Revisiting “Shrimp Boat Runs Aground!”

September 9, 2009 by Elaine Lewis  

Filed under Homeopathy Clinical Cases | Hpathy Ezine, September, 2009
 Print This Page | Leave a Comment

By Hpathy

Who remembers the case? Here it is again:

We nearly didn’t have a case for you this month until, luckily, I was stupid enough to eat at Red Lobster!

My date, Tony, whom we shall call “Antonio”, asked me where I would like to eat. “Oh, any place is fine with me,” I said, nervously. “How about Red Lobster?” he said. Despite sensing the inevitable ship-wreck, I cheerfully said, “Sure, sounds great!”

Red Lobster is a pretentious McDonalds with sea food.

Fast forward to this morning around 7 am when I first realize I’m in trouble! Abdominal discomfort–that unmistakable feeling that diarrhea can’t be too far down the road, an increasing sense of nausea, chills and a bit of rectal flatulence which did not ameliorate, greeted me rather suddenly. Which remedy saved the day?

Out of 23 votes cast, five of you said Arsenicum–the first remedy we think of for bad food and water. In fact, just as an aside here, as a bonus, so to speak, last night I ate out at a Chinese restaurant. Well, I guess you’re not safe anywhere anymore! About 20 minutes after leaving the restaurant, I was in a stationery store buying mailing envelopes when suddenly I began to get sharp stomach pains! And I’m thinking, “What, again? No, it can’t be!”

I arrive home. I’m in my driveway, telling myself to hurry up and get into the house and get into the bathroom! I get inside the door and pause long enough to take Arsenicum 30C and put my homeopathic emergency kit in the bathroom where I’m expecting to spend the next hour…and guess what? It never happened! It just went away, the whole thing, it just went away! This is what homeopathy is all about, it’s why we’re so enthusiastic about it and it’s what the life of a homeopath is like–uneventful. Make that less eventful!

So to get back to the Red Lobster debacle, that was the first remedy i took–Arsenicum. I took it right away. It showed promise in the beginning and then fizzled out–not the right remedy this time, sorry!

All I remember was that I was lying there, and you know when you’re sick you’re not one for getting up and doing research and repertorizing cases! So, I just said to myself, “What remedy has flatulence and chills?”

I remembered thinking how peculiar it was to have chills with diarrhea, where you’re not just chilly but your teeth are actually chattering and you’re shaking! It had never happened to me before, so that was a big consideration for me and remember, the “concomitant” symptom will usually tell you what the remedy is; chills is the concomitant in this case, and there’s a rubric–Chills: diarrhea, chills during. The remedy I took is only in Murphy’s Repertory, if you’re using Kent’s, be sure to add it to this rubric as a “2″.

Most of the votes went to Lycopodium–9 votes. Lycopodium is known for flatulence, but, an awful lot of remedies have flatulence! If this was all we had, we wouldn’t have very much! If you repertorize:

Rectum: flatus, rectal, diarrhea, during

and

Chills: diarrhea, chills during

the remedy that comes out on top is China! That’s what I took and it worked within minutes! Coming in a close second was Aloe, and we did get a vote for Aloe, and here’s what our Aloe voter said:

Regarding your trouble the morning after Red Lobster…….. I have chosen Aloe.

I was lead to this using instinct, humble but yet focused experience
and Murphy’s Repertory. Here follows a few guiding rubrics for this
case:

CHILLS, diarrhea, chills during
RECTUM, diarrhea, bed, driving out of
diarrhea, painless
flatus, stool, urging for but only flatus is passed
urging, desire to stool, flatus when passing
morning

I wonder did you eat oysters?
Regards
Fiona

Thanks for sharing your thinking with us, Fiona; maybe Aloe would have worked too! However, we have to be careful not to make assumptions. I never said that diarrhea drove me out of bed, nor that it was painless, nor that only flatus was passed and “urging, desire to stool, flatus, when passing” doesn’t pertain to the case either. But, hey, stop laughing at Fiona! The rest of you did it too! A lot of you said, “Ailments from Shell Fish,” did I say I ate shell fish? It could have been the “Cheesy Garlic Bisquits”–in fact, it probably was! Did I eat oysters? No, Red Lobster is too cheap to serve oysters!

Anyway, don’t look now, but two of you got it right! So, congratulations to: Ravi Narayan from beautiful downtown Mumbai and Dr. Amit Arora, also from India, who, alone, gave us an explanation:

How I know that remedy was Cinchona [China] is very simple. Your description was so beautiful that every homeopath could know it.

In other words, having to explain would only insult our intelligence! Thank you, Dr. Arora! Dr. B, tell our two Exceptional Homeopaths what they’ve won!

—————————————————-

This month’s winners will get a special 30% discount on one order of books from Hpathy Mall.

Click Here for Prize Guidelines

Elaine Lewis, DHom, CHom.
Elaine takes online cases.
Visit her website