Heloderma Case – Experiencing the New Era

In this article I want to share with you my totally new experience of one case. I tried my best to make this digestible by a step by step explanation and I think you’ll enjoy our journey towards newness.

This case was taken and analyzed using Dr. Rajan Sankaran’s method of levels and sensation.

First consultation on 17^th January 2009

35 year old bus conductor came to my clinic for treatment of ‘recurrent mouth ulcers’ and ‘very severe phobias’.

[D: = Doctor, author; P: = patient; HG = hand gesture and my comments are in (brackets).]

D: Tell me about your problems.

P: Since last 3-4 months I’ve suffered from mouth ulcers and mentally I have the problem of constant fears.

D: What’s bothering you the most? (I try to sort out his chief complaint)

P: Fears. I’ve tremendous fear of lizards. I’m never ever able to see lizards. I’ve not any capacity to bear its presence in our toilet or in our rooms. If suddenly I see a lizard my all hairs stand up.

D: Tell me more about fears.

P: Fear is a basic thing in my life. Fear is always there in my mind in each and every situation of my life. Whenever I face anybody I get tremendous fear. I always think, what does he think of me? What’s his attitude towards me? Whenever I come in contact with anybody I feel that he is observing me, even when I go to visit any relative. At that time also some fears stay in my mind. I’m not able to talk to anybody face to face and I always feel inferior. There is always some kind of constant unknown fear there in my mind.

(I think he experiences everything in the form of fears, so this thing is indicating his level of experience. Keep in your mind this thing becomes useful when we select the potency.)

D: Tell more about ‘constant unknown fear’.

P: When I drive a vehicle I had constant threat that anybody suddenly comes in my side. This kind of insecurity is always there in my mind in all situations of my life. I feel it in my bus, at my home or when I visit anybody.

D: Tell me more about ‘insecurity’.

P: I had constant uneasiness through my whole life. Whenever I see the lizard, at that time I feel the insecurity. I feel that it jumps on me at any moment and I’m finished, because at that time I had severe shivering with very much perspiration. One thing I observe regarding the lizard is, whenever I feel guilty about my past, I’ll always see the lizard within a short time at any place in my house. So, constant threat is a core issue in my life.

(‘Lizard jumps on me at any moment and I’m getting finished’ this thing tuning as the survival pattern of animal kingdom, so kingdom has become clear now.)

D: Tell me now about ‘constant threat’.

P: Whatever situation I face in my life, I had constant threat. When I drive I feel anybody coming from front. When I meet a new person I feel anybody comes and starts fighting with me and I lose my control. Because of constant threat, sometimes my mind becomes very alert and otherwise it is very dormant. Whenever I had alertness I had very severe restlessness and because of restlessness I do so many mistakes in my work.

(Let’s collect the non-human specific words from his story because these words helping us to understand his sensation. The words are… Constant threat, alertness, alternately mind become alert and dormant)

D: What is ‘alertness’?

P: When my mind was starting to get alert, I had lots of thoughts and there are many streams in my thoughts. If I had one stream of thoughts then one more thought added from this side and at the same time another one stream added from that side and finally all gets together and intrude each other and where they circulate round and round and round (HG he make circular action) and finally this process become so severe, so I feel that I lost my mind as if slowly I lose control over my mind.

(One more important thing… Thoughts are collected together and intrude each other and they circulate round and round and slowly lose control of mind.)

D: Tell me everything about this ‘process’.

P: This is end-less process and is mostly happening in the morning. Once I become a victim of this process I feel that I completely lose my resistance and I circulate round and round. There is not any way to come out of it because at that time I had not capacity to fight against it, I’m a completely powerless. I’m a completely helpless. I lost my power, I lost my capacity, I lost my will, I lost my resistance and finally I become “zero”. I feel that it’ll take my all senses, you mentally become a cripple because it takes everything from you. You are still alive but you lose your all capacity and ultimately you lose your mental as well as physical resistance.

(This is the victimizing process… When you become victim you lose your resistance, your power, your capacity, your will, your senses and you become zero like you are cripple. Keep in mind… aggressor and victim is two sides of one coin.)

D: Tell me about ‘resistance’.

P: Resistance means your power to stand still to your opponent, your capacity to stand against your enemy. I think resistance is basic issue of my life. I feel I’m lacking it everywhere in my life. When I meet a new person I feel that I have not enough power to stand in front of him. I feel inferiority at that time. (Here the issue is, persistently resist your opponent.)

D: What is ‘inferiority’?

P: I feel that I’m a very lower person as if I’m the ‘zero’, I’m nothing, I can’t walk with world’s speed. My speed is very slow while the world runs very fast. I never ever match my rhythm with the world. In reality also my speed to do work is very slow, so my work isn’t completed in the time and finally I become restless. Sometimes even my mind also works very slowly as if my mind is in dormant stage. But one thing I want to tell you doctor, my mind work very fast when anybody is doing anything against me. If he wishes to do me bad I smell it very soon. I’m very sensitive to vibrations of any person. I mean I sense his nature through vibrations that he is bad person or good person. When anybody starts to do me bad I grip (HG he does striking action then hold his grip of fist) his attitude immediately.

(Here the issue is… My mind is slow and dormant but when it becomes alert it senses the thing in advance and it senses through ‘smell’ and ‘vibrations’. ‘Sense the thing in advance’ is clairvoyance quality of animal)

D: When you describe grip you are doing one action like this (I do same HG), please describe this HG.

P: Grip means you hold anybody very tightly (HG tight fist) that he can’t flee from your holding. Whenever I hold anybody he never escapes from my grip (HG tight fist).

(This is aggressor quality of animal… When it attack it hold their prey tightly and make very tight grip so prey can’t flee from your holding)

D: Why does anybody wants to flee from your grip?

P: I think my grip is very tight (HG strike with tight grip) so it might make some kind of painful experience for him. This is my speculation, I don’t know exactly what he feels. (His grip is very painful on victim. One observation…he used the word painful but he didn’t use killing words. )

(When we dealing with any animal pattern we get their information in scattered form, so we have to collect them to understand their ‘sensation’. At this stage I think of a carnivorous animal because he has issues of alertness, striking, tight grip.)

D: Now talk about your dreams. (I change the question because I want some more sensations to understand him.)

P: Mostly I get sexual dreams, but one experience I want to tell you. Yesterday when my mind is half sleeping and half awake I had one thought that the bunch of lizards try to enter in my mouth at a once. They reach at my throat so I feel tremendous insecurity because I had not power to restrict them. I’m totally helpless as if I had not any resistance. My throat does some kind of resisting, but my hands have become totally dead, as if they had not any single capacity to move. My mind tries a lot to do something and think what I can do to come out of this situation, but I had not a single movement as if I’m a zero and lizards do their work. (Again the same story of…Power, resistance, capacity, helpless, paralysis)

D: You say that you are” zero”. What do you feel at a time?

P: You are nothing. You had not a single power to resist, as if your body gets total paralysis. My resistance is completely gone, I had not any way [to resist] so become totally a victim of the situation. (This is victim side of aggressor.)

D: What is resistance?

P: Resistance means make a defense from your opponent. Suppose two things are standing in front of each other for fighting, then they must want some result. Anyone can get victory at any cost, if fight is going on and on then what is the meaning? How can you sustain your opponent for a long period of time? You must conclude your fight either in victory or giving up. (This kind of story reveals the mating ritual fight of two males.)

D: Now tell me about your nature.

P: Nature wise I’m a calm person and very lazy guy. I want the calmness at my work place. I never become furious from a first incident. At the beginning I try a lot to give up, but if anybody provoked me very much then I strike (HG striking) on him with full force and when I starts fighting then I never stop my resistance. (This is the behavior of the animal)

D: Tell me about your likes and dislikes.

P: I want spicy things all the time and I avoid tasteless things. Season wise I hate heat and cold both, mostly I prefer luke warm environment.

Plan: He is at emotion level so I’ll give him 200k of…

Analysis of the case:

In this case I think of the felidia family of mammals, because tigers or lions do the same thing when they chase the opponent. They are inactive at day time and alert at night. There are other sensations like… strike and hold your opponent tightly or make a very tight grip, issues of power, resistance, persistence. These issues support the carnivorous quality also. When they attack, their prey also become crippled, paralyzed, helpless. But whenever I think about felids my subconscious mind does not allow me to make the decision. I feel that something is missing, something is not matched perfectly. So I referred to many books, repertory and my personal reference work, but I got nothing concrete. Finally what I did was collect the themes that are not exactly matched to the mammal and felids. The themes are…

• Very strong issue of ‘constant threat’
• The streams of thoughts are collected together and intrude upon each other and they circulate round and round and slowly lose control of the mind.
• Persistently resist your opponent, fight till victory. (Felids are so powerful that they give one punch and their opponent gets finished. They don’t require persistency in fight.)
• When you strike you make a very tight grip so prey can’t flee from your grasp. (Felids have also required holding the prey and their grip is also very tight, but they do it for killing the prey not for just holding only.)
• His grip is very painful on victim. (Felid’s victim had not issue of pain because the situation is so severe and fatal that they mostly die or get paralyzed.)
• Very strong clairvoyance (Clairvoyance is general theme of all animal and felids are not exception but here severity is so great.)
• Prominent sense of ‘smell’ and ‘vibrations’ (The vibrations are not really matched with felids.)
• Slowness and laziness. (Felids are lazy, but are very fierce and very speedy.)
• I never become furious from first incident, at beginning I try a lot to give up, but if anybody provoked me very much then I strike. (Felids never give up their prey, they kill it in a single attack.)

Now I consider these themes in my notes and repertory and I get two very beautiful rubrics from synthesis repertory.

1. Mind, thoughts; intrude and crowd around each other: helo-s, maias-l (22)
2. Mind, thoughts; rapid, quick; morning: helo-s (1)

Now my confidence increased, so I searched the internet and I got very good information about the above themes.

The information from internet :

The patient’s expressions written in italic bold…

Gila monster

Heloderma suspectumPhoto © Animal-World: Courtesy David Brough

• Heloderma, the only genus of the family Helodermatidae, consists of venomous lizards. Helodermatids (or beaded lizards) are large, stocky, slow-moving reptiles. Helodermatids are carnivorous, preying on rodents and other small mammals, and eating the eggs of birds and reptiles. A heavy, slow-moving lizard, up to 60 centimeters (2.0 ft) long. It is referred to as being a “docile reptile.”

1. I feel that I’m the very lowest person; as if I’m the ‘zero’, I’m nothing, I’m not able to walk with the world’s speed. My speed is very slow while the world runs very fast. I never ever match my rhythm with the world.
2. In reality also my speed to do work is very slow, so my work is not completed in time and finally I become restless. Sometimes even my mind also works very slowly as if my mind is in a dormant stage.

• It is estimated that the Gila monster spends 95% of its time underground in mammal burrows or rocky shelters. It is active in the morning during the dry season (spring and early summer).

1. Because of constant threat some time my mind becomes very alert and otherwise it is very dormant.
2. This is end-less process and is mostly happening in the morning.

• Gila monsters are docile reptiles, which usually refrain from attacking humans unless disturbed considerably.

1. I never become furious from first incidence, at beginning I try a lot to give up, but if anybody provoked me very much then I strike (HG striking) on him with full force and when I start fighting then I never cease my resistance.

• Gila monsters are slow in terms of sprinting ability, but they have relatively high endurance and maximal aerobic capacity (VO₂ max) for a lizard. The venom of the Gila monster and beaded lizard is not usually deadly but they can inflict extremely painful bites due to powerful jaws. The Gila monster’s bite is normally not fatal to adult humans (there are no confirmed reports of fatalities), but it can bite quickly and hold on tenaciously and painfully. They roll on and actually seem to chew their prey while injecting the venom and hold on stubbornly for some time. Nevertheless, humans fear them because they can bite quickly and hold on tenaciously (won’t let go easily), which is quite painful.

1. Grip means you hold anybody very tightly that he can’t flee from your holding. When ever I hold anybody he never escapes from my grip.
2. I think my grip is very tight so it might make some kind of painful experience to him.

• It uses its extremely acute sense of smell to locate prey, especially eggs. Its sense of smell is so keen that it can locate and dig up chicken eggs buried 15 centimeters (5.9 in) deep and accurately follow a trail made by rolling an egg. Prey are detected by olfaction (the sense of smell). The Gila monster, like most snakes, uses its tongue for olfaction. The forked tongue of a Gila monster is a very important feature. It is the only lizard with a forked tongue like a snake’s. When the monster flicks its tongue in and out, it receives information about its surroundings via scent which aids it while hunting. The scents thus gathered travel into a specialized taste organ called Jacobsen’s organ (so called sixth sense… in human terms it is expressed as clairvoyance.) and get transformed here. Keen sense of smell and hearing (and not their vision) aid Gila monsters to find nests and young juvenile prey; using these senses, they can perceive ground vibrations and discover food in burrows, on the ground, or in vegetation.

1. But one thing I want to tell you doctor, my mind works very fast when anybody is doing anything against me. If he wishes to do me bad I smell it very soon. I’m very sensitive to vibrations of any person. I mean I sense his nature through vibrations that he is a bad person or a good person.

• There may be fights between males for getting access to females for mating. These combats are not very severe as they do not injure one another. The stronger one emerges victorious and has the right to mate.

• 1.Resistance means make a defense from your opponent. Suppose two things are standing in front of each other for fighting then they must want some result. Anyone can get victory at any cost, if fight is going on and on and on then what is the meaning? How can you sustain your opponent for long periods of time? You must conclude your fight either in victory or giving up.

The information from materia medica:

Synoptic materia medica

• VERTIGO: With sensation as if turning in a circle [1].

Clarke’s dictionary of practical material medica

• Numbers of cases of bites are on record. A dog bitten in the nose “uttered fearful howls, and when, after great difficulty, he was released, had symptoms like ‘blind staggers,’ began turning around in a circle, and died in twenty minutes.”

Patient’s expressions…

• Once I become a victim of this process I feel that I completely lose my resistance and I circulate round and round and round.

The above information completed my search and I think it is enough to make a prescription, but still I’m not getting any strong information about two themes which run very strongly in the case… (1) Constant threat and (2) Persistency. So now I have doubt that these issues are heloderma. Might be they share with its group “Reptile”.

(1) Constant threat

• When I cosider snake remedies I get beautiful themes in the crotolinea family. They are constant vigil and alert.
• I think ‘constant threat’, ‘alertness’ and ‘vigilance’ are one expression of “surprised attack”, theme of reptiles.
• Reference from internet about surprised attack… ‘Success of their hunt is attributed to the element of surprise of the assault’, ‘Gila Monsters show great agility if they have to defend or protect themselves but most of the times is leisurely and apathetic in their habits’.

(2)Persistency

• For a better way to understand this theme I want to tell you one historic story from our local newspaper. When the great shivaji’s shoulder wants to goes in to mugal castle they through one rope which was tied down with one big lizard (local name ‘Gho’) at their front end. The lizard stuck up on terrace and all soldiers do trekking upwards with the help of rope, one by one and kill all soldiers inside… This is the degree of endurance of one lizard persisting.
• Some words related to persistency… ‘Endurance’, ‘Hold on tightly’, ‘Strong grip’, ‘Never give up’, ‘stuck’, ‘Holding on stubbornly’, ‘Resistance’, ‘Never give up my resistance’

Follow up after one month

D: How are you?

P: I’m o.k. When I start your medication I get severe mouth ulcers but now ulcers are gone and my fears are also reduced since last one week.

D: Any dreams?

P: I had so many dreams but I’m sorry I forget them all.

D: Mood wise you are fine?

P: Yes, I get improved mood wise also. Now generally I feel energetic.

Plan: He improved slowly so not any repetition of dose was required.

Follow up after six months

He improved miraculously since his last dose of 200k (3^rd May 2009) especially in the fears. He had not any fears, but since his fears were gone he complained about severe anger. He becomes angry about very little matters. (Fear is his victim side and anger is his aggressor side, so now he shifted from victim to aggressor, or in other words he shifted from the unsuccessful side to the successful side. Both are same expression of one turmoil.) He did not complain about mouth ulcers since last three months.

Plan: He has one complaint regarding the new problem of anger, but I think this state went spontaneously after some time, so I didn’t repeat the dose.

Follow up after eight months

His father came to my clinic to complain about his son. His verbatim statements are as follows…

Father: What did you give my son? (In the angry tone)

D: I gave one medicine about his complaint of mouth ulcers and some fears. It is ok, but why are you so angry? Is anything wrong? What happened in your family?

Father: My son has become mad due to your medicine. He was all right till three months of your medicinal course, but one day he fought intensely with our neighbor, without neighbor’s fault. Since then he gets angry even in very little issues. My house converted into war like situations and you are responsible for all these things. (I tried a lot to make him understand but he can’t and he was in a fighting mood. I give him a promise to make his son normal very soon.)

After the patient’s father was gone I called the patient to meet me immediately. I inquired about his anger. He made a very unhealthy environment in his family since last 3-4 days. So I decided to give him heloderma 1mk.

Follow up after ten months

D: Now how’s your anger?

P: I get angry occasionally, but one thing I want to ask you. What did you give me last time? My confidence was increased after last dose, so now I can talk with anybody without any insecurity. Last week I met a judge and discussed a family matter and I didn’t feel anything abnormal. I talked with him like I talk with you!

D: Any dreams?

P: I had but I forget them.

Plan: He had not any major issues about anger and anything else so, wait and watch.

Follow up after one and a half years:

He is alright and he required totally two doses of 200k and two doses of 1mk. He stopped my medication since last two months, so I called him to meet me. He had really nothing remaining to take my medicine for. His fears, angers and other issues were gone completely. One observation I want to tell you, since last six months he never speaks about resistance, fighting and alertness. He forgot them all completely.

End of the case.

One message:

I believe that learning is a two way process, so by sharing we learn and grow experience wise. Experience is an ‘individual thing’. I mean if there’s any knowledge one has that others don’t, please give it to everybody. I think Homeopaths are differentiated from other medicos by one quality of “sharing”. I believe our system’s progress in the last ten years is marvelous and wonderful because our teachers “share” their ideas with us. They make tireless efforts to help us grow, so now our time comes to tell them thanks…

Categories: Case
Keywords: Sankaran’s sensation method, Reptiles, Lizards, Crotalinea, Heloderma

Remedy: Heloderma suspectum