Choosing One Remedy Among Over 8000

In my last column, I began by pointing out the mind-boggling task of choosing a single

homeopathic medicine for a patient at any point in time. I described The Sensation Method of Dr. Rajan Sankaran as one effective approach to doing just that. Here is a case in point. I began seeing this woman, 47 years old, a nurse, in 2003. Let me call her Vicki. Her chief complaint was depression, and she had been treated by another homeopathic practitioner for a number of years. She shared a longstanding sense of failure and terror. When I look back at her original case, I see clues of the remedy that has helped her many years later. Fortunately, she returned four years ago, and I have had the opportunity to help her at a deeper level. Looking back at the original case, there were clues, but I didn’t put them together as I did years later.

Way back in 2003, she shared with me her fear to the point of paralysis. Having grown up with an alcoholic father, terror was instilled in her early on. That tremendous fear stuck with her, despite therapy. She never felt that she fit in, and she was convinced there was something terribly wrong with her. She pursued many therapies, including EMDR, without any lasting improvement. Alcohol only made her feel worse. Sometimes more information is not necessarily helpful, and, in retrospect, I was overwhelmed by the depth of information and her degree of suffering.

The initial case taking in 2003: “As a kid into adulthood, I had this nightmare: I would be lying on my bed. All around the corners of the walls at the ceiling, there would be faces. I would feel like a two-dimensional stick person. Like I couldn’t get back into my body… it was horrible. I couldn’t make it go away. Couldn’t get back into my body.” Among other remedies, I did prescribe Cannabis indica LM1. But she never took the remedy, but rather Argentum nitricum (a very different remedy, prescribed by her previous homeopath, that does cover a sense of panic and claustrophobia).

When she returned again to see me a year later, having just turned 50, she was traumatized, depressed, and sobbing. She felt torn between seeing her previous homeopath, who had helped the family for years when her children were small, and me. At that point I encouraged her to continue taking the Ignatia prescribed by the other homeopath, and which she considered helpful. I could understand the rationale: “sobbing, sighing, and shock.” She suffered through menopause, continued taking the Ignatia, and disappeared from my practice for another three years.

When she returned, she had experienced tremendous grief due to family losses, and described herself as “paralyzed,” “in cement.” Again, there were clues of the remedy she ultimately needed: “I feel heavy…. I’m just heavy.” She was suffering from hip and buttock pain and stiffness, which caused her to keep shifting, moving around. I gave her Rhus tox, then didn’t hear from her again for three years. She was now turning 60 and was again, or still, experiencing a sense of panic and grief. I prescribed Ignatia 10M with improvement, then another hiatus.

Finally Putting the Pieces of the Puzzle Together

It wasn’t until October of 2018 that I was able to piece together the case. She had pursued other avenues of healing, experienced more grief, and thyroid problems. But she was able, after all that time, to really communicate, and I was able to grasp accurately, her homeopathic picture and ended up prescribing an unusual remedy that I hadn’t given before and haven’t since. That was three and a half years ago, I prescribed a remedy I had never before used, and it continues to be quite effective.

October 2018. Vicki was now 66. Dealing with her aging, sick father, she felt overwhelmed and stuck. “Mostly I’d like you to figure out how to unstick me… It’s all floating around in my head.. I feel paralyzed, stuck…. heavy.” I asked further about these sensations. “Mostly just my mind… I’d like to feel free, lighter… I feel overwhelmed, dragged down…It’s all floating around in my head.” She complained about her breathing and described feeling paralyzed and heavy. I asked Vicki about the opposite of feeling paralyzed, stuck, heavy. “I’d feel lighter, not overwhelmed and dragged down.” This struck me as the same sensation Vicki had described for years, going way back to her initial case taking when I prescribed Cannabis indica, which she never took.

Assuming the remedy family was, indeed, Hamamelidae, characterized, like Cannabis, by the sensations of heaviness/dragging and, the opposite, light, floating, it would explain her ongoing feeling, over so many years, of paralysis. By this time, Vicki had a diagnosis of diverticulosis, as well as longstanding depression, and various diagnoses in the interim. She focused more on her mental, rather than her GI, sensations. “Everything feels too hard. I want to get up, but I don’t move. I feel paralyzed.” To differentiate plant sensations, we inquire about the opposite. What would Vicki feel like if she weren’t stuck, heavy, and paralyzed.

“I’d feel free, lighter, not in pain rather than overwhelmed and dragged down.. I feel paralyzed and heavy… barely breathing.”

This certainly sounded to me like the Hamamelidae family, just like Cannabis indica, which I had prescribed in 2003, but she had never taken. But, which member of the Hamamelidae? We look at the miasm in order to select the best remedy. I chose a remedy I had never before prescribed because the miasmatic feeling seemed to be one of restriction, intermittent attacks, stuckness, misfortune, misery, and periodic rage: Myrica (bayberry or wax-myrtle, also called candleberry or tallow shrub). I was looking for a Hamamelidae with a focus on mucous membranes. The mental/emotional picture included “irritable with a constant desire to find fault,” “condemned herself for imaginary faults” (Vicki was always very self-critical), a great depression of mind and feeling of gloominess/depression, a nasal obstruction, and many GI symptoms. It was a leap of faith, since I knew nothing previously about this remedy. Myrica is an evergreen shrub growing in thickets near swamps and marshes with an odor similar to laurel. The fruits have an exceptionally high wax content and, in fact, has been used for making sealing-wax. I prescribed Myrica 1M (2 doses 12 hours apart) and LM5 daily.

Follow-Ups Since the Myrica

Six Weeks: “It’s either a placebo or I’m much better. I’m not miserable (this is a word to describe the malarial miasm). I’m getting things done. I’m definitely not as melancholy. My family situation has not changed… in fact it’s worse. Nothing has changed outwardly, but it’s shifted inside me.” Vicki continued the Myrica LM5 daily.

Ten Weeks: “I’m exhausted. I have bronchitis. It’s cold, and the wind is icy. I got the flu. I was feeling weak. I did have pneumonia three years ago.” I looked up Myrica, and it did cover Vicki’s cough symptoms. I prescribed four doses of Myrica 1M 12 hours apart, another four doses to hold in case she needed them.

Five Months: “They found polyps on colonoscopy and diagnosed diverticulosis. I guess the Myrica helped because I got better.”

Eleven Months: “I feel better after I take the Myrica. I’m not good about taking the LM5.”

I prescribed Myrica 1M up to once a week along with the daily LM5.

Thirteen Months: “I feel better mentally and emotionally. I definitely don’t feel depressed like I did before… I’m doing way, way better.” I prescribed Myrica 1M to hold and asked Vicki to continue the daily LM5.

Twenty-One Months: “I asked to go back on my natural thyroid medication. My mother is 85 and father is 92 and I help take care oof them. I feel that I am slowly sinking.” I repeated the Myrica 1M, two doses to take, and to continue the LM5.

Twenty -two and a Half Months: “Had a horrible blowup with my mother, but doing okay.”

Twenty-three and a-Half Months: Doing well. Continue Myrica LM5 and Myrica 1M to hold.

Twenty-Five and a Half Months: “I haven’t needed the Myrica 1M I’m holding.”

Three and a Half Years: “Yesterday I had a really big diverticulitis flare. The remedy has worked really well for it, but I didn’t have any.” I prescribed four doses of Myrica to take and four to hold as well as a daily LM6.

Conclusion

You can see that this patient has not had consistent follow-ups, but the remedy has definitely helped her. She has not mentioned the dragging sensation and her moods do not dip like they did in the past. She is more stable mentally and emotionally, despite the stress of caretaking two elderly parents. She still calls me inconsistently has continued with treatment periodically over all of these years.