How Soon Will I Notice a Response to My Remedy?
You may notice an immediate response from your homeopathic remedy, as in the following case.

Jody, age 6, came in because of left sided ear pain. She was so lethargic that she remained curled up in her mother's lap during the entire half hour interview. She was fair skinned with long blonde curly hair and blue eyes. Since she developed the ear pain, she was very weepy and wanted to be with her mom all of the time. It was a struggle to get her to drink anything. She was given Pulsatilla (wind flower) in the office. Within five minutes she was running around happily and said that her ear pain was gone. She looked like a normal, healthy child again.

Symptoms that you have had in the past may recur during the course of homeopathic treatment. This is called the return of old symptoms. Usually they will last for a few days, then recede. It is as though the body were remembering, then repairing, an old illness. Often these symptoms will not return again.

Homeopathic treatment is analogous to both peeling an onion and digging up weeds by the root. If you are trying to clear a blackberry patch to plant a garden, you need to eradicate the plants at the roots. Cutting back the vines is only a temporary solution. Homeopathy heals by finding and curing the roots of disease. As symptoms from the past appear, your homeopath will recognize a layer of illness as it comes to the surface to be healed, or a predisposition that needs to be eliminated. She will prescribe a remedy that matches the symptoms of the layer. This process continues until all the layers, even back to your childhood and your hereditary predispositions, have been removed. During this process, you may continue to need the same homeopathic medicine, or you may need different remedies, depending on your state of health.

Sunita, age 25, heard about homeopathy from a close friend whose hay fever had been cured. She suffered from chronic allergies and hoped that she could be helped, too. Because of her particular emotional state and allergy symptoms, she was given Nux vomica. This remedy made the allergy symptoms 80 percent better. Three months later, Sunita had a flareup of her eczema, which had been suppressed with cortisone cream since childhood. She had terrible itching and was awake all night scratching herself raw. She felt very hot in bed at night. These symptoms are characteristic of homeopathic Sulphur. After receiving Sulphur, Sunita had an aggravation of the eczema for two months. She had a strong belief in homeopathy and her homeopath assured her that the flareup of the eczema was necessary for her healing to be completed. Her eczema was 90% better and the improvement has continued.