Atiq & Naila co-founders of Homeopathy in Practice and The Homeopathy Health Radio Show explore remedies for winter prescribing.
Homeopathy offers a rich lens through which to understand acute respiratory and flu-like states. Rather than focusing on disease labels, homeopathic materia medica describes the body’s individual reactions, its tempo, its temperament, and its instinctive attempts to regain balance. Each remedy reflects a unique energetic signature, a particular way the vital force expresses its struggle and striving.
This framework becomes especially important as winter approaches, when the familiar rhythm of acute respiratory cases returns, coughs and colds, sinus congestion, bronchitis, asthma flare-ups, and the lingering sequelae of viral or vaccine-related fatigue. Behind these presentations lies something deeper: a recurring pattern of susceptibility, reactivity, and depletion that mirrors the season’s contraction of vitality.
In these moments, practitioners often turn to well-known acute remedies such as Bryonia, Aconite, Hepar sulphuris, and Kali bichromicum. These remedies have served reliably through decades of winter prescribing. But what happens when the picture becomes more layered, when the acute no longer resolves cleanly, when the illness seems to echo an older pattern or signal a deeper dissonance within the organism?
This question forms the heart of our In-Clinic: Winter Wellness Series – Beyond the Usual Remedies. Our intention is not to replace the tried and trusted, but to widen the scope of our winter materia medica and revisit the lesser-seen landscapes of acute prescribing.
To begin, even the classical twelve flu-state portraits offer profound insight into how the body reacts under acute stress.
Aconitum napellus captures sudden shock and fear
Ferrum phosphoricum the early, shimmering onset of inflammation
Bryonia alba the dryness and restraint of stillness
Gelsemium sempervirens reflects sinking vitality
Arsenicum album combines coldness, restlessness, and anxiety
Nux vomica speaks to overstimulation and irritability
Eupatorium perfoliatum mirrors deep bone aching
Pyrogenium the fever of internal imbalance.
Baptisia tinctoria conveys dullness and disintegration,
Phosphorus openness and depletion
Belladonna the fiery intensity of sudden inflammation.
Taken together, these remedy profiles sketch a spectrum of responses the vital force may display – fear, agitation, collapse, burning, heaviness, or hypersensitivity. But beyond these acute energetic states lies another layer of prescribing: the terrain of susceptibility.
Winter, with its cold-damp heaviness and contracted vitality, reveals constitutional tendencies with unusual clarity. Here, sarcodes and biodynamic supports like Thymus gland, Pulmo vulpis, Oxygenium, and RNA encourage us to think not only about symptoms, but about the deeper architecture of vitality. These remind us that recovery is not simply about resolution; it is about reanimating coherence within the organism.
Equally, lesser-used plant and animal remedies, Coccus cacti, Rumex crispus, Blatta orientalis, Aspidosperma, extend our understanding of spasmodic coughs, asthma, and reactive states. Remedies like Echinacea, Sambucus nigra, and Carbo vegetabilis highlight oxygenation, circulation, and immune tone – the breath of vitality itself.
The cold-damp winter states that favour stagnation call us back to remedies such as Dulcamara, Natrum sulphuricum, Teucrium, Lemna minor, Hydrastis, Hepar sulphuris, and Kali bichromicum. Even here, the art lies in perception – seeing how external climate mirrors internal susceptibility.
In teaching and case discussion, we often meet deeper reactive patterns expressed through remedies such as Lac caninum and Hippozaenium, which remind us that immunity extends beyond the biological: it is relational, emotional, and often inherited. Likewise, nosodes and sarcodes – Influenzinum, Diphtherinum, Bacillinum, Oscillococcinum – take on renewed meaning when viewed through prevention, restoration, and post-viral recovery.
Through this lens, winter ailments become less about crisis management and more about constitutional insight. Deep winter prescribing is not a new technique; it is a reawakening of observation, an invitation to see each acute as a message from the vital force, a moment of truth in the dialogue between organism and environment.
Our hope through this series is to encourage practitioners to reach beyond the routine, to rediscover the remedies that too often sit unnoticed on the shelf, and to rekindle curiosity about the interplay between vitality, susceptibility, and environment.
We invite you to join us in this exploration, and to welcome winter not merely as a season of ailment, but as a teacher, revealing, within its stillness and chill, the quiet workings of resilience and renewal.
Atiq & Naila
Co-Founders, Homeopathy in Practice
www.homeopathyinpractice.co.uk
Material published in this section of the website does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Society of Homeopaths.
