Questions Patients Ask–14

What’s Wrong With Large Rubrics?

Hello, Elaine.  One thing I notice about your approach is that you don’t go for the large Repertory rubrics.  Admittedly there are times when I could find a better rubric, but the remedy must be in the primary one, and in the old days (before computers) finding it would be a nightmare, but, not anymore.  Why not use the large rubric?

That is a very good question!  The answer is that the large rubric basically doesn’t help you.  Let’s take “Stomach, belching” for example.  I’ll bet every remedy in the Materia Medica is there!  Hold on, I’ll check.  Yep, almost 350 remedies!  That means that practically every remedy belches!  Now, how is that going to help you?

Do you remember the Vertigo quiz (“Help, The Room Is Spinning!”) where the patient was dizzy as if turning in a circle, along with nausea and belching as concomitants?  A lot of people took the rubric, “Stomach, belching” (the large rubric) for that symptom instead of “Vertigo, belching, with”.

“Vertigo, belching, with” had only 5 remedies in it!  Five remedies!  Compared to 350–what a difference!  You can actually look at that rubric and say to yourself, “Do any of these 5 remedies fit the case?”  But you can’t do that with “Stomach, belching” with 350 remedies in it?  No, I don’t think so!  

As it turned out, the main remedy under “Vertigo, belching, with” covered the whole case, and it was Pulsatilla.

A large rubric means you’ve looked up a very common symptom, examples of which might be: insomnia, constipation, diarrhea, nausea; and the problem is, we can’t solve cases that way, they don’t lead to remedies! 

Think about it, if someone said to you, “I have constipation, what’s my remedy?”  You’d say, “I don’t know!!!!”  There are 220 remedies under constipation!  You’d have to take the person’s case, “Tell me about your constipation—the cause, do you know it?  The sensation (painful, painless?), the concomitants, the modalities….”  Then you might be able to look up a sub-rubric, like, “constant desire, with”, which might lead to Nux vomica, the only remedy in bold for that!

Do you see what’s wrong with large rubrics now?  I know what you’re saying, “The remedy’s got to be there!”  But you know what?  Even though by all rights it should be?  You would be surprised how often a remedy in a sub-rubric isn’t in the main rubric!  Plus, what possible comfort is there in knowing that your remedy is somewhere among 350 remedies????  That’s like saying, “I know my remedy is in the Materia Medica somewhere!”  How does that help you?  Try and imagine that all the rubrics in your repertorization are large rubrics, what would your chart look like?  A 50-way tie for first place?  This is the whole point of paragraph 153 of The Organon:  “The most striking, strange, rare and peculiar ….”

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Lower Potencies Are Just For Physical Problems, Right?

Elaine, I just thought of something.

Okaaaaaay……………..

I recall a homeopath once telling me that “lower” potencies (30c and lower) deal more with the physical realm…

Oh geez….

…whereas the higher potencies address emotional/mental stuff.  Is that true?

When is this going to stop?

If it’s possible, then it makes me wonder, when I think of how my daughter improved with her appetite when the remedy was at 30C, but more recently with the 1M, the mental acuity, creativity, maturity, etc. has revved up….  Her appetite now is not what it was when she was on the 30C.

OK, here we go again with the “Low potencies vs. High potencies” debate!

Potency only means power or strength.  It’s like the difference between 2 mg. of Valium and 10 mg. of Valium.  If you’ve never taken Valium before, 2.5 mg. of Valium will put you right to sleep at bedtime.  However, if you’re a regular user of Valium, 2.5 mg. will have long ago stopped working!  By now you must be at 5 mg.  Eventually you’ll be at 10 mg., but the 10 mg. tablet won’t do any more for you than the 2.5 mg. tablet did when you started out!

So you see, even though you’re at 1M now, you’re not getting anymore “substance” out of the remedy than you did when you were at 30C! 

Remember, it’s not the remedy that “cures”, the remedy simply stimulates the immune system to “action”.  It is like the ignition that starts your car.  It starts the car, but that’s all it does, the car does the rest!  Once the ignition is turned on, the gas starts flowing, oil starts flowing, dashboard lights come on, bells start ringing…  It’s not the ignition doing that, it just STARTED it, that’s why they call it the “Starter”, and that’s what a remedy is–a starter!

So now your immune system has been “turned on” and it’s surveying the damage all around it and it’s saying, “Look at this mess!  Sheesh!  What do I do first?  Where’s the biggest disaster located?  What is this log-jam over here?  OMG, the appetite is very bad, there’s no nutrition coming in; without nutrients, nothing else is possible, no healing is possible!  Let’s fix the appetite first!”  So there your daughter is after her 30C remedy, eating voraciously!  But, she may not NEED to eat like a pig now, she may have been playing “catch-up” in the beginning, getting back up to speed.

This is Hering’s Law: Healing takes place from the most important areas to the least important areas.  A lower or higher potency isn’t going to change what your immune system decides is the most important area to fix!

All you want to see after giving a remedy is some evidence that it is acting!  And you have no way of knowing what that evidence is going to be.  You might have a child with colitis, and you’re looking to see the stool change, and nothing short of that is going to make you happy; but the truth is, you have no way of knowing what the child’s immune system is going to decide the most serious part of the case is!  You might see as a first response to the remedy an increase in appetite, or a lessening of anxiety, or an improvement in sleep; and then you’ll come back to the homeopath and say, “The remedy didn’t work, all it did was lift my child’s spirits!”  Well, that’s proof that the remedy is acting, and that’s all that matters, it’s all you can ask for!

Now, all you have to do is KEEP the case moving!

A basic dosing strategy for chronic disease is:

6C three times a day

9C twice a day

12C once a day

15C once a day

30C one dose and wait and see what happens.  Give your next dose when the first dose starts to wear off.

200C one dose and wait, as above.  I wouldn’t be too anxious to start a chronic case off with 200C as it ties your hands, giving you no option to stop and treat injuries and acutes that may pop up along the way as you can when you’re dosing daily with lower potencies.  You always have the option to stop your daily dosing, give Gelsemium 30C for “ailments from bad news” or “ailments from anticipation”, etc., and then go right back to your 6C three times a day for your chronic case.  And of course, all remedies should be in a water bottle with approximately five succussions before each dose.  Why?  It’s in The Organon (aph. 247)—you have to raise the potency slightly before each dose to keep the case moving and you do that by succussing the bottle before each dose.  You can’t succuss dry pellets, only water.

But I have to end by saying what I always say: You pick your potency based on the severity of what’s wrong and how recent the complaint is.  A sudden emergency like anaphylactic shock means you need Apis 200C or 1M.  Your average cold virus could do with a 30C of your cold remedy three times a day—as you get better, take less often.  A chronic disease consisting of pathological changes for many years, like arthritis, should start with a 6C three times a day.  And of course, all these prescriptions have to be adjusted based on how the patient reacts to them, and all remedies should be in water and succussed before each dose; and in general, you decide when your next dose is going to be, based on the patient’s reaction to the previous dose.  You’re constantly re-evaluating your dosing schedule and potency.  A striking improvement means wait—you may not need to dose again; but, the start of a relapse means it is time to dose again.

What constitutes a relapse?  I say, always keep your eye on the “center of the case”.  What’s the “center of the case”?  It’s the mental/emotional plane, sense of well-being, energy, appetite and sleep.  If this area is doing well, but there’s some strange physical thing going on, like a pain in your leg that was never there before, does that mean it’s time to redose?  No!  Keep your eye on the center of the case!  An improvement there often sets off a “ripple effect”, some peripheral area may “act up” and that’s part of Hering’s Law too, so that is not a relapse!  If the center of the case is holding strong, all is well, do nothing; but if that starts to fall apart, time to redose.

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Copying Remedies

Elaine,
Thanks so much for responding so quickly.  I have some liquid mother tinctures.  I believe they are 30X.  I need to make another tincture so that I do not run out of them.  So, to my understanding, each time that I make a mother tincture, I increase the power of the tincture by one point.  Is this correct?  Is there any way to keep the power the same?

A 30X isn’t a mother tincture.  A mother tincture is an herbal tincture; or, it’s what you’re using to make a remedy from.  It’s the substance in its natural form.  For example, if you’re planning to make Nat-mur 30C or Aqua Marina 30C, your “mother” might be a vial of salt water or sea water.

But if you have a 30X remedy in water (is that what you’re saying?) and you want to make a second 30X bottle?  Or are you just saying, “I don’t want to run out of these liquid remedies I have, I don’t want them to go bad!”  Well, first of all, you can add brandy or Vodka to them so that mold won’t grow in the bottles, that will make them last.  Secondly, when they get low in water, near the bottom, with only one dose left, simply add more pure water to the bottle, about 3/4 full, and the remedy is back!  That’s all you have to do!  And you can also add a little more Brandy, etc. if you want.

Now you might say, “How is that possible?”  It’s possible because it’s not a “substance” that can get diluted the more water you add to it; it’s an “energy”, and it simply “fills up” the space!  Have you heard of the “law of conservation of energy” that says, “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed”?  Well, that means you can’t destroy an energy simply by adding water, it’s still there!

When you have a liquid remedy bottle, don’t forget to succuss the bottle five-or-so times before each dose.  A dose is a swallow or sip. 

Thanks so much for your time!
Margaret

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Dosing Schedules

Elaine, I have Spongia 200C, should I order Spongia 30C?

It might be a good idea.

Usually my sister takes 3 doses a day for any medicine she’s on; but, you only recommend taking one dose of a remedy, especially if it’s 30C, and noting the progress.  Why is that?

That’s because if you’re lucky enough to get the right remedy and it’s working and you take a 2nd dose WHILE the remedy is working, the second dose could antidote the first!  So, if it happens that there’s a striking improvement after the first dose, just stop dosing and repeat only if the case stalls or relapses.

If she takes Spongia for her cough , can she keep taking Nux vomica LM 3 or should she stop?

My question would be, what is the Nux v. LM3 for, and is it doing any good–and why such a high potency?  Did she start with LM1?  What is Nux vomica supposed to be getting rid of?

This is part of her constitutional treatment.  Based on all her zillions of symptoms, doctor has given this now.  She took LM1 for 2 weeks, now she has to take LM3 for 3 weeks.

What happened to LM2?  And you say the LM3 is for three weeks?  Why?  It seems arbitrary!  You mean he didn’t say, “As she gets better, give less often?”  Or, “If she gets worse, stop the remedy?”  You’re just supposed to give it for 3 weeks no matter what?  What is so magical about 3 weeks?  Apparently everyone’s a psychic now, people just seem to “know” that a remedy will be needed for 3 weeks….  It’s ridiculous!  No logic there.

The only concrete indicator about how often to dose is the patient’s response to the previous dose; you’re always re-evaluating your dosing schedule and potency, the case could turn on a dime!  A client of mine whose daughter has seizures told me that “…after only 3 days on Cuprum 30C once a day, there’s such a striking improvement (more mentally alert, better mood, fewer petit mal seizures) that we’re stopping the remedy!  We’re just going to wait and watch now; but we’re fully prepared to start again if her mentals relapse or the seizures start to return.”  And that is correct!  That is how it’s supposed to be!  But imagine if I had said, “Give her Cuprum 30C once a day for 3 weeks,” when she only needed it for 3 days?!  What would have happened?  An aggravation?  More seizures?  I don’t know!  But I’d hate to have to find out!  

“The minimum dose”….  It’s supposed to be our motto!

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Elaine Lewis, D.Hom., C.Hom.

Elaine takes online cases! Write to her at [email protected]

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