"Like cures like" in a naturopathic success story

We offer alternative medical services like naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, and nutrition counseling for a variety of reasons: Because our patients want them. Because they are often culturally appropriate. And, most important, because they work.  Here's one compelling example:

A 12-year-old girl was experiencing daily outbursts of violent anger-hitting people, throwing objects, and breaking things- followed by severe headaches. The girl had begun having the episodes following septic infection and high fever stemming from an abscessed tooth when she was nine. Learning of the girl's history, her pediatrician at HealthPoint referred her to a HealthPoint doctor of naturopathy, who, applying the homeopathic principal of "like cures like," administered a low dosage of a homeopathy remedy-known to gardeners as an unfriendly plant, but used among doctors of homeopathy as a treatment for people prone to high fevers, dental abscesses and fits of anger.

Within days, the treatment reduced the frequency of the girl's outbursts and headaches. Sensing they were on the right track, the naturopath administered a second, higher dose. Six weeks later, the girl was headache-free. Her threshold for becoming angry was higher, and her outbursts, when they happened at all, were less intense.

Six months later, the girl's mother reported that her daughter's outbursts had all but disappeared, and that her headaches were infrequent.

Natural and alternative therapies play an important part in a holistic approach to medicine. Yet not everyone has access to them. That's why we believe providing complementary and alternative medicine is an important part of our mission, and why we were among the first community health centers in Washington to make it available.  We don't think it's enough to merely provide health care.  We strive to provide health care the way it should be.