 (In
homeopathy, certain substances are thought to reverse, or "antidote" the
action of homeopathic remedies, causing the person's original symptoms to return.
For this reason, homeopaths often suggest that their patients refrain from
using even small amounts of coffee, camphor, tea tree oil, and other strong
smelling substances.)
Let's look at the word antidote. Webster's Dictionary defines it as: a medicine
or other remedy that counteracts the effects of a poison.
This doesn't
really describe the process as we apply it in homeopathy--as I
have understood it. Our medicines are not poisons. This vexed question
of antidotes is one the homeopathic community wrestles with over
and over again. So at the risk of opening a rusty old can of worms
(?!) let's take off the lid and have another look.
In my early years in practice I embraced enthusiastically everything
homeopathic, including the concept of antidotes. I wrote a patient
information leaflet that forbade everything from mint toothpaste to
coffee ice cream and cough lozenges. I believed patients were glad
to have something they could do towards their own healing. Because
this is what I had been taught. I believed that my medicines were rather
vulnerable, delicate, easily affected by external influences--by heat
and x-rays and strong smells. I wouldn't even let my patients touch
their own remedies ... the tablets they were taking. Although I never
went to the extremes of some homeopaths who forbade their patients
to cook with garlic. My Italian blood simply freaked out at the very
thought!
So ... about ten years ago I spotted a worrying development in my practice,
in terms of the relationship between me and my patients. This is what would
happen. Sometimes (as much as once a busy day) a patient would return for
a follow-up consultation ... typically after 4-6 weeks, and tell me they
had had a nice response to their treatment--at first. That there had been
an improvement of some sort that lasted only a week or two and was
followed by a relapse.
What concerned me was this. I noticed a certain tone creeping into my voice
when I asked The Big Questions. "Did you antidote your remedy? Did you drink any coffee?" Responses
varied from the indignant "Of course not!" to coy giggles and "Well I did forget
this one time," to guilty glances and "We went to Paris for the weekend and I
just couldn't resist it," or a pathetic whine "I missed it so much, I only
had one cup, surely it isn't that bad."
I would, of course, repeat the remedy and I'd impress upon my hapless patient
the importance of obeying the rules. I don't think I actually got out my
finger and wagged it pointedly at them, or rather I hope I didn't! But
the words bad boy or bad girl definitely lingered unspoken in the air at these
times.
At the other end of the spectrum there was the anxious mother who would call
in a panic to ask what to do about her child who had eaten a piece of chewing
gum. Or the conscientious new patient who wanted to know if he could eat
the salad his wife had made because it had some mint from the garden chopped
into it.
And then I remember reading about the old French homeopaths who would send
their women patients home with a dose of Nux vomica for a drunken husband
and instructions to put it in their unsuspecting spouse's soup. And it worked.
I remember reading this and hearing my mind skid to an abrupt stop. I wasn't
concerned about the ethical issues. I was amazed at how a remedy administered
in hot soup could work. My patients were timing their 30 minutes before and
after each dose with something approaching religious fervor, in order to
take their remedies according to the rules about having a "clean mouth."
I started experimenting. I crushed remedies and sprinkled them in my dog's
food. They worked. I told mothers not to worry about whether their children
ate before or after a remedy. The remedies worked. A friend put her child's
remedy in his macaroni and cheese. It worked. Another patient was desperate
to give her elderly parent a remedy. Her mother didn't want a remedy. Her
mother was suffering. I struggled with the ethics of this and finally relented.
I suggested she put the remedy in her mother's morning tea. It worked.
And then I reflected on my practice and the relationships I was building
with my patients and added into my reflections my hopes and goals for these
relationships. I realized that the many rules I had built up around my treatments
were acting as constrictions and sometimes as traps. I also realized that
the very notion of enforcing them made it difficult for me not to persecute
my patients when they "messed up," and this put them into an
unpleasant victim-like position. Not the sort of healing relationship I had
in mind.
I found out that some of my patients were lying to me. Because friends of
theirs squealed on them. This made me feel terrible. I had created a situation
where these patients were hiding things from me. We were both acting out
a most unfavorable aspect of the age-old dance of parent and child. And it
was my fault. What a mess. And I found out that I was not alone. I have come
across many patients who have lied to homeopaths with similarly stringent
rules. When we behave like a critical parent by giving
our patients rules to adhere to, we automatically bring out the scared or
rebellious child part in our patients--whatever their age.
I did a complete about face. And I called it an experiment. For a whole year
I did not take anybody off anything. The effects were interesting. The most
immediate and palpable result was that a whole layer of tension that had
settled into my practice completely melted away, disappeared. I relaxed and
so did my patients. We never looked back. Actually I never went back to believing
in antidotes in the same way, although I do ask my patients to avoid strong
aromatic oils especially camphor, eucalyptus and peppermint (but stress that
ordinary toothpastes and mint in cooking is fine).
So what happened, I hear you asking! Well, a number of patients did not improve.
The number was no different from my previous year in practice. As you know,
we cannot help all the people all the time, and these patients I referred
to other practitioners.
Some patients improved and then relapsed. The numbers were not very different
from the previous year. I realized that these were patients who had been
given the wrong remedy--a similar remedy rather than the simillimum in many
cases--and I worked that little bit harder to find a treatment to help them.
Rather than blaming coffee.
In addition, with each of these patients I checked the relationship of coffee
to their remedy (at the back of Kent's Repertory or with Dr. P. Sankaran's
Clinical Relationships), and if it was a listed antidote I negotiated with
my patient to cease and desist from drinking coffee for a period of time--again,
mutually agreed upon. This worked well. If their symptoms returned when they
drank coffee again, then we went back to the negotiating table and worked
out a longer term plan. Now that I live in the latte capital of the world
this way of working is much appreciated by patients whose morning coffee
is sacrosanct!
My bottom line--for what it is worth--is this. Anything that affects a person
strongly can affect any healing response including one that is due to a homeopathic
medicine. Any medicine (whether it is coffee or corticosteroids or cannabis)
which has a strong effect on the psyche or substance of a person can counteract
a healing response, whether this positive response is due to a homeopathic
medicine, an acupuncture treatment or falling in love. Patients whose nervous
systems are affected by coffee, or whose headaches are brought on by alcohol
need to avoid these substances, at any time but especially while they are
pursuing any treatment which seeks to enable healing to take place.
I do ask whether coffee-drinking patients experience palpitations and/or
the "shakes" after
relatively small amounts of coffee, or find it difficult to get to sleep at
night if they drink it after mid-day. Coffee is strong medicine for these people
and should be avoided. These patients are well aware of this and are usually
only too happy to be encouraged to do so.
I have heard of patients whose remedies have been "antidoted" by a single coffee-flavored
candy. I find this very hard to believe. I wonder whether it is because the
homeopath and the patient believe it so strongly that neither take the time
or the trouble to investigate other possible stresses. Our beliefs are powerful
motivating forces in all our lives. To a certain extent they shape how we think,
feel and behave. And to another, probably larger extent, they shape our expectations.
We believe a homeopathic medicine works by stimulating the vital force, that
it acts as a catalyst for healing. Therefore, a homeopathic medicine does
not, of itself, do the healing, does not heal per se.
Therefore (and this is a logical leap), a homeopathic medicine cannot of
itself be antidoted. So, after fifteen years in practice, and hundreds of
discussions around this topic, I have come to the conclusion that we need
to investigate and question this concept of antidotes more carefully. It
is true that the healing response--in other words the reaction to a homeopathic
medicine--can be affected. By any significant stress, be it physical, emotional
or mental. Are these then antidotes? To what?
Our medicines stimulate a healing response. I believe this response can be
a delicate process, and that the healing effect itself can be counteracted.
By strong physical stresses: which can range from an accident to an allopathic
medication to a recreational drug, to a homeopathic medicine that has an"opposite" effect to the one previously prescribed. Emotional stresses that can
interfere with a healing response include absolutely anything that affects
the patient strongly, to which they are particularly sensitive because of their
own weaknesses and struggles.
I don't have a simple answer as to how to write about this aspect of our
work. I have dutifully written a section on antidotes in each of my books,
and I would rather have called these sections by another name but I don't
actually have one! We don't have one. Maybe you do--I would love to hear
what you have to say about this!
Our healing can be a delicate process. As a homeopath, I believe my patients
deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. Being a homeopathic patient
is demanding enough. I have decided not to stress the relationship unnecessarily
through the administration of harsh or unnecessary rules.
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