Working with your body, not against it

The way that Homeopathy treats illness is very different to what most people are used to from conventional medicine.

The approach of conventional medicine is to fight against the body. If the body produces a fever, conventional medicine fights against it to bring temperature down; if the body produces swelling, drugs are given to reduce the swelling. This may seem logical, but it is an approach which works against the body, not with it.

The Homeopathic approach is to work with the body. If a temperature is produced, it is assumed that there must be a reason why it is produced. It is a symptom which the body feels is the most appropriate to deal with the current health crisis. To reduce the temperature with anti-pyretic drugs (unless the temperature is dangerously high) undermines the body's attempt to deal with the situation.

Homeopaths use symptoms in another way. Symptoms are used to identify the underlying cause, because it is felt that all symptoms, where ever they may be expressed in the body, all sprout from the same root cause. So if this root cause is addressed with a remedy, all superficial symptoms will become unnecessary, including the raised temperature. So the net result is still a reduction in temperature, but brought about through addressing the root cause, rather than just the symptom.