Recent Interviews
Teleosis Interview by Dr. Joel Kreisberg
Begabati Lennihan, RN, CCH is now on the faculty of GreenPharmEdu, a CME course conducted by Teleosis Institute to teach health care professionals about the environmental impact of pharmaceuticals. This interview appeared in the May 2011 Green Health Care newsletter of Teleosis Institute, conducted by Teleosis director Dr. Joel Kreisberg.
Should you choose a natural remedy when you’re sick, or go see the doctor for conventional medical treatment? While many have strong opinions on this issue, some think it’s a too-simplistic question because the answer will depend entirely on the measuring stick you’re using. What if you broaden the scope of the problem to see where each practice fits better, considering many factors such as clinical effectiveness, environmental impact, or cost?
One such person is Begabati Lennihan, RN, CCH, whom Dr. Kreisberg met years ago while working together at the Teleosis School of Homeopathy. Begabati is a Harvard University grad, a registered nurse and a certified classical homeopath. She recently created the GreenHealing Institute to promote environmentally-friendly home health care. As well, she is publishing two new books. Dr. Kreisberg’s interview with Begabati offers insight as to the place of homeopathy in Green Health Care.
Joel Kreisberg: Tell us about GreenHealing.
Begabati Lennihan: Our goal is to empower people to take care of common health conditions at home, using natural remedies that are safe, effective, inexpensive, and easily available. To do this, I use videos, on my YouTube channel and the two books I’ve just written, both called A Healer In Every Home. The first volume is about taking care of your family, the second about taking care of your animal companions.
Our goal is also to shift the landscape of health care in America. Many people are trying to do that, of course, but the focus has been mostly top-down — laws and policies. I’m trying to shift things from the ground up, by teaching millions of people to try natural remedies first.
JK: Give us an example of this?
BL: One of our principles is that people need to take more responsibility for their health. My dad’s a doctor, and I hear first-hand how people eat junk food, don’t exercise and then plop themselves down in the doctor’s office and say “Fix me with a pill.” There is no dis-incentive for that behavior in our health care system as it’s currently structured.
I’d like to see policy shifts — say, a change in how health care premiums are structured in order to reward healthy behaviors. One of the most effective behaviors would be to have a homeopathic remedy kit in every home and at least one person in the household turning to it first instead of to over-the-counter meds or a trip to the primary care provider.
JK: Why homeopathy?
BL: It’s the missing link. You know, I believe in vitamins and herbs — I ran a health food store for 15 years and I often recommend them to my clients. But honestly, if you have to stay home from work caring for a sick child, it’s too late for vitamins and herbs. They just don’t work fast enough. But homeopathy does. Not every time, of course, but often it can work within a few minutes. That child can recover, often fast enough to go to school.
Many of the issues that people bring their kids to the doctor for —fevers, ear infections, bumps and bruises — can be taken care of at home. This doesn’t at all mean that we don’t need conventional medicine, just that home care can reduce reliance on more expensive clinical medicine, which then takes pressure off primary care.
I think of how much money we could save for our health care system if people turned to homeopathy first. And it’s not just saving on all those trips to the doctor and the ER. When people use homeopathy they stay healthier overall. Kids don’t keep getting ear infections, for example. People don’t get one cold after another. Most of our medical studies focus on clinical effectiveness, without cost comparison. If we included cost effectiveness, our treatment choices would change considerably. Many of the integrative therapies would be offered first. With little economic incentive, conventional treatments are always given first.
I can see this in my practice. In Cambridge, we get families from overseas because one parent is studying at Harvard or MIT. So I see kids from India, Germany, or South America whose mom has a remedy kit at home. She’ll say, “My child has never been on antibiotics. He has never been to the doctor. He is the only child in his class [in the US] who never gets sick.”
JK: OK, tell me about one of these remedies.
BL: Here’s one of the best-kept secrets in the health food store: Ferrum phosphoricum or Ferrum phos. We call it the “nip it in the bud.” remedy. Everyone should have it on hand. You take it when you feel under the weather, maybe you get that scratchy feeling in the back of your throat like you’re just about to come down with something. Or your kid gets that look — you know, a little peaked — and you know they’ll be sick the next day. A couple of doses of Ferrum phos often returns the tired child back to their usual healthy self.
Here’s another one — emotional first aid! It’s something people don’t even think of. Ignatia is a remedy everyone should have on hand. It’s for times when you get that upsetting phone call or email — someone has been in accident, or someone has died, or someone just broke up with you. There’s nothing in the drugstore for these acute emotional stressors. Increasingly studies are showing that stress has a huge impact on our health. Why not reduce emotional stress with Ignatia? Right after it happens, not years later in therapy or on anti-depressants. Ignatia doesn’t numb you to your feelings, but it steadies you so you can cope.
Lots of people know about Arnica for all kinds of bumps, bruises, sports injuries, black eyes, post-surgery. The other one, the companion remedy, is Calendula for when skin is broken — cuts, lacerations, abrasions, surgical incisions. It stimulates wound healing prevents infection, reduces pain and scarring, speeds up the healing. Herbal Calendula is good, homeopathic Calendula is even better.
JK: Why A Healer In Every Home? There are already a lot of introductory books on homeopathy out there.
BL: I was hearing from my clients that they were too complicated, too overwhelming, people could not even begin. I wanted to create a way for people to dip their toe in the water, to find out by experience how simple and effective homeopathy can be, then get inspired to spend time with these other wonderful books by Dana Ullman and Miranda Castro, for example.
So I picked out situations where people could get good results right away with one or two remedies, and I described them in a fun, user-friendly, conversational tone. The books are fun to read. My clients have told me their kids are reading them!
JK: I like the part about “partner with your doctor.”
BL: Yes, and I think the kind of physician, nurse or pharmacist who is drawn to Green Healthcare would welcome that kind of partnership. It’s partly about encouraging people to take more responsibility for their health, so they are not passively dependent on their physician. Our health care system places too much responsibility on the doctor. This does not improve care. But because of increased malpractice threats we have a defensive medicine that runs too many tests. People need to be encouraged to take responsibility for their health and not blame the doctor except in cases of egregious misconduct.
“Partner with your doctor” is mainly about people telling their doctors they are using a natural approach to healing, and encouraging the physician to be supportive. Doctors need to hear about this. I’m so saddened when I hear in my practice that clients can’t tell their physician that they had amazing results from natural remedies. Patients are afraid of getting scolded. And it happens. I’ve had clients whose doctors discharged them from their practice — even accusing them of practicing voodoo medicine. In truth, we are each 100 percent responsible for our own health.
I don’t blame the doctors, though. They are extremely busy, and have little time with patients. Most don’t have time to learn about natural healing, receiving most of their information from the drug companies who spend annually over $10,000 per physician on marketing. I admire the ones who are taking your course. If everyone who got good results with vitamins, herbs, homeopathy and other natural modalities would just tell their physicians, then perhaps they would become more accepting. Before Dr. Eisenberg’s landmark study came out in the middle of the 1990s, most didn’t know how common it was for Americans to be using integrative therapies. That was a real eye opener for the healthcare industry.
I’m just beginning to hear physicians say about homeopathy, “Some of my other patients have gotten good results with it. Why don’t you try it and let me know how it goes.” But that’s still pretty rare. At the very least we could try homeopathy for conditions that don’t have good answers. For example, the FDA is now saying that the common cough and cold medications are not safe for children under two. Why not try homeopathy? It’s FDA-approved, harmless and works reasonably well.
There are so many ways homeopathy could be supportive for our health care system. I guess you could say that’s my vision on the highest level — a partnership between complementary and conventional medicine. Although honestly, in my vision, homeopathy and other natural modalities would be the first line of treatment, with drugs and surgery used as a last resort. It certainly would fulfill the Hippocratic Oath – “First do no harm.”
JK: Sounds like more of a collaborative model.
BL: It is! With highly motivated patients accessing so much information on the internet, I often learn a lot from my clients — I’m amazed at how much they know. And even someone who has read my simple introductory book about homeopathy will know more about it than most physicians. So if doctors could open up and start listening to what works for their patients, they would learn a lot. Interactions like these would provide benefits for both physicians and patients, relieving some of the burden on the physician to carry all the responsibility.
JK: How did get the idea for GreenHealing?
BL: I was riding my bike along the bike path in Cambridge. I often take the bike path out into the country with this overarching cathedral of tree branches and a profusion of wildflowers alongside, and I feel like I’m getting so much energy from nature. On this particular day I was feeling how my work with clients is just transmitting this green healing energy from nature. I felt it expand inside me and I wanted to take it bigger, take it national, take it global. So the concept of GreenHealing was born.
JK: In a previous published interview you said you left Harvard with a passionate commitment to alternative medicine instead of conventional. Have you reconciled with conventional medicine since then, and do you see any greener paths for it than the current one?
BL: In the Teleosis Institute’s Leadership in Green Healthcare course, I had a chance to interact with conventional physicians and administrators who shared my passion for shifting the impact of medicine on the environment. That encouraged me to think of ways homeopathy can be of service to conventional medicine, say to replace some of the medications that are ending up in the waterways. Instead of just telling physicians to prescribe fewer antibiotics (as the CDC does), it’s better to offer them a good substitute.
I feel like I’ve come full circle and that part of my mission in life is to create a bridge of communication between conventional and alternative medicine. As director of Teleosis School of Homeopathy for eight years, I had many students who were conventionally trained medical professionals. They have helped me learn new ways of connecting the two worlds. For example, an anesthesiologist in one class was very interested in learning about the remedy Kali bichromicum, a remedy well-known in homeopathy for loosening plugs of mucus, which was used to thin mucus before suctioning traches. A dentist in another class was surprised to see the results of Calendula in oral surgery — he said he could see granulation tissue forming before his eyes. My vision right now is to find ways to expand these examples, ways that homeopathy can be used to increase the effectiveness of conventional medicine, speed the healing, reduce the use of conventional medications, and best of all improve the experience for the patient who is likely to experience less pain.
JK: Thanks for sharing your experience with the Teleosis readers!
BL: Thanks for the opportunity, Joel.