First Aid for Campers

It's that time of year, when we start planning our camping trips. Lisa Amerine, homeopath and naturopathic physician, regularly hikes and camps in the Rocky Mountains and takes 16 remedies on her trips into the wilderness. If you like camping, keep reading!

By the way, if you are a camper who "hikes in," you know that every ounce added to the backpack is counted and needs to be reduced where possible. That said, you won't want to pack 16 remedy tubes in your backpack. Tiny (2x3) envelopes with 10 pellets of each remedy per envelope is all you need for the first aid kit. Use two pellets in a bottle of water if a remedy is needed. Let it melt and give it a shake before another sip is taken. That way, you save pellets for the next emergency.

I've provided some scenarios as examples, so you'll know when to use the remedies. Write the bold words on the envelopes next to the remedy name so you'll remember when to use them.

A bug flies in your eye (foreign object of any kind) OR you are frightened by something and the fright continues when the danger is gone - Aconite

You have sunburn OR you get a blister OR a mosquito bites you - Aristolochia

You hike too far and have muscle aches OR any incident puts you into a state of shock - Arnica

You get food poisoning or drink bad water - Arsenicum

You get a throbbing headache from too much sun - Belladonna

You eat too much junk and think you have appendicitis - Bryonia (and get out of the woods and to the ER asap)

You fall and scrape your knee OR cut yourself on the open can of beans - Calendula

You burn yourself on the pan of s'mores - Cantharis

You get dehydrated - China (and take a pinch of salt in 6 oz of water to balance your electrolytes)

You get altitude sickness - Coca

You crush a finger when you're hammering tent poles (or injure any part rich in nerves) - Hypericum

You puncture the roof of your mouth with the marshmallow stick OR a rogue tree branch gives you a black eye OR you get a bite - Ledum

You drink too much alcohol OR get indigestion from too many hotdogs - Nux vomica

You fall on the trail and sprain your ankle or wrist - Rhus tox

You bang your shin scaling a rock wall or your bunions hurt after 10 miles of difficult hiking (any injury to bony parts) - Ruta

You break a bone - Symphytum (get to the ER to get the bone set!)

Have you had something else happen while camping? I'd love to hear about it and I'll write back to tell you which remedy I would have used.

Most Regency romances don't contain information about homeopathy, but my trilogy does! The first one, Love on the Vine, contains several first aid remedies but no camping was involved. Read it to learn how a man's leg was saved from amputation!

Daffodils and Arnica

Just as daffodils symbolize Spring, Arnica montana symbolizes homeopathy. I saw daffodils for the first time this year and I knew that Spring was near; I saw Arnica prominently displayed in the wellness section of my local co-op and I smiled, thinking that this is the one homeopathic remedy accepted by almost everyone.

We can all agree that there are many other types of beautiful flowers in Spring, so why is it hard to accept that there are many other types of (beautifully valid) homeopathic remedies? It's as if the bridge from Arnica to all the other remedies is too difficult to cross, given the prevalent medical materialist philosophy. That leap from believing that Arnica helps with bruising, an acute ailment, to believing that homeopathy also helps with chronic depression or kidney failure or asthma or cancer—anything! —that leap is too great for some.

It's fascinating to me that plastic surgeons use Arnica to mitigate the effects of face lifts and rhinoplasty, but go no further. You would think these medically trained professionals would look more closely into this drug that helps their patients recover so well, but they don't. In fact, their voices remain silent when homeopathy in general is ridiculed. It goes against their medical culture in general to defend it.

The propaganda against homeopathy is intense, but why? It eats into Big Pharma's profits, but would pharmaceutical moguls hire slick marketing groups to defame homeopathy if it weren't a real threat? And what makes it a real threat? Could it be its validity?

You might argue that their marketing campaigns are keeping you "safe" from quackery, but what is the truth? Has the medical community's definition of safety ever been accurate, or is that term used by the propagandists to lull people into taking medications that have the potential to be harmful? Every drug has side effects, so the term "safe" should stop being used so flippantly. And the same goes for the term "effective." No one drug is effective for all people; we are unique individuals and one person's cure is another one's poison. Homeopaths understand this concept and recommend remedies based on an individual's total symptom picture.

In Love on the Vine  Lord Featherstone tells Fiona that she shouldn't argue with the medical professionals, but she doesn't listen to him. She has faith in homeopathy and thus prevents an amputation. My hope is that one day, hopefully sooner than later, our culture will shift into a clearer understanding and appreciation of homeopathy. This shift will bring a beneficial change to medicine.

A Burn Remedy: Spanish Fly (Cantharis)

Cantharis is the first homeopathic remedy mentioned in the Castlewood Trilogy. In Love on the Vine, Lord Featherstone says to Fiona Fairmmont, the woman everyone thinks he should marry, "I burned myself rather badly during my travels. A scalding cup of chocolate found its way into my lap whilst I was in Leipzig. Several of Hahnemann's students happened to be in the same café, and one of them gave me potentized Spanish fly—Cantharis. The hideous pain diminished miraculously. I couldn't believe it at first, thought it was mere coincidence. But then the pain returned after a few hours, and I took a second dose the student had left with me. Well, the pain disappeared in the same way and this time stayed away. I haven't questioned homeopathy's validity since. I stayed on in Leipzig to learn as much as I could about it and met Hahnemann himself. A fascinating man. A genius, really."

[Samuel Hahnemann was a physician in his day but stopped practicing when he felt he was hurting people more than helping them with the blood-lettings, the blistering poultices, and the large doses of poisonous substances. He is the father of homeopathy.]

Constantine Hering, a renowned 19th century homeopath (and also a physician), is famous for saying that all skeptics of homeopathy should burn their fingers and then immerse them in a solutions of Cantharides. He felt certain that their skepticism would be cured along with their burns. He was a skeptic himself until he got a dissecting wound that was cured by homeopathic arsenic.

Lord Featherstone teaches Fiona much more about homeopathy, but does he ever marry her? Read Love on the Vine to find out....

I hope you have no need for burn remedies, but it's good to have Cantharis in your First Aid kit, just in case. For milder burns, Urtica urens, made from nettles, is also curative.