Belfast homeopath Pamela McKibbon uses natural ingredients to cure chronic illnesses. Pamela works on the principle of "like treats like" in her complementary system and helps patients without side effects. She said: "It is good in chronic cases where the patient has been seeing their doctor for quite a while and has maybe nothing more to offer. It is very good in acute cases as well. Homeopathy can deal with mental and emotional ailments as well as the physical".
Homeopathy is a gentle, holistic system of healing, suitable for everyone, young and old. The treatment focuses on you as an individual, concentrating on treating your specific physical and emotional symptoms, to give long lasting benefits.
Homeopathic remedies are diluted natural substances that if given to a healthy person would produce the symptoms the medicine is prescribed for.
"Generally speaking homeopaths will look at a person as a complete entity", said Pamela. "So a lot of the time you will also get what is known as constitutional remedy, it deals with you as a person as a whole".
Pamela doesn't just use her skills on patients, her family benefits from homeopathy.
She said: "My son is accident prone, and he fell, and when children bump their head it comes up like a little egg. When you use homeopathy it disappears in front of your eyes.” She continues, "one of my patients had an irritable bowel, which can be acute and can be chronic, and homeopathy was really good for that in so far that it is a physical complaint but it has a very strong link to physical state. It can also help with the likes of arthritis to ease the pain".
Homeopathic practitioner Pamela feels projects like Get Well UK can only help patients by working alongside general medicine. She said: "It gives the NHS another tool. Complementary therapies overall are very cost effective. For the treatment and the success rate, the way the patient is treated and their experience of the treatment and the outcome, it is very cost effective. Patients seem to respond very well to it and it gives GPs another string to their bow".