Hi

It has been suggested to me that my previous posting was not very
understandable so I have attempted to be clearer. Hope it helps, and I
really want to hear from people who have experience of this.

Homeopathy uses dilutions to give a therapeutic effect, say 1 in 100,000 of
solution. The environmental medicine people do a similar thing, but don't
call it homeopathy. Sometimes people guess the right dilution, as in
homeopathy, sometimes they give different ones in turn and work out which
one(s) cause symptoms and which ones "neutralise or turn off" the symptoms.

 I have had excellent results with homeopathic remedies for hypertension and
they were brilliant at aborting my daughter's chronic infections when she
was a child. Many, however, come in alcohol, to which I am intolerant, as
are many candida people, which restricts their value.

I have also had much success which the "neutralising" drops, but it has been
very hard to challenge them in a surgery environment when other patients did
not control the smells on them. Also, the neutralising dose can shift from
time to time, making diagnosis and treatment difficult.

The phenolic testing that I heard about, appeared to be a descendant of the
"neutralising" type testing. To get around the problems I described in the
previous paragraph, they say they put a number of different "dilutions"
together and that the body will take the one it needs and ignore the rest.

I am having a hard time understanding how you can put different dilutions in
and not "mix them up". It may have to do with the fact that others have said
that what is working is not actually the "proportion" but an energy
associated with the proportion, and I could see how that may be able to be
mixed with something else.

I am also having a hard time with the idea that the body will ignore what it
doesn't need, because I know that if I try to use any medication which
contains something I am sensitive to, I get the bad effects and none of the
good. Which is one of the reasons I am seeking information from others who
may have used this.

So much for the scientific basis of the process - the other issue is the
substances they choose to explore.

Here they have noticed that there are a group of aromatic chemicals, called
phenolics, which are present in many foods, across food groups and food
families, which appear to be causing people problems. Like the way many have
found that salicylates in many fruits and vegetable can cause difficulties.
My own experience with unusual combinations of sensitivites fits in with
their groupings of phenolics. I also have a lot of trouble with things which
have an aroma, rather than those which have little. So this part of the
theory is quite comfortable for me. They say they can both "neutralise" - ie
stop a symptom cold when you have the offending substance and the drops, and
that they can "desensitise" - ie build up tolerance so you don't need to
continue the treatment for long periods. The classical allergists do this
with things like dust mite and moulds, but the Environmental Medicine people
don't seem to promise this.

Finally, like the homeopaths, they have noticed that some substances not
only cause problems, but they can also be used therapeutically to correct
"system" difficulties, like fatigue, obesity etc. The one I paid most
attention to was Apiol, because it is expected to help the pituitary/
hypothalamus (which some think is a problem in CFS) and obesity (which in my
case is linked with candida). There are a number of remedies for fatigue,
candida etc.

I am very happy to have explained this to those who haven't encountered it,
in case it is helpful, and I would really like to hear from people who have
used it, so I can get a feel for whether the benefits claimed have helped
people.

Thanks

Alexa 
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