Healing with Homeopathy

by Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman, ND, MSW, and Robert Ullman, ND

Sensational Results Using the Sensation Method of Homeopathy

for Bipolar Disorder

Homeopathy: An Effective Answer

If you or a loved one suffers from bipolar disorder, you or they are in good company. More than 20 million Americans will suffer an episode of depression or mania during their lifetimes. Bipolar patients can be at serious risk for suicide during their depressive phases. Manic episodes, though they may be infrequent, can sabotage relationships, jobs, and happiness.

Bipolar disorder has affected very well-known and talented individuals throughout history. King Saul of the Bible found solace in David’s music, which soothed his despondency. Eminent leaders and statesmen, including Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Theodore Roosevelt were known to suffer from mood disorders. The writers and poets Goethe, Balzac, Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, and Ernest Hemingway suffered mood swings, as did the composers Handel, Schumann, Berlioz, and Mahler. The condition seems to fuel a certain kind of drive and creativity leading to impressive achievements, however the other polarity is, far too often, searing anguish, shattered hopes and relationships, psychosis and even suicide.

The clear message that we wish to convey through this article is that homeopathy can be very effective for bipolar disorder. In some cases, patients are able to discontinue medications such as lithium, Depakote, Tegretol, antipsychotic or anti-anxiety medications. or antidepressants. In other cases, patients can use homeopathy successfully long-term along with their pharmaceutical drugs. The results that we have seen with our long-term bipolar patients are:

1. Few, if any, psychiatric hospitalizations.

2. Moods are stable. If a serious mood swing occurs, it can generally be addressed by simply adjusting the dose of the homeopathic medication. Occasionally the medicine will be changed if a better match emerges. In our experience, moods even out in a matter of days.

3. An increased sense of happiness and wellbeing.

4. Amelioration of other heath problems, since homeopathy treats the whole person.

5. Improvement in interpersonal relationships.

6. Far less disruption in work or study due to mood fluctuations.

We also want to point out clearly that there are over 3500 unique homeopathic medicines, and that only one is the closest match for the patient. The science and art of homeopathic medicine is finding that one best medicine for the individual. We share with you two cases of patients with bipolar disorder, father and daughter, whom we have treated for many years. A third patient, whom we have treated for seventeen years, has responded extremely well to homeopathic treatment, but did need a brief hospitalization a year ago. Had the patient or family called me as soon as she began to decompensate, I believe we could have avoided it. Overall, this patient has weathered one marriage and two divorces, additions to her family, graduate school and a number of professional career changes remarkably well.

The Sensation Method

We have used Dr. Rajan Sankaran’s sensation method of homeopathic prescribing, and written about it extensively, since 1993. We were extremely fortunate to have been among four or five of the first North Americans to discover and train with Rajan. From that time until the present day, his brilliant ideas and methods have affected every aspect of our practice profoundly. We take cases far differently, listening and observing in a special way without having prejudice about which medicine out of over 3500 may be needed. We have gained a far greater appreciation of what Samuel Hahnemann, the father and founder of homeopathy, meant by eliciting what is strange, rare, and peculiar about each patient. It is extremely gratifying to find and follow the thread of sensation that runs through a case on all levels: mental, emotional, and physical. When prescribing and treating at this depth, it is often possible to find the homeopathic medicine which the individual has needed since childhood.

The following case is that of a patient whom we have treated for 11 years but never presented. We have written about her father, who is also bipolar, who has done extremely well on one remedy, Ferrum metallicum (iron) for the past 12 years, in ascending LM potencies. His daughter is a very unique individual – so much so that it has taken nearly 11 years to home in on exactly the right medicine, though has improved steadily all along. In fact, it is a homeopathic medicine that we wanted to prescribe about 20 years ago for another patient, but could never find. Recently, thanks to the Internet, we were able to locate the only homeopathic pharmacy in the world that stocks the medicine, which happens to be in Austria.

Creative, Imaginative, and Absolutely Not ‘White Bread’

We began to see Carley, Bill’s daughter, 22 years old at the time, 11 years ago. She was exuberant and flamboyant, just like her dad and her paternal grandmother. She came for homeopathic help for bipolar disorder as well. In fact, she was on the verge of a manic episode at her first visit. We noticed immediately her large hoop earrings and matching necklace. We found Carley, like Bill, to be very endearing – two of our favorite patients.

Carley didn’t have an easy time in school. Teachers lost patient with her uneven attention span and her peers didn’t know what to make of her vibrant, but different, personality. She was called “stupid” even though she was bright, curious, and highly creative. They couldn’t seem to appreciate her uniqueness.

I was one to enjoy clothes and music that no one else had ever seen or heard. I’ve been drawing pictures of Jesus in dreadlocks since I was eight. Paintings of him with baggy pants and a low-rider car. Even shape-shifting pictures of J. C. I’ve known about angels since I was a child.

I feel my brain goes to different dimensions. I lay in bed and feel a shadow over me. Sometimes I can stay in my body. Sometimes I go off to other worlds. It can be pretty hard when you’re driving down the road. I can get stuck in those worlds. The ideas just flow. … I have other-dimension dreams. I’ve been labeled as bipolar 2 – just manic. There’s this part of me that wants to fly. I’m called “Carley the Crazy Girl.” In the final manic attack, I think I’m some sort of ascending master like Jesus. Or Mary Magdalene. Invincible.

I do off-the-wall things. I get bored with normal people who can’t think past their nose or who have routines that can’t be broken. I call them “Wonder Bread People.” I like witty, obsessive-compulsive, unconventional people. But sometimes I can get grandiose. I hate it because it keeps me separate. I’ve always wanted to be separated but accepted at the same time. The thoughts are exciting, intriguing, but only in the mind. … I have lots of daydreams. What I’m going to be in the future. Will I have a great big profession? I want to do something that nobody else has ever done … I can do or say things on a whim. I’m an idea maker.

Carley had experienced “two and a half” manic attacks.

They let me out of the hospital early and I crashed. Then they gave me Prozac. After that Risperdal, Lithium, Zyprexa. They affected my night vision and caused me to be anxious. Limictil and Seraquil were the best. Depakote caused major hand tremors and my eyes glossed over. I’m on a half dose of Limictil, Seraquil, and Depakote now. On the full dose of all the meds I wasn’t even able to give you directions nor to picture anything in my mind. I don’t get depressed but my self-esteem is low and I can cry at the drop of a dime, but it only lasts for three minutes.

Recurring dreams were plentiful. Carley even had clear recall of a dream she had at 15 months of age.

Each of my dreams has different episodes. Like five to eight TV shows in the subconscious. The shows remain the same but the episodes change.

My father and I are like identical twins. If it weren’t for my mom, we would be on the streets. Dad’s just like me: a poet and a writer, intellectual, unconventional, impulsive. He’s out of his body all the time just like I am. We both like attention, recognition, friends. I love being around kindred souls with advanced perceptions. I want to be accepted for my individuality.

A Completely Different Medicine

The uniqueness of homeopathy is that even two people with the same diagnosis may need two very different medicines. Bill was a salt-of-the-earth, grounded kind of guy. Carley, on the other hand, was much more diffuse, flighty, in the air. Her dad has benefited long term from a mineral. Carley clearly needed a plant. Those individuals needing plant medicines are sensitive, changeable, and adaptable. Those qualities definitely fit Carley, who delighted in engaging in different personae in different settings. In feeling free to be whomever she felt like in the moment, depending on whom she was with. Most minerals are too structured and rigid to experience the inconstancy and flamboyancy of Carley. It was, however, a blessing and a curse. A highly creative, engaging, active mind. Yet she had great difficulty adapting to the everyday world, which she found to be monotonous, or, in her words, “Wonder Bread.”

Over 1000 or so plants have been made into homeopathic medicines and thousands more yet to be proved. This is a tiny fraction of the number of plants on this verdant planet of ours. Carley’s forever unfolding array of exciting, variable, and intriguing thoughts brought to mind the Rubiaceae family, the same family from which coffee is derived. In fact, if you think of Carley’s highly active mental state, it resembles that of someone who is strung out on caffeine. The Rubiacea family also contains gardenias as well as medicinal plants such as China officinalis (the first homeopathic medicine and the source of quinine), Ipecachuana (from which we get the emetic, ipecac), and Yohimbe (renown for its aphrodisiac properties). Some of the characteristics of medicines from this family are:

• excessive mental activity; rush of ideas (Carley: “I have a talker in my head,” “I can’t shut it off,” “Loosey, goosey mind.”)

• difficulty sleeping, primarily due to an overactive mind

• exaggerated emotions of any kind

• colorful, vivid daydreams and lucid dreams

• activity and creativity

• excitement, exuberance, vivacity

• remarkable clarity of mind

• an exquisite degree of sensitivity (all plants exhibit sensitivity but those needing Coffea are some of the most sensitive in the materia medica.)

• nonconformist (summed up by Carley as, “I’m the kind of person who wears polka dots and stripes, Quirkyville.”)

This is a state that members of our society emulate, evidenced by the popularity of such mind-enhancing, stimulating beverages such as Red Bull. The two best-known homeopathic medicines from this family are China and Coffea. Those needing the first are famous for building castles in the air and for elaborate fantasies, dreams, and daydreams in which they are the superheroes who save the world from evil. Also typical is lying awake at night making plans, theorizing, thinking of the wonderful things that (s)he will do one day. These individuals may appear to be larger than life, which was the case with Carley when she was on. In her case, it was also possible to confuse the remedy picture with another plant family, Hamamelidae, of which marijuana and hemp are members. Those needing one of these describe out-of-the-body experiences, which was true at times of Carley. The sensation is heavy/light, which was not primary in this case.

The sensation keywords of the Rubiaceaes, according to Dr. Rajan Sankaran’s schema are: creative, fancies, ideas, plans, imagination, surprise, stimulant, sudden joy, theorizing, air castle, arouse, daydream, excite, incite, innovative, inspire, rouse, thrill, whim, bliss, delight, ecstasy, elation, happiness. You can see how well these might fit a bipolar state.

Over the years, the other polarity of the Rubiaceae family became more obvious in the case. Carley described this state as being a zombie, her brain was saturated, This somnolence is the opposite of the overamped Coffea state. Sankaran describes the passive reaction keywords of this family: exhaustion, weariness, fatigue, dullness, catalepsy, dull, boring, uninteresting, tedious, monotonous, lackluster, lifeless, exhaustion, gloomy. These words may depict well a depressive state. They are quite apt for how Carley described her life when it was “beige.”

‘This Stuff is Awesome’

Six-week follow-up:

“The stuff that I’ve been taking is awesome. I haven’t taken my antidepressants. I can’t go very far anymore with the story lines in my head. I can’t even bring them into reality. I still have my belief systems about Jesus just being a buddy. Someone who might swear, pick his nose. I believe Jesus is a soul mate to crazy people. … Parents, friends, everybody notices the difference in me. Before they thought I was out there. Now they can sit and talk to me for an hour straight. We can switch off being interested in each other’s conversations without me going off on a tangent and expecting them to just listen.”

Nine weeks:

“I started a new gardening job. I am able now to register what is going on outside of me. My job gives me time to daydream. People are starting to come back around and want to be with me. Before I just sucked people’s energy right out of them. I still go on my whims. My dreams are not quite as lucid and magical as they used to be.”

Five months:

We wish we could say that Carley never had another bipolar episode, but that was not the case. However, when she did, over the more than a decade since we have worked with her, an adjustment of the medicine generally snapped her out of it and, throughout the entire time, she has never had a psychiatric hospitalization. Great credit is owed, not only to the homeopathy, but to her extremely supportive and patient parents.

I have had delusional thinking. I feel apart from the world, detached. I’ll be too far off awake dreaming. I bring bliss when I go to parties. … I start imagining being closer to God than anyone. I feel either deliriously happy or completely angry. … My dreams are vivid. Deliriously happy. It’s like dreamer’s disease. … If Frieda Kahlo were still alive, we’d be best buddies. Most people bore me. Sometimes I can be fashionable, eccentric, and also normal. But if I haven’t gotten enough sleep the night before or I had coffee or a hangover, it will turn into an episode.

We changed Carley’s prescription at this point to Coffea 1M.

Seven Months:

“My PMS is great after this last remedy. I didn’t even know my period came. I have no anger. My mood is good. A little spacey, but grounded. I’m sleeping better. The talking or laughing out loud during daydreaming is much better. “

Eighteen Months:

“Good. … Diversity is so exciting. I like little jolts of motivation. A little boost. Like drinking a jolt. It wakes you up a little bit. … Euphoric. Like soda with all the caffeine in it. It peels your eyes open. Takes away the lethargy, the fog. It clears it out and makes you exciting to be present.” This is a beautiful description of the Rubiaceae sensation of Coffea (coffee) and the other members of the family.

Two years:

Carley experienced another manic episode, with nonstop talking, though her conversations did make sense and she was cooperative. What she told us during the mania provided keen insight into her state. “There are so many different neat types. I’ve almost taken them on as my own identity. It’s fun to be other people. Melting into different cultural situations and belief systems. … I like to change my look every few months. Be creative. I want to be exotic. … I feel dirty, used up. Like you have a garbage can inside for your spirit. Slime. Grime.”

Four years:

“It’s fun to be materialized, out there. To hold the magic and not let it take over. Euphoria. Everyone around me is on the same wavelength. Our surroundings are sparkly and beautiful. The water looks crystalline. The sky is blue. The flowers are blooming.” These musings provide insight into Carley as well, in her creative, inspired, but not manic state.

Five years:

“I’m struggling a little with obsessive thinking. I totally recognize the cycle. … I still have a problem shutting off my head. It takes an extra hour to fall asleep because of the hyperactivity. … I’m able to do my job. I’m progressing.”

Six years:

“I have identity issues. Where do I fit in? Not with the yuppies or hippies. I don’t fit in anywhere… I’m at a bland point.”

Seven years:

“I just lost my best friend. … I am not having monkey mind. I’m dating someone but not madly in love. The relationship and my life are kind of beige.”

Eight years:

“I sprung a leak. It’s been six years since I experienced anything like this. Delusional. Little cartoony clowns giggling on one side of my brain. I wasn’t in my right mind. I’m much better now. I just turned 30.”

Nine years:

“Pretty good. I could only get six hours of sleep last week because I was excited about stuff. … I was horribly bullied in middle school and high school. Mainly because I was my own person. … My moods are usually good. … I don’t like falling in to a category like New Ager or conservative. I just want to be me. … Everything is hunky-dory. No weird thoughts. I’m daydreaming less and writing and reading novels more. … I met my grandmother’s relatives for the first time. They’re all bipolar. Six of them.”

Ten years:

“Sleeping well. A bit of daydreaming. The remedy is working pretty quick. I drift off to la la land for moments, then it brings me back. It is still my nature to have a drifty mind. Taking some Seroquil. The homeopathy works fine. When I have a free moment, I daydream. I can daydream about whomever I want.”

Eleven years:

After giving Carley a number of other medicines from the Rubiaceae family, we finally chose one that only the pharmacy Remedia in Austria carries it. It is China boliviana. It is the member of the coffee family that best corresponds to Carley’s feeling of being dirty, slimy, shunned, disgusting, freaky an outcast. This medicine is prepared from the bark of Chinchona calisaya. We felt fortunate to be able to find it because about 20 years ago we were unable to locate the same medicine for another patient. Sometimes a similar medicine will work well, but in other cases the precise match is needed.

From the materia medica: absentminded while talking; cheerfulness and gaiety; happiness alternating with moroseness; painful sense of humiliation; mirth, hilarity, liveliness; remorse, persistent thoughts of the future.

The Most Recent Reports

From Carley’s mom two weeks after beginning the China boliviana: “She is doing great on the latest remedy. Focused, enthused. Planning her life. And her great sense of humor is back.” We just saw Carley and were reassured and relieved to see that she was herself again. “Everything’s OK. The remedy solution worked very well. I got back on track right after I started taking it. I felt a massive shift. Things are back in order. I don’t feel like my fists are clenched, as I did before. I’m not stewing. Not racking my brain.” She seems like a different person than the Carley we saw just before she started taking the Chin-b. We hope that, now that we appear to have found the precise member of the Rubiaceae family that best fits Carley, she will do even better in the future.

If you or someone dear to you is suffering from bipolar disorder and would like a safe, natural alternative, we believe that homeopathy is a very good choice.

Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman and Robert Ullman are licensed naturopathic physicians, board certified in homeopathy. Their books include Prozac Free, Homeopathic Self-Care: The Quick and Easy Guide for the Whole Family, Whole Woman Homeopathy, Ritalin-Free Kids, Rage-Free Kids, A Drug-Free Approach to Asperger Syndrome and Autism, The Patient’s Guide to Homeopathic Medicine, and Mystics, Masters, Saints and Sages-Stories of Enlightenment. They live on Whidbey Island, Washington, and in Pucon, Chile, and practice at the Northwest Center for Homeopathic Medicine in Edmonds, Washington. They treat patients by phone and videoconference as well as in person. They can be reached at 425-774-5599, drreichenberg@gmail.com, or drbobullman@gmail.com. Their website is www.healthyhomeopathy.com.