My daughter of 4 and a half is going in for a Cataract operation in one week. She was born with the cataract but was not diagnosed before she was nearly 3 years old so we have waited to see how the cataract develops before operating. My daughter will be operated on in a University Klinic and the operation will be done by the Professor in Charge, here in Germany.

I am pretty new to Homeopathic remedies, but I have found they really do make a difference… So, I have heard that using some for my daughter before and after the operation may make the procedure more bare-able for both her and me…I am staying in the hospital for the duration of her stay…

I have read the article and compiled a list of remedies that may be useful for us, but I wondered if you could possibly advise better…

Thank you for an excellent article

All the best for you !!
Katja

Thank you for your reply in advance.

Best regards,
Katja

The to applied and most effective method depends from the nature of the disease. Hahnemann distinguished between actue, chronic, and sub-acute diseases and prescribed in the Organon how to proceed in their treatment.

Acute diseases are of a short acting nature and self-limited, with a definite onset and ending, and characterized by a rapid illness-process (see §72,73 Organon). They commence with an initial prodomal phase, are followed by a period of progress, reach crisis quickly and ultimately a period of decline, during which there is a natural tendency to recover, sometimes only partial. They may also have an onset with sufficient virulence to cause death of the patient. The symptoms are violent but superficial.
Acute cases have to be treated according to the exciting cause (etiology, §5 Organon) and actual, acute symptom picture, with the acute (intercurrent) remedy. As the chronic symptom picture is suspended and the symptoms are rather sharp and pronounced, there should be little difficulty in finding the acute totality and remedy, and the acute anamnesis is quite easy (see §99 Organon). Bönninghausen’s repertorization method has proved itself in acute cases.

Chronic diseases are of a more permanent nature and lifelong right from the beginning. Symptoms start insidious with a small, often unnoticed beginning, with no definite onset, course or end. They are deep seated. Chronic diseases have a prodomal period but progress without a period of decline, continuing for the lifetime, possibly through latent stages, until they produce functional changes and pathology in the most predisposed regions of the body (see §72,78 Organon).
The treatment of chronic cases requires to take the whole chronic case of the patient, considering the most significant points in the whole history of the chronic disease (including miasms, §5 Organon), and to prescribe for the patient’s totality of characteristic symptoms, not just the partial symptom picture of the local malady or the more superficial symptoms !

In both, acute and chronic cases, the totality of symptoms is the only guide for the choice of the remedy. But the treatment of chronic diseases requires a more comprehencsive case anamnesis and considers a broader history and totality of the patient, leading to a different treatment strategy with necessary long-time case management. Also, the choice of potency and dose depends from the nature of the case. For example the remedial powers of centesimal potencies generally fit the energy of acute diseases the best, whereas LM potencies are best suited for chronic diseases.

I think the main point to consider is that only a TRUE acute disease will suspend the chronic symptom picture and requires a different remedy according to the exciting cause and actual symptom picture. However, acutes are often just an exacerbation (passing flare-ups) of the chronic disease – transient activities of latent psora, that returns to the chronic state after a short (see §73 Organon). Here the chronic remedy will often still be indicated – if the chronic symptom picture is still present and not suspended as in true acute diseases. In these cases, the chronic remedy is to apply more frequently and possibly at a higher potency, or, one of its acute complementary remedies, which is to be followed soon by the chronic remedy after the more acute symptoms have subdued, to prevent recurrence.

With patients whose chronic case history is known this is much easier to see, but if the patient just comes for the acute it may be more difficult. The totality of the more superficial acute symptoms may not suffice to find the true simillimum, unless they are really strange, rare, peculiar and uncommon. If the chosen acute remedy is similar enough to work for the more superficial symptoms, but only a merely palliative remedy, then we ideally have to follow soon with the chronic remedy to prevent recurrence. Hahnemann wrote that palliation may be “correct, useful and sufficient in acute diseases” – but never in chronic diseases, where palliation only relieves temporarily and requires increasingly large doses and yet cannot remove the disease.

For surgical cases, and all cases in general, it is to consider, that homeopathy acts in the realm of dynamics, where disease originates, and in the field in which the Law of Similars is operative. It relates to affections in which signs and symptoms are perceptible, to cases whose symptomatic likeness is perceptibly produced in the healthy prover by medical means, and to individuals, whose vital reactive power to remedies is not exhausted, obstructed or prevented. It relates not to affections with destruction’s incapable of restoration, nor to false diseases which are maintained by factors which have to be removed, or if the exciting cause is constantly operative.

Best regards,
Katja

thanks!!!