Ms. M, in her early 30’s, was referred to me by an osteopath. She came with multiple sclerosis. She has had a long history of many problems such as rheumatoid arthritis at 16, epilepsy, mononucleosis after which she has never been well, and Reynauds disease. She had a hysterectomy when 29 with precancerous cells on her cervix. She also suffered from systemic candida and fibrocystic breast disease. She complains of severe back problems in the lower left sacral area and upper neck stiffness for which she is seeking osteopathic treatment. She said that for a while she received a new diagnosis every time she went into a medical office. She had tried homeopathy before, gaining the most relief from Natrum muriaticum. She stopped improving after two years on Natrum muriaticum.
Her main symptoms were numbness in the right leg, and in the rib area. Bottom of feet getting numb. Hands falling to sleep. Problems with vision from MS.
My observation was that she was very beautiful, refined, a delicate looking woman. She had a flat affect, serious look, no smile, depressed expressions on her face. She narrated all of the above in a flat voice without any emotion. She had black circles under her eyes as if some very dark black cloud was covering her life.
She is in a high profile job-mental health worker with mentally handicapped people. She has lot of deadlines and feels very stressed as she is extremely conscientious. She is a perfectionist -wants to be best at whatever she does. She is always tense about performing badly with the possibility of her boss getting upset. There is no trust amongst her colleagues. And a constant feeling that she will lose control and things will happen.
She lives with a lot of animals-2 dogs, 3 cats, and a horse. She is competitive by nature and does everything perfectly. She doesn’t want to be an average person, likes being creative in a team situation with an aversion to being alone. In her childhood, she would get intimidated by teachers and her mother and would fear getting them mad and upset with her. The characteristic history I found in her was that she would get seizures in overcast weather and usually within an hour after waking up. This would be associated with a strange sensation -as if dreaming but awake, a dejá vu feeling, in which she could almost see and hear what was going on in the next room. This would last for ten seconds followed by a headache so severe and explosive that she would have to go to sleep. She would be very conscious during the seizures. Sounds would trigger seizures. The explosive headaches as if a stick in her head were always worse at 3 pm. She would have an uncontrollable panic response with her headaches.
She has had many problems with her mother all through growing up and now. She said-“My mother was devastated by my father having an affair. Her whole life changed. She had to drive the car, get a job, and was a single mom. She went back to school and now is a very successful owner of an art gallery.”
She has a recurring dream of falling-no control of her body. She falls on her face and hits the concrete. Other dreams were of being mean to her dog, pulling the choke chain to make the dog listen. After waking up she would feel so bad.
Dreams of nuclear bomb going off.
Dreams of body being irradiated.
As if bomb had gone off when lying with boyfriend.
Physical sensation that we were all going to die.
Dream of being angry at boyfriend. Hitting him and wanting to hurt him badly and waking up feeling very badly.
Dream of wanting to kill ex-boyfriend. Stabbed him in chest and finished him off.
She too had an intense craving for lamb. Her moods and MS symptoms improved immediately with Plutonium. For the next year she continued to respond to infrequent doses of Plutonium, many of those times were dramatic changes during acute relapses.
Remark
An interesting phenomenon with both of these patients was that after the remedy, both patients had sense of changing forms-changing into man, then into woman, dog into human, etc. Dream of being male making love to a woman, then change into a woman making love to a man in the previous case. Dream of half animal, half human.
The common themes from both cases are as follows:
Explosive pains-Headaches and Backaches
Dream-Nuclear explosions
Dream-Violent-killing or murders
Dream-half human, half animal
Dream-sexual with same sex
Dream-falling
Dream-thoughts and impulse of Killing
Dream-dead people, talking with them, dead bodies agg. 3 pmagg. overcast weather
first ray of sun
agg. sunset, evening-night
Craving-lamb, pork, BACON, RAW MEAT
amel. HOT APPLICATIONS-Hot Bathing (Rad-br, X-ray,
Uranium-nit)
Very serious pathologies-relating to the core of the person for example., Nervous System, Severe Mental Illnesses, Cancers, Leukemia Extremely Conscientious
Overcast, depressed, dark gloomy mood
Clairvoyant sense of what is going to happen or what has happened years before birth, or in their surrounding
Fear of one’s own impulses, fear of being too aggressive.
Resentment, controlled anger
Serious, No Smile on the face, as if carrying burden of world on their shoulders
Remedies that follow well or are similar:
Nat-m., Am-m., Nat-s., Crot-h., Uran-nit.
In Plutonium, on one hand we see an extreme despair and gloomy mood which is a very helpful prescribing characteristic. On the other hand is the hope of optimism which can mimic Hydrogen. As we know from Sherr’s proving, the periodic table and successful cases of Hydrogen, that it is the beginning of all the elements and has an ability to lose boundaries and be an eternal optimist. In Plutonium patients, I noticed this kind of optimism and lightness soon after giving Plutonium. It brought me to a deeper understanding of the cycle of life. Birth, growth and death are integral phases of life. Every living thing, every action, even every thought goes through these phases. If we classified remedies on the scale of this cycle of life, we would learn a whole new dimension of our materia medica. On this scale, Plutonium is located just before death where the end of one cycle is sure, with a hope to begin anew. And Hydrogen is at a point where the birth has happened but the memory of death still remains. This awareness refined my understanding of the process of health, disease and recovery. To be healthy is to be able to flow from one phase to the other easily. Homeopathy merely helps facilitate this transition in the best possible manner. Patients still do have to go through this cycle of life themselves. With this concept, I am able to define the process of recovery clearly for myself and my patients. Isn’t life awesome?
Sadhna Thakkar is a founder of The National Institute of Classical Homeopathy and The Homeopathy Health Care Organization. Sadhna is an internationally known teacher and practitioner of classical homeopathy. With over a dozen years of clinical experience in Bombay and the US, she has taught many courses in the US, Canada and Switzerland. She practices in Thousand Oaks and Santa Monica in Southern California.