Many mothers are afraid to give their babies and young children vaccinations. Pro and con arguments on both sides make for heated debates. To help with the decision to vaccinate or not, I recommend the book Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent’s Guide, by my former student, herbal colleague and now highly successful medical doctor integrating herbal and western medicine, Aviva Romm.

I’m convinced that vaccinations work and that at least from one perspective they operate on the same principle as homeopathy, namely, using a small amount of a substance to ‘teach’ the body to defend itself from illness.

Western vaccinations use a material substance that is known to cause the disease in inert or dead form to treat that same disease. That is the founding principle behind how homeopathy works. In the 18th century, Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, discovered remedies based on ‘provings’ – that is, discovering what symptoms a remedy causes when it is taken in high material doses and then reducing the dose below the point where the offending material can be no longer detected. That then becomes the homeopathic remedy for treating those symptoms.

Because the substances used in homeopathy are so infinitesimally minute, Western medical doctors and many healers doubt its efficacy. As an herbalist, I’m oriented around using substantial doses of herbs to effect a cure. However, homeopaths favor the “less is more” healing approach.

The problem with this approach is that the remedy has to achieve the status of “similimum,” that is, matching the symptom indications, including emotional symptoms, with the remedy. This can be a maddening process since the symptoms are developed as a result of “provings” which may well contradict each other.

However, I’m open to anything that can relieve pain and suffering “the vale of tears” which is life.

I not only believe in homeopathy but I’ve personally experienced its benefits at times and have seen it work miracles for conditions that are hardly amenable to any other form of therapy.

Because science is based on establishing a set of controls to measure efficacy, it is nearly impossible to apply the scientific method to evaluating homeopathy. When a homeopathic remedy doesn’t work, many would say, “Of course, how could such a preposterous notion have any validity?” They would have no patience for an explanation such as “It didn’t work because it does not match the ‘similimum’ of the patient’s symptoms.” But in my experience it does work sometimes, and when this happens it seems to do so almost magically, with the ability to effect profound changes on all levels of a patient like no other system of healing could accomplish.

While I’d like to be able to heal a patient’s interior psycho-spiritual landscape, I’m quite contented to simply relieve their physical discomforts and leave homeopathy to the experts.

It is however, a problem to find a truly expert homeopath; this is further complicated by the fact that some people are, as it were, “homeopathically” better suited to treat some and not others.

During my travels to India in the late 1970s, I found homeopathic dispensaries who had a style of practice that had the highest and most predictable efficacy for physical complaints. Instead of trying to find the single most effective remedy to match a patient’s symptoms, they would select two remedies each taken alternately twice a day for a total of four doses and repeated over the course of four days.

At the same time, I also witnessed how government health agents would drive into a village and everyone was excited to receive free western medical treatment, lining up to receive, for example, their polio vaccine. They did this despite the fact that they knew that after the medical agents left there would always be at least one who would come down with post-polio vaccination syndrome, leaving someone with polio symptoms but without actually having polio.

Though I am sure vaccines have improved since then, some individuals, including babies and small children will occasionally develop adverse reactions to vaccinations.

Is there any remedy to prevent such adverse, sometimes suspected long-term reactions? Homeopathy uniquely has a treatment to prevent adverse reactions to vaccines. I think it should be more widely adopted. After all, it certainly cost little or nothing and is devoid of any side effects.

I learned this protocol when I was in India as well and find that a few in the West advocate for its use.

Thuja and Antimony Tartrate to prevent adverse reactions to vaccinations

Take or give liquid drops or tiny milk sugar homeopathic pillules of thuja 30X twice daily alternating with homeopathic antimonium tartrate liquid or pillules twice a daily. Nothing could be simpler, and because the homeopathic remedy is without flavor, no one would object on the basis of taste, to take it. Repeat this over the course of four days.

This can be repeated at intervals of two or three weeks two or three more times.

I vividly remember a baby who after receiving its set of vaccinations even the next day was having a continuous crying fit from discomfort. The mother asked me what to do. We put one tiny homeopathic pillule of thuja to be dissolved in the baby’s mouth. Within 15 minutes one could see a complete change of demeanor in the child; the baby stopped crying, relaxed and fell peacefully to sleep. Thinking back on this moment I wonder if we might have prevented any number of childhood diseases such as autism so often associated rightly or wrongly with childhood vaccinations.

Other perspectives on homeopathy and vaccines

As a reference back up to this short article describing homeopathy, not so much as a separate healing system, but another way to use herbs I could direct you to the following:

Antimonium Detox for vaccinations:
http://www.ndhealthfacts.org/wiki/Homeopathic_Antimonium_tartaricum

Post vaccination syndrome with thuja 30X
http://www.tinussmits.com/3895/prevention.aspx

For a more expanded and ‘official’ description of ‘what is homeopathy’:
https://www.britishhomeopathic.org/homeopathy/what-is-homeopathy/

But be smart about your choices.

No medicine is a do all for everything. Each system of healing has its range of application. One can get into trouble when one might substitute an herb, acupuncture or homeopathic treatment when what is required is perhaps a simple physical manipulation such as a chiropractic adjustment, long-term physical therapy, or conventional medical emergency treatment. Stay informed and seek professional guidance on your health decisions.