Ruminating on Remedies, My thoughts on homeopathy

5/23/2025

A little housekeeping…

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A quick word about Ruminating on Remedies: Digging Deeper…

I publish free articles at Ruminating on Remedies about weekly. In the last couple of months, I have begun writing more in-depth articles, hence the name "Digging Deeper." I will publish these paid articles about once a month (this month there are 3 with another in the pipeline -- all about head injury remedies (following on from the recent "What Happened?!").

At this point in time, these are only available at homeopathy.substack.com. In the near future, I hope to have them available here at classicallypractical.com.

I am also in the process of building/writing some handy-dandy charts and guides for various circumstances.

Lots of fun stuff in the works!

Thank you for reading Ruminating on Remedies!!

Julia

5/23/2025

Now for something completely different

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Carpet moths. Ever heard of them? They are miserable.

The internet tells me they are found all around the world (though I think most of them wintered in my house.)

They are the same little moths that eat sweaters and blankets. If you have wool carpets, your house is a veritable never ending buffet for the little buggers.

Here’s a look at what they do.

moth-prevention.com

Their eggs are as tiny as dandruff. They are not easy to spot (and they only sometimes comes with that dark background — I’m not certain what that’s all about yet).

bonaccordpestcontrol.co.uk

Then there are the larvae… This is what actually eats the carpet.

safeguardeurope.com

If you see these casings around — you know you’ve had visitors.

pest-tech.org

I have spent countless hours over the last few months uprooting these things. They even manage to get underneath flat, solid pieces of furniture! I thought we had beaten back the bulk of them, but it turns out one room seems to still be pretty darned infested 😩.

What to do about them? I have found a soldering pick to be indispensable. I comb through the carpet, loosening the eggs with the pick in one hand and the vacuum in the other hand. (I learned the other week how handy-dandy a headlamp is for this work.) These eggs seem to be sticky and I find the vacuum alone doesn’t do the trick (though vigorously agitating the carpet with the pointy attachment helps). The pick gets them off the wall and the edge of the furniture and off the individual loops of the carpet.

gesswein.com

After picking out the eggs and vacuuming what we can, then we come by with a steamer to kill the eggs. (We are sure to throw out the vacuum bag/empty the canister after each round cuz the internet tells us they can escape from the vacuum.) Maybe steam cleaning alone does it but I have found removing the eggs first makes it easier to tell later if more eggs have been deposited. (The areas where we steamed only, we now can’t tell if they are new or old eggs.)

The other useful tool — the pheromone moth traps. When we began this process, all 3 sides of these little sticky tent cards would get filled up pretty quickly. Now, just a couple of moths are captured now and again. It sure is nice to see that (hopefully) we are finally ridding our house of these dastardly little fellows. (I hope it’s not just a lull in the process. I really, really hope all this effort is paying off!!)

bonaccordpestcontrol.co.uk

Note: this larva thing — some sites say they can be there for up to 2-1/2 years! (The larvae are what does all the damage.) The actual adult moths are apparently harmless to the fabrics. “Their only goal is to find mates and lay their eggs wherever there is enough food for their moth larvae to thrive” (moth-prevention.com).

Why am I telling you this? We have been at this for quite a while and if I can save somebody some time in figuring this horrible problem out by letting you know what has worked and what has not worked for us, then it will all be worth it.

Maybe steaming alone would do the trick. Maybe. (In my opinion, if you’re not on your hands and knees finding where they are hanging out, you’re gonna miss them. But, we’re using a little spot steamer, maybe a big industrial thing for the entire carpet could work.)
Diatomaceous earth alone didn’t do it for us.
Cedar sprays alone didn’t do it.
Traps alone certainly didn’t do it, but I would say they are imperative to find out how bad the problem really is and to monitor progress.
Vacuuming alone didn’t do the trick for us.

The combination of moving all the furniture, being on hands and knees with a headlamp and a pointy pick of some sort with the vacuum hose attachment, followed by spot steaming is the answer in my never-to-be-humble opinion.

What else helped? Closing the door to the room with the newly laid carpet. I have had a few traps set out and only picked up a few moths in total over the months. I have found no evidence of eggs or casings. I feel like that room has been spared. 🤞
Now, back to the regularly scheduled homeopathy postings…

Julia Coyte, CHom
Classically Practical homeopath

#wellnessawaits

5/18/2025

A quickie...

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I am not ruminating on remedies today. I am ruminating on knowledge and autonomy.

I am currently enrolled in a nutrition class and I am loving it. But, I have spent a lot of time lately wondering why am I only now learning this stuff? I mean, I have picked up pieces here and there over the decades because I have had an interest in it, but I was never formally taught nutrition. My kids were never taught nutrition in school. (Well, the basic food groups and the food pyramid (yikes!), but not much else.)

Back when I did the anatomy and physiology course, I thought the same thing. Why did I never learn this stuff? It is my opinion that this should be a mandatory class (just like reading and math) beginning in kindergarten and continuing throughout school, ending in some level of proficiency of yourself to be necessary to graduate from high school and not just offered as an elective for high school students who think they may want to be a doctor one day.

I was a child of the 70s and I don’t recall much being taught beyond the basics. In 4th grade, I remember having to chew some foul red pill (what was in that stuff?) so the visiting district nurse could see how well we brush our teeth. (Which you then had to dry brush off — nobody ever got it all off. I did, however, learn from a holistic dental hygienist a few years ago that dry brushing is the best way to get your teeth clean.) In 5th grade, they separated the boys from the girls to tell us about puberty and what to expect. There was a random health class in junior high and high school but I really just remember learning about how drugs and alcohol might affect you. There was a biology class in 10th grade and we dissected a couple of things but we mainly learned about plants.

My children, all schooled in this new millennium, didn’t learn much more. I remember “the heart bag” that came home with them in 2nd grade where they played around with the stethoscope for a day (to be fair, I’m sure there was more to that unit than that), but overall, there was not much education about the most important thing in one’s life… their body and their health.

How much better would life be if people had an understanding of how their body works and how various food items and basic nutrition plays a part in keeping us running?

Proficiency of yourself is really what it is all about. With the exception of one’s own mother, nobody cares more about you than you*. The doctor you’re visiting may take an interest in you during your 15 minute appointment, but then what? You leave the office and you’re on your own. You may leave with a prescription of some sort (often because you are not giving yourself the attention you deserve). Have you looked up that medicine? Do you know the effects of that drug? Have you read the ingredients on the tooth paste tube? Do you know what blood tests have been ordered and what the results mean?

How amazing would it be if we all learned… forget about the boring name (anatomy & physiology; A&P), it’s really a course all about you. It’s as close as one can get to having a handbook about you. I’m talking about the nitty gritty of what makes us run (or, if you take the Pathology and Disease classes, what has gone wrong).

Answer honestly:

What does your spleen do?
Is cholesterol made in your body or is it provided to the body?
What is the difference between a tendon and a ligament?
What are amino acids and what part do they play in our bodies?
How does your body utilize protein? Fat? Carbs? What happens when you have too much of one of these macro nutrients?
Hormones are a whole other thing: how many hormones are there (so far discovered, anyway)? What affects our hormones? What do our hormones regulate in our body. (Hint: sex hormones are just the tip of the iceberg.)
What is the importance of blood sugar?

Shouldn’t we know this automatically? Shouldn’t we have a thorough understanding of our body parts? Shouldn’t we know how various foods affect our various bodily systems? Shouldn’t we be able to have some basic understanding of what the blood test that our doctors have ordered for us means?

I would venture to guess that most people reading this right now don’t have the stomach to even begin learning this stuff at such a late age. That is my point! If we were taught it from the beginning in school, we would all already know it!

There is my rumination for the day. Carry on.

Julia Coyte, CHom
Classically Practical homeopath
#wellnessawaits

*If you don’t already, I highly recommend you start keeping a health file for you and every member of your family. What brought you to the dr? What did the dr recommend? What testing was done? What were the results? If you began a new drug, are you writing down changes you notice?

5/13/2025

What happened?!?

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Head injuries can encompass many things: concussion, skull fractures, contusions, subdural hematomas, scalp wounds, or even injuries to the underlying tissues and blood vessels in the head.

For this article, we’re going to address those head injuries which involve a real whack to the noggin (or, not, as it turns out!), generally resulting in a traumatic brain injury (TBI) or mTBI (mild traumatic brain injury).

When I was a kid, you would hit your head and that was the end of that. Unless you hit it so hard you got a concussion — that got the parents’ attention. Turns out a concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury (Mayo Clinic 2022). And, it also turns out you don’t have to hit your head all that hard (if at all!) to get a concussion/brain injury.

How could you get a concussion without hitting your head?
Anything that can cause the head and brain to move rapidly back and forth… Sudden stops like car crashes, violent shaking, contact sports, even blast injuries (McKee and Robinson 2014).

(I’m beginning to understand, all these years later, that a head injury is a head injury and probably shouldn’t be dismissed too easily.)

How do you know if you or your child has suffered a concussion?
John Hopkins Medicine tells us to look for:

loss of consciousness
severe headache that doesn’t dissipate
nausea and/or vomiting
loss of memory (“What happened?!”)
difficulty with walking and talking
one-sided weakness
seizures
behavior changes
blood or clear fluid draining from the ears or nose
one pupil is dilated or looks larger than the other; it doesn’t constrict when exposed to light

Note: moderate to severe head injuries require immediate medical attention where they will evaluate your vision, hearing, strength, balance, coordination and reflexes.

What to do if you or your child suffers a mild concussion?
Specific treatment will be determined by your doctor, but generally speaking may include:

ice
rest
ointment and bandage; stitches
observation is very important. In lesser instances, home observation will suffice. In severe situations, hospitalization may be required for more intensive observation.

Be sure to seek medical attention if you are experiencing any of the above listed symptoms.

How can homeopathy help?
First Aid with Homeopathy (Ratera 2016, p. 199) talks about the “usefulness of homeopathic remedies as adjuvant to necessary conventional measures.” In case you didn’t already know, homeopathy works so well alongside conventional medicine!

There are two major go-to homeopathic remedies for head injuries: Arnica and Natrum sulphuricum.
Every book I looked in for homeopathic remedies for head injuries lists Arnica as the first remedy to use. Why? Number one, Arnica is pretty much the first remedy for any injury. Number two… well, it’s Arnica! So good for so many things, as you'll see below.

Let’s see how Arnica and Nat sulph stack up in the following head injury rubrics†:

One might think looking at these two brief comparisons of the remedies* that Nat sulph would be the go-to remedy for a head injury. However, look a little closer… most of the rubrics say, “after.”

E.A. Farringon (2018, p 270-271) says, “Arnica is applicable to both the acute and the chronic effects of injuries. The acute injuries for which it is useful are the following: simple bruises… concussions of the brain or spine or of both. We have no remedy which equals Arnica in these last-named cases. Even compression of the brain comes within the range of Arnica, whether this compression be the result of a displaced fragment of bone in cranial fracture, or the result of effusion of blood within the cranial cavity. Arnica can not, of course, cure in the former of these cases; an operation is demanded in order to obtain permanent relief.”

Richard Pitt (2015, p. 48) says, “as we know, all injuries basically start with Arnica. It fits the nature of so many injuries, especially at the beginning of an injury, but also very much for chronic consequences of injuries.” This is an important point in differentiating Arnica and Nat sulph. To sum it up too neatly, Arnica is more indicated immediately after the head injury and Nat sulph would come in later as a clean up crew. However, that’s not exactly true; there are more nuances to it, of course. But, it’s a good place to start.

Let’s keep looking…

(It is true that most home users of homeopathy have Arnica at hand — it is, after all, known as “the gateway” homeopathic remedy because it has such a huge range of uses in treating so many conditions, especially as related to trauma, injuries and surgeries. Arnica is included in virtually every basic homeopathic remedy kit.)

Some of the keynotes of Arnica (Morrison 1993):

bruising or bruised sensation
touch aggravates — they may say, “leave me alone, I’m fine!”
irritability (see above)
“answers questions correctly then falls asleep as in concussion or delirium”
stupor after head injury
fear of being touched or bumped (see above)

Some more Arnica keynotes from Morrison’s new book, Clinically Verified Materia Medica, Volume 1‡ (2025):

worse for noise after injury of head or neck
throbbing, pulsating headache, often with flushes and nausea
stitching from temple to temple
shuts self alone in room during headache
“In the concussion, the patient may slip in and out of coma**, answers questions in a fog then sleeps again, believes there is nothing wrong and wants to be left alone.”

To clarify further on Arnica from Dr. Morrison’s new book (2025, p. 186), the “trauma created various defensive reactions — the first of which is denial… immediately declaring, ‘I’m fine.’… Other patients said that they were unable to ask for or accept help no matter how dire the circumstance… patients stated a need to remain in control by which they meant to hide or minimize the trauma.”

Natrum sulphuricum keynotes (Morrison 1993‡):

confusion or mental dullness after a head injury
general aggravation from injury to head or spine
convulsions which begin after head injury**
headache after head injury

Dr. Ratera (2016) says of Nat sulph: “Consequences of head trauma: vertigo, absences, blindness, coma, concussion, convulsions, headache, dullness, madness, sadness, suicidal thoughts, and memory loss.” (The key word to me, here, is “consequences.”) “Often, people who have suffered head injuries present immediately or after some time, with headaches, dizziness, memory loss, bouts of distraction, absences or epileptiform (brain activity that resembles that of epilepsy) seizures, and other disorders of concentration. These disorders can become chronic and be extremely annoying” — Nat sulph is his answer.

But, once again, it’s not as clear cut as recent head trauma = Arnica and lingering effects of head trauma = Nat sulph. (That would be too easy!) Arnica, too, can be very helpful way down the road for old head traumas. (A quick search of “Arnica” and “ailments from” in Radar Opus software shows: “Head - injuries, head, blows, etc - ailments, after” and there sits Arnica in bold type. Nat sulph is there, too, in bold underline.)

Back to Farrington (2018, p. 271), “In the chronic effects of injury we may use Arnica when diseases (which may even be entirely foreign in their appearance to the ordinary symptomatology of the drug) may be traced to a traumatic origin. No matter what that disease may be whether of the brain, eyes, lungs or nerves, if the injury is the exciting cause, the administration of Arnica is proper.” (See? not so clear cut, right?)

So, what does Dr. Farrington (2018, p. 849) have to say about Nat sulph? “In the chronic effects of injury, especially to the head, Natrium sulph is almost indispensable.”

… But, then again, it is as simple as what I wrote earlier. If you have hit your head, start with Arnica. If there are lingering effects of that head injury and Arnica isn’t taking care of business, swap to Nat sulph. And, if years down the line you think, “you know, I haven’t felt right ever since I hit my head,” give Arnica a try.

If you readily take part in “brain rattling” activities, you might want to keep both Arnica and Nat sulph handy.

Julia Coyte, CHom
Classically Practical homeopath

#wellnessawaits

Arnica and Nat sulph are not the only two well-indicated remedies for head injuries — they are just the most commonly available and well known remedies for head injuries. To read further on homeopathic head injury remedies, consider subscribing to Ruminating on Remedies: Digging Deeper. The first of the next two head injury comparisons will be out in the next week (or so).

*Homeopathic repertories are laid out giving a number for each remedy and how well indicated that remedy is for the specific rubric. In Murphy, 4 is the highest (most well-indicated) remedy.

**Be certain to seek medical assistance in these conditions!

†All the remedies listed in these rubrics (sometimes a couple, sometimes dozens) are all potentially appropriately indicated — it’s just that some are more strongly indicated in a stand-alone rubric. For today, we are just comparing Arnica and Nat sulph. However, it’s important to remember that the right remedy in a case is the right remedy, regardless of how strongly indicated the remedy may be. Homeopathy is so full of nuance and minutiae!

‡This is a bit unfair to Nat sulph as volume 1 stops at Euphrasia! I wish I had the other volumes but they have yet to be published!

5/4/2025

T.E.E.T.H.

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I have spent a lot of time thinking about teeth lately: My husband’s recent dental experiences; A couple of recent homeopathy/dentistry articles; I’m overdue for my teeth cleaning by a couple of months because my old dentist is no longer around… you know, just thinking about T.E.E.T.H.

Why did I capitalize that word and stick periods between each letter?

Because I learned about T.E.E.T.H when listening to this podcast.

T.E.E.T.H. stands for:

Tried
Everything
Else
Try
Homeopathy

You see, lots of people come to homeopathy when they feel they have exhausted all their options:

The doctors have told them they have nothing more to offer them.
They find the meds they are on are no longer as effective as they once were.
They are no longer able to tolerate the meds they are on.
The side effects are too much.
The relief they were promised wasn’t sufficient.
They feel unheard by their physicians.
The person is experiencing vague, unpleasant symptoms which don’t fit nicely into the mainstream medical modality.
They are allergic to the ingredients (manufactured or herbal).
The many supplements prescribed are just too expensive.

There are any number of reasons why people turn to homeopathy. But, there is no doubt that by the time they have decided to try homeopathy, most people feel they have exhausted all other possibilities. Homeopathy is often the last stop on the wellness train and I would love to see that change.

From my perspective, whatever gets people to turn to homeopathy is fine and dandy with me! I wish everybody knew about the wonders of this modality!! But, if people were to be introduced to homeopathy before the last stop on their health journey, I personally think a lot of health difficulties could be avoided.

So, what are the benefits of homeopathy?

Homeopathy focuses on the entire person, taking physical, emotional and mental symptoms into consideration when finding a homeopathic remedy that is selected just for them.

Homeopathy is:

Gentle
Non-addictive
Chemical free
Natural
Without side effects
Deceptively powerful (try it and see!)
The remedies are pretty darned inexpensive
Safe for all ages (and, pets, too!)

Homeopathy doesn’t have to be an all or nothing option. Homeopathy works beautifully alongside other treatments or it can be very helpful to address symptoms that are not fully managed through other means or even to help with side effects of certain other medical treatments.

If you would like to give homeopathy a try (for you or your child ), I am offering a 20% discount for new clients in this month of May.

If you would like to chat further to have any questions you may have about homeopathy answered, click here for a free 20-minute introductory meeting.

Give homeopathy a whirl… I think you might just be pleasantly surprised.

Julia Coyte, CHom
Classically Practical homeopath

#wellnessawaits
* I have no idea why the AI image generator can't spell homeopathy… oh, well.