As some of you may know, I’ve studied and practiced homeopathic medicine for the past 25 years.

Why?

I treat my patients with homeopathy for a very simple reason. It’s the deepest healing modality available, it doesn’t just soothe or palliate symptoms, and it actually triggers the body to start to heal itself.

Much of the frustration with conventional medicine today (aside from the unwelcome and sometimes dangerous side effects) is that although the drugs can take away many of the effects of a disease (pain, inflammation, etc.), they don’t affect the disease process itself. Frankly, this can also be true in the ‘natural medicine’ world, where supplements and herbs can help the symptoms but never seem to address the chronic susceptibility to a problem.

As much as I enjoy working with patients, I believe consumers should be empowered to use homeopathy on themselves and with their families in cases of simple, non-life-threatening illness.

Can people with no medical training learn to use homeopathy? Absolutely! Here are some thoughts on how to go about it:

• Build a small library of homeopathic self-care books. There are some really good ones. In fact, Washington Homeopathic has a number of good titles to consider, including:

Complete Homeopathy Handbook

Everybody's Guide to Homeopathic Medicines

Homeopathic Medicine at Home

Homeopathic Medicine for Children and Infants

Homeopathy for Pregnancy, Birth & Your Baby's first Year

Family Guide to Homeopathy

Homeopathy for Menopause

Natural Health for Dogs & Cats

Yasgur's Homeopathic Dictionary

Lisa and the Mystery of the Little White Globules

• Read published articles on the topic. As you may know, I regularly publish articles on the Washington Homeopathic Products website under Dr. Samet’s Insights.
• Visit helpful websites like the National Center for Homeopathy’s website. They have many articles on homeopathic self-care as well.

Always remember (particularly if you are new to homeopathy) - the key to choosing the correct/helpful remedy for your child is always the same. One must match the “characteristic symptoms” (i.e., unusual or peculiar) of the person you are caring for (not the common ones like a headache, sore throat, cough, fever, etc.) to a remedy capable of producing similar characteristic symptoms to have success. If you choose a remedy with characteristics most similar to the characteristic symptoms of your family member, you should have a happy outcome every time. If you don't - you or they will either feel no effect or one that is mildly positive at best, but there is never a bad effect from choosing the “incorrect” remedy.

As an aside, you will see that I have also listed a book on homeopathy for your pets. Homeopathy is vastly superior to ordinary medicine for them as well. Safe, gentle and effective.

About Dr. Lisa Samet:

Dr. Lisa Samet N.D. provides Washington Homeopathic Products with a weekly column on using homeopathy for the family. She's a naturopathic physician who specializes in homeopathic medicine and she's a partner with Dr. Andre Saine N.D. Dr. Samet graduated from the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in 1998 and has been practicing in Montreal since then. She was born and raised in New York.

Dr. Samet has chosen to focus on homeopathy because in her experience it is the deepest healing modality available in that it does not just soothe or palliate symptoms but can actually stimulate the body to start to heal itself. Dr. Samet sees patients in her Montreal office as well as long distance using Skype. Learn more here: Dr. Lisa Samet. You can follow her on Facebook as well.