ARTICLES
Don't be fooled, Homeopaths have been using St. John's Wort for nerve injury for hundreds of years, it is NOT used for depression, we have other, wonderful remedies for Depression.
I found this article on the web, I am still looking for the author's name.
Beyond St. John’s Wort: Homeopathy for Depression
Mental-emotional diseases are more baffling, frightening and
expensive to treat than almost any other type of disease—and the most feared and
most common among them is depression. Half the American population has tried a
powerful psychotropic medication like Prozac or Zoloft for depression, and
Prozac is even given for premenstrual tension.
The Western medical approach has several real flaws, beginning with the
lack of individualization. It
classifies patients with a disease name, each with its fixed protocol giving the
same treatment to very different
individuals. And rarely do we promise cure,
rather control of the disease. But
the drugs used to control the disease create a second disease picture with their
numerous side effects. In Western medicine we have very few psychotropic drugs,
none without side effects, some very debilitating.
We think we have made progress in Western medicine because we have a new
buzzword, “neurotransmitters,” but this does not give us the power to balance
those neurotransmitters, much less understand why they are out of whack in the
first place. As long as we are not looking at the beginning of the disease, the
root, we cannot expect to resolve
the end stage, the disease
picture. Hence the all-important question:
“What happened in your life when you got depressed?” By tracing the
condition back to its origin and then addressing that particular state with a
remedy, homeopathy can actually cure any depression. And a cure in homeopathy
means not only relieving the symptoms but eradicating the predisposition to a particular condition.
You may think you are already using homeopathy because you are using a
natural remedy, Hypericum or St. John’s wort, which is sometimes incorrectly
called “homeopathic.” But what makes a remedy “homeopathic” is not the
ingredient, it is the unique process of diluting and potentizing it. For
example, salt has no healing capacities until it is homeopathically prepared
(and then it becomes Natrum muriaticum, one of our most powerful remedies). So
what about St. John’s wort? All homeopathic remedies are
proved on healthy people to determine
what symptoms they will cover. Hypericum in its provings indeed shows some
symptoms of depression, such as the inclination to weep, apprehensiveness, and
mental excitement. Yet as a homeopathic remedy it does not come even close to a
hundred other remedies for depression, each
one tailored to the particular patient. Hypericum in homeopathy is
mainly used for pain syndromes with nervous involvement: a crushed finger,
sciatica, numbness, tingling, and headaches after a spinal tap. But for
depression: no! We have far superior weapons. What is the future of St. John’s
wort for depression? There are no universal panaceas for any disease. And using
an herb in large supplement doses is a lot closer to Western medicine than
homeopathy: there is no individualization and no covering of the causality, and
too much is taken, too often. There is a danger of actually intensifying the
depression as an excess of the herb builds up in the body.
The strength of homeopathy is evident in
chronic diseases, and particularly so in mental-emotional conditions like
depression. You should never
attempt to treat yourself for a chronic disease; professional
homeopathic advice is necessary. But for some
acute, temporary depressive states, homeopathic remedies can be used very
safely. As usual in those acute cases, one should use the 30C or 200C
potency (see my previous articles). Let’s investigate just some of the
homeopathic remedies we have.
By far one of the most powerful
anti-depressive remedies is
Aurum
metallicum or the metal
gold. Indeed, it does not have any healing powers in its crude form, but
prepared according to homeopathic methods it becomes a gem. It covers the
classic situation in which one person dies after many years of a happy marriage,
and the other partner dies within a few months. The surviving partner will say,
“I lost the sunshine in my life,” meaning they lost all purpose in life.
Aurum will also help senior citizens in nursing
homes where loneliness and a lack of purpose often bring an “Aurum state” of
emptiness and despair. Aurum also covers
physical and emotional pain as well as
the desire to commit suicide.
Indeed these patients are the most likely to commit suicide, typically by
jumping from a bridge or from a window. They have a loathing of life and want to
avoid other people, but they get revived when you convince them to go out for a
little walk. They often have feelings of guilt (“maybe I should have been nicer,
now that he or she is gone, I regret not telling him more that I loved him”).
Another trigger for an Aurum state is
financial loss, such the stock market crash of October ‘87: many
people lost all they had saved in one day and committed suicide, often by
jumping from a window. Aurum can also help other family members affected by
financial loss, for example a star student who can no longer afford to go to the
prestigious college she always hoped and dreamed of. An
Aurum person always puts all his eggs in one
basket; when he loses it, there is no reason to live further.
Aurum also covers so well the
pain and despair of patients with incurable
diseases, especially advanced cancer. Aurum is able to alleviate
physical as well as emotional pain, as I have seen so many times in my practice.
Causticum is another well-known anti-depressive remedy,
but the symptoms as well as the causality are completely different from Aurum.
The picture is one of complete paralysis of
the mind and the body. The patient has suffered a knockout blow from
too many unfortunate events in her
life. One of my patients suffered a tremendous shock and grief when her baby
grandson died unexpectedly in her arms. A second blow came a week later—her
daughter-in-law unjustly accused her of having caused his death. These two
recurrent shocks were such blows that she came to me not only with depression
but also with severe memory loss.
This is what Causticum stands for:
recurrent grief events, one after
the other, paralyzing all the emotions,
and often with a sense of injustice
or in an unjust situation. People who need
Causticum have a flat affect. They
seem to live in a daze, with no emotions.
“Hearing bad news” (such as the death of a family member or a diagnosis of
incurable disease) can also create a Causticum state. We doctors should never
forget the power of our words: we can punch a patient’s vital energy down and
out with a single statement like “You have cancer.”
If I could choose only one
anti-depressive remedy, it would be Ignatia.
There is no better remedy to mend depression
from a broken heart and betrayal,
especially if it is still acute (fresh in the person’s mind). The
Ignatia person reacts in her depression with
sighing, sobbing and just sitting there immobilized, as if struck by
a lightning. “Why me?” they ask in vain, left by a lover in whom they put all
their emotional bank balance. “How could he do this to me?” They are very
sensitive to the behavior of their lover, as if their very survival depends on
that one person. An Ignatia person may also have psychosomatic symptoms such as
sighing, choking, a stiff neck, and
a globus hystericus
(a feeling of a lump in the throat making it impossible to swallow). They
often weep for help and attention,
they eat the refrigerator empty,
and they may even have convulsions.
If someone has many Ignatia (acute heartbreak) events, they will need
another remedy: Natrum muriaticum (Nat-mur). If there are too
many heartbreaks, the person turns to silent
grief, never crying except perhaps when alone listening to classical
music. She doesn’t want to talk about her depression (except maybe with her very
best friend). She feels worse when people try to console her because she just
wants to be left alone. These people
are easily offended,
never forget what was done to them,
often dwell over the painful event,
sometimes with great vindictiveness. They often become psychotherapists or
dedicate their life to a cause like MADD (Mothers Against Drunken Drivers).
Indeed, most members of these groups could benefit from Nat-mur since they all
lost a beloved one in tragic circumstances. People who need Nat-mur typically
have recurrent attacks of cold sores or herpes
genitalis, sometimes unexplained
hives or rosacea in the face.
Add to that a dry skin and
oily face and sensitivity of
the eyes to sunlight, and you can recognize the physical symptoms of
grief leading to depression. Rather than committing suicide, they tend to
crusade for a worthy cause as this improves their moods.
Another frequent remedy for depression is
Phosphoricum acidum,
the phosphoric acid used to make bubbles in soft drinks. The person who needs it
feels that her life is flat and all the
sparkle has gone out of it. She is so depressed that she is
indifferent to everything, even her
own family, friends and activities she usually enjoys. She
lies in bed with her face to the wall and the
phone unplugged. She suffers from
spaciness, a great loss of memory with
difficulties finding the right word,
drowsiness during the day and insomnia at
night. Typical physical symptoms include
hair loss and painless diarrhea. This
Phosphoric acid state is mainly found in teenagers who have homesickness (it’s
absolutely the greatest remedy for these teenagers away from home for the first
time), or in patients broken down from nerve strain after a longtime chronic
illness like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or mono.
One of the all-time greatest remedies for women is
Sepia.
There is probably not one mother who has not been in this state (although you
don’t have to be a woman to get the exhausted, burned out and depressed Sepia
state). But it is certainly well-known for the infamous
post-partum blues.
How would I wish that ob/gyns knew about Sepia! The patient basically is
worn-out, physically, mentally and emotionally.
It can be from a particularly difficult
pregnancy (perhaps with severe morning sickness, for which Sepia is
very helpful too!) or from an arduous delivery.
To the amazement of the family, the Sepia patient can be so depressed that she
feels indifferent to her family,
even her newborn baby. “Leave me alone,” they say, “I am utterly exhausted. I
need a vacation, far away from the whole family, to be able to replenish my
energy.” The poor Sepia patient has always been very dutiful but this attitude
is precisely what brought her into a state of
exhaustion and depression (“I’m having a nervous breakdown,” she may
say). Now she feels that everyone wants a piece from her, her children, husband,
and friends, and she can’t cope with the
demands anymore. She may even say, “Shoot me because death must be
better than this.” Hopefully your postpartum blues are very short-lived, but
don’t take a chance: Sepia is a state easily recognized and remedied by the
homeopathic physician. Of course anyone with
overwork and over-responsibility can slide into this exhaustive Sepia situation.
I can’t leave you without mentioning another great remedy:
Arsenicum album.
Yes, the poison arsenic is one of the greatest healers in homeopathic doses. The
person who needs Arsenicum has
anxiety and
depression; in fact the depression
often comes from severe anxiety about illness
and the prospect of dying. These are the people with
obsessive-compulsive behavior like
hand washing. They fear microbes
which seem to be everywhere; they are so afraid of catching a disease and
especially cancer that they become depressed. They are very
restless, especially at night where they toss and turn in bed.
Arsenicum patients are by their very nature very
pessimistic: today everything might be OK but you don’t know
what tomorrow brings! Often this state starts after a child has been exposed to
the death of a parent, or after an adult has taken care of a dying relative for
months. Fearing that no one can help her, she runs from one doctor to another
and is often labeled a hypochondriac. She relies greatly on a trusted doctor,
and when the physician moves away or retires, depression sets in.
Homeopathy has so many more great
anti-depressive remedies:
Chelidonium, Calcarea carbonicum, Cina, Graphites, Nitric Acidum, Stannum,
Psorinum, Pulsatilla, etc.—each for a different set of symptoms and a
different causative factor. Do you see now that homeopathy is far superior to
any Western drug because it is tailored to the patient? If you are ever
depressed, run to your homeopathic physician with
your kind of depression and he will
find your remedy for sure.
Long-term prevention with alternative vaccines
Alternative vaccines in homeopathic form are available for long-term prevention. Several protocols exist for the administration of homeopathic nosodes or the corresponding remedies for the prevention of whooping cough, meningitis, diphtheria, tetanus, polio, and other diseases during childhood. There exists significant controversy within the homeopathic profession about the appropriateness of using these preparations for long-term prevention. This controversy involves the areas of effectiveness, safety, and ethics.
No long-term studies have been conducted to evaluate the efficacy of this form of prevention. There is no reason to assume that these vaccines continue to act preventively years after administration, unless immunity is shown through an objective test or clinical studies. The research that proponents of homeopathic prophylaxis frequently cite to prove an immunizing effect of these remedies involves studies done on diphtheria. An examination of this research is warranted because it represents the only studies used as evidence.
Homeopathic preparations have not been shown to raise antibody levels. Smits tested the titre of antibodies to diphtheria, polio and tetanus in ten children before and one month after giving homeopathic preparations of these three vaccines (DTPol 30K and 200K). He found no rise in antibody levels (Smits, 1995). He speculates that protection afforded by a homeopathic remedy acts on a "deeper" level than that of antibodies. Other homeopaths have stated similar opinions. Golden says, "unlike conventional vaccines, the Homoeopathic alternative does not rely on antibody formation." He postulates that "Homoeopathic remedies reduce the patient's sensitivity to the dynamic stimulus of the virus or bacteria, thus lessening the patient's predisposition to being overcome by this stimulus" (Golden, 1994).
If homeopathic remedies do not produce an increase in antibody levels, then the only way to measure the effectiveness of homeopathic prophylaxis is through clinical results. This is a formidable undertaking. The cost of long-term studies using homeopathic prophylaxis would be prohibitive, given the present resources available. Ethical problems could also prevent such studies from occurring; it is doubtful that ethics committees would allow children to be deprived of the commonly administered and approved allopathic vaccines. Moskowitz has suggested that the sizable population of unvaccinated children whose parents have refused vaccines, could provide a control group to assess the long-term negative effects of vaccines (Moskowitz, 1985). Perhaps this population could also serve as a test group for homeopathic prophylaxis.
Golden has conducted an informal survey of customers who have purchased a kit of homeopathic medicines intended for use in a long-term prophylaxis program beginning in infancy (Golden, 1994). This kit includes the nosodes for whooping cough, diphtheria, measles, mumps and Haemophilus, as well as tetanus toxin and Lathyrus sativa (for polio). They are administered in repeated doses, one medicine at a time, during the period from one month of age to five years. For example, Pertussin is given at ages 1, 2, 13, and 32 months. Tetanus toxin is given five times at ages 11, 12, 24, 41, and 60 months. The first dose of each remedy is 200 strength, and subsequent doses are 200, 1M and 10M in succession, every 8 hours in one day. The follow-up survey involves a questionnaire sent yearly from 1988 through 1994, to each of the parents who purchased a kit.
During this five-year span, he received 879 returned questionnaires. Only 2 percent of those children contracted one or more of the diseases covered by the program. Parents were also asked whether a child contracted a disease covered by the program after a known exposure to one of these diseases; they reported that 188 children were exposed to one of these diseases, and 20 contracted the disease. This is an 11 percent failure rate for the homeopathic prophylaxis program with a known exposure to disease. Golden does not specify which diseases the exposure entailed. This very preliminary and limited survey suggests that the 188 supposed exposures may have received some level of protection from the program. Golden notes that symptoms were mild in the majority of cases that did contract the disease. No severe adverse effects were reported in this survey for any of the homeopathic medicines.
The only other evidence cited to support long-term prevention through homeopathy refers to the possible short-term protection it affords during epidemics. It is assumed that repeated doses may provide a protective effect that extends over a span of a few weeks, especially if the child is also challenged during this period with the microorganism that can cause similar symptoms to those produced by the medicine. There is no evidence, however, that any long-term effect accrues from this method.
Dosage schedules for homeopathic prophylaxis vary widely depending on the practitioner's preference. The schedule, the potencies used, and the number of repetitions are chosen arbitrarily. Golden devised his schedule to approximate the timing of allopathic vaccines, "to reassure parents that their children are being covered by a comprehensive program...." Eizayaga employs 200c potencies of nosodes as homeopathic prophylaxis. His schedule involves giving one nosode twice per day for three days, waiting one week and then beginning the next nosode in his series. Others advise giving a CM (100,000 dilutions) once, or a 1M (1,000) that will last at least two years (Shepherd, 1967). In the absence of any studies or any way to prove immunity, homeopaths arbitrarily choose dosage schedules.
Disagreement exists among homeopathic practitioners about the safety of introducing a homeopathic medication into the body if there are no clear indications for its use. In general, homeopathic medicines are prescribed on the basis of existing symptoms. These symptoms , guide the prescriber to the correct prescription. Classical homeopaths assert that an incorrectly prescribed homeopathic medicine can interfere with the action of other correct prescriptions or disturb the energetic balance of the organism. They generally do not condone the administration of many different nosodes in a single person, as some cases have been rendered apparently incurable by such practices.
Golden has addressed these concerns. He reasons that the damage caused by the administration of the homeopathic nosode is less than the damage caused by conventional vaccines. This is a theoretical assumption that may or may not be true. It is certainly true that homeopathic medicines have never caused the dramatic adverse effects including paralysis, epilepsy, and deaths that are attributed to conventional vaccines. Neither do homeopathic medicines circulate toxic materials in the bloodstream. He further states that the possible adverse consequences of protection using the nosodes are less than the probable adverse consequences of acquiring certain infectious diseases such as polio, diphtheria, and tetanus. Furthermore, even though he finds trust in the protective effect of a constitutional homeopathic medicine attractive in theory, this practice may not prove efficacious, since there are examples of strong and vital individuals and cultures who succumb to infectious disease. His conclusion is that homeopathic vaccines may prove effective, are less toxic than conventional vaccines or the diseases themselves, and are therefore preferable to relying on strictly classical homeopathic prescriptions (Golden, 1989).
Most classical homeopaths would counter that a strong and vital constitution does provide protection from the serious consequences of diseases, unless the disease is different than anything the immune system has ever encountered. Such may be the case with Polynesian islanders exposed to measles, or vital young adults exposed to HIV or the Ebola virus. Parents might also consider this possibility when evaluating needs for protection when children travel to foreign countries with endemic diseases that a child has not previously encountered.
On the other hand, most classical homeopaths will prescribe a preventive medicine or nosode during an epidemic, or following exposure if the effects of the disease could significantly compromise the health of the individual. This practice has some justification, based on the few studies that have been conducted, and on the considerable experience of homeopaths managing epidemics over the past hundred years. In most situations, classical homeopaths tend to rely upon constitutional homeopathic treatment and other immune-enhancing factors in a child's life to develop a strong immune system and prevent serious diseases and their complications, rather than experimenting on patients with unproven preventive medicines that could cause problems. Homeopaths cannot apply a double standard, assuming without any evidence that homeopathic prophylaxis can be used safely and effectively while at the same time criticizing the vaccine industry for exaggerating claims of conventional vaccine effectiveness and minimizing the recognition of adverse effects.
A separate question concerns the advisability of preventing childhood diseases if this will create a greater susceptibility and incidence of the disease in adulthood. Homeopathic prophylaxis results in the same situation as conventional vaccines in this regard. If the homeopathic program is effective, then these nosodes may require repetition throughout the lifespan to protect adults because they have not gained immunity by contracting these infectious diseases during childhood. Since the homeopathic medicines do not apparently act by stimulating measurable antibody responses, there would be no way to determine susceptibility to disease, or the need for repetition of doses. Therefore, the program might require repeated use of these substances on an arbitrary schedule to maintain immunity. Such a maintenance program would be as hopelessly speculative as the dosage schedule is now, since there is no way to document immunity.
The final difficulty with reliance upon long-term homeopathic prophylaxis involves ethical issues. Parents need to understand that there is no evidence to support the use of these homeopathic preparations for long-term prevention. A homeopath who prescribes a prophylactic medicine and assures parents that it will prevent a disease years in the future misrepresents the facts. False reassurance and wishful thinking may dispel parental anxieties about diseases, but they do not represent logical conclusions. There is nothing in the literature that even suggests that homeopathic prophylaxis provides lasting immunity from specific diseases. To claim that they do is an unfounded fabrication.
Some authors have suggested that if parents are given the choice of doing nothing or obtaining the conventional vaccines, then many parents will choose vaccines because they want to do something. Golden forcefully states his argument in this regard. He would "strongly argue that if parents prefer to vaccinate their children rather than provide no specific protection, we as practitioners are professionally obliged to offer them the use of the Homoeopathic alternative. It is then up to the parents concerned to choose between the two options for protection, based on the information available to them" (Golden, 1994). Homeopaths may or may not feel obligated to offer parents a program that has no basis in experience or research. If they do, the information should be accurate and not composed of contrived claims for homeopathic prophylaxis. The decision to use any vaccine rests with the parents. Nonetheless, practitioners cannot advise the use of homeopathic preventives just because they fear that parents will choose conventional vaccines if they offer nothing. This encourages the worst kind of anxieties, and defeats the purpose of a truly informed choice. Fear of disease has bedeviled allopathic medicine for centuries and has led to increasingly toxic methods of suppressing symptoms. Homeopaths would do well to present the facts to parents, and assume that parents have the intelligence and good judgment to come to their own educated opinions. Parents deserve to have access to all the information available, so that their choice about vaccines, conventional or homeopathic, can be an informed one.
Can homeoprophylaxis be used for anthrax and smallpox? (click here)