Who Should You Trust for Homeopathy – Especially for Complex Conditions Like PANS/PANDAS?
Homeopathic remedies are available over the counter, so some people think that this is something they should easily be able to manage on their own. The remedies often have an indication for use on the label, so that is all you need, right?
Not so much – the indication on the label is ultrageneric and only one of often hundreds of things the remedy could be used for.
The Value of Expertise in Homeopathy
Some people understand enough about homeopathy to recognize the importance of working with a trained professional. They realize that matching the totality of their symptoms to a remedy that can treat their body as a whole requires years of study and practice to be effective.
But then they are confronted with:
- Professional homeopaths without medical training
- Naturopathic doctors who learn some homeopathy
- Medical professionals (including naturopathic doctors) who go above and beyond to get even more training in homeopathy and specialize in its use, sometimes exclusively, and sometimes in combination with other therapies
It Can Be Really Confusing Who to Trust
It can be really confusing who to trust for your child’s care, especially for something as challenging as PANS/PANDAS. Some people will opt to work with professional homeopaths who don’t have medical training because they often charge less.
Someone who doesn’t have medical training debt, malpractice and liability insurance, licensing fees, and medical boards overseeing their actions is able to charge less than those who have all of the above. However, there are advantages to working with a medically trained homeopath for complex, chronic conditions (beyond the protections you, as a consumer, have by seeing someone who is licensed, regulated, and insured).
Understanding the Condition Matters
While homeopathy relies on symptoms, rather than diagnosis, for selecting remedies, the diagnosis matters. An accurate diagnosis helps your provider know what is common for the condition and what is unique to your case. A remedy must match both the condition in general as well as your individualized/unique symptoms to be most effective.
An accurate diagnosis also gives your provider insights into how to manage the case. It helps them understand the early signs of a remedy being the wrong match, when to wait it out, and when to change quickly, and more.
Some professional homeopaths learn a lot about a condition, but knowing a single condition well isn’t enough. There are many conditions that have significant overlap. When you know one thing really well but don’t have training in differential diagnosis, pathology, and physiology, you could assume that is what you are seeing and miss the actual diagnosis. This would have negative impacts on remedy selection and case management. It could also cause you/your homeopath to miss important factors that need to be addressed that homeopathy can’t help with (more on that below).
Example:
If someone has abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and fever, it could be an infection, but it could also be appendicitis, a gallbladder concern, a metabolic disease, or an electrolyte imbalance, just to name a few. Some of these things homeopathy is very effective for, others are not. Those for whom it is effective for will have very different management to ensure safety and full recovery.
Understanding Pathology and Physiology Also Matters
Remedies are matched to the symptoms, but they themselves have actions in the body, particularly when taken in high/material (non-dilute) doses. Knowing that the action of a substance matches the pathology and physiology of the client aids in effective remedy selection and management.
Managing the remedies is the most important aspect of getting to recovery from PANS/PANDAS. A medically trained homeopath will have a better understanding of when the symptoms or changes you are seeing in your child are due to the remedy or the progression of the condition itself. This is vital for knowing when it is time to change a remedy versus time to wait.
Medications and Supplements
When you are dealing with complex chronic conditions, you are likely navigating multiple medications, therapies, supplements, and therapeutic diets just to keep things from getting worse (hopefully). Each of these things has a forceful biochemical effect on the body, and ends up adding complexity to your case.
A medically trained homeopath will lean on their physiology and pharmacology training to determine what impacts other treatments are having on the body. They will tease out what symptoms are due to the condition itself, which are from the medications, which could be medications interacting with other medications (or supplements), and which side effects are actually useful symptoms in your case, as part of your susceptibility. To make progress in cases with multiple layers of complexity, you need to be able to tease all of these things apart.
As you improve, you will likely need to make changes to your medications and supplements. Your medically trained homeopath will once again lean on their pharmacology training and experience to educate you on safe changes. This is vital for maintaining as much stability as possible while making changes to medications that have been maintaining stability for your child.
A medically trained homeopath is also uniquely qualified to understand when additional beneficial therapies or changes in parenting or lifestyle approaches will be safe and beneficial.
Tip:
A naturopathic doctor with expertise/specialty in homeopathy is among the best to see if your approach includes medications, supplements/herbs, and diet changes. Naturopathic doctors are trained in all of these things integratively as the core of their medical training. Functional medicine doctors who have significant homeopathy training/expertise are also a good source for this.
Homeopathy Is Great, But It Can’t Treat Everything
Homeopathy isn’t just about giving an ultradilute medicine based on the law of similars. Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, talks about the need to remove obstacles to health and any “maintaining causes” of a condition. This is another place where differential diagnosis comes in really handy. Your medically trained provider, especially a naturopathic doctor, is trained in environmental causes of illness and can recognize when that could be contributing to any slow or stalled progress.
Homeopathy also can’t help with frank nutrient deficiencies (deficiencies where you don’t have enough intake). Medical professionals are trained to assess for nutrient deficiencies that will need to be replaced in order to make progress.
Furthermore, some conditions can be helped by homeopathy early on, but not as they progress. Thyroid dysfunction is one that comes to mind. Others it can’t really help with, and you will need conventional care, such as type 1 diabetes. Because of the increased likelihood of having a second autoimmune condition develop when you already have one, it is important to work with a trained medical professional who can identify early warning signs and get quick, appropriate intervention to minimize risk and damage.
Not All Homeopathic Remedies Are Available OTC
There are some remedies and some potencies that you have to have a license to be able to obtain from a homeopathic pharmacy. I have used enough of these remedies/potencies with kids with PANS/PANDAS to tell you that limiting the remedies you can get could limit your ability to fully recover.
A Few Caveats
It is important to note that having a medical degree does not ensure your homeopath is an excellent homeopath. There are many naturopathic doctors and medical doctors who have limited training in homeopathy. There are many professional homeopaths without medical training whose homeopathy skills are much better than these providers.
Final Thoughts
At Resilience Naturopathic, we personally select naturopathic doctors with significant additional training and expertise in homeopathy so that we can ensure we are providing the most comprehensive homeopathic care to our complex clients.
