Here is the answer to last month’s quiz. I’ll repeat the case, as submitted by our dear friend Kelly Young, for those of you who didn’t see it: “Prince Charles” just happened to be walking past my house when he suddenly broke out in a stuffy nose;
Here is the answer to last month’s quiz. I’ll repeat the case, as submitted by our dear friend Kelly Young, for those of you who didn’t see it:
“Prince Charles” just happened to be walking past my house when he suddenly broke out in a stuffy nose; and, being the only homeopath anywhere within miles, he rang my door bell and I quickly hooshed all my other clients out the back door and asked him in to sit down.
“Prince Charles” had what appeared to be a cold. It was coming on for several days and seemed to settle in his nose, which was stuffy. He was chilly and restless.
So, you, I mean “he” had a cold, slow onset, which finally settled in “his” nose, and “he” was chilly and restless.
This is so tedious!
Yes, it is, but go on.
I’ll try! After a couple more days of this, “Prince Charles” began to have a headache centered above his eyes, along with nasal congestion and a discharge that was yellow-green and gelatinous.
How devastating!
It was difficult to blow out and seemed to be high up in my (aaah!) “his” sinuses. The next day, “Prince Charles” had the same symptoms but also a throbbing in his right jaw that hurt worse when he opened his mouth wide. The pain was really bad when “Prince Charles” bent forward to pick up toys off the floor, or clothes from off the floor–I guess the servants had been dismissed early! Needless to say, the castle remained a mess!
I recommended that “Prince Charles” start **** in water 30c. He took a total of 3 doses by the end of the day. He could tell the remedy was working as he felt “crackling” up in his sinuses and a decrease in pressure.
The next morning however, I’m told, his stuffy nose was back and he had a headache again. He took another dose of **** 30C in water and waited. He felt better within an hour but several hours later, was back to feeling stuffed up again. I, I mean “he”, resolved to try a 200c dose after giving the 30c one more try that afternoon.
Well, the 30c worked and held! He took another dose the next morning and continued for a couple days taking 2-3 doses per day.
Thank God for homeopathy or my house would be a perpetual mess!
And by “your house” you mean Buckingham Palace?
Of course!
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That’s it, folks! Well, I don’t know, maybe a lot of people were stumped by this one because we only got ten responses, but strangely enough, they were nearly split right down the middle between Kali bich. and Pulsatilla! Kali bich., however, prevailed by one vote and Kali bich. IS the winner!
Alert reader, Rajiv Prasad, from India, gave an extensive account of the reason for Kali bich. in this case; so, without further ado, I give you–
Rajiv Presad:
Dear Elaine,
Here i am again trying to guess an answer to this month’s quiz. But once a homeopath has identified a remedy in a case with most or all the keynotes of a remedy, it hardly remains a guess–it becomes a certainty. I hope I am right again this month.
I think the remedy for this month’s quiz case which Prince Charles(!!) received is Kali Bichromicum. It has almost all the symptoms of this case as its keynotes. The Kali Bichromicum cold develops slowly over a few days. It has stuffy nose with yellowish green, sticky or gelatinous discharges. It is one of the chief remedies for sinusitis. Kent in his Lectures on Materia Medica while describing this remedy mentions that “Headaches during coryza when the discharge of the coryza slacks up a little; it is worse by stooping; headache worse when the coryza slacks up; headache settles over the eyes and the forehead; it is worse by motion.” Of course Kali Bichromicum is famous for its gelatinous or sticky discharges which this case has. It also has rheumatic pains specially of a wandering type which is worse when the nasal discharges dry up. This patient is chilly and restless as Prince Charles here. All his headache and rheumatic symptoms improve as the nasal discharge is again established just as in this case.
First of all I would like to say that there are sometimes cases where you get to see a number of keynotes of a single remedy. One of the main keynotes attracts your attention while the remaining ones confirm the remedy choice. For example, we have Hering who believed in the three legged stool theory; i.e. at least three major keynotes of a remedy more often than not confirm the remedy choice. In this particular case there are so many keynotes of Kali Bichromicum, as I pointed out. As a result my attention didn’t go to any other medicine.
But, when you specifically ask about Pulsatilla, the fact that the patient was chilly is a strong pointer against Pulsatilla. Perhaps this symptom prevented Pulsatilla from coming to my mind. On further looking after your question I find that Pulsatilla is indeed in the repertory for a number of symptoms of the case, but the patient being chilly would rule it out for me. Also on page number 161 of Kent’s repertory we have a rubric, “head, pain, forehead, middle, frontal sinuses from chronic coryza” which is a key symptom in this case. Here we have Kali Bichromicum along with Silicea, Arsenicum, Thuja and Sanguinaria. Pulsatilla is not there. There are too many pointers towards Kali Bichromicum and a couple of important ones as I pointed out, against Pulsatilla.
With regards,
Rajiv Prasad
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Thank you, Rajiv for your commentary. Also, to prescribe a polychrest such as Pulsatilla, a remedy about which so much is known, we would expect to see more than one keynote–namely the yellow-green discharge. We would, as Rajiv said, expect the patient to be warm and worse for warm stuffy rooms and better in open air, we would be looking for the twilight aggravation time, the amelioration from cold compresses, or perhaps the thirstlessness with dry mouth; but, we get no confirmation for Pulsatilla.
So, let us now congratulate our savvy winners: LuAnn Batt, Jayashree Kanoi, Mati Fuller, Kim Marin, Brooks and of course, Rajiv.
Dr. B will now tell you what you’ve won!
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Elaine Lewis
