Case Quizes Clinical Cases

Revisiting: Acute Case Drops in Elaines Lap

Written by Elaine Lewis

Elaine gives the answer to last month’s quiz. Revisiting: Acute Case Drops in Elaines Lap

I’m sure everyone remembers our nail-biting quiz from last month!

I doubt it, Mom.

You’re probably right, Shana. Better roll the tape.

Rolling….and….action!

———————————-

Shana, where are you?

I’m at college, Mom, don’t you remember? I’m in my dorm room!


No wonder I can’t find you! Are you sure college was such a good idea?

Mom! Just put the picture of last night’s dinner in The Quiz so that we can get started?

OK, here it is:

And what do we have this time? I recognize the salad, but what’s the other dish?

Potato salad! I make the world’s best potato salad: first I chop up a potato, I leave the skin on since that’s where all the fiber is, and I drop it in boiling water.

When it’s soft, which only takes a few minutes, I drain out the water, dump the potato into a bowl, add some chopped onion, a chopped hard boiled egg, a chopped up pickle….

A pickle?????

Shana, this is the secret ingredient!

I guess that explains why I didn’t know about it!

Oh, and then…did I mention the celery seeds?

No, I don’t think so.

Well, you gotta have celery seeds!

If you gotta, you gotta. S’all right?

S’all right! Then you add the mayonnaise, mix it all up and add a blob of pickle juice.

A blob?

I didn’t mean for it to be a blob. When I tried to pour a small amount of pickle juice into the bowl a big blob surged out and got all over everything!

Ha-ha! I wish I could have been there for that!

 

And then, Presto! World’s greatest potato salad! I ate the whole thing!

I believe you, it looks like you ate half of it before you took the picture!

That was unfortunate……

Mom, do we have a quiz?

I’ll say we do!

Who is it this time?

Do you remember…oh geez, I should probably come up with a fictitious name!

Here we go again!

“Marcello”.

Mom, how can I remember him if it’s a fictitious name?

Good point, Shana; that’s our little college girl, always thinking!

So, this is “Marcello’s” case?

No.

Mom!

Do you remember “Marcello’s” ADHD son, “Frankie”?

So, this is “Frankie’s” case?

No.

Mom!!!!!

OK, Ok, I’ll explain! I can explain! Oh why won’t someone let me explain???

So, I was trying to help “Marcello” come up with a remedy for “Frankie” who was bouncing off the walls, when “Marcello” informed me that his wife, “Gertrude” was sick and “Frankie” wouldn’t let her sleep! So, I said, “OK, what’s wrong with ‘Gertrude’?” And this was the answer:

Chilliness — my wife is cold. Right now she is wrapped in a comforter. She is not coughing. There is throat irritation and body aches and chilliness. She’s feverish, weak and dull with a headache.

That’s it?

That’s it.

That’s the case?

That’s all I got.

Yeesh! Well, OK….If you know the answer, please write to my mom at: [email protected] and let her know what the remedy is. We’ll see you back here in a month with more healthy recipes and this month’s quiz answer. Bye for now!!!

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Votes:

Hepar sulph.-3

Gelsemium-4

Belladonna

Nux vomica

China-2

It looks like just about a third of our voters got the right answer. Here’s a very detailed answer from Venkatesh:

Rubrics:
GENERALS – HEAT – lack of vital heat[my wife is cold. Right now she is wrapped in a comforter, chilliness]
GENERALS – WEAKNESS – fever – during – agg.[She’s feverish, weak]
HEAD – PAIN – fever – during – agg.[feverish, with a headache]
THROAT – IRRITATION[There is throat irritation]

Group of Remedies After Repertorisation:
BELLADONNA
NATRIUM MURIATICUM
RHODODENDRON CHRYSANTHUM
SEPIA OFFICINALIS
AESCULUS HIPPOCASTANUM

Bellabonna is covering all 4 rubrics. So willing to give Belladonna 200 3 doses of 4pills at interval of 10 minutes.

See, here’s the problem, Venkatesh, you repertorized!

Second of all, when there’s a mental symptom in a case, the remedy has to cover that. You didn’t include the mental symptom, which was dullness! Is Belladonna dull? Noooooooooooo……. Just the opposite! Belladonna can be quite intense: crying, screaming– “Oh the pain! The pain! The fever is so high!!!! My head is killing me, it’s pounding!!!”  Our patient is dull. Thirdly, the patient has all the characteristics of the flu; and when we know what a patient has, all we have to do is ask ourselves, “Which flu remedy is dull and chilly?” It’s Gelsemium!  There, wasn’t that easy?  Did we need to repertorize? You know, if you know what a patient has–the flu, in this case–you don’t have to pull out all the common symptoms of the disease and repertorize them: muscle aches, sore throat, headache, etc. It’s enough that you know it’s the flu! So you simply ask, What’s peculiar / characteristic about this flu? Dullness and chillness. Also, the rubrics you picked were mostly too general and representative of almost every illness: Coldness? Weak? Headache? Sore throat? You see what you came up with? A bunch of non-flu remedies like Aesculus! The first thing you have to do is find the flu rubric, that’s your primary rubric!  

It’s just like Steve Messer’s old story about the Cow and the Farm. I know I’ve told this story before but I’ll bet a lot of people haven’t heard it:

Steve has lost his cow. It’s a big country, so how is he going to find her? If only he knew what farm she wandered into, if he knew that, he’d only have to search among roughly 20 or 30 cows! So, it just so happened that the Town Busybody who sits on the Hill and does nothing but watch to see who’s coming and going, saw Steve’s cow wander into Farmer Brown’s farm! Steve went there and was able to pick out his cow because of it’s peculiar and characteristic markings! So, what is the moral of the story? First you find the farm, THEN you find the cow!  Finding the cow is easy at that point. Does everybody see that?

When we think of Gelsemium, we think of the 5 D’s:

Droopy

Drowsy

Dizzy

Dopey

and

Dull

Sounds like a Disney movie gone wrong! Their eyelids droop. Their head feels heavy. They just want to sleep, to lie down and be left alone. They’re semi-stuporous–dull. They don’t say much, they speak slowly. They may want something but don’t communicate it–it’s too much trouble, they’re too weary. If you ask how they are, answering might be too difficult for them. They might just say, “Huh?” They’re thirstless, there are chills up and down their spine. They feel wobbly. There may be dizziness and they may have blurred vision or other visual disturbances; there may be headaches and muscle aches too. So, I heard “chilly and dull with fever, muscle aches and headache”; and, I’m thinking “the flu” to myself, and it all seems to fit Gelsemium, especially when I hear the word “dull”. So, when you know, or can surmise, what a person HAS, it gives you a setting in which to discern a remedy. For instance, if the patient was “dull” from an injury, would you think it was Gelsemium? Probably not. We might be thinking more about Arnica. So, diagnosis is important. That’s the “farm”, you know.

And one more thing, 200C every ten minutes, Venkatesh?  Why?  Was this patient presenting with an intense, urgent picture?  A heart attack?  A near-fatal accident or drowning?  No, she’s just sitting there, calmly wrapped in a blanket, complaining only that she’s cold…one dose of a 200C is fine for this case.  Remember homeopathy’s motto–“The minimum dose”.  

Who else wrote? Maria said:

Hmmmmmm… For this month’s quiz I vote for gelsemium. I thought of arsenicum too, because of being wrapped in the comforter, but it seems more typical gelsemium to me: Chillness, weakness, dullness, body aches. I hope I am correct, for a change.

Maria

 

You are, Maria, you are definitely correct!  Let’s give all our winners a hand, they are:

Maria, Dr. Sudha R. Nambisan, Mary-Jane Sharratt and Sharon Soltes!

And thanks everyone for participating–keep trying!!!!!  We’ll see you back here again in November!

About the author

Elaine Lewis

Elaine Lewis, D.Hom., C.Hom.
Elaine is a passionate homeopath, helping people offline as well as online. Contact her at [email protected]
Elaine is a graduate of Robin Murphy's Hahnemann Academy of North America and author of many articles on homeopathy including her monthly feature in the Hpathy ezine, "The Quiz". Visit her website at:
https://elainelewis.hpathy.com/ and TheSilhouettes.org

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