antidoting by toothpaste

[Cl.Mennel]

Dear ones,

has anybody got any experience about toothpaste containing extracts of
peppermint anti doting homeopathic remedies?

Sometimes I got the impression it does - other times it doesn't?

Might it be that only the vegetable remedies are anti doted by
toothpaste
containing peppermint?
If it be so, is that the case with every remedy made from herbs?

Best regards
Claudia

[Piet Guijt]

And an article with a different view

regards,

Piet

The Vexed Question of Antidotes

by Miranda Castro, FSHom

(In homeopathy, certain substances are thought to reverse, or "antidote" the
action of homeopathic remedies, causing the person's original symptoms to
return. For this reason, homeopaths often suggest that their patients
refrain from using even small amounts of coffe, camphor, tea tree oil, and
other strong smelling substances.)

Let's look at the word antidote. Webster's Dictionary defines it as a
medicine or other remedy that counteracts the effects of a poison." This
doesn't really describe the process as we apply it in homeopathy--as I have
understood it. Our medicines are not poisons. This vexed question of
antidotes is one the homeopathic community wrestles with over and over
again. So at the risk of opening a rusty old can of worms (?!) let's take
off the lid and have another look.

In my early years in practice I embraced enthusiastically everything
homeopathic, including the concept of antidotes. I wrote a patient
information leaflet that forbade everything from mint toothpaste to coffee
ice cream and cough lozenges. I believed patients were glad to have
something they could do towards their own healing. Because this is what I
had been taught. I believed that my medicines were rather vulnerable,
delicate, easily affected by external influences--by heat and x-rays and
strong smells. I wouldn't even let my patients touch their own remedies ...
the tablets they were taking. Although I never went to the extremes of some
homeopaths who forbade their patients to cook with garlic. My Italian blood
simply freaked out at the very thought!

So ... about ten years ago I spotted a worrying development in my practice,
in terms of the relationship between me and my patients. This is what would
happen. Sometimes (as much as once a busy day) a patient would return for a
follow-up consultation ... typically after 4-6 weeks, and tell me they had
had a nice response to their treatment--at first. That there had been an
improvement of some sort that lasted only a week or two and was
followed by a relapse.

What concerned me was this. I noticed a certain tone creeping into my voice
when I asked The Big Questions. "Did you antidote your remedy? Did you drink
any coffee?" Responses varied from the indignant "Of course not!" to coy
giggles and "Well I did forget this one time," to guilty glances and "We
went to Paris for the weekend and I just couldn't resist it," or a pathetic
whine "I missed it so much, I only had one cup, surely it isn't that bad."

I would, of course, repeat the remedy and I'd impress upon my hapless
patient the importance of obeying the rules. I don't think I actually got
out my finger and wagged it pointedly at them, or rather I hope I didn't!
But the words bad boy or bad girl definitely lingered unspoken in the air at
these times.

At the other end of the spectrum there was the anxious mother who would call
in a panic to ask what to do about her child who had eaten a piece of
chewing gum. Or the conscientious new patient who wanted to know if he could
eat the salad his wife had made because it had some mint from the garden
chopped into it.

And then I remember reading about the old French homeopaths who would send
their women patients home with a dose of Nux vomica for a drunken husband
and instructions to put it in their unsuspecting spouse's soup. And it
worked. I remember reading this and hearing my mind skid to an abrupt stop.
I wasn't concerned about the ethical issues. I was amazed at how a remedy
administered in hot soup could work. My patients were timing their 30
minutes before and after each dose with something approaching religious
fervor, in order to take their remedies according to the rules about having
a "clean mouth."

I started experimenting. I crushed remedies and sprinkled them in my dog's
food. They worked. I told mothers not to worry about whether their children
ate before or after a remedy. The remedies worked. A friend put her child's
remedy in his macaroni and cheese. It worked. Another patient was desperate
to give her elderly parent a remedy. Her mother didn't want a remedy. Her
mother was suffering. I struggled with the ethics of this and finally
relented. I suggested she put the remedy in her mother's morning tea. It
worked.

And then I reflected on my practice and the relationships I was building
with my patients and added into my reflections my hopes and goals for these
relationships. I realized that the many rules I had built up around my
treatments were acting as constrictions and sometimes as traps. I also
realized that the very notion of enforcing them made it difficult for me not
to persecute my patients when they "messed up," and this put them into an
unpleasant victim-like position. Not the sort of healing relationship I had
in mind.

I found out that some of my patients were lying to me. Because friends of
theirs squealed on them. This made me feel terrible. I had created a
situation where these patients were hiding things from me. We were both
acting out a most unfavorable aspect of the age-old dance of parent and
child. And it was my fault. What a mess. And I found out that I was not
alone. I have come across many patients who have lied to homeopaths with
similarly stringent rules. When we behave like a critical parent by giving
our patients rules to adhere to, we automatically bring out the scared or
rebellious child part in our patients--whatever their age.

I did a complete about face. And I called it an experiment. For a whole year
I did not take anybody off anything. The effects were interesting. The most
immediate and palpable result was that a whole layer of tension that had
settled into my practice completely melted away, disappeared. I relaxed and
so did my patients. We never looked back. Actually I never went back to
believing in antidotes in the same way, although I do ask my patients to
avoid strong aromatic oils especially camphor, eucalyptus and peppermint
(but stress that ordinary toothpastes and mint in cooking is fine).

So what happened, I hear you asking! Well, a number of patients did not
improve. The number was no different from my previous year in practice. As
you know, we cannot help all the people all the time, and these patients I
referred to other practitioners.

Some patients improved and then relapsed. The numbers were not very
different from the previous year. I realized that these were patients who
had been given the wrong remedy--a similar remedy rather than the simillimum
in many cases--and I worked that little bit harder to find a treatment to
help them. Rather than blaming coffee.

In addition, with each of these patients I checked the relationship of
coffee to their remedy (at the back of Kent's Repertory or with Dr. P.
Sankaran's Clinical Relationships), and if it was a listed antidote I
negotiated with my patient to cease and desist from drinking coffee for a
period of time--again,
mutually agreed upon. This worked well. If their symptoms returned when they
drank coffee again, then we went back to the negotiating table and worked
out a longer term plan. Now that I live in the latte capital of the world
this way of working is much appreciated by patients whose morning coffee is
sacrosanct!

My bottom line--for what it is worth--is this. Anything that affects a
person strongly can affect any healing response including one that is due to
a homeopathic medicine. Any medicine (whether it is coffee or
corticosteroids or cannabis) which has a strong effect on the psyche or
substance of a person can counteract a healing response, whether this
positive response is due to a homeopathic medicine, an acupuncture treatment
or falling in love. Patients whose nervous systems are affected by coffee,
or whose headaches are brought on by alcohol need to avoid these substances,
at any time but especially while they are pursuing any treatment which seeks
to enable healing to take place.

I do ask whether coffee-drinking patients experience palpitations and/or the
"shakes" after relatively small amounts of coffee, or find it difficult to
get to sleep at night if they drink it after mid-day. Coffee is strong
medicine for these people and should be avoided. These patients are well
aware of this and are usually only too happy to be encouraged to do so.

I have heard of patients whose remedies have been "antidoted" by a single
coffee-flavored candy. I find this very hard to believe. I wonder whether it
is because the homeopath and the patient believe it so strongly that neither
take the time or the trouble to investigate other possible stresses. Our
beliefs are powerful motivating forces in all our lives. To a certain extent
they shape how we think, feel and behave. And to another, probably larger
extent, they shape our expectations.

We believe a homeopathic medicine works by stimulating the vital force, that
it acts as a catalyst for healing. Therefore, a homeopathic medicine does
not, of itself, do the healing, does not heal per se.

Therefore (and this is a logical leap), a homeopathic medicine cannot of
itself be antidoted. So, after fifteen years in practice, and hundreds of
discussions around this topic, I have come to the conclusion that we need to
investigate and question this concept of antidotes more carefully. It is
true that the healing response--in other words the reaction to a homeopathic
medicine--can be affected. By any significant stress, be it physical,
emotional or mental. Are these then antidotes? To what?

Our medicines stimulate a healing response. I believe this response can be a
delicate process, and that the healing effect itself can be counteracted. By
strong physical stresses: which can range from an accident to an allopathic
medication to a recreational drug, to a homeopathic medicine that has an
"opposite" effect to the one previously prescribed. Emotional stresses that
can interfere with a healing response include absolutely anything that
affects the patient strongly, to which they are particularly sensitive
because of their own weaknesses and struggles.

I don't have a simple answer as to how to write about this aspect of our
work. I have dutifully written a section on antidotes in each of my books,
and I would rather have called these sections by another name but I don't
actually have one! We don't have one. Maybe you do--I would love to hear
what you have to say about this!

Our healing can be a delicate process. As a homeopath, I believe my patients
deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. Being a homeopathic patient
is demanding enough. I have decided not to stress the relationship
unnecessarily through the administration of harsh or unnecessary rules.