Treatment for sports and exercise injuries part 2

DR RONALD D WHITMONT

Homeopathy is a safe and effective subspecialty of medicine that promotes healing without the risk of worsening injury, causing bleeding, or delaying the healing process.

It works with the body to promote health and recovery after injury. Homeopathy has even been found to help prevent injury when used in marathon runners.

Principles of homeopathy

Homeopathy is based upon the:

• Law of similars
• Law of the minimum dose
• Individualisation of treatment
• Innate power of the body to heal itself

「The physician』s highest and only calling is to make the sick healthy, to cure as it is called,」 wrote Samuel Hahnemann, MD, the founder of the homeopathic school of medicine.

The law of similars

Using medicines in small amounts can produce similar states of illness as the disease being treated and is an example of the law of similars.

The law of similars takes advantage of a direct relationship between the symptoms produced by a medicine and the symptoms that exist in an actual disease. When these two states match each other, there is an excellent chance of fostering a cure.

Conventional medical doctors in effect typically deny the possibility of cure since most conventional medical prescriptions are designed to palliate symptoms, not cure illnesses.

Conventional care is based on allopathy, not homeopathy. Allopathy is treatment based on opposites, not similars. Opposites oppose the body』s self-healing mechanisms while similars work with them.

The law of the minimum dose

When extremely small (or infinitesimal) quantities of medicines are used to treat illnesses, the risk of side effects and associated toxicity is significantly reduced. Homeopathic medicines commonly fall far below the threshold of predicted biological and chemical activity due to the minute doses employed.

Concentrations of homeopathic medicines are so small as to be virtually undetectable by chemical means, but their biological activity has been proven.

No credible chemical or physical basis has been found to explain the mechanism by which such small concentrations could have such profound biological effects, but open minds can plumb the mysteries of the cosmos.

Individualisation of treatment

Homeopathic medicines are so effective at such small doses precisely because their prescriptions are so highly individualised. Each individual case is compared, in detail, to the picture of each individual medicine until the most precise match is made between similar states.

When homeopathy is practised without paying attention to individual details, the results of treatment are frequently indiscernible from placebo effects.

「Give me a place to stand, and with a lever I will move the whole world,」 Archimedes wrote.

Archimedes understood the principle of applying precisely the right amount of force to precisely the right spot, thereby individualising the solution to match the problem.

Homeopathy follows the same principle in the individualisation of treatment. Every solution must individually match the unique condition to which it is applied. This is a concept that has long escaped conventional medical science.

The innate power of the body to heal itself

Homeopathic medicines provide a form of stimulation of the innate body systems that assist in healing.

Homeopathic medicines are not 「drugs」. They do not act chemically inside the body, so they do not interfere with the body. They act to promote self-healing.

The body has an innate ability to work toward stability and to heal itself. This process is called homeostasis. Many systems of the body self-regulate and promote balance.

Many of the symptoms generated by the body during illness are signs of this self-regulating process. Some of the more common symptoms of self-healing include:

• Pain
• Fever
• Discomfort
• Discharge

Each symptom generated by the body is part of an important physiological process that has developed to coordinate the healing process. These symptoms maximise the efficiency and allow the body to work more effectively in the process of disease resolution and autonomy.

When these innate systems are suppressed (by suppressing the symptoms with many conventional medications), then the underlying self-healing mechanisms are thwarted, and the body』s innate ability to heal itself is impaired.

Next week: Part 3: How homeopathy works

Dr Whitmont is a classical homeopathic physician practising in Rhinebeck, NY, and New York City. His website is Homeopathicmd.com