The case:
On 15/05/2021, an eight-month-old girl was brought to homeopathic consultation for dysentery, weight loss and loss of appetite. She passed stools 7 to 8 times per day. The first stool was voluminous and soft, later in the day it became more liquid and contained mucous and blood.
Her parents reported a sharp decline in her appetite and that she had lost weight. Any new food increased the diarrhoea, and the child could take only breast milk and infant formula (lactose-free). The child didn’t sleep well. She napped for 40 minutes twice or thrice during the daytime and at night only in the mother’s arms with her breast in the child’s mouth. The child was also capricious to a great degree.
History of illness:
Birth history: Spontaneous vaginal delivery at 40 weeks and 4 days. The baby’s weight at birth – 2870 grams, height – 51 cm. Breastfeeding up to the moment of illness. The onset of the disease coincided with the appearance of the first teeth, at the age of 7 months.
On 16/04/21 the child developed a fever of 37.6⁰C, vomiting and loose stools. The paediatrician was consulted over phone due to Covid 19 restrictions. She was put on Smecta (Diosmectite an intestinal absorbent).
On 22.04.21 (seventh day of the disease) the baby developed ecchymoses on the body and limbs, and from the next day – blood in stool.
On 25.04.21 She had to be hospitalized (to the Infectious Diseases Department of the
Irkutsk Regional Infectious Diseases Clinical Hospital in the city of Usolye-Sibirskoe).
Diagnosis: intestinal bleeding, acute intestinal infection of unspecified aetiology and unspecified coagulopathy. On 26.04.21 she had to be transferred to the intensive care unit (of the Usolye-Sibirskoe City Hospital)
Diagnosis: acute intestinal infection, enterocolitis, intestinal bleeding, unspecified coagulopathy. On 27.04.21, she was transferred to the Irkutsk Regional Infectious Diseases Clinical Hospital
Diagnosis: Acute intestinal infection of mixed aetiology [norovirus (ELISA positive on 27/04/21), rotavirus (ELISA positive on 04/05/21), opportunistic pathogenic flora (Staph aureus on 27/04/21), enterohemorrhagic escherichiosis (ELISA for Shigatoxin 0157 positive on 29/04/21, 09/05/21)], gastroenterocolitis, haemocolitis, severe course.
Concomitant pathology: Acute respiratory infection (moderate rhinopharyngotracheitis). Immunodeficiency syndrome? nonspecific ulcerative colitis? unspecified coagulopathy, and moderately severe anaemia of combined genesis.
On 14.05.2021 she was discharged from hospital at the insistence of the parents against the formally signed receipt by the mother. The child received blood products (plasma) on 28/04/21 for anaemia. It was also found out that 10 days before the daughter’s illness, the mother had repeated loose stools with spasms in the intestines.
The girl’s father and mother are healthy. They do not have any chronic diseases or bad health habits. Mother’s first pregnancy was at the age of 28 with no significant events or medications.
Physical examination: Extremely pale skin. Visible subcutaneous veins on the body, face, and limbs. Reduced skin turgor. No subcutaneous fat. Asthenic constitution.
Height – 69 cm, weight – 6300 grams. 2 teeth. Impalpable peripheral lymph nodes. Auscultatory lung breathing is vesicular. Soft and painless abdomen when palpated. While palpating the abdomen, there is a green-coloured stool flow with lumps of undigested milk in the form of “chopped eggs” with a rotten smell.
Extremely negative reaction to the examination, hysterical weeping, clinging to the mother. To calm the child down, the mother had to walk around the office quickly and shake the girl intensively. The fingers of one hand are constantly in the mouth. There is an expression of anxiety and alertness on the face and in the eyes of the child. When approaching her, she screams.
Prescription: Taking into account the complaints and the anamnesis, Chamomilla 30 CH was prescribed 3 granules 1 time per day but repeated after each loose stool.
Follow up:
Phone consultations for the following 10 days: From the first day of taking Chamomilla 30CH, the child’s condition began to improve. The stool became less liquid, up to 4 times and only during the daytime. Thе appetite increased, and the diet started to be expanded. The weight began to increase by 30-50 grams from the 3rd day of the treatment and reached 6.530 grams. The child’s sleep improved, she became calmer and could already play when left to herself.
26.05.2021 (after 10 days): there were stools of 20-30 ml 3 times at night, within 40 minutes of each other, with streaks of blood, temperature – 37.0℃, the 3rd tooth erupted.
Prescription: continue Chamomilla 30CH.
05.06.2021 (after 21 days): For a week the stool has been mushy, yellow-brown, of usual smell, digested, 3 times a day. The child keeps gaining weight which already has reached 7000 grams. The diet keeps expanding (rice, buckwheat, wheat, oatmeal, turkey, chicken, beef, red caviar, potatoes, salted food, crackers, bagels, boiled carrots).
Calm sleep, 2 times for 1.5 hours at a daytime, at night she wakes up 2 times for feeding. She has become sociable, goes to the doctor’s arms, allows herself to be examined calmly. Mother left for the office, but the girl remained calm.
Further consultations (by phone): for each new tooth the stool became looser and more frequent, the mood deteriorated. But the weight did not decrease any more. For such moments, Chamomilla 30CH was prescribed up to 6-9 times per day while deterioration of the general condition and stool was observed, and everything got restored in 1-2 days.
On 17.08.2021 the family moved to a different city.
26.08.2021 the girl turned one year old. By then she had 6 teeth, and weighed 8200 grams. Stable stools, once a day or every other day, formed. When teething, stool keeps getting liquid, the child becomes capricious, sleep is disturbed. In such cases, Chamomilla 30CH is given to the child several times a day, and within 1-3 days everything comes back to normal. No remedy given while the child’s condition is good.
30.01.2022 (1 year 5 months of age): Weight – 9500 grams, height – 76 cm, 12 teeth, the child is positive and active. She eats with a spoon and a fork on her own, goes to the potty herself, speaks a few words, likes to walk outside.
Analysis:
When teething at the age of 7 months, the Chamomilla pattern developed. The addition of a severe mixed infection made the case extremely difficult (10 days before the girl’s illness, her mother suffered from an intestinal infection and apparently contaminated the child).
Standard therapy provided almost no improvement. The girl continued to lose weight, could not eat well, had persisted frequent (up to 10 times a day) loose stools with blood. The patient was born to healthy parents. Initially, she belonged to a fairly high health group.
One of the criteria for this assumption was the fact that only one remedy was needed, and in less than 1 month the child’s condition returned to normal. Further observation of the girl for the next 8 months showed a good weight gain, on-time teeth eruption, and proper psycho-emotional development.
Conclusion: This case shows the ability of Classical Homeopathy to have a quick effect and produce a complete cure even for such a severe acute intestinal infection of mixed aetiology in an 8-month-old baby, when the course of the disease was complicated by severe gastroenterocolitis, intestinal bleeding and anemia.
Thank you for sharing this case Dr. Mikhailovna. You have demonstrated the elegance of a homeopathic cure in a serious medical situation. The allopathic approach could have subjected the girl to considerable suffering and without relief.