Common everyday analgesic symptoms affect the whole family. Older boomers have aches and pains, many times associated with either joint involvement, leg cramps or simply overdoing it. Younger customers are weekend warriors—infrequent participants in strenuous exercise who often have muscle pain due to over-exertion. Younger children are affected by symptoms associated with teething and acute otitis media (AOM, simple earaches). For each of your family members, homeopathic medicines can offer relief of symptoms and a better quality of life.
A principle complaint of boomer customers is their inability to use over-the-counter analgesics containing aspirin, ibuprofen or their derivatives—including the salicylate drugs. Whether due to blood thinning, or stomach irritation, these drugs are not well tolerated by the client and leave little the pharmacist can do to help with everyday symptoms of joint pain, back pain or leg cramps.
Homeopathic products can help the pharmacists and these customers. Among the most common homeopathic single medicines for conditions of these types are:
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Arnica montana—bruising and muscle soreness due to? overexertion or injury
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Bryonia alba—joint pain that is better from heat and feels? better when the joint is held perfectly still
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Rhus toxicodendron—for joint pain made much worse in cool? or damp weather and better from heat and motion
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Cinchona officinalis—homeopathic quinine which helps? relieve leg cramps, especially nighttime “crazy legs”
Fortunately, neither you nor your family members need to be an expert on homeopathic medicines to take advantage of these medicines. Homeopathic pharmaceutical manufacturers produce combination medicines, composed of these homeopathic medicines and clearly label the products for specific conditions such as leg cramps, backache or arthritis pain.
How about the weekend warrior athlete in your household? This person is typically a young boomer who exercises infrequently and then overdoes in the work out session. Do you know this guy? Typically, he forgot he graduated from college 20 years ago and his body aged even though his mind didn’t. These warriors are looking for products offering pain relief and endurance enhancement.
Homeopathic medicines can help here as well. In addition to Arnica, homeopathic medicines containing microdoses of inorganic salts such as Sodium Phosphate, Magnesium Phosphate and Potassium Chloride can aid the body in increasing endurance and help the body “bounce back” after a workout. Combinations of Arnica with these “cell salts” (sometimes called by the proprietary name BioPlasma®) have been used with success by marathoners and extreme athletes.
Don’t forget that homeopathic medicines are also available for other members of your family, including teething pain and earaches in children.
The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal published a randomized controlled trial using a series of homeopathic medicines for common ear aches (AOM) in children that showed a reduction of symptoms using the homeopathic medicines that are in Hyland’s Earache Tablets and Earache Drops. As more physicians become concerned about the over use of antibiotics, many are observing a 24–48 hour wait and see period (WASP) after a child presents with earache pain and before using antibiotics. Of course, the child (and the parent) is still miserable with the pain.
The study found that children receiving homeopathic medicines show a statistically significant reduction in symptoms, such as temperature, pain and irritability in the first 24 hours after treatment, compared to placebo. This is a time period before antibiotics are indicated or expected to take effect. And, don’t forget that 55 percent of children under one year of age in the U.S. have received antibiotic treatments for earaches. So, a homeopathic approach to reduction of symptoms is a real plus. Homeopathic medicines can be useful for teething symptoms as well.
Common medicines such as:
Chamomilla—for irritability
Coffea cruda—for wakefulness and diuresis
Belladonna—for inflammation
Calcarea carb.—for supporting dentition
Like other homeopathic specialty medicines, these remedies are combined in Hyland’s Teething Tablets, now the top selling teething product in the United States.
Homeopathy extends your access to healthy family self-care by offering safe, effective medicines at low cost and close by at most major natural food stores and pharmacies. They are straightforward to understand and can be used without fear of drug interactions with other medicines, contraindications or side effects. Most importantly, they help you take care of your family’s aches and pains.
JP Borneman is Chairman and CEO of Hyland’s, Inc., and a partner at Standard Homeopathic Co., America’s largest manufacturer of homeopathic medicines. He is a Ph.D. candidate in health policy at University of Sciences in Philadelphia with a research interest in drivers to patient use of CAM. A chemist by training, with an MBA in Finance, he is the fourth generation of his family to be in the business of homeopathic pharmacy. You can contact him at
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