Author: Janet

Can homeopathy help me?

Janet1 Comment

When people contact me about treatment, nine times out of ten they will ask ‘Can homeopathy help me? Can you treat my asthma, my son’s eczema, my arthritis, my digestive problems?’ whatever is causing them most discomfort right now. My answer is always the same: ‘No, but I can treat you, or your son’.


It’s not surprising that we think of our health in terms of disease labels. That is how we are diagnosed. Each thing that isn’t functioning is labelled and treated according to a proscribed protocol. You are almost never treated as the complete whole that you are.

But arthritis (eczema, asthma, constipation, insomnia etc) aren’t what is wrong with you. They are just a symptom of what is wrong with you. That’s why a homeopathic case taking is nothing like going to the Dr. I don’t particularly need to know when it started. I don’t particularly need to know if it runs in your family. Those things are interesting and sometimes relevant, but what I really want to know is you. What makes you who you are. What is unique about you and how you experience the signs and the symptoms of ill health, of disease. What makes you different from everyone else with the same diagnosis, not what you have in common.

Insomnia sleeplessness

A homeopathic consultation is often quite cathartic, so I sometimes wait to give a first prescription. After catharsis we generally feel a lift in mood, an unburdening and I don’t want you or me to be in any doubt what improvements in how you feel are to do with telling your story and what is to do with the action of the remedy.

That’s why it often takes two hours or more for a first appointment; there’s a lot to know about.

So how does it help then?

I don’t know how homeopathy works. I only know it does. Sceptics say it’s placebo, and I don’t argue with that, but if it is placebo, well, I’m pretty good at placebo prescribing.

I have an image in mind when I’m working with you that your vital energy comes through a tube, perhaps like a long bendy straw. Life, stresses, the environment, drugs, late nights, whatever, cause the straw to get knots and kinks in it. You can still get a tiny drink through it if you suck hard enough but it’s not what you’d call a flow. A good remedy unbends a kink, unties a knot and things start to flow more easily. As they do that, you’ll experience a lightening of your mood and an increase in your energy which will lead to you being able to undo the things that are causing you problems (the arthritis, constipation, coughs and cold) that you came to see me for.

How long is it going to take?

Once we’ve found the right remedy, sometimes called your constitutional remedy, things will start to get better but they will go at the speed that is right for you. We can start to undo the kinks and knots, but we can’t decide what order they are going to get better in. Some people notice the response immediately and others it is more of a slow burn. Whatever happens will be as unique to you; you get unwell in your own way, and getting better will be your own route too.

Can homeopathy help me then?

Yes. If you want to talk more about it, contact me here.

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Sparking Joy

Janet2 Comments
Homeopathy brings joy to your life.

Have you watched Marie Kondo’s ‘Tidying up’? It’s a phenomenon and her admonition that we to only keep things that ‘spark joy’ for us has quickly entered into our conversations. This can only be because it chimes with something in us, something we know to be true about life but perhaps we have forgotten about.

What is joy?

Definitions of joy include exultation, delight, great pleasure, rapture. Me, I get feelings of joy when I see a sun shining in the morning, when I have managed to get into the chilly North Sea and I’m bobbing around looking at the sky, exhilarated by the goose bumps, when I see certain friends, when I go for a walk. 

But I’ve lived without it too. 

There was a year or so in my life when nothing brought me pleasure, when I probably could have won the lottery and not felt joy. 

What’s that all about?

In medical and pharmaceutical terms I think it is considered an inability to pick up on pleasure hormones in the brain and SSRIs (selective seratonin re-uptake inhibitors) are the answer.

But I don’t see it like that.  

A lack of joy, a disconnection from life’s pleasures, is an indication that something is wrong. Your mind and body are connected; what happens in one affects the other.

It’s an indicator of our state of health

The ability to feel joy is a major indicator of your level of health. I think you might be at the end of your life, still feel joy in art or your family and be in a healthier state than someone in their 30s going about their life without feeling joy at anything.  

I’ve been asking people coming to see me about joy in their lives for years. It’s often seen as an old fashioned concept but there is no other word for it and it’s key to the quality of life and well being. 

Joy and homeopathy

For me, an important factor in the assessment of how remedies have worked is the joy in your life. If your aches and pains have gone, but there is nothing that sparks joy in you, we’re on the wrong track. 

A good remedy will bring you back to a place where life can spark joy. 

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Aphorism 9 – or the point of being well

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The point of being well is so you can live your lifeLike most students of homeopathy, I must have read that aphorism from the Organon of Medicine 20 or 30 times before I even graduated and several times since. I’ve thought about it, been taught about it, discussed what it means and how to understand it. But amazingly until Sunday morning I didn’t get it at all! I thought it was a discussion of the vital force and its role in keeping us alive. I thought it was an exhortation to do something valuable with our lives. It is both those things, of course, but in essence it is so much more. It says that if you are not well then you can’t make the most of your life.

This is why, however old you are, whatever your health is now, you should be striving for better health. Even as a homeopath you can think that  keeping well is simply a way to stay away from pharmaceutical drugs which can do so much harm. But don’t we all want to do more than that – like realise our life’s purpose?

We all know what is right for us to eat and drink and yet we don’t do it and still think things will tick along fine. It’s just foolish – and we all do it. It’s a bit like having a car, going to the petrol station and throwing a few Maltesers in before the petrol, or half a bottle of wine. Your car isn’t going to work well and we know that, you are much more complicated and you won’t work well like that either.

If you are not feeling at your peak, do something about it. Change your diet and eat only what nourishes you; stop drinking too much tea, coffee and alcohol.  

If you can’t change what you are putting into your body, if you are stuck in unhealthy patterns and you can’t help yourself be well, then ask for help. Make an appointment to come and see me, or see someone else who can help you live your life to its fullest potential. Do something. Every day you aren’t the best you can be is a wasted day.

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Stress makes me ill every holiday

Janet2 Comments

alt= "high stress work equals ill on holiday'You’ve got a high-stress job and both you and your boss expect a lot from you at work. You feel like you’re buckling under the pressure but you just have to keep on. Every time you go on holiday you get ill. You know it’s not a good sign, but you can’t see the way out.

Let me tell you about about a patient of mine; let’s call her Isabel. She works in the finance industry. She looks like a total success story: amazing job, wonderful boyfriend, lots of travel for work, beautiful flat, great friends.

SO WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

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Sugar: the problems and what to do about them

Janet6 Comments

alt="homeopathy suffolk'
The sour side of the sweet stuff

So you can’t stop eating sweet things? You’ve got what used to be called a sweet tooth; what we now call a sugar addiction. You know that it isn’t good for you but you just can’t stop. I get it. Me too. When I eat sugar, and I know that the same goes for you, everything goes out of kilter and that is why I’m always banging on about it and why I’m going to bang on about it again.

Here goes:

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Loving Kindness and the side effects of hate

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alt="loving kindness and side effects of hatred illustrated by rippling water'
Loving Kindness or side effects of hate

Hatred feels like such a strong emotion, but it leaves you weakened. Loving kindness might be the answer.

A couple of years ago my friend Kate and I went to see a healer guy in Barcelona. I asked him about how to deal with feeling hate and he showed us the most amazing thing.

He took me outside the room (so Kate didn’t know what we were doing) and asked me to think negative thoughts about her. When we went back in, he asked me to push Kate. With a firm push from me and Kate stumbled backwards and she could do the same to me. This is what hatred does to you he said. ‘How do I not get weakened by hatred then?’ He took me outside again and asked me to send loving thoughts to Kate. With the same push I didn’t move. Nor did Kate. Not only did hating weaken the person I was sending the thoughts to, but it weakened me too. And the antidote was to send love. Continue reading →If you like this, please share it
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Life is speeding by

Janet3 Comments

 

alt=life speeding by
Stop the world I want to get off.

Your life is passing too quickly. Time is going too fast. Every day seems to flash by in a whirr of things that have to be done and your To Do list doesn’t get shorter despite your best intentions.

It’s true that days, weeks, months and even years seem to go more quickly. It’s common across the generations. As a teenager I remember hearing uncles and aunts saying how fast life was going, and my grandparents telling them ‘just wait until you’re my age’.

It is not unusual

Apparently the reasons that we feel like this are because we are either distracted and don’t pay enough attention to each thing that we do, or we have to do things that cause us stress and anxiety and so we don’t concentrate on the time we are not doing them.

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Stressed and tired of getting ill?

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alt=stressed and illDoes this sound familiar? You get ill every time you get stressed. It could be a migraine, cold sores, it could be colds, stomach upsets or fungal infections. If this is you, it doesn’t matter what the illness is, it is draining and predictable.

Modern-day life. Ancient body response.

Here’s what happens. Anxieties, worries about work, feeling over-stretched, money problems or just the way your phone never stops ringing, these are all aspects of modern-day living, but they get to you. When your brain thinks you are under threat your body releases adrenalin into the blood stream. It’s a natural response which triggers a raise in blood sugar levels and triglycerides (fats) which are meant to help you when you have to take action. Your ancestors might have been fighting for their lives or running away. Today, you usually can’t physically run away from something stressful and it’s just as rare that you can stop or avoid the problem. When we can’t physically remove ourselves from stressful things we lie awake playing them over and over which causes more adrenalin to be released. Classic vicious circle. You have all the mental worry and no physical action to take to burn off the adrenalin.

You shouldn’t be surprised that you get ill.

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Hayfever and homeopathy

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alt=hayfeverYou’ve got itchy eyes, runny nose, sneezing. It’s hayfever time again. Or maybe you’re bracing yourself because for you it isn’t tree pollen (which is normally the first irritant) but grass pollen (which is coming soon).

If you are already treated by a homeopath, I bet they’ve told you that you need to be treated out of hayfever season. Why? Because hayfever isn’t an acute illness. Although it might feel like a terrible cold, it isn’t the same thing at all. It’s what is called a recurring sub-acute. This means that when the symptoms have gone away, the illness or disease hasn’t. That is because the disease is the sensitivity to the pollen not the reaction to it. So, even when the season has passed this year, it will almost certainly be back next year.

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Disease Mongering

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I know, I watch too much TV

Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz
Dr. Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz

I’m a huge Big Bang Theory fan. It reminds me of the science orientated, questing, debating family I grew up in. I was watching an episode recently (The Mommy Observation) in which Leonard says to Penny: ‘You don’t go into science for the money.’ To which Bernadette pipes up ‘Speak for your self. Last month my company both invented and cured Restless Eye Syndrome.’ It’s fiction, but what Bernadette is referring to is Disease Mongering.

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