Please see my guest post on homeopathy on www.activetcm.com.

Full text:

Hello, my name is Christy Zettl. I am a professional homeopath and one of a few University trained homeopaths in Western Canada and on the West Coast of North America. This week I thought I’d share why I became a homeopath and why I entered an industry fraught with controversy and misconception.

At 19, my chronic eczema was cured by a homeopath. This was after just two appointments and two doses of a homeopathic medicine. Eczema was something I’d always had. Some treatments worked for awhile or not at all, but it would always come back.  At the time I knew nothing about homeopathy; my mom had booked the appointment and I begrudgingly went. I sat and talked with him. He asked detailed questions about the eczema, noted its appearance, but then asked a whole host of other questions I thought completely unrelated. Amazingly, two doses of a homeopathic medicine it was gone.  And it hasn’t come back, nine years on. More than that, it was like my mind had cleared, I felt at peace, my reactions to situations were more in balance and my overall level of energy had increased. Most importantly, I could directly attribute it to the homeopathic treatment I received; there were no other variables. In other words, I was not taking anything else for it, I was not using any conventional creams, nothing else had changed in my life that would explain my eczema’s rapid and complete disappearance.

I was going to the University of British Columbia but after this, I became very curious about this mysterious medical science of homeopathy. I learned about a homeopathic degree course in London and off I went.

I came back to Canada in 2010 with a mission: to bring lasting health and balance back into people’s lives by maintaining the highest standard of practice and promoting homeopathy’s regulation in BC, as it’s been done in Ontario. I am currently Membership Secretary of the BC Society of Homeopaths, a non-profit organization committed to promoting excellence in homeopathic practice. All of its members are bound by a Code of Ethics. We are working to get homeopathy recognized as a distinct profession, which will in turn open the doors for wider insurance coverage.  Accessibility to homeopathy and standardization in care is absolutely crucial to a more widespread acceptance of it.

Homeopathy has a two hundred year history of anecdotal evidence (i.e. what has been observed in practice) and we are now starting to build a body of modern scientific evidence to support this.  Most recently, The Swiss Health Technology Assessment (HTA) report on homeopathy was published at the end of 2011. This extensive and authoritative report by the Swiss Federal Government offers an unambiguous endorsement of the evidence base for homeopathy A research portal, http://www.audesapere.in has compiled all the research available on homeopathy and www.extraordinarymedicine.org is a good place to start learning about homeopathy.

There are certainly challenges ahead in this industry, but allaying popular misconception and replacing it with real evidence-based education is a good step in the right direction. Homeopathy is a complete system of medicine that has the ability to successfully treat and cure a wide range of conditions by triggering your body’s self-healing ability.

Christy Zettl has practices in Vancouver and Kelowna and volunteers her time with Sidebyside Homeopathy, a non-profit organisation providing free treatment to Vancouver Downtown East Side residents.