A 35 year-old woman suffering from migraine

This patient was experiencing severe migraines once or twice a week. They had started when she became pregnant ten years earlier. Since then she had experienced severe marriage and financial difficulties.

For the first three appointments I was giving her homeopathic remedies for disappointment, shock and resentment. But with no improvement to the migraines, the next obvious 'cause' was her hormonal state, because they had started when she was pregnant. But numerous remedies for hormonal imbalance still produced no improvement.

Finally, the patient mentioned that she had had lots of dental work during the pregnancy (mercury fillings used to be free for pregnant women, but are now banned during pregnancy!). So I gave mercury in a homeopathic potency and, because like cures like, her migraines improved immediately.

The patient had been over-sensitive to mercury fillings. She needed to take the mercury remedy for as long as she had mercury in her mouth.

 A 15 year-old girl with severe depression

A beautiful and intelligent girl had been suffering from bouts of severe depression with suicidal thoughts. She would withdraw totally from family and friends for weeks at a time.

We carefully mapped events that had occurred leading up to some of these episodes. Often they were after exams or handing in coursework. 

This patient always obtained good grades, but she never felt they were quite good enough. She had very high expectations of herself. She felt particularly dutiful and responsible to be a good example to her younger siblings as she was the eldest.

This teenager demanded a gold standard of herself so I gave her aurum metallicum in homeopathic potency. This is a remedy made from gold that is used for suicidal depression.

The patient was given sepia, a remedy made from cuttlefish. She also needed to take hormonal remedies for seven days each month for a while.

An 11 year-old boy with severe nose bleeds

This patient had suffered from nose bleeds since he was a toddler, but they became worse after he had his adenoids and tonsils removed. After his nose was cauterised the bleeds became longer still and included blood clots.

There are specific remedies for giving after certain procedures, so when he was given the remedy linked to each of his procedures, the bleeds became a little shorter. Eventually, after the third prescription, he was back to his original state. The much shorter nose bleeds were treated constitutionally with phosporous.

Homoeopathy is fantastic for treating hay fever. I have successfully treated hundreds of cases, but none as severe as this once. This man had to take all his annual holiday in June and leave the country because his hay fever was so bad.

There are two ways to treat hay fever - one on a simple relieving of symptoms basis, using remedies such as allium cepa. This remedy is made from onions and is useful for people with watery eyes.

Secondy, and more importantly, the hay fever should be treated outside of the pollen season eg October and November and February and March. During this time remedies are given to reduce patients' tendency to be allergic and over reactive.

It took ten appointments over two years to totally clear this patient's hay fever. He can now stay in the UK over the summer!

She'd had a difficult childhood and going home to her mother involved facing all her childhood relationships and issues. I needed to give her remedies for addiction, but just was important were remedies to give her the strength to stand up to her mother.

The difficult decision was whether to stay in a destructive sitution or go home to another environment that was also difficult. I chose the following remedies:

I didn't see this patient again for three months, then she rang to say that she had left the boyfriend and gone to live with her mother. She had also stopped taking heroin.