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Jose Miguel Mullen, MD, MD (H), MFHom. |
| HOMEOPATHIC
NEWSLETTER |
number four |
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Is
It Safe To Combine Drugs And Natural Treatments? |
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Iatrogenia (that is, diseases caused by Medical procedures) is
currently the third leading cause of death in America, after heart
disease and cancer (Starfield B. "Is US health really the best in
the world?" JAMA 284 (4): 483-485, July 26, 2000).
The incidence of serious and fatal adverse drug reactions in US
hospitals has been found to be extremely high. It ranks fourth as
the cause of death in hospitalized patients, after heart disease,
cancer and stroke. (Lazarou J, Pomeranz BH, Corey PN. "Incidence of
adverse drug reaction in hospitalized patients" JAMA 279
(15): 1200-1205, 1998.
The incidence of medication-error deaths is three times higher
in outpatients than in hospitalized patients (Phillips DP,
Christenfeld N, Glynn LM. "Increase in US medication-error deaths
between 1983 and 1993" Lancet 351: 643-644, 1998).
Pharmaceutical drugs are man-made molecules, which are biologically
very powerful. They are administered to patients at relatively high
concentrations.
Drug molecules are new. They never existed in Nature before
being first designed and then manufactured in a chemical laboratory.
Pharmaceutical drug molecules are engineered with the specific
purpose of combating diseases by means of interacting with molecules
present in our cells, or else in microorganisms or parasites.
Drugs have to undergo very thorough and stringent studies in
unicellular organisms, animals and selected groups of patients
before being approved. It can safely be said that drugs are very
well known by the time they are sold to the public.
However, and despite lots of Research, we still remain profoundly
ignorant regarding how our bodies work, all the more so when
challenged by new biologically active molecules.
Consequently, much of what we currently know regarding the
interaction Pharmaceutical drugs/patients is the result of trial and
error.
There appears to be a three-fold increase of drug-related deaths in
outpatients than in hospitalized ones in recent years. Hospitalized
patients usually are not allowed to receive natural treatments.
During recent years the demand for natural treatments has increased
by leaps and bounds. Teas and supplements are very easy to purchase
in pharmacies, health food and convenience stores.
Outside Hospital settings, then, there are many patients who use
teas and supplements together with pharmaceutical drugs prescribed
by their Doctors.
On the other hand, the demand for over the counter pharmaceutical
drugs has remained pretty much the same or has increased only
slightly, at least according to what I see.
Natural treatments can be of two kinds: those also composed of
biologically active molecules and those that act at an energy level.
Most teas and supplements are composed by myriad biologically active
molecules. In teas, those active molecules are present at
concentrations vastly inferior to those of pharmaceutical
preparations. In some supplements, however, the active principle may
exist at concentrations similar to those found of pharmaceutical
drugs.
Unlike what happens with pharmaceutical drugs, active molecules
present in teas and supplements are not man-made, but have been
engineered by Nature eons ago.
Natural treatments that act at an energy level are Homeopathy and
Acupuncture. Both are molecule-less.
Carrying no molecules whatsoever, Homeopathy and Acupuncture cannot
interact directly in any way, form or fashion with molecules present
in our bodies. Rather, they act on our Vital Force that, in turn,
exerts its healing capacity on the molecules that constitute our
body.
All biologically active molecules of pharmaceutical drugs, as well
as those present in teas and supplements, are beneficial up to a
specific concentration in the patient's blood. At higher
concentrations those molecules become toxic, meaning that
they become poisonous.
And poisons, in high enough quantity, can kill.
Molecules of drugs, teas or supplements enter our bodies, act one
way or another, and then are eliminated mainly through kidneys,
bowel, skin or lungs.
With the exception of water and suchlike simple structures, all
molecules have to be processed in a special fashion in order to be
excreted. This job is done by molecules present mostly in the liver.
These molecules are called enzymes.
Enzymes work on molecules that, during this interaction, are called
substrates. Each enzyme works on a substrate at a time to
then regenerate itself and start working on another. Some
substrates, of course, do take longer than others to be processed
for elimination.
This step is a very important metabolic bottleneck, because almost
all molecules have to converge towards those enzymes in order to be
processed before being directed to wherever they are going to be
excreted.
The assembly line works fine as long as enzymes keep pace with the
amount of molecules they have to process. But if there is a slow
down for one reason or another, then the biologically active
molecules that are waiting begin to accumulate.
This accumulation is not all that important for the biologically
active molecules present in teas and most supplements because they
are present in minuscule quantities to start with. It is a different
story when it comes to drugs or some supplements where active
principles are present in much larger quantities—all the more
because patients, unawares of this backup, may keep on taking or
being injected with them.
Under such circumstances, these active molecules may accumulate in
the organism to amounts that are toxic and even beyond.
There are people who have observed with alarm the enormous increase
in demand for teas and supplements, and wonder if teas and
supplements, rather than pharmaceutical drugs, may be responsible
for this increase in mortality. They are consequently claiming that
these natural substances should undergo the same kinds of rigorous
tests in bacteria, animals and Humans than pharmaceutical drugs must
before being approved and sold to the public.
I believe there is some confusion here.
Pharmaceutical drugs must undergo these punctilious, scrupulous and
demanding tests because nothing is known about their molecules
beforehand, due to the fact that they are new in Nature.
Consequently, they must be exhaustively studied and tested to see if
they are useful and/or tolerated or not.
On the other hand, molecules present in teas and supplements have
been with us since forever, and have been used by countless people.
Meaning that the benefits and risks associated with the
administration of active molecules present in teas and supplements
have been tested for centuries, albeit in a non-scientific manner.
I don't believe the problem here is caused by natural treatments.
Rather, the problem is likely to lie on how the biologically active
molecules present in drugs and in supplements may interfere
with each other when administered together. Such as what happens
when one combines, for instance, black cohosh with blood pressure
lowering drugs or feverfew with blood thinners, among many others.
Interestingly, drugs that are known to clash with teas and
supplements have been in the market for a long time.
This is probably so because knowledge regarding interactions is
virtually impossible to acquire in recently approved drugs unless,
of course, the consequences of such and interplay are so brutal as
to become evident almost at once, but this is unlikely. Harmful
interaction of drugs with teas and/or supplements is usually
subtler, takes a long time to be recognized and tends to happen in
not that many patients.
I mentioned above that natural treatments can be done at a molecular
or at an energy level, and that Homeopathy and Acupuncture are
energy level treatments.
I also said that both energy level forms of treatment work on the
patient's Vital Force and that then it is the Vital Force what
corrects the anomalies produced by the disease or diseases
afflicting the patient.
According to Homeopathy, health is the consequence of an overall
situation of balance, and disease occurs when balance vanishes
because of one reason or another.
Imbalance forces the Vital Force to loosen the grip it normally has
on all organs and tissues. The molecular structure of devitalized
areas stop functioning properly and cry for help. The cry is
interpreted as distress by the patient and as a disease-syndrome by
the Physician.
Homeopathic treatments work by means of bringing the patient back
into balance. It is then that the Vital Force can roam at will
again, reach every nook and cranny and correct the anomalies it
finds, both at an emotional and at a molecular level.
This effect is achieved by the administration of diverse substances
that are diluted and shaken, that is, succussed or
dynamized, to make them Homeopathically active.
Not a single molecule of the original substance remains when
succussion reaches a dilution of 10-24 (that is, one
trillionth-trillionth). This corresponds to a 12 CH, that is, to the
twelfth centesimal dynamization done according to the technique
first described by Dr. Hahnemann. At this and at higher
dynamizations—in which the dilution is progressively greater—there
can be no interaction between the molecules of the remedy and the
molecules of the patient. This is so because there are no more
molecules left in the remedy, and consequently no possibility of
directly engaging enzymes neither in the liver nor anywhere else.
For the past 200 years, by means of dynamizing remedies thus, and by
administering them according to the principle of like cures like,
Homeopathy has achieved success as a valid therapeutic option all
over the world.
Acupuncture considers that health is the consequence of a free flow
of the Vital Force within and over the patient. According to this
outlook, disease happens when the Vital Force backs up.
Millennia ago, Oriental Physicians discovered that in the skin there
are like channels interrupted by several trigger points. The latter
are generally known as Acupuncture points. Those points act
like relays in health; that is, they receive Vital Force and then
project it forward along the channel.
When any of those relay points become blocked it transforms itself into
a dam. The Vital Force stops and stagnates instead of flowing.
Disease is considered to be the consequence of this stoppage.
Treatment consists in first localizing where the blockage is, and
then unclogging it with the aid of a needle. This procedure
transforms the dam into a relay again. Afterwards the patient's
Vital Force can freely circulate again, the backlog disappears and
the disease vanishes.
To sum up, we are dealing here with the consequence of using
biologically powerful molecules.
Some are present in teas and supplements that have been known to be
useful and harmless since close to forever.
Other molecules correspond to drugs that are either new or that
have been around for some time, and that have been designed and then
manufactured with the purpose of healing tissues and organs we know
little about, and that act on Human organisms about which we know
even less. In Clinical Pharmacology we still remain sorcerers'
apprentices to a very large degree.
To boot, the only way to learn what happens when drug and natural
molecules interact is to see what occurs when drugs, teas and
supplements are administered together at the same time to the same
patient. And that takes time.
The surprising thing here would be an absence of this kind of
accidents.
The threefold increase of drug-related deaths in outpatients could
be due at least in part due to bad effects of this kind of
interaction between biologically active molecules. An interaction
that could be neatly circumvented by means of using molecule-less
natural treatments when in doubt or when dealing with recently
approved drugs.
Perhaps if we become more cautious with the simultaneous
administration of drugs and molecule-containing natural
treatments—particularly when it comes to recently approved drugs—we
could with any luck bring the incidence of outpatient drug-related
deaths down to the level of hospitalized ones.
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Homeopathic
Prevention And Treatment Of Small Pox (*) |
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Small pox, eradicated decades ago, may be coming back to haunt us.
Homeopathic remedies may be of help to complement conventional
methods in the prevention and treatment of this disease.
Since early 19th Century Homeopathy has been used both to prevent
and treat small pox.
Homeopathic Physicians of the capacity and integrity of Drs.
Boenninghausen, Allen, Anshutz, Farrington, Lilienthal, Boericke,
Frishmuth, Hughes, Underwood, Vijnovsky and Vosin have reported
results of this work.
Their work and their results amply deserve our trust, because what I
have learnt from these Masters, and from world-class Homeopathic
Physicians like them, has always proved to be true whenever I
applied their knowledge to my patients.
Following is a list of what I consider to be the main Homeopathic
remedies used for purposes of prevention and treatment.
Properly licensed Health Care Professionals should dispense these
remedies only.
Homeopathy can be useful
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as preventive in the
healthy population that cannot receive the Allopathic
vaccination, such as pregnant and lactating women and infants,
as well as in patients with certain skin lesions, or those who
are immunodeficient and/or are receiving treatment that alter
the immune system, and/or are suffering from severe autoimmune
diseases, have leukemia, lymphoma or other cancers and/or are
being treated with x-rays or anticancer drugs, have heart
problems, are allergic to
any of the components of the vaccine and/or are using steroid
treatment in their eyes. |
| b) |
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as complementary
treatment of vaccinia (**) |
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as complementary
treatment for the ill effects of vaccination, both immediate and
remote. |
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as complementary
treatment of patients ill with small pox |
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because Homeopathic
treatments are virtually devoid of toxicity, side and
teratogenic effects and allergy inducing capacity, and do not
cross-react with Pharmaceutical drugs. |
PREVENTION
Malandrinum Recommended at a potency of 30 CH once. This remedy is also very useful to
combat the ill effects of Allopathic small pox vaccination, as well
as to control vaccinia (**)
Sarracenia 12 CH weekly for two weeks.
Vaccininum 12 CH weekly for two weeks.
Also useful in recent and distant ill effects of Allopathic
vaccination.
Variolinum Both Drs. Allen and Vosin enthusiastically endorse
this remedy for the prevention of small pox. 30 CH or 200 CH weekly
for 2 weeks.
TREATMENT
Anacardium when small pox leaves a sequel of loss of memory.
Also indicated when there is a teasing cough, respiratory distress
or eye manifestation of the disease.
Antimonium crudum during the earliest stages, when there are
severe vomiting and heavily coated tongue
Antimonium tartaricum is one of the main remedies for the
treatment of this disease. It is useful during the onset of the
disease before eruption appears and the patient has a dry teasing
cough. Patients may develop terrible lumbosacral pain. These
patients also have painful papular eruptions of the size of peas,
which leave red cyanotic lesions, particularly in face and
anogenital region.
Apis mellifica. This remedy is useful when there is intense
itching and swelling.
Arsenicum album When there is prostration with great loss of
strength. There is marked thirst and restlessness. The eruption
develops irregularly with tendency to a typhoid-like clinical
picture. It is also useful in hemorrhagic small pox.
Baptisia tinctoria, useful in confluent small pox of slow
evolution. Also when pustules are numerous in the throat, there is
fetid breath and great salivation. There is great prostration.
Carbolic acid, useful for patients with miliary eruptions and
fetid odor in their skin.
Hepar sulphur can be useful when suppuration appears in
latter stages of the disease. It can modify the suppurative process,
and should be considered in all conditions attended with pus
formation. It may abort suppuration if given early enough. It can
control and limit suppuration when established. Patients who respond
to this remedy tend to be extremely sensitive to cold and may have
croupy cough with suffocative phlegm.
Lachesis muta can be useful when the patient's skin and
lesions display a mottled blue color, the patient is awakened by his
or her complaints, finds some measure or relief by cold applications
and drinks and cannot tolerate anything around neck and waist.
Malandrinum This remedy is particularly useful in patients
whose symptoms are more evident in the lower half of the body.
Mercurius Useful to continue treatment when, despite of
Antimonium tartaricum, the pocks are going to suppuration
and fever is setting in.
Mercurius 200 CH is also recommended every other day
alternating with Thuja 200 CH.
Rhus tox is indicated when pustules turn black from effusion
of blood within, and there is diarrhea with dark bloody stools.
There may be pains tearing down thighs during stool and a
typhoid-like worsening of the clinical condition.
Sarracenia This remedy can abort the disease in its earliest
stages, including the development of pustules. These patients may be
very sensitive to light, weak in the shoulder area and have shooting
pains in zigzag from the lumbar region to the middle of the scapula.
They are always very hungry
Thuja can be useful if administered as soon as vesicles begin
to turn into pustules.
Variolinum This remedy is useful in patients with mild and
uncomplicated small pox. Also when pustules are surrounded by a red
halo and are often very itchy. These patients complain of
excruciating backache and aching in legs. Their sweat is profuse and
ill smelling.
Except in the instance of the alternation of Mercurius and
Thuja, the potency and form of administration for the treatment
of this disease should be determined according to the clinical
picture and evolution of each patient.
(*) Submitted by fax March 7, 2003 to the
Connecticut Homeopathic Board of Medical Examiners.
(**) The cutaneous and sometimes systemic
reactions associated with vaccination with the smallpox vaccine
(Dorland Medical Dictionary), either in the person who has been
vaccinated, or else spread by contagion by the vaccinated person to
others who have not received the vaccine.
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The chronic miasmas (I): PSORA (*) |
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The chronic miasmas are the forsaken children of
Homeopathy. Either they are roundly ignored or they are mentioned
only in passing in many texts and treatises.
Yet, the chronic miasmas are, directly or indirectly, the mother
lode of all diseases currently known and still to be known by
Humanity.
Here I am going to describe Psora, the first of the three classic
chronic miasmas originally studied and described by Dr. Hahnemann.
In following issues I am going to describe the other two, Sycosis
and Syphilis. These chronic miasmas are like the three successive
stops or stations in the downward path toward self-annihilation.
After that I will also describe the chronic miasmas Tuberculinism
and Cancerinism, that configure the profile of patients prone to
fall ill with tuberculosis and malignant solid tumors, respectively.
The majestic harmony of the Universe is maintained through order and
balance.
All creatures are part of the Universe.
When in balance, Whole Human Beings partake of Universal harmony and
thrive and develop within it. Balanced Human Beings are aware that
they, as well as every other creature, participate of this Harmony
as part of the Universal Whole.
There is a sense of profound joy and fulfillment in identifying with
the Universe and its magnificent Harmony. Universal energy vitalizes
and fortifies well-balanced Whole Human Beings, and this strength
allows them to love, grow and identify with the Universe in all of
its manifestations.
Not only that.
Participation allows Whole Human Beings to radiate this cosmic
harmony into Nature’s chaos. Consequently, Nature becomes more
harmonious.
Nature does not harm—cannot harm—well balanced Whole Human
Beings. Harmony and aggression are antonyms and they simply cannot
coexist with each other.
Harmony breeds health and health breeds harmony. Or, in other words,
overall balance begets health and health leads each individual
toward overall balance. Until, once our part in this magnus opus
has been concluded, we surrender to Nature the body She temporarily
granted us to bring Her a bit closer to cosmic harmony.
Loss of balance is the main characteristic of Psora.
Psoric patients become so many discordant notes in the Symphony of
the Universe due to their loss of balance. They feel cut off from
the Whole and left aside, forsaken and unprotected. They
consequently assume that they are vulnerable.
The keyword in Psora is vulnerability.
Psoric patients feel vulnerable because they become hostages of
Nature.
All that Nature has to offer is its chaos. One of the
characteristics of Nature’s chaos is the survival of the strongest;
that is, of the most successful predators.
Being hostages of Nature, psorics have no way of protecting
themselves against the combined ravages of chaos and predators.
Psorics feel extremely fearful and vulnerable and desperately search
for some form of security and protection, no matter the cost.
Even if this spurious protection means the destruction of whole
ecosystems—even if it means the elimination of other Human Beings.
Due to their identification with the chaos that surround them,
psorics consider this dog-eat-dog way of living as normal, and
endeavor to find some ways to somehow control it and thus
successfully survive. Most Philosophical Schools, as well as the
Whole body of Allopathic Medicine and militarism have stemmed from
this Psoric awareness of vulnerability.
There is very little psorics can safely trust in this Earth. Their
very bodies become time bombs.
Awareness of vulnerability strengthens enslavement to chaos and
begets suffering. This subjugation, in turn, makes psorics still
more acutely aware of how vulnerable they are—a vicious cycle. To
boot, psorics’ soon develop an inner chaos and turmoil that are but
the mirror image of the chaos and turmoil that surround them.
Psorics know that they have no choice but to abide by Nature’s
whims. At the same time, they are profoundly aware that there is
something very wrong in this scenario.
Deep inside, psorics feel they deserve at least some modicum of
peace and fulfillment, that they shouldn’t be hostages, and that
Nature should not really be a cruel master to be feared.
The happiness they seek in the midst of chaos is elusive, yet
frequently appears to be so close at hand, even attainable
sometimes. As when one feels great, or falls in love, or experiences
health or is young, or has a child, or succeeds in one’s career, or
becomes one with a beautiful spring sunset. But then, for psorics,
happiness is what a mirage is for travelers dying of thirst in the
desert. It soon vanishes. Suffering strikes immediately after those
brief moments of bliss, usually out of the blue.
Again psorics feel crushed by the weight of their yoke as they
realize still again how vulnerable and defenseless they actually
are, how little control they have over themselves and their fate and
how much they are at the mercy of Nature, its chaos and its whims.
It is then that they let out their cry of rebellion.
A cry that eventually becomes drowned in impotent anger and
frustration, as psorics understand that fulfillment has eluded them
again. That they are nothing but shadows that stagger in a valley of
tears where meaninglessness suffering, disease, heartbreak and
untimely death are rampant and out of control—while constantly
knowing, deep inside, that they deserve a different and vastly
better fate.
This profound yearning for what psorics deserve as Human Beings is
found at the root of many beliefs, fables and legends as old as
Humanity. All the way from the existence of a Heaven after death to
the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; from the awareness of
Paradise lost to the moral in the fable of the ugly duckling.
There is perfect joy out there, somewhere; there is peace and
happiness that rightfully belong to everybody. Yet, and aside from a
few fleeting moments, joy is always beyond the psorics’ reach, alas!
The emotional and physical costs of Psora are appalling.
Emotionally, it gives rise to confusion, double guessing and
self-doubt. And also an overwhelming and all consuming feeling of
anxiety, frustration and distrust. Distrust, in turn, breeds
isolation, because it effectively thwarts the psorics' need to reach
out to other Human Beings.
Physically, the imbalance brought about by Psora produces most acute
and chronic disease-syndromes. Acute, when they are the consequence
of sudden imbalance brought about by Nature or by the patient’s
inner chaos. In chronic patients, on the other hand,
disease-syndromes arise, directly or indirectly, from their chronic
and progressive imbalance.
Constant suffering and uncertainty, together with yearning for
happiness and inability to grasp it, make psorics imagine that they
are probably being punished for some wrong deed. Such can be the
only conceivable explanation for the lifetime of misery and
hopelessness they are forced to endure.
Perhaps they, or else some forebear, may have committed some
unspeakable crime that justifies their suffering. Whatever that
transgression may have been, psorics feel they have to atone for it.
Sometimes I wonder if this is where the myth of the Original Sin
sprung from, for it is encountered in the myths and legends of most
peoples, from the most primitive to the most evolved.
Guilt, in psorics, is the consequence of feeling as if they must
have committed some crime they know they have not committed, but
that nevertheless have to atone for.
The imbalance of psoric patients, like everything else in Nature, is
always progressive.
It is this quality of progressiveness what makes psorics more and
more vulnerable to every conceivable disease, whether acute or
chronic, as time goes by and inexorably impels them toward an
untimely death.
Also due to their progressive imbalance, psoric patients are not
able to successfully terminate any disease. Each illness leaves them
weaker, more intoxicated and more imbalanced—and also better
prepared to welcome the next, and usually more severe,
disease-syndrome.
Dr. Hahnemann called Psora “the Hydra of the thousand heads, that
grows one thousand heads per each that has been chopped off”. Each
head corresponds to each individual disease-syndrome suffered by the
patient, and each decapitation to each Allopathic cure.
The meaning of Dr. Hahnemann’s metaphor is that myriad new
disease-syndromes will appear every time a disease-syndrome has been
successfully “cured” in a psoric patient by Allopathic means.
This is so because every successful Allopathic “cure” does nothing
to correct the psorics’ subjacent chronic and progressive imbalance,
which is the real cause of every disease-syndrome. To boot, each of
these cures usually replaces the patient’s disease by the one
produced by the side effects and toxicity of Allopathic treatments.
Both factors make the patient more vulnerable to the onslaught of
the next disease.
Health, for psorics, is only a short interval of wellness between
two bouts of disease.
In his Treatise of chronic diseases, Dr. Hahnemann divides
Psora into Latent—or dormant—and Manifest.
Patients can harbor latent Psora for many years. At this stage,
psorics are asymptomatic and rarely afflicted by disease-syndromes.
Patients suffering from Manifest Psora, on the other hand, sustain
every form of acute and chronic disease-syndrome known and still to
be known by Humanity, with the exception of illnesses arising from
the chronic miasmas Sycosis and Syphilis, that will be described in
the next two issues of this Newsletter.
Dr. Hahnemann describes a long list of manifestations of latent
psora in his Treatise of chronic diseases.
And, in the Chapter devoted to Psora, he describes the
factors that can transform latent psora into manifest. These factors
are usually the consequences of improper treatments, of leading an
amoral life and of severe emotional and/or physical traumas and
stresses.
Dr. Hahnemann affirms that, in many people, Latent Psora is
slumbering within, ready to become Manifest. He illustrates this
assertion with many examples.
In every instance, Latent Psora becomes Manifest in the form of some
serious disease or another—that, if inadequately treated, will
inevitably give rise to another serious disease, and then to still
another and another, all the way unto the unfortunate patient's
untimely death.
Elimination of Psora will bring the patient back to health, and
through health into balance and harmony.
Its worsening will make the psoric patient slide into Sycosis. This
can happen very easily. All the psoric has to do is to throw a
mantle of glittering arrogance over the heap of his or her Psora.
(*) From page 50, Chapter 5 The chronic
miasmas" in my book "Understanding Homeopathy and Integrative
Medicine".
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| Profiles of Homeopathic
remedies: Natrum Muriaticum |
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Natrum muriaticum is sodium chloride, or table salt, Homeopathically
processed.
It was originally prepared and tested by Dr. Hahnemann himself over
200 years ago, and has been successfully in use ever since.
In the Bible we read how, when Lot and his family were leaving Sodom
and Gomorrah, an angel warned them not to look back. Lot's wife
couldn't restrain herself from looking back at all the misery she
was departing from. As the consequence of her disobedience she
became a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:26).
The essence of Natrum muriaticum is also the inability of
restraining the urge to look back. Like Lot's wife, Natrum
muriaticums are compelled to look back at all that is sad and
negative in their pasts, again and again.
They also tend to add salt to their food, even before tasting it.
Is all this just a coincidence?
Natrum muriaticums' pathology seem to stem from their
exquisite sensitivity. They tend to register, with extraordinary
intensity, everything nice and also everything ugly that happen to
them.
But afterwards, alas! They will only remember what is irksome, sad
and ugly.
All Natrum muriaticums need is a moment of idleness, a moment
when their minds happen to be void of thought.
Soon something negative will pop up, some slight, some past offence,
a moment of suffering or sadness or some suchlike occurrence. Their
minds will instantly pick it up and start dwelling on it. Not only
on the anecdote itself, but also on its entire negative emotional
trimmings and connotations.
Of course, this will make Natrum muriaticums feel bad, and
progressively worse as time goes by and the recollection becomes
more and more vivid and the negative feelings increasingly intense.
Finally, the whole thing will vanish and leave Natrum muriaticums
drained and in a terrible mood, with only intense sadness, hatred,
and resentment, plus crushing guilt because of their negative
feelings.
Natrum muriaticums appear to be unable to benefit from Martin
Luther's famous bit of advice "You cannot prevent the dark birds of
dejection (or, in Natrum muriaticums instance, of resentment,
hatred, etc.) from flying around your head, but you can certainly
prevent them from making a nest there".
Sadness, guilt, resentment and hatred sprout and grow so luxuriously
because Natrum muriaticum is an emotional creature, not an
intellectual one. Were Natrum muriaticum an intellectual, he
or she would immediately realize how foolish it is to dwell on
things that cannot be amended because they are past and gone, and
thus only useful as bits of experience.
And, were he or she a rational person, Natrum muriaticum
would also become aware of how useless it is to immerse oneself in
feelings that only succeed in bringing about unhappiness and ever
renewed misery.
But then, like Lot's wife, Natrum muriaticum must look back
at his or her private Sodom and Gomorrah again and again, and soak
him or herself in everything sad, painful or miserable that happened
at any time past.
And in every instance of dwelling, anything new and negative will be
added to the myriad other negative feelings of sadness, hatred,
resentment, distrust and guilt that are constantly simmering
somewhere within.
The result is that Natrum muriaticum is as totally incapable
to forget as he or she is to forgive.
It is interesting how, in Natrum muriaticum, these negative
and even sordid feelings coexist with admirable strivings. Rarely,
in the Materia Medica Homeopathica, one finds a remedy that is more
idealistic and more motivated to noble deeds.
Natrum muriaticums are often seen in charitable organizations
and in those devoted to the welfare of others. It is as if all of
the suffering they experience, and constantly dwell upon, makes them
more sympathetic to the suffering of others and more willing to
help.
By the same token, many members of those vociferous banner-carrying
multitudes that advocate improvement in social conditions and
similar causes are likely to be Natrum muriaticums.
As well as women who marry alcoholics and drug addicts with the
purpose of redeeming them.
This clash between the exalted and the sordid brings forth their
monumental feeling of guilt, rarely reached by any other remedy in
the Materia Medica Homeopathica.
Natrum muriaticums are likely to loose their faith in others
at some point in their lives.
This moment in reached when they have suffered so much that they
don't dare to again trust anybody else, lest they may suffer still
more.
Distrust, a need to redeem and to help others, and the need to love
and be loved, always present and very intense, are perpetually
clashing in Natrum muriaticums.
This conflict is vividly illustrated by the classical paradox of the
Natrum muriaticum heiress who, after rejecting all of her
legitimate suitors because she doesn't trust them, elopes with her
chauffeur.
Natrum muriaticums are very sentimental and romantic.
They can be found any evening in some café alone, by a table set in
a dark corner, listening to soft music. With eyes lost anywhere,
dwelling on some poignant memory and smoking a cigarette, nursing a
drink and shedding quiet tears.
Natrum muriaticums need love, with a desperation that
increases exponentially with age. Yet, their fear to trust always
gets in the way.
One can spend a beautiful evening by candlelight with a Natrum
muriaticum, as long as one does not push. If Natrum
muriaticum's partner is guileless enough to trust the come
hither glances and other signals and lunges forward, he or she will
inevitably cross the panic line of distrust and will go home alone
and wondering what the hell happened. While Natrum muriaticum
will leave empty handed still again, with something new and sad to
fantasize about during the lonely evenings of dwelling at the café.
This constantly frustrated search reminds me of that routine in
which a clown leans to pick up something from the floor while
kicking it forward with the big shoe, to then repeat the same
maneuver again and again. It looks funny in a clown but it becomes
pathetic in Natrum muriaticums because of the heartbreak and
the desperate longing, never fulfilled.
The tango Uno masterfully describes, in free verse, the
impossibility of a Natrum muriaticum to let himself go, and
to trust and love the woman he yearns for with every fiber of his
being.
Natrum muriaticums tend to be ferociously duty bound. This
characteristic, plus their urgency to trust and to love and be loved
usually makes them excellent providers, spouses and parents, as well
as easy people to live with—as long as the partner does not give any
motive for anger or distrust, however mild. The elephantine memory
of Natrum muriaticum can become a big nuisance if such
a motive is provided, however inadvertently ("remember when, October
15, 1974, at 5:14 PM, you said/did…").
If the transgression is major, though, Natrum muriaticum will
neither forgive nor forget, and things will never ever be the same
thereafter.
Natrum muriaticums, both males and females, are easily moved
to tears because they are very sensitive people. Things sad or
terrible, or misfortunes that happen to others, can make them weep.
But they don't know how to cry. Weeping is a succession of deep,
racking sobs that bring no relief that leaves them exhausted. To
boot, they reject consolation. In fact, any attempt to comfort them
makes them weep all the worse.
What a curse it is for people with such a need of love, and deep
inside so nice, to be unable to benefit from a good cry, and to find
no relief when some kind heart around attempts to proffer them
consolation!
They can also laugh inappropriately. The people who cannot refrain
from laughing at funerals are probably Natrum muriaticums.
Something interesting happens to Natrum muriaticum males.
They cannot urinate in the presence of others.
Whenever you are in a public restroom using a urinal and see a man
enter, sweep a glance at all the unused urinals, get into a stall
without breaking stride, close the door and start urinating there,
chances are that he is Natrum muriaticum.
A fully-fledged Natrum muriaticum will not allow others to
get close. In the previous issue of this Newsletter we saw that
Lycopodium reacts at in a similar fashion.
But Lycopodium keeps you at arm's length and says "stay away,
I don't want you to see me as I really am", whereas Natrum
muriaticum will say "don't get any closer, I fear to trust
again, I can't stand to be hurt again".
But don't expect to observe any of the above when you see a
Natrum muriaticum patient for the first time in your waiting
room. The smile will be there, very cordial and sincere, and he or
she will be very nice and personable and not infrequently voluble
too.
The patient will come complaining of some disease or another, and
will tell you that the illness is the cause of how bad he or she
feels.
He or she will usually keep a distance, sometimes even crossing his
or her arms over the chest as for protection. Natrum muriaticum
will also push him or herself as back as possible in his or her
chair. There are those who interpret this action as being due to
Natrum muriaticum's necessity to find a hard surface where to
lean their backs. I personally believe that what happens is that, by
sitting as far back as possible, they have found the furthermost
limit they can retreat to, and this is what proffers them a measure
of safety and comfort.
It will usually take up to a few seconds to notice that the
patient's heart is way above his or her head, it is so obvious; and
also that he or she doesn't trust you, very evident too. Natrum
muriaticum will explore you with his or her eyes, gauging you
and your expression. Words will be proffered like bursts of radar,
with an interval afterwards—no matter how fast the patient talks—to
see what it is that bounces back.
Only when one advances into History taking an uncontrollable burst
of tears or a slight change in the tone of voice will unequivocally
point toward something very painful and carefully hidden within. It
is not very hard afterwards to peel out the Natrum muriaticum
in the patient.
This is what happens with things are easy. Sometimes it is not quite
that simple to reach the diagnosis and others, of course, one misses
it altogether.
Many years ago I met a very wise man who once told me "hatred is an
acid that the first thing it corrodes is the vessel that contains
it". Try and imagine the damage an acid as powerful as hatred, aided
by ingredients such as sadness, guilt, resentment and distrust can
do.
Natrum muriaticum patients usually come to the office very
damaged and completely out of whack after years of corrosion, and
consequently displaying any form of pathology, sometimes so advanced
and so serious as to demand the concomitant use of Allopathic
treatments.
They have usually been all over, seen all kinds of Practitioners and
obtained insignificant relief. The correct Homeopathic treatment can
bring them into balance and thus make their problems disappear, or
at the very least it can dramatically increase the effectiveness of
other forms of treatment.
As mentioned above, Natrum muriaticum needs someone whom to
love and—desperately here—someone whom to trust. If this happens,
the loved and trusted one will protect Natrum muriaticum from
further hurt, and the moments of dwelling will be filled with the
loved one and dear friends and, as Natrum muriaticum grows
older, with children and grandchildren also. And so the demons of
hatred, resentment, sadness, guilt and distrust will gradually
become starved into nonexistence.
Something similar, although ersatz, may happen after successful
Counseling, for here the therapist will emphasize the patient's good
points, clarify and minimize the negative ones, and teach Natrum
muriaticum to control the dwelling.
In either instance, Natrum muriaticums will reach old age
with some sense of fulfillment, although always encumbered by the
remnants of the negative feelings they have dragged behind them
throughout their lives.
But woe of the Natrum muriaticum who has not found love, or
whose counseling has failed because he or she has not trusted the
Therapist!
With his or her heart totally corroded by a lifetime of hatred, and
with his or her capacity to love completed smothered by sadness,
distrust, guilt and resentment, such a person can become as
dangerous as a viper for him or herself and others in old age.
Although astonishing results can be achieved with Natrum
muriaticum treatment even at this eleventh hour, too.
I have occasionally found something of a catch during successful
administration of this remedy.
As treatment progresses, the patient may complain of very vivid
reappearances of almost forgotten and very painful memories.
What happens here is that all the unpleasant memories harbored and
nurtured by Natrum muriaticums along the years have entered
them through their conscious minds, and consequently have to leave
through the same route. Therefore, patients have no choice but to
become aware of, and to re-live those memories in all their painful
emotional intensity as they exit the patient's life forever.
What tends to remain after these painful experiences are the same
painful episodes of their lives, but now devoid of emotional
content, and transformed into bits of experience useful to enrich
their lives and to avert mistakes in the future.
One has to be careful here, though. Emotions attached to these
memories can become very destabilizing for these patients, which is
the reason why I find it advisable to start treatment with very low
potencies. This way, re-living of painful emotional can be
relatively mild instead of powerful, as it often happen when one
uses high potencies to start with.
Symptoms usually vanish as Natrum muriaticums' memories loose
their sting.
It is at this point that these formerly haunted patients start
feeling well.
(Data has been obtained from the Materia
Medicæ of Drs. Hahnemann, Vijnovsky, Boericke and Kent and from my
own experience).
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Edited by Jose Miguel Mullen, MD, MD
(H), MFHom.,
Homeopathic Physician. |
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