Building your remedy stores

Getting remedies is difficult if you live in East Asia (except Australia and New Zealand). Since I began homeopathy in 2002, India has been my primary source of remedies. Since COVID, because the Indian government is blocking pharmacies from sending remedies abroad, I can no longer depend on Indian pharmacies. India was a cheap source of all kinds of cheap drugs, so no doubt the pharmaceutical industries have blocked that mar competition. Even my Indian homeopath friends worry that they will be stopped at Indian customs officials find many bottles of remedies in their baggage.

I have bought all my remedies to my small apartment in Japan and keep them in small plastic bags. To make my travel kit, I buy high-proof liquor to make remedies from homeopathic pharmacy-made pellets. I buy small food-grade zip-lock bags. The US FDA requires food-grade bags to be made from what they call “virgin” plastic. That is, they are not recycled plastic. 

I even reproduce my remedies in these bags.

How to reproduce remedies:

• Fill a small plastic bag or bottle with blank pellets. Any form of sugar is addequate. For example, sugar crystals will work very well.

• Add high-proof vodka or, in the US, Everclear to the bag. (Everclear is drinking alcohol used to make cheap punch). I could even buy high-proof alcohol in Japan.

• Put 1-2 pellets of a remedy in the bag of blank pellets and alcohol.

• Dry the bags far from each other.

Question: Why do I avoid smelling the alcohol fumes from the bags and why do I avoid drying them close to one another? 

Facts: One method of giving remedies to a person in a coma, a pet or baby is to pass the remedy in alcohol close to the patient’s nose. By smelling the remedy, the patient will feel the affects of the remedy. I am sensitive, so when I duplicate remedies this way, I feel the remedy. It is a way to learn about the remedy. So, I make only one remedy at a time and observe my reactions in order to learn about the remedy.

Question: Order remedies from where?

Even if you can duplicate remedies, you need the first remedies from the pharmacy. Of course, you can make your remedies from scratch if you have the source materials and the time to spend 3 hours grinding sugar into a mortar and then diluting it to the number of the dose. That is a lot of effort. Most of us want to order our remedies from a pharmacy.

At 5.50 pounds per bottle plus 15 pounds for postage, I order remedies from England. British pharmacies are very reliable. Also, I order remedies from New Zealand. I have never tried Australia, but I order many unusual remedies, so Helios is my usual source.

Recently, Banerjea has begun exporting remedies from India. Go to the site of his family’s school. The exchange rates keep changing, potencies keep changing.

Once I have ordered remedies, storing them in a dry, cool place is essential. Because of space limitations, I make a small bag for each remedy and put away the bottles. Because plastic bags are cheap, I put bottles in small bags in alphabetical order. I also keep a spreadsheet record of my remedy inventory. All of my remedies are numbered by the first two alphabetical letters of the remedy name and a four digit set of numbers. I leave numbers in between bottles so new remedies can be easily added later. 

Question: Should we hoard remedies?

I am superstitious. I find that if I know a rare remedy and have it, the patient who needs it comes to my clinic. Hoarding remedies does not cause the patient to come to me. Knowledge of how to use that remedy calls the patient. So, I need to know the characteristics of all my remedies. Better yet, I need to know where to find the information. 

Remembering remedies one at a time does not work for my elderly brain. I like systems for remembering remedies. I learn the systems of other homeopaths such as Jan Sholten, Peter Tuminello, Misha Norland, Rajan Sankaran, or even Boenninghausen’s Concordances (find it in the back of the Boenninghausen Pocketbook). Systems increase my ease in finding remedies. Of course, I use a repertory. 

Question: Which remedies should beginners collect?  

My two cents: I would give priority to remedies in the Boenninghausen repertory plus a few more commonly used remedies. I have a collection of recommended remedies on a spreadsheet for beginners. I would start there. 

If you are a true beginner and do not know if you want to even use homeopathy, then buy a ready-made box of remedies. 30c are the most common. 

Question: Why does Ellen collect odd remedies?

My habit: When I am learning a new method, usually remedies that I do not know are recommended. To try out the teacher, I buy some remedies that he recommends to find out for myself if they work the way I am told they will work. If I get a number of successful cases, then my confidence in the teacher rises.

Also, if I have one representative of one remedy, I can try it on a patient and then order more if I need them. I can reproduce remedies electronically with a machine such as the Sulis, but the pharmacy-produced remedy is better. Duplication from a real remedy is a more exact reproduction of the original remedy and the remedy lasts longer. Ideally, even alcohol reproduced remedies should last a lifetime. Because I live in a place where it takes weeks for remedies to arrive, I sometimes use a machine. If I have one potency, I can easily make another potency. I would much rather have the pharmacy-made remedy.

Question: One pellet equals how many remedies?

If you put one pellet in a small bottle and add high-proof alcohol, it takes a drop or two of alcohol to make a bag containing 50 blank pellets. I get only 10 pellets from one pharmacy (Stellar's beginner kit), so I will put one pellet in a bag/bottle and store it with my everyday use bags of pellets. I will put the other pellets in storage. When I need that remedy, I will add alcohol to the bag/bottle and make more remedies. I will place commonly used pellets in a small covered bottle, such as a remedy to detox antibiotics. When I need more antibiotic detox pellets, I will make more from that alcohol. If the alcohol dries up, I will add more alcohol to the bottle and the dilution for the next set of remedies can be easily copied. I do not need to add another pellet because the remedy already energizes the glass of the bottle. If I have another pellet, of course, I will add a fresh pellet. But, energy from glass works too. (If I want to clean off that energy, I need to boil the bottle for 30 minutes. Sugar, water, alcohol and glass are the carriers of remedy energy.)