Homeopathic Acute Prescribing I
Flu as an Example
Homeopathic acute prescribing is appropriate for short-term, self-limiting illnesses. The classic acute illnesses are contagious ones such as childhood diseases, colds, and flu. In deciding wether or not to acutely prescribe, it is important to distinguish between acute and chronic: if an “acute” is recurrent (such as ear infections, migraines, upper respiratory infections, etc), then it is actually a chronic ailment and needs to be treated professionally.
The goal of homeopathic acute prescribing is to move the person back to the same state of health in which they were living before they contracted this acute. The scope of the homeopathic symptom picture that is considered in choosing the remedy is limited to the time of the acute.
In treating an acute, the homeopath looks at the ways in which the person’s current state is different from their normal one. These differences constitute the acute symptom picture for this person. During the acute, the person may have changes at the physical, mental, and/or emotional level; all of these changes are important to individualize the symptom picture. All of them are taken into account in choosing a remedy.
Homeopaths find that when there is an epidemic, most cases will respond to a narrow range of remedies – say, three or four remedies. Each of these will be needed by different people and/or different stages of the illness. For this reason, there are certain remedies that are commonly thought of as addressing the flu.
But of course, “most” does not mean “all” cases. In treating any particular case, the homeopath must look at the individual patient in their totality. The flu patient could need one of the common “flu” remedies, or they could need any other remedy, depending on their individual symptoms.
I will into more detail about the pros and cons of OTC (Over The Counter) Homeopathic remedies in future posts.
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Beste Gesundheit,
Werner