Reprinted courtesy Petr Zacharias from : Case Quizzes And Clinical Hints For Devoted Students Of Classical Homeopathy – by Petr Zacharias© Petr Zacharias, 2017
Woman 33 years with an acute tonsillitis. Both tonsils were swollen, left tonsil was larger than the right one, pain was felt in left tonsil only (the right one is painless). There was a suppuration of the left tonsil. Pain was cutting and it extended to the left ear when she was swallowing. Pain was better by swallowing cold drinks. She had more saliva of viscid character. She felt the pain in left tonsil even when resting and not swallowing but it is worse during swallowing. Fingers and soles are cold.
Follow-up after 3 days
After taking the remedy, the pain in left tonsil got worse but the extending to ear during swallowing had ceased completely. The puson lefttonsil(suppuration)disappeared and the salivation got more profuse at the same time. Now it is 3 days after the remedy and she feels full of energy and is symptom free.
Analysis
The most important information in this case was that the inflammation was in the left tonsil only. This was very important because this symptom was related to the patient´s organism rather than to tonsillitis as we cannot say that a tonsillitis is always on the left side only. This is the way a broad pathological process (tonsillitis) had been modified bythe patient´s defense mechanism and finally has taken a form of unique symptomatology. These kinds of symptom are most important because they show us how a defence mechanism of a particular person is working. This is what we have to be able to spot in all cases, whether acute or chronic.
Of course the first remedy we have to think of here is Lachesis. In Lachesis we can often see a strong sensitivity to touch around the neck and amelioration by cold drinks. Lachesis has a purple discoloration of the tonsils as well as Phytolacca but Phytolacca is right sided while Lachesis is left sided. Both are ameliorated by cold drinks, but very prominent in Phytolacca are 2 symptoms: First is that glands are affected and painful, having a purple hue and the second is that the pain is very intense making a patient shriek.
The next remedies that are very ameliorated by cold drinks in tonsillitis are Apis and Lac caninum. Apis has stinging pains and symptoms develop very rapidly. What is very characteristic in Apis is the uvula, which is swollen and looks like a water bag.
The most important feature in Lac caninum in many conditions is alternation of sides. So it does not matter if the tonsilitis starts on the left or right but in a Laccaninumcase it goes from one side to the other and then back to the original side, for instance from right to left and then back to right or the other way round. The essential feature we see in Lac caninum is this alternation of sides. It does not matter whether it is tonsilitis, mastitis, neuralgia of ovaries or migraine. Whenever we can see this alternation of sides, then Lac caninum has to be taken intoconsideration.
In this case we see a strong salivation together with this left side prevalence of symptoms. There is one remedy which is very similar to Mercurius solubilis (they have some symptoms in common like salivation, night perspiration, metallic taste) but if the case looks like Mercurius solubilis and the pain is on left side only then the remedy is Mercurius iodatus ruber. When only on the right side, then Mercurius iodatus flavus is favored. So in this case the remedy was Merucurius iodatus ruber
200C in single split dose.
