Homeopathy for Eczema by Dr Mike Clark

People frequently contact us to ask whether homeopathy can help with eczema. My reply is always "What do you mean by homeopathy?" Most enquirers have quite a hazy idea about this two hundred year old system of medicine, developed by Samuel Hahnemann. The word literally means "like disease", and gives a name to his system of cure based on the doctrine of 'Similia similibus curentur', which translates as 'Let like be cured by like'.

At first this seems highly improbable, as how can a medicine which gives the symptoms of eczema, be used to get rid of it? This principle is best understood by considering the achievement of Jenner, a contemporary of Hahnemann, who developed vaccination with cowpox material, in order to prevent the much more serious smallpox. Using this vaccine, the World Health Organisation has managed not only to control smallpox, but also to eradicate it completely. Hahnemann recognised the principle in Jenner's work, and wrote to him supporting the similia principle exploited in his vaccine.

When someone with a chronic disease, like eczema or maybe arthritis, gets an acute disease, the symptoms of the chronic disease are forgotten, or lessen, only to return in full force once the acute illness, often caused by a virus, has run its course. Somehow the acute disease seems to modify the immune system, to temporarily weaken the chronic illness.

We can now put this information together, to try and understand how a homeopathic medicine works. First, the similar medicine must be found, and then it must be taken in such a way as to create an artificial, short-lived disease, which is able to drive out the chronic one. The homeopath has to know all the possible medicines, and their effects, so that an appropriate remedy can be selected that accurately matches the totality of the symptoms the sufferer has. The properties of all the possible medicines are found by scientific experimentation. To gather the properties, healthy volunteers take standard doses of the medicine, and record the symptoms they have suffered. This process, known as proving, has been going on since the beginning of homeopathy, and has resulted in a voluminous literature, known as the materia medicas. These days the information is stored on computers, so that it is more accessible to the homeopath, but the principle of its use is the same, namely to match the symptoms produced by the medicine in a prover to those in the patient.

In exactly the same way as Jenner used tiny amounts of cowpox for his vaccination, homeopaths use tiny amounts of their medicines to cure. In Hahnemann's day, many substances were used in the conventional medicine of the day. Amongst them were poisons like arsenic. Anyone who reads crime thrillers, or who has read Madame Bovary, knows arsenic is a deadly poison, and also will have read of some of its provings. So how could it be used safely as a homeopathic medicine? Hahnemann was a chemist, and experimented with his medicines, and developed a method of preparation by dilution and vigorous shaking, known as sucussion, which rendered insoluble substances soluble, and made them safe to use, without losing their curative properties. He found that after dilution and sucussion, according to his methods, which are still used by homeopathic pharmacies to this day, provers still reported the symptoms of the medicines. As they had proving effects, they also had curative effects in cases treated.

Sometimes when the similar medicine is given, the condition worsens initially, before the improvement takes place. This aggravation is easy to understand from the provings. When the patient takes the similar medicine, he or she initially 'proves' it, and develops the symptoms the medicine is capable of inducing. Fortunately, in no short time the proving symptoms soon drive out the natural symptoms of the disease, leaving the patient improved.

In the treatment of acute diseases, the law of similars works very well, and anyone can buy the necessary medicine over the counter, and take it for their problem. However, when dealing with chronic disease such as eczema, the potential for aggravation is so troublesome that great skill in the selection and use of the medicines is needed. The professional homeopath is able to use the similar medicines, which can cause the very symptoms that need to be removed, without provoking too much in the way of aggravation along the road to cure.

Eczema occupies a very special place in homeopathy. Hahnemann always referred to the unseen inner disease, which the true cure needed to heal. In many such deep disease states, the disease cures by moving to the surface as a transient rash. Eczema can be regarded as a deeper disease trying to cure itself, and getting stuck at the halfway stage. The task of homeopathy in eczema is to facilitate this process.

In order to minimise the effects of the aggravation, and to maximise the healing power of the treatment, a number of other suggestions might be made. Sometimes a food intolerance is very important. In children with eczema, cow's milk and milk products are far and away the most important intolerances. Temporary avoidance for about six weeks is often very helpful in getting improvement started. Food supplements such as evening primrose oil, and similar products, can help repair damaged healing systems. Nutritional supplementation, working alongside homeopathy, plays a vital part in the management of eczema. Many homeopathics are really diluted herbs, and the herbs themselves can also be used undiluted. Sometimes the herbal medicines are complexed with low potency homeopathics in refractory cases, when the use of the similar medicine has not been as effective as hoped.

Homeopathy, and allied techniques, can be of great help in all kinds of eczema. The approach is as always in holistic medicine, to look at the whole person, not just the eczema, and to find a treatment that encourages healing, and does not suppress the natural healing process, as so many modern medicines do.

Further Information

Dr Mike Clark
The Centre for the Study of Complementary Medicine
51 Bedford Place
Southampton
SO15 2DT

Tel: 023 8033 4752

or

The Centre for the Study of Complementary Medicine
14 Harley House
Brunswick Place
London NW1 4PR

Tel: 020 7935 7848

email: enquiries@complemed.co.uk

Website: www.complemed.co.uk

(July 2001)

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