Prescribing Symptoms: LONG

[muthu kumar]

Hi Arthur –
I am giving below what I follow in my practice. This is not straight
from the Organon and does not follow Hahnemann. If you can countenance
that, read on.

We first need to find define what is acute and chronic. In Homeopathy
mostly chronic is miasmatic. It does not depend on the duration of the
illness. As I have posted before, I do not believe in this. Miasm
theory is just an explanation for observed phenomena. We can do good
practice with or without it. Of course a formula like psora is
weakening, sycosis is proliferation, syphilis is ulcerating is
useful.( I would change names so as not to confuse). Whatever it is,
it still boils down to symptom matching and clinical verification.
My take is - everyone is chronically affected. Everyone has a chronic
state… When we evolved from animals we certainly carried enough
baggage with us to make us genetically affected right from the start.
What I would say as a chronic disease is the tendency to get diseases
even under normal circumstances. ( These words are loaded and
interpretable- but I am not discussing them here). For me total health
or complete cure is an ideal towards which we always work but never
achieve. Truly healthy is like super-man ( and woman).
We are constantly interacting with things; we are constantly being
affected and body is constantly adjusting to these changes and any
number of combination of factors can affect our health to push us
towards a "tendency" to get disease. Let us say everyone has his / her
weakness and "tendency to get diseased in a particular way". This is
the taint or the miasm. This diseased state of existence is the status
quo for that particular individual. (Stable level of existence).
But tainted or not, we are all prone to acute diseases- infections
(flu) etc.
Acute conditions are sudden changes from whatever status quo existed
in our system. Most of the time this occurs due to infections
normally. Because of this based on our already existing state of
affairs we can get well immediately, get into a prolonged state of
suffering on top of our existing miserable existence or die. It can
also caused by other factors – even diet…

In this circumstance the CHANGES that are caused by the acute
condition are what we prescribe on. The changes are
a) qualitative ( new symptoms, change of nature of symptoms – quiet
person becoming agitated and anxious) and / or
b) quantitative – a previously irritable person becoming extremely
irritable.

We just concentrate on these changes ( a and b – so sometimes even
the chronic symptoms like irritability become part of the acute
picture when they become noticeable and patients relatives etc.
comment on that). Usually Key note prescribing, finding 3 reliable
legs for the stool etc. work in this. Rare and peculiar usually lead
to the remedy. Since this is acute and body's defenses are actively
involved ( acute inflammation) any nudge in the right direction would
help. The mentals ( changes), general physical reactions, rare and
peculiar etc. will help in getting some leads.

What is left after the acute disease has been tackled, is the chronic
state. This might be modified by whatever the acute disease left
there. Now the chronic state does not have clear cut symptoms because
this is what we inherited and acquired till our life today. It is part
of what we are. Of course once we know what suppressions took place
and what diseases occurred in our history we can prescribe based on
these. If we work out the acute conditions that occurred and if we can
trace the symptoms and remedies required we can get a common thread.
Here the comparison is not with a previous status quo but with others
in a similar situation and past and present tendencies… in what ways
the patient is different from others etc. and "traits" also become
important- here also the rare and peculiar and for which there are no
explanations gain precedence.

There are some gray areas where the acute and chronic are mixed. The
acute in these is actually a flare-up of some chronic state - acute
asthmatic attack for example in an atopic patient. Here also the acute
symptoms if marked will gain precedence. But the chronic remedy also
works at times to abort the acute attack (the chronic covers both the
acute and chronic pictures). An undiagnosed and untreated diabetic
woman suddenly had about 20 – 25 times urination. In just 2 days she
was so exhausted. She challenged me to control this by next day.
Calc.phos 200 2 doses controlled it by next day morning ( in less than
12 hours). And then she took up chronic treatment. Even then Calc.phos
was indicated based on chronic symptoms. She was on it for more than
6 months.
--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, "artybergman" wrote: