The Homeopathic Consultation

 

Essential to effective homeo­pathic treatment is the infor­ma­tion that you, the pa­tient, provide to the physician. The homeo­pathic in­terview involves extensive questioning and lis­ten­ing by the doctor not just a few quick questions.  To prepare yourself for the consultation, please review the in­formation below.

 

Reason for visit: I want you to state in your own words the conditions that brought you to seek treat­ment. Describe them as fully as possible. Your descrip­tion should include everything that is truly character­istic of your problems. Precise details are best but only if you can be defi­nite about them. Your ac­count should in­clude the follow­ing:

 

Onset of symptoms: What seems to bring on your troubles?  Do you as­so­ciate the onset of your con­di­tion with exertion, change of diet, time of year, an emotional up-set, pro­longed or pronounced stress, lack of sleep, exposure to the weather, an injury, medi­cation use, surgery, or any other factors?  Think back to when it all began.

 

Location of symptoms:  Be pre­cise. "Pain in the left temple" is more helpful than simply "headache."

 

Character of the sensation or pain: Describe the nature of the sensation in your own words. Is it tingling, burning, numbness, crawling or itch­ing? Is the pain cutting, dull, aching, sharp, cramping, like a knife, or nee­dle, etc?

 

Discharges or bleeding from any part of the body: Give color, consistency, quantity, and odor of the discharge.

 

Complaints are worse or bet­ter: Does your condition vary with the time of day or night, or sea­son of the year? Is it af­fected by your position (sitting, standing, lying, etc.) or activity (motion of any body part, walking, vigorous exer­cise, rest, etc.)? How do tem­perature, weather, eating, sleeping affect your condition? Anything that clearly influ­ences the intensity or pattern of your symptoms should be reported.

 

Associations: Anything that regu­larly occurs in association with your symptoms should be men­tioned. Are you always nauseated when you have a headache? Does your skin clear up when you get your menstrual period?

 

Mental/Emotional: What are the most character­is­tic emotional patterns you ex­perience? How do you ex­press your emo­tion?  When do you feel happy? What emo­tion most limits your ability to fully express yourself or to reach your full potential? What about your mem­ory, clarity of thought, and so on?

 

Nutrition: Be ready to describe the kinds of and approximate amounts of food you usually eat.  In addition, you'll be asked to list the foods that you crave or have strong preferences for (even if you think these foods are not good for you), and foods that you strongly dislike.

 

Sexuality:  I will ask you to describe your level of sexual energy and any problems with sexual expres­sion.

 

Sleep: The quality and quantity of sleep that you require, re­cur­rent dreams and the nature of your dreams are important.

  

General information:  In addi­tion to information about your local symptoms, the home­opath needs to know a lot about you in general. This is very important, and may be decisive when choosing the remedy. I want to know how vital and energetic you feel, and how your sense of well-be­ing changes as a re­sult of envi­ronmental or emo­tional factors. How are you af­fected, in gen­eral, by temper­ature, weather, time of day, activity level, eat­ing, and sleeping? What makes you feel better, what worse? Remember, this may be very different from what makes a particular symptom better or worse.        

 

Treatment:  Based mainly on the in­formation you provide, a rem­edy will be found that fits you best in a total way. You will be given this one remedy to stimulate the healing process.

 

Taking the remedy: A dose con­sists of 10-20 of the tiny granules or 2-4 of the larger pea-sized globules or tablets. Be sure to avoid strong odors or di­rect sunlight when you pour out your dose. Take the remedy dry under the tongue and allow it to dissolve before swallowing. Do not take water with the remedy. There should be no strong taste in the mouth.  Take the remedy at least twenty minutes be­fore or after meals.

 

Action of the remedy: Each in­di­vidual experiences the re­ac­tion to the remedy in a dif­ferent way. Usually the effects are gentle and gradual, though at times more rapid or dra­matic changes occur. Since the remedies work to bet­ter your general health,    do not be concerned if local symp­toms do not change right away.

 

Changing Symptoms: Most changes in illness symptoms are good signs. Sometimes new symptoms begin.  Often there are not side effects of the remedy but an indication that the body is responding to the remedy's stimulus. For any dramatic change, new discomfort or lack of progress stop the remedy and call and report what is happening.

 

Repetition of the dose: The strength, frequency and dura­tion of the homeopathic dose rec­ommended are quite indi­vid­ual. Factors such as diagno­sis, sensi­tivity to the remedy, need for other medications and severity of illness deter­mine the dosage selection and schedule. Follow-up visits are usually scheduled at about one month in­tervals in order to make de­ci­sions about repeti­tion or change of the remedy. It is nec­essary to give me a full review of any changes that have hap­pened.

          Acute illness requires more frequent repetition of the rem­edy, sometimes 2-4 times a day or more, since the response is often brief. Chronic illness may require a daily or weekly dose or even longer intervals.

 

Duration of the treatment: The length of homeopathic treat­ment is also completely individual. During acute illness, you should notice improve­ment within the first 24 hours, though you will still re­quire a normal, gradual conva­lescence. People with chronic problems improve over widely varying periods of time. Even though general health is im­proving, particular symptoms may linger while diminishing.