Homeopathy has a reputation for being dull. It’s mostly little pellets and long Latin names. But every remedy has a story, and that story explains how we know what the remedy is capable of.
Let me tell you why I rely on homeopathy in my practice.
How a remedy is proven
A homeopathic “proving” is the process of finding out what a substance does. Healthy volunteers take the substance in a diluted form and record everything they notice in their bodies, minds, and moods. Their own words are written down, and a symptom pattern only becomes part of the record when other provers report the same things.
This is why provings are never done on animals. An animal can’t tell you that its throat feels like a splinter is lodged in it, or that it gets weepy in a warm room. The details that make a remedy useful are the details only a person can describe.
All these details have been written down over the 200+ year history of homeopathy. Most of the original homeopaths were medical doctors first, so they documented what they saw and added their own interpretations. Their students usually organized the information into some sort of schema for usefulness. There are many books and approaches to looking at any particular person’s illness. I have quite a few of these to cross-reference.
I’ve started working from the Boenninghausen Repertory, which includes only remedies that have been classically proven. That means fewer choices and a tighter match. Once we’ve identified your remedy, you can often find it at a local store.
Because the provers’ exact words are recorded, the remedy descriptions are specific. A client told me recently that the words I read from her remedy described exactly what happens to her every time she’s in a certain situation. She had only been able to tell me that her stomach turned occasionally. Her other symptoms pointed me to the remedy, and the description explained her feeling of panic followed by the pit in the bottom of her stomach. The match was so exact that it confirmed we were on the right track.
Homeopaths call this the simillimum: the remedy that most closely matches the whole pattern of a person’s symptoms.
Why does that level of precision matter? Because homeopathy and conventional symptom relief are trying to accomplish different things.
Say you have a seasonal allergy and your nose won’t stop running. What’s happening is that your body has detected something it considers a threat, and mast cells release histamine in response to encapsulate and remove it.
An antihistamine can be helpful. It reduces the itching, sneezing, and dripping so you can get through your day more comfortably.
But symptom relief and resolution aren’t always the same thing. The tendency that caused the reaction may still be there, waiting for the next pollen season or the next exposure.
So why does one person react so strongly while another person standing right beside them does not?
Homeopathy is interested in that question. The runny nose isn’t the whole story. The real question is why your body is reacting so intensely in the first place. Two people can be exposed to the same pollen, dust, or food and have completely different responses. Homeopathy aims to support the person behind the symptom, not just eradicate the symptom itself.
Symptom relief doesn’t stop the alarm from going off. It’s kind of like putting a cap over the doorbell. The body keeps ringing the bell, but the message doesn’t get through. Whatever caused the alarm, and whatever the body was trying to do about it, is untouched.
If the alarms are silenced often enough, or the affected tissue is removed, the underlying imbalance may show up elsewhere in the body.
My first allergic symptom felt like dust in my eye while running on a dirt road. I brushed it off and kept going. The next day my eyes and nose were watering so I began breathing through my mouth because everything else was clogged. By the end of the week I had very congested lungs. The problem went much deeper into my system because the normal channels that would have kept it on the surface were blocked and I bypassed them.
How it works
Homeopathy works from an old idea, going back to Hippocrates and Paracelsus: like cures like. Think about slicing an onion. Your eyes burn, and your nose runs. A homeopath who sees a client with a cold or allergies showing those same symptoms may recommend a remedy made from a tiny dilution of onion, called Allium cepa. Since the remedy matches the whole pattern of symptoms, not just one of them, it gives your body information it can use to work through the event on its own.
That’s why I use homeopathy. Its focus isn’t on naming the condition. It’s on understanding the person’s unique experience and finding the closest possible match to support the body’s own healing process.
I’m not a doctor, and I don’t diagnose, treat, or cure disease. I support people. Many of my clients have symptoms they can’t explain and that never show up reliably on test day, so there’s no diagnosis to work from. I don’t need one. I just need to hear what you’re experiencing, so I can look at the whole picture and find the right support for your well-being.
Where I work
Sola Natura Wellness is a virtual naturopathy practice based in Georgetown, Texas. I work with midlife women by video or phone from home, so you can be anywhere and still have an appointment. If you’re a woman with lingering symptoms and you’d rather restore your health than manage it forever, let’s talk.
Brenda Elving, ND, is a Board Certified Traditional Naturopath and the founder of Sola Natura Wellness.
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