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| Hpathy Ezine - October, 2005 | ||||
Who Is Guilty of Disordering This Patient?(Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200.00) -- Elaine Lewis, DHom |
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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! "Why does case-receiving take so long? Why do homeopaths have to ask so many questions?" My apology. I wish I could just say, "What's wrong?" and have that be it, but I get answers like, "My nose is running. I keep sniffing. It's very annoying." What can a homeopath do with such paltry information? Did you ever stop to think that no two people have a runny nose alike? Our goal is to uncover the unique way in which you have your runny nose. Let me explain. There are 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 alterations appear in their health and 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 proper Latin. Who looks like Alcoholus? Stroke victims can. 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 this, 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 you walk in the door! Let's look at the often-prescribed remedy Arsenicum. We can see Arsenicum in numerous presentations--a case of flu, food poisoning, hepatitis, or anxiety neurosis. What is this profile? The tell-tale signs of Arsenicum 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, a fear of death, a fear of germs (please rent the movie "What About Bob" so that you can see an Arsenicum case in action!); 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 be made. 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. Do you see now what we're looking for in a case? I am always asked, "What experience do you have treating ________?" I say, "We don't treat _______, we treat people." Let's go back to your nose! One thing we always ask about is your "concomitant"! 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! 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 mystery of, "Who Is Guilty of Disordering This Patient?" Is it Mr. Arsenicum? Is it Mr. Alcoholus? In collecting clues, the "Strange, Rare, and Peculiar" square is a must to land on. Written on the square are the words "Take a Card". "Go Directly to Remedy" the card says! ("Yay, I got the strange, rare and peculiar card, I'm home free!") (OK, who out there knows which remedy has burning lachrymal discharge while nasal discharge is bland? Does anybody know? We can wait all day.... We'll stay here all night if we have to.... Oh all right it's Euphrasia!) Now hold on, this game's far from over; we have to know what makes your runny nose better or worse! We call this "the modalities"; landing on the "Modalities Square" and getting a "Modalities Card" would be so valuable, you can scarcely hope to win without it! I know you're thinking, "Nothing makes my nose feel better," but that's only because this information is so irrelevant to your doctor that you're not trained to look for it, but please try! You may find that when you walk out into the cold air, the runny nose disappears! So, we would look in the Repertory for, "Cold air ameliorates", which immediately points us in the direction of the "better cold" remedies like Allium Cepa, Aconite and Pulsatilla. 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 for, oh, I don't know...maybe a ... "Discharge Card"! Huh? Is this like An Honorable Discharge you get in the Army? No, it's 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! That's Kali bichromicum! (Add it to "Generals: mucus, yellow, bright" because it's not in the Repertory but it should be.) Oh, and what brought this runny nose on? 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 since an injury? Arnica! Runny nose since exposure to cold dry winds? Aconite! Runny nose since a grief? Natrum muriaticum! A clear etiology can nail the remedy 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 board 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! 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"). 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 "Mental/Emotionals" card! This is your Homeopathy "Boardwalk and Park Place"! 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 mentation, 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 sector. A remedy aimed at the moat when the castle has been occupied is missing 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/emotionals! This understanding is the exact opposite of Standard Medicine's approach which focuses only on the local symptom and how to suppress it, 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 nosey! (We're only partially nosey. OK, I'm nosey!) 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-ups. Let's just look at two remedies and see how "runny nose" can present in two entirely different ways: Allium Cepa (homeopathic Red Onion): Mercurius (homeopathic Mercury): And now I'm taking my board game and going home. |
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Elaine Lewis, DHom, CHom takes online cases. Visit her website at: www.hpathy.com/office/ElaineLewis.asp |
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