CONTENTS
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Title
Introduction
1 Stress
2 What Is Homoeopathy?
3 Mind States
4 Homoeopatic Materia Medica
5 How To Find The Correct Remedy
6 Repertory
7 Our Daily Food
8 Positive Thought
Useful Addresses
Books for Further Reading
Copyright
When I finished my previous book I decided that was it – no more – and I felt quite a sense of relief. After all, the ear, nose and throat are not parts of the body to get very excited about although they do give a lot of trouble.
My desk looked tidier than it had done for months and the odd bits of paper had been cleared away, pens and pencils put into place.
And then two things happened!
I met a dear person who asked me to help her stop taking Diazepam, one of the tranquillising drugs. Her husband had died 6 years ago and like many other people in the same circumstances, she said “I went to pieces”. She saw her local doctor who was quite sympathetic in the short time he could spare to talk to her, and said she needed Diazepam. “Oh no, I don’t want to take drugs” was her immediate response, but the doctor quickly tried to brush away her fears by saying, as he was writing out the prescription, “you have nothing to worry about, you don’t have to see me more than once a year; when you need more tablets you can get a prescription from the surgery!”
The dose was 6 tablets daily. She had, however, reduced it to 4 but still had to take an extra one if she was anxious or worried about anything. This was after 6 years.
A day or two later a friend (and colleague) telephoned and in the course of conversation said “You’ll never believe something that a patient told me this morning”. She went on to relate how a new patient had made up her mind to have homoeopathic treatment because she was in a great state of anxiety and when she went to the doctor for help he prescribed Diazepam. “But I don’t want to take drugs” said this patient. “I’ve heard dreadful things about them and about the side effects that they can produce.” “Now” replied the doctor, “just think for a moment. If you suffered from diabetes you would have to take insulin, so I am giving you a tranquilliser.” With that he handed her the prescription and that was the end of the conversation.
I cannot imagine the feelings of this poor woman but she was very grateful to sit quietly and give all her details to a caring homoeopath. I am sure she is now on the road to cure.
I couldn’t forget these two happenings and my mind started to work in the direction of helping people to find another way of dealing with anxieties, grief, stress and the many conditions for which tranquillising drugs are prescribed automatically.
The Observer newspaper of the 17th December 1989 printed an article entitled “Drug firms face trial over pill addiction” by Annabel Ferriman and Tim Miles. It stated that writs are about to be served on the drug company giants Roche and Wyeth on behalf of some 2000 tranquilliser addicts. It also states that dozens of doctors who prescribed the drugs are also expected to face legal action.
The article goes on to say lawyers have been preparing the case for almost two years. They are expected to allege that the above mentioned companies failed to warn patients of the addictive nature of their products, in particular Valium and Ativan.
One complication is that people have switched from one brand of tranquilliser to another and after Valium and other branded drugs lost their patent protection people sometimes changed to the cheaper generic versions which are Diazepam and Chlordiazepoxide. The tendency to change was increased after the Department of Health banned the prescribing of Valium and Librium by name when it introduced a limited list of prescribable drugs in 1985, according to the article. The Department issued two warnings about the addictive nature of tranquillisers in 1980 and 1988 urging that they should be prescribed for shorter periods and fewer conditions!
There is little doubt that addiction to the tranquillising drugs has caused concern among some sufferers and it is hoped that this book will bring new hope and enable many to obtain relief by means of remedies that deal with the cause of the trouble and thus eliminate the need for drug therapy.
Another article in the Daily Telegraph (of 3rd January 1990) is headed “Tranquilliser Aid Agency to Close.” It states that the leading agency Tranx UK., based at Wealdstone, North London, offering aid to people hooked on tranquillisers is to close later this month although it has a record number of inquiries from addicts who are desperate for help.
It has an established nationwide reputation, says the article, and has helped more than 86,000 people during the past 7 years but has now run out of money and cannot find another sponsor.
The article goes on to say “The Department of Health which provided the initial finance, says its money was a one-off grant and N.W. Thames Health Authority which took over the funding along with other groups, says it can no longer finance a national organisation.”
The correspondent continues “Miss Joan Jerome, who founded Tranx after being hooked on Valium and Mogadon said the prospect of closure was a ‘terrific blow’. We receive 2,000 inquiries a month and have proved there is a vital need for the work we do. If we close now, we are cutting these people loose with no specialist help to turn to. Many of our clients could be driven to suicide.”
This article helps to highlight the enormous size of the tranquilliser problem and it goes on to say that a Labour M.P. has contacted the Health Secretary to try and avert the agencies closure.
It seems ludicrous that doctors are allowed to prescribe drugs in this group, when so many patients appear to suffer far more from their side-effects than from the symptoms which took them to the G.P. for treatment in the first place.
Find real health of mind and you will have gone a long way towards finding health of body also.
Norman Vincent Peale
Stress is probably the most common “disease” there is. It is with us all the time. It crops up in nearly everything we do; we see it in situations on television; we read about it in the newspapers. It is not surprising that a distinguished Canadian physician has advanced the theory that “stress is an active agent in most diseases”.
The interesting thing about stress is the way we react to it. That is the important part.
Out of stress arises anger, tension, anxiety, fear, apprehension, insomnia, and other emotions, the list is a long one. We get tense when doing things, the area round the back of the neck and across the shoulders often taking the brunt. We become impatient with people and with ourselves; we become hurried, feeling that everything must be done in a rush, and so on. The end product is a very jaded system with many varied symptoms.
I was horrified to see an example of this not long ago when driving through our little town. We stopped at traffic lights and I could see a woman in the car behind us was in a state of agitation. Her hands were fidgeting, she was looking first in one direction, then in another, she was talking to herself which, of course, I couldn’t hear. The lights changed and we drove off. At the top of the town the lights were red again and this time we pulled up alongside each other. We were at the cross-roads. She was going straight ahead and we were waiting to turn right. This woman was still talking to herself (swearing perhaps), tapping on the steering wheel, sighing and looked extremely het up. When the lights changed she shot across the road at high speed and was out of sight before we had turned the corner. I hope she never has an accident because other people might get hurt but I doubt very much whether she will escape a breakdown or physical illness if she repeats that performance of showing so much nervous tension (stress) too often.
The stupid part of that kind of behaviour which is not uncommon these days, is that it can only be harmful and cause more un-ease and stress.
Did you know that eating too much sugar can cause stress? I remember seeing a patient many years ago who was in a terrible state of anxiety. She always felt tired, had no energy yet she felt she had to rush to get things done which, of course, made matters worse.
When taking the case history I questioned her about her diet and after some pressure she admitted to taking lots of sugar every day – in fact her weekly intake was two pounds! She didn’t need homoeopathic medicine but an adjustment in her diet and by cutting to the minimum sugar and sweet things she improved. After a month she was a different person and enjoying life with lots of energy.
Smoking is not good for us. It lowers the body’s resistance and after a while many smokers develop a nasty cough. Substituting a cup of tea and a cigarette for a good meal not only becomes a bad habit but vital vitamins and minerals are leeched from the system and symptoms of stress get worse. So what happens when we take any drug that sedates or tranquillises the many aspects of stress?
The administration of these drugs makes us less able to cope with stresses that surround us by dulling our senses and filling our heads with cotton wool.
Remember that one of the reasons for writing this book was meeting the woman who had been taking Diazepam for the last 6 years following the death of her husband.
When I met her she had reduced the dose from 6 tablets to 4 but often had to take an extra dose, and I realized why. She was full of nervous movements, her hands always fidgeting; she smoked a lot, talked a great deal, was upset easily, fearing that she had said “the wrong thing” or should have done something different. Tears came easily but she was quickly comforted.
Here we have a patient full of anxiety, tension and fear (all parts of stress) and yet she had been taking the same drug for 6 years. Surely these were some of the symptoms that prompted the doctor to prescribe this drug in the first place?
From this we have to draw the conclusion that tranquillisers do nothing to cure the patient. Symptoms are suppressed and if events seem to get too much to cope with another dose is taken and life becomes just that bit more bearable again.