As part of every consultation, a Homeopath, or any Health Professional will look at maintaining causes and obstacles to cure.
A really common one is diet.
If someone has an intolerance to something and continues to eat it, they will get symptoms from that. If it is ongoing and unavoidable it is what we call a maintaining cause. Maintaining causes can be anything that causes ongoing stress, whether mental, emotional or physical. An obstacle to cure on the other hand is not unavoidable, but it is getting in the way of a complete and permanent fix.
Another example is eating gluten for someone who has coeliac disease. Any amount of gluten will cause problems, but it is avoidable. Or for a type II diabetic, eating a diet high in sugar and processed food will keep those blood sugars high, and a diet change will resolve some of those problems.
That seems simple right? Just eat good food and avoid the stuff you know you shouldn’t have. But if it was that easy everyone would do it. Sometimes there is a reason that obstacle to cure is there, a mental or emotional block that may date back years or decades, and Homeopathy can help remove that block so that people are able to make the positive change for themselves. One case of mine was a woman who was Type II diabetic, with poor control of her blood sugar. When I took her case she was unable to care for herself and make choices for her own health because she always put everyone else first. After a homeopathic remedy she was able to look after herself instead of always being last, and as such her diet, and therefore her blood sugars improved.
A maintaining cause is different, it’s a stress you can’t get away from. This may be the health of a relative, who you have to care for, or it may be financial, where circumstances beyond your control have put you in a place where there are more bills than money coming in to pay them.
There’s no quick and easy fix when there is a maintaining cause, those stressors will still be there. Homeopathy is still useful, and can make a huge difference in how day to day life feels, but the underlying reason is still there and not going away.
At the moment many of us are affected by Covid-19. For some this will be an obstacle to cure, and homeopathy can help change the mindset to get past this. For others, it is a maintaining cause; we’ve all seen the memes about divorce rates going up- close proximity to a toxic relationship will reduce effectiveness of any treatment, equally financial stress by changes to work, redundancy or business trouble will also cause ongoing problems.
So, what to do? If you are finding the current quarantine stressful it is likely that the energy of any remedy you take is being used up faster, and you need to take it more often. This may be that a constitutional treatment that has lasted for months suddenly needs to be repeated, or it may be that your acute remedy needs to be taken more often. Equally children will be affected, and a whiny, crying child that usually responds well to a single dose of Pulsatilla may need two or three over a day, or repeated over several days to calm down and come back to their usual self.
If you are finding yourself on edge and needing support please send me a message. I have appointments available most afternoons and can do evenings on occasion.