How to Switch from One Homeopathic Remedy to Another Homeopathic Remedy

I’d like to start by first reviewing how the body develops an illness. It always starts with an event small or large, physical or emotional leading to a symptom that is often ignored and then progresses day by day until it reaches a point when we no longer can or want to ignore it.

Homeopathy starts the healing process by treating first the symptoms that are being expressed at the time.

Symptoms can either improve (meaning walking the illness backwards) or they can progress (meaning going deeper into the body). If the symptoms are not addressed properly, either by selecting the wrong remedy or by administering the right remedy improperly, the illness will continue to progress going deeper.

In Homeopathy the healing takes place when selecting and administering the correct remedy. And in doing so, the remedy will “walk you” from where you are now back to the origin, i.e., original symptom of the illness. You may need to take different homeopathic remedies to walk backward in the illness. As you are moving back to the original illness you will start to see symptoms of the next remedy picture.   A Remedy picture is defined as the symptoms that a remedy will address.

In acute cases such as a cough that is in your chest, you want to walk the symptoms back to the throat and in many cases to the sinuses. This may look at first, like one is getting worse, or having more symptoms but in reality, having a cough in the throat is not as threatening as having a cough in the chest. The symptoms will walk back from the chest to the throat then to the sinuses the same way as they progressed from sinuses to the chest.

Let’s use a cough in the chest as our example to help you better understand how your cough goes from a dry cough to a loose sticky cough: Your chest feels heavy, tight (constricted) and you have a dry cough from the chest, a Bryonia Alba (Bry) cough symptom picture. As Bryonia is helping, your cough will go from a dry cough to a looser cough and your chest will also start to feel lighter, less constricted and not as tight. This means Bryonia is working and in a matter of time you will start to have a loose sticky cough – Causticum (Caust) (the next remedy symptom picture). This is your body responding to Bry and giving you the next Homeopathic remedy clues as to what the next remedy will be. As you get to know the Homeopathic remedy pictures better, you will be able to recognize remedy pictures. You still are having the symptoms of Bryonia, chest still little heavy and tight, but as you are improving the next remedy picture will start to come through.

So what do you do?

This is where the art of managing a Homeopathic case comes in. Ok, you still have Bry symptoms (chest little heavy and tight) and you see Caust symptoms, a sticky loose cough. You must wait until you no longer have the symptoms of the Homeopathic remedy you are taking at the time before switching to the next Homeopathic remedy. In this case scenario the heavy tight chest and a dry cough (Bry) must be gone. If you switch to the next Homeopathic remedy (Caust) before you are done with Bry, you will go back to having Bry symptoms (dry cough and chest feeling heavier and tighter); going in the wrong direction. Don’t panic, it just means you still need the prior remedy (Bry) and you are not ready for Caust. It is like you are standing on two rocks – front foot is on the Caust rock and back foot is just barely touching the Bry rock. One of the tricks I have learned over the years to make sure that the Homeopathic remedy you are on (Bry) is done, is to increase the succussions the next time the remedy (Bry) is scheduled to be taken. And in doing so, you will know within ½ hour if it is time to change to the next Homeopathic remedy. All we are really doing is taking a probe to make sure you are ready for the next remedy.

Here is the protocol that I use before switching Homeopathic remedies:

Case Scenario: You are now taking Bry 200c or 1m every 3 hours with 12 succussions

• Increase succussions of first remedy by two, before switching to next remedy,

You will:

• Take a dose of Bry 200c or 1m with 14 succussions

1 of 3 Scenarios will happen within ½ hour after taking the remedy with increased succussions.

Remember, the body is always trying to give us clues, we just have to learn how to read them.

That is how you switch from one Homeopathic remedy to the next and continue the healing process.  If you would like to learn more about the various Homeopathic remedy pictures for your Acute symptoms (colds, coughs, allergies, etc.) visit my classes page for upcoming classes.