Case Quizes Clinical Cases

Revisiting: Scary Halloween Virus Hits The Heartland!

Halloween
Written by Elaine Lewis

Revisiting: Scary Halloween Virus Hits The Heartland!. Elaine gives the answer to last month’s quiz.

Shana, don’t look now but, remember the scary quiz from last month’s ezine?

No, and neither does anyone else, Mom.

I guess we need to hit the rewind button again….

Hitting…and….. action!

………………………………………

Shana

Hold on, Shana, I’m looking for a suitable dinner dish to brighten up the quiz page this month. How’s this?

What is it?

It’s a Philly Cheesesteak! I made it myself, with a whole wheat cheesesteak bun, of course!


Mom, I think you better leave this to the professionals on 9th Street!

I came to the same conclusion, Shana!

So what’s this about a scary Halloween Virus?

Shana, you are not going to believe this! I’ll let “Samantha” tell it, since it was her house that got “visited”!

***********

Well, Elaine, “Tabitha” fell asleep again as we neared bedtime and I imagined I would just be carrying her up to bed, and/or that she might wake up briefly to get upstairs and then drift back off again. Instead, after I got the second twin to sleep, Tabitha woke up and was having a night terror in the middle of a well-lit room, where she had been sleeping! She looked at me, like she didn’t have the words, like someone was after her! She was looking around, grabbing my hand and then dropping it, starting to hug me and then pulling away. I would ask her things calmly, and she would answer things that I couldn’t understand or that made no sense. She said something about bears and how they were going to get her.

Then she started literally writhing, clenching her fists and acting like things were crawling on her head, holding her head and neck and acting like she wanted to shimmy out of her skin. She broke into sobs, saying she wished she didn’t have so many problems. I asked what problems she was referring to. Her eyes just looked wildly fearful and she said how her hair sticks up. As she says something like this, she looks in different directions, like she is terrified someone will overhear her saying it. She stops mid-sentence and will shudder or grab me and then let go really fast. It is so bizarre. I knew I was probably looking at a full-blown night terror but a part of me, wearied by the day’s drama, was worried the fever had affected her brain! I told her that her hair doesn’t stick up; it is long and in a braid. It was almost as though she thought she was something or someone else. Then she sobbed again and at the same time had this terror on her face, really big eyes, and she was saying she is afraid she will not turn out to be beautiful! HUH??

So at first I gave her ____________30C, since in the past it has helped with night terrors. But after a while she was still acting strange, and said she felt strange; I gave her one pellet of ___________30C and she returned to Earth, thank goodness, no more looking “through” me like we were in some creepy horror movie… because that really… really… freaked me out.

So weird, it is Saturday night, my second daughter, now, “Serena”, is over her bout with this strange virus, and she is sitting near me and you can tell she is thinking about things. Her chin starts quivering and her eyes water and she keeps telling me she doesn’t like dark things…dark windows behind me, for instance. Night time. The dark. I’ve never heard this from her before; in fact, she seems pretty fearless characteristically; but, in the middle of the night, she let out a blood-curdling scream that had my heart *jumping* as she was laying right next to me! Also my youngest twin “Esmeralda” today seemed to have some inexplicable fearfulness. I don’t know if it is this virus? Esmeralda had a fever and was hot and dry in her sleep all Friday night into Saturday morning, and though she did not have terrors, she talked to herself ALL NIGHT LONG, and I got no rest! It is not typical for her to talk *that much* in her sleep (she is known to say something just before waking up sometimes). It was literally all night long!

Weird to consider that a viral infection can affect mental states, even after the acute aspects of the virus have abated? Yes! Once the fever abated and they got some energy back, then a fear state kicked in!

*************************

Wow, is all I can say! What remedy do you think all three children needed?
———————————————————————————————

Votes:

Stramonium-4

Sulphur-1

Alert voter, Maria, writes:

Ok, I am between 2 remedies. After struggle, I left out Aconite which was my 3rd option. So I have to vote between Belladona and Stramonium. I will go with Stramonium for the mental aggravation at night, the strong fear of dark. Otherwise it has many similarities with belladonna concerning the after or during fever effects, the talking in the sleep etc. But from belladonna I would expect bad or wild behavior. This case has the smell of insanity somehow, so I will vote Stramonium.

You know, you have to give me credit for ruling out Mancinella; hahahhahahha!

Maria

Maria, is that a maniacal laugh, apropos Halloween? Well stop it, you’re scaring me! But, you’re right, it is Stramonium!

Wow I am gonna party for this! I was sure I would have to guess twice- as I always do ::PPPPPPP

Thank you, it was a very good quiz and guess what helped me make the final decision?

What?

An article in the hpathy ezine on insanity

I wrote that????? Geez, maybe I should read it, I might learn something. Here it is now:

STRAMONIUM (Stink-weed)

High energy and intensity are striking in this remedy. VIOLENCE or fear of violence is a keynote. Night is a good time to look for Stramonium symptoms because they are AFRAID OF THE DARK, they are worse at night and may need ALL THE LIGHTS ON in the room; a hall light or night light may not be sufficient. NIGHT TERRORS–shrieking in sleep, tossing and turning, sitting up and not knowing anyone, terrified, and not remembering the event the next morning, especially in children, is characteristic. What would cause this state in a person? A high fever, a suppressed fever, a stroke, meningitis, a recent FRIGHT or a fright they’ve never gotten over, sunstroke, a dog bite, a head injury, rabies, and alcoholism, are all possible causes.

Other Stramonium symptoms include:
Ceaseless talking.
Fear of tunnels.
Desire to escape.
Eyes staring wide; eyes half open during sleep.
Face–expression of terror.
Believes he is possessed by the devil or has other issues with the devil or devils.
There may be an absence of pain where pain would be normal.

RAVING MANIA, super-human strength, dilated pupils, red face, violent rages, manic-depression.

Biting, striking, strangling.

Fear of water, including the sight of running water, the sound of water, GETTING THE HEAD WET in the shower or the swimming pool, fear of shining objects, reflecting objects, glittering objects, mirrors; fear of animals, dogs, fear of being attacked by wild animals, fear of disease, ghosts, suffocation, claustrophobia, death, anything like death, such as the color black or cemetaries, etc. Conversely, they may dress all in black or seek out cemeteries and the like.

FEAR OF BEING ALONE, BETTER WITH COMPANY, especially at night.

STAMMERING. Makes explosive efforts to get the first syllable out.

Grimmacing, twitches.
Hallucinations: sees animals coming at him, sees ghosts, talks to spirits, hears voices.

(All the insanity remedies seem to have religious affections– praying, talking to God, believing he is some great religious figure, etc., so, we can’t rely on this feature to differentiate among them.)

Well! Wow, how about that?! It’s all there! I should probably add that I checked and found Stramonium in the “talks in sleep” rubric as a 2; plus it’s a 3 under “excessive loquacity”! So, what do we have here that goes for these 3 cases? We have fear of being attacked by animals, look of terror, not recognizing anybody, fear of dark things, shrieking in sleep, and constant, non-stop talking.  And notice how you don’t need to have every symptom of a remedy in order to need that remedy. One child only had a little bit of fear and the rest was non-stop, ceaseless talking in sleep! In fact, none of the three cases were exactly alike but, interestingly, they all had a piece of the Stramonium picture!

Let’s give a round of applause to our winners, shall we?

Maria Theodorou, Maryam from Pakistan, Diderik Finne and Alix!

Congratulations everybody, see you back here in December!

______________

Elaine Lewis, DHom, CHom

Elaine takes online cases, write to her at [email protected]

Visit her website: https://ElaineLewis.hpathy.com

About the author

Elaine Lewis

Elaine Lewis, D.Hom., C.Hom.
Elaine is a passionate homeopath, helping people offline as well as online. Contact her at [email protected]
Elaine is a graduate of Robin Murphy's Hahnemann Academy of North America and author of many articles on homeopathy including her monthly feature in the Hpathy ezine, "The Quiz". Visit her website at:
https://elainelewis.hpathy.com/ and TheSilhouettes.org

Leave a Comment