Bach remedies
Comments(27)
Last year I was working in a friend’s house when her husband suddenly rushed past me, opened a kitchen drawer and grabbed some Bach Remedies. He applied several drops of each under his tongue and as he flashed past my step ladder he explained.
“Difficult conference call coming up.”
This was a top businessman. A normal guy. I was amazed.
Years ago I spotted Bach remedies in Health Food shops. I loved the complete set of them, sitting in rows in a pretty mahogany case. I wanted to believe that they were effective. Occasionally I have bought them and expected miracles. We had an unopened phial of Rescue Remedy sitting in our kitchen cupboard for so long that the rubber squeezy top hardened and cracked. The arnica cream is in our bathroom cabinet and has the thumbs up for years. I was unsure about the effectiveness of the other remedies.
I like a challenge and generally accept most that come my way as long as the challenge date is far, far away. About two weeks before appearing on Britain’s Best Dish I began to have sleepless nights. Niggling nervousness quickly developed into Cold White Fear. How was I going to cope with being in the studio, let alone cook?
I thought the nerves would pass. They didn’t. In desperation I rang my pal for their recommended Bach remedy formula. By this stage I would have ingested an armadillo if it might help.
“You need Mimulus and Larch. Squeeze the rubber tops and put a pipette of each into a small bottle of mineral water and sip it all day. If you are in crisis apply a few drops under the tongue initially.”
Jalopy and I shot down to Newmarket and headed for Boot’s. I bought a new bottle of Rescue Remedy as well. In the car park I opened the bottles and applied under the tongue. By the time Jalopy was reversing into the drive I was calm. I was stunned.
All was well on the day of the filming until my bottle of doctored mineral water was suddenly whisked away and replaced with a glass of water. There was a shriek from me.
“We cannot be seen to be promoting a brand of water.”
My mineral water bottle was hidden behind the screens in the area where we were allowed to venture and relax during filming!
Apparently it is unwise to mix more than seven Bach remedies together. Rescue Remedy has a combination of five and the other two make up the magic number. This mixture works brilliantly for me. The little phials live in Jalopy’s glove compartment ready for action.
Update:
You can buy Bach remedies online
Thank you for your comments. And a bit of silly bath time fun with the Frothing Sea Monster trick!
Cutting energy costs
Recipe for sausages baked with herby garlic infused beans, bacon and tomato
Tracing some of my ancestors has taken me on a long journey
Recipe for lamb shanks braised in red wine with shallots: slow cooker/crockpot
The cupboard was bare – so what was The Contessa going to eat last night?
HG
The effects of placebos should not be underestimated, but then again one should not attribute anything otherwise magical about these snake oil remedies. See here:
http://www.badscience.net/2007/11/a-kind-of-magic/
You’re right, these remedies are extraordinary. Rescue Remedy is a fantastic all-rounder to keep handy for times when you feel particularly ruffled. The Flower Remedies operate on similar principles to homeopathy; prescribed well, homeopathic pills work wonders too, especially on animals and children. Saves on vets’ bills(referring only to the animals, of course!) – one day I’ll tell you the miraculous stories of the cat and the parrot…
i found bachs rescue remedy really worked especially as i’d suffered from anxiety so bad that i would have panic attacks as soon as i stepped out of the house and was on prescribed medication for this. but not anymore! have also used it on my cat when we moved house and the difference in her mood was very noticable.
I’ve never used it but will grab a bottle of rescue remedy the next time I see some. Very intrigued by Katherine’s tail of the cat and the parrot, can she please share it with all?
Okay Amanda, here goes! These are stories about homoepathy, not Bach Flower remedies. First, the story of the cat: I gave an introductory lunchtime talk about homoepathy to some sceptical ladies a few years ago. It was held at a friend’s house. She owned a somewhat feral cat that usually roamed outdoors during the day, but that lunchtime it just sat very still on a cushion in the centre of the room, only his eyes moving to survey all the bemused ladies around him. My friend explained that since the morning before, Caspar had sat without moving on the cushion. Not even a dish of food waved under his nose persuaded him to budge. He was normally a cat of regular habits; he’d wolf down his breakfast and head straight out of the catflap into the garden for the rest of the day, but that day he wasn’t interested in his food, even when she waved it under his nose. There is a remedy, Gelsemium, which is known as the ‘glass coffin’ remedy; the patient is mentally alert but unable to move and is off their food. It is a common remedy for colds and flu. In the UK, only qualified vets are allowed to prescribe for animals – as a homeopath qualified only to treat humans, I could only suggest to my friend that if I were her, I would give Caspar a dose of Gelsemium. She asked me to administer him a dose. I had my basic remedy kit with me to show the ladies for my talk, and from the Gelsemium bottle I took a pill and popped one into his mouth while everybody looked on. His response was so quick that the ladies gasped – within two minutes he got up, went to the kitchen, ate his food, and headed out to the garden and was last seen dashing into the bushes after some poor birds. I gained a patient that day from amongst the sceptical ladies, a psoriasis patient who visited me four times. Her psoriasis disappeared and never came back.
As for the parrot – cockatiel, to be precise – she belonged to me. One day I noticed a growth on her back. It had come up very quickly, so I suspected an abcess. I took her to the vet who aspirated it and confirmed my thoughts that it was likely to be benign, but that if it continued to grow it would begin to affect her nerves and as a result, her flight and gait. It did continue to grow, and by the next morning it was pitiful to see her – she couldn’t perch any more and had trouble staying upright. I rang the vet, who said that he could surgically remove it but in such a small bird there would be a risk during surgery. I told him I was a homeopath and might it be worth a try? He was tremendously encouraging, saying he had seen many a case cured with it, and that I should give it a go, which I did. It was easy to give her the remedy – she liked to nibble at little things, and holding it near her beak with the pill on the palm of my hand, she played around with it a bit. The remedy is coated on the surface of the sugar pill, so as soon as I felt she’d taken enough of that in, I watched and waited. Well, I was blown away to find that by the next day the lump had shrunk to half its size, and by the end of the week it was gone. I reported this happy fact to the vet! She lived many more years after that and died at 17 years of age, long after the average life expectancy of these birds.
Dairy farmers swear by it as a cure for mastitis. Vets prescribe it instead of antibiotics – a much cheaper cure – and is less disruptive for milk production.
Stories such as these, where animals are cured, might go some way to confound the placebo theory. I have also treated small infants with success. There’s no doubt that in adult humans, placebo may play a part but there is no way that therapy like this could have continued for two hundred years without some results. The Royal Family have used it since Queen Victoria’s time and are great advocates of this medicine (not that I am a Royalist, particularly, but does the Queen strike you as a crank?)
There is a backlash against the homeopathic community for many reasons too complicated to go into here. But I myself was persuaded to give up my career to train as a homoepath after conditions conventional medics told me I would “just have to live with” were cured by it and never returned. Sadly, I’ve had to return to a more conventional job, as seeing patients only once every two months, and having them get better and not have to come back, doesn’t make for a good income. I can no longer afford to practice here in Central London. I should state here that there are many underqualified homeopaths out there, and some of them a little too airy-fairy about their approach, but the therapy itself, in my view, is sound. Treating adults is hard, as they’ve often built up chronic conditions over many years, but children and animals react tremendously well to it.
Yes, homeopathy doesn’t add up scientifically. But it has been observed, many times, to have affected cures. There have been some randomised control trials of homoepathic remedies reported in The Lancet where there was significant positive result. I should add here that I did study pathology, organic chemistry, anatomy and physiology alongside homeopathy for my second degree, a BSc in Health Sciences at Westminster. My first was at Cambridge, perhaps not a guarantee for much, but hope I can dissuade the doubters that I do have some sort of brain in my head! I apologise if this comment’s become a little po-faced, having started off with jolly tale-telling. Perhaps it’s a reaction following Tufty’s mention of “snake oil remedies”! I wonder if Tufty has ever tried it for him/herself, and if not, what he/she is basing his/her judgement on?
The Rescue Remedy also comes in ‘pastille’ form, very handy!
Katherine, I just wanted to say I found your comments very enlightening and sensible. Thanks!
Rescue remedy is also used to help dogs calm down in stressful situations. I have a bottle in the cupboard that I tried on my Min Pins Berry & Basil, but did not have good results, I think because I added it to their water dish, it was probably too dilute. Berry and I are getting ready to enter an obedience competition; I think I will try a few drops under each of our tongues to see if it helps with our stress at the dog show!
Here is a link to a Rescue Remedy Brochure for pets: http://www.bachfloweressences.co.uk/pdf/leaflets/animal.pdf
Hi Tufty
I was on a conventional medication until researchers discovered that it was highly dangerous. Five years later.
Like most of the rest of the world, I reckon there is no point in ranting or making disparaging comments. I chose to take the medication. If I get ill, I always seek conventonal medical advice.
However, there is every point in sharing what worked for me, in this instance. Alternative medicine can have great results. Have you read Stevie Smith’s ‘The Weak Monk’? It changed my life. I read it 34 years ago.
Thanks for leaving a comment.
Hi Katherine,
Thanks for dropping by. I have been prescribed homeopathic remedies that didn’t work for me and than I was lucky to meet Miranda Castro and the remedies worked!
I also believe that the Bach flower remedies are a powerful resource.
Loads of flower and herb extracts are used in conventional medicine.
Hi Emma,
Absolutely spot on. I have found the same!
I have also used rescue remedy on a dog in shock. It worked well.
Thanks for leaving a comment.
Hi Amanda,
A small bottle of rescue remedy is a great investment! Most country homes around here have a bottle along with the arnica pills and cream.
What does it say about life in the depths of the country?!
Hi Katherine,
What an amazing and instructional comment! Thank you.
I admire you for talking to groups of people about the value of homeopathic medicine.
I am convinced that we generally are unaware about the depth of our (largely forgotten) powers.
Hi Mildred,
Yes, the pastilles are handy!
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for the link. Very useful.
I reckon that the Rescue Remedy has to be applied directly, under the tongue.
The best of luck at the dog show!
All I can say in reply is that I recommend reading the piece I left a link to. It is a very well reasoned (not ranting) article about why placebos (including homeopathic remedies, Bach flower remedies and the like) can work, but why the reason they work has nothing to do with what is actually in them.
Rescue Remedy is great stuff; I used to take it before driving lessons to calm me down. I did a lot of commercial research into the efficacy of herbal remedies in a former job – I’m not going to make claims for the medicinal qualities of Bach remedies, but as a user I certainly feel like they make a difference, placebo or not.
I think you’re right Fiona. I certainly look at the children and think they are far more wise and in touch than most adults I know.
Thank you Katherine, It’s all very interesting. I think I’m a very open person to anything which isn’t thought of as ‘normal’ – though I used to be a little sceptical about homeopathic medicine. That changed when my first child got bronchiolitis at 3 months old. He went on to become asthmatic and having watched him lying in hospital beds hooked up to ventilators to help him breathe several times, a few very frightening ambulance call outs, and then what seemed like the never ending steroids he took. It led us to take the homeopathic route and after a couple of months we were able to stop the steroids. He is now free of asthma, much younger and sooner than we were advised.
Thanks again. Loved the stories about the cat and the cockatiel.
Sorry we hi-jacked your comments there Fiona.
Amanda xx
Hi Tufty,
Thanks for dropping by. I will read The Guardian article at the weekend when I have a bit more time.
I have found that some Bach and Homeopathic remedies work for me and will continue to take them.
Hi Emma,
How interesting that you have researched the efficacy of alternative remedies and continue to take Rescue Remedy in stressful situations.
Thanks for leaving a comment.
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for sharing your son’s experience. Asthma can kill so it must have been frightening when your son developed this condition.
I am so pleased that the homeopathic remedies worked for him!
Nether you or Katherine have hijacked the comments. I found both your experiences fascinating.
Hi Catherine ,
The cat got GELSENIUM but please say us what remedy did you give your parrot ?
Here is an excellent article against Homeopathy (Clear, focussed and to the point)
..but I still trust my own experience and would always try Homeopathy first of all !
http://www.badscience.net/2007/11/a-kind-of-magic/
Oh I ment Gelsemium sempervirens
Hi Eugenia,
I gave my cockatiel Calcarea Carbonica, a dose of 6c. I based this on my observation that she was very chilly (normally she was always like a little radiator), sluggish, off her food. The growth was quite hard and felt bony; bony growths are part of the Calc Carb remedy picture.
I’ll have a look at the article you suggest, as well as the one Tufty mentions!
“Dairy farmers swear by it as a cure for mastitis. Vets prescribe it instead of antibiotics – a much cheaper cure – and is less disruptive for milk production.”
Homeopathic vets might prescribe it. It does not work and this has been fairly well documented now. The entire veterinary literature that claims to show the success of homeopathic remedies consists of uncontrolled case reports. As soon as the effects of spontaneous recovery and wishful-thinking by vet and owner are removed, by the usual methods of swapping some of the ‘real’ pills for ‘blanks’ and looking for a difference NONE IS FOUND.
The claim that homeopathy ‘must’ work because it works in animals is just untrue.
Let’s look at your amazing cat story. Cat sits still for a little while. Human pokes cat. Cat gets fed up has a bite to eat and goes out. A cat given a Gelesmium ‘remedy’ that went and ate afterwards proves precisely nothing. The fundamental mistake you make is that you kid yourself into thinking that you ‘know’ what would have happened if you hadn’t intervened, or heaven- forfend, if your remedies did not work. However, we humans are not blessed with such godlike insight and we do not know what would have happened in any single circumstance if we had acted differently or not acted at all.
Hey, if you see enough medicine you see all sorts of things happen just by coincidence. What the responsible physician does is not allow themselves to be swayed by this. What the homeopath does is round up such coincidental anecdotes and falsely generalise from them (for fun and profit).
Hello All,
Wow.
What we have here are two tribes. The pro alternative remedy tribe and the anti alternative remedy tribe. These tribes will clearly never resolve their differences.
Back in the 1980′s I knew a medical doctor who also was a homeopathic practitioner. He believed that both approaches to healing were valid.
Alternative remedies sometimes work for me and sometimes they don’t. I don’t need proof that they work before I try them.
Healing is a broad and fascinating arena. The conventional medical practitioners are just a part of that arena.
Hi Catherine ,
I shall take a look in William Boericke/ Materia Medica about Calcarea Carbonica.
Thank you for the Answer !
Yes read this Article please – It is very interesting indeed!
Fn wrote :
“Alternative remedies sometimes work for me and sometimes they don’t. I don’t need proof that they work before I try them.”
Placebo effects, self-limiting conditions,
all exist, people do get better from the minor ails that beset them without any medication. I doubt if Bach Remedies have any positive thereputic value in themselves.
“Last year I was working in a friend’s house when her husband suddenly rushed past me, opened a kitchen drawer and grabbed some Bach Remedies. He applied several drops of each under his tongue and as he flashed past my step ladder he explained.
“Difficult conference call coming up.â€
That guy has got a problem, imagine how you would feel if he were relying on a slug out of gin bottle or a snort of cocaigne before taking that conference call. If he can’t handle his job without resorting to drugs, he should be looking for another job.
Ray
Hi Ray,
There is an internet site http://www.badscience.net that you might be interested in. I have had 128 visits from that site to date since I put up this post. They seem to be very active in promoting conventional medicine and practices.
Hi FN
Thanks for the link to the badscience article. I found the article very interesting, though they did not seem to be promoting conventional medicine, as you put it. The author seemed to address the lack of evidence for the efficacy of homoeopathy, and if anything promoted rational thinking generally.
You say on 24 November that there is a ‘pro alternative remedy tribe and the anti alternative remedy tribe’, but I think this is generally wrong, and shows the major flaw in the way you think about the issue. I would be happy to use any ‘type’ of medicine, if it could be shown reliably to work. The only types of medicine should be those that work, and those that don’t. Those that don’t should not be promoted or sold.
You seem to suggest in your post on 26 November, and other posters on this site seem to like to believe there is a conspiracy against ‘alternative’ medicines, but if these medicines worked, why would the conventional medical companies, governments, doctors and whoever else is included in this conspiracy need or want to conspire against them? What would be to stop GlaxoSmithKline or whoever from marketing their own homoeopathic remedies and making even more money than they already do, if any of it worked?
The difficulty with a statement like “the only types of medicine should be those that work, and those that don’t. Those that don’t should not be promoted or sold” (Ethan, above) is that all people are not the same. If they were, there would be one drug for hypertension, one for excess acid, etc. The fact that homeopathic treatments are not sold as drugs per se doesn’t mean that they don’t work, just that, as a complex and often variable blend of natural plant compounds they are in a different league to the pure, single-compound treatments which are licensed and sold as conventional therapies. It’s also wrong to assume that major drug manufacturers are anti alternative therapies; much of the research in to novel drugs is based on active compounds derived from plants. In Britain, the homeopathic/alternative therapy usage is small enough to distinctly not pose a threat to conventional therapies – the situation is different in China where traditional medicine is still widely used.
I believe (and I say this with my ex-drug discovery head on here) that some herbal remedies do work, depending on the individual, the formulation, the time of year that the plant(s) were grown and the growth conditions, and the age of the preparation. Unfortunately, all of these factors are complex and interdependent.
Hi Emma
I would really recommend reading the badscience article. Your post of 28 November makes a number of serious mistakes.
I didn’t say that the reason homeopathic treatments don’t work has anything to do with whether they are sold as drugs or not, and I don’t see how anyone could think that I did (or how such an assertion would make sense). The reason homeopathic treatments don’t work is because there is no mechanism by which they could work, and the evidence we have for this is all of the serious, fair, objective trials done on homeopathy.
It is surprising that you are speaking in defence of homeopathy when you don’t seem to understand what homeopathy actually is. You say ‘as a complex and often variable blend of natural plant compounds they are in a different league to the pure, single-compound treatments which are licensed and sold as conventional therapies’. Homeopathic ‘treatments’ are not compounds. They are diluted to such a degree there is literally not a single molecule of the original substance in them – they are water. Nothing else.
To quote from the article: ‘a 30C homeopathic preparation is a dilution of 1 in 100^30, or rather 1 in 10^60, which means a 1 followed by 60 zeroes, or – let’s be absolutely clear – a dilution of 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000.
To phrase that in the Society of Homeopaths’ terms, we should say: “30C contains less than one part per million million million million million million million million million million of the original substance.â€
At a homeopathic dilution of 100C, which they sell routinely, and which homeopaths claim is even more powerful than 30C, the treating substance is diluted by more than the total number of atoms in the universe.’
You confuse homeopathy with herbalism. They are two totally different things. Many homeopathic ‘treatments’ are not ultimately derived from herbs at all. From Wikipedia: ‘a common homeopathic treatment for the flu is a 200C dilution of duck liver, called Oscillococcinum in homeopathy’… ‘Homeopathy uses many animal, plant, mineral, and synthetic substances in its remedies. Examples include Natrum muriaticum (sodium chloride or table salt), Lachesis muta (the venom of the bushmaster snake), Opium, and Thyroidinum (thyroid hormone). Homeopaths also use treatments called nosodes (from the Greek nosos, disease) made from diseased or pathological products such as fecal, urinary, and respiratory discharges, blood, and tissue’
You then say ‘It’s also wrong to assume that major drug manufacturers are anti alternative therapies’. This is obvious, and I doubt anyone is so ignorant they are not aware of it. I’m sure most people know aspirin is derived from willow bark, and numerous widely used and known conventional drugs are directly derived from other plants – warfarin, ephedrine, digoxine, and many others.
Then you state: ‘In Britain, the homeopathic/alternative therapy usage is small enough to distinctly not pose a threat to conventional therapies’. Re-read what I originally wrote. This is exactly what I was asking for an explanation of. How could any therapy which works POSE A THREAT, as you put it, to companies manufacturing treatments? What would be to stop Pfizer, Novartis or whoever else from also manufacturing the homeopathic ‘remedy’ themselves?
One last general point: you say that the problem with identifying medicines which work ‘is that all people are not the same’. So how do mass-manufactured homeopathic ‘remedies’ solve this problem? Not only do they contain nothing but water, but they’re not individualised any more than conventional medicine.
I have used Bach Flower Remedies for 10 years.I met a lady at Whole Foods who had just lost her Mother to death and was going thru a lot of stress dealing with her estate and finances and funeral. She said it helped her to be calm and to focus. She was primarily using the “Rescue Remedy”.She discovered them thru a lady that was recovering from a bad car accident.
Bach Remedies is and will always be a part of my life.
I have dozens of stories.I will share two.My Dog LaCee fell in the pool,drowned .I did cpr and got her breathing then rushed her to emergency room.They worked on her for an hour and a half. Then I took her home. She was not responding to the meds the doctor gave her. She would just lay on the floor,not get up,eat or move.I put together 3 larch remedies and placed them under her tongue,One was larch.I gave her drops every 3 hours. She began to move the 1st day and was up walking kinda wobbly,and eating. After a week she was fully back to herself again.
I used them on my cat after surgery when she just couldn’t recover very well at all. Same story,I used rescue remedy and larch and mimulus and no one could believe how she came out of the state she was in,She came out from under the bed and let me check her surgical area.After giving her drops every 3 hours for a day or two she began eating walking and quit hiding .
I could write a book on all the amazing results I have had with humans and pets.
I loved reading the words and thoughts of each of you.Thanks for letting me trespass.
Hi Terry
Bach remedies are great!
I’ve used them on plants, pets and myself.
Danny admits now that he used to scoff when I used them. Then he hit a tough patch and was willing to try anything.
I made him up a cocktail and half an hour later he rang me at work to thank me. He now uses them regularly.
Everyone need solace occasionally.
Hi, we have just opened up shop on the net, and whilst Beautiful Balms does creams and lotions, there is also a range of aqua flower essences.
We are just in the process of setting up a review section, if the author of this article has a look at the site and selects a flower essence we would be happy to send a flower essence over for review.
There is contact section on the site, or feel to free to email us