Rosie's life saved by homeopathy

Rosie’s life saved by a ‘placebo’

Two weeks after my spaniel, Rosie, had pups I rose to find the runt of the litter looking very weak and poor. On inspection it was clear that one of Rosie’s teats was very swollen and hard. The other, stronger, pups had abandoned this unproductive teat and the runt, unable to fight for a better option, was starving.

The pup was soon revived with some fortified goats’ milk and Rosie’s teat was restored to health in 30 minutes with a dose of Phytolacca – a homeopathic remedy known to heal straight forward cases of mastitis in humans and cows.

At six weeks we decided to start taking Rosie for walks again as the pups were eating well and partly weaned. Whether this was the cause or not I do not know but the next day she was clearly very unwell and I found that she had a hot, swollen and extremely tender teat: mastitis again but this time far more advanced. I gave her Phytolacca and some other remedies throughout the day but there was little sign of improvement. By the evening she was beginning to become ill with a fever and, knowing that this was dangerous I agonised over whether to call an emergency vet. In the end I decided that, if she got no worse, I would wait overnight and take her in the morning. By 3 am she was hot, her mucous membranes were dry and she was unwilling to move because it intensified the pain in her teat. These were danger signs and it was no longer safe to let the condition take its course.

Bryonia! The remedy she needed came to me in a flash and I immediately gave her a strong dose. An hour later she got up, had a drink and fed her pups. With guarded relief I thought that she might have turned the corner. An hour after that she polished off the tea that she had ignored earlier and I relaxed. The remedy was definitely working.

As is usually the case, this drama played out over a bank holiday when vets are less available or I would have taken her sooner, but there was a clinic the next morning and I decided to take her just in case this improvement did not hold. The vet prescribed antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and said that if I was to give the medication I must wean the pups as it would come through in the milk and might be harmful to them. Weaning at this time was something I wanted to avoid if I could: mastitis is extremely painful and the discomfort is worse when the teat is engorged with milk, So, with the medication to hand just in case, I decided to continue watching and waiting.

Rosie was improving by the hour and, as she no longer had symptoms that told me she needed more Bryonia, I gave her a Silica which is a remedy that heals abscesses. The next morning Rosie was her old self, the teat was cool and no longer painful and the lump inside had halved in size. The day following the lump had completely gone.

There are times when even seasoned homeopaths like myself marvel at the wonder of this medicine. It really does work. It heals rapidly, gently and without dangerous side effects. I have, of course, seen its wonders many times – it has cured my children’s acute ear infections in minutes, healed torn ligaments in days and cleared up the symptoms of flu in hours. At the moment many long standing clients of mine are returning for their annual ‘fix’ of homeopathy to stave off the misery of hay fever for the entire season.

There are two big mysteries of homeopathy – one is how it works so miraculously, defying scientific credibility, and the other is why people do not use it more! Who cares how it works. It does. As my dog will testify!!