Aug/Sept 2002

Deep Sustainability
Roar Ramesh Bjonnes

Community Owned Enterprise
Ron Phillips

Police State Measures Will Not Make Us Safe
Kayla M. Starr, MPH

Can Democracy Survive Endless War?
Edited by Eli Pariser

A Popular Revolt This November
Ted Glick

Turning the Trolls to Stone: Strategy for the Global Justice Movement
Starhawk

Navigating the Tides of Change
David LaChapelle

Dispelling the Myths About Smallpox
Michael Framson

Observations Of A Medical Revolutionary
Doug Falkner

The Emergence of Mind-Body Medicine
Robert Newman

A Childhood Stolen and Redeemed
John Darling

Healing Hints
Peter Moore, MFCC, CGP

Flax Seed
Rebecca Wood

The Yearly Round
Richard Moeschl

The Movie Mystic: "Beautiful Mind"
Stephen Simon

BACK TO TOP

Observations of a Medical Revolutionary

By Douglas Falkner, M.D.

It is alarming to see the state of our conventional medical system today. Just for starters, the most recent results of a scientifically controlled study of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for meno-pausal women came out hot off the press in early July. The doctors behind the study wanted to substantiate claims of the previously accepted health benefits and safety of HRT for menopausal women. The study was called off three years early because the interim findings clearly demonstrated that HRT increases a woman’s risk for breast cancer, heart attack, stroke, and blood clots.

You heard right. The risks of HRT now seemingly outweigh the benefits, at least for most women. This news was everything but music to the ears of hormone drug manufacturers, gynecologists, and meno-pausal women. What ever happened to all the broad health promoting benefits that were vigorously touted for HRT even less than a year ago?

As a conventionally trained Emergency Physician turned Homeopath, I must say I feel at least a little embarrassed for my medical brethren who are sticking it out in the conventional arena. After all, it took me several years of dedicated study in mind/body/energy medicine (MBEM) to substantiate and ferret out all the subtle and sometimes blatant fallacies of the conventional materialistic medical approach. It required equally as many years to prove to myself beyond all doubt that the same conditions that conventional doctors feel necessitate conventional drug treatment or surgery can be managed effectively with often far superior results with mind/body/energy modalities, such as homeopathy.

Fortunately, this awareness came much sooner than did all the bad press coming out that is so critical of modern pharmaceuticals and many surgical procedures. In 1998 the New England Journal of Medicine published a landmark article disclosing that alternative or non-conventional medicine was in high demand by millions of Americans, and had already become a multibillion dollar industry. And with good reason. It has been estimated that over 100,000 people die annually as a direct result of taking prescription drugs, even though they are taking them as prescribed. Many times more consumers of conventional medicine are hospitalized and suffer both reversible and irreversible harm from the very drugs their doctors prescribe for them. No wonder our medical system is in crisis.

Consider this: all prescription drugs, without exception, have toxicity. Pick up the Physicians Desk Reference (the PDR) or any drug package insert and read it. Every drug has a so-called therapeutic range and a side-effect/adverse reaction profile. In general the therapeutic range means the blood level of a given drug that brings the desired “therapeutic” result without undue side effects. However, even at therapeutic levels, most drugs produce some if not many side effects, only they tend to be tolerated by patients over time. When blood concen-trations of a drug rise above therapeutic levels it is considered toxic. All toxins have a threshold above which they are con-sidered lethal.

In spite of the benefits we might derive from them, all drugs are basically toxins or poisons to our system. As such, drugs will tend to compromise us over time, usually little by little. It is no wonder that most people who take prescription medications for years on end tend to become sicker and sicker. Long time human exposure to toxic or poisonous substances inevitably weakens, endangers, and ultimately impairs living biological systems. This is one reason why the latest study on Hormone Replacement Therapy should come as no surprise. Remember, all drugs are toxic, bar none.

Not only are drugs all poisonous to our systems, but in effect they rarely if ever cure anything. Granted, drugs are sometimes lifesaving in acute conditions such as infection or trauma, but for chronic disease they do little more than manage a given condition over time. I remember asking medical students and interns who came to work with me in order to learn about homeopathic medicine if they could name any chronic disease that is curable by means of modern conventional medicine, specifically with the use of drugs. Not one ever could name even a single condition. According to conventional medical dogma, chronic disease is not curable by means of conventional medical treatment! Astound-ing. Yet we, as a society, seem to remain enamored of our beloved medical system and its mode of treatment.

After disclosing this first, let us say, fallacy, I would then launch into my usual diatribe on homeopathy, espousing all its virtues, especially with regard to its successful treatments and cures of a wide variety of acute and chronic disease con-ditions. I would watch my trainees’ eyes closely as I liberally used the words “restoration of health,” “rapid, gentle, safe, non-toxic treatments,” “renewed vitality,” “increased sense of well-being” … in short, my personal experience in MBEM, namely homeopathy, amounted to something verging on the miraculous, at least by conventional standards. To them, Homeo-pathy appeared rather fantastical. Just watch and see I would tell them, as I brought in my patients, one after the other. By the end of each interview, it was apparent that most of my patients were experiencing benefits and outcomes that conventional medicine could not even approach.

At this point, as it dawned on them that I was working with something quite revolutionary, my students would ask, ”Don’t you believe that there is a place for drug treatment and surgery in the care of the sick?” Though I am dedicated to truth, I am not a fanatic. Naturally there is always a time and a place for almost anything. However, considering the consistent results I was getting with MBEM, I did not see much need for conventional tactics in my work. Thinking logically, if nothing chronic can be cured by conventional means, and if most chronic drug treatment eventually compromises our organism through the gradual poisoning of our physiological system, why are we so insistent on investing ourselves in it?

Please do not get me wrong. I am not advocating that people interested in exploring MBEM abruptly change course. I am not suggesting that people go ahead blindly and stop their prescription medications cold turkey. Doing so can be harmful, even fatal. If you are interested in paring down your drug regimen, you first will need to start a deeper healing with a MBEM approach, like homeopathy, under the care and guidance of a qualified practitioner. As your health begins to improve, a rational plan of decreasing and eventually eliminating unnecessary medications can be safely undertaken under the direction of your physician.

For those skeptics who are apt to think that MBEM is some airy-fairy new age invention and not a substantiated serious form of therapy, let me end with a rather dramatic personal vignette to offer one example of its real power. My second son, Noah, was born at home. A few days prior to his birth, his mother’s water broke. As a result, bacteria were able to enter the otherwise sterile amniotic sac, which until then served as the baby’s safe sanctuary. When Noah was born, he was born sick. He had bacterial sepsis.

Bacterial sepsis is a life threatening condition, especially for a newborn. On examination just after birth, Noah was found to be lethargic, ashen and blue, only moderately responsive. His vital signs and blood chemistry were all out of whack. Without effective treatment, death would have been the likely outcome. We, as his parents, were faced with a serious dilemma: either take Noah to the nearest hospital where he would assuredly be admitted to neonatal intensive care, pumped full of potent antibiotics that carry the risk of permanent hearing loss and/or kidney damage, miss out on the first stages of infant/maternal bonding, and be subjected to the traumas of the hospital environment and vigorous, sometimes dangerous technological interventions. Or, keep him at home, evaluate him homeopathically, and administer the appropriate remedy to help Noah overcome his already grave condition.

The fierce snowstorm that was raging outside seemed to signal to us that staying at home and trusting in the wisdom of homeopathy was the right choice. At least we wanted to give it a fair shake. After an hour or so of trying several different remedies and failing, it began to look like transport to the hospital was becoming imminent, if not a desperate necessity. Then, with the expert help of our own personal homeopath, we found Noah’s correct homeopathic remedy and thereby recon-firmed the value and efficacy of what I now know to be a grounded and scientifically sound system of MBEM healing.

It would be difficult to effectively describe just what happened when the correct remedy hit Noah’s tongue. Nevertheless, here is what actually occurred: within seconds, Noah’s “aura” burst forth and spread widely into the room. It was an energy presence, robust and alive. Almost immediately, his vital signs began to normalize, his ashen blue arms and legs began to pink up. Noah, until this moment, weary and listless, began to come to. Within just a few minutes he was nursing heartily, like a newborn should. For all intents and purposes, he now looked and acted like a healthy newborn. His sepsis had simply reversed and disappeared before our very eyes, as if violating principles of time. From that moment on, Noah stayed out of harm’s way.

Skeptics might argue that perhaps Noah never was actually as sick as we had believed. However, based on my back-ground and skills as a board-certified emergency physician, he assuredly would have been admitted to intensive care, and treated as septic, like it or not. In addition, Noah’s case was so classic as to be hardly in question.

Take note: MBEM, such as homeopathy, is in no way lightweight or soft medicine. It is potent stuff and is slowly becoming recognized as a respectable and viable system of healing. At the same time, such practices are as old as the hills. Rooted in nature, MBEM emphasizes that the body can heal itself if given the right kind of support. Its interventions unlock the powerful healing capacities of an otherwise compromised organism, and allow it to recover its integrity and balance. In short, MBEM stimulates and strengthens the vital force, the very source and sustenance of our life and health. Material interventions alone, like drug therapy, are generally insufficient to effect a true healing and cure.

We are at a crossroads in our healthcare. With all the best intentions, our conven-tional healing systems are failing us. Worse, they are making many of us sick or even killing us. Change happens slowly. Many forces, financial and otherwise, are at play to maintain the status quo of the con-ventional medical institution. Nevertheless each one of us has the capacity to make a personal choice. That choice is ours and ours alone. Becoming a bit of a medical revolutionary may very well end up saving your life.

Douglas Falkner, M.D., C.M.Hom, brings nearly a decade of clinical experience to his Ashland based practice of Classical Hahnemanian Homeopathy. Founder of Ashland Mountain Homeopathic Medicine, he is also a Board Certified Emergency Physician, and has earned the prestigious diploma of Certified Master Homeopath from Vega Rozenberg’s world renowned Evolution of Self School of Homeopathy (ESSH) in Flagstaff, Arizona. Dr. Falkner gives frequent lectures on homeopathic medicine in Ashland and surrounding communities and can be reached at (541) 552-1400; drfalkner@qwest.net.