Dr. Anil Singhal MD(Hom.), Author: Boger’s Legacy (2nd Edition)
In the last three and a half decades of my practice, I have met countless patients who walked into my clinic with a file that was already thick. Their MRI scans, CT reports, EEG tracings, EMG and nerve conduction studies were neatly arranged, often with handwritten notes from the neurologist in the margins. Their diagnosis had already been made, names like migraine, trigeminal neuralgia, peripheral neuropathy, cervical myelopathy, post stroke hemiparesis, Parkinsonian syndrome or epileptic disorder were already written on paper. The question they brought to me was rarely “Can you cure this completely”. Far more often their quiet question was “Can you help me live better with this”.
This is the space in which homeopathy can stand beside the neurologist. Not in opposition, not as a rival, but as a gentle, observing, individualising partner that looks at the same patient from a different angle. Neurology is a precise and demanding science. It gives us anatomical localisation, diagnostic clarity, emergency interventions and disease modifying drugs. Without it, many of our patients would not even survive to reach our clinic. Yet, even after the best neurological care, many continue to live with pain, stiffness, tremors, fatigue, unsteadiness, insomnia, fear and a deep sense of uncertainty. It is at this crossroads of medical completeness and human incompleteness that homeopathy has an important role.
In my experience, neurological patients do not come to homeopathy because they are against allopathic medicine. They come because something inside them feels unfinished. The scan explains the lesion, but not the person. The medicine controls the seizure or stabilises the disease, but does not always touch the anxiety, the irritability, the despair that comes when a hand no longer obeys, when a leg drags, when a face is paralysed on one side, when the head throbs three times a week despite all tablets tried so far. These are not small complaints. They are the details that shape each day, the difference between merely surviving and actually living.
When we see such patients in our homeopathic practice, our first responsibility is to honor the work that has already been done. We do not stop antiepileptic drugs because a remedy is selected. We do not advise a stroke patient to ignore physiotherapy because a constitutional medicine has been given. We do not postpone emergency neurological evaluation for a new acute weakness or a sudden speech disturbance because we believe in subtle energies. Respect for neurology is itself part of good homeopathic practice. Only when a patient is in safe allopathic hands can we honestly explore what our remedies may add.
Within that safe framework, the homeopathic consultation opens a different kind of space. The neurological diagnosis is important, but we do not stop there. We ask how the first symptom began, what emotion surrounded it, what fears and dreams now accompany it, how the pain behaves when the patient sits, walks, lies down or thinks of the future, what happens to the symptoms in the morning and night, what stressors and griefs have run parallel with the disease. We listen to the tremor as a language, not just a movement. We listen to the headache as a story, not just an intensity on a scale of one to ten. We listen to the burning in the feet, the crawling in the scalp, the electrical shooting in the spine as messages from a whole person who is trying to adapt to a difficult reality.
From this listening, certain remedies begin to stand out repeatedly in neurological practice. There is the tense, overworked Nux vomica patient whose spine is irritable, whose sleep is broken by alarm clocks and responsibilities, whose headaches and paresthesias express a nervous system that has been driven like a machine. There is the Gelsemium picture, with its trembling, heaviness and weakness, the patient who feels as if the motor power is drained, whose legs feel like lead before an examination or after an infection, who wants to lie still and not move. There is the Causticum patient, honest, sensitive, easily affected by injustice, carrying a history of partial paralysis of the face, vocal cords, bladder or limbs, with contractures and persistent weakness long after the original neurological event has passed.
We meet Plumbum in more serious patterns of progressive paralysis, where there is marked muscular atrophy, retraction, and the feeling that the limbs are no longer under reliable control. We think of Zincum where there is restless fidgeting of the feet, chronic nervous exhaustion, twitchings and involuntary movements in school children and adults whose nervous systems seem constantly overdriven yet depleted. We remember Hypericum whenever there is nerve rich trauma, whether it is a crushed fingertip in a door, a coccyx injured by a fall, or radiating neuritic pains following surgery or an accident that has left the nervous tissue hypersensitive.
In chronic migraines and neuralgias, remedies like Belladonna, Spigelia, Sanguinaria and Iris versicolor often appear, not just as names in a list, but as living portraits. The violently throbbing, congestive, pulsating Belladonna headache that comes suddenly and violently, with red face and hot head, is very different from the Spigelia patient who points to a line of pain along the course of a nerve, especially around the left eye, or the Sanguinaria type with periodic headaches starting in the occiput and settling over the right eye, linked to sun or certain foods. When we see patients with long standing trigeminal neuralgia who are already on conventional medication yet still suffer stabbing pains, a carefully chosen homeopathic remedy, matched in this detailed way, can sometimes reduce the frequency and severity of attacks, improve sleep and give back a sense of control.
In post stroke patients, we do not claim to reverse infarcted brain tissue, yet we often see that constitutional remedies, given over months, may encourage better functional use of the affected limb, reduce spasms, improve mood and lessen the emotional volatility that so often follows vascular events. In patients with diabetic neuropathy, where burning in the feet and legs torments every night, remedies such as Arsenicum album, Phosphorus or Sulphur can be deeply helpful when indicated by the total picture, easing the subjective distress even while blood sugar control, lifestyle measures and neurological follow up continue unchanged.
None of this means that homeopathy replaces the neurologist. On the contrary, the best results come when there is an implicit partnership. The neurologist tracks disease progression, adjusts doses, orders fresh imaging when needed and manages emergencies. The homeopath pays attention to the individual response, to sleep, appetite, mood, coping, small but important changes in function and sensation. Patients sense this quiet alliance. They feel less caught between two systems and more supported by two hands that are trying to hold the same problem from different sides.
For students and younger practitioners, neurological diagnoses can appear intimidating. The language of lesions, pathways and syndromes may seem distant from the language of sensations, modalities and mental states that we learn in homeopathic study. But the two are not enemies. A basic understanding of neurology protects you from dangerous mistakes. It helps you recognise red flags like sudden loss of speech, acute severe headache, new onset seizures, rapidly progressive weakness or changes in consciousness that demand immediate referral, not a remedy and reassurance. At the same time, the homeopathic way of looking keeps you from reducing the patient to a label. It reminds you that even in the presence of a serious diagnosis, the individuality of the patient is still your guiding star.
For teachers, neurological cases offer rich opportunities to model this integration for the next generation. When a student presents a case of migraine, do not be satisfied with knowing the triggers and the drug history. Ask them to describe the exact character of the pain, the modalities, the associated mental state, the fears and fantasies the patient has about the attacks. When they present a case of neuropathy, guide them to ask not only about burning and tingling, but about the timeline of onset, the impact on confidence, the relationship with blood sugar control, the patient’s own theories and beliefs about their condition. In this way you train them to think as physicians and as homeopaths at the same time.
After many years with neurological patients, what stays with me most strongly is not the severity of their MRI findings, but the dignity with which they try to live. The elderly man who slowly relearns to button his shirt with one hand, the young woman who returns to work after a demyelinating episode, the diabetic patient who sleeps a little better because the burning in the feet is finally less, the parent who dares to hope that a child’s seizures will remain controlled, these are the quiet victories that rarely make headlines but mean everything to the people involved. If homeopathy, practiced responsibly beside the neurologist, can contribute even a small part to these victories, then its role in neurological care is meaningful.
Homeopathy beside the neurologist is not a slogan. It is a daily attitude. It means humility before the advances of modern medicine, confidence in the depth of our own system, and loyalty to the patient who stands between the two. It means knowing the limits of both paths and using them together for the benefit of the person whose life has been altered by a neurological problem. For students, practitioners and teachers of homeopathy, this is both a challenge and an invitation – to stand at the bedside of neurological patients not as competitors in a medical debate, but as companions in a difficult journey, bringing whatever light we can, with clarity, compassion and care.
Dr. Anil Singhal, MD (Hom.) is a senior homeopathic practitioner and author of “Boger’s Legacy,” a work exploring the enduring relevance of Dr. C.M. Boger. He is known for his thoughtful contributions to classical homeopathy and for his reflective narratives that integrate clinical insight with philosophical depth and educational clarity.
