(Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200.00) If you’re new to homeopathy, you may be taken aback by the sheer quantity of questions we ask; plus, a lot of them will seem irrelevant! You may be tempted to shake your head in disbelief! My mother always
(Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200.00)
If you’re new to homeopathy, you may be taken aback by the sheer quantity of questions we ask; plus, a lot of them will seem irrelevant! You may be tempted to shake your head in disbelief! My mother always used to say, “Why do you have to know so much?”
My apologies. I wish I could just say, “What’s wrong?” and have that be it, but I get answers like, “My son’s nose is running!”
What can a homeopath do with information like that? Did you ever stop to think that no two people have a runny nose alike? I mean, really; think about it! Sometimes your nose is just barely running, other times it’s running like a faucet! Sometimes it only runs indoors and stops when you go outside. The discharge can be either bland or burning.
Our goal is to uncover the unique way in which you have a runny nose.
Let me explain. There are over 2,000 homeopathic remedies. They have profiles. We match your profile to a remedy profile. We give you the remedy and the two (your illness and the remedy) repel each other and the pathology disappears. You’ve heard that “opposites attract, similars repel”, right? Homeopathy (which means “similar disease”) is a medical science that puts this law to work!
What determines a remedy’s profile? The “Provings”–the trials: volunteers take a remedy repeatedly until the symptoms of the remedy in overdose appear. They make note of every change that occurs. In the end, a profile is gleaned from all the provers. For example, every time you drink alcohol in overdose and start stumbling and reeling and slurring your speech, you’re ”proving” alcohol! You might even say, you’re “becoming” alcohol! When you see such behavior in a sick person, you might say, “That person is ‘Alcohol’!” or “Alcoholus” as we say in homeopathy, using the Latin name as we do.
Who looks like Alcoholus? Stroke victims! Am I right? Some people who have had strokes lose their balance and can’t make themselves understood. Such individuals might benefit from homeopathic alcohol–though we have many remedies for stroke, so don’t jump to conclusions.
Think of 2,000 remedies, all with peculiar sets of symptoms and behaviors, and you can see that we have our work cut out for us when we take a case!
Let’s look at the often-prescribed remedy, Arsenicum (homeopathic arsenic). We can see Arsenicum in numerous presentations–the flu, food poisoning, hepatitis, or anxiety neurosis. What is this profile? The tell-tale signs of Arsenicum are very easy for us to spot; they are: restlessness–tossing the head from side to side in bed, or pacing from room to room or from bed to chair and back again–anxiety, fear of being alone, the need to have someone present at all times, the constant need for reassurance, fear of death, a fear of germs, a thirst for sips at a time; there is a need to do everything perfectly in Arsenicum, to plan everything so that a mistake or an unforeseen occurrence will not happen. Arsenicum complaints tend to come on around midnight. So, for example, your asthma patient may say that he’s fine all day until1:00 in the morning when his attack comes on and he must sit up–another Arsenicum sign. They are chilly and no amount of heat ever seems to help. The pains they have tend to have a burning quality; discharges are watery, acrid, burning and offensive. Complaints are often right-sided so maybe the Arsenicum runny nose is only in the right nostril. There’s a desire for fat, sour food and alcohol. They tend to be very weak as well. Do you see now what we’re looking for in a case? I am always asked, “What experience do you have treating ________?” And I say, “I look for remedy pictures. It doesn’t much matter what’s wrong with you.”
Let’s go back to your nose! One thing we always ask about is the “concomitant” in the case! That means, what else is wrong! You may say, “nothing”, but if you stop and think about it, you may realize that it’s a bit odd that your eyes are running at the same time as your nose, but the eye discharge burns while the nasal discharge doesn’t! This represents the “peculiar” aspect of your case. In homeopathy, “peculiar” is gold! The “peculiar” is a shortcut to the right remedy. The common symptoms of your complaint might lead to a remedy eventually, but the “peculiar” symptom is like a secret passage that will take you right there!
You can think of homeopathy as a board game!
There are some squares on this board that are essential to land on if you to want to solve the case of, “Who Is Guilty of Disordering This Patient?” Is it Mr. Arsenicum? Is it Mr. Alcoholus? In collecting clues, the “Peculiar” square is a must to land on. Written on the square are the words “Take a Peculiar Card”. You do, and it says, ”Guess this and you’re home free! What remedy has a burning lachrymal discharge and a concomitant bland nasal discharge?” If you guessed Euphrasia, you win! You see, a peculiar symptom in a case tells us more about the remedy than a common symptom does; and, what could be more peculiar than an irritating discharge from the eyes, and a bland discharge from the nose?
Now hold on, this game’s far from over; we have to know what makes your runny nose better or worse, an issue you’ve probably given no thought to but we can scarcely solve a case without it! We call this “the modalities” question; landing on the “Modalities Square” and getting a “Modalities Card” would be so valuable, you can take it right to the bank! I know you’re thinking, “Nothing makes my nose better,” but that’s only because this information is so irrelevant to your doctor that you’re not trained to think about it! You may find that when you walk out into the cold air, the runny nose stops! So, we would look in our Repertory, our reference book, for “Cold air ameliorates”, which immediately points us in the direction of the “better cold air” remedies like Allium Cepa, Aconite and Pulsatilla. See how we’re narrowing this case down?
Another person will be aggravated by the very same exposure, so we’d look up, “Cold air aggravates”. Unfortunately, there are so many remedies under “Cold Air Aggravates” that, well frankly, if you pick up one of these cards, I would try to trade it in for, oh, I don’t know…maybe a …
“Discharge Card”!
Huh? Oh yeah! Is this anything like An Honorable Discharge you get in the Army? No, it’s more like a gonorrheal discharge you get in the Army! But in homeopathy, we love discharges! I remember a case where I was clueless until the person said, “I have this discharge coming out of my nose which I can only describe as electric yellow!” Well, that’s all I needed to hear, the case was over at that point because that’s Kali bichromicum!
Oh, and what brought this runny nose on? What was the cause? That’s another question you’re going to need the answer to. Here on our board game, this is represented by the “Etiology” square. You’ll want to roll “doubles” and land on this one! This is another prized square because some etiologies lead to a very narrow selection of remedies; for example: Runny nose from an injury? That’s Arnica! Runny nose since exposure to cold dry winds? That’s Aconite! Runny nose since a grief? Natrum muriaticum! A clear etiology can nail the remedy right down for you!
No, I’m not finished yet, everybody knows the game of “Homeopathy” takes hours! No more complaints or I’m going to take my game and go home! Now, is there a “Sensation” from your runny nose? You’ll be wanting to pick up that “Sensation Card” too! Burning pains and burnning discharges often indicate Arsenicum, as we said before! What about the odor? You’ll be wanting that “Odor Card” for sure. Did you know there’s only one remedy for “Nose: discharge, musty”? That’s Natrum carbonicum!
Now wait, we haven’t gotten to the “I” symptoms yet. They’re called the “Generals”. Those are all the symptoms that begin with the word, “I”: “I’m hot. I’m thirsty. I feel restless. I’ve got the chills. I’m sleepy. I want lemonade….” These “I” cards trump the “My” cards–the ones that start with “My” (“My foot hurts, my eye itches….”). When you put your symptoms in order of most to least valuable, the “I’s” have it!
Oh geez, no game of “Homeopathy” would be complete without the coveted “Mentals” card! This is your Homeopathy “Boardwalk and Park Place” here! When we see a flu victim, for example, who is apathetic, dull, drowsy, droopy and dizzy who answers “Huh?” to every question, we consider this as much a part of the flu as the headache, the muscle aches, the chills and the fever; in fact, we consider it The Most Important Part of the Case because the immune system will do everything in its power to protect the brain; if the illness has altered the patient mentally, then you must assume the illness is there too; it has gone all the way to the deepest level, you might even say it has captured the fort!
Obviously, any cure is going to have to have the capability of reaching down to this, the nerve center of the human body. A remedy aimed at the moat when the castle has been captured is off the mark, you must be able to get to the castle. A remedy that matches the mental state but not the local symptom is of more value than a remedy that perfectly matches the local symptom but bears no relation to the mental/emotional state!
This understanding is the exact opposite of Standard Medicine’s approach which focuses only on the local symptoms and how to suppress them, and consequently, views illness so narrowly, it can’t cure even a single virus or a single chronic disease. Do you see now why we ask so many questions about all aspects of you? It’s not just that we’re inquisitive!
Finally, what do you look like? Is there some tell-tale feature about your appearance that’s going to give the remedy away? The above case of the apathetic, dull, droopy appearance with hardly any energy to answer a question is characteristic of the remedy, Gelsemium.
To a homeoopath, an illness is a lot more than the local complaint; we see the illness everywhere in the person–in the disposition, the emotional state, the mental state, the food and drink desires–there’s a whole picture, a full-body image that the local symptom is just a part of. When we arrive at the right remedy, we expect the patient to improve all over, in every sphere; after all, we’ve taken the Whole Case, haven’t we? Wouldn’t you rather improve all over after you’ve taken a medicine? We thought so. Then you won’t mind our questionnaire and our seemingly endless follow-up questions.
Let’s just look at two remedies and see how “runny nose” can present in two entirely different patients:
Allium Cepa (homeopathic Red Onion):
Runny nose, worse in warm rooms; better outside.
Eyes and nose run like faucets! The discharge from the eyes is bland while the nasal discharge is burning and corrodes the upper lip.
Sneezing, especially when entering a warm room.
The cause is likely to be damp, cold, windy weather.
Worse on lying down, better from moving.
Mercurius (homeopathic Mercury):
Burning slimy nasal discharge.
Warm room aggravates.
Damp weather aggravates.
Sneezing in the sunshine.
Nostrils are ulcerated.
Yellow-green, pus-like discharge.
Thirsty with excessive salivation, even drooling.
Excessive perspiration.
Worse from slight heat and slight cold. Almost all temperatures disagree.
Bad breath.
Tongue coated yellow.
Burning discharge from the eyes.
Chilly.
Worse at night.
Weak, debilitated.
Continuous hunger.
Goes from feeling hot to cold and back again very easily.
Runny nose, yes; but two completely different remedies; so, whenever someone comes to me and starts to expound on their cold or complaint or their injury, I say, “Save it for the questionnaire!” There are specific things I have to know before I can confidently say, “Arsenicum did it with the Revolver in Hall.”
Elaine Lewis
