A fun little story of from a child.
My daughter was about 5 years old when she was having a sleep over. That night her stomach started bothering her. She went to the mom and said, “My stomach hurts, it is a stabbing pain right here (she points) and hurts like a 7 out of 10!” The mom expressed complete bafflement when she called me. This was a homeopath’s daughter who was trained from the start how to report her distresses.
Homeopathy is a wonderfully holistic modality for managing the signs and symptoms of dis-ease. Because it is based on the very specific expression of each individual, homeopathic assessment is a bit different than you may be used to. A medical diagnosis is of interest and provides part of the necessary information. However what is even more valuable is how the complaint affects the person having it. Here is but a partial checklist for reporting to your homeopath:
Pain: ST. MELS – Side, Time, Modality, Extension, Location, Specific
What part is affected?
Is it one side only or is one side affected more than the other? Does the ailment travel? From where to where? Or might it extend from one area to any other?
Quality/or description of the pain? EX: Sharp, dull, burning, stinging, digging, electric-like, tingling, throbbing, or anything else you can describe. This is often a hard question so you might ask yourself, what would someone DO to me to create pain or sensation like this? Would they punch me, burn, push, stick with a pin, stab with a knife, etc.?
What makes it better or worse in addition to medications or pain relievers etc? For example:
POSITION or activity - like bending, lying, rising, climbing, turning or twisting and anything related that you can identify.
TIME – of day, of night, of the week, month year or when I am ______ fill in the blank with … hungry, sad, sleepy, thirsty, worried, overwhelmed or busy,etc.,
then my symptom is affected like this.
WEATHER – cold, hot, humid, cry, approach of or during storms, season or etc.
TEMPERATURE – Does your body temperature have an effect; temperature of applications (like hot shower or ice pack); do you have a fever?
Concomitant is when an ailment or pain comes together with another seemingly different or unrelated place or emotion; for example: When I urinate my headache is relieved.
And sometimes the most useful information comes from something we would not even connect with the distress. Even if it is illogical, you think the complaint is related to [fill in your own thinking...]. What set it off or what happened in the day or two before? For chronic ailments, the event could have been days, weeks or months just before. It might be an injury but it can also be an event or even a thought or an emotion.
Depending on the many possible responses, the homeopath will likely ask another series of related questions to really narrow the individualization process.