Homeopathy and Women's Health

Illness can often be linked to stages in a woman's life - in puberty, motherhood, menopause or old-age - when change brings a challenge to the body, particularly when it is also associated with the considerable stresses of juggling jobs, childcare and looking after the home. Increased stress is a significant factor in women becoming ill, and their symptoms can be physical, emotional and mental. It's true to say that women tend to put themselves last, struggling on through symptoms, ignoring the early warning signs of a health problem.

Some of the conditions for which women seek homeopathic treatment include acne, menstrual problems, infertility, menopausal symptoms, urinary infections, migraine, chronic fatigue... Many of these problems are accompanied by depression, anxiety or low confidence.

Homeopathy is a system of medicine that treats the individual, "matching" the total symptom picture of the patient to that of a homeopathic medicine that can trigger the body's natural system of healing. The person is treated rather than the labeled illness, hence patients with the same medical diagnosis will need different homeopathic medicines.

Homeopathy is ideal for its ability to treat the complexity of an illness: consider the example of a woman who experienced PMS throughout her early life, had a series of miscarriages, a hysterectomy, and is currently experiencing hot flushes and dizziness. Emotionally she grieves for the children she never had and is finding it hard to cope generally. Homeopathy takes into account all these symptoms and feelings, the history of the case and finds the underlying cause of the problem.

Some women turn to homeopathy as a last resort after all else has failed and having put up with symptoms for years. Conventional medicine may have no "cure" (such as in chronic thrush or persistent bladder infections) or perhaps, despite experiencing debilitating symptoms no "disease" can be found to explain them and no further help can be given.

Other women use homeopathy because they do not want to use long-term medication such as HRT for menopausal symptoms or the contraceptive pill for heavy periods. Choosing homeopathy for a natural event like pregnancy means that symptoms such as morning sickness and the stages of labour can be treated without drugs.

If you would like to find out more about how homeopathy could help you, you are welcome to ring me for a chat.