Natural Remedies: Homeopathic solutions have lengthy history

For more than 6,000 years man has been fighting illness and disease with herbs, bark and plants.

A burial site in Iraq showed remains of an early human alongside eight different types of medicinal plants, seven of which are still used today, according to www.natural-remedies-for.com.

In the 5th century B.C., Hippocrates cured aches and pains with powder ground out of willow bark. Two thousand years later, doctors isolated the chemical compound salicin from the same tree, which then became one of the active ingredients in aspirin, until it was replaced by a synthetic chemical compound, according to www.traffic.org in an article about medicinal plants.

Until about the mid-1800s most American families relied on herbal remedies to cure minor illnesses, but with the advent of the American Medical Society, in 1847, the use of natural remedies went by the wayside in favor of allopathic medicine. Allopathic medicine refers to treating disease by using medicines that produce symptoms opposite to those that the patient is experiencing.

Most of the allopathic medicines are made from chemical compounds rather than plants in their more natural form.

Before that doctors had a different philosophy. They tried to fight disease by creating symptoms similar to those that a patient was experiencing using natural compounds suspended in sucrose or alcohol, said David Bauman, a licensed clinical social worker and homeopath with practices in McAllen and Houston.

“Homeopathic medicine works to assist the body’s own healing mechanisms,” said Bella Vladimirsky, a homeopath and naturopath who practices in McAllen.

Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, founded this type of medicine in the early 1800s. But thousands of years before Hahnemann discovered he could cure malaria with Peruvian bark using a process of delusion, Mayans, Chinese, Greeks, Native American Indians and Asian Indians were curing people using a similar process, according to www.homeopathic.com.

“In the 1800s, homeopathy was the most popular medicine in this country,” Bauman said.

Homeopathy is enjoying a renaissance as more people are turning toward more natural cures, but Bauman said although the compounds are plant-based they are still medicine.

“It (homeopathic medicine) is controlled by the FDA - it’s classified as a food supplements,” he said.

In homeopathic medicine and other forms of “traditional” medicine, the whole herb is used because practitioners believe the whole herb is more therapeutic than its isolated ingredients. Also, the use of the whole herb is less likely to cause side effects.

“The herbs are used in such diluted quantities that they don’t harm you,” Vladimirsky said.

Medications made by pharmaceutical companies start with the whole herb and then extract the “active ingredients,” according to Nature’s Pharmacy by Lynne Walker, M.D. and Ellen Brown, J.D. It’s the changing of the herb and the making of chemical compounds that creates many of the side effects.

“Where ‘allopaths’ (conventional doctors) suppress symptoms, homeopaths encourage them, on the theory that they represent the body’s attempt to flush out toxins,” according to Nature’s Pharmacy. The book likens homeopathic medicines to vaccines.

“The symptoms are part of the cleansing process,” Vladimirsky said. “Part of the healing process flushes out the toxins in the body. It helps the body on the cellular level to detoxify.”

During the healing and detoxification process people may need to drink more water or rest more, Vladimirsky said. By the end of the treatment though people should “feel wonderful” and have none of the lasting side effects of traditional medicine.

Bauman believes homeopathic medicine is often more helpful than allopathic medicine for treating mental illness, although he said it can be used in conjunction with allopathic medicine.

“I never advise patients to stop taking the psychiatrist’s medicine,” he said. “I never advise people to stop taking the medicine.”

He does however encourage people to take herbal medicines in conjunction with psychotropic drugs, and if people haven’t begun taking them he recommends starting with herbal medicine first.

Traditional psychotropic drugs used to treat depression are re-uptake inhibitors. They block serotonin, a neuro-chemical connected with feelings of happiness, from being reabsorbed by the brain. Homeopathic doctors frequently use L-Tryptophan, the chemical in turkey that makes you sleepy, to increase the brain’s serotonin levels.

“You quickly see results of L-Tryptophan,” Bauman said.

Homeopaths also recommend changing a person’s diet and adding supplement to bring Attention Deficit Hyper Activity disorder under control. Bauman argues that a large amount of people with mental illnesses are hypoglycemic (or suffer from low blood sugar.) Bringing blood sugar under control can greatly increase the quality of life for people with these illnesses, Bauman said.

“Changing a person’s diet and adding supplementation you will quickly see results, Bauman said.

The goal of homeopathic medicine, like all medicine is to make people feel better, it just has a different approach to doing it.

“I feel everyone should wake up in the morning and feel good,” Vladimirsky said.

She thinks homeopathic medicine is the best way to ensure that happens.

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Paige Lauren Deiner covers features and entertainment for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4425. For this and other local stories, visit www.themonitor.com.

Natural Remedies for anxiety

• L-Tryptophan - simple depression

• GAMA - amino acid - useful for anxiety

• Valerian - useful for simple anxiety

• Kava Kava - anxiety and depression

• Passionflower - simple depression, sleep disorders

— Source: Joseph Bauman