Interest in homeopathy continues to soar, in the United States and elsewhere.

Homeopathy is perfectly safe when used properly.

It can heal on a deep level.

It’s all natural.

It doesn’t involve taking drugs.

This 200-year-old healing art would be perfect except for one thing.

It’s difficult to learn.

There are thousands of homeopathic remedies.

So you need to match carefully. Or else you won’t get good results.

Once you get a match it needs to be given in a potency that resonates with the person.

The dosing schedule is intricate.

You need a good sense of when to give another dose or when to hold off.

You also need to know when to switch remedies.

Or to give an intercurrent remedy.

Homeopathy involves a lifetime of learning.

Even for professional homeopaths, who continually take ongoing educational courses.

There are some excellent courses for home prescribers.

But they are free and by their very nature can’t go deep.

So you don’t always learn about some of the most common homeopathic mistakes in these lessons.

Common Homeopathic Mistakes You Might Be Making

So what are some of the most common homeopathic mistakes?

1. Too Many Doses – This is a very common mistake. Especially if you follow a set dosing schedule. Because you shouldn’t repeat a dose while the last dose is working. Ignore well-intentioned social media advice to “front load.” This means taking multiple doses the first hour and scaling back the second hour and so on. This often confuses the case. What happens if you overdo it? You take too many doses too soon? You can feel worse instead of better. Homeopaths call this an “aggravation.” For instance, the sore throat you’re treating intensifies. Your chills also ramp up. You now have a killer headache. So you conclude it’s not the right remedy. Then you start looking for another remedy. But if you had just spaced out the dosing you’d be well on the road to recovery.
2. Too Many Remedies – Every remedy drives the Vital Force in a certain direction. You want to send it in the right direction. Not in six or seven different directions within a short period of time. This advice applies to whether you are giving the remedies together or separately. Lately there’s been a trend toward multi-remedy use, a shift away from the long-standing homeopathic principle of gently nudging the Vital Force with one well-selected remedy at a time. I think this might be due to the popularity of the Banerji Protocols. These protocols employ homeopathic remedies. But they’re not homeopathy. The Calcutta clinic where they originated also does not claim the protocols are homeopathic. Instead they’re an allopathic way to various conditions with remedies. Nevertheless, given their high profile, many people seem to confuse them with homeopathy. Another common mistake is giving too many single remedies in succession. Especially with an acute. Often this happens because too many doses are given, confusing the picture.
3. Using Too Many Symptoms – If you try to repertorize 20 symptoms, especially for an acute problem, you’ll end up with a mishmash of remedies. Focus on what’s most serious. What’s most uncomfortable. This was a lesson I learned as a home prescriber. My ability to choose the right remedy improved immediately after I started doing this.
4. Mixing Chronic With Acute – Someone has a nasty cold. They also have dementia. You want to focus on the cold. Only look at cold symptoms, or symptoms that came about with the cold. With a well-selected remedy the cold will probably resolve itself quickly. The dementia, unfortunately, will still be there. But other remedies can be used for this chronic condition. When looking for a cold remedy you don’t need to include long-standing dementia symptoms. This will muddy the picture, and likely lead you away from the right remedy.
5. Stopping Aggravations – A homeopathic remedy can generate a healing response called an “aggravation.” This means there’s a brief increase in the symptoms. This is a good sign it’s the right remedy. Better health will follow. Stopping the aggravation means stopping the remedy’s action.
6. Not Treating Aggravations – We try very hard to avoid strong aggravations. Or at least we should. Sometimes they happen anyway. Or sometimes people contact us for help, because an aggravation is causing great pain and suffering. An aggravation in these instances should be treated. 
7. Not Treating What’s Right In Front of You – Back when I was a young Mom one of my children had a nasty ear infection. So I packed him in the car and drove him the homeopath. (This was back in the day before Facebook and Zoom.) The homeopath ignored the ear infection. Instead, he honed in on his mental state. Unfortunately the ear infection became so bad that he needed emergency care. But just as I was about to take him to the hospital another homeopath I’d been in contact with called me. She skillfully treated the ear infection with one of the few remedies I had in the house. (I was a newbie.) The improvement was so rapid and dramatic that emergency care was no longer needed.
8. Looking For a Perfect Match – No one will ever have all of the symptoms of a particular remedy. You’ll never find a perfect match. Instead you want the best match. Something close enough to gently nudge the body into healing itself. So don’t worry if you don’t have every symptom a remedy is known for.
9. Not Seeking Professional Care – A common mistake is for Moms to try a number of remedies when their child is sick. When these don’t work they may get on Facebook and seek additional remedy suggestions. The case is then crowdsourced, despite the fact homeopathy was never intended to be used this way. The same is also done for deep-seated chronic conditions, despite the fact bad prescribing can make them worse.
10. Not Seeking Regular Medical Care – Sometimes this is the only sane option. There are instances where homeopathy alone isn’t enough. Some examples are potential intestinal blockage or cellulitis that isn’t responding to well-selected remedies.
11. Changing Homeopaths Too Fast – Please give your homeopath at least six months. It can take a couple of months to get to know you and new information is often revealed in follow up visits. Be patient, especially if you have a deep-seated chronic condition. If you see no improvement after working with someone for a year then it’s definitely time to look for a new approach.
12. Detox Protocols – Harsh detox protocols with very high potencies in ascending scales are all the rage. The implication is that regular homeopathy no longer works because our world is so toxic. First of all this isn’t true. Also, it’s not possible to “detox” someone from every single poison they’ve ever encountered. Actually, you can waste a lot of time doing this and create a lot of uncomfortable aggravations. Instead it’s much better to give an indicated remedy. However, if the case stalls and there’s a block that appears linked to a particular toxin, then it’s very appropriate to give the toxin in potency. An example is when someone has never been well since taking a certain drug. Give the drug in potency. This is known as Tautopathic prescribing, which can be immensely helpful. But Tautopathy is also being overused and misused. One thing to keep in mind is Tautopathy can work beautifully. It can be the one thing that solves complex cases. It also may not work at all. This is why we like to start with what’s predictable and known to work. Then, Tautopathy can be used if needed. Otherwise you waste a lot of time treating non-existent problems. An antibiotic someone took at age five may not be causing any problems today. But the grief they suffered two years ago may be ruining their health. Treat the grief. Forget about the antibiotic. At least for now, unless it becomes evident it’s causing a block.