An Interview with Maureen Shepard, CCH about the practice of homeopathy.

The Homeopathic Consultation

Q:  I’m interested in homeopathy, but don’t know a lot about it, so could you explain how you approach this.

MS: When you first come for homeopathy, we have a 2-hour initial interview. I take a compete case, and then determine a homeopathic remedy that matches your whole picture.

I’ll be taking every symptom you have, not just your chief complaint. Also I’ll note things that aren’t actually symptoms. Your preferences, the way you approach life, and what foods you prefer. All these factors combine to create a picture of your totality. I’m not going to be just selecting a remedy just for your symptoms, but for the total you. What will happen then, is that your life will open up in ways that you didn’t expect.

Minor symptoms that you might not have thought a lot about may clear up before the major long-term symptoms clear up. And the reason that that happens is because the body has its own healing power, and that healing intelligence will be stimulated by the homeopathic remedy. Once it’s stimulated, and responds, it will respond first to the things that are the most important to it. The higher intelligence that it contains ..

Q: that my body contains?

MS: Not just your physical body.

Every person has a physical body, mental body, emotional body, spiritual body, and energetic body.  These bodies are all part of you. So when I give the remedy, I’m not actually giving a remedy to the physical body. I’m actually giving a remedy to the energy body because it’s an energy medicine and will affect the energy body first and then through that effect, you’ll see changes in the physical body that ripple out from changes in the energetic body. When we give the remedy, it actually works instantly, because energy works instantly. Then over time, you’ll see how the body is able to use that energy to enhance the physical body.

Whatever the higher healing intelligence inside you finds the most important, that’s what it’s going to heal first. So let’s just say you had something going on that you didn’t even know about that’s more dangerous than the symptoms you’re aware of. The remedy would stimulate your innate healing powers and it would affect this more dangerous condition first because that’s more important to the body than your other symptoms. Or for another person who is mentally unstable, it would be more important for their mental balance to be regained, so that is where the remedy would work first.

With symptoms like skin conditions, post-nasal drip, some allergy symptoms, these heal slowly over time because the healing intelligence of your body doesn’t tend to prioritize them. In fact, a lot of times, the healing power of your body will use conditions like a drippy nose or any kind of discharge, or a skin rash to actually express the imbalance within the body, and it will throw it out on the skin or make your nose drippy. It will throw it out into some kind of discharge or some kind of skin condition because that’s the way it can express itself without hurting the totality of you as much. So that’s why it’s really important not to block skin rashes, not to suppress them because the body is doing its best to express  some kind of dysfunction in that way. And when you block it, all it does is push the symptoms in. The body has to deal with it still on another level, and it’s usually a more serious level. So a lot of times when people suppress a skin rash, the next thing they have is asthma or something like that. It will be something more difficult to deal with because it’s been suppressed inward. That’s a lot of time what happens with allopathic medicine. It changes the symptoms, and the allopathic system doesn’t even recognize it as being related to the antibiotics or whatever you took that suppressed it inward.

Q: So if my chief symptom doesn’t improve at first, can you tell what is being energetically corrected?

MS: After 6 – 8 weeks we’ll have a follow-up interview, and at that time I’ll be able to see other things that have changed. Usually you’ll see something. And usually the first thing you’ll see is that the person will say “I just feel better inside myself  … I feel more like the real me … I feel less restricted by other things, and the real person that I am can come out and express itself more”. Or the other thing you sometimes see is that the person closest to them, usually their spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend, will say that the person is better, is easier to live with, is less reactive to things. When I hear the spouse say “this remedy is helping my spouse”, then I know that the remedy really is helping the spouse, because that’s pretty reliable, I’ve found, in my practice. So sometimes you don’t even notice it yourself but the people around you will notice it. We try to elicit at the follow-up what the changes are. You might have some little ache or pain that’s suddenly gone, or you find you’ve made a change in your diet, or maybe your old pursuits just don’t seem that interesting to you anymore, and you start doing something new. It’s pretty amazing actually, what will happen.

Q: What you’re telling me is that it’s not necessarily going to work at first on the symptom that bothers me the most.

MS: It may or it may not. You may need patience. And what I would try to do is help you see how it’s making your life better. So that you’ll know you’re being benefited. But if the only thing that really matters to you is that a particular symptom goes away immediately, it’s not going to work between us, because it may not happen that way. I need to work with someone who has a little bit of faith in the process and understands the fact that it really is up to your own healing intelligence, and I can’t dictate that.

Q: So we’ll have an initial interview and you’ll give me a remedy for my condition.

MS: First I’ll take time to study your case. This may take a few days. Then I’ll contact you with a recommendation for a remedy and instructions on how to take it.  

The remedy won’t be just for a specific diagnosis, such as high blood pressure, asthma, or depression. In homeopathy two people with the same condition may need a different remedy. For example, two people who have the exact same flu virus might need a different remedy. It depends on what the picture actually is. One person could have a high fever. Another person could be mentally dull and can hardly lift their head off the pillow. Another person could have pain in their bones and chills running up and down their spine. Those are 3 different remedies. Even if they have the very same flu virus.

Q: It’s very individual.

MS: If a person has kidney stones, are they in the left kidney or the right kidney? What is the pain like? If it’s burning pain, instead of stitching pain, I would give a different remedy. So you can’t just say “kidney stones”. I’d look at the top ten remedies that tend to be for kidney stones. And I might give one of those. But you can’t necessarily say “It’s going to be one of these top 10.”

Q: So what is a remedy? What does it consist of?

MS: The remedies look like little round pellets because the carrier for the remedy is milk sugar. Sometimes I also give people liquid remedies, and there is a certain procedure for preparing and taking those. It just depends on the individual situation when I make the recommendation.

The remedies are originally derived from natural substances. So we have remedies made from minerals. We have remedies for each element in the periodic table, and those are elements or minerals. We have remedies made from animals. Remedies made from plants. And a few other remedies, but those are the main 3 categories: minerals, plants, and animals. We take the remedies from the natural world and we create them in such a way that there is none of the original substance left in the remedy. So for a plant like Arnica, there is no Arnica left in the remedy we call Arnica. We take this plant and we dilute it and then shake it serially. We dilute, shake, dilute, shake, so there’s nothing left of the original plant substance, but only the energetic pattern of the plant.

Q: So what you give is the energetic pattern of the plant, mineral or animal?

MS: Right. As soon as you take it, it acts instantly on the energetic body, but it takes a while for it to unfold as it affects you at other levels.

Q: What is “a while”?

MS: it depends. Sometimes people feel it immediately. Sometimes they never feel it at all because it’s so gentle and all it does is stimulate your own healing. So that’s what it feels like, as if your body just did it. They get better, but it’s so subtle, it doesn’t feel like anything special happened. When they look back, they say, “Oh, I don’t have that condition anymore.” It doesn’t feel like a drug, like something foreign coming in causing a powerful effect. But sometimes people do feel a powerful effect, it depends, every person is different, every situation is different. I sometimes feel a little light-headed after I’ve taken one, but other people don’t.

Q: For more chronic conditions, it sounds like it would take more time.

MS: Right. And the longer the person has had the condition, the longer it usually takes to reverse it.

Q: If it’s been many years, it’s going to take a long time.

MS: Yes, but it’s not going to take as many years. I tell people, try it for 6 months before you try to figure out if you’re being benefited, and evaluate it then. Are you being benefited? Usually by 6 months, you know.

Q: How do you know if the remedy is from a plant or an animal? Or could you give it in combination? Could a person have a remedy from the plant kingdom and from the animal?

MS: You could. I don’t practice that way. I give one remedy from one substance. If I said “It’s a little like this plant, and a little like this mineral”, I would keep looking for a remedy that has all of those elements.

Q: So you wouldn’t mix.

MS: No. That’s one attribute of what is called “Classical Homeopathy”. You give one remedy, not a mixture.

I do have a huge diversity of remedies to choose from. Which is good because there is a huge diversity among people. For example, I always ask, “what kind of weather do you like?” And often they say, “Oh, I’m just like everybody else, I like it sunny and 72 degrees”. But not everyone is like that. There are people who love it when it rains, people who think it’s great when it’s cloudy. To me, it might be cold and wet, but it lifts their spirits.  And because that preference is more unusual, it’s a clue. If someone likes sunny weather, it hardly helps me. But if they love dark rainy days, or if they love lightening, it helps me. In homeopathy, we call it “strange, rare and peculiar”. Somebody who wants something or acts in a way that’s unusual, that helps us. Because the way people commonly act is not singular enough to denote a particular remedy. If somebody has the flu and they say “I’ve got a fever and I’m achy”, they’re just giving me the common symptoms of the flu, and it doesn’t help me. But if they say, “you know, I’m usually thirsty all the time, but with this flu, I just don’t feel like drinking.” Then I can say “I can help you, I know what you need.” Because “thirstless” is part of a major flu pattern. People say “I’ve got a pain.” Well, I need to know exactly where it is, exactly when you have it, what time of day. I need to know what it feels like. Burning is different than aching, is different than lancinating. A sharp pain, or a dull pain? It’s different on your right side than your left side. I need the exact location. With headaches, some people have migraines that feel like little tiny hammers in their temples. Others see flashing lights. Do they have to lie down in a dark room? It makes a huge difference.

Q: So homeopathic remedies come from the natural environment vs. allopathic medicines.

MS: Allopathic medicines work against the symptoms. So if you take an aspirin for a headache, it works against the symptoms of head pain. Homeopathic medicines don’t work against the symptoms. We use the symptoms as a clue to point to the energetic pattern in nature that’s going to stimulate your body’s own immune response. Homeopathic remedies actually impel the person toward cure. Allopathic medicines cover up the symptoms. And the further you go into the allopathic way of doing things, the more they cover up things, and the more the body tries to express itself in another way. So the symptoms will pop out as something else. It won’t even appear to be related. Now it’s not a headache, now it’s something else. You may get a side-effect from the allopathic medicine, and that may cause a symptom, and then they’ll prescribe for that. Or you may suppress the first symptoms, and then you’ll be experiencing other symptoms, because the body still not cured. No conventional doctor is going to say “well, you suppressed your headache, so now you have these other symptoms.” That doesn’t make sense in the conventional system.

Once you start using conventional medicine, it’s hard to stop. So for older people my age, when I go to a conventional doctor, he or she will ask, “what medications are you on?” I answer, “I’m not on any medications”. And they can’t understand how a 61 year old woman cannot be on any medication. Because normally when they see someone at that age, they’re already on several medications. By the time they’re in their 80’s, they may be on a dozen or more. And that’s very common. And some of them may be rather hard to get off of. Medicines like anti-depressants. You can’t go cold turkey off them, you have to gradually withdraw under supervision. They’re not light weight medicines. When you’re on allopathic medicines, you gravitate toward doing more and more medications. But it’s not unusual for someone to be taking the same homeopathic remedy. Maybe they’ll be taking it for 6 months, and then they’re better and they can stop taking it entirely. But if it’s something deeper that’s going to take awhile, going to take a few years, it’s not unusual for them to be on the same homeopathic medicine for a year or longer.

Q: When I take a remedy, are there any foods I’m supposed to stay away from?

MS: Some homeopaths ask you to do that, especially with coffee. I don’t do that. They ask people to stay away from camphor and mothballs.

Q: Why do they say that?

MS: They’re believed to antidote the remedy, and I believe they can antidote the remedy in some cases, so I wouldn’t use camphor or have mothballs in my house. I don’t drink coffee myself. It doesn’t matter whether it’s regular or decaf.

Q: I’ve heard to stay away from peppermint.

MS: I don’t worry about that. Some homeopaths don’t want you to have peppermint in your toothpaste.

Q: Where are you supposed to keep the remedy?

MS: Out of the sun is the first and most important thing. I mean totally out of the sun, not even for a few seconds. I think it’s good to keep them away from computers. I don’t store mine near where my cell phone is. The sun definitely has the power to change the remedy. The sun is the most powerful energy source on our planet.

Q: What would it do to it?

MS: It antidotes the remedy. It’s more powerful, so it affects it. The energetic pattern can be displaced by the sun. Regular lights are not a problem; you don’t have to worry about them. 

The Depth and Breadth of Homeopathy

One thing that people don’t always realize about homeopathy, because it’s on the sidelines of the overall medical system that we have here in the United States, is that homeopathy is more popular in other countries of the world.

Also, one of the things that most people don’t realize is that  homeopaths have access to more than 250 years worth of research. In our computerized databases, we have built up data from millions of cases worldwide about what remedy worked in what situation. We have in our databases each detailed symptom, and that’s why we can use detailed information like “this kidney stone was in the right kidney, not in the left kidney,” because we know from 250 years of experience, that the right kidney reacts differently than the left kidney.  People don’t realize that we have this marvelous database. In fact, we have more clinical backing for what we’re doing than the drug companies do, and for a much longer period of time. Today we might not have the exact same diseases, but the symptoms are often the same. So if someone has heart palpitations of a particular kind, and at a particular time of day, or in a particular situation, such as when they’re anxious … these are old problems that we might see in new settings. We have all the information about what remedies work for all these situations that people have in their lives. So recognizing these patterns, we can really tap into something. A person like me is just taking their place in this long legacy of medicine, where we’ve helped millions of people worldwide.

And it’s amazing how much it’s used in other countries. I remember reading one time that one of our remedies is prescribed approximately 4 million times a year worldwide. And that’s just one of our remedies, and not even the most used one. So people are getting a lot of use out of this form of medicine and they’re not using it without good reason. They're using it because year in and year out, country in and country out worldwide, through the centuries, homeopathy has helped people save lives and made people’s lives better.

The Follow-up Consultation

Q: After the initial interview, how often will I see you?

MS: 6 to 8 weeks after taking your initial remedy, we’ll have the first follow-up consultation. We’ll review the symptoms I recorded in the initial consultation to determine what has changed. Sometimes the condition is healed and our work is complete. Usually, I’ll recommend continuing on the same remedy or changing to another remedy. If the remedy changes, I’ll see you again in 6 to 8 weeks. Once I’m satisfied that the remedy won’t change for awhile, I can see you every 3-4 months.

 But even if a person has taken the same well-acting remedy for a long time, the situation can change.  That’s the reason we have follow-ups. Otherwise, I could just tell them to take the same remedy, and they wouldn’t have to come back. Sometimes people say “why am I paying you again just to have you give me the same remedy you gave me before?”  But I never know when it’s going to change. Sometimes people surprise me. They can be on a remedy, and I’m expecting to give them the same remedy again, and I see them and I say “Oh, this is a different picture”. And I wouldn’t have projected that. I’m reminded of a lady who had a serious chronic condition, and I thought she was going to be on the same remedy for a long time, probably for years. But she was only on it for a year and a half. And then I saw her, and the picture had changed. If I hadn’t had that follow-up, I wouldn’t have caught it. So you don’t ever know, that’s why you have the follow-ups. Because as soon as their picture changes, you want to change the remedy. It’s not good for people to be on a remedy, taking it repeatedly when it’s not the remedy they need.

Q: What would that do?

MS: Usually homeopathic medicines are very benign and if you give the wrong remedy, nothing happens because the body’s energetic system doesn’t even react to it. It’s not the pattern they need, and the body doesn’t recognize it as something important, it just ignores it. But if you repeatedly give the wrong remedy, then you’re engrafting the pattern onto that person. Every remedy has symptoms it can heal, and it can produce those same symptoms. That’s what “homeopathy” means: “like suffering”. Or as it’s commonly said, “like cures like”. That’s why I want to have the follow-ups and make sure people are on the right remedy.

There was a lady that came to me for poison oak, and she had been taking the correct remedy. But she wanted every last vestige of the rash to go away. She didn’t just wait until she was better, and say “OK, the energy is moving forward towards cure” and stop taking it. Which is what she should have done. But she kept taking and taking it. What she was doing was engrafting it on herself. Finally she came to see me and I told her that she needs to stop taking it, and if she doesn’t stop taking it, she’s going to be getting joint pain soon. And then she says “I’m already getting joint pain”. That’s what she did by taking something that should have been temporary. It was just an acute remedy for the poison oak. I always tell people for acute conditions like the flu, as soon as you start feeling better, stop taking the remedy. Don’t take it again unless you feel a bit worse again, then you can take another dose. And people can learn to get the sense of how to do that. I also tell people that if they have something like the flu, and they’re feeling better with the remedy, they still need to stay in bed. They need to allow themselves time to convalesce.