Homeopath Ildiko Ran is working to turn people on to her brand of medical treatment

By David McLaughlin

STAFF WRITER

Ildiko Ran cured her mother’s thyroid problem and even helped her friend become pregnant, all without conventional drug treatment.

The 29-year-old Ran, who lives on Booth Street, is a homeopath. She treats her patients with natural remedies – instead of traditional prescription and over-the-counter medications – that she says acts on people’s minds and bodies. Homeopathy treatments are created based on people’s characteristics and treats a person’s mind and body, she says.

One of the ideas behind homeopathy is to give people a minute dose of medicine to compel their bodies to start healing themselves. The vital force, a person’s vitality the strength that keeps people going, needs to be helped along, she explained.

“The body is trying to tell you something (when you get sick),” said Ran. “So homeopathy studies the symptoms and helps the vital force work its way through.”

Ran sees patients part time in an office in Wellesley, though she is looking for a space in Needham. One of the barriers she faces in getting more patients, she said, is that society, and conventional medicine in particular, is resistant to homeopathic treatments.

At the end of the 19^th century, Ran says, homeopathy was much more widely accepted and well known than it is now. There were even homeopathic hospitals, including a 15 bed facility in Brighton.

“They started closing down the schools and homeopathy just disappeared,” she said. “Probably it’s because of the strength of conventional medicine.”

But though homeopathy is not widely accepted here, homeopaths like Ran say it works and they have seen results.

She first started learning about it when she was living in Finland. She and her husband lived there for seven years before moving to America in 1997.

Her conversion to homeopathy happened slowly. She walked into a homeopathic pharmacy because her first daughter had a skin rash on her fingers. She was using a cream, but Ran started wondering if there might be a more natural cure.

It turned out there was. The homeopathic pharmacy gave Ran a remedy and it worked on her finger. At that point, Ran, who had no medical background at the time, just started reading more about it and came to accept its ideas and philosophy.

“It was groundbreaking,” she said. “It was something so new to me, but it sounded right.”

While living in Finland, Ran took a course in homeopathy from a school in England. Then, when she moved to America, he took a three-year-course at the New England School of Homeopathy. Her first patients were friends and family members.

Today, Ran first spends a few hours just talking to her patients and getting to know as much about them as she can. She often starts with a person’s physical complaints, but she says she also wants to learn about people’s emotional and mental characteristics, as well. Gathering this information, she said, helps her treat a person holistically.

“I just try to get as much information from as many different direction as possible from this person and I get a picture of this person,” said Ran.

Then she chooses one of a few thousand homeopathic remedies to fit that person. “They should expect changes on many different levels,” she said.

Ran, however, doesn’t believe there’s no place for traditional medical treatments, such as surgery, and prescription medications. In fact, she would like to one day work with a medical doctor in her office.

Still, she prefers the more natural remedies of the homeopathic treatments.

“It’s much more convenient to take a pill. If you have a headache, it goes away… Homeopathy takes a lot of energy,” she said.

David McLaughlin can be reached at dmclaugh@cnc.com

Last updated 02/15/09