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Jose Miguel Mullen, MD, MD (H), MFHom. |
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NEWSLETTER |
number five |
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Simillimums and Similars |
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There are two approaches to find out how useful and effective a
Homeopathic remedy is.
One is based on Research and is called Provings.
The other relies on observation.
There are other approaches to evaluate the usefulness of a
Homeopathic remedy, but they are not quite as reliable so I will not
discuss them here.
In Provings, the substance to be studied is prepared
Homeopathically; that is, it is diluted and shaken.
Then the Homeopathic preparation is administered daily to healthy
male and female Human volunteers. Volunteers are requested to
carefully record any changes they may experience during the
experiment, both natural (like desire for fruit, for example) and
pathological (like heartburn, for instance). All these natural and
pathological changes, that are called symptoms, are then put
together and configure the profile of the remedy. Volunteers are
requested to stop at once taking the Homeopathic preparation once
symptoms start to appear. Symptoms rapidly disappear if the
administration of the preparation is immediately discontinued at
this point.
Observation is carried out in patients who have become intoxicated
with material quantities of the substance under study. All changes
brought about by intoxication are carefully recorded. Intoxications
can be acute or chronic.
An example of acute intoxication is the one that follows the
ingestion of white arsenic, described under the heading of
Arsenicum
album, in Newsletter # 1.
Chronic intoxications, such as those that follow prolonged exposure
to material amounts of lead or chloride, for instance, show changes
that are strikingly similar to those found in Provings.
Some remedies have been well studied and observed, and are called
Polychrests.
Others have not been studied that thoroughly, and are known as small
remedies.
When a patient calls sick, the Doctor obtains that patient’s
Homeopathic and Clinical History and performs a Physical
Examination, aided at times with other procedures (such as X-Rays,
lab results, etc.)
The Clinical History and Physical Examination allow the Doctor to
reach a clinical diagnosis, while the Homeopathic History unveils
the patient's Homeopathic profile.
Both the patient's clinical diagnosis and Homeopathic profile help
the Doctor determine whether the patient will benefit from
Homeopathy, conventional Medicine, other forms of treatment, or from
any combination of treatments thereof.
If Homeopathy is chosen as the adequate form of treatment, the
Doctor compares the Homeopathic profile of the patient with the
profile of all Homeopathic remedies, and then chooses the remedy
whose profile best matches that of the patient according to the
principle that Like cures like.
Simillimums are remedies that match perfectly, or almost perfectly,
the Homeopathic profile of a particular patient. Here, the profile
of the patient and that of the remedy become superimposed like the
two images in the range finder of a photo camera.
Similar remedies, on the other hand, are only capable of matching
part of the patient's Homeopathic profile. Here, the two images in
the range finder become superimposed only partially.
Therapeutic results are very good and often dramatic—even
spectacular—when a patient is treated with his or her simillimum.
All or most of the pathology ailing the patient is bound to
disappear as the simillimum allows the patient to regains balance.
Disease-syndromes simply vanish as the patient recovers his or her
balance.
Results will be only partial in patients who are treated with their
similars. Here, the patients’ balance will recover only partially.
Only some of the patient's problems will disappear.
Meaning that simlars are unable to cure, although they can improve
chronic patients.
The improvement brought about by the administration of a similar is
often important, although the patient will have to continue being
treated with another similar and then with another and still another
until he or she regains full balance and health, either completely
or else as completely as possible.
(From my book "Understanding
Homeopathy and Integrative Medicine").
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Ouch! … |
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You have hurt yourself.
Perhaps is some minor bump against a corner of the table. Or you
have banged your fingernail with a hammer. Or twisted an ankle. Or
broken a bone. Or strained your back. Or been pierced by a sliver or
a nail—I could go on forever.
Important here is to remember that, when suffering an injury, it is
advisable to visit your Doctor. And, if the injury is open or a
puncture, also to have your tetanus shots up to date.
Remedies described below can be considered to be first aid devices.
They can also very useful complementary treatments of whatever your
Doctor may prescribe or do to assist you. It is advisable to take
them at potencies of 12 CH or higher.
Arnica montana must be considered as the first form of aid in most
common bruises and in injuries derived from blows or falls. It is
very useful as the first remedy in shock or injury and when there is
bleeding within tissues. The patient complaints of sore, bruised
sensations. He or she doesn’t tolerate to be bothered—not even by
the Doctor—and wants to be left alone. Useful for strained back
muscles, when those muscles feel worse after the least touch and
after rest. The patient feels better when lying down with the head
low. Think of Arnica in accidents, when used together with elevation
of the injured part. It is useful when associated with application
of cold packs during the first 24 hours after a traumatism, to
reduce swelling and pain. Applications of local heat tend to be
useful 20 hours or more after the accident or traumatism. Loosely
wrap injured area with elastic bandage for support.
Hypericum perforatum is very important for crushing injury to nerves
and in damage to richly innervated tissues. Extremely useful in
injuries to fingertips, nail beds, palms, soles of feet, tailbone
and punctured wounds. Injuries that respond to Hypericum tend to be
worse from cold or touch.
Ledum palustre is good for bruises. It has been found useful for the
treatment of bruised nerves. There is long lasting coldness and
numbness in injured parts. Useful in black eye, a.k.a. “shiner”.
Extremely useful in the treatment of splinter punctures under nails
and in other areas. Puncture wounds are worse by local warmth and
better by bathing in cold water. Ledum should also be considered in
sprains, when the injured joint is cold and numb, and considerably
swollen.
Ruta graveolens is important for injuries to bones, periostium (the
bone lining), shins and soft tissues. Also for wrist and ankle
sprains. To be considered if the rectum (lowermost part of the
intestine) protrudes beyond the anus. The patient is worse lying
down and also in cold, wet weather. Ruta is useful for accidents,
after administering Arnica, when there are torn and wrenched tendons
or ligaments, or when the periostium is bruised.
Rhus toxicondendon is important in accidents when there are strains,
sprains, sore muscles, torn ligaments or tendons and/or bruised
periostium (the bone covering). Rhus tox characteristically
experiences an increase in pain and discomfort when starting to
move. The pain eases and may eventually disappear after limbering up
for a while. Rhus tox patients are better with heat in any form.
Rhus tox must be considered in accidents and sprains after
Arnica—but only if the patient is worse when starting to move and
better after limbering up, and also if he or she is better with
heat. Useful in the treatment of hot, swollen and painful joints.
Patients may complaint of a “rusty gate” feeling in their joints,
which are creaky on first movement but better after limbering up.
Bryonia alba is very useful for accidents and sprains. Injured
joints are swollen, distended and painful. Unlike what happens with
Rhus tox, Bryonia patients characteristically worsen when there is
movement of any kind and feel better when quiet, alone, in the dark
and with cold applications on injured areas.
Symphytum officinale is useful after Arnica and Ruta if these two
remedies have produced little or no effect. To be considered when
there is injury to sinews, tendons and bone covering. This remedy
can also hasten healing of fractured bones.
(Data has been obtained from the Materia
Medicæ of Drs. Hahnemann, Vijnovsky, Boericke and Kent and from my
own experience).
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The chronic miasmas (II): SYCOSIS |
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The keyword of Psora is vulnerability. That of Sycosis is
aggrandizement.
Sycosics believe that they are truly remarkable, that they have bona
fide, authentic greatness and that they are practically
invulnerable.
This feeling of self-aggrandizement, brought about by arrogance and
accepted by the patient as real, breeds a very heady sensation of
power and strength.
Sycosics will attempt to control the environment, as well as those
who surround them. This is as close as they can get to their
imagined grandeur.
Usually, there is neither vulnerability nor anxiety in sycosics.
There may be some mistrust, but it generally doesn’t bother them.
They feel in control of it all.
Sycosics feels quite smug and secure—and powerful.
The irony here is that sycosics don’t know that the stuffing of
their illusory greatness and power is actually their Psora.
Sycosics don’t recognize this fact because they have carefully
concealed their Psora underneath a glittering mantle of arrogance
and self-importance. All sycosics see, therefore, is how big,
wonderful and powerful they are— while conveniently ignoring what
their spurious greatness is really made of.
Sycosics are organized. Everything has to be carefully planned and
on the go. People and events must become predictable. A very
important source of uncertainty and ultimately of insecurity is thus
eliminated.
Predictability increases the sycosics’ smugness.
Sycosics are typically found at meetings, around Executive Board
tables or in other suchlike scenarios of importance. Impeccable
poised and alert, receiving tough problems and delivering their
answers with gusto, ease, aplomb and éclat. They have an aura of
self-confidence. They like to lead and to command.
They also tend to be very competitive and ambitious.
And they are not particularly eclectic when it comes to choosing the
means they will use in order to reach the top of the heap.
Sycosics are wonderfully clear-minded and organized in matters set
outside and around them. Yet, they appear to be totally incapable of
grasping whatever may be going on inside themselves or within the
people the are closer to.
For instance, their families will usually well provided for,
although the sycosics’ capacity to relate to family members is
generally superficial and limited, lest care and solicitousness may
make them aware of their vulnerability and thus also of their Psora.
Their bodies (and let us not forget that our bodies are our most
obedient servants) will also react in a sycosic fashion, that is,
abnormally increasing or enlarging.
Benign growths, such as warts and the like, will start to appear.
Blood cholesterol may also start to go up—with blood pressure
readings often dovetailing.
Their lively mantle of arrogance becomes frazzled here and there
after life roughens sycosics up a bit.
This is when they start to catch glimpses of the Psora writhing
underneath. And sycosics don’t like that sight a bit. These glimpses
bring about the first chills of insecurity and vulnerability, as
they see where their power and strength actually stem from.
Sycosics usually become workaholics at this stage—anything in order
to run away from the terrifying awareness that they can indeed be as
vulnerable as every[psoric]body else.
They may start living at a frantic pace, and so run away from
themselves and self-awareness.
Soon they start needing stimulants, alcohol and the like, that they
will consume in larger and larger quantities.
At this stage, stress begins to increase by leaps and bounds, as
well as the sycosics’ inability to deal with it.
Stress must be ignored at all costs, though. It is a manifestation
of weakness, and therefore of Psora.
Sycosics will disregard their bodies’ calls of distress, as they
overlook anything that may be construed as weakness.
Eventually, those calls of distress will evolve into a coronary
attack or something similar.
Which will mean a monumental scare followed by being forced to lie
down in the anonymous twilight of the cardiac unit of some Hospital,
where sycosics will find themselves lonely and melancholy amongst
tubes and beeping fluorescent screens, as white- or green-clad
shadows silently speed about. Against such a background, many
sycosics have no choice but to accept themselves as they are, and
finally make peace with their Psora.
From Sycosis, patients may progress toward health through Psora, or
else descend into syphilis.
The latter is the last easy step down in the patient's progression
towards complete self-destruction
(From Chapter 5 "The chronic miasmas" of my
book "Understanding Homeopathy and Integrative
Medicine").
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| Profiles of Homeopathic
remedies: Pulsatilla Nigricans |
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This remedy desperately need to receive love, but is unable to
return it.
Pulsatilla parasites everybody at hand in order to obtain the love
it so desperately needs but is unable to produce.
Consequently, the most important thing for Pulsatilla is to find
someone who may love and care for him or her till the end of time—or
else until Pulsatilla gets bored and starts roaming in search of a
new love with which to replace the one currently in use.
To receive love is normal during childhood.
This is so because babies and children haven't yet learnt how to
generate love. The unconditional love babies and then children
receive from parents and other suchlike committed figures teaches
them how to start producing love, very much in the same fashion that
the starter of a car is what starts the engine running.
Babies and children, then, are eager and content to receive love. As
children mature and learn how to generate love, however, their
parents' unconditional love may make them feel uncomfortable. This
is particularly noticeable in adolescents. Parents are right when
they complain that their love and caring seem to shoo their
adolescent children away.
What happens is that, when a person learns how to generate love, any
attempt to force-feed love into him or her is like attempting to
ship coals to Newcastle. A well developed Human Being has plenty of
love already and usually doesn't need to receive any more from
outside.
What each of us really need as we mature, then, is to find someone
capable of stimulating our capacity to love. And when found, that
someone becomes a friend, a lover, a spouse.
There is a notable exception here, though. There are times when, and
due to illness or some other similar adversity, we feel at the mercy
of circumstances. In those moments all the tender loving care of our
dear ones is more than welcome, but only for the duration of the
problem.
Mature Human Beings generate love because each one of us is, in
essence, love—or, if you wish, the source or fountainhead of love.
The love each of us produces is unlimited, so we export the excess
into our environment. By doing so we originate the lives of our
offspring and also make this world of ours a nicer, gentler, kinder
and friendlier place where to live.
To boot, and as love flows through us on its way out, it becomes the
best stimulant for our development into full Humanhood. In this
sense, love is to our development what royal jelly is to the
maturation of queen bees.
Pulsatillas cannot start to produce love, so unconditional love of
those around is the only form of love, however ersatz and infantile,
that Pulsatillas will be able to cherish and exclusively depend upon
throughout their whole lives—something totally inadequate for grown
ups. But Pulsatillas needs any kind of love, no matter how fickle or
chimerical, as the oxygen they breathe.
Other people's love only make Pulsatilla yearn for the real thing,
that is, the love they cannot produce.
The more love they receive, the more they long for. Which is why
Pulsatilla is one of the most forsaken remedies of the whole Materia
Medica.
Forsakenness makes Pulsatilla feel unattended and lonely, and
loneliness breeds uncertainty in regard to the future and fear of
poverty. These problems are dealt with by means of manipulating
those around whom Pulsatilla considers have the duty to love and to
take care of him or her forever.
Forsakenness also makes Pulsatillas morbidly jealous. This is so
because, deep inside, they realize only too well that the love that
sustains them is so meretricious that anybody or anything may snatch
it away with ease.
Forsakenness breeds guilt ("Why is it that I have so little love? Is
it because I have done something wrong and I'm being punished?").
Finally, forsakenness compels Pulsatillas to humbly beg for love.
Trial and error teaches them early in life that alms can only be
obtained by means of being as self-effacing and as devastatingly
pleasing and seductive as possible. And also by means of creating an
aura of gentleness, warmth, sympathy, peace and harmony around them,
since nobody is willing to make an oblation if provoked or angry.
Pulsatilla is the eternal child.
Like a child, Pulsatilla can be kind and solicitous, caring,
spontaneous and candid.
But also like a child, Pulsatilla is capricious, selfish, confused,
mean at times and a freeloader whose moods may change at the drop of
a hat.
Interpersonal sexual love, in adults, starts when walls fall and the
chasm that separates two Human Beings disappears. This happens
during courtship, the time of intense, temporary and self-limiting
madness that is full of Junes, moons and lagoons, during which one
is deluded into projecting all of one's hopes, desires and
aspirations onto the loved one. In this delightful and very
thrilling period, both fall in love with each other and each one
stimulates to the maximum the other's capacity to love, to the point
that both are gushing love all over the place. Which in turn makes
everybody around share their love and start smiling not knowing
exactly why.
This period soon passes and is replaced by humdrum years of mutual
and deepening commitment, when love meanders and grows in volume and
strength.
The birth and growth of children, the outcome and materialization of
their love, produces a quantum leap in the quality and intensity of
their parents' love. This extraordinary increase imperceptibly
starts forming a network through which love flows freely between
both parents and the children.
By the time grandchildren are born, love reaches its full, majestic
greatness. The network becomes a powerhouse of mutually stimulating
love amongst the grown ups with enough to spare to feed all the
little ones to satiety, and then some.
Pulsatilla children are the fulfillment of every loving parent's
dream. They are avid for love and are cuddling, sensitive, seductive
and docile. They seem to divine what their parents want and will do
whatever it takes to please them.
Pulsatilla children will run to their parents for everything but
will be extra careful not to be overwhelming, lest their parents may
tire of them. This fear of tiring their source of love is one
characteristic Pulsatillas will carry throughout their lives. They
will go to any extreme to avoid creating any conflict for fear that
their loved ones may tire, walk away and forsake them.
These children will cry easily and run to their parents for
consolation. Tears will flow with the intensity and the softness of
spring showers. Consolation will always be successful and soon the
child's tears will be replaced by a radiant smile.
Pulsatilla children also tend to sleep on their back with arms
overhead. This position is so cute that parents will spend long
moments in awed silence contemplating their child as he or she
sleeps.
These children stimulate to the utmost their parents' capacity to
produce love. And as the young family's incipient network of love
strengthens, so does both parents' development into full Humanhood.
This idyllic relationship tends to crash as soon as a sibling is
born. Here Pulsatilla's jealousy will raise its ugly head, and the
child will become mean, then caring, then weepy and then overcome
with guilt for some time to come, until he or she becomes resigned
to the fact that the baby (usually a small child by then) is there
for good. When this fact is accepted, Pulsatilla will become as
caring as a mother hen. And will start to parasite the little one
for love.
Another unpleasant characteristic of Pulsatilla children is that
they have a hard time sharing and playing fair. They will always
attempt to keep everything for themselves. In years to come, this
peculiarity will transform Pulsatilla in one of the stingiest
remedies of the whole Materia Medica.
Pulsatilla children are particularly susceptible to ear and upper
respiratory infections. When ill, the child will weep quietly and
cuddle onto loved ones. Abnormal secretions are typically thick and
bland and will remain so throughout Pulsatilla's life.
Another thing that usually starts in childhood and remains
throughout Pulsatilla's life is intolerance for anything rich and
too creamy. Such foodstuffs bring about lots of distress, tummyaches,
vomiting and diarrheas.
Pulsatilla children feel secure at home. School is seldom a pleasant
experience for them. School environment is impersonal, and the
prevalent tit-for-tat relationship mores is not what Pulsatilla
wants and is used to.
This problem becomes particularly acute in boys' schools, where
rough and tumble may force Pulsatillas to become defensive. This
need of self-protection will lead not a few Pulsatilla boys to
become Lycopodiums later on, particularly when merciless teasing
erodes the child' self-confidence (please see
Lycopodium clavatum in
Newsletter # 3 of this website).
Adolescence is very disconcerting for Pulsatillas.They fear sex and
tend to sublimate sexual urges into desperate romantic fantasies.
This fear of sex is more noticeable in girls, who may reach the
extreme of being afraid of being possessed by someone when asleep.
In both sexes appetite is usually robust, though, so once they start
their sex life they tend to exploit it to the hilt, although their
perpetual search of somebody who may love them and their
ever-present guilt may blunt most of the enjoyment.
Pulsatillas are eager to fall in love, and it makes sense. Here they
can live their romantic fantasies to the full as they are showered
by the love of their sweethearts.
Often this excess of love finally cranks their engine and
Pulsatillas start to produce love, begin a committed relationship
and become wonderful spouses and parents, and then grandparents.
Others have to wait for the birth of their children to finally start
loving.
Jealousy, guilt, and the need to manipulate tend to fade in time
once Pulsatillas have learnt to love, although these negative
feelings will always be there in hiding, ready to explode if
anything triggers them into re-appearance.
These Pulsatillas tend to be healthy, with some mild pathologies
here and there, and usually age gracefully in the intensely loving
network they actively contribute to create and to maintain.
Unless, of course, there is a real acute or chronic threat to their
network of love or if something equally catastrophic happens. Lots
of stress, imbalance and pathology can stem from here.
Things are much different in Pulsatillas whose capacity to love does
not start at all, not even when challenged by courtship or the birth
of their children.
They may marry, though, but are seldom happy once the glimmer of the
honeymoon starts to fade away. It is then that they may start to
seek the thrills of courtship in extramarital affairs or in marriage
after marriage. Either that or else they may resign themselves to
become committed to their marriage and accept the humdrum of the
day-to-day relationship with extremely poor grace, only to become
more and more exasperated as time goes by.
These are the increasingly frustrated Human Beings who become a
thorn in their loved one's sides with their constant demands and
caprices, their forsakenness, whims, perplexities, guilts,
explosions, complaints and insecurities, and who become absurdly
jealous and manipulative of everybody around.
Guilt and usually subtle aggression are the favorite tools
Pulsatilla uses to manipulate ("look all I have done for you, why
are you so ungrateful?" or "I have given you the best years of my
life, what have you given to me in return?" "I am sure you will not
take care of me when I'm old", "All you care about is that harpy you
married" or "go away and live your life. I'll take care of myself. I
don't know why I ever believed that you would love me after you
stopped needing me", "I don't know why I had you, you make me suffer
so much!" and many other poisoned darts of the same ilk. The variety
is infinite). This, while their spouses and children are working
their heads off in a vain attempt to please and to appease these
perpetually unsatisfied overgrown children.
All Pulsatillas end up obtaining with such an immature attitude is
to drive everybody away sooner or later, although spouses may choose
to remain, and children and other relatives to occasionally return
because of pity, guilt or obligation.
Sometimes I see an elderly lady and a younger man sitting at a
restaurant table in mother's day or some other suchlike festive
occasion. She with a satisfied though a tad anxious expression in
her face and talking most of the time, he in a confused half
silence, both avoiding each other's eyes as much as they can. I
can't but wonder if this is one of the few times a manipulating
Pulsatilla mom and her child will be together. And I also wonder if
afterwards the son will part to attend to his business as mother
returns to her abode, where she will tearfully complain, with her
contemporaries acting as a Greek chorus, of how ungrateful and
inconsiderate children can be nowadays.
There is no physical constitution, no matter how vigorous, capable
of withstanding for long the combined onslaughts of loneliness,
pursuit of unsatisfying love, eagerness to be loved, incapacity to
love, guilt, confusion and the maliciousness necessary to pitilessly
manipulate others.
Not only will these Pulsatillas fall ill frequently with more and
more severe diseases, but they will also grow old faster,
incommunicado in a bubble of loneliness.
As they age, one often sees these elderly Pulsatillas in nursing
homes, usually sitting alone in a corner, afraid to ask for love,
silently and slowly shaking their heads, occasionally wiping a
furtive tear and resignedly seeing one empty day follow another as
they progress towards their graves.
(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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