Minutus

Does anyone have any thoughts on useful remedies for the following:

Woman with paraplegia of many decades, now starting to have worsening peripheral vascular disease from long-term immobility.

If she is confined to bed for more than a day, when she next gets up capillaries in her toes and feet rupture from the increased blood pressure in them.

The surface layer of skin over her feet becomes blue and purple in splotches as the capillaries bleed into the tissues.

Over the next few days these areas become necrotic and break down leaving superficial but hard to heal ulcers.

The process is moist rather than dry like Secale and even though the damaged areas become black, the blood is bright as the superficial damage lifts and the ulcer starts to bleeds each time she sits up and the blood pressure increases again in her feet. While active bleeding will be bright, feet and ulcers will become blue and purple when hanging lower than the body.

Lachesis has helped for various things in the past but does not stop this process. I have tried Calendula prophylactically when it has been known that she will have to be in bed for a day or so but it hasn't helped whereas it has been good in the past for encouraging the superficial ulcers to heal. Arnica did not help.

I am treating her constitutionally but this problem is there as a result of a maintaining cause (worsening tissue quality because of the long term paraplegia and immobility) and I am hoping there is something I can use therapeutically to relieve this particular problem as increasingly the ulcers are failing to heal as they should.

Any thoughts?
--
Kind regards,

Fran Sheffield
Homeopathy Plus! (Tutorials - Remedies - Immunisation)
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What about Hamamelis.

Best wishes, Joy

http://www.joylucashomeopathy.com
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/homeopathystudy/

Joy Lucas wrote:
Hmmm - that's a thought. I guess the condition would be classed as a purpura and that I should be looking at the remedies around it?

Hamamelis seems to be mainly about dark bleeding rather than bright and this is the interesting thing about this woman - her lower legs and feet can become cold and blue/black in colour on letting her legs hang but any nick or cut bleeds brightly - the cyanosis is very superficial. Also, in spite of the capillary problem there is no sign of varicose veins. It is as if only the capillaries have lost their tone.

--
Kind regards,

Fran Sheffield
Homeopathy Plus! (Tutorials - Remedies - Immunisation)
http://www.homeopathyplus.com.au
Do No Harm Initiative (Free Information on Homeopathic Immunisation)
http://www.d-n-h.org
Homeopathy for Autism (Guidelines for Treatment - Search for Practitioners)
http://www.homeopathy4autism.com

Might respond to a snake remedy also.
Best,
Lisa

Capillary blood would be bright red so the surrounding necrosis must be happening quickly? Is it petechiae. A few other ideas then, Carbo veg; Ars; Phos; and targeting the heart more then Apocynum, or Digitalis. Hanging the limbs down << - Vipera, Dig, Ars. Wild card, Lathyrus = paraplegia, << hanging limbs down, coldness, blueness of skin - not sure about its haemorraghic qualities though.

Joy

http://www.joylucashomeopathy.com
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/homeopathystudy/

cal phos 6, 30, ferrum phos tissue remedy 6, causticum

--- On Tue, 4/8/09, Fran Sheffield wrote:
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if homeopathy lachesis dont work, try belladonna or arsenic album. if no improvement have to advise functional food with antioxidants & anthocyanisn [from fruits] w HTC collagen [triple helix] . can complement with homepathy at same time. another method which have result is water ionising foot spa.
Bob

--- On Tue, 4/8/09, Fran Sheffield wrote:
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Hi Fran,
Of cause Lachesis sounds like the right Rx but you have tried it. So why not look at the other snake remedies. For the bleeding ulcers how about trying Manuka honey topically?
Rochelle
Registered Homeopath
EFT(Advanced) Practitioner
www.southporthomeopathy.co.uk

Fran
If Lachesis has helped, have you looked at some of the other snake remedies?
Carbo Veg. and Arsenicum also come to mind.
Liz
Liz

Thanks for all the responses and suggestions

Yes - it would be petechiae that spread and join. What seems to happen is
1. The capillaries are possibly fragile because of the poor tissue quality from prolonged immobility of the paraplegia
2. They certainly lack tone. Things are ok-ish if this person is up daily but she only has to spend one day in bed for them to 'forget' how to cope with the increasing blood pressure in the feet on sitting up - the capillaries rupture in a petechial effect over a 5 - 10 munute period and the blood seems to spread under the epidermis until there are large areas of blackish skin - because the oxygen has been absorbed from the escaped blood by the surrounding tissues
3. Haemorrhage doesn't seem to be the problem so much as the capillaries' inability to cope with a rapid change of blood pressure. Should the skin break on the feet there will be bright bleeding that stop fairly quickly as vasospasm / constriction does occur. The problem seems to be with the initial inability of the capillaries to cope with changes in pressure rather than a tendency to haemorrhage (I think I am repeating myself) Does anyone know if any of the snake remedies deal with petechiae as a result of this rather than poor clotting?
4. Rather than the necrosis occurring in deeper tissues, it is only the epidermis that is being affected by the spreading petechiae lifting it off the dermis. If this breaks before the blood can dry out and gradually slough off a few weeks later a superficial ulcer develops that can be hard to heal. On occasions it will progress to a much deeper ulcer. In the past these have only been resolved by very tight pressure bandages, 4 layers thick, from toes to thigh.

Any other thoughts of where to look with this additional information?

The help has been terrific - one of the strengths of the list.

--
Kind regards,

Fran Sheffield
Homeopathy Plus! (Tutorials - Remedies - Immunisation)
http://www.homeopathyplus.com.au
Do No Harm Initiative (Free Information on Homeopathic Immunisation)
http://www.d-n-h.org
Homeopathy for Autism (Guidelines for Treatment - Search for Practitioners)
http://www.homeopathy4autism.com