I woke up one morning, feeling like death warmed up. It was a struggle to get out of bed. but I had animals to feed, so made a valiant effort. Every few minutes I had to sit down, to gather my strength.

Then I had to phone my patients, another enormous task, to cancel my appointments.

Then I thankfully slumped back to bed.

But then I became thirsty.

And I couldn’t go back to sleep.

Eventually I got up and sat in the living room, feeling sorry for myself, possibly dosing.

I couldn’t think. It didn’t help being a practising homeopath at that time. there was no energy to work out what I needed.

Normally I love tea – actually I’m a bit of a tea-a-holic. and I love it hot and glug it down. All morning I had been sipping at water, which wasn’t entirely due to the fact that I had little energy. I just didn’t feel like tea.

One of the things I most love about complimentary alternative medicine is that it generally individualises you. Everyone is an individual. one size doesn’t fit all. My particular favourite is homeopathy, as this medical modality is all about your unique symptoms.

One symptom, like my total exhaustion, wasn’t enough to prescribe a homoeopathic remedy on, as there are many which have this symptom.

You need to have a few good symptoms of a particular remedy, to work out if it will help you. three good symptoms is normally enough for acute prescribing.

I knew my condition was acute as I had felt the effects of a cold or flu coming on over a few days. Stupidly, I hadn’t taken any action.

So I had two good symptoms – total exhaustion and flu.

The third symptom came to me when I realised I wanted to sip water rather than glug tea.

The homeopathic remedy Arsenicum album is an enormous remedy, with a huge scope for healing many ailments with many different symptoms. three of the main ones are exhaustion, desire to sip drinks and flu.

Once I started on the remedy, I fell asleep (always a good sign) and then gradually picked up in energy. by late in the afternoon I was up and active. by the following day I was completely recovered.

When you look outside the complementary alternative medicine area, can you see any modality which will heal such a condition so fast and so completely? without side effects?

Do let me know if you know of one.

Because I’ll eat my hat. Actually I don’t have a hat. I’d have to buy one to eat it…

I don’t know very much about other areas of complementary alternative medicine other than homeopathy, as this is such a huge subject it will take me the rest of my life to really understand it. there is so much to learn.

But it can also be so simple.

A novice home prescriber, armed with a general homeopathic kit, would have had access not only to the remedy, but also to the information to work out which remedy was best suited to my condition.

In recent years, there have been global health scares for bird flu, SARS and now swine flu. but every year, globally, millions are affected by flu anyway. as far as homeopathy, my all time preferred favourite complementary alternative medicine goes, the strain of the virus makes not one jot of difference to the effect the remedy will have on you.

It’s only your unique symptoms which matter. and they are common in any type of flu.

Arming yourself with a quality homoeoapthic home prescribing kit, with clear instructions, and you’re taking control of your life.

But remain open to the other modalities of complementary alternative medicine, too. they all work with your body, so can assist you.