Going back about 15 years or so, I was talking with a friend and mentioning how tired I was feeling. Keep in mind I was a single Mum, looking after a homestead block and a herd of dairy goats on my own – anyone would be tired doing this! She told me that she used Lugol’s iodine and took a few drops now and then when she felt tired and it really lifted her up and suggested I do the same. I did know about Lugol’s and had used it 10 or 15 years before without ill effect.

There are many articles on the internet about using Lugol’s iodine to help with many ailments, including thyroid issues. Lugol’s iodine is an aqueous preparation of potassium iodide, usually sold as a 2% or a 5% solution and then you dilute this further for use. There are many articles and YouTube videos showing how to do this. This article is not about how to prepare Lugol’s or what to use it for. It is about my personal experience.

So I made myself up a dosing bottle and took one drop a day in a full glass of water, with some apple cider vinegar like is suggested.

• Metallic taste: By day three, I noticed my appetite had dropped as everything I ate or drank tasted like metal. It was so strong, I struggled to finish a meal.

• Headache: Then I developed a severe headache, I had to hold my head with both hands and turn my whole body to look to the left or right it was so bad.

• Drenching night sweats: Then on the night of the sixth day, I woke up in a drenching night sweat. I mean drenching! I was soaking. I had the presence of mind to get a bucket and wrung my t-shirt into the bucket – I collected 2 litres of fluid from my t-shirt! After having a shower, changing my clothes and bed sheets – at 2 in the morning! I manged to sleep again.

I checked the materia medica for Iodum and sure enough, I was experiencing every symptom listed there. A full proving of iodine. Suffice to say the picture of this remedy is clear in my mind as if it is etched on the back of my hand. I was given a dose of Iodum in potency by my homeopathic mentor and it took a full 2 weeks for all the symptoms to leave me and I could enjoy eating again. Thankfully I only had the one night of sweating. I’ve never taken Lugol’s again.

As a result of this inadvertant proving, I have confidently prescribed this remedy to menopausal women experiencing drenching night sweats and the remedy works like a charm to remove this most distressing symptom.

I learnt after this experience that you cannot supplement iodine unless the body is replete with Selenium. I much prefer to recommend food sources for nutrients these days. One of the richest sources of selenium is Brazil nuts with only 1-3 nuts a day required to meet the body’s needs. Iodine can be sourced through seaweed products (but some people will even be sensitive to this) or simply use iodised salt for a short time. Iodised salt products unfortunately contain aluminium free flow agents which need to be taken into consideration.

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Disclaimer: This information is supplied for educational purposes only. Sources include published literature and anecdotal experiences of myself and other men, women and animals. The information is not intended for the treatment of any particular individual person or disease. If you are suffering any particular complaint please consult professional help.

Following on the completion of my studies last year with the International Academy of Classical Homeopathy (IACH) under Professor George Vithoulkas, I have now been accepted as a Professional Homeopath by the Australian Homeopathic Association (AHA). It has taken over 20 years for me to achieve this designation. This post is autobiographical as it maps my journey through the ever changing climate of the Australian education system in relation to Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in Australia.

So what was I before? A self proclaimed homeopath I suppose.

I started studying back in the 1990’s. I had started a Diploma of Naturopathy and completed one unit in Naturopathic Philosophy and then I switched from Naturopathy to study Homeopathy. This was mainly because of the $100’s of prescription I would receive from visiting a naturopath against a few dollars for a homeopathic remedy. I thought “why am I studying a profession where I am reluctant to pay for those prescriptions?”

I aquired my first Diploma of Homeopathy in 2004 through The British Institute of Homeopathy (BIH) based in London, which at the time was the premier school of distance education in the world. Many homeopaths from Pakistan and Iran studied with this school before going on to create their own schools. It took me 4 or 5 years studying part-time, most of that time I was living overseas as well. This was in the early days of the internet when education materials were sent physically through the post and I posted written assignments back to the school. I saw the change to be able to submit assignments via email which saved a lot on going postage costs.

During this time I joined an on-line community called minutus@yahoogroups.com Yahoo groups were before Facebook and it was a great coming together of many homeopaths from all around the world. Here I was exposed to many well known names in the homeopathic world. People like Julian Winston, David Little, Kate Birch, and many, many others often contributed to the conversations. This is where I learnt about vaccinations, the cholesterol myth, Dr Paul Dresden and the HIV saga. It was through the times of SARS-1, Ebola, the anthrax mail scare, with the usual run of homeopaths trying to preempt the homeoprophylaxis remedy for each of these world medical emergencies. So you can see that by the time SARS-2 came along, I had well and truly been there and done that!

The group was moderated by Dr Ardavan Shahadar, an Iranian homeopath who, at the time was the head of the Faculty of Homeopathy within the Ministry of Health of Iran. I had the pleasure of meeting with him for coffee in Dubai. Fun fact - due to economic sanctions against Iran, they have not been able to obtain many conventional pharmaceutical drugs, so homeopathy is a big part of their medical system out of necessity, a bit like the situation in Cuba. Dr Shahadar was ahead of his time producing on-line courses via email, of which I did a few. This was all stopped when the Iranian regime closed the internet to outside influence.

On my return to Australia in 2004, I was invited to join the AHA and become registered with the Australian Register of Homeopaths (ARoH). But they didn’t recognise my Diploma because I had studied via distance education and not in a bricks and mortar school. How times have changed! I would have to sit an exam to satisfy entrance requirements. My personal life wasn’t really supportive of me setting up in practice at that time so I didn’t go ahead with this.

Jump ahead another 6 years, I’m now a single parent and thought about getting back into homeopathy. I was using remedies on my son and animals and knew how useful this modality was. I completed the “Homeopathy in Practice, Advanced Case Taking and Repertorization” certificate in 2011. This was a short course conducted by BIH. I did it to get my brain back into the concept of studying, with view to study their Post Graduate Diploma.

I embarked on this latter Diploma in conjunction with the New South Wales School of Natural Therapies, in Coffs Harbour. This was called Advanced Diploma of Homeopathy with the BIH covering the homeopathic subject matter and the school providing all the biosciences modules. A win/win for me as it created the eligibility with Centrelink (Australia’s welfare system) for me to meet their return to work criteria and maintain my welfare payment while still being able to stay at home with my son.

But this entered the era of significant changes in the CAM education space. There was a movement in Australia to move CAM from Advanced Diploma to Bachelor Degree. This caused a great upheaval in the industry with many schools closing down.

Well, BIH closed down and was sold. It moved to New York state and is now called BIH International headed by Maria Bohle. Then the NSW School of Natural Therapies closed down, the student base was transferred to Heath Schools Australia - which didn’t have homeopathy on their curriculum. That was ok, I was able to keep studying with BIH International. I converted my Australian studies to Advance Diploma of Nutritional Medicine to meet my welfare requirements. Then this school closed down! To mitigate transfering to yet another school, I managed to complete this diploma by making a Herculean effort to complete the remaining 12 months worth of work in 2 months! I had originally intended to continue on with studies with HSA by doing the modules in Western Herbal Medicine. I had thought that I could combine the Advanced Diplomas in Nutrition and Herbalism with Homeopathy as my elective and come out with a naturopath title, simply because it seems to be more recognisable to the public than Homeopath. Alas, with the changes in the education sphere, it was no longer possible to do exams with an external exam supervisor, they all had to be conducted on campus combined with attending student clinic on campus as well instead of sitting in with a local practitioner. On campus means the school in a major metropolitan area, the closest one being 1400km away from where I live. This was not possible for me with a small child and a herd of dairy goats! So I gave up on the idea.

A year later I completed my studies with BIH International and was awarded Diploma of Homeopathic Medicine in 2015. I then approached ARoH again for inclusion on their register. But they still didn’t like that I’d studied on-line. I had started accruing clinic hours with some local homeopaths, one of which told me not to worry about ARoH for the time being. Unfortunately she died an untimely death and I let things go again.

My time spent studying did allow me to remain a stay at home Mum until my son was 9 years old, for which I am very grateful for.

I returned to work as a radiographer to pay my bills and this absorbed me for the time.

And then came the era of SARS-2. I lost my job as a radiograper for a period of 9 months. I fell back on homeopathy. I had heard in circles that the IACH course was deemed acceptable by the registering boards. I had been reading the books of Vithoulkas for the entire time I had been exposed to homeopathy. I deeply wanted to study the course but could never quite validate to myself to spend the money to essentially re-do what I’d already studied, especially being a single Mum. But this era taught me that if there is something you want to do in life, you ought to just do it. So I parted with the money and signed up.

This course did reinforce what I had learnt before and deepened it quite considerably. It brought me back to the roots of homeopathy which is Similia Similia Curentur. I have looked at some of the “new” homeopathy ideas that abound today, tried a few, had miserable results with them and it was a blessing to be immersed in what I know to be true - one remedy at a time will heal.

Despite all this formal education, I probably learnt the most practical knowledge in my two weeks at Homeopathy For Health in Africa under Jeremy and Camilla Sherr. I blogged a bit about this experience here

So here I am, a Professional Homeopath at long last.

But here’s the rub, due to other events in the Australian political climate, homeopathy is still not recognised as a functioning modality and is not covered by health insurance companies for insurance rebates. This is due to two factors. 1. The NHMRC information paper: evidence on the effectiveness of homeopathy for treating health conditions of 2015 which was particularly damming for homeopathy and despite energetic opposition from within the homeopathic community the resolve has not been reversed. 2. The Review of the Australian Government Rebate on Natural Therapies for Private Health Insurance in 2015 which removed 17 modalities from insurance rebates, although 7 are in process of being claimable again, the process towards this is fraught with difficulty.

Homeopathy has ruffled the feathers of the established medical community since it’s inception. Homeopaths are very familiar with attacks to their healing art. However we soldier on because it works. I’ve tried to let the idea of being a homeopath go but it is part of my blood now, I simply can’t ignore it. I’ve come to recognise that being part of the community of homeopaths helps to strengthen the cause. I’m looking forward to becoming involved with the homeopathic network as to date I have pretty much kept to myself.

I continue working on the business side of being a homeopath too. I’ve recently extended my clinic hours to be more flexible for people working and can now take on-line payments, which is a bit of buzz for me. Check my website for details here

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Baking bread is one of the most rewarding past times. I’ve made my own bread for over 25 years and it doesn’t taste like anything I can buy. Even the supposed best artesian breads don’t taste as good to me. I did have a break from baking bread after I delivered my son. There were so many other chores to do, I decided something had to be dropped. But after 3 months of eating supermarket bread, I went back to baking. Life wasn’t worth living if there was only to be shop bread.

I began baking bread with commercial yeast. This method makes easily reproducible loaves but sometimes I felt chained to the timer. 50 minutes for the first rising, 25 minutes for the second rising and the dough would sink if left for too long. So then I started making sour dough. It has been quite a journey and I’ve learnt a lot along the way.

Now I have a method where I can leave the bread dough in the fridge for a day if I am out at work and then bake it when I get home. I’ve also worked out that I can keep my starter culture alive even if I only bake once every two weeks.

I have put all the details on my website. I felt there are too many photos to put it here on Substack so I hope you will click through to view it.

https://abikahealth.com.au/making-sour-dough-bread-while-working/

If you need to clarify any of the instructions, please ask in the comments.

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I’ve been posting articles on Substack for over 2 years now. I started with a weekly post about remedies, with insights into how to differentiate them when a particular remedy would be useful in a first aid setting. This helped me to memorize remedies so I would be able to recall the information under exam conditions as I moved through the Diploma course with the International Academy of Classical Homeopathy (completed at the end of 2025). Posts slowed somewhat as I focused on case studies. The later posts have been inspired from what has come up in consults that I need to explain to people.

Many of my new subscribers will not have seen the earlier posts so I am giving instructions here as to how to access them.

When you are on the webpage, you will notice “Archive”

Once you have clicked to this page, click on the search icon and type in what you are looking for.

In the app, the “Archive” doesn’t appear but if you are on the newsletter page, the search icon will be at the top and you can click here for searching.

Searches can be made for remedy names which will be helpful when using your first aid kit. I have transferred the remedy posts to my website where it may be easier to find them. Click here to access this

There are a few topics that have all the posts related to that topic listed within them. Examples include:

Endometriosis - of which I have 4 articles

Tanzania, Africa - 8 articles

How homeopathy works - I have listed them here with hyperlinks.

How to decide what homœopathic remedy to use?

How to take a remedy

Philosophy of Cure

Layers

Levels of Health

Single Remedy or Combination

Suppression of disease

Symptoms, the language of the body

Fever

Diet and Nutrition

Diet

Iodine

Desires and Aversions

Gluten Free / Dairy Free

Thyroid

Nutrition guidelines for Endometriosis

Bread

I write each article the painstaking way, not with AI. I hope to get back into producing articles more regularly to share with you some of my knowledge. Homeopathy is a big subject. I’ve been studying it for over 25 years, have a big book case full of books with just as many on my wish list. Learning never stops. I hope you stick with me on the journey.

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Also think about checking the About page which contains details to contact me for treatment.

Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride describes in her book “Gut and Psychology Syndrome” [GAPS] that the history of the GF/DF Diet comes from the Specific Carbohydrate Diet [SCD] developed in the 1950’s. This diet removed all grains and starchy foods from the diet for a specific period and it helped many people to overcome many of their issues. The GAPS Diet is based on this. The main point to consider with the SCD and GAPS diets is that they are designed to be used for a finite period of time, for example 2 years, and implement other measures to heal the gut. They are not lifestyle diets.

GF/DF is touted as a life style change. The number one reason I don’t like it, is because I don’t approve of the foods people replace their bread and milk with. Lets take a look.

Dairy

There is a body of information claiming that humans are not designed to consume dairy. This comes from the people who advocate totally plant based diets. Dairy has been part of the historical diet of humans for a very long time. Why is the cow sacred in Hindu culture if not for the precious milk produced? Dairy cattle (in Australia at least) graze on pasture, sensible grazing practices enhance soil structure and can allow biodiversity of plant and animal species. Raw milk contains all the enzymes required to digest it, the primary enzyme known to most people is lactase. Although it is now extremely hard to come by raw milk due to government regulations, milk can be made more digestible by fermenting it as can be done with yoghurt making or kefir. Milk contains many, many nutrients that are readily available to a health person.

Lactose intolerance is a deficiency in lactase. The main symptom is diarrhoea. I’ve heard it said that you have lactose intolerance if you drink a glass of milk and 30 minutes later you are on the toilet shitting through the eye of a needle, but it may not be this severe in all people. The other molecule that may cause problems is casein as it is a large molecule like gluten.

Dairy alternatives are factory produced processed foods. Rice and oats are popular milk alternatives. These grains break down into glucose and do not contain healthy fats. Soy milk has it’s advocates and enemies, I won’t go into it here. The broad acre farming techniques used for these crops results in lost topsoil as well as reduced biodiversity. Almond milk is probably the most popular dairy alternative. Almonds have the highest oxalate content of any nut, oxalate chelates calcium out of the body. Almond milk will not strengthen your bones and may possibly weaken them. Almond orchards use 2 - 4 times the water of dairying, more pesticides and the monoculture nature of the orchards is said to kill millions of bees every year. The nutrient profile of these milks are made up with supplemental vitamins and minerals, themselves factory produced entities.

Packaging. Most dairy substitutes are sold in tetra packs, as is long life dairy milk. Foods packaged in this manner are ultra heat treated [UHT]. The high heat causes unfolding of the protein molecules making them harder to digest. Is the nutrient profile on the package determined before or after the UHT? Tetra packs are also lined with aluminum and this leaches into the food.

Grains

Gluten is found in wheat, rye and barley. Oats may be gluten free or not, depending on what source is used. The gluten in oats in said to be from being processed in the same factories that process the other grains, others disagree with this and say there is gluten oats.

Gluten is a large molecule that in a compromised digestive system may pass through the lining of the gut and initiate inflammation. This is the same argument for casein in milk. Coeliac disease is a condition where an individual is unable to breakdown gluten. The definitive diagnosis of coeliac disease has been via endoscopy where it is noted that the microvilli of the intestinal wall are worn down, this greatly reduces the ability of the intestine to absorb nutrients as a result the individual may have difficulty with weight gain.

When coeliacs were the only people avoiding gluten, it was often quite hard for them to find things to eat. These days, there are a plethora of gluten free products available on the market but are they healthy?

Many commercial gluten free baked goods contain high amounts of sugar and unhealthy fats as they are usually marketed to include the vegan demographic. (Margarine is another food I recommend avoiding). They are not any better for you than eating bread.

I’ve watched many people replace bread with things like rice cakes and corn thins - those thick, dry, crusty, biscuit type things. These are made via extrusion in a factory using high heat and pressure to give the nice shapes and long shelf life (think UHT). I remember the stories that used to be said about the breakfast cereal cornflakes having no nutrients left after processing, well these biscuits are made using the same process. Great for supermarkets, not so great for your gut. Crackers are another frequent bread substitute and although not manufactures with the same high heat and pressure of the they are often a factory food with a long, long shelf life.

Gluten free alternatives like buckwheat and quinoa are harder to digest than wheat. Buckwheat is from the rhubarb family and is very high in oxalate (see almonds above) and quinoa is very high in phytates. Used as a flour, these pseudo grains are chelating agents for minerals in your body and the regular consumption may lead to osteoporosis. Traditionally these seeds are soaked, even fermented and long cooked as a porridge to try to reduce these dietary hazards.

Gluten free flour has a large component of refined corn flour and tapioca. It is just pure starch with very little nutrient content left in it.

If you want to adopt a GF/DF diet there are healthier ways to do it. Simply replace baked foods with more fruit and vegetables. The diet I recommend the most is simply to eat meat and vegetables. If you are wanting to look after your gut health, consuming meat or bone broth and eating fermented foods regularly is the way to do it. Simply avoiding certain foods, especially if it is some of the time, will do nothing for your overall health and may adversely affect it.

This is not to say that there are some people out there that genuinely need to avoid gluten and dairy in their diets because they are made very uncomfortable from eating these foods. But if your are doing it because it is the fashion today, then it may be doing more harm than good.

As a homeopath, I am interested in the desires and aversions in your diet and what foods genuinely make you feel better or worse. This information may be used to determine a homeopathic prescription that suits you as an individual. Examples include - Antimonium crudum has a great desire for cucumbers, Causticum for smoked meats, Veratrum album for lemons and salt.

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Bibliography

• Nourishing Traditions; S Fallon with MG Enig; New trends Publishing; 2001

• GAPS Gut and Psychology Syndrome; N Campbell-McBride; Halstan & Co. Ltd; 2014

• Desktop Guide to keynotes and confirmatory symptoms; R Morrison; Hahnemann Clinic Publishing; 1993

The definition of homeopathy is like cures like, so for a substance to be homeopathic to a case, it has to cover the symptoms displayed by the body. We can only know this for individual remedies. When you combine them, the result is no longer homeopathic to the person’s particular set of symptoms.

A lot of debate goes on about whether taking multiple remedies mixed in a formula is a good thing and perhaps is better than the single remedy. Often finding the correct single remedy can be elusive because the symptom picture given by the client is not clear so a blend seems easier. However this is not homeopathy, it is using potentised remedies but they are not prescribed in a homeopathic manner. This is why the remedy has to be repeated frequently and for long periods because it may be hiding symptoms and not curing.

A remedy doesn’t need to be potentised to be homeopathic, a herb can be administered in a homeopathic way. For example Andrographis is an Asian herb used in India and China, now popular in Western countries with a reputation for supporting the immune and digestive systems. In the back of Boericke’s Materia Medica there is a chapter called “50 Homeopathic Indian Drugs” with an entry for Andrographis. The symptoms listed include

• throbbing pain in the head

• redness of the eyes

• watery discharge of the nose

• sneezing

• Fever with chilliness, heat over the the body, disinclined to move during fever.

Does this describe having a cold? Is this why this herb is so beneficial for upper respiratory tract symptoms?

When a herbal tincture is prescribed homeopathically, usually small doses are given, this could be drop doses of only a few drops in a glass of water, 3 times a day. Many old materia medicas will describe this type of prescribing.

In herbal medicine, tinctures are commonly used as a blend and the dose maybe 5-30mls twice a day, with upper limits for each tincture listed in herbal materia medicas. I once treated a young boy who had adverse effects from taking herbal tinctures from a naturopath because he had consumed too much alcohol.

Herbs, being on the material plane, may suppress symptoms. In practice, if someone has had Chinese herbs for example, they may have seen a reduction in the their physical symptoms, only to see them return under homeopathic treatment because the herbs had suppressed disease. Homeopathy triggers the energy body of the person to heal itself, from the inside out. This may result in a worsening of symptoms before they get better, however if you do experience this, understand the body will be healed this time around.

Using potentised remedies as part of protocols such as taking 2 remedies at one time, either in alteration or together may have a place in the beginning of treatment to help mitigate distressing symptoms. These symptoms may even disappear following this method. But it is important to follow up with “what next”. Has the person’s level of health increased? Taking this remedy for that disease diagnosis is working on a superficial level, it is not targeting the “essence” or the specific disturbance that the organism is experiencing.

This is not to say that one remedy is all anyone ever needs. No. One remedy is given and then after the symptoms change, another remedy is given. Homeopathy is not about finding THE remedy, it is about observing what is happening and giving the right remedy in the right sequence to raise the level of health of an individual so they may become the best that they can be.

This brings in the concept of Layers where a different remedy may be required for each layer of disturbance, as it is revealed. Professor George Vithoulkas said in one of his lectures “as long as you are alive, there will be another layer to treat”. It won’t be immediately. Once healing is on the right tract, a remedy may “last” for a year or more and then a new set of symptoms arises that directs towards another remedy.

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Disclaimer: This information is supplied for educational purposes only. Sources include published literature and anecdotal experiences of myself and other men, women and animals. The information is not intended for the treatment of any particular individual person or disease. If you are suffering any particular complaint please consult professional help.

Your immune system is complex, with many cells performing many different functions, and we can only guess as to how it all works in harmony. Optimal nutrition is the factor that you can utilize to keep everything functioning as it should. This means the type of things you have read a million times –

• stay away from processed foods,

• eat a wide variety of whole foods in the their natural state

• cook with single ingredients rather than prepackaged foods

• maintain regular exercise

• get out in the sunshine and out in nature to balance the mental and emotional aspects of your body

When you get sick, with an acute process, you may feel uncomfortable and miserable. This is your body telling you to slow down, stop, rest and nourish yourself. It is important to allow your body this opportunity to detoxify and not suppress the symptoms it is using to tell you what it needs. Suppressing the acute symptoms has the ability to push the disease process deeper into the body, to create chronic disease.

A fever is the process that stimulates the necessary cells to do their job of clearing out what is making you sick. A fever is a sign that your immune system is healthy. Reaching for anti-pyretics (Tylenol, Paracetamol, ibuprofen, etc) as soon as the body temperature elevates just a little, hampers the immune system doing its job. Lower fevers of 38 – 39oC can safely be allowed to run for 24 hours before using medication to lower the temperature. Treat the fever with plenty of fluids, such as water with a pinch of salt, fruit juice and especially chicken broth. Fevers become dangerous over 40oC, this is when you may run the risk of febrile convulsions and requires professional attention.

If you are one of these people that says “I never get a fever”, well unfortunately this may indicate that your immune system is compromised and you are probably dealing with a chronic disease state. A system that is burdened by low grade systemic inflammation is not healthy enough to mount an episode of acute fever. When engaging in treatment for your chronic state, the aim is to bring back the ability for your body to manifest a fever.

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Disclaimer: This information is supplied for educational purposes only. Sources include published literature and anecdotal experiences of myself and other men, women and animals. The information is not intended for the treatment of any particular individual person or disease. If you are suffering any particular complaint please consult professional help.

The symptoms that you experience are the language your body is using to tell you something. It is this language that is used by homeopaths for their like cures like philosophy. The symptoms are the body trying to find its own balance. The easiest examples is you hurt yourself so you have to rest for your body to heal. Or you’ve been really under the pump and not providing yourself self care so you get a head cold and have to stay in bed for a while - the body forces the time out and rest.

Homeopaths take it a step further and will ask all sorts of questions to “qualify” a symptom. Never tell a homeopath you have a headache! They will want to know what sort of headache - is it like little hammers in the head? Is it worse in the morning on waking? Or at 10am? Do you have to lie down in a dark room until it’s over? These all point to a Natrum muriaticum headache. So it is important to observe what your body is saying and so when you visit a homeopath (a Symptom Whisperer) they will have the information to work with and be able to help you.

Taking it further, with chronic disease, again it is the symptoms that the body is expressing that can be used to match a curative prescription. The name of your condition is only partly helpful in that it excludes symptoms that are common to that disease name. The homeopath will want to know who is the person with that named condition and what makes that condition unique in the individual in front of them. You can go and spend a lot of money on functional lab testing and it will tell a story of what is there but still the homeopath will want to know how is it expressing in you. Testing brings up theories about what is causing the particular symptoms that you are experiencing but the prescription is not based on the theory, it’s based on who you are.

Here are some quotes from The Organon of Medicine by Samuel Hahnemann

§6 The unprejudiced observer realizes the futility of metaphysical speculations that cannot be verified by experiment, and no matter how clever he is, he sees in any given case of disease only the disturbances of body and soul which are perceptible to the senses: subjective symptoms. i.e. deviations from the former healthy condition of the individual now sick which the patient personally feels, which people around him notice, which the physician see in him.

The totality of these perceptible signs represents the entire extend of the sickness; together they constitute its true and only conceivable form.

§7 So it is the totality of symptoms, the outer image expressing the inner essence of the disease, i.e. of the disturbed vital force, that must be the main, even the only, means by which the disease allows us to find the necessary remedy, the only one that can decide the appropriate choice.

§14 There is no curable disease or morbific alteration hidden in the interior of the body which does not announce itself to the conscientiously observant physician through objective and subjective symptoms. This is what the omniscient Preserver of human life has provided in his infinite goodness.

The other thing to think about when thinking of all the testing available, is that often the results are normal until things are really out of whack. There is a concept of normal range and optimal range. A doctor will look at results and say they’re normal if they are within range. A functional medicine view is to look at optimal ranges and install corrections before the values get to ‘out of range’ levels. But here again, the body will signal something is wrong before it shows up in test results.

It is not from external things that man becomes sick, not from bacteria nor environment, but from causes in himself. (J.T. Kent; Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy)

This refers to things like mental and emotional causes and susceptibility. Again this can only be elicited by talking about who you are, what has happened in the past (including family history) and how do you react to things now. No lab tests can bring this information forward. It is fundamental to the person being treated. This is what sets homeopathy apart from other modalities. The whole being is taken into account - mind, body and soul. This is holistic medicine.

So if there is something “wrong” with you, look at the symptoms that are being expressed. What makes them worse or better, what time does the symptom show up? If it’s pain, where is it and where does it extend to, can you describe the pain?

Learn to listen to what the body is saying to you. Then armed with this information, head to a homeopath to have it all sorted out!

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Disclaimer: This information is supplied for educational purposes only. Sources include published literature and anecdotal experiences of myself and other men, women and animals. The information is not intended for the treatment of any particular individual person or disease. If you are suffering any particular complaint please consult professional help.

Twenty years ago, I drove a BMW convertible. It was an old one, with a few issues, but it was still a convertible and a BMW which felt awesome to have at the time. The ABS light lit up on the dashboard. My partner took it to a mechanic to get it fixed. He was told that it was a job that had to be done at BMW. He said to the mechanic, but that will be expensive, can’t you just disconnect the light? Being a developing nation, the mechanic complied. No more light on the dashboard – problem fixed right? No not at all.

The same thing happens when you take a drug to suppress the symptoms that your body is expressing to tell you something is wrong. Taking a pain killer, anti-inflammatory, anti-pyretic, or anti anything, turns the light off on the dashboard but does not fix the problem under the hood.

Symptoms are the language the body uses to tell you there’s something wrong. They form part of the body’s language, its way of expressing to you that something is out of balance.

During homeopathic treatment, it is a common feature for the symptoms to change after a remedy. A really good sign that true healing is occurring is when internal symptoms change and manifest on the skin. Suppressing the skin symptoms by taking a drug, whether that be antibiotics or a cortisone cream, drives the unbalance back under the skin and to a deeper level.

J.T Kent first wrote about the hierarchy of disease in the early 1900’s. Professor George Vithoulkas has written about this hierarchy in his book “Science of Homeopathy”. The list from least harmful to most harmful is as follows

• Skin

• Muscle

• Bone

• Kidney

• Lung

• Liver

• Endocrine

• Heart

• Brain

This is not to say that when you are in treatment that you will experience symptoms through all these systems. The point I wish to make is that when something is on the skin, it is in the least harmful place. More about this subject is available in this previous post on the topic.

The same goes for fever. In chronic ill health, as I explain in Levels of Health, the body may not be well enough to produce fever. As the immune system is brought back into balance, fever may again become manifest, that is the manifestation of an acute infection. If this acute is managed homeopathically, the immune system will be strengthened and the level of health increase. If the acute is suppressed with anti-pyrectics (e.g. ibuprophen or paracetamol) to reduce fever and antibiotics to kill suspected infective organisms, the immune system will push the disturbance to a deeper level again. The level of health of an individual will determine how the body responds so it is important to stay in communication with your homeopath for guidance.

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Disclaimer: This information is supplied for educational purposes only. Sources include published literature and anecdotal experiences of myself and other men, women and animals. The information is not intended for the treatment of any particular individual person or disease. If you are suffering any particular complaint please consult professional help.

All the hormones in your body are connected through intricate feed back loops. A deficiency in one will have effects on others. Poor thyroid function leads to fatigue and brain fog with many other symptoms. Thyroid health is closely aligned with adrenal health. So stress is a major unbalancer.

A medical doctor may offer you thyroxine to help your body cope with poor thyroid hormone production but this will further reduce your thyroid’s ability to produce hormones. There are other side effects like osteoporosis. If you have been taking thyroxine for a long time, it will be incredibly difficult to come off it.

A good way to support your thyroid is eat better.

Intermittent Fasting

A current concept in diet is intermittent fasting, the 8/16 method involves eating in an 8 hour window and fasting for 16 hours. In order to achieve this, many people skip breakfast choosing to use their 8 hours of eating in the second half of the day. Apparently, much of the research around this timing involves more men than women. For women, it is advised to eat earlier in the day as skipping breakfast adversely affects thyroid health and will contribute to weight gain. (Recent CPD lecture)

Another method of intermittent fasting is called the 3/12 fast. This is a 12 hour fast, which is easy to obtain, with the added step of finishing eating for the day 3 hours before bed. This is particularly useful if you suffer from chronic indigestion as the food has a chance to “go down” before you lay down to sleep, reducing reflux. It also improves sleep. All that is required to achieve this, is to eat dinner earlier.

Another concept around eating is to eat during daylight hours. Again this supports the adage above.

When I was young, my mother used to have dinner on the table at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. We always complained as we had to be home too early for dinner, but there seems to be research to support this lifestyle habit.

The fasting concept is sound. Lengthening the time of not eating, is beneficial for rest and repair processes performed by the body. If your body is constantly having to break down the food your are consuming because you are constantly eating, less energy is available for building up what your body needs to stay functioning optimally.

Breakfast

I’m a believer in breakfast being the most important meal of the day.

Have you ever heard of the saying

◦ Breakfast like a King,

◦ Lunch like a Prince,

◦ Dinner like a Pauper

Eating in this manner helps to control body weight as food is eaten and used while you are active. The activity will determine how much you eat. It also supports thyroid health.

So what to eat for breakfast?

Many people opt for toast and cereal at breakfast time. This type of food, being based on grains, metabolises into glucose, giving a quick burst of energy and then a mid-morning slump. Therefore it often needs to be accompanied by coffee to give you the get up and go your body is looking for. The cereal and toast breakfast has only been around since the second world war, as a result of scarcity and rationing. These foods are also able to be produced commercially and have a long shelf life. Think about that.

How about bacon and eggs for breakfast? Eggs are one of the premier breakfast foods being vitamin and mineral bullets. They also provide sustained energy. Isn’t bacon full of unwanted fat? No it is not. Before cholesterol levels became a fashion, people ate more bacon and eggs for breakfast and there was less heart disease. Fat is a sustained energy source.

Too busy to make a cooked breakfast in the morning? Introduce the breakfast muffin into your life. Instead of making a quiche or zucchini slice, put the mixture in muffin trays to bake. These can be made in batches on the weekend, then stored in the freezer and a few taken out (preferably before going to bed) to defrost and eat in the morning. You can make a different flavour each week – zucchini and carrot, spinach and feta, mushroom and capsicum, caramelised onion and cheese, bacon and egg! The options are endless.

Why not eat left over dinner? There’s no such thing as a “breakfast food” you can eat anything first thing in the morning.

Have a look at different cultures for what is commonly eaten for breakfast there. In Asia, fried rice is a staple breakfast food. In Turkey bread is still a staple at breakfast time (every meal in fact) but it is served with boiled eggs, fresh cheeses, olives, cucumber and tomato. India has a great variety of breakfast foods using legumes to go with their grains, rounding out the protein profiles for vegetarians.

I do know people who say “I like to start my day with just fresh fruit” but they don’t go out to work for 8 hours a day. If I do this, I only last an hour or two before needing to eat something else. So if you have time for second breakfast, followed by elevenzees (are you a hobbit?) this option may work for you. Otherwise, choose something solid and sustaining for breakfast to get you through the day.

Snacks

Eating more nutrient dense foods in the first half of the day reduces the need to reach for quick fixes to boost energy later. These often include sugary snacks and more coffee. Sugar is the number one product (I’m not going to call it food) that upsets hormonal balance. You will do wonders for your health if you can stay away from sugar. Look at package labels and assess the total % of sugar in it. Some quick foods have 20% or more total sugar content! This will only make you feel worse in the long run. Try snacking on fresh fruit or nuts. It may take time to adjust to these foods but you will benefit so much in the long run.

Plastic

Another important consideration is to watch your use of plastics. Especially, do not microwave food in a plastic container. Microplastics may be absorbed into food and this is more likely in a warm container. Microplastics are known hormone disrupters.

I have another article in the works that will give guidance on the other meals of the day. The basics from my previous article Diet will give some guidance.

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Disclaimer: This information is supplied for educational purposes only. Sources include published literature and anecdotal experiences of myself and other men, women and animals. The information is not intended for the treatment of any particular individual person or disease. If you are suffering any particular complaint please consult professional help.

Nobody in health care, whether homœopathic, allopathic or other therapies can legally lay a claim to bringing about a “cure” of a particular ailment. That is not to say that nobody abides by this, there are many claims of cure out there. Curing a particular ailment and then manifesting a different one is not really cure unless the whole organism has raised their level of health. See my previous post on philosophy of cure.

The theory as put forward by Vithoulkas, describes 12 levels, comprising of 4 groups (A, B, C, D) of 3 levels each.

The main diagnostic to determine which level of health a person is in depends on the answer to the question - “when did you last experience a fever?” You may be surprised to know that not having had a fever for years is a sign of chronic ill health. A system that is burdened by low grade systemic inflammation is not healthy enough to mount an episode of acute fever. In this situation, the person would be considered to be in a low level of health (Group C or D). Under correct homœopathic treatment it is possible to bring the body to a state where it can produce an episode of high fever, above 38.5C, this is a good sign that your level of health is improving.

A reasonably healthy person (Group A) may experience an episode of high fever each year where they may feel very unwell for a day or two. Their immune system has mounted the reaction necessary to bring about healing and then they are “over it” and able to get on with their life.

Someone with a lesser level of health (Group B) may experience multiple episodes of fever throughout the year. If each time these episodes are dealt with via the administration of drugs such as antibiotics, there is risk that the level of health may be further reduced. This is because the fever is being suppressed by the drugs and actually works against the immune system. A correctly prescribed homœopathic remedy will work with the body to find equilibrium again. If this is followed up with further homœopathic treatment, to address this tendency to produce frequent acutes, the level of health may be increased, resulting in a more resilient organism.

Vithoulkas also classifies certain diseases as being in different levels of health. This is determined by the depth and extent of disease within the body.

In Group A you expect to see more self limiting disease that the body is capable of dealing with on its own, perhaps sinusitis, conjunctivitis, influenza, PMS, etc. In Group B we start to see the appearance of frequent infections in deeper organs such as cystitis, hepatitis, pneumonia, asthma, bronchitis, etc. Group C we see more chronic diseases such as ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, epilepsy, MS, etc. In the lowest Group D more severe disease occurs such as progressive autoimmune conditions, severe autism, genetic diseases, metastatic cancer, schizophrenia, etc.

In the upper levels of health, it is much simpler to treat a person and they are more likely to present with a clear remedy picture. This makes choosing a homœopathic remedy much easier. As the level of health drops, it will require more time and more remedies to bring about healing.

In the lower levels of health, a sequence of remedies is required, each given one at a time, the reaction to the remedy determined and the next remedy carefully chosen. It may take many years to raise the level of health from this point.

Homœopathy works on the principle of like cures likes. A remedy is homœopathic when it matches the symptom picture displayed by the person. In today's arena of chronic disease and suppression of symptoms with chemical drugs, there is not one remedy to treat a whole person. The correct remedy is the correct sequence of remedies.

“The ideal treatment should not simply eliminate the symptoms while the overall health deteriorates. Instead, it must aim at enhancing the action of the immune system in its own direction by strengthening the symptoms generated by it. This way the immune system becomes stronger after getting rid of the disease and the overall health becomes better.”

Spiros Kivellos, Seema Mahesh and George Vithoulkas

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Bibliography

Vithoulkas G: A New Model for Health and Disease; IACH; 2018

Vithoulkas G: Homoeopathy, Medicine of the New Man; B. Jain Publishers; 1985

Vithoulkas G: Homeopathy, Medicine for the New Millennium; 29th Ed; IACH; 2019

Vithoulkas G; The Science of Homeopathy; B. Jain Publishers PVT. LTD; (1980) Reprint edition 2002

Vithoulkas G; The Science of Homeopathy; IACH; 7^th Ed; 2014

Vithoulkas G and Woensel, Evan; Levels of Health, The second volume of The science of Homeopathy; IACH; 2010

Vithoulkas G; Levels of Health, The second volume of The science of Homeopathy; IACH; 4^th Ed 2022

Spiros Kivellos, Seema Mahesh and George Vithoulkas; Assessing Human Health-Correlation of Autoimmune Diseases with Chemically Suppressed Acute Infections of Patient’s Past Medical History Pages 31-38; Journal of Autoimmune Diseases and Rheumatology, Synergy Publishers; DOI: https://doi.org/10.12970/2310-9874.2017.05.06 https://synergypublishers.com/downloads/jadrv5a6/

I mentioned a few ideas that he could implement on his land and promised to send him some how to links. So this is what this post is about.

I have been into permaculture for decades. I had the opportunity to meet Bill Mollison in 1991 when he showed up to a permaculture club meeting in Townsville, North Queensland. Although I “farm” a much smaller piece of land now - a 850m² town block, I still have Mollison’s 4 zones! Yes even on this size piece of land there are beds I tend daily and areas I look at once a year - much to my so’s dismay sometimes. Zone 1 is for high maintenance plants like the ones that need watering daily, ranging to Zone 4 which is usually the forest type plants that you visit the least frequently. My Zone 4 contains annual harvest crops like cassava and yakon. I believe part of any health regime ought to include growing some of your own food. It may not necessarily be any cheaper but eating food freshly picked is jam packed with more nutrients than anything you could buy in a store.

Banana Circle

A banana circle is a great idea to maximize water use for bananas, papaya and sweet potatoes. A circle is dug 2m wide and about 1/2 to 1 m deep. A narrow inlet / outlet may be dug to allow water to flow in and excess to flow out. Stones may be banked on the outside of the rim. Fill the hole with mulch, manure, and some minerals so it is quite mounded up, it will sink as it composts. Plant alternating papaya and banana plants around the rim and sweet potato runners in the pit. A wooden, slatted platform may be placed inside the circle and an outside shower set up to utilize the water. It may also be possible to plant pineapples on the outside edge that catches the most sun. Simply use the tops cut off pineapples and plonk them in the ground. It takes 2 years to grow a pineapple. https://fullcyclepermaculture.com.au/banana-circle/

Banana Trunk Planter

Due to the very dry times of the year in Tanzania, I had suggested using banana trunks to retain water for seedlings, allowing them a bit of resistance to drying out. Here’s a YouTube link showing how it’s done.

Wicking Beds

Jerome showed me the containers that he had originally installed to provide water for his block. They were too small for the job but I suggested he could repurpose them to make wicking beds. To help with dry weather gardening, building a wicking bed helps to look after high maintenance vegetables while maximizing the use of water.

And a YouTube channel I love to watch is the Weedy Garden https://www.youtube.com/@TheWeedyGarden He presents lots of information about growing a food forest in tropical and subtropical climates. He’s based in Northern New South Wales.

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I did a 6 day / 5 night tour visiting 3 national parks. Tarangine, Serengeti and Ngorongoro. Travel around the parks is done in Toyota Landcruiser troupe carriers with up to 6 people per car. The roof pops up so you can have a good view of the animals. There were many hours driving around on the very dusty roads full of corrugations. It was quite bone shaking at times.

I was very grateful to see most of the iconic animals including lions

cheetah

zebra

giraffe

buffalo

elephants

Not the best photos in the world but I don’t have fancy equipment. I had borrowed my son’s GoPro and had my mobile phone which nearly died while I was away. Other animals I saw, but did not get good photos or they were too far away to photograph, were leopard, hyena, rhino, serval cat, mongoose, gnu, baboons, and monkeys. Pictures can’t convey how it felt to see these animals so close.

I chose to go up market with my accommodation and enjoyed some glamping.

The Ngorongoro Farmhouse was a delightful motel outside the parks. It was surrounded by market gardens and all the food (well vegetables at least) in the restaurant, including the coffee, was grown on the property.

The Serengeti Safari Lodge was in a tented room with a solid floor, roof and on-suite with an outdoor shower with amazing views over the endless plain.

My favourite was Ang’ata Ngorongoro Camp, which really was a tent. The highlight being, after dinner walking out into a herd of zebra that come into the camp at night to sleep as they feel safe there.

So this is ticked off my bucket list now.

I am happy to be home and gardening. I think I have a greater appreciation for where I live. Far North Queensland, Australia really is a jewel in the world’s crown.

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Visiting Maasai villages with the HHA outreach clinics was a very interesting experience. The first village we went to was a 2 hour drive from Arusha city up a mountainous dirt road, travelling above the Rift Valley (which continues on its way to Kenya). The road becomes impassable during the wet season which was extensive this year (as it was where I live) which meant the team had not been to this village since February. The clinic is held in someone’s home.

The traditional buildings are made from wood, mud and cow dung with a thatched roof. Not all Maasai live in such structures though, with some people building block houses with tin roofs. The villages are very clean, and swept daily. There is no running water or mains electricity in these villages. Along the road we saw donkeys being used to cart water in 20L drums. The animals live in close proximity to the people.

What sort of cases did I see with the Massai? Same variety as in any population. We saw everything from a sore finger to chronic cough. I guess one of the main things that stood out was the length of time people had their issue for.

For example the sore finger case had been painful for 2 years! An injury working in the fields had produced pus at the time (indicating a foreign body) but had left stitching pains like needles in the finger every since with a strong aggravation from cold – she kept the finger wrapped up all the time to keep it warm. A prescription of a single dose of Silica 30C was given (for the causative factor) followed by Hepar sulph 12C daily (the usual method of taking the remedy in HHA cases) to help the coldness and needle like pains in the finger.

Due to the dust in the environment, chronic coughs are very common. Adamas is a remedy that is often used in this case. This is a relatively new remedy and has been proved by Jeremy Sherr. The affinity is for skin and lungs. There may be an allergy to smells. People often describe how they feel better on clear sunny days (the usual sort of day) and feel worse on cloudy, damp, rainy days. There is aggravation from smoke and traditional kitchens use wood fires for cooking and have no windows, the smoke exiting through the thatch roof and the small space between the top of the wall and the roof so they are very smoky.

Our clinics were conducted outside so luckily it wasn’t raining.

In the morning it was quite cold, warming up as the day grew older. But you did have to think about sun protection.

Not all Maasai people speak the national language of Swahili. A Maasai interpreter translated Maasai language to Swahili, then a Swahili interpreter translated the Swahili to English. This gave an understanding of the term “lost in translation”.

The little girl in the picture above had been treated as a baby. She had presented with a deformed spine due to tuberculosis of the spine, unable to hold herself in any position other than lying down. Now she has a straight spine and is walking normally. A great success story of how a simple prescription of Calcarea phosphorica helped the bony structure to heal itself.

An interesting case was of an elderly gentleman who had a cough for the past 10 years with pain in the joints. The cough was worse at night and gave him a headache. He had dreams of dead people and dead relatives, which is a very common comment from people treated at all the HHA clinics as life expectancy is not as long as in Western countries. Everyone has experienced the death of a loved one and dreams about them. Further inquiry uncovered an interesting dream of being by the ocean, which is a significant symptom in this case as the man had never seen the sea. He also talked about Moses, saying in the dream he walked on dry land like Moses when he parted the sea. In the repertorisation the new remedies Oxygen and Hydrogen came up. Jeremey told us that the remedy Oxygen is all about the ego and pride, think of Pharaoh. Hydrogen is about humility, which is more like Moses, The man is very religious, near to God, Hydrogen is near to God and dead people are near to God. In the proving of Hydrogen cough was worse at night. The prescription was Hydrogen 12C. Jeremy Sherr has conducted proving of many new remedies so knows them more intimately.

Driving home we stopped to take photos of the scenery which had been obscured by clouds on the drive up the mountain.

An unfortunate issue for grassroots charities is using second hand items. One of the cars broke down on the way home. Even though it was a costly inconvenience, we were grateful for so many things about the whole episode. The breakdown occurred on the main road, not up the mountain and good Samaritans helped push the car to the side of the road. The other car was near a fuel station which just happened to be next to a mechanic shop. We were able to drive back to our stricken colleagues with the mechanic who diagnosed a snapped fan belt. A gentleman just happened to have a length of steal cable that could be used to tow the car to the mechanics shop for repairs. And despite being on the highway, in the middle of nowhere, a shop was very near by with a toilet.

To help Homoeopathy for Health in Africa take a look at their website. https://www.homeopathyforhealthinafrica.org/

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This completes my series on my time as a homeopath in Africa. Just for fun, next week I’ll show some photos of the safari trip I went on afterwards.

The Rau Day Care Centre was originally set up by HHA. It provides care to young children whose parents are working in the local area. The centre provides schooling and food to these children. The centre is now run by another NGO as HHA no longer had the funding to keep it going.

Halima Orphanage Centre is a new clinic on the HHA schedule, running since July this year. We were able to see children for the follow up of their first prescription as well as many new cases. We took 17 cases in a 3 1/2 hour period, all children received individualised prescriptions.

Neema International orphanage and boarding school. Many of the children have been taken from highly abusive situations and provided with a safe place to live.

Some cases

A 13 year old boy had pain in the eyes with lachrymation. He could see but not clearly. His background showed an alcoholic mother and absent father. He had been brought to the orphanage as he was causing trouble on the street. He had been well behaved since arriving at the orphanage but was restless in class and would get up and leave the room. Questioning determined that the lights in the classroom caused him to have severe pain in his eyes and trigger the lachrymation. The sensation of the pain was of pulling, as if his eyes were pulled together. He would often get a nosebleed when startled. He had dreams of being chased by his mother who was carrying a knife, this was a strong symptom as he had the dream often. He liked animals but had a fear of snakes. The repertorisation showed Spigella and Lac felinum as the top two remedies.

Materia medica differentiation shows Spigella has an affinity for eyes (as we saw in last weeks post). Lac felinium also has many eye symptoms as well as a fear of knives, sharp pains in the eyes like knives in the eyes, there is also a mental symptom of every little fault appears as a crime. So Lac felinium was prescribed in a 12C potency to be taken daily for a month with follow up next month.

An interesting follow up case involved a 16 year old male who initially had behavioural problems and daytime sleepiness with a peculiar dream of being a surgeon. The prescription was Lac leonium. His behaviour and sleepiness had improved on the remedy and he had stopped having the dream. He now presented with an acute cough. An intermittent remedy was prescribed for the cough (Dulcamara) with instructions to return to Lac leonium in a few days time. This case indicates that it is perfectly okay to give an acute remedy during constitutional treatment.

Donate

If you would like to support any of these organisations by donating please have a look at the links below. The money is used for purpose and not lost in an endless hierarchy of administration.

Donating to HHA helps these clinics to continue running https://www.homeopathyforhealthinafrica.org/donate

Halima Orphanage https://halimaorphanagecenter.org/who-we-are.php contact them to see how you can help.

Neema Orphanage https://www.neemainternational.org/donate

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Some sort of medical facility has been here since 1929. The Tanzanian government puts the start of the hospital as 1970. It is quite a large hospital having 225 beds. It has been a major centre for the treatment of AIDS patients. Previously, once a person had been given a diagnosis of AIDS, they had to go to the hospital every month to receive their prescription of anti-retroviral medication. These days, the visit is once every 3 months, leading to a drop in patient numbers passing through the hospital.

Apparently a German NGO had donated money to build another hospital not so far away, which was completed 2 years ago. This has taken a lot of the business away from this hospital, which is currently rather quiet.

The hospital conducts first class eye surgery as well as delivering an average of 100 babies every month.

Most babies are delivered by cesarean section. This may lead to post-operative complications. HHA conducted a research project to administer Bellis perennis 12C post operatively and the result was faster wound healing and a marked reduction in post-operative complications.

The homeopathy clinic is conducted outside in Shed No. 5, this allowed us to feel the full experience of the cloud forest environment!

Patients waited under a tree in the garden

Some cases from this clinic

A 64 year old female presented with hip and back pain, described as left sided sciatica. She complained of tiredness. Her skin itched when in contact with cold water. She had a history of 3 caesarean deliveries and surgery to remove a uterine fibroid. All surgeries had been performed with epidural anesthesia. A risk associated with epidural is nerve damage. Bellis perennis was prescribed for this lady. A look in Boger’s Synoptic Key shows an affinity to left side, injuries to nerves and general aggravation from from cold. Numerous traditional materia media mentions “railway spine” which is back ache resulting from travelling in a train but indicates discomfort in the spine i.e. back ache.

This case illustrates how Bellis perennis is useful for post epidural surgery as in the research project mentioned above. It may be administered post operatively or for ailments from surgery, including tumours from injury, even many years ago, as in this case.

A follow up case of another woman showed that the previous remedy given her, Argentum nitricum, had helped some of the symptoms that she had originally presented with. Her headaches had reduced, the bloating in her abdomen had reduced while she was taking the remedy and had returned once the remedy had stopped. Her appetite had improved. Now the main complaint was heart palpitations. She could not lie on her left side as this made the palpitations much worse. She also had photophobia and lachrymation, worse on the left side. She had a sensation of heaviness and complained of pains in her waist and shoulders. The remedy that covered all these symptoms was Spigella.

Even though it appears other remedies may also cover these symptoms as seen in this repertorisation, it is Spigella that has the affinity for heart, eyes, left side and rheumatic pains. Some of the materia medica books that help to identify the affinities include Phatak and Boericke. Knowledge of materia medica is an important part of being a homeopath.

This case also shows that there is not just one remedy that cures everything. Jeremy taught that the Similimum is the harmonious sequence of the right remedies. Incidentally, Professor George Vithoulkas says the same thing.

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Next week, I’ll write about the orphanage clinics that I went to.

Our unique abilities were perfectly matched. Ruchi made the most amazing Indian food out of the simplest ingredients and the stash of spices she had brought with her from England. Chana was an absolute wiz at creating salads, I think the secret is to cut the vegetables really small and with much love. Lisa prepared fruit platters and I cooked frittatas for breakfast. A little fresh food stall at the corner of the street provided all our fresh food requirements.

In fact we raved so much about Ruchi’s cooking we ended up providing dinner for the whole group one night. It was lovely to all be together.

On the middle weekend of our two week program, we did a few sight seeing trips.

On the Saturday I went to the foothills of Mt Kilimanjaro with Ruchi and Lisa. We “hiked” really a short walk to a beautiful waterfall.

We roasted coffee

And swam in an oasis pool. It was called the “hot springs” but it wasn’t really hot.

On Sunday, I joined Lisa and Chana for a day trip to Arusha National Park.

It was a wonderful experience for all of us.

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You can help support this grassroots charity by making a donation or by volunteering. I chose to participate in the Professional Development Program, along with 4 other homeopaths. The PDP runs for two weeks a few time a year. You get to sit in and watch Jeremy and Camilla Sherr conduct their busy clinics and disseminate their knowledge and skills. The experience was interesting and a lot of fun.

Working in the clinics everyday, alongside Jeremey or Camilla was very rewarding. Clinics would start around 10am and go through, virtually non-stop until all waiting patients had been seen, about 4 - 5 hours or more later. Every case is individualized and repertorised. There are no protocols or rote prescriptions used in these clinics.

Watching how Jeremy analyses the cases was inspiring. After the patient had been allowed to talk freely about their reason for attending the clinic, always a head to toe questioning would ensue to determine if anything else was pertinent to the case. Leaning on Jeremy’s background in Chinese medicine, we always looked for any signs on the tongue. A case may be taken in 10 or 20 minutes. The core of the case is determined by narrowing down the rubrics to what is the center of the case. Any SRP (strange rare and peculiar) symptoms will help to further refine the analysis to arrive at a correct remedy prescription. The remedy will cover the affinity of the case (usually related to the physical ailments) and the unique feature of the individual.

Due to the nature of the outreach clinic format, there are 18 clinics, for ease of carting remedies around, Jeremey has found that 12C potency has been sufficient for this population. It is quite a task to carry around a sizable variety of remedies, adding different potencies becomes unwieldly. All remedies are given in liquid form, a dose is a 1/4 cap full daily, with a number of succussions of the remedy bottle before each successive dose. The daily dosing is in keeping with what people are used to with allopathic medications. It also means that anti-doting the remedy is less likely as the the remedy is repeated often.

Follow up consultations determine if the remedy has helped a little or a lot. If some symptoms have disappeared, what is remaining? Will a refill of the same prescription be given or is a new remedy required or a higher potency of the same remedy? Generally, people are kept on the same remedy while improvement is recognized. It is only changed if no further action is noticed. 90% of follow up cases I witnessed had received some benefit from the remedy they had taken

A variety of remedies are utilized as would be expected for individualized prescriptions. Some obvious and simple like Rhus tox for aching joints from over work to the many remedies that Jeremy Sherr has proved over the years with his Dynamis School, such as Adamas, a remedy made from diamond.

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Be sure to check out some of the hyperlinks in this post, they will appear green on a web browser or underlined in the app.

More about the different clinics will be in up coming posts, including sharing some of the cases.

See other articles in this series

Articles related to the whole Tanzanian travel experience

Tanzania, here I come!

Return From Travelling

Zanzibar

On Safari

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The main attraction for Zanzibar is spending time on the beach. Many hotels build way too close to the waters edge which is very disappointing. As a result the owners try to put in features to buffer the waves from destroying the walls of the hotel gardens. It made it quite tricky to walk along the beach when the tide was in.

In Australia, there are strict rules about building on beaches so nearly all beaches are in their natural state. Here in North Queensland it is also a safety feature for cyclones.

My hotel, Zan View Hotel, was not on the beach edge, although the sea could be seen from the restaurant. Instead, they had a little beach side bar where you could lie on a lounge and be next to the sea. This concept is a lot better for the environment as there were no concrete walls - although the neighbouring properties had them on either side.

To get to the beach from the hotel there was a steep staircase down a rock wall. The local goats loved to sleep here at night.

Then there was a short walk through the ‘village’.

When it got too breezy at the beach, there were places at the hotel to relax and take in the view or stay by the swimming pool.

I met two lovely Welsh ladies, who had just finished climbing Mt Kilimanjaro, by the pool and joined them on some day trips to other parts of the island.

We did a walking tour of Stone Town and learnt about the history of this old slave trading port from our very knowledgeable tour guide. As tourism is such big business in Tanzania, there are a lot of opportunities for training in this industry. Our guide was fluent in 5 languages as well as the history.

From our guide we learnt all about the magnificent doors that adorn the entrances to houses in the city. The different carvings had different meanings. For example the chain carving indicated that this house was owned by a slave trader.

There are cats everywhere in Stone Town and they are completely chill. Some you even step over as they are asleep in the middle of the path. Nobody seems to bother them.

We also visited the Baraka Natural Aquarium, Nungwi. Here, injured turtles are cared for and then released back into the wild. The pool is connected to the sea so tidal action helps keep the pool clean.

It wasn’t all touring and swimming though. With the excellent company of Kate and Nic, we tasted nearly all the cocktails on offer at dinner time! Meeting these two lovely ladies really made for a perfect holiday. It would have been a bit lonely without them. After all, travelling is all about the people you meet as much as the places you visit.

Next post I’ll start writing about my amazing homeopathy clinic experience.

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Right now, I am grateful to be home. Travelling makes you appreciate what you have, especially if that travelling has been in a country where people do not experience the ease of life I have here in Australia.

The first luxury was a properly brewed cup of tea with fresh milk! Simply the best comfort after a month of UHT or powdered milk.

The next thing to appreciate is my garden. Most of Tanzania is dry and dusty, although there are pockets that share the same climate as where I live. The green lushness of my garden from plenty (or too much) rainfall is so welcome.

Seedlings I’d planted before I left are now going to seed. My son removed the exclusion frames to allow the bees access to the flowers. These are pak choi and mizuna flowers. Although, I will have to keep a closer eye out for butterfly eggs and caterpillars now. These beds also house lettuce, rocket and kale. The beds behind these, that are full of leeks, are sheltering young cauliflower and broccoli plants.

The garlic is coming along nicely. The first time I have had any success in growing garlic. Usually it gets crowded out by the prolific growth of its neighbouring plants. This year I have put it amongst the large bed of strawberries I’ve managed to propagate over the last 12 months. The low ground cover allows the garlic to rise above it while the soil covered by strawberries has protection from animals who would otherwise dig it over. The strawberries are also discouraging weeds which is excellent. The trellis allows a third level of growth for vines, with snow peas on now with the cooler weather.

There are always plenty of beans in our garden, being one of our staple vegetables. My son decided that there were way too many for him to eat on his own, so he left them to develop into seed beans. There will be enough for a dish made with dry beans when these pods dry. I just have to keep an eye out for new beans and pick them regularly. Picking beans regularly encourages more beans to be produced. So there will be a little slowing just now as there are so many pods left to develop towards dry beans. But the sun is out and new flowers will be forming.

There is much pruning, weeding and mulching to be done. As well as planting more seeds to maximize use of the wonderful weather now before the next wet season sets in. I should already have established tomato, eggplant and capsicum plants but better late than never.

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