Bri Hurlburt 00:00
Welcome to Homeopathy at Home with Melissa. It is now creeping into fall, at least where a lot of you live, and we're dealing with things like colds and COVID still around. So today, our topic is going to be really prevalent and really helpful. We'll be covering sore throats.
Melissa Crenshaw 00:26
Yeah, so let's differentiate between the different sore throat remedies a little bit. I want to teach people how to investigate, too. If your child comes to you and says they have a sore throat, there are many remedies for sore throat, so there's some investigation that has to happen and you have to use your observation skills.
Bri Hurlburt 01:05
I think the hardest part for me when it comes to sicknesses like colds or even headaches when you have little kids, is that often you're not able to ask all of those same questions that you can ask an adult. That has made these observation skills that I've learned really helpful.
Melissa Crenshaw 01:24
Yes, little kids don't know how to articulate anything, so we're going to investigate. I want to give just a few reminders for when you are treating acute conditions in your family. First, we have to remember that you're going to meet the intensity of the condition with the frequency of the dosing. That means if it's very intense, you're going to give a remedy more often; if it's less intense, you're going to give it less often. If you have a protocol, you're just going to follow the protocol. In podcast episodes like this one, I'm assuming that you don't have a protocol (just in case because if you can't find it or there's not one), and want you to know what to do because I don't want you to have to Google or rely on a Facebook group. What bothers me about Facebook groups,is that you can ask for help and you will get 50 different ideas. That confuses and overwhelms me! I don't even ask for help in Facebook groups anymore, so I want you to know how to do this. We're going to stick to the 30s and the 200s usually, unless you have a Banerji Protocol.
Bri Hurlburt 02:54
I have a question when it comes to protocols. On one hand, homeopathy is very intuitive, and we've talked about that before. It's important to lean into that intuition. Is this really severe? You can dose more often. Is it not as bad? You can dose more spread out. Is there some way that that merges with Banerji Protocols? I know we always say if there's a protocol, follow the protocol. But what if you follow the protocol and it says every few hours, but you are having a horrible time? Is that okay to dose closer together when you're using a Banerji Protocol?
Melissa Crenshaw 03:48
What I have to say is in a Banerji Protocol, you need to follow it exactly. If you're using a Banerji Protocol and it says every three hours, you need to stick to every three hours. I also have to say, that after 20 something years, I know how to decide. I will often take it less frequently, and that's just me because I'm sensitive. I don't usually need protocols as often as they say, but where I want you to be careful in changing the frequency is to not let fear play a part in that. If you're really sick and you don't feel good, your tendency is to want to take it more often to hurry up and get through it or to get better faster, but that can't play a part in it. If you are wanting to take it more often because you're not seeing fast enough results, that's not a good reason. That's just with Banerji Protocols. Today, when we talk about the sore throat differentials, you're gonna meet the intensity of it with the frequency. When you're rating your pain a nine, you're probably going to give that remedy more often in the beginning, and then you back it off. If you're newer to homeopathy, stick to the 30s and 200s if you're not using a protocol. I have to say, I see the 200s work better in sore throats than the 30s, but if a 20 all you have, then use it. Remember the four dose rule. After the fourth dose, you reassess the situation and only move on to the next remedy if there's zero improvement. Remember, sometimes you see two steps forward, one step back in your healing process. We also have to remember that homeopathy takes you through the illness faster and milder than without it. We're not looking for homeopathy to work like allopathy, in that you stop all symptoms after a dose of the remedy. Sometimes that happens, but that's not really the goal or the way that homeopathy really works. You still have to go through the stages of this cold or the sore throat or the strep throat, but it should be much less severe and shorter in duration.
Bri Hurlburt 06:27
All right. And if we're remembering that we're thinking long term, it will help for future treatment.
Melissa Crenshaw 06:32
Exactly, not just for this time, very good. We have to think long term health. If you start using a remedy for a sore throat, you feel like you're not getting fast enough results, and you resort to over the counter medicines or a prescription, don't beat yourself up over that, but you kind of prolonged the future occurrences. You can reduce or eliminate future occurrences if you just use homeopathy. We have to investigate before we decide on remedies. The first thing to ask is, is the pain on the right side, left side or the whole throat? Does it go back and forth? That can happen too. You need to know that and you need to write that down. If it starts on the right, and goes to the left, then it's a right sided sore throat remedy that you're going to be looking at. If it started on the left and moved to the right, you're looking at a left sided sore throat remedy. That's an important thing to know. The second thing to observe is the appearance of the throat. You need to look into the throat with a flashlight and look at the appearance. What kind of sore throat is it? Is it inflammatory or septic? We're going to talk about what the difference between those two things is. If the glands are swollen or painful, you need a glandular sore throat remedy. The third thing to ask is if the person is thirsty or not. That is going to be part of your case taking process. We need to know if the throat pain feels better or worse for warm or cold drinks, and we need to know if there's any pain or sensation, especially in the throat, on swallowing. Is it a scratchy sore throat? Is it dry? Does it feel like you're swallowing glass? Does it feel like a stick is in there? What kind of pain is it? Describe the pain.
Bri Hurlburt 09:18
Does the area matter? Sometimes I feel like it's right at my tonsils or sometimes it's further down.
Melissa Crenshaw 09:29
Yeah, definitely. You need to know where. The next thing to know is, was the onset fast or slow? What is the etiology (if you know it)? How has it affected the appetite? Those are lots of questions that you may ask, but you also can observe these things. If it's your child, you know how it's affected the appetite. You know if it was fast or slow. You don't have to ask your children these questions - you're with them and you know the answers.
Bri Hurlburt 10:01
All right. In sore throats specifically, does mood play a part? There are sometimes I notice one of my kids will get really cranky or maybe even really sleepy or really clingy, and I know in other illnesses, the demeanor plays a part when choosing a remedy.
Melissa Crenshaw 10:29
Absolutely. There are remedies that are super irritable and there are remedies that are clingy and whiny. there are remedies that are angry and mad. Absolutely. Let's talk about the difference between septic sore throat and inflammatory sore throat since that's something that you need to know in choosing remedies. The septic sore throat has suppurating pus, foul odors, and a breakdown of tissue. It may look decomposed. It might turn darker and there may be pus coming out. Bad breath and there might be a coated tongue. That's going to be your septic throat, like strep, and your septic sore throat remedies are Mercurius, Pyrogenium, Baptisia, and Lachesis. The inflammatory sore throat is red and inflamed. You're gonna see the red, swollen tonsils. The neck might be sensitive. Your inflammatory sore throat remedies are Belladonna, Ferrum Phos, and Aconite. Some of your remedies are specific to if the pain is on the left side or the right side. If you're talking to your child and they're pointing to or saying that it's only sore on the right side and that it hurts really bad on the right side, that's going to eliminate all the left sided remedies. I made a little chart where in my notes where I've got left sided remedies and right sided remedies, so I don't even look at those left sided ones if it's a right sided sore throat. I encourage you to make a chart, too. the left sided remedies are Lachesis, Mercurius, Phosphorus, Nitric Acid, Lac Caninum, and Hepar Sulph. The right sided remedies are Belladonna, Arsenicum, Lycopodium, Phytolacca, and Mercurius. You'll notice I just said Mercurius was also for left sided, so obviously that can go for both.
Bri Hurlburt 13:11
Is Mercurius different than Merc Viv or Merc Sol or Merc Cyn?
Melissa Crenshaw 13:17
Oh, that's such a good question. I'm glad you said that. I'm saying Mercurius because Merc Sol and Merc Viv are interchangeable. I'm not talking about Merc Cyn in this instance, I'm talking about Merc Viv and Merc Sol, so I'm glad you clarified that.
Bri Hurlburt 13:42
With all of these remedies these though, we are talking about remedies when it's not strep throat and we have a protocol. These are remedies that we will choose from without having a protocol. A know you said that ,I'm just making sure.
Melissa Crenshaw 14:00
That's right, but there are some strep throat remedies in here. For people out there who have never heard of the Banerjis, don't know the Banerji Protocols and wouldn't know where to find a protocol for strep throat, you can still use these. We're just helping with what do you do if the protocol is not working. If the Banerji Protocol for strep is not working, then you're going to move on and do some of this.
Bri Hurlburt 14:38
It's nice to have a list of stuff because, even if you have a kit or if you don't, you don't always have all of the remedies that you need, so it is nice to have several options. Then from this list, we can go to the Materia Medica and try to find the best fit so that we're not jumping around to 100 different remedies.
Melissa Crenshaw 15:02
That's right. You can go to the Materia Medica, or you can list your symptoms and then you can list each remedy that's covered by that symptom. The remedy that came up the most often throughout all the symptoms is the one you're going to start with.
Bri Hurlburt 15:24
That's a fun strategy. Okay. That would make it a little bit less overwhelming, especially if you don't have a Materia Medica.
Melissa Crenshaw 15:34
Right. I go into much more depth and detail in my mentorship program. This is just a little taste of what we do in there. Some of the sore throat remedies crave ice cold drinks - these are Phosphorus, Eupatorium, and Bryonia. Some of the sore throat remedies crave warm drinks, and that's Arsenicum and Rhus Tox. I want to encourage you right now to get these notes into your notebook.
Bri Hurlburt 16:23
I like that this is reminding me to truly observe, or investigate as you're calling it. When I have a sore throat, there are times where I really want ice cold lemon water, or other times I want to make hot tea. I don't really notice, I just know I'm gonna go make hot tea. It's a good reminder to be more observant or ourselves and sickness in our families.
Melissa Crenshaw 17:06
Yeah, and the more you use these observation skills and these remedies, the faster you're going to recognize them. You're not going to have to go through all this process every time. You're going to learn more.
Bri Hurlburt 17:20
I do notice that too. This is a little rabbit trail, but maybe this will be encouraging to other people that I don't always feel like I made a ton of progress. I can look ahead, being with you all the time and seeing how quickly you have an answer, and feel like I'm never going to get there. Obviously, you've done this forever and you went to school for it, so that's expected, But then I remember I look backwards. Sometimes, looking back and comparing how it felt back then and how overwhelming that was and how much anxiety I still had, I see now that there are times where I can come up with a remedy quickly on my own. So take a second if you're not brand new, but you've been doing this for a little while, and be encouraged. I'm sure you have made progress if you look back.
Melissa Crenshaw 18:17
Yes! Even having gone to school, I didn't feel equipped right away. That might sound discouraging to some people, but the more I used it, the better equipped I got. It's like learning Spanish. You go to school, you go to Spanish class and you learn Spanish, but if you don't use it, you will lose it. It's the same with math. I'm finding that the more classes I teach, the more solid my knowledge is and the faster I come up with answers. I used to always have to look at my notes, and now I don't have to as often. So even me having done this for 20 something years, I still have to look at my notes sometimes.
Bri Hurlburt 19:11
When you even think of the way that the Banerjis came up with their protocols, it's from experience.
Melissa Crenshaw 19:19
You know what, there's one more thing that I just thought of. That's why we don't read the Bible one time. It's not a book that you read one time. You need to be in that thing every single day.
Bri Hurlburt 19:37
Right, and to take that a step further, you could read the words in the Bible 1000 times and never live out any of the things that you've read and never use the knowledge you have in your real experiences.
Melissa Crenshaw 19:53
Yeah, so you can see or listen to all these podcasts, but if you don't go and use them and put them into practice, it's not going to stick. That's so good. Then remember, we need to know if it was a slow onset or a fast onset. Your slow onset remedies or Gelsemium and Phosphorus. Your fast onset remedies are Aconite and Belladonna.
Bri Hurlburt 20:23
When I think of Aconite and Belladonna, even the appearance of the person is a specific way. In a fast onset of something, they look stricken. The keynotes of Gelsemium, I'm not sure about phosphorus, are more droopy and dull. That reminds me of my little kids that are like, "I just don't have energy." They're cranky, they don't want to do anything, and they almost always wake up sick the next day. I should've seen it coming!
Melissa Crenshaw 20:59
It's it's easy to miss that. I also want to tell you that if you are your children are like I was as a young child, a teenager, a young adult until I got into homeopathy, I had chronic/recurrent strep throat. I would get strep throat every year at least once, sometimes twice. The year that I gave birth to my oldest son, I got it three times.
Bri Hurlburt 21:35
As an adult, it is terrible! And you had a new baby?
Melissa Crenshaw 21:41
Oh, yeah. He was laying on the floor, an infant, and I'm at home from work trying to take care of him, too. I was a single mom. If that's you or your child, take Calcarea Carbonica 30c, once per day. It's a slow acting remedy, so expect to be on this long term. When I say long term, I mean, six to 12 months. Whenever you're listening to this, start the Calc Carb if if there's recurrent sore throat so it doesn't have to be recurrent anymore. You can take this for recurrent sore throats, recurrent colds, cough, flus, if you get sick easily.
Bri Hurlburt 22:25
You said 30c here, but in the past we have said 200c every other day or other potencies.
Melissa Crenshaw 22:35
Yes, or 1M once a week - all three of those work the same. I like 30c once per day because it's easier to remember and get into a routine. For me, if I'm trying to take something every other day, I don't remember. Unless you're writing stuff down, or using an app like Round Health, which I love, I'd do 30c once per day. If you want to do a 200 every other day, then stick it in the Round Health app and it'll remind you every other day. You're using Calc Carb to uproot that chronic condition or that tendency to get sick, but you're going to be using the other specific remedies with it when you do get sick.
Bri Hurlburt 23:36
Let's say in the instance like with my kids, they have a really cranky day and I catch it. Would that be a slow onset? I wouldn't consider that sudden. Would you still start with that Aconite and Bryonia protocol? Or would you start with Gelsemium or something that's more slow onset?
Melissa Crenshaw 23:56
That's such a great question. This probably sounds very contradictory, but I pretty much always start with Aconite and Bryonia. If you notice that something's just not right - you don't feel well or your child is acting different and might be getting sick - I've done Aconite and Bryonia. We're not sure if they're gonna get sick or they're just having a cranky day, but it's not gonna hurt to do it. If you give one dose and their energy comes back up and they're all better, then there's no need to give another dose. If they continue down that path and they're continuing to get symptoms and are getting worse, do the four doses of Aconite and Bryonia. Be taking notes and observe, and maybe you'll need to change a remedy after those few doses.
Bri Hurlburt 24:53
That's kind of nice if you think about it. In a way, that Aconite and Bryonia can buy you a little time, for lack of better term. You're giving them these remedies while observing to figure out if there will be a better one to move on to.
Melissa Crenshaw 25:07
Yep. Usually it shuts it down pretty fast. The goal of the Aconite and Bryonia is that it will strengthen that immune system to the point of not moving forward. In my mentorship program, we do this. We discuss sore throats in a live call, and I go into great detail of each remedy that we named here. We have a case we use to practice where I'll present the case, and the class will will talk through it. We talk about what would you choose, how, why, what other questions do you have, and we look in the repertory and the Materia Medica. We give each remedy points based on how many symptoms they match. Belladonna has five of the symptoms, Hepar Sulph only has three, and Arsenicum only has two, so we start with Belladonna. I just wanted to point that out. You can find almost all of my courses, including the mentorship program, at mmchomeopathy.teachable.com. The Gateway series is not listed there, but there is one free course and my teachable school. You can join that anytime. I'll keep adding dates and times for the live calls, so you can you can schedule your live calls at your convenience.
Bri Hurlburt 26:58
I even feel like in the live calls, doing these practice cases and talking the remedies through in such detail is giving that experience that I don't always have in real life. Even after sitting in these Gateways for two years, I am still learning a lot because I'm not always deal with sickness like this often. It's totally different sitting on the outside and taking a case from someone else when it's not your child or yourself that's sick. I'm way more clear headed and able to think more thoroughly. I really enjoy it.
Melissa Crenshaw 27:40
Thank you. What I'm hearing from the live calls is people saying, "Wow, I have tools to go forward. I feel like I can actually do this." Not that the Gateway courses don't prepare you because it's an amazing foundation. I do suggest people take Gateway I, then Gateway II, then the mentorship program, but it's not a requirement. If you don't want to do Gateway series, which is found on my website under the Learn With Me tab, you can jump straight into the mentorship program and still get equipped and still get a foundation. The mentorship program goes deeper and takes you further than the Gateway series.
Bri Hurlburt 28:43
When go through Gateway I and II, and again, you don't have to, but I do think the repetition of that with the Quizlet classes and then the mentorship program reminds me of being back in high school. You learn the building blocks, and you keep hearing the same terms and you do the same process. You talk through the same things, but your knowledge grows and your practical application grows. You could even take Gateway courses alongside the mentorship program or after. I think all of it combined in whatever order you decide to do is all beneficial.
Melissa Crenshaw 29:25
I love what you just said. It's spiral learning, so think about a spiral. You're going around the subjects again and again. It's a classical learning style if you know about all the different learning methods. I believe that God made us to learn and the classical way I believe that he made us our brains to work in that way - where we are repeating something over and over and over again to make it stick. What I often say is it's like watching that movie for the eighth time. Don't you always hear something or see something there that you didn't see before? I like repetition because you cannot hear something just one time and remember it or understand it. There needs to be repetition.
Bri Hurlburt 30:31
I'm reminded of that all the time with little kids. That's how they learn. Then I realized that oh, I learn that way too. We all do. As I'm teaching them, I'm remembering again these little concepts that I've even forgotten.
Melissa Crenshaw 30:45
Whether you're a kinesthetic learner or an audible learner or whatever, the classical learning method goes along with that because it's just the repetition. I hope that people are better equipped for sore throats this season, next season, or whenever you listen to it.
Bri Hurlburt 31:10
Thank you! This is always helpful information to have. I always enjoy these. Looking forward to practicing more!