Clinical Cases

Revisiting: “Prettier Than Kelly (But Dont Say Anything!)”

Written by Elaine Lewis

Poor Shana had cramps; but, the right remedy saved the day (and night!)

Who missed last month’s thrilling quiz?  I don’t see how anyone could have, thanks to Dr. B’s special reminder, but, here it is again anyway with the answer to follow:

Shana, how would you like to be the special guest in our Hpathy quiz this month?

Yay!!!!!

Thank goodness!  Your menstrual cramps last night saved the day!  If it hadn’t been for you, we’d be doomed!  Doomed, I tells ya!  Besides, you’re much prettier than Kelly anyway — BUT DON’T TELL HER I SAID THAT!

I WON’T!

BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE AN UNMITIGATED HORROR IF SHE WERE TO FIND OUT!

SHE CERTAINLY WON’T HEAR IT FROM ME!  WHY ARE WE YELLING?

I DON’T KNOW!  Let’s just start this month’s exciting and dramatic quiz, shall we?  OK, this is a very tragic case of dysmenorrhea.

What?

Cramps!!!!!

And the tragedy was…..????

You kept me up half the night!

Can we speed this along?  I just remembered it’s time for my pizza.  Oh, here’s an idea, you tell these stories soooooo much better than I do!  So, I’ll just be leaving; bye!

What’s to tell?  I got no information from you!  Nothing!  Nothing at all!  OK, here’s the case:

Shana had cramps last night.  All I got out of her was that “it hurt”!  She did say that the pain was sharp and in her abdomen and her legs.  She said she was more thirsty than usual and going to the bathroom more than usual — perhaps because she was drinking more water.  She said she was chilly and I noticed she was lying on her side in bed with her knees bent.  When she got up to go to the bathroom, she burped.  It reminded me that she had been doing a lot of burping that night.  I gave her _____________30C while she was in the bathroom.  While previous attempts at sleeping had failed, after the remedy, she went back to bed and fell right to sleep ’til morning.  Problem solved!

If you know what the remedy was, write to me at [email protected] and let me know.

OK!  Well, as I mentioned in the editorial, the response to this quiz was absolutely overwhelming! Ninety-six people voted!  Wow!!!  I am awash in quiz answers, this has never happened before!  I want to thank everyone who voted and hope to see all of you back the next time too!  So, now, what was the answer here?  Most of your votes went for Colocynth, Mag-phos., Sepia and Viburnum — not to mention Chamomilla and Nux vomica!  Viburnum, which is “cramp bark”, makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?  All really good choices!

Better from pulling the knees up, chilliness, sharp pains… all go especially well for Mag-p. and Colocynth.  So why didn’t these really good remedies work?

Are all of you familiar with what we call the “concomitant” in homeopathy?  Whenever we’re taking an acute case, the first words that should come to mind are The Big 4:

Sensation

Location

Modalities

Concomitants

The concomitant is the symptom that’s there, but has nothing, really, to do with the case, just “along for the ride”.  For instance, a headache with one runny eye.  Why should this be happening?  What does it have to do with the headache?  Nothing!  That’s why it’s so important to us.  Whatever remedy we choose has to have this odd symptom!  This is another way of saying, what’s PECULIAR in this case?  There’s the famous paragraph 153 from The Organon by Samuel Hahnemann that we call “The Strange, Rare and Peculiar clause” that states:

The more striking, strange, unusual, peculiar (characteristic) signs and symptoms in the case are especially, almost exclusively, the ones to which close attention should be given. (my emphasis)

So, what is the concomitant in this case?  What is Peculiar?  It’s the burping!  It has nothing to do with the cramps and she hadn’t just eaten which might have explained it, so….at 1:00 in the morning when you have absolutely no inclination to look in the Repertory, which remedy has burping?  Right, Carbo veg!

I gave it to her, not feeling very hopeful because, let’s face it, who ever heard of giving Carbo veg. for cramps!?  But, it worked!  It just goes to show you how brilliant Hahnemann was that he made this observation — it’s what’s peculiar in the case that, more often than not, leads to the remedy.

Here’s what one of our readers said:

Hi Elaine,

the remedy for the Feb 2008 quiz is “CARBO VEG”

Carbo veg is always belching and slightly relieved for a while.  All the symptoms are ameliorated by eructations.  It has great thirst during chill.  It has colic and pain in limbs and sleeps with legs drawn up.

Cheekala Sujatha

And sooooooooooooooo…..out of 96 people who wrote in, who are the lucky winners?

Congratulations goes to:

Zara Lashkova

Flora Zorn

Cheekala Sujatha

MRINALINI

S K Malik

Gabi

Anonymous

I also want to point out that Chris Ryan wrote in and said liquid Calcium-Magnesium would have worked just as well.

And finally, G. Vijayakumari wrote in saying she got Belladonna right for November and didn’t get credit for it, so, congratulations to her and to all our other winners.

—————————————-

Elaine Lewis, DHom, CHom.

Elaine takes online cases. Visit her website: https://ElaineLewis.hpathy.com

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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