What’s Involved in a Homeopathic Consultation?
Your first consultation takes the form of a conversation where you tell me about your symptoms in detail. We allow one and a half hours, and sometimes a little bit longer, for an adult. A child’s first visit usually takes about one hour in straightforward cases, and 90 minutes for cases that are more complex.
During a constitutional consultation, I may ask questions which seem unrelated to your presenting complaint. I am interested in your reaction to weather, whether you feel the heat or the cold, if you perspire easily, the quality of your sleep and your dreams, any strong food desires or aversions. To prescribe a good constitutional remedy for you, it helps me to understand a little about what life is like for you – both good and bad. This is because successful homeopathic treatment depends on finding a remedy which is a good match for you as a whole, mentally, emotionally and physically. Two people with similar physical complaints, such as sinusitis or IBS, can be helped by entirely different remedies. This is because, although they may have similar physical symptoms, they can have quite different dispositions and different constitutions.
Your first visit is likely to be longer than any follow-up visit because I’d like to understand your case as fully as possible so that we can start your homeopathic treatment with the most appropriate and helpful remedy.
Your Remedy
Based on the information you share with me, I analyse your symptoms and decide on the most suitable homeopathic remedy or course of remedies for you. If you are living in Ireland, I prescribe and supply these remedies. For overseas clients, I will email your prescription and let you know about your nearest homeopathic pharmacy so you can order the remedies.
Some remedies will be taken daily, while others may be needed once a fortnight or even less often.
Follow-Up Visit
The follow-up visit is an integral part of the treatment, in most cases. At the end of your first visit, I suggest a suitable time-frame for your first follow-up consultation. This will vary from case to case, but is usually between 3 and 6 weeks after the first visit. You are invited to keep in touch with me between visits by text or email, if you have any query about your treatment.
How quickly can I expect the remedies to work?
This will depend to a large extent on what you are coming with, as well as your underlying state of health. People often comment that they were surprised just how quickly the remedies worked. Children usually have greater vitality so they often respond more quickly than adults.
Typically, I see that, with the correct remedy, a child’s acute earache or sore throat will respond within hours. Someone coming with a sprained tendon or ligament or a cough should see improvement in a couple of days. We can sometimes observe a child who is given a constitutional remedy becoming calmer or more content within minutes, sometimes even right there in my office.
Straightforward conditions such as short-term, acute complaints, sports injuries or recovery after accidents or surgery can respond just as rapidly in adults as they do in children, especially if the person has otherwise good energy and health.
What if I have a long-term health complaint?
Most of the adults and some of the children I see are coming with longer-term complaints and more complex conditions. In these kinds of long-standing complaints, you could expect to need a number of visits, spread out over several months and improvement is more likely to be gradual.
Even in deep-seated conditions I would expect to see some change in your condition by the first follow-up visit. People frequently report that the frequency and the intensity of their complaint lessens before it eventually fades away.
During the initial months of treatment we are assessing your reaction to the remedy and adjusting the treatment accordingly. Once we are happy that a strong direction of healing has been established, the intervals between visits are lengthened, with follow-up visits every 3 to 6 months, as long as you are feeling well.
You can read more here about the process of homeopathic treatment for chronic or long-term complaints.