Clinical Cases

Absolute Kidney Failure in a Child

Written by Joachim-F Grätz

Dr. Joachim F. Grätz cures an 11-year-old girl of absolute kidney failure. Suppression by antibiotics was the ultimate cause of the girl’s ailment.

Excerpt from my book Gentle Medicine – The True Causes of Disease, Healing, and Health, 2021, Balboa Press, Bloomington, USA.

This case is about a young girl and was published in my book Gentle Medicine – The True Causes of Disease, Healing, and Health. However, it should be repeated again and again, since it is so important and memorable and, moreover, it clearly conveys how one patient permanently got off dialysis. It is still possible to stimulate kidney function to its full capacity, even if hardly a drop of urine could be produced before, making artificial blood purification superfluous.

The cry for help came at midnight from the concerned father of an 11-year-old girl, Kim Kira. For a few days now, she had been suffering from acute kidney failure in a large, internationally known hospital.

A biopsy had already been initiated and repeated rounds of hemodialysis performed. The treatment at the time consisted of cortisone pulse therapy and a single dose of Endoxane (cyclophosphamide pulse therapy), a cytostatic form of chemotherapy designed “to minimize the white blood cells so that they can no longer act against the kidney”, because the doctors treating her had decided it was an autoimmune disease.

The exact diagnosis was panarteritis nodosa (a nodular inflammation of all the layers of the arterial vascular wall in the kidney) associated with hypertension (high blood pressure). Of course, the risk of infection would increase because of the treatment the doctors had ordered, because it would completely destroy her immune defenses, including her white blood cells and platelets and damage her bone marrow (per the German “Red List” of medicines[1]).

This meant, at least for those practicing conventional medicine, that she needed a parallel course of prophylactic antibiotics. Both parents of the girl were completely surprised by this situation, since she had had no serious illnesses previously and had “actually always enjoyed the best of health”.

They asked whether there was a way to get out of this misery without major damage with the help of homeopathy and whether Kim Kira had any chance of living without dialysis: “Is there anything you can do?” The parents were both very skeptical about conventional medicine since the general condition of their daughter had deteriorated under its treatment protocols.

Taking her anamnesis over the better part of half an hour, I learned the following background and context: Kim Kira had developed mild angina about three weeks earlier. They said that she had never had purulent tonsils. At first, the attending physician tried to treat this ENT infection homeopathically, but without success, so that after a few days he recommended an antibiotic.

The whole thing seemed to be over very quickly, i.e. within two days. However, about a week later, the girl complained of massive abdominal pain, which in turn was treated with antibiotics, but this time without results. On the contrary, the antibiotic “was not tolerated” and Kim Kira developed swelling in her hands and a generalized rash.

An immediate admission to hospital seemed imperative. They were unable to confirm their suspicion of an infected appendix. Based on the blood work, they raised the suspicion of a urinary tract infection and ordered “massive antibiotic treatment” to cover a broad spectrum of diseases ad hoc.

The pain subsequently subsided, but the results of the blood work deteriorated dramatically, and ultimately there was urinary retention and acute kidney failure requiring immediate hemodialysis.

The girl had had no urine output since. This was followed by the transfer to the nearby university hospital, where she was still located. The staff there began looking for the “responsible” pathogens and initiated the treatment protocol described above.

According to the assessment of the facts, my homeopathic diagnosis was: multiple suppressions through antibiotics[2]. The conventional medical diagnosis of the “autoimmune disease” was never denied or taken lightly. At the most basic level, i.e. looking through a microscope, this diagnosis was certainly absolutely correct. However, from a causal perspective, with regard to the overall context, there was clear evidence of multiple suppressions of banal infections, which ultimately led to this serious condition.

The American homeopath and professor of skin and venereal diseases at Hering Medical College in Chicago, John Henry Allen (1850-1925), not only dealt intensively with the venereal miasms and how they were inherited, but also clearly recognized and formulated the interplay between  miasms and the effects of their suppression, summarized in his book The Chronic Miasms:

The fact is, we cannot select the most similar remedy possible unless we understand the phenomena of the acting and basic miasms; for the true similia is always based upon the existing basic miasms, whether we be conscious or unconscious of the fact.

The curative remedy is but the pathopoesis of a certain pathogenesis of an existing miasm. This means, in the case of chronic anti-miasmatic treatment, the indicative symptoms in the sense of §153 of Hahnemann’s “Organon of Medicine” are the miasmatic symptoms.

The remedy I selected based on the discussed correlations was to take one spoonful of Sulfur LM18, 3 drops twice a day in a glass of water, stirred vigorously with a plastic spoon. – Sulfur is one of the most important remedies to solve immunosuppression, if not THE most important.

I then spoke with the attending physician at the children’s clinic, who fortunately proved to be extremely cooperative. I explained the views and procedures of classical homeopathy. It was also revealed that he had had no experience with such cases (vasculitis and dialysis of a child) and that, based on conventional medicine, he expected her to start producing urine again after two weeks at the earliest.

In principle, however, the old rule always applies: “Once on dialysis, always on dialysis.” At the moment, attempts were being made to reduce both cortisone and antibiotics. He agreed to coordinate the further course of action with the father and with me as homeopath if the general condition aggravated and to take a more moderate approach to her treatment.

Two days later, there was a dramatic complication. Kim Kira’s condition aggravated to such an extent that the parents reported: “We thought she was going to die.” The reason for this was the “stronger dialysis” (dialysis in about an hour) which had “completely kicked her butt”. She was in a coma for a while; all of her body functions had slowed down and there were memory and muscle spasms.

But now the condition had returned to normal. The hospital now wanted to carry out the dialysis in the abdomen, which is gentler and less dangerous than the homogeneous dialysis.

However, there was also positive news. Since the night of this fateful day, the girl had produced a small amount of urine! About “a handful”, the father said. Kim Kira’s stomach was now “crazy” again and hurt a lot.

She complained of constant malaise, which increased with food intake. She then had two short bouts of sore throat. Both subtle, but clear signs of a beginning rewinding process that had been triggered by the Sulfur   (Hering’s Law).

This healing of the suppressions had started! We agreed not to give anything for the throat, but to treat the gastritic conditions with Nux vomica 12X because of their severity, asking her to let 3 globules melt slowly in the mouth as needed.

Sulfur for the chronic (or subacute) aspects was continued, of course. In addition, I pointed out that in the event of diarrhea, medical intervention should not take place, since the Sulfur is known to discharge toxins via the intestine and this valve would be vital for the healing phase already underway.

Three days later, I heard that the girl was getting better. Erythrocytes were once again being formed in the bone marrow and the doctors were of the opinion that “the kidney could become good again”.

The sore throat only existed when swallowing, the abdominal pain was much better, and her general condition was quite good. The Nux vomica was kept on hand, but was now rarely used.

A few days later, the mother reported that the girl was doing as well as before. “She is amazingly good altogether.” However, the blood work was worse (e.g. Hb 7.4 g/dl and dropping).

On the other hand, her urine production had fortunately continued to increase. A blood transfusion, which doctors had already considered, was rejected by the parents because the entire family were Jehovah’s Witnesses.

I discontinued the Nux vomica and prescribed Levico compositum 3X in order to better bridge the intermediate phase of anemia. In addition, I told them to start tapering the cortisone off if possible (which unfortunately did not happen).

The comment from a nurse involved was typical, not only regarding the condition of Kim Kira, but also for the nursing staff and doctors: “It is incredible how well she is doing with these blood pressure readings and this diagnosis; I’ve never seen that before.”

Almost two weeks later, Kim Kira was already producing 1½ liters of urine a day! She was also off dialysis. The blood pressure had returned to normal values, the blood work was unremarkable (except for Hb 8.4 g/dl; the lowest was 6.1 g/dl). The bone marrow was once again doing its job according to the doctors. Nevertheless, her condition was “still serious” and “the inflammation still there”.

However, we saw this completely differently when viewed with homeopathic lenses. The rewinding process, in the sense of Hering’s Law, had been completed and the causal correlation of the vasculitis removed.

Scylla and Charybdis were now far behind us. Now it was only a matter of time before the Hb value would again became completely unremarkable; consider that it was still being “treated” in parallel with cortisone, which also results in suppressing the bone marrow.

The gradual tapering off of this treatment was therefore our top priority. For this reason, the hospital’s recommendation of a repeat round of Endoxane to prevent a possible relapse was rejected out of hand. Further evidence that conventional medicine just doesn’t understand causal correlations and is really just poking around in the dark without any certainty and is always afraid that things might take a turn for the worse, all because they just don’t see disease systemically.

This attitude was also behind their diagnosis of the girl’s condition, which only described the microscopic details, but not the actual overall biological correlations. The correct diagnosis should have been: iatrogenic panarteritis nodosa, i.e. kidney disease caused by conventional medical therapy.

The Sulfur was then maintained until the cortisone had finally left her body and would then only be taken every 3 days. She was completely healed within just three weeks, despite the massive interference of heavy-duty immunosuppressive treatments.

“A high potency cannot be disturbed by any raw medication!” (Dr. Eichelberger, a well-known German homeopath), something all the doctors up to the chief of medicine and clinic manager could not understand and which, for them, remained a real mystery since they have never experienced anything like it.

It was only about half a year later that a patient of mine who was friends with the child’s parents told me that the doctors at the time had made her understand that there was no such thing as a child getting off dialysis!

Incidentally, it is “interesting” that when Kim Kira later had another throat infection, her family doctor prescribed the same antibiotic that had started it all before. What the heck? Kim Kira should never be given any more antibiotics, no matter what, with the only exception when it comes to life or death; however never with minor illnesses!

Both the mother and the treating doctor hadn’t learned anything![3] In addition, I lament the fact that the parents did not initiate chronic therapy to eliminate the miasms, which ought to have been imperative in order to save the child from such risks in the future. So far, “only” the suppression has been deleted, but not the underlying miasms (Kim Kira used to suffer from urinary tract infections, suggesting sycotic stress) which allow something like this to happen in the first place. Fortunately, the girl escaped the poisoned chalice of antibiotic this time, but probably only because the mother’s friend managed to intervene with success.

Bibliography

  • Allen, J. H., The Chronic Miasms, 1921, Reprint Edition 2006, B. Jain Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Dehli
  • Coulter, Harris L., Vaccination, social violence, and criminality: The medical assault on the American brain, 1990, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, USA
  • Grätz, Dr. Joachim-F., Gentle Medicine – The True Causes of Disease, Healing, and Health, 2021, Balboa Press, Bloomington, USA
  • Grätz, Joachim-F., Plattner, Inge, Questionnaire for the Homoeopathic Treatment of Your Child, 2011, 16 pages, Tisani Verlag, Oberhausen i. Obb., Germany

[1]    An annual published German register of drugs (“Rote Liste”), that lists all medicinal products authorized in Germany, along with their active substances, their applications including restrictions on use, their recommended dosages, their contraindications, side effects and interactions, as well as their applications during pregnancy.

[2]    A comparison from everyday life: You drive your car on the highway at 110 mph. Suddenly the oil lamp lights up and indicates that there is too little oil in the engine compartment. You immediately pull off, turn off the warning light, and carry on as if nothing had happened. It doesn’t take long before the car starts to jerk and refuses to continue. You pull off and, at first, you are at a loss, because there’s no warning light telling you what’s wrong. Fortunately, a friendly truck driver pulls up and offers her help. But then you realize the bad news: the pistons are shot! The whole engine is toast. Any roadside assistance will come too late and is pointless.

[3]    Incidentally, this seems to be symptomatic of all conventional medicine, because in the final report from the hospital, not a word is spent mentioning the homeopathic treatment! It is therefore very questionable whether the chief of medicine as well as the clinic management (informed about the refusal of a possible transfusion) were made aware of the fact that it was not the destructive conventional medicine that had brought success. One may be lulled into a false sense of security that you can also make a difference for other patients. In addition, the statistics are (knowingly) falsified and many other patients continue to be fatally lacking in therapy because the other physicians are unable to understand the real context.

About the author

Joachim-F Grätz

Dr. Joachim-F. Grätz, Germany, has been working very successfully as a classical homeopath for over 30 years, taking into account the so-called miasms (chronic basic diseases, disease behind the diseases) and is known far beyond the borders of Germany. The uniqueness of his form of therapy consists in his holistic worldview whereby he also integrates insights from dealing with other natural laws into his homeopathic thinking. This enables him to recognize the causal relationships of every illness and to treat them accordingly. – An extraordinarily successful practitioner, even with the most severe diseases.

Dr. Grätz studied homeopathy with the well-known German homeopath Dr. Otto Eichelberger in Munich, who was one of the first to take the miasms into account in therapy and who made the LM-potencies (Q-potencies) public in the German-speaking countries. He attended seminars of Gerhard Risch, Dr. Mohinder Singh Jus, Georgos Vithoulkas, Dr. Michael Barthel, Yves Laborde, Dr. Rajan Sankaran and Paul Herscu and got acquainted with different directions of homeopathy.

For a time Dr. Grätz was also a lecturer in classical homeopathy at various academies of naturopathy and homeopathy in Munich, Zurich, Köthen, Gauting, Salzburg, and Vienna, and also at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich for interested medical students. He wrote several books on cassical homeopathy and the miasms with a variety of impressive case studies, on the nature of potencies in acute and chronic homeopathy, and on vaccinations, and published a double DVD.

Please also read the INTERVIEW by Alan V. Schmukler in two parts:
Interview - Part I
Interview - PART II

His latest book is in English, published in the USA:
Gentle Medicine – The True Causes of Disease, Healing, and Health
, 2021, Balboa Press, Bloomington, USA.
THE book in today’s world
www.gentle-medicine.com
www.4-healthy-people.de/en/

Reviews of Gentle Medicine by:
1:   Dr Firuzi Mehta, Mumbai, India
2:  Francis Treuherz, London, UK
3:  Dr David Levy, Sydney, Australia

7 Comments

  • Congratulation for successfully treating this complicated case with homeopathy. May Almighty bless you to treat more such cases in future.

  • My life lead a similar path kidney problems for decades leading me to only one working kidney -allopathy put me on antibiotics for close to 14 yrs with no results but a destroyed immune system , I was in constant pain until I decided to seek homeopathy . Dr subratta Banerjea prescribed my constitutional remedy and only this lead me to wellness-no more pain and suffering 100% cured -this impressed me so much that I became a homeopath now in practice since 1996

  • I am glad for the little girl to be healthy. Yet the method described, with usage of 2 different remedies simultaneously can not be considered good acc. to Organon. And besides, it would be much more mindful to describe objective symptoms for prescription, rather than giving speculations about miasms, toxins etc.

    • Dear Ilyas Akhund-zada,

      Thank you so much for your comment. But your lines tell me that you think exclusively “acute” with regard to homeopathy, as it is unfortunately still mostly practiced worldwide at present.

      But here it is about a chronic treatment, which has become visible by a multiple acute immunosuppression. And there one must think and act as a homoeotherapist completely differently, not only in the sense of the law of similia!

      Please read my book “Gentle Medicine” (https://www.gentle-medicine.com) as well as the book by John Henry Allen from 1921 “The Chronic Miasms” as well as Hahnemann’s medical journals from his time in Paris.

      Here is an excerpt on this from “Gentle Medicine”:
      «You can only identify the relevant simile based on a very small selection of matching symptoms related to the currently active miasm and never a cure-all simillimum for life as a whole. Even acute symptoms, with very few exceptions, have to be ignored for now. This law, first formulated by John Henry Allen, was subsequently clearly confirmed by the founder of homeopathy! Thanks to Dr. Rima Handley’s published research regarding Hahnemann’s final Paris medical journals, it is irrevocably certain that “towards the end of his life, he no longer prescribed based on the totality of the symptoms as he had been advocating for so long, but often on a miasmatic basis before switching to a more individual prescription”. However, Hahnemann, probably because of his advanced age, was no longer able to incorporate these findings into his relevant works and present them to the public; but his late medical journals provide honest evidence.»

      Then you will be able to understand and comprehend this case in its entirety.

      Acute homeopathy is determined by the law of similarity “Similia similibus curentur”. For chronic homeopathy, on the other hand, this is far from sufficient. Here the miasms come into play, and this is absolutely no speculation. You will find explanations and various case studies of this, as I said, in my book. Here is the table of contents for it:

      TOC: https://www.dr-joachim-f-graetz.de/GM-TOC.pdf

      You might also read the review by world-renowned London homeopath Francis Treuherz, here on Hpathy.com:

      https://hpathy.com/book-reviews/gentle-medicine-the-true-causes-of-disease-healing-and-health-by-joachim-f-gratz-reviewed-by-francis-treuherz/

      I hope to have helped you a little with this.

      Blessings,
      Dr. Joachim-F. Grätz
      Germany

  • Many congratulations on your success! I do have a question. Could you give pointers as to why you specifically prescribed Sulphur? Yes, it is the king of suppressions. On reading the article though, I could also think of Lachesis for the following reasons: 1. Suppressive medications used 2. Quick deterioration into a disease showing Syphilitic traits 3. Involvement and destruction of blood cells. Additionally, Nitricum Acidum is also a great remedy for the above reasons, although it is of a slower speed, but it does cover the adverse reaction to antibiotics.

    Would be great if you could guide as to the reasoning behind Sulphur. I am obviously mentioning other remedies that I could think of since I am not aware of the entire case history. Thank you!

  • Thank you so much for your question regarding the remedy choice of Sulphur.

    Sulphur is THE remedy for immunosuppression par excellence. This has been pointed out again and again by Dr. Eichelberger, a great German homeopath and teacher until the end of the last century, who was a pioneer in working with the miasms and who could look back on more than 50 years of experience.

    The main rubric in the Kent repertory – synonymously for all suppressions – is: “Skin – eruptions – suppressed” with 50 homeopathic remedies. And here Sulphur ranks trivalent; based on Dr. Eichelberger’s and my own experience (over 30 years) even quadrivalent, if you like! Lachesis and Acidum nitricum, however, rank only univalent; so they are not necessarily typical for suppressions! And the rubric “Generalities – narcotics agg.” does not meet the idea of this case of kidney failure; it misses the point, because it has nothing in common with suppressions.

    In addition, Sulphur is also a multi-anti-miasmatic remedy that covers ALL miasms well, including the syphilitic one!

    Suppression ALWAYS acts as the leading symptom of a case, the so-called prima causa morbi; all other symptoms then fade into the background, often including the symptoms created by the suppression, the newly developed suppression syndrome.

    For more details please refer to chapter 2.11 “The phenomenon of suppression” of my book “Gentle Medicine” (https://www.gentle-medicine.com).

    I would also like to recommend you to study this book in detail; please see the review of the internationally well-known homeopath Francis Treuherz in “Homeopathy 4 Everyone”, May Issue, 2021: https://hpathy.com/book-reviews/gentle-medicine-the-true-causes-of-disease-healing-and-health-by-joachim-f-gratz-reviewed-by-francis-treuherz/

    Some things just can’t be repertorized!

    For a better understanding of this matter below is a small memorable case study, that a colleague presented in our homeopathic study group many years ago and which is didactically very valuable:

    «A young woman was suffering from parotid gland inflammation, which worsened drastically from day to day. All attempts to cure it by means of well-chosen homeopathic remedies failed miserably, so that the swelling of the parotid gland already grew to the size of a tennis ball and the woman finally ended up in a hospital.
    Thereupon the homeopath again took the complete acute medical history, whereby the woman again assured that she had not taken any allopathic medicines, not even during her previously had mild flu infection. “I only drank a glass with a hot squeezed lemon at that time, otherwise I took nothing,” what, however, the woman had never mentioned before. And thereupon – purely in terms of time – this parotitis started!
    The doctor immediately thought of the possibility of immunosuppression by high vitamin C administration and prescribed Sulphur. Sulphur, which otherwise had nothing to do with the acute symptoms of this woman! – Already after two hours a positive feedback came from the clinic: the swelling had already decreased by half!»

    Sulphur – the king of suppressions! And Sulphur, that really has no relation to parotitis!
    It was only this one leading symptom that led to the solution of this case: suppression. All other symptoms were more in favor of Pulsatilla or one of the many other homeopathics, all of which have been tried but only aggravated.

    In this case study a suppression by a naturopathic remedy happened in a probably quite sensitive person. It does not always have to be antibiotics, cortisol or cortisone that have suppressive effects! Natural remedies may also suppress, as well as acute improperly practiced homeopathy, if the chosen remedy is not the right one (no therapist can be exempt from this, it is only necessary to recognize it in time)!

    By the way: this is the complete medical history that was available to me.

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