My encounter with homeopathy.

I have been practicing homeopathy for the last 25 years. I am an allopath having a degree of MD and have been practicing homeopathy to make up for the shortcomings of our modern medicine.

I started my clinical practice in 1971 in Mumbai after completing my MBBS from Goa medical college. It was in a suburb of Mumbai called Bhandup . It was a crowded suburb with nearly 50 doctors spread over the area. Most of them did not have proper qualifications. But patients were unaware of this or it did not matter to them whether the doctor has a qualification or not. The practice started at 9 a m till 3 pm and then 6 pm to midnight. All the clinics were full of patients, many of them standing outside as there was limited space inside.

I landed in that area and soon realized that I was the only MBBS doctor in that area. The next day, a patient entered in my clinic. He was having fever and wanted me to give an injection so that he could get a quick relief. I tried to convince him that he does not need an injection. He needs rest and some symptomatic treatment. He was not convinced and went away.

My nature was to treat the patient in ethical way. I was also interested in alternative medicine and thought of getting familiar with homeopathy.  Soon the message spread around that I was not interested in giving injections and false certificates. As a result there were not many patients seen in my clinic and the people passing on the street were taking notice of this fact. All other clinics were flooded with patients. The value of a doctor in that area was decided by the crowd seen in the clinic at any given time. But I was not ready to change and adapt to the local trend.

I wanted to develop a family practice and treat the patient in a professional way. I started using homeopathy where our modern medicine was not really effective.

There was nobody to guide me, but I started reading Materia medica and give homeopathic medicines to the patients.

One day (1976) I myself developed a little swelling on my face which was looking red and oozing little fluid. This could have been tackled easily by using antibiotics and steroid cream. But I thought, this is the opportunity to learn homeopathy. The swelling was slowly increasing, and it was embarrassing to sit in the clinic and answer the questions asked by the concerned patients. I continued to experiment homeopathy on myself and one fine morning was looking like a Frankenstein. My wife forcibly dragged me to a dermatologist who put me on steroids and antibiotics. The problem resolved totally within a week.  I was severely criticized by my family and friends for my foolish attempt to explore homeopathy and experimenting on myself. They were justified because during the next week I got a convulsion during my sleep. I was taken to a neurologist the next morning who suspected that the infection from the face permeated into the brain resulting into a convulsion. I was put on anticonvulsants for the next three years.

As a result my confidence was shaken. I started going to the clinic but I used to feel sleepy due to the medications. As such the patients were not much due to the impressions I had created earlier. I developed a guilt feeling of experimenting on me and suffering the consequences. I kept remembering that episode of convulsion and there was a fear that I may get another episode of convulsion. Slowly I started getting panic attacks. This compelled me to stop my practice in the year 1976..

 What next? I got this set back at the beginning of my career and really did not know what to do, sitting at home. Luckily I got the opportunity to teach pharmacology and physiology at a pharmacy college located at Ulhasnagar (a suburb of Mumbai).

During that period I started getting attacks of migraine, for which there was no satisfactory treatment in modern medicine and I was scared to experiment homeopathy on self. I consulted a very senior homeopath Dr. S.R. Phatak who was related to my wife. He cured my migraine with just a single dose. Dr. Phatak was an MBBS doctor who later converted to a homeopath. Off course he had to struggle for many years to get the success and he became an authority in homeopathy. Homeopathic doctors used to refer their difficult cases to him   

I asked Dr. Phatak whether he could teach me homeopathy. He gladly agreed and asked me to come to his clinic once in a week. I used to sit by his side while he was taking the history from the patient sitting in front. He used to prescribe the remedy and later explain to me how he selected that remedy. This went on for 6 months. Based on this knowledge I started prescribing homeopathy to my friends and relatives, but I failed many times. I was disappointed and discouraged. I remembered Dr Phatak talking about his cases where he failed. It appeared that there are many factors in selecting the remedy and how much weightage to be given to each factor is a matter of judgment which will differ from one homeopath to another. This means homeopathy is more of an art than science. Also, I had stopped my practice at that time and hence there were no patients to practice homeopathy.

I stopped learning homeopathy and developed a negative opinion about it. I thought homeopathy is primitive, unscientific and outdated system. You get results only by chance. I started criticizing homeopathy and homeopaths.

Around this time (1980) I got my MD degree and joined a pharmaceutical company as Medical Director. This totally changed my life. The work schedule was hectic and challenging, which also involved extensive travel all over India. There was no time to think about homeopathy and I almost forgot it.

In 1991 I left pharma industry and started my clinical practice again. One day my daughter complained of headache whenever she was exposed to Sun. She could not avoid Sun exposure due to her job and there was no satisfactory treatment in our modern medicine. I remembered my past learning sessions with Dr Phatak  in which he had treated similar cases of headache with Natrum mur. I gave the same remedy to her and with a single dose her headache disappeared completely. 

This gave me a jolt.  From 1971 to 1991 I had this love and hate relationship with homeopathy. I paid a heavy price for it. But I felt I should have a fresh look at homeopathy.  It is different from modern medicine. It is a laborious, challenging and many times a frustrating experience, but you can get success if you apply your judgment wisely. It was in my nature to face and enjoy challenging situations. I decided to learn homeopathy seriously in spite of a failure from 1971 to 1991.

Gradually I developed expertise in homeopathy and today I am a successful homeopathic practitioner.

In homeopathy, disease is considered as a delusion (false perception of reality) and it is cured when you become aware that it was a delusion. Awareness removes delusion just as light removes darkness.  In 1976, I thought homeopathy was a primitive, outdated and unscientific system of medicine. That was my delusion which was removed by gaining knowledge of it over the years.