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| Hpathy Ezine - March, 2007 | ||||
Revisiting "The Godfather, Part-II"-- Elaine Lewis, DHom |
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| Does anybody remember last month's quiz? Who could forget the case of "Mamie Eisenhower"? Here it is again:
Elaine, I ate a hamburger, but not before I burned it in a teflon pan! I was very tense. As soon as I ate it I felt like I had swallowed a rock (or been punched hard in the stomach)! Within a day or two, that feeling did not leave but progressed into a feeling of a pool of acid sitting in my stomach, just sitting there, eating away at the tissue. Nothing would stop it: no position made it better and eating didn't make it better, though I kept thinking it would, but, in fact, eating made it worse. Then nausea joined in and headache and body pain and chills. I was shivering. I was also very thirsty for cold water but drinking made the nausea worse and I was also very irritable.
Well, this case seemed to confuse everyone! We basically got the expected food poisoning remedies like Arsenicum and Carbo veg. with two votes for Bryonia thrown in as well (probably because of the thirst and irritability), but let me explain why Bryonia is irritable. It's more that they want you to leave! Your being there and asking them questions ("How are you? How do you feel now? Is your stomach still hurting?") only makes them worse because of the grand keynote of Bryonia which is: the slightest motion aggravates their complaint! They can't move at all! All they can do is be perfectly still. A Bryonia case of nausea would mean the slightest motion makes the nausea worse. Even talking to you would make them worse. Even breathing sometimes makes them worse! They have to be perfectly still. Every intrusion is a problem for them. Another big keynote of Bryonia is the sharp stabbing and stitching pains. "Mamie Eisenhower" doesn't seem to have this problem. I once knew I had a Bryonia stomach upset because I had so many sharp pains! And the thing about it was, there was nothing I could do; rubbing didn't help, bending forward didn't seem to be an option; it was when I said to myself, "All I can do is hold perfectly still," that I realized it was Bryonia. Then there's the extreme dryness of all the mucus membranes in Bryonia, hence the need to drink. All things considered, this case does not have the flavor of Bryonia. Carbo veg. In all honesty, we would want to see some burping, flatulence and bloating to make this elligible for Carbo veg. In fact, even in heart and lung cases you might see burping and bloating. I guess people picked it because of the shivering. The peculiar thing about the Carbo veg. patient is that despite their chilliness, they want to be fanned. What about Arsenicum? Well, you can't go wrong considering Arsenicum in food poisoning, can you? Here's the problem. This case has a mental concomitant: irritability. Our remedy HAS to match this! Did anybody read my article, "Acute vs. Chronic Remedies, the Hierarchy of Symptoms and the Kitchen Sink"? There's a hierarchy of symptoms we have to follow. The local symptom isn't as important as the general symptom which isn't as important as the mental symptom! Why is that? Because when you're sick in a local area, you're not as sick as you are when you are sick IN GENERAL! You know it, and I know it! Now, what's even WORSE is if the case has traveled to the mental/emotional plane! You know how bad it is when you have the flu, right? Well, just imagine having the flu AND being scared! That makes it just so much worse! In homeopathy, we're always asking the patient, "What's the worst thing right now?" That's because our remedy has to cover that, whatever it is. If an illness has a mental concomitant, your remedy has to cover that--UNLESS, the mental concomitant is NORMAL! ("So-and-so has cancer, AND she's depressed! We need a depression remedy!" No, sorry, it's quite normal to be depressed if you think you're going to die! What you need is a cancer remedy!) Here in this case, the irritability is not normal nor common, it's peculiar to this case. Not everyone with an upset stomach is irritable. It's unusual, and the STRANGE, RARE and PECULIAR symptom in the case is even higher in the hierarchy than the mental/emotional one, it just so happens that in this case they are one and the same. Now, since we know that this case has a mental/emotional concomitant and we know that the remedy has to match it, what is the mental state of Arsenicum? Did everyone read Mati Fuller's "You Try Living with Arsenicum!" from last month's ezine? Well, drop everything and read it right now! Arsenicum's mental state is unmistakable! And you should familiarize yourself with it because you will definitely see these people, it's a common remedy in illness: They are anxiety-ridden, they're afraid they're going to die, they need you to stay with them and NOT LEAVE, they're restless, weak and, in a word, clingy! There's no sense of this in "Mamie Eisenhower's" case. So, what did I do? I looked at this case and I was bewildered! I couldn't see a whole picture here, bits and pieces of this and that.... So, I went with the hierarchy of symptoms. I said, "I need an indigestion remedy that's irritable." (Note I said I need an INDIGESTION remedy that is irritable. You see, the "state" is higher in the hierarchy than the mental/emotionals. We need a remedy, first of all, with an affinity for the stomach and known to cause indigestion in healthy people. If I had a heart patient who was irritable? I'd be looking at the heart remedies first, saying, "Which one of these is irritable?") The first thing that came to my mind was Nux vomica! I looked at the rest of the case. Is Nux vomica chilly? Yes, very! Is Nux vomica worse after eating? Yes. Is their digestion slow and sluggish? Definitely. Then, I remebered a peculiar symptom of Nux vomica: Sensation as if a stone, after eating! That sounded very close to her "rock" sensation! OK in all fairness, Bryonia has that too! So, I went with Nux vomica 30C and the whole thing went away, and she had been suffering with this for days! Then, she said, "You know, if I could have thrown up, I'd have felt better, but I couldn't; I've always been that way." Well, of course, if I had known that from the beginning, it would have made this case a lot easier. "Wants to but can't" is a keynote of Nux vomica; even in bladder infections where the person wants to urinate but can't, where ever you see this picture, think of Nux vomica. Katie came close enough in my opinion; here's what she said:
Although repertorizing was overall steering me towards Nux Vomica, the following rubric caught my attention: "stomach, digestion, as if stopped" in Murphy - only Alum. and Kali Bi. were listed. The MM descriptions of Kali Bi generally seemed to fit: Digestion seems to have ceased; food lies in stomach like a load; great weight in pit of stomach. Highly irritating acid causing gastritis. Worse for eating; cannot digest meat. Irritable, ill-humored. Chilly, worse from cold. Nausea, headache. From Murphy - Nux V has pressure 2-3 hours after eating, but the effect is immediate with Kali-Bi (and Nux M). Katie, see, here's the problem. I'm not as smart as you are, so I picked Nux vomica! Thanks, LOL. I was teeing off of Murphy's rep at home. Now that I'm back at work I did a reverse rep in Kent on Kali-bi (didn't have that link at home) and then took a look at those rubrics again in the regular Kent rep. I saw Nux V come up in rubrics I hadn't see it in before. Still it was a chance to learn about a side of Kali-bi I didn't know. I had only associated it with respiratory, spotty changeable pains, ropy discharges, etc. That is my main goal of working on the quizzes. Your write-ups are much more valuable if I have gone through the pain of trying to reason it out for myself. I was late getting into the meat of this quiz because I was inexplicably hung up for a while on the symptoms of teflon poisoning. [insert rolleyes smilie here] Once I got past that silliness I was able to slowly lurch forward. K.
Other than Katie, Dr. B, our only winner is Gabi who wrote simply, "Nux". What are their prizes? ------------------------------------------------------- This month's winners will get a special 30% discount on one order of books from Hpathy Mall. Click Here for Prize Guidelines |
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Elaine Lewis, DHom, CHom takes online cases. Visit her website at: www.hpathy.com/office/ElaineLewis.asp |
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