Understanding Remedy Reactions – the Quick and Dirty
There are 3 basic reactions to a remedy. Here is what they are and what to do about them.
1. I got better!
Yay! Continue dosing as you have been. Pay close attention to how long it takes you to feel better and how long you continue to feel better. If you notice, for example, that you get a slight whisper at 10pm that your complaint is coming back, we can adjust your dose so that you avoid that slight relapse. The goal is to get you feeling better all the time. Not just 100% for 2hrs of the day, and 80% better for the other 22hrs. If you notice a pattern of improvement and then slight relapse, we can adjust the dose slightly to get rid of that. Or maybe you get a bit worse and then get a lot better. We can also adjust the dose in that case.
2. I got worse!
This is not necessarily a bad thing! (Although I would stop your remedy until you talk to your homeopath).
There are 2 reasons why this happens:
Correct remedy, wrong dose: If this is the case, the SAME symptoms you have now will get worse. Sometimes, there is also a “resurgence” of symptoms you have had in the past. For example a rash you had 10 years ago suddenly comes back exactly the same after your remedy. These are great signs, because it usually means this remedy will help you a lot. But the dose is a bit too high. Usually, these aggravations as we call them pass in a day or two. If you are really suffering, I suggest sniffing the remedy bottle (crazy, I know); it seems to antidote the dose of the remedy and your aggravation should lessen very quickly. But this means you and your homeopath need to talk about dosing a bit.
Incorrect remedy: I like to call this the “Brittany has been a dummy” reaction. This seems to happen when the homeopath prescribes something that is close to what you need, but is not exactly right. What you will notice is some NEW symptoms will come up. I think of this as the body saying “hey dumbo homeopath! That remedy was not right! Here are some new symptoms, and maybe now you can get it through your thick skull!”. Basically, a homeopath needs to take these new symptoms into account and find a new remedy. Sometimes this is an unavoidable reaction (so don’t always assume your homeopath was out to lunch), for reasons that I won’t go into right now. But generally, it just points the homeopath in a new direction and a new remedy will likely be prescribed.
3. I don’t feel any different
This is the most frustrating for practitioner and patient alike. But it doesn’t necessarily mean something is wrong. Basically, it means that either you got the right remedy and the dose is too low, or not enough time has passed for you to notice a difference. It can also mean the remedy is incorrect, or that the issue won’t be helped much by homeopathy, unfortunately. But the first step is to double check the remedy choice: is it still the best match? Are you absolutely sure? If you are, then try changing the dose.