No matter how broad or narrow your scope of practice, how proficient or diverse your techniques, there will always be challenging cases. I believe this phenomena occurs to encourage the practitioner to continue their growth and achieve the optimal call of all health care professionals to help the sick.
Homeopathy offers the doctor of chiropractic a safe, natural, and effective means of broadening their scope of practice. Broadening your scope of practice to range from anorexia to warts does require a new way of thinking: homeopathic.
Chiropractic philosophy has considered symptoms as the effects of dis-ease that have little to do with cause. Symptoms have even been totally ignored by some chiropractic camps, considering symptoms as a distraction or trap that the chiropractor may fall into chasing the treatment of symptoms and missing the cause of the dis-ease.
Homeopathy, like chiropractic, does not treat symptoms. However, symptoms are considered more valuable to accurately correct the underlying cause of dis-ease. Symptoms are the body's sensory nervous system communicating very specific messages to the homeopath, directing them how to get to the underlying cause of dis-ease. This paper will focus on how to think homeopathically, helping you to correct the underlying causes of your more challenging cases.
The key to the successful use of homeopathy, or any other health care procedure is outlined as follows:
After a consultation using a patient health appraisal questionnaire (PHAQ) as a guideline and performing your usual examination, you will have already made note of which formulas you will want to test or consider for your patients. This is when you can decide whether to give the patient what best fits the patient's symptomatic expression, or use a testing procedure as a confirmation.
You may think, at this time, that this sounds very easy. Although it is easy the majority of time, no system of restorative health care is without its challenges. I want to touch now on how the doctor can use homeopathy on those challenging or resistant cases. The key is to provide the formula or formulas that will correct the root or roots of the problem. Let's look at the scenario of a case: chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). You may first think of a formula for energy, which commonly helps the condition. However, a formula for hypoglycemia may provide the answer. Other cases may require a colds/flu formula for the low grade viruses commonly associated with these cases, i.e., Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), cytomegalovirus (CMV), or chronic mononucleosis. The chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) could be rooted in allergies to food and chemicals which requires a formula designed to correct those types of immune problems.
A health appraisal questionnaire is designed to pinpoint the root cause(s) of a patient's health condition. The doctor may find the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) occurred after the patient had gone through a traumatic divorce or loss of a loved one. Consider a grief/guilt formula or a depression formula. An anxiety formula may be indicated when the condition is associated with fear or stress. If the patient has a history of excessive sexual relations and may now be impotent, consider male impotency formula as a possible root cause that may need correction.
Always consider the etiology, if the symptoms are caused by a tick bite, consider lyme disease formula; if the patient was exposed to pesticides consider allergies food/chemicals or a detox/drainage formula.
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) may have as its root, a long-term nerve or stress disorder. A chronic sleep disorder is another condition which may be a piece of the puzzle. Hormone disorders in women can be a factor with CFS. PMS, dysmenorrhea, menopause, anorexia, or bulimia, may provide at least a piece of the puzzle along the road to health. Digestive disorders such as indigestion, gas, bloat, constipation, diarrhea, or colitis may provide a key link to the correction of CFS. All these possible causes behind CFS have homeopathic formulas to match the various disorders mentioned.
If you are getting the feeling that this is getting too complex, I want to comfort you by saying the majority of CFS cases are effectively managed using one or more of the first four formulas mentioned. Homeopathy, however, does not provide license to forget chiropractic, diet, nutrition, stress and lifestyle management.
By keeping your eyes open and probing more deeply, it is exciting to crack these cases. Homeopathy has allowed us to specialize in these difficult and most rewarding cases. As you, the doctor, continue to probe and search, the patient will most commonly lead you to the answer to their health condition. I encourage you to adopt this desire and see the rewards associated with correcting these conditions. If you honestly explain to your patient the chronicity of their resistant condition and let them know that you are personally committed to fervently search for the underlying cause, your patients will be loyal to the level of your sincerity.
Frank King, DC
Asheville, North Carolina
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