What is Homeopathy?

Homeopathy is a natural system of medicine that uses highly diluted doses of substance to stimulate the body’s own healing mechanism.

The use of homeopathic medicines – popularly known as remedies – is based on the discovery that a natural substance is capable of curing the same symptoms that it can cause.  By studying the symptoms produced when a healthy individual tests or “proves” a remedy, homeopaths can determine which symptoms that remedy is capable of curing.  This is referred to as the Law of Similars, or “like cures like”.

A simple example of this principle can be seen with the common onion.  Slicing an onion can cause symptoms of burning and watery eyes, as well as sneezing and a runny nose.  Many hayfever sufferers have found dramatic relief from their burning, watery eyes, sneezing, and runny nose after taking the homeopathic remedy Allium Cepa (the remedy made from the red onion).  Thus the substance that can cause symptoms can, as a potentized remedy, also cure them.

Classical homeopathy is based on the selection of a single remedy that most closely matches your symptoms at a particular time and then waiting to observe your response before administering another remedy.  This method focuses on the underlying disturbance or dis-ease that causes the symptoms, rather than the symptoms themselves.  Classical homeopathic treatment is sometimes referred to as constitutional prescribing.