Bach remedies
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Discoveries | 27 comments
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
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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 🙂
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.
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 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: œ30C contains less than one part per million million million million million million million million million million of the original substance.
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.
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 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?
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.