please clarify about potency and related issues

The post by Realwarrior, the Silicean who is Mad, below brought up a lot of questions for me.

I started to add to his or her thread but thought maybe I better start my own.

What does it mean that taking a high potency of a remedy could result in a "proving"?

In my understanding (I am from USA where there seems to be, alas, little understanding compared to Europe, India, etc.) once a remedy had seemed to help for the reason taken--like realwarriors' allergies improving after the silicea that then one would stop that remedy and then next deal with whatever symptoms next came up, which would prob mean another remedy??? But supposedly the next set of symptoms are supposed to be different and hopefully less severe than the first ones???

Apparently that poster kept taking the remedy for a long time after no more help for original problem and even worse "side effects" or effects as a proving whatever that means, came up for him or her. Would this be because it was supposed to be "Constitutional" for that poster's type? But...this somehow isn't making sense, and I wish someone with lots of experience would explain!

I never had a bad experience with a homeopathic remedy and have up to now thought either it might help or might not, but that at least it won't hurt even if it is the wrong thing tried, but that post made it seem otherwise... that it could hurt a lot and leave someone worse off than before. Can anyone shed light on this?