Is There Efficacy and Side Effects on Homeopathic Medicines ?

Homeopathy medicines are designed to treat the patient, not the disease. This medical procedure follows the doctrine that each and every individual has different needs; no two people can be treated by the same medicine just because their symptoms are the same.

Homeopathy practitioners take into account the psychological nature of the patient as well as the disease symptoms that they are showing. Before arriving at a remedy, the homeopaths study in detail the patient's likes, dislikes, fears and joys, their eating and sleeping habits, their digestive capabilities and their lifestyle and behavior, their aspirations, initiative, concentration, persistence, stamina and other enduring qualities.

Thereby they select only that remedy which will be specific for this particular individual. Homeopaths know that all the aspects of an individual that form their intrinsic constitution are determined by their genetic make-up. Thus the diagnosis is three-fold, counting the physical symptoms (e.g. nausea), current emotional and psychological condition (e.g. listless) and overall constitution (e.g. stamina) of the individual.

The first and sole duty of the physician is to rejuvenate vitality. The main purpose of the homeopath is to treat the disease completely by arriving at the root cause of the symptoms. As for example, when a person is suffering from some stomach ailment, he or she will show considerable weakness.

Homeopathic medicines will be targeted at the stomach problem and not at reinstating the body-strength, because the basis of the weakness is the stomach trouble. Once that is cured, the body will return to its normal vigorous state on its own. Thus homeopathic medicines are used for treating the origin of symptom and not the symptom itself.

Balancing the intrinsic system is essential for restoring health. Hahnemann believed that there exists a balancing mechanism within our body that keeps us healthy. This he referred to as the vital force, the energy which has no physical or chemical identity but still it sustains health and vigor. In modern terminology, this vital force is known as the 'immune system' or the defense system of the body. Diseases can occur only when this vital force or resistance mechanism is weak.

Homeopathic medicines act as catalysts to reinvigorate this system through gentle stimulation. Thus homeopathy differs from the traditional mode of treatment that suppresses the symptoms only. Drugs manufactured on the allopathic principle create in the human system a demand for their continued use, and in increasing doses.

Homeopathic medicines operate on exactly the opposite principle, by inducing a healthful reaction in the system when it is disordered and eliminate the toxicity from biophysical psychosomatic system. Thus homeopathy never creates morbid appetites for the drug.

Homeopaths believe that the body's innate defense mechanism works best when the brain is functioning normally, because the brain controls the entire nervous system and hence the endocrine and other systems as well. So the aim of homeopathic medicine is to achieve the highest possible degree of neural and psychological and balance and to re-establish the internal equilibrium of the body.

Use of combined remedies is also being practiced to effect holistic cure. The traditional practice was to give the selected remedy singly, not in combination with any other medicines. However, the modern approach does use amalgamation of different remedies to achieve a result that either of the medicines could not have produced when applied separately.

Such combinations invented by modern homeopathy can even substitute antibiotics used in the traditional methods of treatment, that is, the allopathic mode. Common cold, that has no cure in the conventional practice, is being healed successfully by homeopathy. Success in the cure of chronic and fatal disorders like cancer has also been reported.