For David - Some que

1.'Main' remedies, commonly known as Polycrests, are just famous remedies, well known. They do not have any special powers over and above other remedies. When you know a medicine very well, you will prescribe it more sucessfully, more often. With the less well-known ones, obviously you won't unless you make a concerted effort to learn and use them.

In clinic, I cure many cases with new or 'small' remedies. Some of my best cures in fact come from these less famous remedies. I can give a hundred cases easily showing how useful they are, and how useless the polycrests were for these people.

Polycrests probably make up about 40% of my prescriptions in clinic. If I relied only on them, I would be miss out on cures for a lot of people. I suppose if I was willing to zig-zag back and forth between remedies, as polycrest prescribers often have to do, as I used to do in the early days of my practice, I could still do some good work. But I usually ended up having to prescribe a small remedy at the end anyway to 'finish' it, which probably means that was the remedy that would have cleared up the whole case if I had used it first. I believe this to be true, because now when I am more confident to use those remedies first up, I don't have to zig zag or change remedies much at all.

2. I do not agree with combination remedy prescriptions. This is not because nobody gets anything out of them- obviously if an appropriate remedy is in the mix, it will still help. However, the chance of choosing the wrong medicine actually increases, and this means side effects. Worse than this, if one of the medicines does have a bad effect for the patient, you have to stop the whole lot, and then try and work out which one it was. No easy task. This can slow down the cure for the patient substantially.

The potency scale doesn't have much to do with repetition. That depends on the individual patient.

Potency scale also doesn't have anything to do with what level the symptoms used for prescribing are expressed on. The specific potency itself may though. 6c tends to deal better with physical symptoms, 30c has more general symptoms, 200c more emotional and so on. However, this is really only a general guide, as you can see in the provings that 12c is quite capable of producing (and therefore curing) mental symptoms.

The X potency scale is just less diluted than C. This means it will be more potentially aggravating because it is closer to to the physical substance it is made from (also therefore broader in its action). Being broader means you do not need to be as precise in your prescriptions, it will work on more people. However it will not always give you the best level of improvement without better precision. Homoeopathy works best when the prescription is as precise as possible (aimed at the most pecuilar and individual symptoms of the patient).

Potency is still somewhat of an unknown quatity in Homoeopathy, and theories abound.

3. Personality traits should never be used to prescribe remedies. Only disease characteristics should. However, disease can affect the mind, emotions, body, spirit. Determining which symptoms are part of the disease and which are not is a very important aspect of homoeopathic prescribing.

Pathology on the other hand is very important, as it is definitely part of the person's disease. However, the name of the pathology is a less effective method than defining the peculiar aspects of the pathology. Typically the characteristics of the pathology can be found on any level of the person where disease is found, as there is only one disease at one time, and it will extend into every weak point of a person. This means that the pathology is a good window to examine the disordered vital energy through.

4. Homoeopathy is not just my job but my hobby and my passion. I make the time to do this out of love for it.

Hello adayal1.
I have faced similar situation to yours. I have tried several 'classical' and 'non-classical' homeopaths but never a high enough degree of success.
I am still trying though.
Not only frustration sets in but there is another problem. I become so overwhelmed trying to express my best to the homeopath that I get very burdened. I keep thinking 24 hours on how to express my problems. Further I have to worry about the 'length' of my posts (or talk) because the more I try to do better, the more it irritates the prescriber and the more and more I start thinking further on how to write and how in 'brief'.

Now I even fear that by excessive thinking I am losing my original problems. I just don't know perhaps what are my real and original problems now. I have told my problems to homeopaths in straight-forward manner. They had different ways. I still feel that while I have been very specific about myself, homeopaths have tried to look for something else in me. Then, In trying to help prescribers I tried to dig my nature/personality/mentality. Obviously every few months I felt something else about me. Finally several months or years passed each time and my problem set and pattern changed. Again I am investigating....This has gone on and on....Opportunities of life have been lost several times but I am yet to get a simple solution.
I even tried to say to my self that perhaps I was expecting too much and when things were 'relatively' good by some homeopathic prescription, I should have just stopped. But I couldn't. Perhaps the proper cure has really eluded me.

There is lot to say about how I cannot go to some classical homeopaths in my country (many reasons) but I will not waste more time and space here...

Anyway I definitely believe in the science of homeopathy and will surely encourage people to for it. Let us see what happens in 'my' case.....

1. There are 10 known miasms, more may be added in the coming years as more research is done. I use all 10 current ones when prescribing for patients.

I have found the 10 miasm system to be far more useful in my search for precision when prescribing medicines. 3 I found too restrictive and broad. As a system 10 miasms helps to narrow down the choice of remedy in a very practical way. For me any theoretical system MUST have a practical use ie. make my ability to prescribe, manage and cure patients EASIER and more EFFICIENT.

I have found that without applying the theory of miasm in practice, my patients rarely stay well for long periods of time. I agree with Hahnemann whole-heartedly, without adressing the miasm nobody with a chronic disease gets cured (except by accident I suppose).

2. I will select a medicine that covers the totality of the case, including Miasm if I have been able to percieve that. Miasm may not become clear until after several sessions however, as the pattern of a person's disease may not be seen until you have seen either a number of their complaints flare up, or have the time to talk about enough of their disease history. In some cases I might use a well-known anti-miasmatic remedy (like Mercury or Thuja) or I may even use the nosode. I find that it works much better to give a remedy that covers both the state and the miasm, however if I cannot find such a remedy I may need to 'zig-zag' between remedies and anti-miasmatics to get forward movement (cure) in the case.

3. I prescribe on the totality of the case - all important and peculiar features of the disease as shown or expressed by the patient. I will also attempt to determine which of these features have been present in all the other diseases and traumatic experiences in the person's life. In my experience the majority of people actually experience one main disease state often from early in their life, which remains unchanged.

Some patients may experience a change of state during their lifetime, perhaps several changes. A change of state is a clear difference in all peculiar aspects of the disease even if the pathology appears to remain the same (physical pathology most commonly tissue changes that won't change too often). This might mean that person will need several remedies to reach a state of health, one to cover each state. My experience is that it is very difficult to determine that ahead of time, as the patient cannot accurately describe an old state while in the midst of their current one.

4. Bach was a superb prover. His sensitivity was amazing, he was able to determine the characteristics of plants by merely holding them. Not only that but I have used his bach flower materia medica to prescribe those plants in homoeopathic potencies, with success. So I believe he was able to prove substances this way. Incredible.

However without succussion and dilution, Bach Flowers do not have the power that our medicines do. They remain low potencies, only able to affect people in broad and general ways. They are incapable of affecting the miasm, or the deepest level of disease. However they are actually quite useful for generalized problems or for people whose issues are more acute than chronic.

I personally don't like the word Classical - people use it to mean all sorts of different things. What you want is someone who is Traditional, who uses the 4 basic principles, who knows the Organon well, and who uses Miasm when attempting to correct the chronic disease.

I have been working as a homoeopath for 18 years now. I started studying when I was 24, and I am 45 now.So most of my adult life has been in practice of homoeopathy.

I don't like my patients to use Bach Flowers as they can palliate the aggravations, which I certainly do not want, or they can alter the state of the patient temporarily, which hides what is really happening. I don't like anything clouding my vision of the patient if it can be helped.

Sure go ahead. Just make a separate post, we can take it from there.