Tuesday 23 April 2013

YET ANOTHER CASE OF DENGUE.


 D.K. a girl aged 11 years, suffering from fever and bodyache for 4 days was admitted with a local pediatrician. After observation for 3 days she was investigated for the cause of fever. Her platelet count was precariously low at 42000/ul. The fever continued onto the fourth day when the pediatrician made a presumptive diagnosis of Dengue and referred the case to a referral hospital in Belgaum. The parents were too poor to afford allopathic treatment, that too in a referral hospital. They met a patient of mine who redirected them to me.

18/04/2013   11:45am
Child gives history of high grade fever  with headache, bodyache since 4 days. Chills- heatdry < midnight. Vomiting on attempting to eat even a little.  Intense thirst for small quantities often. Tongue- red edges and tip. Child unusually weak and exhausted, unable to sit beside me to be examined. They did not have money to test for Dengue. Temp: 102*F
I gave her Arsenic Alb in 1M potency every hour and asked them to report next morning.

19/04/2013     1:00pm
 Child was much better and able to sit by my side as I examined her. Temp 100*F. Had consumed rice water and coconut water since last night. She had a smile on her face which told me I had hit the nail on the head. Platelet count: 61000/ul. Dengue test: IgM positive. Arsenic reduced to 4 hourly.

20/04/2013   12 noon.
Child much better, taking light food, no vomiting or fever. Came into the clinic, talking  and smiling.

21/04/2013     11:30am
No complaints. Platelet count: 1,80,000/ul
Child put on placebo for 24 hrs.

As of today child is perfectly OK and all treatment has been stopped. Cost of 5 days treatment and consultation- Rs 1500/-. approximately 27 US dollars!!!

Knowledge of materia medica and appropriate posology is a must to obtain repeated success in such critical cases. 

 Admission to a referral hospital would have entailed a weeks admission and treatment probably with platelet transfusions if the count had dipped any lower. A huge bill would have followed, pushing the already impoverished family into penury and a loan burden. The WHO has already identified the high cost of allopathic care and treatment as a major cause of poverty in India. Why do we not promote Homeopathy?

I had an opportunity to treat a book-picture case of convulsions with Tarentula Hispanica a couple of years ago. A child admitted at a referral hospital in the city of Belgaum was investigated for twelve days without arriving at any diagnosis. The parents were at their wits end as she continued getting 4 - 6 convulsions per day without any respite despite a half dozen `Specialists' attending to her. Being the daughter of a VIP, tensions ran high. Finally a visiting relative, also a homeopath suggested that the case be seen by me. It was7:30pm and I was not keen on travelling 200kms in the night at this time. I suggested that a mobile phone be used to record her next convulsion and the recording brought to me for viewing. I saw the mobile recording at 10:00pm. and knew instantly it was Tarentula- no questions asked. The drug was given in the 1M potency. 3 doses at intervals of 30 minutes followed by placebo. The recovery was remarkable. Next day at 11:30am she proclaimed she had recovered and wanted to go home. The attending doctor's opinion was taken and she was discharged. She is asymptomatic today after two and a half years!! This is why:


TARENTULA HISPANICA         SOURCE: Animal kingdom
MIASM: Sycosis,syphilis,                               
CAUSE
Unrequited love, Scolding,sepsis,falls,bad news,
MIND
Hysteria, Cunning, deceitful, <strong colors,touch; Dances, erratic,. >5pm, eating. Kleptomania. Hurried, intense, restless, impatient. Runs better. Illusions. Convulsions-looks sideways at onlookers.
HEAD
Vertigo with headache, erection, falling,restlessness.. <carrying,descending,eating, fixing sight.
EYES
Splinter,hair in L.eye. R pupil dilated,L contracted.
FACE
Blue,contorted,terror, burning, Pale, neck purple
MOUTH
Pain teeth like electric sparks
THROAT
Inflammation, external internal, choking, purple
STOMACH
Thirst intense, Craves raw food. Averse meat. Vomiting<eating. Pain in distant parts with gastritis
ABDOMEN
Lancinating sharp pains in organs, rectum. Fibrous tumor causing uterine discharge. Hard difficult stool, blood,pain. < head wash. Spincter weak
URINARY
Kidneys,bladder inflamed,tender. pain- cannot pass urine, involuntary<cough,laughing
MALE
Excitement,lascivious insanity. Bloody semen. Coition foll by cough
FEMALE
Menses early,profuse,very painful. Nymphomania <menses. Uterus-movement as if fetus; Gas
EXTREMITIES
Cough dry,tickling,pain-distant parts. Suffocation-restless, screaming.
HEART
Diseases<wetting hands. Anxiety,squeezing pains. Twisting,turning.
BACK
Pain needles<turning head(r). Shooting coccyx< delivery
SLEEP/DREAMS
Drowning,business,weeping. Wakes angry
FEVER
Icy cold alt intense intermittent heat, cold feet, with chorea, convulsions.  Constant chill.
SKIN
Bluish discoloration –ulcers,abscess,boils,gangrene
PECULIAR SYMPTOMS
Distant pains-electric sparks,splinters. Heart twisting. Fetal movements. Periodicity. Blue ulcers
THREAD
 Restless, Mania, Hypersensitivity, Chorea, Hysteria, Septic infections

Wednesday 3 April 2013


APPROACH TO DENGUE & ACUTE CASES (part II)

The article below is based on the experience of treating several hundreds of cases of potentially fatal illness, including post operative complications, cases advised immediate surgery and cases forsaken by specialists of the allopathic school.

The following guidelines may be observed which by far are neither exhaustive nor complete.
1.      Ensure your medical diagnosis is right. This helps in case selection and prognosis.
2.      Assess the patient’s clinical condition especially his general condition.
3.      Explain the seriousness of the patient’s condition and take the relative’s informed consent

Get a good case history. First, note down the disease symptoms to justify the medical diagnosis. Below each symptom that is elicited note down the concomitants and below each concomitant, note the modalities. In infants thermals are difficult to elicit. It is important to note down the sequential order of appearance of the symptoms and their concomitants. In infants, mentally challenged individuals and in unconscious patients, observation of the patient’s particulars (objective symptoms) and few symptoms as told to you by the relatives will have to do.  Relatives may exaggerate or attempt to focus your attention on to symptoms they regard as important or serious, especially during follow-up. OBSERVATION is the watch word.

The past history may be irrelevant. Many ailments especially pneumonias are known to be seasonal i.e. < winter, monsoons. Some of the symptoms expressed by the patient/relatives may be iatrogenic. Rule these out of the therapeutic totality. TOTALITY is not in the number of symptoms you have collected. Read Lesser Writings – Kent and Boenninghausen.

The PQRS symptoms are nothing but the concomitants and their modalities and never the disease symptoms. (Read Guernsey, Kent’s lectures on the use of Guiding symptoms)
REPERTORIZATION: Select general symptoms, then particulars with modalities & concomitants. Avoid rubrics of single drugs with one mark.
PRESCRIPTION: The indicated drug is the simillimum and vice versa.
POTENCY: Medium to high potencies give the best results.
REPETITION: In acute cases frequent repetition is permissible. Read Organon aph: 247, foot note to 247; aph.248 (compare with Vth edn.). Read also Dudgeons lectures, Stuart Close, Kent’s lectures, Boenninghaussens Lesser writings, Borland’s Pneumonias. My personal preference is to repeat every 15 minutes or 1/2 hourly for 4-5 times then decrease repetition to 2 hrly or 4 hrly as the case may deserve.
RECOVERY: The most skillful part of treatment is to assess recovery. The concomitants subside first. The concomitants disappear in the reverse order of their appearance, Herings law is ambiguous. He stresses on the skin being a less important organ than say the heart or the lungs. FACT: One can survive and lead an almost normal life with one lung, kidney or lobe of the liver. The clinical onset of Cirrhosis begins only after almost 90% of the liver is destroyed. The heart with only 50% of its ejection fraction can still pump enough blood through the body. Can one survive with 50% burns of the skin? IMPROBABLE. Trash such irrelevant opinions if you wish to see progress.
  
The recent failure of antibiotics and the rise in resistant strains of bacteria and viruses have provided an opportune moment for us to re-assert ourselves and this system in the treatment of acute cases.

The pleasure of treating such cases:
 1. You have saved a patient from imminent death
2. The skill involved in treating such cases is appreciated by both patients and other professionals
3. The cure takes place so rapidly (see my other cases on this website & blog), that practice becomes a pleasure
4.Acute cases are more remunerative and more patients can be treated due to shorter history and follow-up.
5. Publishing statistics and analyses of hundreds of cases is scientifically possible with easily reproducible results. (No one publishes statistical analysis of chronic complaints for very obvious reasons – Philosophy makes for easier seminars).
Concluded.