Recently, there was a report about how taking a particular medication, isoretinoin (Accutane/Roaccutane), for the treatment of acne was associated with bowel inflammation: http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-8-16/45001.html.
On the surface, it might just appear to be an isolated case of a medicine having side effects. However, there may be more to it.
Since Samuel Hahnemann, M.D. (1755–1843) first enunciated the Law of Similars (let likes be cured by likes) in 1790, homeopathic physicians have used principles to determine if a person's health was improving.
Sometime in the 19th century, a principle known as Hering's Law of Cure was proposed, in honor of Constantine Hering, M.D. (1800–1880), a famous homeopathic physician.
Hering's Law consists of four directions of healing, enabling the physician to determine whether the patient is getting better or worse constitutionally:
1. From Within Outward
2. From More Important Organs to Less Important Organs
3. From Above Downward
4. Symptoms Disappear in Reverse Order of Their Appearance
For instance, when a relative was visiting us, she let us know that earlier that week she had been treated for a skin rash. The physician had prescribed a cortisone skin cream.
The rash went away. Then she mentioned that, unlike herself, she had been depressed for the last few days. From the perspective of the above law, it was clear that she had treated a skin eruption with a topical application, but, shortly afterward, became depressed.
According to the Law of Cure, this progression was the opposite of the first direction, so she was sicker than before—with the topical treatment, the condition moved from the surface (skin) to deeper within. A more important part of her, her emotions, worsened after the skin treatment.
I suggested a homeopathic remedy for her. A day after taking it, her depression went away and the skin eruption reappeared, and then disappeared with no applications to the skin.
For many years, homeopathic physicians have witnessed in their patients the following scenario: A child with eczema goes to a pediatrician and is treated with a cortisone skin cream. The skin improves, but the child develops asthma. The child is then brought to the homeopathic physician, who then treats the child with a homeopathic remedy and the asthma goes away. And the skin eruption temporarily reappears, and then goes away without any skin treatment.
The body first puts imbalances on the surface, the skin, the largest organ of the body. Of course we don't want our skin to look bad, so we rub something on it, not knowing the laws of getting sick, which are the opposite of the laws of healing.
The following is an example of the last two principles: the reappearance of a suppressed symptom and healing from above downward.
A patient with severe nerve pain in one leg was given medication for several months and the pain finally disappeared. This patient then developed symptoms of inflammation of the temporal artery, an artery on the scalp, a condition known as temporal arteritis, which has been related to blindness. Her physician suggested a high dose of an oral steroid, prednisone, which the patient refused. She then consulted me.
After taking the right remedy, the pain in her head went away. Shortly thereafter, the nerve pain in her leg briefly reappeared, and then went away. Both pains have remained absent.
For many years, I have treated patients with recurrent poison ivy rashes. Many of these patients have had this problem for years, and each time the rash returns, it is worse than the patient had previously. In almost all instances, they have used steroid applications to the skin to treat the problem. When the condition is treated homeopathically, the patients are asked to put nothing on the skin and take internal homeopathic remedies. While it may take a week or two for the rash to completely go away, one consistent finding has been that if they do get poison ivy again, it is a milder case. If it is treated homeopathically in the future, the eruptions become progressively milder, until the patients are no longer sensitive to poison ivy. In every case, the skin was not treated as the primary problem. Rather, a deeper imbalance in the system was addressed. When balance was restored, they were no longer sensitive to poison ivy.
When physicians have a beacon that sheds light on the rocky shores of illness, they are better able to assist their patients in the voyage toward health.
Reference: Organon of Medicine by Samuel Hahnemann, Edition 6B, Karl F. Haug Verlag, 1983
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