Revisiting: Painful Achiness!

Hello everybody, and welcome to the Hpathy Quiz!

Hello, Shana! And by the way, I should probably let everybody know that Shana’s name is pronounced SHAY-nuh, not SHAH-nuh. OK? How many of you have been saying SHAH-nuh all this time? Just curious. The word “Shana” is Hebrew for “beautiful”. So true!

Mom, the ezine has been in existence for, like, 20 years? And you’re only just now telling people how to pronounce my name?!

Has it really been 20 years? I can’t believe that!

Anyway I have a lot of important announcements to make. First of all, an important anniversary: The Beatles came to America 60 years ago today! On February 9, 1964 they played “The Ed Sullivan Show” for the very first time and Rock and Roll was changed forever!

Ringo, George, Ed, John and Paul

Here they are, below, at the Pan-Am press conference after their plane landed. There was a really funny moment where in answer to somebody’s question…John responded, “No we need money, first.”

The question was, “Are you going to sing for us?”

Oh right! You may be interested in hearing that George Harrison had tonsilitis during this trip to America. Their Road Manager, Neil Aspinall, had to stand in for him on Feburary 8th.

You mean for “blocking”?

Yes, blocking. Oh, and Mom… Shouldn’t we explain to our readers from India and Pakistan what “The Ed Sullivan Show” is, or was?

Can’t you do that?

Well, I can try, but, it was your era! It was a Sunday night variety show that all of America tuned into. There were only 3 channels back then. Can you imagine that? Three channels? Being on the Ed Sullivan Show meant that you had arrived! You had hit the big time! 73 million people saw The Beatles that night:

P.S. Paul McCartney has a new book out called Eyes of the Storm. It consists of all the pictures he took on that maiden voyage to America, plus other odd pictures from 1964:

Needless to say, I have to have it.

Do you have any money?

Mom, I’ll have to ask you to please refrain from interrupting—unless you have something relevant to say.

Geesh!

For instance, I imagine you didn’t even know that Jerry Butler is not doing well, according to Earl Young of The Trammps.

What????

According to Earl Young’s Facebook page, Jerry isn’t singing. Earl didn’t say exactly what was wrong, but he asked people to post well-wishes to him.

OMG! I do not like the sound of that, Shana!!!!! I cannot have anything happen to Jerry Butler! He’s a national treasure! He’s been around since at least 1958 when, as the lead singer of The Impressions, he recorded the iconic “For Your Precious Love”—a song that lives on to this day!

Jerry, top row, left

He can’t go anywhere without singing it. I saw him at the Apollo in 1967; he’s a legend!

Jerry, get well soon!

Also Mom, Toni Stern, a song-writer for Carole King, passed away at 79.

Toni Stern and Carole King

Toni filled in as a lyricist after Carole King divorced her long time song-writing partner, Gerry Goffin. You know that Carole and Gerry wrote “Chains” by The Cookies, right? Well, it so happens, that The Beatles covered it.

Shana, what does this have to do with Toni Stern?

Right. OK, so, Toni wrote “It’s Too Late” (from Carole’s iconic “Tapestry” album). Also, she wrote the theme song to our favorite TV show, “Gilmore Girls”!

Toni Stern wrote “I’m gonna follow where you lead”?

Mom, it’s just called “Where You Lead”, OK? She also wrote “Sweet Seasons”, which Carole King performed on the tour I saw with James Taylor in 2010. A few years ago CNN even made a documentary about this tour entitled “Just Call Out My Name” which was a big deal because they had the original band and these two singers have been decades-long friends. They’re cut from the same singer-songwriter, Laurel Canyon-type of cloth.

Carole King and James Taylor

Shana, once again, what does this have to do with Toni Stern?

I guess nothing.

Good grief!

Next up… I have to unfortunately announce that the last member of the original Spinners, Henry Fambrough, passed away at 85.

According to “Soul Tracks”, he had been ill for sometime and was under hospice care but others are saying “natural causes”, so I don’t know who’s right.

He was very thin, even a year ago, Shana.

He retired the year before when they were inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame. His passing marks the end of an era for sure. There’s still G.C. Cameron (age 78) who left the group when they left Motown for Atlantic in 1970. He was under contract with Motown and couldn’t go with them, but he gave them his cousin, Philippe Wynne, to take his place and Philippe, ironically, became a big star because of that.

Philippe Wynne

GC Cameron

John Edwards

Also remaining is John Edwards (age 79) who replaced Philippe Wynne when Phillipe left for a solo career in 1977. John sang on two big hits: “Workin’ My Way Back To You” and “Cupid”.

And speaking about John Edwards, apparently after he had a stroke in 2000, G.C. Cameron came back to sing lead for the Spinners again. He appeared on a PBS Music Special to sing “It’s a Shame” (see video below), their big hit on Motown.

Anyway, here’s a Spinners record Henry Fambrough shares lead on: “Ghetto Child”. The first voice you’ll hear is Henry’s.

Henry Fambrough now joins the Spinners in heaven: Bobbie Smith, Pervis Jackson, Phillipe Wynne, and Billy Henderson. R.I.P. to all of you, with love.

Oh, and today I learned that after leaving The Spinners, Phillipe Wynne was featured in Funkadelic (one of George Clinton’s Funk groups). You know that song “Not Just Knee Deep” which appeared in the Kenan and Kel classic, “Good Burger”?

Actually, no; I don’t.

Well, that’s Philippe Wynne singing with George Clinton and the other P-Funk singers. Just wanted to share that brief tidbit before we start the quiz because I found it interesting.

Unfortunately, Shana, I seriously doubt that anyone cares.

I always look forward to that scene in “Good Burger” because it’s a good song and George Clinton himself appeared in it.

Are you finished with your timely announcements?

Yes. Who’s in the Quiz this month?

I’m afraid it’s me.

What? You again? What happened this time?

Well, Shana, I’m glad you asked! It was very weird! I didn’t know what to make of it! I woke up from my nap with my arms hurting! The right one more so than the left. It was a painful achiness. I couldn’t ignore it. I thought it must be the way I was sleeping. I was sleeping on my left side, my arms were bent at the elbows and my hands tucked under my chin. Maybe I strained my muscles? I don’t know as I was asleep at the time! I rolled over on my back to lay my arms down at my side, thinking that might relax them and make them feel better. But nooooo!!!! No such luck!!!

I sat up, moved around, looked for Arnica, tried to do my crossword puzzle, but my right arm felt lame! I could hardly hold my pencil and couldn’t press down with it, I could only write using the slightest pressure.

Arnica didn’t work. I took Carbo veg thinking it might be gas? (I had a mild weird ache in my upper back, that’s why I thought so) but Carbo veg didn’t work either.

Finally, it occurred to me to take _____________200C and YAY!!!!! It worked, so gradually and so seamlessly that I hardly even noticed the pain going away, but it did!!! And rather quickly.

So what do you think the remedy was? Write to me at [email protected] and let me know, the answer will be in the March ezine.

Bye-bye!

Mom, to play us out…

Oy vey! Are you still here?

I don’t know if you were aware of this or not but there’s a full recorded version of “Where You Lead” as sung by Carole King and her daughter Louise Goffin which subsequently became the theme song for our favorite show “Gilmore Girls.” Series creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino, had asked permission to use the ‘Tapestry’ version for the theme, but Carole King said she’d rather re-record the song so it fits the show, which is about a mother-daughter friendship, not unlike the relationship we have!

What, are they idiots too?

Enter Toni Stern who wrote the original, she amended the lyrics to be applicable to a mother-daughter relationship, leading to the most iconic TV show theme in 2000s culture. So. R.I.P Toni Stern, you helped make this happen and we’re forever grateful.

_________________________________

VOTES

Ruta

Sanguinaria

Causticum

Lycopodium

Mag-phos.

Nux v.

Gelsemium

Ignatia

How did we do this time? Seetha from India guesses Ruta. She’s right!!!

Edina votes for Sanguinaria.

Hannah Shine votes for Causticum.

And Aruna says….

Hi, Elaine.

I am attempting to answer this months quiz. I am thinking of Lycopodium. Here is what I noted from the case presented:

Pain favoring Right side over the left: RIGHT SIDED COMPLAINTS

Extending from right arm to hand: PAIN RADIATING DOWN THE ARM

I didn’t have radiating pain, per se…..

Pain in the right upper back, could be gas: Discomfort, ailments from.

Cannot hold a pencil to write: SYMPTOMS AGGRAVATED WITH MUCH PRESSURE.

No, I think you went too far afield there…. I couldn’t exert pressure but I don’t think that’s the same as “pressure aggravates”.

Looking up LYCOPODIUM, I felt it was accurate:

Lycopodium Clavatum–

“Extremities: Numbness, also drawing and tearing in limbs, especially while at rest or at night. Heaviness of arms. Tearing in shoulder and elbow joints. One foot hot, the other cold. Chronic gout, with chalky deposits in joints. Profuse sweat of the feet. Pain in heel on treading as from a pebble. Painful callosities on soles; toes and fingers contracted. Sciatica, worse right side. Cannot lie on painful side. Hands and feet numb. Right foot hot, left cold. Cramps in calves and toes at night in bed. Limbs go to sleep. Twitching and jerking.”

This is what I felt was the best suited among the 2 other remedies that I thought of. I considered SPONGIA for sleep, worse, but it didn’t add up.

Eager to know more about the answer.

By the way, Shay Nah (Shana) does a great job with the editorializing and musical commentary.

Really? Oh, thank you! I’ll let her know! Shana…did you see that?

Mom, shouldn’t you be cooking breakfast?

I’m getting to that! I’m kind of in the middle of something right now! So as I was saying, Aruna, what we have in this case of “Painful Achiness” are a lot of non-descript symptoms that are hard to explain or identify. “Weird” pains, is what I call them—and I don’t think there’s a rubric for that, but the main, most characteristic, symptom in the case, is: “Lameness“. This is a keynote of Ruta. It was very peculiar (not to be able to hold a pencil in my hand and write? Except for ever so lightly? Very peculiar!)

From Allen’s Keynotes:

“Lameness after sprains.”

Thanks so much for the explanation,

Aruna.

Hey everybody, Vamsi’s in the house!!!!

Hi Elaine! Another Quiz…looks simple though. 🙄 But I do not see any peculiar symptoms in this case..

Well Vamsi, this just means that, just like last month, when you didn’t know the Bryonia keynote of light pressure agg., hard pressure amel., we have here another keynote of a remedy that you don’t seem to know about.

Did you try a hot pack fomentation??

No, not possible; it was both arms and covered too wide an area to put a hot fomentation on.

Please let me know, and I will try answering this quiz soon. 😄

OK.

OK, I Give up 😄😄😄

Muscle pains remind me of Mag-phos.

Please educate me….

Vamsi, very simply, the keynote of this remedy is the word “LAME”. So, let’s say a person needing this remedy has sprained their ankle, what will happen? The ankle will collapse from under him. What if a person needing this remedy sprained his knee? His knee would buckle under him and he would fall. So while Rhus tox gets stronger and stronger the more he moves, this remedy gets weaker and weaker. Also, what I’ve noticed about this remedy, it has “weird” pains, strange pains, disturbing pains; nothing simple like “My back aches from over-lifting” or “I worked hard in the garden and now my legs ache from bending over.” Do you know what it is now?

OMG Elaine!! How did I miss the word LAME ? 🙄

Because you didn’t know it was a keynote of a remedy! That’s why you missed it.

Yes !! it is BRYONIA. Aggravation from Movement –

It’s true that if you’re lame, moving would be very difficult; but, to say, “Worse movement, and Elaine couldn’t move her pencil, therefore, the remedy must be Bryonia!” is too broad an application of Bryonia for this case, because, we could make the same claim for almost any case; for example, Lycopodium, because when Lycopodium has to walk to the podium to give a speech in public, he gets worse! So, therefore, “worse motion”, the remedy must be Bryonia! Yes, Lycopodium does get worse while walking to the podium; but why? Because he has a “fear of public speaking,” that’s what we need to match a remedy to, not “worse motion”!

In the same sense, Ruta IS worse for motion, but that is not Ruta’s issue. Ruta’s issue is “Lameness”. Anyone who’s lame will have trouble moving, that goes without saying. I couldn’t even “hold” my pencil, much less “move” it on a piece of paper. The problem is more correctly understood as inability to HOLD the pencil, even before trying to move it.

Bryonia is worse movement because they’re only out of pain if they’re lying perfectly still. There is always some terrible pain in a Bryonia case, and the least motion makes it worse. I was NOT out of pain from lying still. And moving didn’t change anything, one way or the other.

Lame means incompetent. It has to do with strength. Bryonia has nothing to do with strength. I didn’t have any strength in my arm or hand. Couldn’t hold a pencil. Robin Murphy used to say, “Ruta weakens, Rhus tox stiffens.”

Pains are surely weird in Bryonia.

Bryonia pains tend to be sharp and stabbing. As long as the Bryonia patient holds perfectly still, he’s OK; but if tries to move, the stabbing comes back. I have also found that when I have weird pains for whatever reason, pains you can’t really identify in simple terms, it’s usually Ruta. For instance, they might feel a bit muscular and a bit nervy at the same time. Kent says that Ruta is unfamiliar to most people:

“Ruta is not well known. Many of its symptoms are difficult to classify in the Repertory. … Lameness after sprains especially of the wrists and ankles. … Ruta is a great remedy for a mere sprain; it has all the soreness and weakness of tendons.”

So we have to be thinking of “weakness” and “loss of power” when we’re thinking of Ruta.

Here’s more from Kent on Bryonia:

“When these conditions come on there is noticed very early in the case, even before the pains begin, an aversion to motion and the patient does not know why, but finally he observes that his symptoms are made worse if he has to move so that the slightest inclination to move is resisted with a feeling of anger and when he does move he finds he is aroused to great suffering and that all the aches and pains of the body come on. Thus we have the well-known Bryonia aggravation from motion. This runs all through the remedy. … There is an extreme state of irritability in Bryonia; every word which compels him to answer a question, or to think, will aggravate him. The effort to talk will be attended with horror.”

Then there’s what happens to Bryonia when the pains become too severe. Kent says:

“So it is really not an inconsistency [Bryonia holding perfectly still and yet in another case or at another time, being restless and tossing about] but simply due to the great violence of the pain. Even though he knows that the motion is going to make him worse, he cannot keep still for the pain is so violent. Early in the case he was able to keep still and found that he was better from keeping still and that the mental state was better from keeping still and that the anxious restlessness increased the more he moved, until finally a reaction comes and he is obliged to move.”

We had a quiz case showing this once, I think it was called “New Year’s Eve Party Crashes”:

https://hpathy.com/case-quizes/revisiting-new-years-eve-party-crashes/

It occurs to me that maybe we need a tidbits article on Bryonia and Ruta, since there is so much about these remedies that is unknown.

Dearest Elaine,

Took time to read the “New Year’s Eve Party Crashes” and your comments too.

I really do not know how to Thank You. I feel speechless. Your keen analysis of Each remedy is beyond imagination.

The keen difference of

Loss of Power – Lame – Ruta, and Pain aggravated by movement – Bryonia – was mind-blowing.

Yes Ruta is not well known and truly said, I did not know the Keynote of Ruta.

Ruta also has weird, indefinable pains; and of course, injuries to the periosteum–shins, forehead, etc.

That was truly brilliant and I loved your insightful analysis. BTW: The difference between Bryonia and Arsenicum was captured very well in this article:

https://hpathy.com/case-quizes/revisiting-new-years-eve-party-crashes/

Looks like I need to take a whole new course of yours for a year and reread all your articles. 😄

Well, if you have to………

Thank you dear Elaine..

Cheers

Vamsi.

I see the gang from Slovakia is here!

Hello Elaine and Shana,

Hello Miroslav and Jitka!

Here are our solutions to your last quiz. We hope you are well now.

Yes, I’m good, thank you.

Miroslav’s solution is as follows: Nux vomica

His answer is like this:

Arms, painful, achines

Arms, painful, achines, on waking up, when (even though the pain actually woke her from sleep.)

I would try Nux-v.

Jitka answers as follows: Gelsemium

I have considered several remedies for your problems with arms, such as Rhus tox, Bryonia, Belladona, Pulsatilla, Gelsemium. There are too many rubrics in chapters for the upper extremities pain I could make the right decision.

Finally as usual when I can’t choose I flipped through my notes where I found Gelsemium – a remedy for muscle weakness with deep muscle pains. Arms feel powerless and numb. So this is my pick.

If we go to what I assume would be our main rubric, “Muscles: lifting, straining, muscles, tendons, ailments from”–Gelsemium’s not there and Nux v. is only a 1.

The main remedies are:

Arnica, Bellis perennis, Bryonia, Calc-carb, Rhus tox, Ruta, Silica, Hypericum and a few others.

So the question would be, which one of these remedies is noted for lameness. Do you know which remedy is famous for that?

Good morning, we send a correction of our answers to the quiz:

Miroslav: Bellis perennis

I found the rubric in the chapter “Muscles” and I think it could be Bellis perennis. Also Phatak writes in his MM that this remedy is similar to Arnica. I have no experience with it yet, but I think that could be the right answer. We will see. Given the case, I missed the etiology, that the pain is associated with effort, overload. Because otherwise the pain could be caused by anything.

Jitka: Ruta

From the 9 big remedies that we can find in the chapter “Muscles: lifting, straining, muscles, tendons, diseases” – I chose the remedy Ruta. Ruta is a remedy for cases of muscle over-use, pain that is too tight. It is reported in various analyzes of this remedy that the person who needs it feels pain with aching in the affected muscle area. I think this is a medicine that helped you with pain relief.

Jitka is right! “Lame” was the key to the case. Thank you for reminding me of the famous Ruta “Repetitive Stress Disorder” that results in lameness. Ruta also has “strange pains”. It didn’t matter that we didn’t know what the cause was, because we had a keynote of a remedy to go by. Just like “stiff” or “tight” is a Rhus tox word, so “Lame” is a Ruta word. Lame means loss of power, loss of strength. The ankle collapses, the knee collapses, the wrist collapses, the fingers collapse, and so on. Regarding Bellis perennis, I wrote an article about that, click below:

https://hpathy.com/homeopathy-papers/tidbits-98-arnica-not-working-what-to-do-now/

Hi Elaine and Shana!

Hi Maria!!!!

Ok, for this month’s quiz, I could only come up with one clue:

You were sleeping on your left side but it was the right arm in pain.

So I thought, “shouldn’t the left arm hurt the most?”

That seems to me like a contradictory symptom.

Ignatia is not in those related rubrics though.

Any hint?

Well, good thinking, Maria: Slept on the left, but right arm hurts more. Paradoxical, therefore, Ignatia! But, alas, it’s not the right answer. I guess if I had to give a hint, it would be that there is a “remedy word” in the case, in the sense that the “remedy word” for Belladonna might be “throbbing”, or for Gelsemium, it might be “apathy”. Groucho Marx used to say, “Say the Secret Word and win $100.00!”

A duck would come down from the ceiling holding the word.

I’m going to start calling it “the secret word”, which, in this case, is ….

“Lame”?

Yes!!! That is correct, it’s LAME! Now where did I put that $100…..? Dr. B, do we have a hundred dollars???? Hello!!!!!!

Lame goes for Ruta, I think. If I am wrong I will try again.

You’re not wrong so don’t don’t try again!

***

OK, everybody, that’s it! Time to give the Gold Star to our big winner of the month ….. Seetha from India! Come on down! You get the Gold Star! Congratulations!