Treating colds and flus at home
You’re nose is running, your head aches and you can’t stop sneezing. What are you going to do?!? Homeopathy of course! (because you are on a homeopath’s blog, that’s what I am going to assume) But how do you know which homeopathic remedy might help??
You can of course call a professional homeopath, but often these things come on late at night or on the weekend, so your homeopath may not be working at the time you need them. Or if you are like me, you want to try some remedies yourself before you call (and pay for) a professional. So the question remains – how do you determine which remedy might help?
There’s one basic answer – you look online or in books. But there’s a lot of online resources and books out there, so let me walk you through the options. If you are pressed for time, then the bottom line is that I have seen books work pretty well, online programs not so much. However most online programs are free. There is one online platform that I think is fantastic, but it is a paid service.
Book resources:
There’s a whole genre of books written for people who are not professional homeopaths that give information on how to treat common ailments like colds, flus, burns, allergies, bruises, headaches, etc that are. Some common ones are:
The Family Guide to Homeopathy by Dr. Andrew Lockie.
The American Institute of Homeopathy Handbook for Parents by Dr. Edward Shalts
Homeopathy: An A to Z Home Handbook by Alan Schmuckler
The Complete Homeopathy Handbook by Miranda Castro
Homeopathic Medicine at Home by Dr. Maesimund Panos
and more.
There are also books designed for special populations – so if you are someone with young kids at home, and are primarily wanting to treat their illnesses, then a book specifically about children and infants may be appropriate. Similarly, if you are pregnant or may become pregnant soon, a book on remedies that help with the common symptoms of pregnancy may be more appropriate.
The downside of books is that it takes longer to find the right remedy than it does with online platforms. They also profile very few remedies (3-5), because the books would be MASSIVE if all of the possible remedies were included.
However, people find an accurate remedy frequently, so I definitely think books are worth looking into.
Online Resources:
Generally, I do not love online sources. The problem is that it is difficult to decide on the correct remedy (although not impossible – some people have had success). However, these online sources are usually free. The oldest and biggest online platform is ABC Homeopathy which has 1000 remedies and 65,000 symptoms. I find the formatting of the website difficult to follow, but it’s a very thorough program. Some others are Homeomart and the Homeopathy Center.
There are a couple of others that you can try as well. They are all closely based on software that professional homeopaths use, but the problem with software is that it is very detailed, so getting confused very easy. As one homeopath I know puts it, with software you make big mistakes quickly, but with books you make small mistakes slowly.
Homeopathic Housecall:
This is, in my opinion, the online platform that works dependably for at home care. It is a paid subscription, unlike the other online programs. The subscription will probably be less than your homeopath’s fee, so it may still save you money in the long run, and it will help you out even at 3am when you wake up with a raging UTI. There is a 14 day free trial, so you can wait until you have a cold or other complaint, sign up for the free trial and see how it works for you.
To use Homeopathic Housecall, you first select either your complaint if you know it (e.g. headache, menstrual cramps, cold), or the location of your complaint (e.g. nose for runny nose) or what triggered the complaint (e.g. anticipatory anxiety, bone fracture, insect bites). You will then be prompted to answer a list of questions and the software will come up with a list of remedies for you. The list of remedies has a short description of each remedy and you choose the one that sounds the most like what you are experiencing (do not worry if it is not an exact match, just get as close as you can). This is unique to Homeopathic Housecall – the other online platforms give you too much information or not enough about remedies and either you don’t know which one to choose because you get bogged down in details, or because you can’t find anything out about the remedy. There are 100 remedies in Homeopathic Housecall (which may might not sound like a lot since the other platform had 1000, but this is a good thing – many remedies are rare, hard to find, or require a practitioner’s license to order. All the remedies in this program are readily available). You can look at a tutorial or sign up for the service on the homeoaide website.