Homeopathic Care

Know the Condition

Before you can treat an illness homeopathically, you need to understand the condition, noting a few key symptoms along with some background into the case history and how the patient reached the present state. As revealed in the patient's story or case narrative, all the symptoms of the condition, the modifying factors that make the condition better or worse, and the general state of a person's vital force, reflect the true nature or portrait of the disease, the individual's particular expression of the disturbance. When you understand the nuances of the individual's particular suffering, then you are ready to treat him or her with the appropriate remedy.

Condition / Presenting Complaint (Case Narrative and Etiology)

To understand the condition, record the patient's narrative of the case history and etiology. What were the symptoms experienced? What made them better or worse? What is the state of the patient's vital force? Watch for causal indicators, adding side notes with some of your own observations.

Symptoms

When it comes to symptoms, you want to consider the following as to whether they are —

• Acute vs Chronic
• Characteristic
• Particular and Common
• Strange, Rare, and Peculiar
• General

Acute vs. Chronic

Whether the condition is acute onset, of only a few weeks duration, or chronic, involving many months or years of suffering, will affect your selection of the homeopathic medicine's potency and the frequency of dosing.

Characteristic

Characteristic symptoms are those symptoms beyond what is commonly experienced by most individuals; that is, they distinguish, or are characteristic of, the person's suffering. If you have a cold with nasal congestion or stuffiness, that is of course common and of little value in establishing the portrait of the illness. But if you have congestion that is worse at a certain time of day, worse after consuming certain food or drink, accompanied by pain in the stomach, accompanied by burning or other sensations, alternating with putrid and greenish discharge, or better lying on the right side, such qualifications (or "modalities" — see the discussion below) begin to define how the illness has manifested itself in the person (as compared to other people who might have exhibited quite different symptoms). Successfully finding such distinguishing or characteristic symptoms will enable you to identify the one best homeopathic remedy (with similar distinguishing characteristics) to treat the individual's condition.

Particular and Common

Particular and common symptoms are non-distinguishing unless accompanied by other modifying factors or modalities. If all you have to rely upon are symptoms by location or of common occurence — stuffiness in the nose, pain in the throat, nausea in the stomach — such particular/common symptoms will be of less value later in helping you select a remedy, because many remedies have these common characteristics.

Strange, Rare, and Peculiar

Strange, rare, and peculiar symptoms are perhaps the most valuable, because they distinguish something strange or rare in how the illness manifests in the individual as compared to most people. Such symptoms then become useful in selecting a remedy, because only few remedies will have that same characteristics in their profiles. In other words, the homeopath will only have to review a small sample of possible remedies for study and selection of the best one.

General

General symptoms are a person's general feelings, state of mind, appetite, sleep habits, perspiration, energy, and other general states affecting the person as a whole. "I feel sleepy all the time." Or "I can't sleep after 3 am." "I keep waking up with the same dream — see, I have this web design project...." Because these tend to distinguish a person, these symptoms, especially with any modalities, should be given more weight when it later comes time for you to select a remedy.

Modalities: What Makes the Symptoms Better or Worse

Modalities are those modifying factors or circumstances that make symptoms either better or worse; they help to distinguish the symptoms and particular suffering of the individual, ultimately helping you to better identify the remedy with the characteristics most similar to the individual's disease portrait. Some of the most common of these modifying factors are the following:

Emotional Factors

Feeling anxious, worried, angry, sad, etc. (e.g., makes the itchiness of your rash worse)

Bodily and Sensory Functions

Hearing music, sleeping, perspiring or releasing any bodily discharge, etc. (e.g., relieves your headache)

Motion or Positioning

Bending over, moving your arm, lying on your back, etc. (e.g., makes your neck and shoulder pain worse)

Environmental Factors

Cold and damp, wind, hot weather or direct sunlight, etc. (e.g., worsens the fever)

Time or Seasonal Factors

Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall, noontime, night after 3 am, etc. (e.g., makes your runny nose allergy worse)

Vital Force

You want to also consider the state of a person's "vital force," the body's governing principal as to overall energy, vitality, and responsiveness to stressors in life. Closely linked to susceptibily and the body's response, but not akin to the immune system or its state of health, the vital force is considered to be strong in the very young (despite having low immunity or an immune system not fully developed, their youth and vitality allows for a robust response to illness and quicker recovery) and weak in the very old (age and sluggishness results in a slow and meager response to illness and a prolonged recovery). The stronger the vital force, the more the individual can withstand a higher potency of homeopathic medicine.

Causal Indicators

The case narrative will also present a number of causal indicators, aspects of a person's physical constitution, family history, mental and emotional character, lifestyle and habits, and age that are acting to perpetuate his or her illness.

Physical Constitution and Family History

Physical constitution and family history can provide important clues as to how the illness arose. Is the person emaciated, perhaps lacking vital nutrients in the diet? Did the family suffer a traumatic event, such as divorce or a death in the family? Often an ailment will make its appearance around an event that triggered strong emotions.

Mental and Emotional Characteristics

Mental states can have a substantial effect on our body's ability to sustain healthy functions. Many illnesses arise in response to prolonged states of anxiety, worry, depression, anger, and other strong emotions.

Lifestyle and Habits / Environment

It's important to understand a person's lifestyle and habits and how they might be contributing to an illness. General overwork from late nights at the office, bad diet, and lack of sleep, for example, might all contribute to lowered immune system and susceptibility to colds and flu. Among the more important factors to consider are the following:

• Diet
• Exercise vs. Sedentary Habits
• Home and Work Environments
• Civic and Domestic Relationships

Age

Of course, age is the final cause, of illness as well as death. The higher a person's age, the more likely of either happening.

Repertory

To know the illness, you'll need to review a Repertory, a handy reference of symptom categories and descriptions (rubrics), each of which references a list of applicable homeopathic remedies that have historically been shown to create those same symptoms in healthy individuals. A well known example of such a reference is Kent's Repertory of the Materia Medica, which is organized into multiple sections falling under three main areas:

• General Conditions (Mind, Vertigo, Sleep, Chill, Fever, etc.)
• Body, Anatomical Conditions (Head, eye, nose, ear, throat, stomach, abdomen, rectum, chest, back, extremities, etc.)
• Discharges (Expectoration, perspiration, stool, etc.)