracey:  Yes, that’s a very good one.

Kate:  That talks about the UTIs, pneumonia, and constipation, and some other things. If you want a good resource, that’s a great one to look up.

Just last night, my mom had, all of a sudden, a big rash pop up on her arm. I used Apis, three doses about 15 to 30 minutes apart, and it took care of the rash. The rash went away overnight. But the itching had stopped by the second dose. She was feeling better and — not totally — so, then I gave her that third dose and went home for the night. I came back in the morning, and the rash was gone.

Tracey:  That’s amazing.

Kate:  Yes, the same thing happened with a something on her leg where all of a sudden, she had a big red, swollen, hot spot on her leg. I don’t know. Was it a spider that bit her or cellulitis? Did it rub up against a brace she was wearing? I’m not sure, but that took us a longer time to figure out. We use several different homeopathic medicines for that.

But my point is that we’re always dealing with something with our moms, I think. Constantly having to research the appropriate medicines and talk to the pharmacist, talk to our doctors, and try to get an idea of what the picture is that we’re dealing with and then choose the right medicine.

Tracey:  Exactly. I’m at least lucky because I can talk to my mom to find out if she’s improving — if she’s reached “very much better.” I feel for you in having to observe all this strictly yourself. At least mom is verbal and can talk to me.

The coolest thing is mom actually used to go to a homeopath when she was a little girl.

Kate:  Wow!

Tracey:  Yeah. She said instead of going to the doctor, her mom would take her down the street to a homeopath. She was used to this and had just kind of forgotten about it over the years. So, she has no problem taking the remedies and believes in them. So, that’s great for me.

Kate:  Well, that’s the opposite for me.

Thankfully, again, our doctors are wonderful. They will write things down for the facility to administer to her. It’s funny because she will have no problem taking the remedies when they give them to her. But sometimes when I want to give her an additional one for something special, sometimes she fights me on it and doesn’t want it. And I have to respect her wishes.

When I asked her how she’s feeling, she can get upset, like, “Leave me alone; I don’t want to talk about it.” She doesn’t say those words, but she gets very grouchy, and she starts shaking her head. And I know I have to stop pushing her.

It is very difficult to determine how those medicines are working or not working. Sometimes, I don’t know; I can only judge by if she seems to be in pain or not.

But that leads me to something that I did want to talk about. I know the Banerjis (I’ve heard Joette say) when there are clients who really have an issue with finances, they will combine some of the medications in one bottle, and the person will take all the medications at one time as a combination.

Tracey:  Right.

Kate:  That’s not optimal. But to be honest, that’s what I do with my mom twice a day, because I know she’ll get them in that way. I have about six things that she’s taking daily. They just put them all in one little bowl, and my mom just eats them up. That’s the way we have to do it. How do you administer?

Tracey:  I’ve done that, too. I would like to be able to separate it. It seems easy in theory, but it’s not always easy in practice, or I’d be constantly putting something else under her tongue.

Right now, a big thing is trying to keep her hydrated. I want to make sure she’s drinking water throughout the day. Sometimes it’s easier to just give her things together.

The one thing the Helleborus niger that I was using, originally the recommendation was in liquid form, and so I was using that. But that got a little difficult. I actually got the pills, and the pills seem to be working just as well. So, I think sometimes, even if it’s not the optimal way you want to be doing it, just doing it at all is a rescue.

Kate:  Exactly.

Kate:  There was something else I wanted to bring up, Tracey, that I did this past year that seems to have worked.

Tracey:  What’s that, Kate? Do share. Do share. I need all the help I can get.

Kate:  Well, I was using Dr. Dale’s ALL FLU. I know Joette has mentioned that on another podcast for the flu season. If you come down with a flu, that can be an option. That’s a combination medicine. It has a number of different homeopathic remedies for influenza in that medicine. But I gave it to my mom once a week throughout this past virus season. And she has not — in two years since her stroke — she’s not come down with any virus.

Tracey:  I’m knocking on wood as you say that.

Kate:  Right. I know. So, I’m thankful. Was it that? Or did she just not come into contact with anything? I don’t know. There have been sick people around her.

What’s interesting is that all the other residents on her floor — that granted is only three — but they’ve all tested positive for a “virus” this past year. My mom never did. She never got sick. She never tested positive.

Tracey:  That’s amazing!

Kate:  Yes.

Tracey:  That’s a great testimony. Yes.

Kate:  It is.

Kate:  So, Tracey, what other tips do you have for those people who might be listening to this podcast for caretakers?

Tracey:  I think you said it earlier that it’s doable. We can do this! Just remember that and to take care of ourselves.

Everybody says that. We all nod and say, “Yeah, that’s right.” And then we don’t do it because it just seems like there’s not enough time in the day. But that’s where homeopathy has come in for me because I honestly don’t think I’d be standing upright if it weren’t for Nux vomica and Ignatia. They’ve really bolstered me. Just the anxiety that Ignatia has helped defray has been amazing.

So, you can do this. If you have a parent that something happens to, you can do it. You can do it better than anyone else can. Like you said, because you and I have a bond with our mothers, we can kind of read minds.

This is doable, especially with homeopathy.

Kate:  You said it, Tracey. Yes, I agree. I couldn’t have done this without homeopathy for sure. I’m grateful for the tools that we have. Thank you for sharing all your tips for caretaking with us, Tracey.

Tracey:  Thank you for sharing yours, too, because I always learn from you. That’s kind of awesome.

Kate:  Yes, find a partner that’s in this with you that can support you and you can bounce things off of. If you’re not in a study group, that’s a great way to find someone to share these things with. I’ve just made the most amazing friends in the study groups. As you might have heard a couple podcasts ago, we had some of our study group friends on there.

Tracey:  That was one of my favorite podcasts. That was just so inspiring. Yeah, it was great.

Kate:  Yes.

Tracey:  You’re so right, having somebody to bounce ideas off of is perfect. Listen, at our age, this is starting to happen to all of our friends. Everyone’s going to be dealing with this. So, we all need to support each other.

Kate:  Right. Exactly. Thank you, Tracey.

Tracey:  Thank you, Kate.

Joette:  As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising.

But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

In these podcasts, I focus on those students of mine who have already tunneled in and learned how to take care of themselves, family, friends, and pets, and even livestock using homeopathic medicine. Many of these students began their education by participating in one of my Gateway to Homeopathy study groups. And now, after taking one or more of my courses, they’re well-trained to use my specific brand of homeopathy.

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

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

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

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

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

03:12    From Skeptic to Healer

09:39    Experiences with Homeopathy

26:23    Homeopathy Transformed My Life

30:04    Sharing Insights

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

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

Allergic?! Escape Allergies, Sensitivities, and Intolerances, with Homeopathy

Joette’s First Aid chart

Mindful Homeopathy: Practical Protocols for Mental and Emotional Conditions

Cell Salt Series: David vs. Goliath

My blog, podcasts, Facebook Live events and courses

Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 111.

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

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

Kate:  Hi, this is Kate. I want to welcome you back to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast. Today, I have a special lady with me, and her name is Rachna. I’m excited because Joette sent me a message and asked me to interview her for the podcast.

When I saw her name come through, I was happy because I met her in a study group. So, I feel like I’ve known her for a while now. I’m really excited, actually, to get to hear more of her story and for you guys to hear all the ways that she’s used homeopathy — because she sent me a really long list of some things that she’s done successfully with homeopathy.

So, I just want to welcome you to the podcast, Rachna.

Rachna:  Thank you, Kate, for having me. It’s an honor. I look forward to speaking with you.

Kate:  Yes, I’m excited. Let’s get started by … if you wouldn’t mind just telling us a little bit about yourself?

Rachna:  Yes, absolutely. I’m married. I’m a mom of two. I have a set of twin boys. I am a conventionally trained physician from India. I came to the U.S. for higher education. The plan was to go back, but after I finished school, I was offered a great job at one of the top-ranking cancer hospitals in the U.S. It was too lucrative of an offer to give up, and I decided to work for a few years, get some experience and then go back to India.

But you know things don’t always go as planned in life. I ended up staying back here. And the rest is history, as they say.

Kate:  Well, I’m glad that you stayed here. You sent me some notes before this interview. I thought it was really intriguing what you wrote in the last paragraph. I was wondering. Would you be willing to just read a little bit of what you wrote for the listeners? Because I want them to get an idea of how important homeopathy is to you.

Rachna:  Absolutely. Well, homeopathy has completely changed the direction of my life. I could never have imagined a year ago that studying this great medicine would be one of the best decisions of my life. It has made my life more purposeful, more meaningful. It’s so empowering as a mom to be able to cure my family on my own. It has made me the healer in my household. So, just like Joette says, “This is God’s medicine.” I’m just in awe of this wonderful medicine.

Kate:  It’s very interesting that you refer to homeopathy and how it’s empowered you to be the healer in your home when you actually have a conventional medical background.

I would love for the listeners to hear just a little bit about your process of how you came to feel this way about homeopathy when you had these tools already — which I’m sure like many of us, we’re grateful for the use of those medicines or surgeries when it’s needed. But just let me hear a little bit of the background as far as that goes — like, how you came to homeopathy, or how it came to mean so much to you.

Rachna:  Absolutely. Well, being from India, I was all too familiar with homeopathy. It’s very popular in India as you probably already know, but I never had any faith. I was very skeptical.

Since I was so deeply entrenched in Western medicine, I never really thought that those little white pills could do anything. I never gave homeopathy a second thought. If anything, I thought it had more of a placebo effect.

But I’ve had quite a meandering path. With my own health struggles … I’ve come a long way from conventional Western medicine to functional medicine to naturopathic medicine with essential oils somewhere in between and eventually landing on homeopathy.

I feel like I’ve crawled my way into homeopathy. Whatever I’ve learned, I give all the credit to Joette — because I knew about it all my life, but she was instrumental in actually making me want to learn more about homeopathy. So, all the credit goes to Joette.

In fact, several years ago, I had heard Joette at one of the summits where she was a speaker. I believe it was the Essential Oils summit. She had talked about various remedies at that time, but I had no interest in those remedies because I had never even heard those names. I didn’t know where I could purchase them, how to use them.

But something that caught my attention and stuck with me was when she mentioned how she had raised her three children all the way into adulthood without any drugs. I found that very fascinating, and I wanted to know how she did it. I wanted to know everything that she knew. But once the summit was over, I forgot all about homeopathy and Joette, and, you know, life just always seems to get in the way.

But then, several years later, I heard Joette again at another summit. This time, I decided to explore her website. I came across her blogs.

That first day, Kate, I was like, Alice in Wonderland. It was like a whole new world had opened up for me. I loved reading her blogs; those short, succinct stories. I loved her writing style. The meat of those articles was always a protocol.

She made homeopathy look so simple. It was like one condition, one remedy, exactly how to use it, what potency, what frequency. I couldn’t believe it was that simple because my understanding of homeopathy was that it’s a very complex medicine — just like any other form of medicine.

That was for the first time where I actually wondered if homeopathy could help me. I had been suffering from chronic gut issues at that time. I had this neck and shoulder problem for like almost two decades. I had some herniated discs in my cervical spine. I had used chiropractic for a year. I had tried acupuncture and none of that could help me. I’m not saying those modalities don’t help, but they were not able to help me at least at that point in time. So, I wondered if homeopathy would be my answer.

As I explored her website more, I came across some of the courses that she offers, and I decided to buy the Good Gut, Bad Gut course. But since I had no one to study with, and I wasn’t really motivated at that time, I never went through the course, and it just sat with me.

But as I kept exploring further, I found out about her Gateway courses. Those things really are interesting because you study in a group setting, and it was very inexpensive. So, I decided to buy Gateway I.

That was it! After that, there’s been no looking back. I’ve done her Gateway courses several times. I have done several of her big courses since then. I’m just on a roll. I just can’t wait for her Academy next. I’m absolutely in awe of this wonderful medicine.

My only regret is that I didn’t find it soon enough. I’ve known about it all my life. But I guess it took Joette to convince me. Actually, you don’t need anyone to convince you, I think. Once you start using these remedies and see how gobsmacking they are, they just become a part of your life. I’m just thankful that I found homeopathy.

Kate:  That’s quite the journey that you’ve had. I find it fascinating because you’ve come from such in-depth training in medicine and to now … I feel like you’re saying that now you finally feel equipped to handle what might come your way in your family and those around you with homeopathy. Which is so exciting, isn’t it?

Rachna:  Right. Conventional medicine has its place; don’t get me wrong. It’s great for diagnostics and trauma care. But besides that, it has no answers for chronic issues. You just get put on a pill for the rest of your life, and that’s it. And then you keep dealing with the side effects of those pills.

Homeopathy has given me that freedom. I just find it so liberating because I have absolutely no faith in conventional medicine anymore. It’s been like a 360 degree turn for me in my life. I’ve been able to help my family, my friends, some neighbors with what I’ve learned in the last year.

Kate:  You just mentioned helping your family and helping friends and other people that you’ve come into contact with. I’m just going to sit back and let you share with the listeners, your experiences, if you wouldn’t mind.

Rachna:  Sure. I’m very excited to share this with the listeners. Well, I’ll start with my family. They’re my guinea pigs, and I’m grateful to them for letting me experiment on them. I have used homeopathy successfully on my immediate family, some friends and neighbors. I don’t have any pets, and I don’t have a very large family, but whoever I have around me, I just cannot stop talking about homeopathy. So, everyone in my circle knows how passionate I am about this.

Like I mentioned before, I have a set of twins, and they were born at 31 weeks. They were premature. They had to be in the NICU for several weeks before they could come home.

Second day of life, they were both given prophylactic antibiotics. They were never really sick babies. They were just preemies. But they were given antibiotics prophylactically to prevent infection. I mean, who does that right?

But anyways, I think that completely decimated their gut flora. One of them has always had issues with allergies, and the other one had a predisposition for gut issues. Even though I’ve tried so hard and tried everything in my strength to give them the best food, always buy organic, and cook everything from scratch — despite all these things, they’ve had their share of health struggles.

With homeopathy, I’ve been able to help both of them. With one of them who has always had allergies, he suffered with perennial allergies. We have done so much to alleviate that. Several years ago, we removed carpet from our whole house and got wooden floors installed. We have a really high-quality air purifier in his room. I’ve had the home tested — the house tested for mold. I’ve had him tested for mycotoxins. He was even seeing a naturopathic physician, and she was able to help him quite a bit. But there were still gaps in his healing.

Then, I found homeopathy, and I started taking some of Joette’s big courses. One of them was the Allergic?! course. What I learned in that course … I tried some of the protocols. From there, I tried Calc carb as a baseline remedy and some symptom-specific remedies such as Arsenicum or Allium cepa, depending on the symptoms.

With this, I’ve seen a huge improvement in the symptoms. His symptoms had basically plateaued and weren’t getting any better. But with this, I just see amazing improvement. So, I’m so happy about that.

Another thing where I’ve been able to help him is he started to develop hives especially after eating strawberries. That’s one of his favorite fruits. I noticed that every time he would eat strawberries, he would get hives. Again, I had learned in the Allergic?! course about Apis. So, I treated him Apis. I believe I gave it to him just a couple of times — I think just twice — and I have yet to see it again. It seems to have been uprooted with just two doses of Apis.

I don’t think anything in conventional medicine could do that. This is just amazing.

I have also used homeopathy for certain acute issues in both my children. I’ve used some protocols from the Gateway courses such as Aconite/Bryonia, Hepar sulph, some combination remedies from Boiron such as ColdCalm and RhinAllergy. They’ve been lifesavers for my kids. I usually see super-quick results with these remedies. My children have not had to miss a single day at school.

I also used Chamomilla successfully in one of my kids who would always have earaches while flying. That seems to have gone away with the Chamomilla.

I have another story where my twins … You know, they love each other; they’re like two peas in a pod. But they also fight a lot. One time, one of them hit the other one real bad in the eye. He had like bloodshot eyes, and he was screaming with pain. I was doing the Gateway I course, and I had just come across Joette’s First Aid chart. I opened it up and I looked it up, and there it was: eye injuries.

I immediately used Aconite and Hypericum for him and a combination of cell salts such as Ferrum phos, Calc sulph and Nat mur. Believe it or not Kate, I saw great results within a day. I love this — that I don’t have to run to the doctor’s office for every little thing. In fact, even big things now, so I just depend completely on homeopathy.

In fact, with my other child, I’ve successfully resolved his issues through the one with the gut issues. He’s always suffered from chronic constipation. It has been so distressing for him and for us as a family because we’ve had to take him to the urgent care several times for an enema because he wouldn’t go to the bathroom for fear of pain. He would just get so backed up, and he would cry and get so bloated. Every time we would take him to the urgent care, they would give him the enema and then send us off to the pediatrician. Next day, we will go to the pediatrician, and he would just tell us to take Miralax every day.

I’m a very bad patient myself. I don’t like to use drugs, and I don’t like to use it for my kids as well. So, I was never comfortable giving him Miralax every single day — as much as the pediatrician tried to convince me that it has no side effects. At that point, I had bought the Good Gut, Bad Gut course but not studied it. But I wanted to tackle his issues with homeopathy. I just sat down and went through that course from beginning until the end. I’d probably try a few protocols from there and see if they’d help him.

At this point, he had also started to have not just the constipation and the abdominal pain, but also regurgitation of food. He would eat and then belch and then the food would come in his mouth. It was just kind of very unnerving.

I realized that it was worse with fatty foods. I use a lot of coconut milk in my cooking. Every time I would use that, I would notice that his regurgitation would get worse. So, I tried some protocols from the Good Gut, Bad Gut course such as Nux vomica, Arsenicum, Chelidonium.

I was hoping that Nux would help with this constipation, but it didn’t. It definitely helped with other issues, but it didn’t help with his constipation. I used LycoPlum for that. After I gave the remedies for a few months, all his issues were resolved. So, I’m very thankful for that.

Kate:  I just want to jump in for one second and clarify something that you said because you mentioned LycoPlum, and it’s a protocol. It’s two remedies that you use together, and it’s Lycopodium and Plumbum.

Rachna:  It’s Plumbum, correct.

Kate:  Yes. I just wanted to clarify that that’s what you were meaning when you said, “LycoPlum.”

Rachna:  Yes, absolutely. Yes, Lycopodium and Plumbum, both in the 200 potency — yes.

Now talking of Nux vomica, I’ve used Nux vomica very successfully with my workaholic, overachiever, Type A husband. This is literally brought back the man I married many years ago. I’m so thankful for this remedy.

I learned about it through one of Joette’s Facebook Lives. She was actually talking about some other remedy. But at the end of it, she just happened to mention Nux in passing. At that point, I could never have imagined that this would prove to be such a miraculous remedy.

I’ve also used certain other protocols for my husband that I learned in the Mindful course, which has really helped him with his fatigue and insomnia, such as Aurum and Coffea. I just feel like these remedies are godsent. I treat them with a lot of respect. I’ve seen amazing results as a result of using them.

I have also successfully used remedy for my husband’s head injury. In fact, head injury is something that has always made me nervous because one can never really gauge the extent of the injury because you don’t see anything.

So, this one time, my husband was getting out of the car, and he hit the door of the car really hard on under his eye. It seemed like more of an eye injury. It didn’t seem really bad; I didn’t think it was a big deal. His eye was a little bit red. I gave him Aconite right away (couple of doses), and he went to bed.

But next morning, he woke up with this excruciating, throbbing headache. He could not function, but he still got ready to go to work and went halfway and came back. He wanted to go to sleep. He wanted to go to bed. That’s very unlike him because he’s such a workaholic. For him to miss work really means that he’s really, really sick.

So, I immediately thought of Arnica, and maybe I should have started that the previous day. But I was very new to homeopathy. I started him with Arnica at that time, and I gave him several doses that they along with Belladonna for his headache. All he wanted to do was sleep. So, that kind of scared me. I wasn’t sure if the remedies were working, and that’s why he was sleeping (he wanted to sleep all the time), or it was because of the head injury.

By evening that day, his headache got a little bit better. So, I knew I was moving in the right direction.

The next day, he was actually able to go to work, which was great. I continued with the Arnica. I spaced it out, of course, it didn’t give it as frequently as the previous day and stopped the Belladonna because his headache was a lot better.

Then by the third day, it was all gone. It was like he was a new person, like nothing had happened to him.

I just cannot say enough good things about homeopathy.

In fact, talking of Arnica, I’ve used that for myself, too. There was this one time where I was rushing out the door, and I hit the door on my head so bad. I really thought I was going to pass out. In fact, I had to go and lie down on the bed. And my kids were playing around; my husband was not at home at that time.

When they saw me like that, they kind of got scared. They came running to me. They tried to talk to me, but the pain was so much that I didn’t respond, and they got more scared, I guess.

One of my sons immediately ran and got a bottle of Arnica and popped a few pills in my mouth. Within a few minutes, I got up. I had to take another few doses that day, and I was just fine.

But later when I asked him how did he even know to give me Arnica out of all the other remedies.

He was, like, “Because that’s what you gave to daddy when he hit his head.”

Kate:  That’s so sweet.

Rachna:  Yes. You think, like, these kids are not paying attention, but they have their antennas up all the time. They’re just like little sponges soaking everything up. I’m so proud of this little boy of mine. I call him “My Little Homeopath.” I truly hope that one day he grows up to be one.

I have some other stories where I’ve used it with my mom. My mom, of course, she has age-related issues. She has degenerative disc disease and several herniated discs in her cervical and lumbar spine. She was always in a lot of pain. It’s obviously not fun to be in pain all the time. This was, like, really quite debilitating for her.

I had at that point, gone through Joette’s Pain course, and I decided to try one of the protocols from there:  Symphytum Calc phos. She saw such great results with that! She’s a convert now. She’s a believer, and she tells everyone about how her daughter uses homeopathy.

In fact, one time one of my cousins in India was talking to her, and my mom happened to mention about this to her. The next thing I knew, my cousin called me. She told me about her chronic sinus issues, and she’s like, “Do you think you can help me with homeopathy?”

The first thing that came to mind was Sanguinaria which I had read about in the Gateway course. Then it also is discussed in the Allergic?! course. So, I told her to take that. I just wasn’t sure if she actually bought the remedy, and she took it or not.

But five weeks later, she called me up. She’s like, “What was it that you gave me?” I mean, she was so much better. She had had this for, like, literally all of her life. In five weeks, five weeks was all it took for her to just feel completely normal.

She was so thrilled with the results that now she wants to uproot her asthma with homeopathy, of course. I think I can help her since I’ve done the Allergic?! course, and I feel confident then I can help her with that.

Kate:  Wow.

Rachna:  Yes. Another remedy that has kind of been a lifesaver for me and my mom, my mother-in-law, a friend and a neighbor is Ignatia. I guess, especially, since with what’s been going on in the world for the last nine or ten months, I’ve had my moments. It’s not been easy for my mom or my mother-in-law because they both live by themselves in India. With all the fear mongering and being cooped up at home, it was not easy for them.

So, I told both of them to start taking Ignatia. I think it has really kept them functional all this while.

I have also used it for a neighbor who recently lost her mother, and another friend who lives here in the U.S. But her mom passed away in India, and because of the lockdown, she couldn’t travel. I really felt like Ignatia would kind of help her get a closure on that.

Kate:  Right.

Rachna:  That was really, really, really helpful.

I have another story where I help a farmer at a Farmers’ Market. I go to this Farmers’ Market every Saturday, and I know most of the farmers there. I’m pretty friendly with all of them.

So, this one time, I was chatting with a farmer there. In the course of the conversation, she happened to mention how her daughter had been put on birth control pills and antibiotics for her acne. She was obviously very, very … you know … putting her 15-year-old on these heavy-duty pharmaceuticals.

As a friend, I kind of asked her if she was willing to give homeopathy a try. I explained to her how safe homeopathy is and, you know, how it doesn’t have any side effects.

She was quite thrilled. She jumped at the idea. She decided to try it out. She heard of it before, but she’d never really used it. She immediately got the remedies that are recommended: Hepar sulph and Arsenicum for acne, which I’d learned in the Gateway course. It’s only been a few weeks that she’s been using it, and she’s seeing great results.

The last time I met her, she was like, “When are you starting your practice? I have a ton of patients I can refer to you.”

Kate:  Awww.

Rachna:  So, yeah. I have a neighbor who had heard that I’ve been dabbling in homeopathy. She came up to me one time and told me how her acid reflux had been so bad and asked if I had anything in my toolbox that could help her.

I was just so glad that she came to me first to ask for homeopathy rather than trying everything else out and then coming to homeopathy. Just because of that, I was so excited I actually bought her a bottle of Nat phos — this humble little cell salt — and I gave it to her.

The very next day she came back to me and she was like, “What was it you gave me?” I mean just 24 hours literally, and she felt a lot of improvement using that.

This is something I had read about in Joette’s blog. I think it’s called David versus Goliath, where Joette talks about how she used it for her dad with his indigestion and acid reflux.

The same neighbor again came back to me complaining of charley horses. Another little humble cell salt came to the rescue. I told her to take Mag phos. She’s seen amazing results with that as well.

I have also been able to help another neighbor, the one that I mentioned about who lost her mother a little while ago, and I had given her Ignatia. I was able to help her 94-year-old mother pass away peacefully at home with an end-of-life remedy, which is Arsenicum. I had learned about it from Joette through one of her courses, where she had talked about how she had helped her mother in the last few hours before she passed.

I will never know how much this remedy helped my neighbor’s mom because she was nonverbal. But I was just glad that I could be part of that transition, and that the family trusted me enough to give me permission to even try that in her last days.

This family is from South America, so, they’re a little bit more open to other modalities — you know, other treatment options. I was just grateful that they let me do that.

Kate:  Isn’t that crazy how people from other countries are really more open to homeopathy than those of us in the United States?

Rachna:  Absolutely. That’s, that’s true. Yep, I agree.

Then, last but not the least, I would like to talk about how homeopathy has literally given me my life back — how it has completely transformed my life.

I suffered from terrible gut issues as a result of a surgery that I had several years ago. It was ironic that prior to that surgery, I was completely asymptomatic. But the doctors found a mass in my mesentery. It was an incidental finding.

So, they resected that mass, and along with that, they resected a foot and a half of my intestines.

It turned out to be benign! That was a silver lining, you know, that it turned out to be benign, but it just completely wrecked my gut.

For years, my gut was never normal. My diet was so restricted; I could only eat a few foods. I couldn’t even ever think of eating out without getting sick. I could travel only if I took antibiotics prophylactically to prevent food poisoning. It was just no way to live.

My social life took a nosedive because people usually socialize over food and going out, and I had completely stopped going out. I would cook everything from scratch, and I had to know every ingredient that went into my food. I had to give up certain foods that I absolutely loved.

I forgot to mention that at that point, I had decided to become Joette’s client. It’s been less than a year that I’ve been working with her, and I’ve seen amazing results.

You know, I always thought that my problems were “unique” — like most of us think. I wasn’t sure how much homeopathy would help me. Not just with my gut but with my other chronic neck and shoulder problems that I had for almost two decades — because that was more of a structural issue, so I wasn’t really sure what homeopathy could do. But I have seen excellent results in both these issues.

Prior to Joette, I see a naturopathic physician who was able to help me, but I would have to take this graveyard of supplements that I had, which I had to take every day. She had told me it’s a chronic condition, and that I would just have to learn to manage my symptoms.

I had kind of come to terms with that. But I never really thought there was much hope. But after homeopathy, I have made huge strides. Homeopathy has given me wings. I see my symptoms just melting away.

Though I’m still a work in progress, I finally see hope at the end of the tunnel. I’m just so thankful that I’ve been able to expand my diet. I can eat all those foods that I craved for many, many years. This has just been so liberating for me.

Kate:  You know, it’s funny because you were talking earlier about … you mentioned earlier how someone asked you when you were going to go into practice. It sounds like you have because you have all these people coming to you, asking for help. Then these remedies or these medicines help take care of this condition, and then, they come back to you again and again. It’s pretty exciting, isn’t it?

Rachna:  Right? This is what I’ve decided for my life for the rest of my life. This is what I want to do. I want to heal people. I think we have enough practitioners in our world today. We need more healers and people need to know about this healing, this beautiful, elegant, gentle medicine.

Kate:  Yes, I like the way that you put that: it’s beautiful, healing, gentle medicine.

As we wrap up this podcast, is there any advice that you have for people who are just starting out using homeopathy? You’ve had a lot of experience now and taking courses and consulted with Joette and worked with friends and neighbors. Give us some of your wisdom.

Rachna:  Sure. I think in this pursuit of learning homeopathy, you have to start somewhere. I would start with the Gateway courses. I think that’s a good foundation.

Once you have that foundation, that baseline established, you can build upon it with bigger courses.

I didn’t do that. I bought the Good Gut, Bad Gut course first. But that was a mistake. I think I should have done the Gateway courses first. That’s what I would advise others to do.

I would tell everyone to study, study, and then study some more. Read like your life depends on it. Stay focused. Pursue it with an undying passion. This will never fail you. I feel homeopathy is indispensable for us women because we’re the caretakers in our family. We have no other choice but to learn if you want to avoid the medical system and do it on our own.

You’ll be surprised how much you’ve accomplished in a year. In fact, I’m surprised how much I’ve accomplished in a year.

If you do plan to study, I would advise to do that in a group setting because that keeps you accountable — unless you’re highly motivated, of course. That’s what I did. Just find a group of like-minded women who are as passionate and as in love with homeopathy as you are. Just start. Meet once a week or every two weeks and study the big courses together — not just the Gateway courses, but also the big courses. It really helps you keep on track.

Also, I would say own your remedies. You can never have too many. Own as many as you can. It’s an investment for life, especially since they don’t have an expiration date. I just never feel guilty about buying remedies all the time. I feel like there’s nothing worse if in the middle of the night, there’s a problem, and you know exactly what to do — what remedy to use — but you don’t have that remedy. There’s just nothing worse than that, so just own your remedies.

I would just like to say in the current times that we live in, there’s nothing more important than health autonomy and self-sufficiency, and homeopathy gives us both. I feel so blessed to have crossed paths with Joette. I cannot thank her enough for teaching these courses and these precious Banerji protocols. I’m just so grateful to her for passing on the torch and keeping our passion ignited one mother at a time.

Kate:  Well, I think you’ve said it all, Rachna. Thank you so much for taking the time, you’ve said it beautifully. We appreciate you sharing your newfound passion with us and all of your tips. It’s been wonderful having you.

Rachna:  Thank you for giving me this opportunity, Kate. It was great fun chatting with you.

Joette:  As I hope you know by now, on my blog, podcasts and Facebook Live, I offer as many protocols for simple conditions as I can — for free, without affiliates or advertising.

But let me be clear. When it comes to more complex conditions, it’s key that you learn how to use these medicines properly. I want you to be well-trained. So, I save discussions of the more involved methods for my courses in which I walk students through each method with step-by-step training.

In these podcasts, I focus on those students of mine who have already tunneled in and learned how to take care of themselves, family, friends, and pets, and even livestock using homeopathic medicine. Many of these students began their education by participating in one of my Gateway to Homeopathy study groups. And now, after taking one or more of my courses, they’re well-trained to use my specific brand of homeopathy.

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

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

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

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

IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

 04:09    Gateway to Homeopathy Study Group

14:08    Secret Santa

17:24    Study group stories

33:56    Favorite Remedy

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Podcast 93 — Moms with Moxie: Sharing with Gateway Friends

Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum

Zoom

Signal

Allergic?! Escape Allergies, Sensitivities, and Intolerances, with Homeopathy

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

Look What You Could Do for Free, Folks

S is for Staphysagria

Surgery: Answering Your Questions

Anticipating Surgery, Homeopathy Can Help

Vertigo as the World Spins

Podcast 81 — Ladies Only

The Downward Spiral: Antibiotics and Recurring Infections

Homeopathy Can Spoil a Girl: Medicine for Depression

A Materia Medica: Practical Homeopathy® for Busy Families

My  blog, podcasts, Facebook Live events and courses

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast Episode Number 110.

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

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

Kate:  Welcome back to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast. Today’s podcast is going to be a bit different because we have not only one Mom with Moxie with us but actually four Moms with Moxie.

I met all of these special ladies that I now consider friends in the Gateway to Homeopathy study groups over the years. So, we wanted to have them on the podcast to give you a little insight into the Gateway study groups, and to hear from each of them about their experience with homeopathy.

I know you’ll enjoy listening to them as they share from their hearts today. I’d like to start by welcoming Michelle, Michele, Hillary and Tina to the podcast today. I’m so excited to have you guys all here joining me today.

Michelle:  Hey, Kate.

Tina:  Hello.

Hillary:  Hey, Kate.

Michele:  Hey, Kate.

Kate:  Let’s take a minute before we dive in. I want to introduce you to each of these ladies. I’m going to start with Michele (the Michele with one L not two). Michele and I have been meeting together on these study groups for quite a long time. I feel like you’re one of my best friends, and we’ve never actually met in person, which is really interesting. But we talk every day. It all started with the study groups. With that, Michele, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Michele:  Well, I’m from Chico, California. Kate and I live quite away from each other. We just connected so much with these study groups. I’m a mom of five boys and a husband. We have a little grocery store in Chico. I am just having so much fun with Kate leading these study groups now and meeting these women from all over the world and just making great friends.

Kate:  Michele, you’re actually on another podcast. I interviewed you on Podcast 93. If people want to hear more from you, they can listen to that podcast.

Michele:  Yes.

Kate:  Great. Now let’s go to the Michelle with two Ls.

Michelle:  Hi Kate. Good to see you.

Kate:  Good to see you, too.

Michelle:  I’m from Chicago. I’m a chiropractor and a certified functional medicine practitioner. I am a mother of two teenagers. I have a husband who’s also in practice with me.

Kate:  Great, thank you. Great to see you here today.

Michelle:  Thank you.

Kate:  Let’s go to Tina.

Tina:  Thanks for having me. I really appreciate this. I’m Tina from Bangor, Maine. I have three children, a husband and a couple of businesses. I’m looking forward to sharing what I’ve learned.

Kate:  Yay! All right. Last, but not least, Hillary.

Hillary:  Hello. I’m Hillary. I live in Washington State. I’ve been using homeopathy for about three years, and I love it. I’m just glad to be here.

Kate:  Let’s get started by talking about the place where we all met. That is the Gateway to Homeopathy study groups.

For those of you who may not be familiar, Joette has a Gateway to Homeopathy study guide, I and II. We all met there. There are so many stories, right, about these Gateway to Homeopathy groups.

Most of you have joined us for more than one of the study groups. You just keep coming back and coming back. I know you feel the same way that I do that every time I go through one of these study groups that I continue to learn. Something new stands out to me, and I’m reminded of something that I had forgotten, or some new information comes out in our conversations.

The best part, honestly, is the friendships and the support that we’ve developed through these study groups. I want to hear from you now about your take on the study groups and why you like them?

Hillary:  Hi, this is Hillary. I’m going to go first. I loved taking the Gateway classes so much that I took both the first and second class three times. You meet new people, and you get to hear other people’s success stories, and that is so fun and encouraging.

But I will say there was an element for me where I was really nervous, because I hadn’t been on the Zoom call before and participating made me nervous, but it was such a good experience. I just want to encourage anybody out there to just try it.

Kate:  Hillary, you had talked about, really, you expressed a great hesitation in joining the study group, because even coming on and seeing these new people — you didn’t know them. So, what made you decide to do it even though you had that fear? Or what do you want to say to people who might be hesitant to join a study group?

Hillary:  Well, I think you get so much out of it. I pushed myself a little bit to talk. Then you get used to it! You get used to it, and you kind of forget about “this is uncomfortable,” and you just enjoy the people, and you enjoy learning so much.

Even through all of that, I made some really great friends. And I’m in a study group now with some of these people that I met. It’s just such a great experience.

Kate:  When you say study group, you mean that you guys are now going through a course together? Is that what you’re talking about?

Hillary:  I have done that. I mean, we have a study group that is over Signal. We text each other when we have questions, when we have something that we want to share that is a success, or if we just need some support, we can text each other.

Kate:  Yes. You guys got together, and you said, “Let’s join up on Signal. Then we can still continue our conversations, even though our formal study group has ended.”

Hillary:  Yep, that’s right.

Kate:  Yeah. I love those Signal groups. They’re a really great way to stay in touch.

Michelle, you have an interesting story also about when you first joined a study group.

Michelle:  I came to homeopathy probably about a year ago. Because I’m in private practice, I come across a lot of different cases. And I started doing biofeedback several years ago.

While I was doing biofeedback, these patients … the results would come up with these names of things that I had never heard of before. The patient is asking me, “Well, what is that?”

Like, “I don’t know. I just know that it balances you.”

This happens so often that I’m, like, I better figure out what these are, and these were homeopathic remedies. I went on the internet, and I was looking for at-home homeopathy guides or courses. I did try a few I found some from England. But then through that learning, I figured out who Joette was.

So, I called Joette’s office and I said, “Do you have a practitioner’s course that I can do?” I was talking to one of her staff, and she says, “We don’t have that yet. But we do have these study groups. It’s called Gateway to Homeopathy; I think you should join one of those.”

I said, “Yes, but I’m a physician. Are there going to be other physicians on there?”

She says, “No, seriously, just join the Gateway study group. You won’t be disappointed. You really need to do it.”

So, I went on to the Facebook page and immediately found Kate and Michele’s study group that was starting the next week!!

I’m, like, “Okay, we follow energy all the time; energy has intention. So, I am going to sign up for your study group.” Joined the study group, and I haven’t looked back since. It was such a remarkable way for me to learn something that was so foreign to me. I needed to open my mind to a whole other realm of healing, and I don’t think I could have done that any other way.

Meeting all these ladies from across the US was an absolute blessing. Like you, too, Hillary, I’m on the Signal group as well. I bring cases to all these gals, and I’ll say, “Okay, I got this new patient who has X, Y and Z. What are you thinking? This is what I’m thinking.”

Everyone chimes in. Before you know it, I have a great protocol that I can try with my patients. It’s just been remarkable. It really has transformed my practice just in one year.

Kate:  That’s a great story, Michelle. I love it. It’s been amazing getting to know you, and I’m so glad that you did take that leap and joined our study group. Thank you for sharing about your experience.

Michelle:  Thank you.

Michele:  I can jump in a little bit and add to what Michelle said. Michelle, when we met at our group — actually, all of us, I think were in the same group at one time or another. But we took it one step further, which was so exciting. I was talking to Joette about this the other day that we’ve gone from being a Gateway study group to, “Hey, what course should we do next together?”

Michelle:  Yes. Yes.

Michele:  We actually did the Allergic course during the winter last year. We just met every other week, early in the morning. I think there ended up being like 15 of us.

Now there’s, like, 35 of us that are going to do Good Gut, Bad Gut next.

It’s been so exciting to see these groups, getting to know all of you people from all over the world, literally. We have one gal in New Zealand who meets us on the next day. Here it’s Tuesday; it’s Wednesday at noon at her place.

But it’s been really neat to be able to meet and to work with you and to work with all these women from all over the world. And men! We had a couple of guys with their wives join us this year. One was a nurse; I think he was an RN. Then the other one was a pharmacist. They happen to be in Kate and I’s group together. It was our first men. It was just the neatest experience working with husbands and wives, and then all these other people from all over the place and get their input.

Really, these groups have been incredible for my growth and my learning in homeopathy. I got started going to the groups looking for … I was looking for a group, and I couldn’t get enough people together locally. So, I found … I think Joette might have told me about the Facebook page. So, I found Kate had a group, and I got connected with her. Then she said, “Well, you can keep coming back. Once you go to the first one, you don’t have to pay again.”

So, I kept coming back over and over and over again. Then Kate and I just grew this amazing friendship. I could honestly say she’s one of my best friends that I’ve never met. We talk every day. I mean, if a day goes by, and I don’t hear Kate’s voice, I’m like, “Whoa, I wonder what’s going on?”

These groups have been just wonderful for everything. At the beginning of the year, when things started getting shut down, Kate and I started meeting with people on the side and just doing Zoom groups to talk about, “Hey, how do we handle a virus? Let’s go through this together and support each other. Let’s pray together and lift each other up.”

We have made some incredible, incredible friendships through these Gateway groups. I am so grateful to Joette for starting this. It’s just been a wonderful journey.

Michele:  I will say it’s actually been really encouraging to have this group through the whole shutdown — through the whole COVID thing. Because people in different states can say, “This is what’s going on. What’s going on with you guys?” “Hey, this is what I’m trying. This is what’s working.”

It has been such a good support group because we can see people, whereas sometimes we can’t. It’s so nice to connect. It’s been so nice.

Michelle:  Michele, to piggyback on what you said about the new courses that we’re all taking, like the Allergy course — now we all want to do the Good Gut, Bad Gut, I feel like I wouldn’t want to miss out on something. I’m, like, “Well, I got to do what they’re doing even though I feel like I need to do the pain group because I’m a chiropractor. But I’m not, I’m going to do Good Gut, Bad Gut because that’s what everybody’s doing, and I don’t want to do it on my own!

Tina:  I just don’t want to miss out on anything, any information.

Michelle:  That’s how I am, Tina.

Tina:  Seeing everybody, where we’re so isolated right now. I get to see people who have become my friends, and it’s just been amazing. It’s a blessing for me.

Kate:  Tina, tell us about what we did this Christmas. Maybe you can share that story.

Tina:  This Christmas, Michele had a great idea of doing Secret Santa. And us women are all over the United States. I mean, we’ve never met each other in person. We drew names through Michele, and she told us who we had. And we all sent out emails to say, “Oh, I like this; I like that.” Or “Send me anything! I don’t care what you send me.”

It was the most fun I think I’ve ever had in a Secret Santa group. We got to eat together one night, open up all of our presents live in front of each other. It was just wonderful to share that experience with these women that we’ve never met in person — that I feel like are such dear friends to me now. Everybody was excited about their gifts and appreciative and thankful, and it was a wonderful experience.

Kate:  I don’t know about you guys, but I think that was the gift that I most looked forward to opening.

Tina:  Us too, yes.

Hillary:  Yes, it was so much fun.

Tina:  I was so excited because I didn’t even look at mine. Like I’m like, “Oh, the box was there, and I wanted to open it.”

Michelle:  What did you all receive?

Tina:  I ended up getting a salt lamp. It’s wonderful because I keep it right in my office by my computer, and it purifies the air there. It’s great.

Hillary:  I got a couple remedies, and I got an EMF protection bag to keep my remedies in.

Michele:  I got an EMF bag as well. It was so much fun. I think a bunch of us got EMF bags for our remedy.

Kate:  Yes. I got something that was hand stitched — my name on a blanket that keeps me warm when I’m on all these Zoom calls (because I live in Wisconsin, and its cold here in the winter), and a whole bunch of other things. It was very exciting.

Michelle, it’s sad, but you weren’t part of that. Because you weren’t in our Signal group, right?

Michelle:  No, I wasn’t. No. So, next year, guys.

Kate:  Yes. Next year.

Michelle:  Remember to add me.

Kate:  Yes.

Tina:  Oh definitely.

Kate:  Tina, I don’t think we heard about your story, how you came to join the Gateway group?

Tina:  It’s kind of exciting for me because I heard one of Joette’s podcast and it was actually Kate doing the podcast. Of course, I jumped right online and found the little section and under Joette’s website that said online study group. I didn’t know anything about it. I just ordered the Gateway I book. I thought, “Oh, I can just do this by myself.”

Well, I couldn’t, it was too hard.

So, I got on Facebook and literally found “The Kate” that did the podcast for Joette. I was just, I felt like I’d hit the jackpot. I started that, and I’ve done it three times with Kate and Michele — Gateway I and Gateway II. It’s been invaluable for me, not only for the information, but the camaraderie that has developed. I would encourage anybody to do it.

Kate:  Awww. You’re so sweet.

So, we’ve had some pretty interesting study group meetings. We have so many stories we could share, right girls? I mean, I feel like we’ve been going through life together. There’s so much personal and homeopathy.

But Michele, I know, you wanted to share with us something that happened while we were actually on a study group. If you could share that now, that’d be great.

Michele:  Yes, we were on a study group once, and a gal (that was supposed to be there that night) her family had gotten in a car accident. I remember her calling from the hospital and asking what remedies to do. We stopped the meeting, and everybody was giving her wisdom and advice. I think we even might have prayed with her to help her through that.

That was just like one of the things that happened where it was during a meeting, somebody needed help that we were able to step in and help with. And that was just really a neat experience.

Kate:  I feel like that’s happened more than once, hasn’t it, Michele?

Michele:  Yeah, it has. It has — definitely.

Kate:  Yes, and it’s kind of neat. Because I remember, they would go off the call for a bit, and they were in the ER. And then she would come back on and tell us how it’s going.

Michele:  Right.

Kate:  We’d all talk about it.

Michele:  It was amazing, just to be able to support each other in that. That was really special, too.

Then another one was we had a gal, Heather. Joette did a blog about her. It’s called, Look What You Could Do for Free, Folks. We watched her go from the beginning of treating her severe eczema — I’ve never seen anything like this — through her complete healing within that year. It was just such a blessing to be able to watch her and how she found that information on Joette’s blog.

Kate:  Yes.

Michele:  That was really a special time, and then Tina had an incident with her husband when she was in the Gateway group.

Kate:  Yeah, Tina, tell us about that.

Tina:  Oh, my goodness. I was right in the middle actually of my Gateway II group. And my husband, on the jobsite, fell ten feet and crushed his urethra. That was like in March of this year [2020], and I was brand new to homeopathy. I mean, I just started learning about it in November the year before.

My husband didn’t want me to come to the hospital because he was worried for me, and how I was feeling. So, if course, I immediately took Aconite at home — because that’s what I had learned in the … through the support of the Gateway group. And he finally said I could come to the hospital. So, I did — immediately brought Arnica with me because we knew he was going to be having surgery right away to put a catheter in so his urethra would heal around this catheter.

The doctor was very clear with us that he wasn’t sure if Dan would come through this and not have to have a super physical catheter the rest of his life. Or if he would have such a scar tissue in his urethra that they would have to do repeated surgeries forever for him.

And so, we were scared. But through the support of these Gateway groups — which I can’t begin to express what a blessing and how invaluable they were to me — I ended up giving him the remedies that I learned.

In post-surgery, I gave him Arnica 200. I gave him Hypericum 200, for the pain. I gave him Nux vomica 30 for the effects of the anesthesia. He was nauseous and a little dizzy, so I gave him Phosphorus every three hours.

We only did the Nux vomica and the Phosphorus first day.

I gave him also starting that day, Staphysagria 200C, twice a day. We continued that for four weeks. We also gave him Thiosinaminum 30, twice a day for four weeks for scar tissue.

The most miracle thing that happened … we went back to get his catheter removed, which was actually another surgical procedure. We repeated everything we did before with homeopathy.

But the doctor came out, and he said, “I got to show you this. I got to show you the before and after. We did not expect Dan to heal like this.” He said, “He has complete blood flow. He has literally no scarring — because I have done this surgery for years, and I have never seen this happen.”

He said Dan’s injury was the type that we usually see in car accidents where people get crushed in the pelvic region. And I knew what it was. I didn’t say that to the doctor, of course, because we did slip him the homeopathy without the doctors knowing it. They’re not real up on that. They’d be like, “What are you putting in your husband?”

So, for me, it was a miracle. It was the homeopathy miracle. And then being able to jump on and send a text to Kate or Michele, and just say, “Okay, what else can I do? Can you help me. Point me in the direction.” It was just a blessing all the way around. I can’t begin to share with everybody how important homeopathy has been in my life.

Michele:  Tina was talking about surgeries, and I found at least three blogs on surgeries that I’ve used also. But the S is for Staphysagria was particular to the catheter issue that she had with her husband. Joette also has a blog called Surgery: Answering Your Questions. There’s an older blog, Anticipating Surgery, Homeopathy Can Help. They’re all wonderful, full of information.

Kate:  Let’s hear some more of those stories.

Michelle:  I have some really cool ones that I’d like to share with you. I have quite a few patients on many different protocols, but just wanted to maybe share a couple with you guys that kind of stand out for me.

This one gal, she’s in her 60s. She came to me — I’ve been working with her for years, actually, but she knows that I’m studying homeopathy. She had a slew of things that she wanted me to do — to come up with protocols. I do have three for her that I’d like to talk to you about.

The first one is depression. She’s been on depressive medications for over 40-something years and wanted to get off of them. Over the past couple of years, through the help of her prescribing doctor, we’ve been able to get her off the medication and onto St. John’s Wort, the herb, which was fantastic.

But learning in homeopathy, I wanted to now get her off St. John’s Wort over to homeopathy and then hopefully never be on anything ever again.

So, she agreed to my protocol. The protocol was Aurum metallicum 200C, and we did every third day with Coffea cruda 200C, twice a day. We did that for probably eight weeks when she told me that she started itching terribly at night. I brought this to our Allergy group, I think, Michele, and said, “What do I do? Is this a proving, or is this her old skin issue coming up?” We tried to work through it.

I just saw this gal last week, and I took her off the Coffea cruda. Lo and behold, she got a lot better. I’ve now since added in Ignatia 200, twice a day — every day except for the day she takes Aurum metallicum. She said now she has never, ever felt better, even all the years just being on medications and everything else. Right now, I’m calling this a slam dunk. And hopefully, we can start to wean her off of the Aurum.

She also brought to me a long history of UTIs. Last year, she had three UTI infections. That was three rounds of antibiotics. When she brought it to me, we just happened to start talking about it in one of our groups. So, quickly looked it up and got her on Medorrhinum 200, twice a day, and her infection was already gone. Of course, she had antibiotics as well. But she continued that Medorrhinum for one month. This was back in August of last year, and she has yet to have the return of any UTI. She had them back-to-back-to-back in 2020.

Then she comes to me at the beginning of December and says, “Okay, all this stuff is working.” She says, “What can you do for my vertigo?”

I know she has chronic vertigo. I’ve helped her chiropractically with it. But it’s like so much care that we decided, “You know what, you can let it ride out on your own over the past couple of years.”

But she brings it back to me and says, “Now what about vertigo? What can you do for that?”

I found a blog on Joette site called Vertigo as the World Spins, and it lists Tellurium 200C, every third day, and Conium maculatum. She said 3C would be better, but some countries can’t get it. So, she usually says 6C. But I was able to find the 3C, on OHM … at twice a day.

So, the first four weeks or so, she told me there was no change. She’s like, “I thought this was going to be a miracle.”

I’m, like, “Patience, child. Things are not always linear.” I said, “You have to hold out for eight weeks.” It’s what we’ve been told right? Chronic conditions, you wait for eight weeks, and then you reassess.

So, when she came into my office last week for our reassess, it was eight weeks, and she has improved by 50%!

Kate:  Wow!

Michelle:  She, of course, is, like, “So what can I drop?” I’m like, “No, no, no, no, we’re going to stay the course. I have been taught by Joette. I’ve been taught by Kate and Michele. We’re going to stay the course.”

And she agreed. We’re going to stay the course.

So super-excited that I’m getting all this success with her. And so, she’s down to only one medication. When I started working with her with homeopathy a year ago, she was on four. She’s now down to one. And I can’t take her off them, remember. So, this is her going to her MD, and the MD is agreeing that she doesn’t have to be on them.

Kate:  Yes, that’s awesome.

Michele:  Yes. That’s so exciting.

Michelle:  I know. I love it.