Clinical Cases

Case of an 8 Year Old Girl With “Gastric” Problems

Homeopath Lily Samardzic-Rafik presents a case of gastric problems in an eight year old girl.

Here is a case, I would like to share. I am a homeopath living in Morocco and the only classical homeopath here. I took this case after the mother was disappointed with a local MD/homeopath trained in France who used polypharmacy, prescribing fifteen homeopathic remedies at one time! Outrageous! She learned of me through a local pharmacist who gave her my address.

Ghita is an 8 year old girl with stomach problems, that had been treated allopathically. Her mother gave the following symptoms during the interview:

She complains of nausea in the morning, has acidity and sour eructations. She is often anxious at night, waking from thinking about what she must do the next day, or that she might be late for school, or that she had not finished a work.

She is orderly. She is anxious about money and death. She likes salty foods, and does not like fish much. She has sneezing in the morning, in Autumn, after leaving the bed. She has a plugged nose at times. She gets headaches often, and doesn’t like the sun much. When she is sick, her mother says she doesn’t say much, but just ‘suffers in silence”. She is constipated.

She is good in school and likes to make surprises. She can be afraid of thunderstorms. Thought of death makes her cry. Her tongue has a fissure in the middle, with white coloration at the root and sometimes she has bubbles at the side of her mouth. She has a history of recurrent tonsillitis and bronchitis. Her tonsils have hard cheesy plugs that she spits out.

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After repertorising all the symptoms as seen in the grid…the top remedies were….LYC, NAT MUR, SULPH, PHOS, SIL, CALC

But the story doesn’t end here, nor with the presenting symptoms.  If the presenting symptoms have been regular since birth, without any known events that could be the “never well since birth”, it would be of great interest to see if there could be a missing link. Is there a never well since during pregnancy? It pays to ask, and it might help us differentiate.

When asked, “Was there anything that happened during pregnancy, an event of some sort, bad news, etc?”, the mother responded that during her pregnancy, the contractions were absent, even when inducing. Her nipple was also inverted, lack of nipple. During the pregnancy at three months she had the news that her father was in the hospital, and she wept. After the delivery, while in the hospital, the death of her husband’s cousin was announced.

Here we see that the mother had a double event, one during pregnancy in hearing the bad news of her father, and just after delivering while she was still in the hospital! She was told that her husband’s cousin died… AILMENTS FROM GRIEF….

So…NATRUM MURIATICUM….fit the case! Although I didn’t find anxiety in children in the repertory in SYNTHESIS…I did add it later.

Here is what happened after taking the remedy:

1 granule NATRUM MURIATICUM 30c in 125 ml of water….1 tsp , 1 x day.

Keep in mind that she just finished an allopathic treatment 1 month previously. After taking the second dose of Nat Mur she had stomach pain and diarrhea for about 3 days, with lack of appetite. The diarrhea was very liquid. I asked her not to repeat the remedy, thinking it was an aggravation, and not sure whether it was a returning symptom or an acute diarrhea. This is when the panic sets in and you start doubting whether your treatment is moving in the right direction. But one must keep to the principles (Hering’s law) and have faith in them!

On the 4th day she was feeling better. The body was cleansing itself from the allopathic treatment!

She NEVER again repeated the dose, and has not had stomach pain since, nor sneezing in the morning , nor nose obstruction. Three months later she was still well, no stomach pains. However, she was anxious about death and money, weeping at times, afraid something would happen to her parents.

Do I change the remedy …. NO!

The same anxiety existed in the beginning, so although we have amelioration on the physical level, we still need to go deeper to touch the mental and emotional plane.

NATRUM MURIATICUM 30C….. same bottle …this time SPLIT DOSE! 1 tsp from 1st cup TWICE weekly.

Ten days later…she has a returning eruption….Do I change the remedy? No!

I asked about her other symptoms and found that she no longer talks about death, is less anxious, and has no other physical symptoms to speak of.

From here on we wait. The returning eruption is a good sign, in line with Hering’s Law, and it is best to do nothing now, as it will probably clear away on its own. Only if other symptoms appear NOT OF NATRUM MURIATICUM along with the eruption can we consider another remedy. For now, six months later, the child is doing well.

About the author

Lily Samardzic-Rafik

Lily Samardzic-Rafik, DiHom (Pract), MSc Hom Med, has been in private practice since 2009 in Casablanca , Morocco. She is a classically trained homeopath who graduated from the British Institute of Homeopathy Ireland and has a Masters in Science in Homeopathic Medicine. Visit Lily at her website: www.homeopath-lily.com

11 Comments

  • Lily did an excellent job showing the homeopathic community the value of the 5th edition split method and the management as when to repeat. Finding the simillimum is only the first task but without good management the case is always lost. Just one small advice: starting right away with the split method for this chronic case and taking the dose from the first cup would most likely have avoided the initial similar aggravation but Lily showed good thinking in her further management. Well done!

  • Wanted to add the comment about as is seen in this case of the mystical participation according to Jung between the unborn fetus and the pregnant mother causing to derail the intented constitution and derailment of the Vital Force. Hence the importance in chronic cases to go back to intra uterine questions as well as the first reactions of mother and father upon hearing the “news of being pregnant,” if the reaction of both parents is positive or rather negative like “this is not a goodtime to be pregnant.”

  • Thanks to Dr Luc I learned the best way to practice early on..It saved me a lot of “waste of time”…Thank you for your comment.

  • It is a very interesting and educative case from many reasons: the choice the remedy, the administration, the management of the case…but It is something that I don’t understand. If the remedy was the correct one (and I’m sure it was), why the mental-emotional got better later on and not from the beginning. Usually, the mental-emotional plane is the first to be influenced by the right remedy.

    Thank you

  • This is a really good question Daniela. Eventually I had to go higher in potency with the patient.

    I think your question can be explained as following: Although we see very low potencies can affect when it is a true similimum the complete general state of the patient, Mental/emotion/physical, in most cases ameliorating the mentals first. The rule for selecting potencies in general is lower potencies for more local complaints and higher for mental/emotional. In this case the mentals/emotionals go very deep, back to pregnancy. I think the 30c just didn’t work deep enough. It helped on the physical level but could not really touch or hold onto the mental/emotional level. This is why when I look back at the case I see that higher potencies were necessary and administered… and my followups show as follows: The patients treatment has proven very beneficial overall, disappearance of stomach acidity and eructations, the child grew and gained weight, where as before she was weak and didn’t eat much. The eruptions on elbows and knees also have almost completely disappeared, as per dermatologist.

  • Thank you for answering me so quickly…Going higher in potency in order to get better mental-emotional is the logical thing to do, I understand this, but I don’t understand why do you consider, and I quote, ,,NATRUM MURIATICUM 30C….. same bottle …this time SPLIT DOSE! 1 tsp from 1st cup TWICE weekly.” higher in potency then ,,1 granule NATRUM MURIATICUM 30c in 125 ml of water….1 tsp , 1 x day” Maybe I didn’t understand you well, but ,,1 granule NATRUM MURIATICUM 30c in 125 ml of water….1 tsp , 1 x day” seems to be the remedy solution bottle (RSB) as I understood from the writings of Dr Luc De Schepper, from which she had to take 1 tsp per day. The ,,1 tsp from 1st cup” as I see it, is 1 tsp from the RSB, diluted in one cup, from which she had to take 2 tsp per week, and this is a weaker dose from the same potency (more dilution without sucussion). And this, as I understood, is the reason this weaker dose is recommended in the beginning of chronic cases treatment, in order to avoid aggravation.

    This is what I understood, and it is possible I didn’t understand well, so, all I want to do is to get it right for the sake of my pacients 🙂

    Thank you

  • First I would like to correct that there was always succussions. Sorry I didn’t mention this in my write of the case. The first dose was directly from the bottle (RSB)…but there was a diarrhea right away, so I considered it a strong reaction (aggravation), I waited for the diarrhea to pass…when it did pass the amelioration followed so I left it at that and waited. When I saw I had to repeat the remedy again, I decided this time to use split dose (diluted in the cup) inorder to avoid that initial aggravation again. Diluting the remedy in a cup and giving it after succussions, is actually not a weaker dose, it is stronger because now we have gone up in potency a bit because we have succussed…but giving in split dose form controls the quantity (dose) of remedy given, I reduced the dose of the remedy by giving split dose…I could have also reduced to 2.5ml directly from RSB, if I wanted to.

  • Dear Daniela

    I never mention in any of my books to give 1 dose a day regardless the outcome. I always advocate to contact the patient the third day after the initial dose as to assess the response to the first dose of the remedy. As Hahnemann said, “Imitate me, but imitate me well.” I have provided the homeopath with Hahnemann’s instructions in “Achieving and Maintaining the Simillimum” and in “Advanced Guide for the Professional” and one can see that it is a great mistake to give the remedy mechanically everyday (which too many homeopaths do). Also regarding the mental improving first: this is part of the OBSERVATIONS of Hering,they are NOT infaiilble laws like “Like Cures Like” and the “Law of individuality.” As mentioned before Lily rightfully switched immediately to the 5th edition (in which every next dose is stronger because of succussions) as a similar aggravation was observed after the first dose directly from the RSB. After this she followd Hahnemann’s advice to give the minimum dose of the HIGHLY potentized remedy. And since the trauma was already happened intra utero through mystical participation, by the time the patient was seen by Lily, the layer was quite big! Excellent work by Lily!

    Dr luc

  • Thank you Dr Luc for your observations and for the effort to write all those books. You gave us a lot of useful information for day to day practice. Thank you.
    And thank you Lily for sharing your experience with us. I look forward to hearing from you again.

  • respected madam
    I am confused that adding a medicine in a cup and if it is succussed will it reaily go to the higher potency. Madam will you please explain it for me.

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