A few months ago, I shared a case of Erb’s palsy in a boy of five months that I treated with Chamomilla in ascending LM potencies. After that I received many calls and emails of parents from across the country asking me if I could help their children who suffered from the same disease. The state of the parents was of extreme helplessness as conventional treatment was not giving results and the parents were afraid to opt for surgery.
On 28th November 2019 a couple from Mumbai came to me with their 3 month old daughter who was suffering from Erb’s palsy. This girl had a total palsy of a right upper limb and was unable to move it at all. She could not raise her arm when lying on the bed.
The doctors in Mumbai had advised surgery and parents had lost hope because of the grim prognosis. Such paediatric cases are similar to the one sided diseases referred to in the Organon (aphorism 172-184). We have to rely on whatever we come across by means of our senses and whatever little information that the parents provide us with. One very important avenue for prescribing in cases of such birth defects (Homeopathy for Birth Defects) and other genetic disorders, is the emotional and mental state of the mother during the nine months of pregnancy. In this case also, I decided to start from the beginning of the pregnancy.
The mother of the child said that during the later months of pregnancy the husband was not living with her, as he was posted somewhere else due to his job. The mother had to live with her in-laws towards the later part of the pregnancy. She said that during the last three months of pregnancy she had a lot of family pressures and restrictions imposed upon her and she used to cry a lot throughout that period, alone in her room.
She desperately wanted to be with her husband and she wept a lot but she never expressed it. She used to cry at the least provocation. There was a lot of anxiety about the foetus as well, as she did not want the circumstances to affect her baby.
As a result, the lady developed oligohydramnios and was hospitalized for 15 days. She also suffered from excessive vomiting and nausea throughout the later months. The foetal movements were also increased simultaneously with the oligohydramnios.
The delivery was normal but the labour lasted very long. The child had a poor APGAR score at birth and also suffered from neonatal jaundice for which she was kept in NICU where her total plexus palsy was detected.
On observing the child, I saw that she had a very attractive smile and was very cheerful. To the contrary the mother exclaimed that she was a very obstinate child and used to cry a lot when her parents put her to bed at night. She used to remain awake till late at night and cry as soon as the lights were turned off.
The mother said that the child also had severe constipation and passed stools once in 3-4 days which were very offensive and expelled with a lot of flatus. She used to sweat on the scalp.
This was the disease picture in front of me. It is important to understand that no two cases of disease are ever the same. They may have the same end result but the journey of disease, which is of foremost importance to the Homoeopathic physician, is entirely different.
I prescribed PSORINUM 1M, unit dose on 28th November 2019. The prescription was based on:
Excessive foetal movements during pregnancy causing the mother to vomit
Child happy all day but weeps all night.
Chilly patient
Offensiveness flatus
In January 2020 the parents brought her for a follow up. The child had started moving the arm but the flexion at the elbow was missing. The nerve studies showed signs of regeneration and the surgeon remarked that the muscle flicker was also better.
The child (as in the other case of Erb’s palsy treated by me), developed an offensive green diarrhoea a few days after the dose. A month before she developed high fever with hot head and cold feet, for which another dose of PSORINUM 1M was prescribed (as she was not eating anything and looked very weak.) Her fever subsided gradually over two days.
The child has started crawling now which she obviously was not able to do before homoeopathic treatment. She has started shrugging movements at the shoulder. Her hand movements are much better and she has started raising her arm above shoulder height.
In both my cases there was individualization of remedy as well as posology.
“The prescription depends on the description”
