FAQ

Even If you are a doctor, treating oneself is never easy. If you are not a doctor or licensed practitioner of Homoeopathy, you should not attempt to treat either yourself or others.
Conditions such as high blood pressure, lung, liver, kidney, endocrine disease (diabetes, thyroid etc.), heart disease and even cancers are extremely common - almost one in three people might suffer from one of these conditions, and not know it. A patient may present with a headache, but the reason could be high blood pressure or a brain tumor. This program is meant to help qualified/licensed homoeopathic physicians in their clinical practice.

PhaseRep is a web-based program, and will run on all operating systems including Windows, Mac OS, Linux etc.

PhaseRep runs in any modern browser with JavaScript enabled. It has been tested on Opera, Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer. It also works on the iPad, Android tablets or phones, BlackBerry and Kindle! However, though it works on most smart phones, the small screens do not give the most aesthetic results, and might be a tad inconvenient to use, requiring scrolling etc.

Yes. Right at the top of the final page, next to "Repertorization Results for xyz", there is a "Save file" link. Clicking on it saves a PDF file to your computer. You can read or print it using any freeware PDF viewer including Adobe Reader or Foxit Reader or PDF-XChange Viewer.

No, the program does not install anything on your computer. All the computation is done on the web server and the results are delivered to your computer. It will even work on your phone - just visit the link www.avsprasad.com. Of course, due to the small screen space, this is not ideal. It works fine on a Kindle or iPad!

You don't look for rubrics with PhaseRep - you look at the rubrics!
In other word, you may not find "Feigns sickness" or "Dreams of being lost in a forest". However, you will find other symptoms which the patient has, and can select those.
The 400 rubrics (approx) in PhaseRep represent extremely common symptoms in patients (and drugs). For example: cold, cough, fever, headache, backache, abdominal colic, constipation, diarrhea etc. The common cravings - sweet, salty, spicy, sour, cr cold, cr warm etc. From the list of rubrics, consider carefully what could apply to your patient, and you will usually find at least 6 or more, and those, combined with what you select from the next phase of repertorization, give surprisingly accurate results!

We have found that the system works best when there are a certain number of rubrics. Too few or too many tends to skew results. While selecting rubrics, don't worry about how many you are choosing - you should not think about that, but should take all that seem applicable. Then, once you have selected, the program may tell you to remove some - here, evaluate and remove the less "certain" or "definite" rubrics from the list.

The PhaseRep repertory is a custom repertory with rubrics coined by Dr. Prasad. It is not a standard repertory; however, it is based on standard repertories, principally Kent, Phatak, G.Boericke & Synthesis (edition 5.2) repertories. Some rubrics are based on symptoms from Materia Medicas such as Boericke, Kent's Lectures, Guernsey's Keynotes and Boger's Synoptic Key.

PhaseRep includes drugs found in Boericke's Materia Medica only. It consists of drugs like pulsatilla, sulphur, calc carb, nit-ac.... and also bothrops, dulcamara, latrodectus mactans, theridion, xanthoxylum, viscum album. No black mamba, lac delphinum, testudo h etc. However, for drugs found in Boericke's Materia medica, it includes rubrics that have been verified and are found in newer repertories like Synthesis.

PhaseRep has a unique, custom repertory, and the content of the repertory will not be made available presently. You can and should validate the results by looking up the Materia Medica before prescribing a drug.

I appreciate the concern that one must not take the matter of prescribing lightly. The question here is – does PhaseRep really limit our search for the simillimum? On the home page, is a clear statement: "I have found PhaseRep to be a very useful companion to conventional repertories. In some cases, it gives better results, and in others, the regular repertory programs are more useful..." etc. This shows that I myself use other programs too. In another place, I say that every tool and method should be used – so long as the final prescription is made on a careful comparison with the drug pictures in reliable Materia Medicas.
PhaseRep expands, rather than limits our search. It does this by suggesting other drugs which one might not think of, or which might not come up on routine repertorization. In the cases I have published on this site, the patient would have perhaps received some routine polychrest had it not been for PhaseRep. I might have prescribed ars-alb in the crataegus case, or allium cepa instead of squilla. I have also put up a case of xanthoxyllum – led to the remedy solely through PhaseRep.
PhaseRep not only expands the search, but it double-checks the drug resulting from the search, and as mentioned in several places on this site – one still does not just prescribe based on repertorial results. One goes to the Materia Medica, as shown in the Crataegus case.
It is up to the prescriber to understand the various tools available to his trade, select what is appropriate for the job, and use it carefully.

PhaseRep is and will remain free. We hope that the availability of this program will help simplify the practice of Homoeopathy, and enable doctors to get more consistent results.

No, it is available only over the web. There are currently no plans to release a standalone version.

The Materia Medica section is currently a simple selection of some rubrics that can be used for additional confirmation. It is just a convenience, and should not be used in place of standard Materia Medicas like Boericke, Phatak, Hering's condensed MM, Concordant MM, etc. Phaserep and the Materia Medica section are linked only for convenience. Real work on this section will begin only after July/August.

To the best of our knowledge, while there are online quizzes on just about every topic under the sun, there is no proper online quiz on the Homeopathic Materia Medica. The purpose of the quiz is to test and refresh users' knowledge of some characteristics and keynotes of the Materia Medica. The sources of the symptoms/rubrics are mentioned using the following abbreviations:
KR = Kent Repertory
B = Boericke Materia Medica
G = Guernsey
, K = Kent's Lectures on materia medica
More symptoms from Boger's synoptic key, Allen's keynotes, Dunham, Cowperthwaite etc. will be added over time.

It is possible that a symptom or rubric may occur under different drugs. For e.g., burning of soles is characteristic of both Sulphur and Medo. However, usually the special characteristics are mentioned so that rubrics are sufficiently unique - e.g., burning of soles at night, must uncover them. One thing to remember is that while many drugs have for e.g., burning soles - including canth, cham, med, lach etc. - for these other drugs it is not such a big keynote as in sulphur. So try and guess the drug which has the symptom as an important 'recognizing' keynote. Finally, even though you may lose some points by guessing Medo, when you are told it is Sulph, you actually associate the two drugs in your mind for this symptom. This association is useful.

At the end of every session, you will get a report on the missed rubrics along with the correct drug. You can simply revise this, or copy this into a text file for future reference and study.

The content of the quiz is the same in both. The regular or normal quiz is an actual quiz where you have to choose the answer. The flashcards quiz is optimized for tablets and touch screens - here, you only guess the answer, and when you click or touch the text box, the answer becomes visible. To help in revising, you are asked to indicate if you guessed the correct answer. If not, the missed questions/answers can be revised again. The normal quiz is more challenging - there is no chance for imagining that you "probably" guessed right.

The Quiz has the same requirements as PhaseRep (see above).

Dr. Prasad will be regularly putting up cases on the website. If you would like to send in a case, mail us at info@avsprasad.com. Please include your name, the drug prescribed, the case details in brief, and if you used PhaseRep, attach the saved file for our reference. Only cases that add new and useful information to homoeopathic literature will be published. Cases must be brief, and to the point - please use the existing cases on the site as a model of what we would like to publish here. Cases will be published with drug name at the beginning, followed by a brief case history and a summary of the followup. Clinical pointers and learning from the case would be appreciated. Patient information will be kept confidential.

This information has been taken from various reliable sources, textbooks of medicine, health magazines, books on nutrition, etc. - compiled to serve as a quick reference and reminder. This is an ongoing process. The reason for inclusion of allopathic medication is that many patients come to us using these medicines, and we need to know the consequences, for example, of abruptly stopping steroids.

The program compares two or more drugs and gives some possible differences between them. There are additions being made daily, and any support in the form of suggested differences would be most welcome. Please use the feedback page. Of course, a reliable reference source for the distinction would be required. Over the next few years, with steady, reliable additions, this should become a very useful tool for homoeopaths.
Please note: A drug like opium can have both diarrhea and constipation; also sleepiness and sleeplessness. The predominant action is indicated here. Aloe has both constipation and diarrhea. When you select Aloe and Opium, it will show:
    Aloe: Diarrhea
    Opium: Constipation
So one must use the distinctions as mere hints, not absolute indications. However, it should definitely help a prescriber to know that one drug develops its action slowly, such as bryonia, while another like baptisia is very rapid in its action. So also, that one drug belongs to the rhus family, while the other drug is from the solanaceae family.

This section has been added to complement the program "Distinctions". What do you do once you learn that one drug belongs to Compositae, and another to Ranunculaceae? At the very least, you could see which other drugs form that group. Knowing that Compositae has arnica, bellis perennis, calendula, hypericum, millefolium - all prominent injury remedies, is useful. A search on the internet for classification of Homoeopathic drugs did not yield very helpful results at the time of writing (Jan 2013). So this page, while incomplete, may provide some useful information. Indeed, considering the vast number of substances (plant, mineral, animal, fungi, bacteria) that simply - exist! - this information can never even hope to be complete. In this section, anyone searching for a routine homoeopathic medicinal substance may be able to place it amongst its nearest "relatives".

The plant classification data is taken from the USDA PLANTS Database. Umbelliferae is known also as Apiaceae. The more familiar name has been used here. Some older classifications such as clusiaceae for Hypericum instead of hypericaceae are maintained to show the relationships - hyper and gamb fall in the same subfamily. Phellandrium, or fine-leaved water dropwort is under Oenanthe in the US Dept of Agriculture database. So it's not immediately evident or easy to find. However, with some research, you can confirm the accurate placement of all the plants.
The Animal drug classification is only top-level - and needs work.
Minerals - Not classified except for an image of the periodic table - again, needs work.

It would be great to have a collaborative interaction with experienced homoeopaths, working to make the program and the website more useful. Please send suggestions and also tell us how you might like to contribute to the project. If you find any bugs or typographical errors, please report them. Send us your cases - even if you chose a different remedy instead of the one recommended. All of this can help us fine-tune PhaseRep.

Use the Feedback Form to send us a message with your email ID, and we'll get back to you when possible.