Minutus

I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience in treating patients
with chemical hypersensitivity. The patient i am seeing is a 50 year
old female -- she is particularly effected by gas fumes and mold, but
is also very sensitive to pesticides. Upon exposure to any of these
toxins, she gets intense burning pains in her chest as well as intense
burning pains in spots on her scalp, which become more generalized as
the pain settles in. She is always ameliorated by a hot bath, even by
putting her hands into hot water when she's feeling especially poorly.
There is, understandably, an enormous amount of anxiety and
hypervigilance around her condition, and quite a bit of despair. She
tells me that she has always been an extremely anxious person, long
before the hypersensitivity began. The etiology of her disorder was
living in a building with chronic mold. The first remedy I gave her
was arsenicum 200 -- with no reportable improvement (although it
seemed like a pretty clear ars. case -- in addition to the above
supporting symptoms, she also told me that she was worried about
becoming destitute and having to eat cat food in her old age). I then
tried Carb-Ac 30. She got a severe cold after taking the remedy. I had
her repeat it once better, and then got stomach flu. She's not
especially keen to try this remedy again -- additionally, her symptoms
have not improved at all. I am at a loss as to where to go next. If
anyone has any suggestions, or any experience in dealing with patients
with similar syndrome I would appreciate hearing from yu. Thanks very
much.
Beth

For what it's worth, I've treated several patients with this sort of
environmental sensitivity. There has in each of these cases been an abuse
issue in childhood, often very early childhood. It could be sexual abuse or
other extreme forms of emotional or physical abuse, The basic problem has
been a failure to "fully incarnate," to use a jargon term -- an inability to
be fully in the physical world in a peaceful, accepting, open way. Drug
remedies have been curative (e.g. Anhalonium), or early stage mineral
remedies such as Hydrogen -- or other remedies for "ungrounded" states such
as Stram, Nuphar, Anac -- all depending, of course, on actual symptoms.

Now, after these client experiences, I would start out such cases by looking
for "ungrounded" remedies, rather than the usual standbys.

Rosemary

I've also read at least a couple of such cases where Carcinosin cured,
prescribed based on the overall presenting picture.
Shannon

what are some of the rubrics that you use for lack of groundedness?
i often struggle to find adequate rubrics for this state of being
tanya

I've worked with cases at the other end of the spectrum (physical
exposure being a primary root cause - as opposed to early childhood
emotional issues). Quite a few have had chemical sensitivities after
being in industries with intense chemical exposure (hairdressers,
auto mechanics, etc.). They have reported the same extreme
anxieties - to the point it became very difficult to get a good case
at first. Using a detox approach with flower remedies to support the
extremes in emotion and nutritional support for the nervous system -
it very often takes a while to get a clear picture for good
homeopathic prescribing in these cases. In most of these cases I
found the cell salts very valuable in handling all the little 'stuff'
that comes along with the hyper reactivity. When we did try
homopathic remedies early on in the process - the very low potencies
(6 or 12)in water seemed to have the best results.

Donna

D C Rona, ND, PhD, DHM
"Stress Repertory: Signs and Symptoms of Stress Induced Nutrient
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--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, "Rosemary C. Hyde, Ph.D."
wrote:
of
an abuse
abuse or
problem has
inability to
Drug
mineral
states such
symptoms.
by looking

First thing would be to get them to describe the sensations,
circumstances, behaviors, triggers, etc., as best they can! Then, some
rubrics that *might* come into play could include (from Complete 2008):

Mind, spaced-out feeling: falco-p, foll, germ, haliae-lc, hydrog,
lac-del, lac-h, lac-lox, lim-b-c, luna, neon, ratt-n. (actually this
is from Millennium; it's missing from 2008.)

Dream, as in a (and numerous useful cross-references, e.g.
absent-minded; absorbed in thought; confusion of mind; day-dreaming;
emptiness of mind, sensation of; fancies, absorbed in; far away,
sensation; introspection)
Unreal, things feel
Delusions, strange, everything is; --- familiar places are; ------
familiar things are;
Irresolution, indecision; in acts; in ideas; about trifles...
Timidity
Various rubrics re isolation, separation?
Whew, I'm feeling spacey just typing all these! )

There might be physical sensations too.

Dunno if any of that helps...
Shannon

I have quite a few of those cases.
Very sensitive to remedies and often do have aggravations due to mobilisation of toxins when receiving their remedy: one patient needed to prepare 13 (thirteen) dilutions glasses of an LM1 and take one drop of the last one to be able to tolerate the reaction..........
Often I have some difficulties in managing them as ideally I would like to start with some organotherapy, preparing their bodies to remove the toxins, then some drainage = optimizing the function of organs, then only a detox, and finally retaking the case without the interference of poisons/toxins, etc,.....
Very see-saw reactions, long treatments with lots of ups and downs and need a lot of support and adaptation of doses, remedies, techniques..........email follow-up is a blessing for those patients.
Dr. J. Rozencwajg, NMD.
"The greatest enemy of any science is a closed mind".
Visit http://drjoesnaturalmedicine.blogspot.com for some articles and comments.

Thanks so much for the feedback on this case. Shannon, I had actually
thought about carcinosinum for this patient, but hadn't actually come
across anything that suggested it covered these symptoms (although I
wasn't terribly concerned about that), so thanks for the confirmation
there. The patient had a very anxious, hysterical mother who made her
understand, at a very early age, that the world was a terribly
dangerous place. This is very much in keeping with what you were
talking about Rosemary. I'll revisit the case with these suggestions
in mind and let you know how she progresses. Many thanks!

Wow, did they become less sensitive over time, and if so, how long?
Shannon

This one specific patient, I have been treating her for about 5 years now.......came in with a walker, only I her late forties, now walks unassisted; was completely grey, now pink and feeling a lot better, but still a long way to go.......dates back to a mix of drinking weedkiller as a child, being in an environment of insecticides and pesticides, and abuse at all levels.........
She is less sensitive and can tolerate many more things, does not react so badly to external toxins like perfumes (meaning before she was choking immediately, now she has the time to get away....)........I will get her OK but I need another 5 to 10 years to work on her........she is my worst "environmental" patient, but I have quite a few close to that.
Dr. J. Rozencwajg, NMD.
"The greatest enemy of any science is a closed mind".
Visit http://drjoesnaturalmedicine.blogspot.com for some articles and comments.