Homeopathic Remedies Lined up
Dear Friends,
I have written articles about how to take homeopathic remedies before. In this article, I would like to focus on some ways to take remedies that I discovered over the years of my practice.
I refer you to the article How to Take Homeopathic Remedies for information about the traditional approaches.
My intention with this article is to focus on the following unconventional, yet highly effective ways to take remedies that can be used alone or as adjuncts to the traditional approaches. This article describes different ways of taking homeopathic remedies through energetic exposure rather than oral dosing.
The Pillow Dose
This is one of my favorite ways to take remedies and to administer them. In the pillow dose I request the client to put the vial of the remedy we have selected under the pillow overnight. The person enters the energetic field of the remedy by being in such close proximity to it. I feel this method is as effective as taking the remedy in water. This is one of the main methods I use with clients. It is my preferred method of taking remedies personally.
Meet the Homeopath
The Pocket Dose
Just like the pillow dose, this method works by bringing you in close proximity with the remedy and putting you in its energetic field. I often recommend the pocket dose for acute situations. I may recommend that the client takes the first dose of the remedy in water, and then ask them to do a pocket dose of the remedy every day for 20 minutes until they recover from the illness.
I have used this method for people recovering from COVID19 or any acute illness. The question arises as to how long the remedy should be kept in the pocket. For people who are in the recovery phases of an acute illness, I usually recommend 20 to 30 minutes per day, but some people feel like they need to hold the remedy much longer, as they are very comforted by it and feel its effectiveness.
The pocket dose is so extremely easy, ever so much easier than the Five Cup Method of Farokh Master or working with LM potencies, or repeating the remedy in water or under the tongue. What it has to recommend it is that it works and it is simple. How can you beat that?
The Room Dose
I love the room dose. I sometimes recommend this method when people are taking allopathic medicine at the same time as they are under homeopathic care. I also recommend this method when people are taking many supplements. The remedy in the room helps to ensure that the allopathic medication or supplements do not interfere with the remedy. Sometimes I recommend that the remedy be kept in the room for just a few minutes a day, or for 20 minutes per day, or in some cases I recommend that the remedy just remains in the room.
In the room dose I ask the patient to put the remedy vial four, six or eight feet from themselves in a room where they are by themselves. There will come a time when the remedy vial needs to be removed. The biggest sign that there has been enough exposure is if symptoms that had been steadily improving suddenly aggravate. I then ask them to remove the remedy, and they feel better shortly afterward. That aggravation is an indication that no more exposure to the remedy is needed and the remedy vial should be put away.
Rules of Exposure
I treat the pillow dose, the pocket dose and the room dose with the same respect as I give to the dry dose and the remedy taken in water. When you take the remedy in any of these ways what you are doing is bringing the vital force of the client under the influence of the remedy. You are giving a message to the vital force, which will then proceed to unfold a healing process in response to the remedy. In all methods the remedy will begin cycling through the symptoms, bringing symptoms up to work on, touching on one symptom after another. In long-term chronic cases where it has taken a lifetime to acquire a wide range of symptoms, the healing process will take time to get around to everything.
From my observation the healing unfolds in a spiral fashion. The remedy will go to symptom A, work on it a while, then proceed to symptom B, then C. Then after a while, maybe a week or two, it will come back again to symptom A. Each time it revisits a symptom it does more work on it. I like to allow seven weeks to elapse before evaluating the response to the remedy in all methods of taking the remedy.
At the seven week follow up I make a chart of the client’s symptoms. We see what is better, the same, aggravated, old or new. Most people do not know how to evaluate themselves, and may tell you that nothing happened when they took the remedy. When you go through the original symptom list and chart the changes, they are often astonished to see how much has actually changed.
In classical homeopathy we do not repeat the remedy by any method until the symptoms that are in the better category move backward for a while, let’s say for one to three weeks. This insures that the remedy, which has set up a healing process is not interrupted.
Often a remedy will clear off or address a layer, and the client displays a new set of symptoms, or an underlying set of symptoms that were not in the forefront before. In this case a new remedy is given at the follow up appointment. In other cases the client only needs one remedy, and it is not a question of layers. I have seen remedies hold for a few months to many years regardless of the potency of the remedy.
Please Work With A Professional Homeopath
Selecting a homeopathic remedy is not easy. This is something that is learned over years of training. Knowing how to repeat a remedy requires as much training and experience as knowing how to select a remedy. For this reason it is important to seek the guidance of a qualified homeopath, or doctor trained in homeopathy when working with homeopathic remedies.
Samuel Hahnemann Explained How to Use Homeopathic Remedies in the Organon
The founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann, understood the power of homeopathic remedies and he wanted to make sure that they were used intelligently and safely. That is why he wrote the Organon of Medicine, (there are many translations of this book, with similar titles). If you are studying or working with homeopathy, or contemplating prescribing homeopathic remedies to anyone, including yourself, it is very important that you read Hahnemann’s book, so that you know how to work with the remedies safely. The rules of repetition that Hahnemann elucidated in his great book apply to all methods of taking the remedy including the pillow dose, the pocket and the room dose.
Forty-Eight Hour Rule
Here is a guiding rule that applies to all methods of taking a remedy. In my homeopathic training I was taught that you should not expose yourself to another dose of the remedy if more than 48 hours has passed. It is said that after that point you need to let the remedy run its full cycle, which usually means a period of aggravation, followed by amelioration, then signs that the remedy is relapsing before considering repeating the remedy. The explanation is that the remedy sets up a healing process that unfolds over time. If you take or expose yourself to the remedy on consecutive days, the body interprets that as a continuation of the single dose, but if you go further than 48 hours, the body interprets the new exposure as a new dose of the remedy. I will often follow this guidance and try to keep exposure to the remedy within 48 hours, as in an acute situation, where the remedy may be needed more often due to the intensity of the illness.
I will often choose the room or pocket dose method of taking the remedy if I have encountered some antidoting influence, such as dental work, exposure to chemicals, or I have handled too many homeopathic remedies for my clients. A room dose or a pocket dose of the remedy for a minute or less will help reassure me that I am still under the influence of my constitutional remedy.
Respect for Others
Another guiding note I follow is to make sure that you show respect for others when working with pillow doses, pocket doses and room doses. If you are sleeping with someone else in the bed, then do not take the remedy via pillow dose, but take it via one of the traditional methods, such as in water, so that you don’t expose anyone else to your remedy.
The same precaution goes for the pocket dose and the room dose. Use these methods when you are alone and other people are not likely to walk into the room, who can inadvertently be exposed to your remedy. Susceptibility of course, plays a part in whether another person would resonate with your remedy sufficiently to have any reaction to it, but it is better to err on the side of caution and be respectful of other people. I believe that the power of intention also plays a part in whether someone who has been exposed to a remedy, or many remedies, such as people who work in stores where homeopathic remedies are sold, are affected by them.
Please consider purchasing a Lead Lined Film Bag to carry or store your remedies in. This bag helps to minimize exposing others to homeopathic remedies when you are traveling, and it is a good place to store your remedies at home.
Conclusion
The pillow dose, the pocket dose, the room dose are wonderful ways to expose people seeking healing to the remedy. They can be used as an alternative to taking a remedy in the traditional ways, such as the dry dose, the remedy in water, or LM or Quin potencies. Many people are afraid to take homeopathic remedies orally, but they may be not so resistant to taking the pillow dose, the pocket dose or the room dose of the remedy. The wonderfulness that is homeopathy can then be accessible to people who would never take an oral dose of a remedy. May you experience the miracle that is homeopathy.
Wishing you health and happiness,
Deborah Olenev CCH RSHom (NA)
