Support for Weaning off of an Antidepressant
This might feel like a strange topic to bring up during a pandemic—shouldn’t we actually all be getting onto an antidepressant medication right now because of all of the hardship and worry that is happening in the world? The answer is, no, not as a first resort. We can learn from this time. We are being asked to understand ourselves in new ways and not just go back to the way things were, once outside circumstances make that possible. We are changing, and change can be very good. Consider it a kind of healing crisis.
Conventional antidepressants do have their role. They stabilize our nervous system and our emotional life and they can wonderful, life-saving medicines in the right situation. I prescribe them when needed and appreciate their support, but reserve them for when life is truly too overwhelming and there just needs to be some quiet pause….
Onions for Earaches
Every so often you encounter something that is so simple and effective, that you wonder why you didn't know about it before, and why doesn't someone put it in a “handbook” for life. One of the things that should most certainly be in that handbook, at least in the category of home treatments for common illness, is the use of an onion compress for an earache. Yes, it will make you or your child smell like onions, and it sounds ridiculously simple, but in the middle of the night it can really be your friend.
What is an anthroposophic medicine and how is it chosen?
The medicines that are used in anthroposophic medicine (also often referred to as “remedies”) come from the natural world. Most are prepared from plants and minerals, a select few from the animal world, with very special attention given to the purity and quality of the substances. While most conventional pharmaceutical drugs are made synthetically, usually from petroleum, anthroposophic medicines are sourced from nature, and handled thoughtfully and carefully to protect the living qualities of the substance. This is important, because the chemical composition of a substance is an important “footprint” of the particular plant, but it is not the whole thing. In a way it is at most a marker of what happens when the process of a plant comes to rest. There is a chemical pattern which is representative of a process, but it is not the whole process. Anthroposophic medicines are trying to incorporate the whole process of a mineral, plant, or animal.