| Let's recap last month's Peabody Award-winning quiz
for those of you who missed it:
Kelly DID finally surface--briefly; and said something about soccer
and vanished into thin air....Luckily, Inez got sick again!
(Way to go Inez!)
So, now, I give you the second episode in our exciting dramatization
of, "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!"
Acute Case Questionnaire
1.
Describe the complaint in your own words--and tell when it started
and whether it came on suddenly or gradually.
Inez
has swollen tonsils and a fever of 100.6. She said at school yesterday
that she was not feeling well then slept (uncharacteristically)
at nap time for over an hour. She woke with the tonsils and developed
a fever by the time we got home (15 minutes). She has slowly been
losing the stuffy nose and cough that were left after her last
bout of tonsillitis(?) about 3 weeks ago.
2.
Etiology--meaning, what caused it, if you know. What was going
on at, or around, the time of the occurrence?
Much illness at school. Assorted colds, fevers, sore throats,
etc. It has become quite cold for our temperate climate, so we
are inside more than usual. I think her tonsils are Inez's
weak spot, her line of defense against illness. If she gets sick,
they will be the spot where the illness shows most.
3.
Sensation--describe the pain or other feeling. Does it extend
anywhere, does it shoot anywhere? For instance, "It feels
like there's a crumb in my throat, I'm constantly trying to swallow.
The pain shoots to my left ear."
It feels like knives in her throat. While eating, drinking and
while just sitting.
4. Appearance--what does the
person, or the part that's bothering the person, look like; anything
remarkable? Red skin, droopy eyes, etc.?
She is pale-ish. Her throat looks exactly like last time: tonsils
touching, slightly red with a dark red streak running through
the right side. No white spots.
5.
Location--where on the body is the complaint located?
Throat, tonsils. She says her
whole neck hurts.
6. Modalities--what makes the
complaint better or worse? Consider: heat or cold, bathing, warm
rooms, fresh air, drafts, motion, time of day when person gets
worse, what position is best/worse; stimuli: conversation, noise,
light, touch, pressure, massage, music, company, consolation,
etc.
She says she can't lie down, her neck hurts if she does. She
must sit up. I think her tonsils are so swollen that she feels
anxious about lying back, her breathing may be impaired some.
Her voice is certainly thick sounding.
7.
Concomitants (additional symptoms that came with the main complaint)--for
instance, pain with crying; pain with excessive salivation; pain
with nausea--the things that have come along for the ride, fellow-travelers,
in other words.
She has a few itchy spots on her legs and one on her arm. They
look like bug bites that she has scratched open. They are slightly
red and bumpy around them. Not spreading to any other parts so
far. She was itching in the night 2 nights ago, the night before
she got sick.
8.
Discharges--color, odor, consistency. (A discharge is anything
liquid that's coming out. So, for instance, runny nose, diarrhea,
lacrymation and so on.)
No runny nose, no sweating, very light colored and small amount
of urine when she woke this morning.
9.
Generals--these are all the "I" symptoms: I'm hot, I'm
cold, I'm thirsty, I'm tired, I'm sad, I'm irritable, I'm hungry,
I want pickles, etc.
Not much here, just I don't feel good. I don't want to go to
school. She did say that she should stay home so that she didn't
get her friends sick.
10.
The mentals: Have the mentals changed from normal, in what way?
What's different mentally and emotionally?
Droopier than usual. Knitted brow, a little anxious. Wants company
11.
What does the person say? For instance: "I'm fine, leave
me alone." "Don't leave!" "I wanna go home!"
"I want ice", etc.
'No, I'm ok." When I offered her anything to eat or drink
last night she just kept saying that. She did eat of all things
at the meal, roast beef, a typical favorite of hers. Today she
has had only a scrambled egg and a small glass of limeade.
12.
What is the person doing? For example, tossing and turning, pacing,
fidgeting, moaning and groaning, etc.
Sitting up still in bed. Quietly watching Sesame Street, she now wants company. "I want
some company" are her exact words.
13.
Fever?
100.8
14.
Sweating? When does the sweating occur? Where on the body? What's
it like?
none
15.
Odors? Are odors an issue, such as bad breath, foul odors of any
sort?
Thick stale breath. She hasn't brushed her teeths ince yesterday
morning.
16.
What is most striking about the condition or most peculiar--for
instance, person is cold but heat and covers aggravate; person
has burning pains but is better for hot drinks like tea.
Like I said, this seems very like her bout with sore throat
3 weeks ago but I have twice given her pulsatilla 200c since last
night to no real effect. Last time her tonsils immediately shrunk
and the fever subsided. she did have a lingering cough and stuffiness
though.
She is not interested in any food, not even butter, which I
jokingly offered her last night to which she answered in all seriousness:
"no, I'm ok."
17.
Is there a diagnosis? For instance, flu, teething, etc.
Probably strep throat again.
18.
Describe the patient's energy--is he quiet, restless, agitated,
sleepy, prostrated, collapsed, stuporous, anguished, desperate,
etc.
Quiet. Wants company but is
sitting still in bed. She is a bit anxious, her brow knits and
she looks at me plaintitively when I cuddle her.
19. Thirst--is the person thirsty,
not thirsty, what temperature drinks, what kind of drinks, does
he only want sips, or gulps, does he drink a little bit frequently
or a lot infrequently, and so on.
Not thirsty. Wants small sips of cold water infrequently, I
have to offer the water.
____________________
Let me begin by saying that
Samantha wrote to me after giving the remedy (she only had a 30X)
and said, "Her fever dropped immediately."
When we look for remedies in
acute cases, three words immediately jump to mind:
Sensation
Location
Modalities (ameliorating and
aggravating factors)
What we got here was a sensation--pain
like knives and at least one modality--worse lying flat. The sensation
can be found in, "Throat: tonsils, general, sharp, pain, tonsils"--there
are only two well-indicated remedies, Belladonna and Mercury. Since
she's not sweating and not thirsty, there goes Mercury! Belladonna
is famous for being worse lying. Also, remember--the fever came
on suddenly! She had a fever 15 min. after waking from her nap.
Sudden
onset of fever is a grand keynote of--ta-da!-- Belladonna;
and then we have the Belladonna thirstlessness as well.
Now, here's what's interesting
about the last two quizzes: The same child, the same illness, same
diagnosis, same symptoms, but, TWO DIFFERENT REMEDIES! How
is this possible? It's mind-boggling, isn't it? You can see why
it's so difficult to practice homeopathy! Who would believe you
couldn't just give the same remedy that worked the first time?
The reason is because we are
looking for what's PECULIAR or characteristic in the case, not the
diagnosis! I think Inez may become our poster-child for Paragraph
153 of the Organon--the "Strange/Rare and Peculiar" clause.
In the first quiz, we had a very peculiar symptom--eating butter
off the stick--covered by only two remedies; this was absent from
the second case! In the second case, we had a characteristic sensation
(pain like knives), sudden onset and worse lying. The acute case
questionnaire I send out, which you can see above, is designed to
elicit this kind of information. That's why no matter how much you
tell me about your case, I STILL need you to fill out the questionnaire!
Truly, we do not treat diseases, we treat people. Now, I must say,
Katie wrote in and gave a rather long explanation for why it's Belladonna,
so, in deference to all her hard work, heeeeeeeer's Katie!
Hi
Elaine,
Hi!
I have tended to repertorize on paper and I missed a lot this time
doing it that way. I do have Hompath and have been trying to learn
to use it. After crashing on my first, manual attempt at the November
quiz, I spent some time getting more familiar and at ease with Hompath
- thanks for nudging me in that direction.
I did? How nice of me!
The
rubric choices are making more sense now, too.
Using Hompath's Complete Repertory, Belladonna scored the highest
and fit to some degree all of the following rubrics (although I
would have expected a Belladonna fever to be higher and the
child to be less stoical):
Children never do what you want
them to!
* Mind/Quiet:Disposition
* Mind/Anxiety
* Mind/Company:Desire for
* Gen/Lying: Agg
* Gen/Sudden manifestations
* Gen/Side: Right
* Gen/Discoloration: Redness: Streaks
* Gen/Discoloration: Redness: of Affected parts
* Throat/Pain: Lancinating
* Throat/Swelling:Tonsils
* Throat/Discoloration: Redness: Tonsils
* Stomach/Thirstlessness
* Fever, Heat/Heat in general
That's great, Katie, but, you
really worked too hard! Remember my article "Acute vs. Chronic
Remedies, the Hierarchy of Symptoms and the Kitchen Sink"?
Catchy little title, isn't it? Well, in it, I list the hierarchy
of symptom-types we use to evaluate the symptoms in a case. At or
near the top is "onset". If you've got a case with "sudden
onset", you're practically home free, down to three remedies
before you even start: Belladonna, Aconite and Baptisia. Aconite
and Baptisia are thirsty, Belladonna's not. Bam! Case closed! And
then you just ask yourself, "Does Belladonna have sharp pains?
Yes. Does Belladonna have right-sided complaints? Yes. Does Belladonna
have red streaks? Yes. Does Belladonna have fevers? Swelling? Worse
lying? Yes, yes, yes!"
The disposition really wasn't
worth commenting on nor repertorizing. The desire for company in
a four-year-old child? Normal. Don't
repertorize symptoms that are mild or predictable.
And since someone brought up
Belladonna, you may want to hear about MY Belladonna case,
a cold that I just recently got over. But first before I forget,
let's congratulate our winners--Patrizia Chand, Katie and G.Vijayakumari. I'm
sure Dr. B has a nice prize for you.
Now as I was saying, this was
the first cold in a long time that really got away from me. I usually
nip them in the bud with an immediate dose of Ferrum phos. 30C,
but somehow...I must have gotten run down from lack of sleep. Shana
got it first and she was coughing in my face for days! Then, the
next thing I knew, I had a sore throat. There were no peculiar symptoms
to prescribe on, no modalities, nothing characteristic. Then it
started moving down into my chest and I was coughing. After a couple
of days of this, finally a peculiar symptom showed up: expectoration
that had a bloody taste to it! I had never experienced this before,
so I thought if I can just find it in the repertory, it will be
a very reliable symptom! Sure enough, it was there! Murphy's repertory,
"Taste" chapter: Taste, bloody, coughing, when--two remedies
in bold: Rhus tox (which I had already tried) and Belladonna. I
said to myself, "Gee, don't recognize this as a Belladonna
state--no fever, no redness, nothing typical of Belladonna, and
it's not even early in the case when it's supposed to be indicated;
but, there it was, so I thought I might as well try it! Well, thank
God I did, because I hadn't been able to sleep the night before
because of this cold, but the cough stopped right away and I went
right to sleep!
This month's song goes out to
Belladonna (click on the picture below): "You're My Remedy"
by The Marvelettes!
See you next year!!!!
----------------------------------------------------
This month's winners will get a special 30% discount on one order
of books from Hpathy Mall.
Click Here for
Prize Guidelines
|
Forums
Courses
Shop
Diseases
Articles
Journal
Directory
