Homeopathy weeks 6&7!
Choose any one (1) symptom of interest to you described by the client or their guardian. • Locate a rubric for this symptom in the repertory.
For this one I looked up a lot of rubrics, including mind: Imagination, acute vivid, visual, animals bugs, impatient, impulsive, nostalgia, away from home; nerves; irritable; urinary: burning after, and I couldn’t settle on a remedy. I then looked up: Extremities, hands / fidgets (these remedies were Kali- br, Mygal, Tarent, Zinc). I wasn’t sure if any of those fit after reading. I actually read a lot and felt lost!
I went back to ‘mind’, and found remedies for, ‘Nervous, excited, fidgety, worried’, as I’d missed this at first. This was one of the main themes, (there are too many to list, so I’ve narrowed some down below)!
I decided to settle on the mind rubric: ‘Nervous, excited, fidgety, worried’, and compared this with Extremities rubric: ‘Hand, fidgets (and Puls). I also went back to Pulsatilla and read ‘Complementary’ and ‘Comparison’ remedies. Complementary were : Coff, Cham, Nux-V. ’
I acutally chose Coff in the end because it’s mentioned in 2 rubrics and Pulsatilla remedy. It seemed like it is a good fit!
Mind: Nervous, excited, fidgety, worried. Extremities: Hands fidgety. Pulsatilla
The shared remedies in the mind and extremities rubric, and pulsatilla were: Cham, Coff, Cycl, Kali – Br, Kali-bi, Kali Br, Kali-S, Puls, Staph, Sulph, , Nux-V, Tarent, Zinc, Zinc-P, Zinc-val,
From this rubric identify other potential medicines listed which could also be considered to use for this symptom.
I think perhaps Staph (under ‘Nervous, excited, fidgety, worried’. There is a feature of ‘sensitivity to what others say about him, ‘peevish’ ‘ burning after urination’, however many there still don’t fit.
I read many other suggested remedies under the above headings, however they didn’t resonate with me for this case.
• Briefly describe the major features of one other medicine from this rubric, and how you see it may or may not be a suitable prescription for a homeopath to give the client in comparison to the given medicine.
Coffea Cruda – ‘Coff’
Boericke, W in his overview of the remedy states: ‘Stimulates the functional activity of all organs, increasing the nervous vascular activity’.. ‘Great nervousness, agitation, and restlessness. Extreme sensitiveness characterises this remedy..’ ‘Unusual activity of mind and body. Bad effects of sudden emotions, surprises, joy etc.’.
This remedy overview, is somewhat fitting of the symptoms of ADHD, which the patient’s mum described. School can require patience and attention, and where the child is having to get his sensitive nervous system to follow a routine and structured day, he may fidget as an outlet for the extra energy.
The child is willing to cooperate in class (and at home as in the Pulsatilla person picture of cooperation), and he has demonstrated he can sit still and listen where there is a visual storytelling prompt from the teacher reading his favourite book ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’. This fits with the mind rubric ‘Gaiety, easy comprehension, irritability, excitement, senses acute. Impressionable, especially to pleasurable impressions. Full of ideas, quick to act..’ His mother also says that he talks a lot at home when he is with familiar people.
To revisit the previous point, the overview also said that: ‘this remedy suits people with tall, lean, stooping posture, and dark complexion; temperament, choleric, or sanguine’, and I observed that the child’s mum had long dark hair, was medium height, sitting in a relaxed stooping posture, so there may be a hereditary connection there? I would need to hear more about mum’s experiences. Under the sleep rubric, his mother said that he sleeps well, with some moving about and he talks in his sleep. The child said he sleeps well. In the rubric it states: ‘sleeps to 3 am after which only dozing. ‘Wakes with a start, sleep disturbed by dreams..’ We only did theory in my previous intro course so having a go at picking remedies is new!
Teacher feedback:
‘This is a great example of why we do this activity! It is designed to get you thinking about rubrics that can be applied to the case, but also how medicines within those rubrics can lead to completely different medicine pictures, which you have found, which is why you may have felt lost’.
‘I’ll post a really good snippet in the loop about restlessness – and how each medicine portrays restlessness differently. This should help explain what I am trying to say! Which is… the vital force displays ‘restlessness’ differently in each patient and it is through understanding the total picture that we can match the similimum’.