Page 8 - Spring 13

The musings and wider thoughts of an 81 year old By Francis Hunter (UK)
Homeopathy changed my life in 1980 when I attended the introductory course at The Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, for the doctors only in those days. Over the years I have met so many lovely people who all same the same passion and inter- est. I don’t think I have met an unfriendly person involved in homeo- pathic medicine, including doctors, vets of course, dentists, pharmacists, midwives and nurses. Everybody, without exception, is eager to help, give advice and discuss cases etc. We are indeed a fortunate group of people and it has been a wonderful journey.
I would like to share my experiences with three different remedies that I have prescribed. Two of them in a first opinion situation in the con- sulting room, without any detailed knowledge of the patient. The first remedy is for epilepsy. If a dog presented with occasional fits, in a petit
mal state I would prescribe Bufo 6c tid (the venom of the toad). I would dispense enough treatment for a month to start with, always with the proviso that if things got worse they must contact me at once. I found that the majority of such cases improved dramatically. The fits would either cease completely, or become less severe and/or less frequent. After three months, if things were going well, I would reduce the dose to one bid for a second month. I would never advise clients to cease the ortho- dox treatment prescribed by their own vet, until we could be sure that the homeopathic treat- ment was as good or better than the conven- tional medicine.
The second remedy is Bryonia 6c tid for ken- nel cough - again in the first opinion situation. Bryonia as you know is always “worse for movement”. The straightforward case of kennel cough. I would invariably find that this would give a positive result in three to five days. Having prescribed this remedy for years with very good results I had a hands on case three weeks ago when my own Labrador dog
(Beamish) suddenly developed the cough with a lot of sputum, that he was spreading liberally around the house. I knew immediately that it was kennel cough because I had been recently in contact with a dog that had kennel cough and I had foolishly returned home without thinking first of the possible danger to my own dog. Needless to say the dosing of kennel cough nosode had ceased some two or three years ago, and I had forgotten to repeat it. Beamish did not go off his food, and was happy to go for a walk, in spite of the kennel cough, but having taken the Bryonia for three days he was com- pletely better. No expectorant after the first day, and the coughing had completely gone after five days. The most important symptom of course were the sudden bouts of coughing on first movement.
The third remedy is Syzygium 30c, which I used successfully for the treatment of dia- betes mellitus. I knew John Ainsworth of Ainsworths Homeopathic Pharmacy well, because he was the Life President of The British Homeopathic Association when I was the Chairman. It was John who told me about this remedy and he said it must be continued for several months tid before you could expect it to give maximum benefit. Again I would not lower or cease the orthodox treatment until the tests revealed an improvement. Gradually I would reduce the dose of insulin, constantly monitor- ing the glucose level in the urine (and/or blood). Again in many cases it was possible to reduce the number and the severity of the bouts of epilepsy.
In addition the daily dose of insulin could be reduced, sometimes halved and in a few cases stopped altogether. I appreciate that for some of you this is not the way that homeopathy should be used; but as far as I am concerned if it works why knock it!
This brings me to the final part of this article; the wider thoughts. I know that homeopathy is the first love of most of us, but I feel that this doesn’t mean we should ignore or discard the many other effective forms of treatment that complementary medicine embraces. Acupuncture and herbal medicines immediate- ly come to mind.
Some years ago I wrote a chapter in a phar- macy text book on animal diseases, for all stu- dent pharmacists. This was edited by my good friend and colleague Steven Kayne, with whom I had already collaborated with to write a book called “People Are Pets” (in order to help raise much needed funds for the charity – The British Homeopathic Association). The pharmacy book mentioned above included the diseases of many different species using orthodox and complementary medicine.
By the way I hope most of you are or will consider joining the BHA. It is not expensive and disseminates a lot of useful information and worthwhile articles from all the various disci- plines using homeopathic medicine (end of “plug for the BHA!).
The chapter that I wrote at that time includ- ed ten complementary therapies: acupuncture, aromatherapy, Bach flower remedies, chiro- practic, herbal medicine, homeopathy, mas- sage, osteopathy, physiotherapy and radionics. I should add that for the section on radionics I relied heavily on the expertise of Pat and John Saxton. Radionics as always remains for me mystical but also effective in many instances. There are a number of other therapies and I want to briefly mention two: shiatsu and reiki healing.
For two years after a hip replacement I suf- fered from acute and painful sciatica until I was treated by an equine shiatsu specialist. This wonderful lady cured my sciatica in three ses- sions last January combining shiatsu, reiki and faith healing. I have suffered no pain since – remarkable! Do please check them out on Google as they make very interesting reading.
Footnote: Lorraine always comes to me straight from treating a horse in her riding clothes and boots. I have explained to all my friends that so far she has not appeared with her whip – I’m still waiting!
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