Travel tips and homeopathy - hives and insect bits and stings

Hi all. Here are some more recommendations for a pharmaceutical-free summer using homeopathy plus some traditional naturopathic wisdom. You'll get to find out how bee sting, stinging nettles and poison ivy can be your new best friends when homeopathically prepared. 

With insect bites or stings, if there is a severe reaction with a lot of swelling, urgent medical help will be required. Otherwise, try firstly to remove the sting with tweezers if the insect left it behind as its calling card. Then bathe a wasp sting in diluted vinegar or lemon juice, and a bee sting in a solution of bicarbonate of soda to help neutralise the effects. If you have Calendula lotion to bathe the area in, then that may well be enough. If not, consider the following internal homeopathic remedies. 

Arnica does wonders especially if you have a child who is in shock, or if that's all you have handy. The remedy Apis is made from bee sting, so no surprises for guessing that it is used for any kind of bite or sting which becomes hot, red, puffy and swollen and which feels better for cold applications. Urtica Urens is a remedy made from stinging nettles, and surprise surprise it is what you need if a nettle-like rash or hives appear following a bite or sting. 

The recommended dosage should be one dose of the best-suited remedy in the 30th potency every 2-4 hours on the first day depending on the severity of the symptoms. This should drop to one dose once a day for the next two days. 

Hives, also known as nettle rash or urticaria, with their itchy, angry real weals, are usually the result of an allergic reaction to food, plants, drugs or stress. If the mouth, tongue or throat becomes swollen, or if there is any difficulty breathing, seek immediate medical help. However, in normal circumstances, the same remedies as above apply here also. 

Apis will be the remedy to consider if the hives are hot, red, puffy and itchy, especially if the person wants the area kept cool. The more swollen the area is, the more likely it is that Apis will be your remedy, particularly if there is puffiness around the eyes and the person develops a fever. Urtica Urens is used when the rash looks as if the person has been stung by stinging nettles (or if they actually have!), when there is itching and burning, and the person can't stop rubbing the affected area. A third remedy, Rhus Tox (poison ivy), is your best bet if the rash becomes water-filled blisters, and if it comes on after becoming chilled. 

The best-suited remedy should be given in the same manner as described above. www.helios.co.uk is a trusted source of all things homeopathic. 

Thanks for reading. Next week – sunburn – ouch! 

Travel tips and homeopathy - Travel sickness

As school holidays are around the corner, I thought it might be the right time to look at how to deal with the complaints that can so easily take the edge off your summer break.

This week, we'll consider how to manage travel sickness and I will describe the two principal homeopathic remedies used.

Cocculus Indicus, or the India Berry, is for someone who suffers nausea and vomiting, dizziness, headaches or diarrhoea when travelling. The person who would benefit from taking this remedy needs to lie down still when their symptoms come on, feels much worse for fresh air and the sight or smell of food.

Tabacum, the homeopathic preparation of tobacco, is for someone with nausea and vomiting while in motion, and who might feel cold and dizzy. Differently to the previous remedy, the person who needs Tabacum feels better for fresh air and much worse for stuffy rooms. They will feel worse if they encounter any strong smells, especially tobacco.

If either of these symptom pictures match yourself or someone you know, then take the appropriate remedy in the 30th potency (potency refers to the strength of the remedy) in the following way: one tablet the day before a planned journey, another tablet just before leaving, and a third while travelling. After a few journeys using the best indicated remedy, the motion sickness often lessens and can sometimes stop entirely. A trusted stockist of homeopathic remedies is www.helios.co.uk.

In addition to these homeopathic remedies, Ginger is known to bring relief for symptoms of nausea and vomiting, not only while travelling. Crystallised ginger is not everyone's first choice of treat, but 2-3 pieces before a journey, and then the same amount at half hourly intervals while travelling can prove very helpful.

Happy homeopathic holidays!

Hayfever blues

If you were unlucky enough to live in Narnia under the rule of the White Witch, you'd always suffer the chill of winter and never have the joy of Christmas. This is a little like having hayfever: you endure gun-metal grey skies for months then finally get the sun but you can't get out there and frolic because your eyes itch and you can't stop sneezing. Not fair is what I'm saying.

The underlying principle of homeopathy is "like cures like", so my hayfever patients take a homeopathic dose of the pollen that they are allergic to in the morning, and a homeopathic preparation of histamine in the afternoon during the hayfever season. I treat them constitutionally during the winter to address the susceptibility, and Bob is your uncle - Christmas comes to Narnia.

There is also a lot you can do yourself. I'll tell you the less painful stuff first to keep you reading. Local honey is delicious, and cunningly contains the pollen local to the sufferer. If you were really clever you'd add some to nettle tea, which is a natural antihistamine. Vitamin C is another natural antihistamine, so make sure you're getting it down you. Echinacea is a fabulous anti-inflammatory, which could give you another line of defence at this tricky time of year. And if you read my previous blog entry, you'll remember the flower Euphrasia or Eyebright, which works wonders for all manner of eye complaints. 10 drops of its tincture in cooled boiled water used as an eye bath is very soothing.

That was the good news; you know what's coming next. Much of the food and drink you crave works against hayfever sufferers. Caffeine puts stress on your adrenals, which are already working like a dog to produce the cortisol to counter the inflammatory effects of the histamine that your body is experiencing. Alcohol is, guess what, rich in histamine, so that's the last thing you need. Finally, dairy is one of the biggest food allergens, and can stimulate the production of mucous, exacerbating blocked noses and ears. It's a bummer, I know, but the agony of withdrawal is worthwhile.

Put this all together, and what I want to say is that there is no need for summer to be synonymous with suffering.

Doctrine of signatures

I've always been intrigued by how obscure substances have been found to contain medicinal properties. Who, for example, thought it might be an idea to see whether the morbid secretion of a sperm whale might just work a treat to help women who are acutely sensitive before their period? The mind boggles. 

Less obscure is the ancient Doctrine of Signatures. The doctrine states that natural objects which resemble a particular part of the body contain properties with the ability to cure illnesses occurring there. 

The homeopathic pharmacy is full of beautiful examples of this doctrine. The remedy Euphrasia is made from a flower whose common name is Eyebright and which looks like a bright blue eye. And guess what? It's used for all sorts of eye issues from the red, itchy eyes of hayfever, to eye injuries. My scrap-loving cat has had Euphrasia countless times; he swears blind that homeopathy is just placebo though (pun intended). 

The indispensable flower Calendula with its ragged leaves works wonders for the similarly jagged grazes on your child's knee. Ginkgo Biloba (see image), which is famed for its use in addressing many of the symptoms connected with the ageing process, is the oldest living tree species and is known as a living fossil. 

It's a great reminder, I think, of how nature provides all the answers, if only we'd let it speak. Having said that, as a modern day homeopath, I'm extremely grateful that my esteemed predecessors have done the hard yards, and it's not down to me to discover that the cracked and ulcerated nipples of breastfeeding mothers can be greatly relieved by Castor Equi, the thumbnail of a horse. 

Bye for now and thanks for reading.

Arnica moment

Hello and welcome. 

It is only right and proper that a homeopath's first blog entry should be about the Arnica Moment. The Arnica Moment is homeopathy's equivalent to the Eureka moment, happily minus the bath water and nudity, and it often goes something like this. 

One minute you're helping a friend shift some furniture, the next you've seriously thwacked your head and you are the proud owner of a boiled egg style swelling. That's the bad news. The good news is that your friend legs it upstairs, firstly to have a silent, sneaky laugh at your expense, but also to fetch some Arnica (see image). One tablet of homeopathic mountain daisy and you're looking in the mirror, watching the egg literally disappear before your very eyes. You take a few more doses over the next two days and that daisy has saved you from some seriously technicolor bruising. It's at this point that homeopathy shifts from the periphery of your awareness to take its place in your life as real way of getting better. 

My Arnica Moment wasn't actually with Arnica but with another indispensable homeopathic remedy called Natrum Muriaticum, or table salt. A homeopath friend of mine prescribed it for me when I was at one of life's crossroads and was struggling to find my way. The remedy's effect was to help me cut through a lot of doubt and confusion. It was a powerful catalyst: I wanted to find out more about how homeopathy works, so much so that 5 years later in 2006 I obtained my homeopathic license, and have been in practice since.

Thank you for reading, and though I don't wish you a bump on the head, I do wish you a very happy Arnica Moment.