I think one of the best ways to illustrate the power of homeopathy is with stories.  The following are true stories experienced in my personal practice over the course of the past year.  Because I have so many incredible stories to share, I’ll categorize them as I go.  Expect further posts as I am inspired to share more.  Names have been changed to protect privacy, as well as any identifying details.

Gallstones.

I’ve been in practice for three years, and in that time I’ve seen three acute cases of a “gallbladder attack,” all in caucasian, fertile (premenopausal), overweight (one was obese), and in the 35-43 year age range.  So we can remember, we learn a mnemonic as medical students: Fair, Fertile, Fat, Forty, Female.  All three had already been to the hospital, had an ultrasound, had the report, were scheduled for surgery in 2-3 days (pending repeat and follow-up diagnostics on that day), were told to fast on water, and were in excruciating pain.  Excruciating.  Three women had children, so they knew what 10/10 pain felt like, and I believed them when they told me it hurt.  I’ll only tell you two of the three bedtime stories tonight, but know this: all three got to keep their gallbladder, and all three experienced pain-relief within minutes.

Daphne

Daphne called me up one afternoon last summer.  I have a home office, and so that time of year I’m barefoot in the garden if I don’t have anybody on the schedule.  She sounded very matter-of-fact, which is not uncharacteristic of her.  She is a very upright citizen, if you know what I mean.

“Hey Jon, I was wondering if you had anything homeopathic for a gallstone?”

“Hi Daphne.  Yes, I most certainly do, are you having a gall-bladder attack?”

“Yes, actually, I’m driving home right now and I’m near your house.  I’m coming from the hospital.  The doctor said I have multiple gallstones and I need to have it removed and so do you have something?  I went to my doctor (another Naturopathic Physician) earlier today with abdominal pain and she did an exam on me and said I was having a gall bladder attack and sent me to the hospital.”

“There’s no way you’re losing your gallbladder, Daphne.  Can you get over here right now?  I’m just hanging out in the garden.”  Too bad that other ND doesn’t do homeopathy.  Once I took Daphne’s case, it was a very easy prescription…many early homeopathy students would even recognize it.

“I’m on my way.”  So, Daphne was a few minutes out…I washed my hands and face with the garden hose and went inside for a fresh shirt.

Daphne arrived looking only mildly less than her usual self.  She is an athletically built woman with an olive complexion and dishwater blonde hair, easily 5’10″.  She is the superwoman mother of three between 5 and 9 years old, and has that kind of mind that could make a Cray supercomputer blush.  Nothing gets past her.  And she’s fun.  Daphne loves live music, and did a number of summer tours with the Grateful Dead and Phish back in her day.  Her house is very tastefully done, it’s clear she has a knack for decorating; she can be quite stylish.  But today, she wasn’t feeling like gettin jiggy wit it.

We didn’t waste too much time on small talk.  I palpated her abdomen and confirmed rebound tenderness in the upper right quadrant, asking her to describe to me in detail the pain she was feeling.  She wasn’t too comfortable on the table, so I had her move to a chair.  I sat at my desk, materia medica in my lap, thumbing through one particular remedy, confirming symptoms that she described.

“It hurts…”  Daphne proceeded to describe to me a quintessential set of symptoms and modalities that almost read like the very same page I was reading.  It was uncanny.  Every symptom she experienced was described, nearly word for word, in the materia medica that I was holding in my lap.   She’d been in my office for about 5 minutes and I already thought I knew what she needed.

“What’s going on in your life?”

“Well, there’s the divorce.  My husband is really on my nerves and I can’t wait to be rid of him.  It sounds cruel I suppose, but he is so pathetic, really.  I realize that he’s been draining the life out of me, and that I’ve been getting sicker and sicker in the relationship.   Since we’ve separated I feel so much better.  I will be much happier when the divorce is settled and I can have him completely out of my life…except for the children, he will always be able to have them, I could never do that…I need to have him take the kids half the time because I need some down-time…some peace and quiet.”

“Okay!  That was easy.  I know the remedy you need.  In fact, I think you’ve needed this remedy for a while now, and I’m very glad that I get the chance to give it to you!”  This remedy was for Daphne’s chronic state as much as it was for her acute state of pain and inflammation.  She had been amassing gallstones for quite some time.  Her general nature, what I knew about her as an acquaintance, my observations over the years of knowing her, told me that this remedy was right for her, and would affect her entire chronic condition.

I stood up, reached into my 1M potency kit and took out the vial of SEPIA, walked across the room, unscrewed the cap, tapped about 6 tiny #10 pellets into her palm and told her to lick them.

“Just…lick them?  Then what?”

“Yup, just let them stick to your tongue or suck on them or whatever.  Then, we wait a minute and see.”

In a pleasant, practical way, she took the remedy and sat there smiling.  “What do you say I go show you round my garden and you can see what’s growing,” I suggested, thinking that would buy me a few minutes.

So, we walked out the back door and onto the stone patio, baking in the afternoon sun, partly shaded by a few apple trees.  After a short tour of the grounds, we returned to the patio and reclined in zero-gravity chairs, basking in the warm sun.  I knew she’d love that as much, if not more, than me.  You see, the Sepia patient adores the sun.  I’ve seen a few sun tattoos on this crowd.

and then like that…pain was gone…

“…you know, I feel better.  Hmm…yeah, I think it’s gone.  Yup….as I was saying…”  It had been about 20 minutes since I gave her that single dose of Sepia, and here was Daphne, interjecting mid-stream into her own dialogue that she thinks the pain is gone!  Gone!

Stuff like this never ceases to amaze me.  I mean, I expected it to work, but it’s always nice when it does.  Twenty five minutes after Daphne arrived, twenty minutes after her prescription: a single dose of Sepia 1M, she was standing on my patio proclaiming that the pain was all but gone and she was much better, thankyouverymuch!  I tried for a moment to give her an herbal tincture of bitters but she flatly refused saying there was no way she’d take it “so don’t bother.”  Instead, I gave her diet instructions, self care tips, and sent her on her way with instructions to call the next morning or if she got worse.

The next morning Daphne called to say she was right as rain, sticking to the fast, and very happy.  She was curious what to tell the Gastroenterologist, and so I told her to stick with the plan and go back as scheduled, but that they won’t need to operate so no worries!

A week went by.

Then one afternoon Daphne rolls up and hops out of the car, skips over to me, smiling, and offers a big hug.  “I just got back from the hospital and I had no stones!  None!”

“Wow that’s awesome.  So you’re saying they did another ultrasound and there were no stones at all?”

“Yup, and the thickened walls weren’t thickened anymore.”

“Wow, that’s amazing.  That’s wonderful.  Good for you girl!”

“Thanks, Dr. Jon.  Oh, and I’m going vegan.  I’ve been reading all about it and my doctor and I are going to incorporate it into my weight loss plan.  I feel great.  I feel better than ever!”

That was about 6 months ago.  Today, Daphne is fitter than ever, her complexion is radiant, she’s down over 20 pounds, exercising regularly, eating a whole-food diet, flying around town with a superwoman cape and a minivan.

homeopathy changed Daphne’s life

It never ceases to amaze me how someone’s chronic, seemingly locked-in state of being, can be so dramatically shifted in an instant with the properly prescribed homeopathic remedy.  Like a pebble tossed into water, Daphne’s single dose of Sepia 1M rippled, and rippled, and rippled.  In twenty minutes the pain was gone, and within 72 hours so were the stones and all the inflammation and swelling within the walls of the organ.  Homeopathy “skeptics” eat your heart out.  I have hundreds of awesome stories like this…

The next story: Pain on any movement…

The next gal I’d like to tell you about jumped up off the exam table in my office not even a minute after I gave her a dose of BRYONIA 30C, stood up straight and tall, jaw dropping to the floor, in amazement.

“Can it really work that fast?  It’s gone…it’s going away…it’s gone…really gone…I can just stand here like nothin.  Woah.”  She was beside herself.  I was loving my job.

thanks to the naturopathic intern

Our office hosted medical students pretty much whenever they requested.  I was always happy to have a shadow.  This particular week we had two 4th-year naturopathic students from my alma-mater: SCNM.  It was only my second year out of school myself, so I knew them as underclassmen when I was there.  These ladies were very much into homeopathy, and so we were particularly matched to host them at our practice, as we did homeopathy primarily.

The suffering patient’s name was Rebekah, she was in her early 40′s, the single mother of two, a radio jock, boisterous, and in 10/10 pain.  Just like Daphne, she’d been worked-up and I had a copy of the report.  Rebekah had an inflamed GB and multiple stones, one of which was lodged in the duct.  She sat there looking peckish, hunched over, sick.

I knew she was a drinker, and a smoker (marlboro light), about 70 pounds overweight (which is a lot for 5’4″), and ate a horrible diet.  I gave her NUX-VOMICA 200C and waited.

Nothing.  I gave her another dose.

Nothing.  That wasted about 15 minutes.  I called Dr. Smith in his office and kindly requested one of the interns.

It wouldn’t be long now.  Kristen, a fellow “FFFFF,” recognized immediately what Rebekah needed.  Turns out, Kristen had a gallbladder attack a year ago, and her symptoms matched Rebekah’s completely, and after trying a number of wrong remedies herself, BRYONIA fixed her almost immediately.

The rest is history.

Bryonia has a keynote symptom: ANY MOVEMENT, no matter how slight, elicits pain.  In this case, the movement of stretching out, and the very movement of the gallstone along the common bile duct, caused this kind of Bryonia symptom.  Read more about the many uses of this remedy, for example, in cases of influenza where pain in the chest is caused by movement of the ribs when one coughs, so much that they must wrap their chest tightly to keep it from any movement.

Curious how we chose the remedies? 

Ahhh, grasshopper, you can learn!  Go to www.wholehealthnow.com for books on homeopathy, education, etc.  Read the “Organon of Medicine 6th Ed.” by Samuel Hahnemman.  Get the “Concordant Materia Medica” by Franz Vermeullen, and perhaps a few other materia medicas.  Go to www.a2zhomeopathy.com for remedy kits.  Think about becoming an ND!  Presently, SCNM has the best homeopathy program around (www.scnm.edu)

https://ndnr.com/web-articles/womens-health/for-the-love-of-peat/

A few highlights from Susan Czeranco ND’s article in NDNR on “Balneotherapy” (using therapeutic Peat):

Peat is therapeutic because of the way it is formed, in semi-flooded areas over thousands of years through the rotting of the many plants and mosses that grow in the wetlands.  Bacteria and microorganisms digest the vegetation and leave behind organic, biologically active compounds.  This process gives peat its therapeutic Peliods, which is a catch-all name for the countless plant compounds that were further modified by digestion: fatty acids, ketones, sterols, phenols, cyclic terpines, which are biologically active.  Also found in peat are humic and fulvic acid, which we recognize as a common treatment for rheumatic arthritis and psoriasis.

Here’s an excerpt:

Generally, the concentration of humic substances in therapeutic peat needs to be at least 30% and in most cases can exceed 50% (Uosukainen & Pihlaja, 2006; Petr et al. 2012). The most significant components of peat are these humic substances, which attribute very important therapeutic actions such as the following:

Estrogenic activity that supports endogenous estrogen production (Klöcking & Helbig, 2005, p. 5)

Antiviral properties, including coxsackievirus, influenza A, herpes simplex, human immunodeficiency viruses 1 and 2, cytomegalovirus, and vaccinia (Klöcking & Helbig, 2005, p. 6)

Bacteriostatic qualities (Beer et al. 2002, p. 659)

Elimination of rheumatic factors with the use of Carex peat, due to the large content of humic substances (Uosukainen & Pihlaja, 2006, p. 56)

Modulation of inflammation (Petr et al., 2012; Klöcking & Helbig, 2005, p. 8)

Immunomodulating action (Petr
et al., 2012)

Detoxification of heavy metals (Romão, et al. 2008, 691)

Analgesic properties (Suárez et al., 2011; Espejo et al. 2012, 391)

Treatment of male and female infertility (Suárez et al., 2011)

The knowledge that peat had estrogenic effects was instigated by two German gynecologists, Aschheim and Hohlweg, in 1933 with their pioneering article on the occurrence of estrogenic substances in organic rich peat (Nissenbaum & Rullkötter, 2011, p. 498). The research today does not deny estrogenic effects of peat and in particular humic acids and substances. Klöcking and Helbig agreed: “Although the components responsible for the estrogenic activity of peat remain under discussion, the results suggest that [humic acid]—provided that they can penetrate the skin—may contribute substantially to the estrogenic effect of peat” (2005, p. 10).

The presence of peat lipids is “very complex since [the] lipids originate from different plant species, their chemical transformations in the soil, and from microbial metabolism” (Uosukainen & Pihlaja, 2006, p. 31). The list is composed of plant derived alkanes, fatty acids, ketones, sterols, cyclic terpenes, and phenolic compounds (Uosukainen & Pihlaja, 2006, pp. 32-34). These lipids have a lengthy list of biological activities influencing health, including antimicrobial, antifungal, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory properties, as well as the capacity to reduce edema (Uosukainen & Pihlaja, 2006, p. 52).

Uosukainen and Pihlaja added: “The fatty acids compose the largest group of compounds belonging to the peat lipids” (2006, p. 53). These fatty acids have been found to induce apoptosis in cancer cells and have shown cytotoxic properties; sterols have a long list of clinical implications, which include antibacterial, anticarcinogenic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antiviral, and hypolipidemic effects (Uosukainen & Pihlaja, 2006, p. 53). The estrogenic effects are easily transmitted via baths, especially in the treatment of infertility.

Wow.  I’m amazed!  I’m definitely going to use this therapy.  What’s best is that you can easily buy Balneo-peat online and use it at home!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5I_fJEN96I&list=PLosod6mKKB5eT0olCTA56Y-NO6rjM5zph

59% of the tuna Americans consume is not actually tuna!

As if you thought it couldn’t get stranger and more shocking, Oceana’s findings from a two-year exhaustive review of more than 1,200 seafood samples reveal extensive fraud in labeling.  Collecting samples from over 600 retail outlets and using DNA analysis to determine the fish’s true identity, they found that Red Snapper and Tuna were the most egregiously mislabeled.  (89% for Red Snapper and 59% for Tuna).  Out of 120 samples of Red Snapper, only 7 were actually true; the other 113 samples had some other kind of fish.  Overall, they found that seafood was mislabeled in 33% of their samples, according to FDA guidelines.

Read the full story at Oceana’s website here, and the summary report here.

KEY RESULTS*
• Mislabeling was found in 27 of the 46 fish types tested (59%).
• Salmon,snapper,cod,tuna,sole, halibut and grouper were the top collected fish types.
• Snapper (87%) and tuna (59%) were the most commonly mislabeled fish types.
• Only seven of the 120 red snapper samples were honestly labeled.
• Between one-fifth to more than one-third of the halibut, grouper, cod and Chilean seabass samples were mislabeled.
• 44% of all the grocery stores, restaurants and sushi venues visited sold mislabeled seafood.
• 84% of the white tuna samples were actually escolar, a species that can cause serious digestive issues for some individuals who eat more than a few ounces.

*copied from the Oceana Summary Report. 

As you might already know, I am constantly in search of the very best the world has to offer.  I look for the very best, never second-best.  I want to find those therapies that are mind-blowingly fast and curative.  Avalon is one of them.  I am so amazed by this therapy that I’m also an educator for the company, traveling around the country educating practitioners and laypeople on the 24 different bodily functions that it improves.

Avalon is a third-generation NASA technology.  It is a solid-state device that powers an array of over 500 superluminous LEDs.  The light is pulsed (you can’t see the pulsations) at rates that are coherent with normal cellular communication.  You see, cells communicate via light!  Yup, our cells emit visible and non-visible light in a kind of morse-code.  When we apply this super-powerful light: RED, BLUE, and INFRARED in a pulsed manner, we can activate cellular regeneration, rejuvenation, healing, and energy production.

The most simple and direct way that Avalon improves SO MANY physiologic functions is by increasing cellular ATP.  ATP is the energy currency molecule produced mainly in the mitochondria of the cell.  Light photons penetrate the tissues (NOT causing any harm), and transfer the light energy to the atoms/molecules, raising their energy state.  This increased energy state is transferred directly to the cell and ATP production is ramped up immediately.  It’s a direct action…it’s immediate.

Avalon increases Nitric Oxide!

Increased cellular ATP is directly correlated with an increase in Nitric Oxide (NO).  This magical molecule won a team of researchers the Nobel Prize just a few years ago.  NO helps dilate blood vessels, squashes pain, regulates wound healing, and kills viruses, to name a few.  Just 20 minutes of Avalon therapy increases NO levels in the blood by 400%-3200%!  Wow.  So, here we have a more powerful effect than Viagra and Morphine without any of the harmful side-effects.  Meanwhile, the healing that Avalon causes is real, lasting, and curative.  You can’t say that about the drugs.

I’ve posted a PDF document of a recent talk I gave on Avalon on Scribd.com