Welp, here we are, Mom …
On planet Earth?
Another quiz and do you know what that means?
I have to get up?
It means, time for another Music Report! Apparently, it has come to my attention that “Lynda with a Y” likes our little conversations about the world of music…despite having no idea what we’re talking about.
Does anybody?
But sadly, I’m afraid I have nothing positive to report this time, because we have lost SO many beloved recording artists in this past month, it’s quite disheartening to tell you the truth! First of all, and you might want to sit down for this, Mom; we lost Ronnie Spector.
What???? Are you serious???? Ronnie Spector? We lost Ronnie from the Ronettes???? OMG!
Apparently she died of cancer at age 78. Her unmistakable voice was heard on such ’60’s anthems as “Be My Baby”, “Do I Love You”, “Walking in the Rain”, and so on. After record producer, Phil Spector, destroyed her career by marrying her, she just kind of vanished until 1986. The Ronettes—
which consisted of cousin Nedra, Ronnie and her sister Estelle— only had one real album and three greatest hits albums but anyway… we have the late Eddie Money to thank for getting her out of retirement. He had a song called “Take Me Home Tonight” that used a snippet of “Be My Baby” in it, and he asked her to sing it.
How apropos, but certainly not very original.
Mom, as usual, you’re being too judgmental! By the way, I also saw in an article that there’s supposedly going to be a bio-pic about her life.
I certainly hope so!
This was back in 2020 though, so, not sure what’s happening with that but apparently Ronnie personally picked Zendaya (a former Disney Channel actress) to play her. It’s apparently going to be based on her book, Be My Baby.
I have that book, and I highly recommend it. Ladies and gentlemen, presenting…Ronnie, Estelle and Nedra…the incredible Ronettes with their classic:
“Be My Baby”
Mom, don’t look now, but, we also lost, at 85, Fred Parris of The Five Satins.
What??? We lost Freddie Parris? Are you kidding??? Their song, “In The Still of the Night”, is a Doo-Wop classic!
You’d better explain what doo-wop is.
Songs from the ’50’s and ’60’s with “nonsense syllables” sung in the background; for example:
Shoo doot, shooby doo,
Shoo doot, shooby doo…
The Five Satins, everybody!
Doo bop, doo bah; doo bop doo bah….
Mom, the song is over! (But not my announcements, unfortunately.) I have another horrifying death to announce. We should call this “the Death of the Lead Singers Quiz” because, at 82, we lost Sonny Turner of The Platters to throat cancer.
Are you kidding me? Sonny Turner died?
He replaced the fabulous Tony Williams in 1960 but it wasn’t until 7 years later he had 2 chart-topping singles of his own with:
“I Love You 1,000 Times” and “With This Ring”.
I went crazy for those songs! Ladies and gentlemen…I give you now The Platters with Sonny Turner:
With this ring I promise I’ll always love you, always love you!
Oh and one more thing to announce. Apparently, there is going to be a documentary about the Sound of Philadelphia! You know, Thom Bell, Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and all the acts they produced—The O’Jays, The Trammps, The Spinners, Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, The Delfonics…
Say no more, say no more!
I saw it on Kenny Gamble’s Facebook page. It’s about time, right?
Long overdue!
***
Who’s in the Quiz this month?
It’s another COVID case, Shana; actually, it’s another post-COVID case in a child, like last month’s Quiz, with the “worst” of it presumably over but strange symptoms hanging on at the end, with this case being much stranger than the last, as our patient thinks she’s going crazy!
Who is it?
I need a fictitious name.
How about…… Ditzy?
Ditzy?
Yes, Ditzy.
D’oh! OK, Shana, if we have to! So, “Ditzy’s” mother—
“Mitzy”
Yes, of course; “Mitzy”… writes to me and says….
***
Hello, Elaine, I am completely exhausted as all the rest have had it (COVID). We are still in the middle of it with two of them and I am afraid I am just not that good at some of it.
I wondered what to repertorize for “Ditzy”. She has come through the worst of it, it seems, and no longer has a fever, headache, or body aches which has been the worst for my crew. Her fever broke this morning. I never gave her any Tylenol or anything but remedies so I don’t think this is some sort of suppression from drugs.
She has gone into mental symptoms that are quickly spiraling out of control.
What are they, exactly?
She began this morning with some thoughts that seemed real to her upon waking; she believed it was real and it made her nauseous and then anxious. She actually vomited that first time.
At any rate she has been lying on the couch and every time she dozes off she wakes in this same cycle.
What cycle?
The cycle is: sleep, wake up, and have thoughts about something unreal that feels very real to her; she becomes anxious, then nauseous, then remains anxious until she falls asleep again.
Mental symptoms are: waking up (she has been napping a lot since she has been sick) and having thoughts that seem obsessive about things / problems that are not real that she cannot fix. She then becomes anxious, followed by nausea. The nausea may pass, but the anxiety and thoughts remain. She is staying super anxious. It repeats when she falls asleep again. She was not doing this prior to the virus and fever.
The thoughts have been random and not what would seem scary. One she told me about was of us playing some game in a large group and not being lined up correctly while everyone else was.
Another time she was trying to fix her hair, but the more she tried to style it, the worse it became and she could do nothing with it.
This has led to her wanting me close to her today. She mentioned feeling like she was going crazy and also feeling like her mind was somewhere else.
She is eating and drinking normally with no fever and her only complaint is some aching still in her legs and every time she falls asleep she does wake up very sweaty. She is also now fearing going to sleep, that the whole thing will happen all over again.
She has become increasingly anxious and did not want me to leave the house to go to the grocery store, even fearing something might happen to me.
Every time, the “delusion“ is different and is something she cannot seem to fix and is disturbing to her. She says it seems real, but is not, but she cannot stop thinking about it.
I am unsure what to look for as I believe it is directly related to the virus and her having a pretty high fever (almost 103 for hours yesterday and overnight). I need to get a handle on this if I can, because she has expressed that she fears she is going crazy and that is increasing the anxiety.
I appreciate any insight you may have.
Give her ___________30C.
***
Update, one day later:
Elaine that seems to have worked! I asked her about it and she said she had forgotten about it.
Forgot about what?
I asked her if she was still feeling anxious about the delusional thoughts or fixating on them. She said she had forgotten what they were, which for comparison, earlier she was following me everywhere and it was all she was talking about!
I didn’t dose again until she said she was getting more anxious and thinking about the delusional thoughts again. I succussed the bottle 10 times and gave another dose.
She was asleep this morning and I just got home. She said she slept perfectly. She said she felt a bit anxious for a minute once this morning, but it passed and she has been feeling fine.
__________________________
OK, people, that’s it! What remedy did “Ditzy” need? Write to me at [email protected] and let me know. The answer will be in next month’s ezine.
So, I can’t resist going out with Sonny Turner’s other big hit from 1967:
“I Love You 1000 Times”.
Did you read my letter, it’s been on my mind
All it said was, that I love you 1,000 times…
The Platters!
See you in a month!
____________________________
VOTES:
Arsenicum-5
Stramonium
Aconite
Bryonia
Argent-nit.
Wow! This quiz was really far out! And yet a number of people bravely answered. Who wants to be first? I think I see Maria all the way from Greece!
Hi Elaine and Shana!
Hello Maria! I just said to Shana, “I know Maria’s gonna get it right!”
For this month’s quiz I vote for Arsenicum.
D’oh! Maria, I just knew you were going to get it right! “This quiz won’t fool Maria!” I said.
She has this marked anxiety, fearfulness, desire for company – doesn’t let her mother to go to the grocery store, her dreams also have a pattern of failed perfectionism (kind of). Being out of line, trying to fix her hair.
If I am wrong I will try again 🙂
Maria, it’s true that Arsenicum has all those things, but, your remedy always has to cover “the worst thing” in a case, right? Is Arsenicum a remedy for delusions? Insanity? Not so much. It’s interesting that this all comes on during sleep. Sleep seems to be the trigger, the start of it.
She’s afraid to go to sleep, thinking it will start all over again. It reminded me of another one of our quizzes. Remember, “Scary Halloween Virus Hits The Heartland”?
“Tabitha” wakes up, talking about things that make no sense like being concerned that her hair sticks straight up (it doesn’t) and she’s afraid she won’t turn out to be beautiful! And I thought, Oh my goodness, the same issue with the hair and how she looks!
But “Tabitha’s” case seemed to be a more classic case of this remedy, but, there’s another clue in the quiz, “Mitzy” says that before taking the remedy, “Ditzy” was following her around the house and talking non-stop about her delusions! So, “Loquacity” is another part of the case, and funny, but, in the Scary Halloween Virus quiz, the other child, “Serena”, was talking non-stop in her sleep! It was all the same remedy! Anyway, yes, try again!
Oh no, I totally missed loquacity when I was reading it 🙁
It’s not easy to pick it out, you could very easily overlook it. But I noticed it because it was the opposite of what I expected; namely, that she would be obsessively talking about the very thing that was scaring her, and, I guess Mitzy’s words, “following me around and talking about nothing else,” took me by surprise.
You know, I thought of Stramonium and ruled it out because it seemed to me as an ordinary delusion from high fever and Arsenicum is a remedy for fevers and nightmares. You are right, Arsenicum is not a heavy hitter in insanity as your great article describes them:
Great quiz Elaine, learnt a lot!
To me, it was all about sleep and nightmares and night terrors that linger on into the waking state and the patient making no sense; in other words, she seems to still be half asleep and in a dream state; and it’s also interesting that her mother says, “She keeps falling asleep.” Plus, “fear of falling asleep” is a keynote of Stramonium.
And what’s interesting now is that we have 4 patient cases of a Stramonium virus: “Ditzy”, “Tabatha”, “Serena” and “Esmeralda”—the last three from the “Scary Halloween Virus” quiz—which enables us to compare them: 4 out of the 4 were very scared to one degree or another. Two of the 4 engaged in non-stop talking though for one it was only in her sleep. Two of the 4 bemoaned that there was nothing they could do with their hair. One had the classic delusion of being attacked by wild animals. One had the classic fear of the dark and dark colors and let out a bone-chilling scream in her sleep. For all of them, the delusions and fears only came AFTER the virus (fever, etc.) was over!
Thanks, Maria!
I think I see Dr. Abhishek Choudhury on the horizon….
Hi Elaine,
I think the remedy was Stramonium, as she was aggravated after waking up, everytime she wakes up she gets this anxiety.
I was thinking of lachesis as well but Lachesis sleeps into aggravation. Other aspects like “Fear, alone, of being” and “fear of insanity”, “Delusion, vivid” points to Stramonium.
Am I right?
YES! You are right!!!!
Who else is here today?
Hi Elaine, It’s Lori D from “former NYC” or “hot AZ” although it isn’t hot right now.
Hmm….
Gotta work on that name.
Yes, please do!
Well, I know I have been MIA for the past several months and missed several of the quizzes. I have enjoyed catching up on them as I had a lot of things to read in my absence. I left NYC in late Oct and made it to Chicago where my family lives. It has been difficult trying to get myself across the country to Phoenix.
By the time I get to Phoenix, she’ll be rising….
She’ll see the note I left hanging on the door…
She’ll laugh when she reads the part that says I’m leaving,
Cuz I left that girl so many times before….
The Mad Lads!
I had to wait for 6 weeks for a car due to the chip shortage on vehicles. When it did come I literally had to pay 5K more for a vehicle because of the supply/demand situation.
Egads! You had to pay an extra $5,000 for a car because of the “supply chain” debacle? I think I’d have to stay in Chicago. What’s in Phoenix, anyway?
Then winter in Chicago came and every day that I was planning to leave, somehow the weather brought in lots of snow, wind, ice, etc. After driving through 3 hours of white-out conditions in Illinois and a cracked windshield on my brand new car…
You’re kidding! A cracked windshield on a new car? It doesn’t seem fair.
I drove through several states that brought in their own ridiculous weather and finally made it to sunny Phoenix in mid January.
Whew! Driving across country in the middle of winter, probably not the greatest idea you ever had.
As soon as I got here, I had 1 problem after another.
I had a premonition you were going to say that….
You really would not even believe me if I listed all of them. I stayed with my friend and her husband for 2 days until I could move into my apartment that I came to learn was in a chain-smoking, overpriced, less-than-desirable area that was not crappy several years ago.
Yikes!
So, my 2nd day in the apartment I woke up with whatever the latest version of covid was.
You’re kidding!
I somehow managed to call a mobile nurse who comes to your apartment to give you an assortment of vitamins in an IV. I also had a covid remedy that I got from Australia over 6 months ago and took that.
That’s the COVID nosode Homeopathy Plus is selling!
I slept for 12 hours and the next day, I literally made a miraculous recovery from every symptom I had…
So it really works! Listen up, people, it really works! Read “Tidbits 83” to find out how to order it!
… except I had severe exhaustion and fatigue. For the next 2 weeks, I could barely get up to shower or eat. I wanted to reach out to you for help, but I was too fatigued to even get to my phone. It was like I was in a constant state of sleep deprivation.
Yeah, I’m familiar with that….
I thought that this must be how I was going to die. Not from covid itself but from not eating or drinking anything. I had no one to help me because my friend and her husband were already sick with covid as well.
Good heavens!
I lost 8 pounds in those 2 weeks, and I was only 120 lbs to begin with. I ended up doing high amounts of B3 (Niacin) and Vitamin C, and within a day I was back to normal.
Get out! Really? What a story! B3 and Vitamin C, everybody, make a note of that!
Unfortunately though, the boxes that I ended up shipping through FedEx, got destroyed in the bad weather along the way (literally in some highway icy pile-up) so I lost most of my clothes and books including my homeopathic schoolbooks.
You’re kidding!!!
After a lot of crying and feeling sorry for myself, depression, loneliness and second guessing coming here at all, I realized a few things. I really need to get some homeopathic software.
That’s the lesson you learned?
Please recommend.
I have Vision by Miccant. They give you a 2 week free trial:
And I need to get on a remedy. I hardly ever ask for help and I’m sure that somehow fits into my constitution, but if you take clients or can recommend someone to me, I would appreciate it.
Of course I take clients! It’s at the bottom of all my articles: “Elaine takes online cases.” Listen, have you tried Gelsemium? It’s our most famous post-viral syndrome remedy.
So to end this email, my guess for the Quiz is between Calc-carb and Arsenicum. I’m leaning towards Arsenicum because of the persistent obsessive thoughts she had about not being able to fix things that were giving her anxiety, plus the nausea after the anxiety. I will try again if I am wrong.
Well, Lori, you’re not the only one who guessed Arsenicum, but, unfortunately, it’s the wrong answer. To me, this child is still asleep, hasn’t fully woken up. Remember? The mom said, “She keeps falling back asleep.” To me, this case is all about dreaming while awake.
I think I see Yael from Israel!
Hello Elaine, it’s me again. What an interesting quiz!
Oui, tres interessant!
All of a sudden she has those mind-related symptoms. And just as suddenly they go away with your remedy.
Sudden… suddenly… Aconite?
Oy vey! You can’t use getting better “suddenly” after a remedy as confirmation for Aconite. We should all get better “suddenly” after a remedy—especially if a case is recent. Aconite is only known for sudden onset.
The idea of “sudden onset” is that you’re perfectly fine, you go out in the cold, come back, and 30 minutes later you’re sick and running a high fever! No gradual build-up over several days like with Gelsemium or Bryonia, just BOOM! and there it is!
We’ve got one main symptom that I could make out of this story: Mind- delusions – anxious (from Murphy’s repertory) which gives me Aconite, but also Anacardium, Phosphorus and Pulsatilla.
Aconite has the modality that anxiousness comes on waking. It also has “fear of going outside the house” – fear that something will happen, that they would get into an accident. She’s afraid for her mother but I guess it’s still relevant. She seems very tense, an Aconite sign: “emotional and mental tension” (fright or fear and its consequences, anxiety and fear of death”.
Should I be wrong, I’ll look into the case again.
Here’s what we know, according to “Mitzy” (the mom):
“She began this morning with some thoughts that seemed real to her upon waking; she believed it was real….”
Now, what does that sound like to you? To me it sounds like she’s in a kind of dream world still, despite being “awake”; as if in another dimension, another reality. It’s like kids who wake up in the middle of the night and they start talking about things that aren’t happening, seeing things that aren’t there, and they may not know you, recognize you, or know where they are; attempts at orienting these kids don’t seem to help. They talk to you, and yet they’re not taking in the information you’re giving.
These cases usually involve fear. You can see that there’s something “super-natural” about what’s happening here, something not of this world. And this fact has to propel us away from the “usual” remedies, like Aconite and Arsenicum—another fearful remedy—and more towards our “seeing ghosts”, “seeing spirits”, “hearing voices” remedies.
To be honest those mental symptoms are making me uncomfortable… ghosts? Out-of-this-world? I’m a very down-to-earth, meat and potatoes kind of person…
Well, you may be but how does that help our patient?
I don’t do so well with spirits and hallucinations.
You’re not the one having them!
But this is for homeopathy! So I’m giving it another try.
After some research into Murphy’s books, I’ve got: Delusions – danger, impression of : Stramonium stands out. In fact, it’s repertorized in many places under Mind-delusions – 1) general hallucinations, visions (albeit with a lot of other remedies but stramonium is one out of four in bold and underlined). 2) body, divided. 3) thinks he’s demonical (?) 4) is possessed of a devil (?) 5) surrounded by enemies… etc.
So I’ll go with STRAMONIUM “Paranoid” “ Fearful hallucinations that terrify the patient”.
In Morrison’s: “Fear of death”, “fear to be alone”.
Yes, you are right! It is Stramonium! Stramonium is our main remedy for the world of the super-natural. Anything that sounds like it’s from another world—evil spirits, ghosts, possession, fear of going to sleep, night terrors, caught in another dimension, half in the waking state/half in the dream world, unexplained fears, reality appears strange…we should think of Stramonium. Here are the rubrics you found that I liked:
Delusion: impression of danger
Delusion: body, divided (She said she thought her mind was “somewhere else”, and I was hoping to find a rubric for that and I couldn’t; but you did.)
Here are 2 others:
Delusions: horrible
Delusions: frightful
It all goes for Stramonium. People with kids should really have this remedy, for all their fears in the dark (monsters, etc.; though Calc-carb has that too) and especially for night terrors, when they wake up and know no one, talk about bears and dogs attacking them, or just say crazy things that make no sense and there’s no getting through to them.
Oh look, it’s the gang from Slovakia!
Hello, Elaine and Shana,
Hello Miroslav and Jitka!
Here are our answers to your February quiz.
OK, I can’t wait to see!
Miroslav votes: Arsenicum
I think the patient got Arsenicum.
I’m not surprised. It seems to be the way things are going.
The central theme is anxiety, she does not want to be alone and has delusions about the wrong arrangement (the family can’t line up properly, she can’t comb her hair …)
Miroslav, what she’s talking about here doesn’t matter. The point of it is that’s it’s not real. It’s not as though there is actually something in the real world that she has to line up properly, which might make you think of a “fastidious” remedy. The issue is, she’s obsessing over things that aren’t there, meaning what? She’s in another world! That’s why this case is so weird!
Arsenicum can’t rest until things are in their proper place. Even the nausea with vomiting from anxiety could testify to this remedy.
Jitka votes: Arsenicum
Of course, why not?
Since you knew immediately what remedy Ditzy needed without further supplementary questions…
Good observation, Jitka! Yes, it’s true, I knew right away!
…it was clear to me that I should not speculate about the right remedy too much. Nausea and vomiting in the patient and the fear of being left alone indicated Arsenicum.
Yes, those features would make you think of Arsenicum but, what other remedies are afraid of being alone? There are 2 subtle clues here which I doubt anyone will pick up on. One is “loquacity”. Remember when her mother said, “She follows me around and talks about nothing but these delusions that she has.” And here’s the other clue: After the remedy, she can’t remember any of it, none of her delusional thoughts—she says she can’t remember them. What does that make you think of?
I had doubts whether I would understand the patient’s delusions correctly.
That’s just it, you don’t have to understand them because that isn’t what matters. What matters is that her thoughts are not real.
In the end it was not so difficult. She actually said it in two sentences about the game and the hair. She was anxious about the fictional images that things were not arranged properly.
You know, with Arsenicum, it’s picky things that aren’t arranged like they should. Picky, picky, picky! They notice when something on the coffee table has been moved. They notice when a picture is slightly crooked. They notice when there’s a piece of lint on the carpet. But ANYONE would notice if everyone was lined up properly for a game except for them! So does that really fit for Arsenicum’s fastidiousness? And then, what was her other delusion? The more she tried to fix her hair, the worse it got. You know, it all sounds like a scene out of “Alice In Wonderland” to me! Does everyone remember “Alice In Wonderland”?
Croquet With The Queen
“The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarreling all the while and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short time, the Queen was in a furious passion and went stamping about shouting ‘Off with his head!’ or ‘Off with her head!’ about once a minute. Alice began to feel very uneasy. To be sure, she had not as yet had any dispute with the Queen but she knew that it might happen at any minute and then, she thought, what would become of me? … I don’t think they play at all fairly. …. They don’t seem to have any rules in particular, at least if there are, no one attends to them.”
***
So, I assume you’ve read Alice In Wonderland? It’s a world of insanity where cats grin, rabbits have tea parties, babies turn into pigs and a deck of cards plays croquet using flamingoes as mallets and hedgehogs as croquet balls… and in the end, do you remember how it all turned out? It was all just a dream! A DREAM! What does our patient’s mother say? It all comes on during sleep. In fact, “Ditzy” is afraid to go to sleep, because it will start all over again. It’s almost as if our patient never fully wakes up from her sleep. And what usually happens after you wake up from a dream? You can’t remember it! And what does our patient say after she gets the remedy? She can’t remember her delusional thoughts, they’ve all disappeared; so, they must have been dreams!
You know, you might even think of this as something similar to a “night terror”, you know how kids wake up in the middle of the night and they start talking about stuff that’s not there and they don’t recognize you and they sort of look right through you, like they’re in another plane of existence? Well, that’s how you should think of this case. And you know, when kids wake up from these night terrors, they don’t remember them at all!
Since you have given us another chance to answer your quiz, we are sending you our new answers:
Miroslav:
Yes, the central theme is definitely delusions, hallucinations … It is definitely one from the shadow remedies … And I’m guessing Stramonium.
Jitka:
By previous answer, I thought a little about Stramonium or Belladonna, too. Now I wanted to make sure what other homeopaths thought about the remedies for Alice in Wonderland. To my surprise, I was shown on Google some sources where homeopaths contemplated a remedy for Alice – Agaricus.
I even found a few sources where Liz Lalor herself describes Alice’s picture as Agaricus. Books about Alice in Wonderland are well-known in our country too, we allegedly even had it in our home library, but although I was a fairly big “bookworm”, these stories did not catch on with me, never; nor do I remember those stories. Agaricus has loquacity and many weird delusions. So I vote for Agaricus, although there is a problem: not everybody has this remedy.
In fact, nobody has it! OK, first of all, Miroslav is right. Secondly, there is a great rubric for this case; namely, Mind: delusions, hallucinations, visions, talkative, loquacity, with; so… delusions with loquacity, there’s only 7 remedies there; that really narrows down our choices. Agaricus isn’t one of them.
I have no idea why people are saying Alice is Agaricus! Alice is a very polite, proper, calm, sincere and respectful character who tries desperately to give these weirdos in her dream world the benefit of the doubt! But our patient, Ditzy, is not calm at all! She is scared, she doesn’t want her mother to leave her to buy groceries.
There’s a rubric—Mind: fears, phobias, happen, something bad will (fear, something bad will happen). That’s a great rubric for Ditzy. Here’s another perfect rubric for this case: Dreams: awake, while.
Dreams while awake! That’s exactly what Ditzy is doing!
So, if we took:
- Delusions, hallucinations with loquacity
- Fear something bad will happen
- Dreams while awake
what remedy comes up?
Stramonium.
I see Veronique is here!
Hi, Elaine. Bryonia’s got the persistent thoughts early morning and the vomiting.
Thank you Elaine.
Véronique
Hi Veronique, thanks for voting! Listen, the thing with a Bryonia case is that there is always a very severe pain, so severe that the patient usually can’t move. It could just as easily be severe nausea where, again, he feels he must hold perfectly still; and there’s a keynote, “worse when lifting his head off of the pillow”. He can’t even do that. There is always a very severe symptom in a Bryonia case. This is why Bryonia is frequently the remedy in cases of broken bones, sprained ankle, appendicitis, flus/viruses with a very severe headache such that the patient can’t open his eyes…. We don’t think of Bryonia when a case is mainly about mentals. Here is a Bryonia case for you, an extremely bad headache and the patient can’t even open her eyes:
Revisiting: “Hurt So Bad” (Homeopathy Cures Really Bad Headache!)
Aruna seems to be here….
Hi Elaine,
Hope all is well at your end.
My attempt at this month’s quiz, “An Even Weirder Case of COVID”, would be Arsenicum Alb 30C. The symptoms which I focused the most on are Hallucinations, Anxiety with fear of worst/death, and drowsiness/sleep, considering the background as ill effects of viral fevers.
Thank you for the opportunity!
You are most welcome. You know, I’m glad you mentioned viral fevers because, you know what remedy is known to have fever as an etiology? Stramonium! And when you think about it that way, it’s starting to make sense; plus, you can see all the symptoms of Stramonium are there: hallucinations, fear of going to sleep, fear to be alone, fear she is going insane, fear something bad will happen, delusion her body is divided (says her mind is somewhere else); so, I can understand why Arsenicum is a very popular choice; but, this case is a little bit too weird, too “out there”, for it to be Arsenicum.
Thanks so much for getting back with the answer. I am understanding from your write-up that Stramonium covers the other aspect (delusion her body is divided) that I assumed was covered under hallucinations and thus Arsenicum.
I’m a little confused over what you just said. Arsenicum isn’t in the rubric Mind: delusions, hallucinations, body, divided.
Now, how would one repertorize this, just look up utmost fear with clinginess? This case is so close to Arsenicum Alb.
No, it’s not really close to Arsenicum at all. Arsenicum has a fear of death because she’s sick and is scared to be alone; she needs hand-holding and constant reassurance that she’s gonna be OK. But here we have “Ditzy”, who’s not really sick at all at this point! The virus is over, Arsenicum would be feeling much better by now, feeling relieved that she’s back to normal; so, we don’t expect to see Arsenicum at this point in a case. Now, if you want to see an Arsenicum virus? Click below. Muriel Stubbs has the flu and is in a perfect Arsenicum state:
Revisiting: Another Famous Person Quiz–Muriel and Thurgood Orenthal Stubbs
So, wait; it’s not Arsenicum because the emphasis is more on fear and nightmares?
Yes, you are right, the emphasis is on fear and nightmares; in fact, Ditzy appears to still be “dreaming”! If a person could talk to you about their dreams while they were having them? Now think about this: Wouldn’t they say things like, “We’re supposed to be lined up for a game, but no one on my team is lined up properly while everyone else is! And I can’t fix my hair! I try to comb it but, the more I try to fix it, the worse it gets!” Doesn’t that sound like a dream? Futile efforts at trying to “fix things”? There’s actually a rubric in the Dream chapter (Murphy’s Repertory) pertaining to “dreaming while awake”, Stramonium is there, of course, and I think that’s what Ditzy is doing! Dreams: awake, while. That’s why after the remedy, she can’t remember anything! Because you can’t remember your dreams!
Please excuse my naiveness in the matter, my knowledge is limited.
That’s why we’re all here, to learn. Even I learn from being here!
best regards,
aruna.
I see Pam is here!
Hi again Elaine!
Hello Pam. My computer’s in the shop. I’m using Shana’s. It means I don’t have my repertory software, so, I’m at a disadvantage in answering you.
Ok, I finally finished repertizing this quiz.
It’s spelled repertorizing. But a lot of people say “repping” for short.
I couldn’t find several rubrics (I searched and searched!), but the ones I did find ALL pointed to Argentum Nitricum!
Is that sooooo???????? Robin Murphy always used to say, “You have to perceive what has to be cured.” He would attribute that quote to Hahnemann. In other words, you have to know, or figure out, what’s wrong. Do you know what’s wrong with Ditzy? If you can’t figure out what’s wrong, you’re going to get the wrong answer.
Well, I’ll tell you. She’s still asleep! Yes, that’s right, she’s still asleep. She’s dreaming!
Do you remember Alice in Wonderland? She saw all kinds of strange things and strange animals. A deck of cards playing croquet. A mad hatter’s tea party. It was all a dream, but, she believed it was real!
There’s a rubric in the Dreams chapter, “Dreams: awake, while”. That’s what she’s doing. And you might even refer to it as a night terror because she’s very scared. And you know, when these kids have night terrors, they “wake up”, and they start talking, but nothing they say makes any sense, and they may not know who you are, and you can’t get through to them, and you can’t wake them up! And they’re very scared and might say that wild animals are going to attack them. When they finally do wake up, they don’t remember any of it! So what happens after Ditzy gets the remedy? She forgets the whole thing!
So, yes, Argent-nit. has a lot of fears, it’s true. They are very anxiety-ridden, always thinking about what can go wrong. If they’re on a plane, they think it will crash. If they’re at a movie, they grab the seat by the exit in case there’s a fire. They’re always fearing the worst. And you might think this is a case of Argent-nit if you thought Ditzy was suffering from anxiety neurosis, if that was your diagnosis. But this is why it’s so important to “perceive what has to be cured”. What is wrong with Ditzy? She’s still dreaming! That’s what’s wrong!
What’s our remedy for night terrors? This is something you just have to know, the way you know that Arnica is for blunt trauma and Apis is for anaphylaxis. You just have to know these things by studying Materia Medica. Sometimes you have to repertorize, but sometimes you just know the remedy because it’s the only remedy (or the main remedy) for that particular thing. Our remedy for night terrors is Stramonium. It’s also in the rubric, “dreaming while awake”.
If all you do is take down symptoms and look for rubrics, even though that is what we have to do sometimes, you’re going to miss the mark in many a case. Sometimes we hear a complaint and we either know the remedy right away, or we ask one or 2 clarifying questions and then we know the remedy. So, this is one of those cases where you should know the remedy right away.
- It has to do with fear during sleep and fear of going to sleep.
- It has to do with insanity (she says she’s afraid she’s going insane)
- It has to do with delusions and hallucinations
- It has to do with loquacity (there’s a rubric Delusions, loquacity, with). Remember Mitzy said that Ditzy follows her around talking about nothing but her delusions, so, she’s talking non-stop.
- It has to do with being in a state of fear
These are all Stramonium things. There’s a book by Paul Herscu called Stramonium. Maybe everyone should buy it. So, yes, big mistake in homeopathy: a failure to perceive what has to be cured. That’s why only one person got the right answer in this quiz.
OH MY G*D. Good grief. WHAT?
I was wrong on this quiz??? THIS one? The one I was so sure I finally got right??? Impossible.
DREAMING?? 😐
What? 😒
aaaarrrrgggh! 😬
Sorry Elaine….you must be mistaken. 😀 I know it’s YOUR quiz, but you must be wrong.
Please re-read your own quiz and amend the answer. Stat! 😬 My ego can’t take it. I cannot have been wrong….again!
You were wrong because you didn’t perceive what the problem was. You were treating “anxiety neurosis”. That was the wrong “illness”. I told you what the elements of the case were:
- delusions, hallucinations
- fright
- delusions with loquacity
- fear something bad will happen
- afraid to go to sleep
- fear of insanity
- fear to be alone
- frequent falling asleep
- the ‘cycle’ starts with sleep
- delusion that the body is divided (mind is in another place)
Now, the problem is, you’re not familiar with Stramonium and you’re not familiar with night terrors. It’s hard to recognize what you’re not familiar with.
😶 This reminds me of how much I loved playing checkers as a kid — unless I lost, at which point I would have a wild tantrum, swiping all of the pieces off the board and then running out of the room screaming that my partner cheated.
Remind me not to play checkers with you.
This quiz brought it all back…… sigh. lol
How did you figure out that she was ….DREAMING??? 😒 Where is that stated, or insinuated?
The ‘cycle’. “She’s afraid to go to sleep because the ‘cycle’ will start all over again.” And, “She keeps falling asleep.”
“She began this morning with some thoughts that seemed real to her upon waking; she believed it was real. The cycle is: sleep, wake up, and have thoughts about something unreal that feels very real to her; she becomes anxious, then nauseous (vomited once), then remains anxious until she falls asleep again. “
In my defense, I thought she was having delusions UPON WAKING, as in she began to HALLUCINATE as she was waking up (UPON WAKING). I had no idea she was ….dreaming.
What are dreams if not delusions and hallucinations? Look at what Alice dreamed up, her adventures in wonderland. They were all dreams. And she believed them. It was very real to her.
The mother stated that her daughter “began this morning”. She didn’t say that the girl was having these delusions while she was asleep.
Pam, how would the mother have known? She can’t get inside her daughter’s head while she’s sleeping!
(***trying hard to think of what Sheldon would say…..is it working???***) The mom also states that the “cycle” is “sleep, WAKE UP, AND HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT SOMETHING UNREAL”. Wake up and have thoughts. WAKE UP. See? 😀
Why would there be a rubric in the Repertory:
“Dreams: waking, while”. It must be a phenomenon that actually happens.
Furthermore….she then states that her daughter remains anxious UNTIL SHE FALLS ASLEEP AGAIN, which to me meant that sleep ameliorated her issues, as in: her delusions STOPPED while she was asleep.
Oy vey! Why does she keep being pulled back into sleep, Pam, despite being afraid to go to sleep??? Why does she have to keep sleeping? Because she’s never woken up! It’s all about sleep. This case is about Sleeping!
People dream, and those dreams, if articulated to another out loud, wouldn’t make any sense. Isn’t that true? Dreams are delusions that you have during sleep. They’re not real, and they don’t make any sense. And very often, they’re about things that we try to fix, want to fix, but can’t. Isn’t that right?
I say that maybe you need to have another quiz this month! You said only ONE person got it right, soooooooo……how ’bout it? Give us all another chance! 😀
You’ll get another chance very soon when the March Quiz comes out!
On a serious note….let us suppose that the girl was NOT *ugh* DREAMING. Let us pretend she was hallucinating while awake, and that these hallucinations occurred as she was waking up in the morning. Would ARG-N have been the CORRECT remedy then???
No. It would still be Stramonium. Stramonium is our main remedy for insanity. Look it up in Morrison’s Desktop Guide.
PLEASE say YES. ARS ALB was listed on some of the rubrics, but always in lower case, whereas my ARG-N was listed mainly in BOLD CAPS, and even UNDERLINED in some rubrics!
This case is about SLEEP, a sleep disorder. You know, this case is a perfect illustration of why “Diagnosis” is right near the top of the Hierarchy Of Symptoms. See “Repertory Round-Up part 4”.
It goes: Etiology, Diagnosis, Sudden Onset, Delusions, Mentals, Emotionals, Physical generals, locals. If you get the diagnosis wrong, everything else you do after that will be wrong. The proof that she was dreaming is, that after the remedy, she woke up and forgot the whole thing, just the way you forget your dreams when you wake up.
I need a win, Elaine…. I have attached my worksheet, as I know you will ask why I arrived at that conclusion. 😀
For the love of Pete….please tell me that I finally got one of your quizzes RIGHT! It has to be ARG-N. My second guess was ARS-ALB,
If it makes you feel better, most of our answers were for Arsenicum alb.
but I really feel it’s ARGENT-NIT.
You might want to read: “Elaine and Mati Sort Out Arsenicum alb and Argent-nit.”
Elaine Lewis and Mati Fuller Sort out Arsenicum alb. and Argent-nit.
Thanks!
Pam
I think the time has come to congratulate our winner.
Dr. Abhishek Choudhury, come on down! You win the Gold Star!
(This month’s quiz should be less weird.)
Bye, see you again next time!
____________________________
Elaine Lewis, DHom, CHom
Elaine takes online cases. Write to her at [email protected]
Visit her website: https://ElaineLewis.hpathy.com
Very nice case and comments.
Thank you Elaine.
Thanks for reading the Quiz Answer, Veronique! It was a great case, I agree!