filariasis

[andyh]

Sat, 22 Mar 2003 19:08:35 +0530
From:
"j tikari"
Dear List

I have a patient: a seventeen years boy with filaria of the left leg. 6
months. Symptoms: swelling starts around mid day and gets worse by 4-5
Pm.
Slight swelling of the left ball. Stools light yellow, soft sometimes
greenish.
Vertigo at times/ severe with nausea. Fever some nights when swelling
gets agg. fever comes with chill and shivering. Worries about health

He has recvd Ars, Ars-i, Sil; Calc; Sep; Sul; Lach; Phos Lyc Bapt over
a period of a few months. Symps. abate for a while and then come on
strongly again with fever and
swelling.

Grateful of any help.

Jeff
================
Jeff,

Does "Slight swelling of the left ball. " refer to ball of foot or
testicle?

Case-specific searches
first are results of a few referenceworks searches using the case data.
Note that the grading may not
mean much since it is generated by the program, not necessarily from a
repertory. Ant-t and Arg-n are
the leaders in the analysis, followed by naja, with sambucus present,
and culex (filaria vector) and rattus
(proving only). However, note the larger rubric referring also to
elephantiasis as well (both nematode
infections).
Overall Searches
Following the case-specific searches and materia medica are included
anything that could be found
relating to filariasis (by disease name) (so included elephantiasis
(even though that may not be the
diagnosis)). Complete Repertory and Referenceworks were used.

Further info:
Note that CCRH in (don't know where in India) uses indigenous remedies
to allow home "control" of
filariasis. They (Dr. Rastogi et al) may have more info on treatment
success with simillimum as well.
Dr. Master (Bombay, I believe) is a great prescriber who probably could
give useful info if necessary.

Best Wishes,
Andy

==================
SEARCHES SPECIFIC TO CASE DATA:

search 1
Fever/heat afternoon in the same remedy as filariasis/elephantiasis in
the same remedy as vertigo in the
same remedy as stool yellow/green: alum., ant-c., ant-t., 2arg-n., ars.,
canth., chin., 2chin-s., crot-h., cupr.,
hell., iod., lach., lyc., nat-c., nit-ac., petr., phos., 2psor., sep.,
sil., thuj.
search 2
Fever in the same remedy as swelling in the same remedy as filariasis in
the same remedy as stool
yellow/green in the same remedy as vertigo with nausea: ant-t., arg-n
====================================================================
MATERIA MEDICA/CASES -FILARIASIS
TEXT:
Ant-tart

Allen's Encyclopedia:
Fever of the same kind, at the same time, for the two following days.
Constant heat in the afternoon, increased by the slightest motion;
it affects the head especially; daily.
Evenings, great heat all over, especially in the face, without
marked thirst.
Restlessness, violent febrile excitement, great heat, thirst, and
headache, and the night after it very
profuse sweat.
Heat, with weak pulse.
Heat and thirst, for several days.
Toward 6 o'clock, fever as yesterday, with want of appetite,
followed by increased pain in the
abdomen (fourth day).
Creeping coldness and heat, with nausea and faintness.
Chilliness, with heat of certain parts, especially face.
Fever first appears toward eight PM, chill, with flushes of heat
(third day).
Chill, on motion, alternation with heat.
Violent febrile chill, evenings at 6; after eating, violent heat,
with drawing in the occiput (first day).
Knerr's Repertory
FEVER: CHILL, WITH: RUNNING THROUGH BODY WITH A SUDDEN SHOCK. 0>1>0

Neatby:
Although the antipathic use of tartar emetic in pneumonia is
abandoned, antimony has entered a fresh
field where it is proving fruitful, namely, in some of the protozoal
diseases of the tropics, e. g., relapsing
fever, leishmaniasis, trypanosomiasis. It is used with much success in
kala - azar, giving 90 per cent. of
cures, and is the standard remedy for bilharziasis (schistosomiasis),
killing the parent worm as well as
the eggs; in leprosy (in the form of stibacetin), in filariasis,
dracontiasis, &c. The action here is
uncertain. Though substantial doses seem necessary it is not certain
that the result is directly
parasiticidal, for in vitro the parasites remain active in a solution
even stronger than can be used
medicinally. The drug should be administered intravenously with the
usual precautions, beginning with
doses of 1/2 gr. or less, gradually increased to a maximum of 2 gr.
===================
ARG-NIT
Allen's Handbook
Fever. - Chilliness in forenoon, with headache, also loss of appetite
at noon, nausea, and at 4pm tumult
and beating in head, heat in head, creeping chills, dry hot skin,
nausea, desire for something salt,
weakness, increase of the desire for something acrid and sour, so that
at 7pm she ate pot - cheese, which
improved they symptoms, but the febrile condition lasted at night.
Chilliness in evening; every day at
6pm, then heat, the chill lasting longer and returning on uncovering,
even during the heat, perceptible
pulsation of left temporal artery during the heat, both stages without
thirst; after rising, with nausea; after
eating, with weakness, nervousness and obtuse feeling in head. C., with
pale, almost yellowish
countenance, nausea and empty eructations.
Shuddering forenoons, at the same hour, passing into a chill, with
gooseflesh and coldness, hot head,
cold hands and nausea, amel. warm soup. Chill up back and across
shoulders, agg. after eating and on
coming in from open air; running along spine at non, with heat and
flushing of face and limbs; in spine
close to occiput, extending to end of coccyx, from noon till 5pm, with
heat and lethargy, heat of head,
hands and feet, chills amel. by warmth, then sleepiness, but lack of
sleep, caused by vivid imagination, till
10pm, then restlessness, heat, aching of legs and back, feeling as if
brain were too large for skull, sweat
in palms, on lower part of abdomen and inner sides of thighs, then sleep
about midnight, afterwards
recurrence of chills for eight days, beginning at noon and lasting four
or five hours. Feet cold in
afternoon and evening.
Farokh Master-Argentums

Argentum nitricum
- Water +++ (oceans, lakes).
ARGENTUM NITRICUM was the drug selected on the basis of the
following rubrics:
1. Anxiety, time is set.
2. Ailments from anticipation.
3. Hurried - work, occupation, speech.
4. Fastidious.
5. Indisposed to talk, in sadness (Argentum nitricum is the only
drug in third degree for this rubric).
6. Ailments from mortification.
7. Suicidal tendency by drowning.
8. Dreams of snakes.
9. Hot patient.
10. Craves ice-cream, spicy food.
Her bleeding stopped, her leucorrhoea was reduced and she was
generally better.
-
OBESITY WITH HYPERTENSION AND FILARIASIS
This is a case of a patient, Mrs. B. P. D. aged 55, who presented
with obesity with hypertension and
elephantiasis suffering since 15-20 years at my clinic. Her complaints
were as follows:
Hypertension - Rx Aldomet 1-0-0
15-20 years - Asymptomatic
- If blood pressure decreases develops a headache.
Extremities - Swelling legs upto knee
Pain in knee joint and meta-
tarsophalangeal joints.
- Pain wandering.
Worse ascending
Worse sour food
Worse exertion
Worse standing for long
GENERALS:
Appetite - Normal. Hungry sometimes at 11:00 a. m.
Thirst - Decreased. More thirsty at night.
Craving - Salt ++, sour ++, ice-cream: +, cold drink ++
Aversion - Milk +, meat +
Stool - Occasionally, hard, irregular bowel movements.
Flatulence - does not pass easily.
Better passing flatus - pushing upwards
Prespiration - Profuse - face ++, scalp +
Thermal Wants fan on face, otherwise gets out of breath - hot ++
patient ++
Personal history:
The patient was born in Ankleshwar. Father had asthma and later on
became blind. Mother had renal
failure, diabets and high blood pressure. She got married and came to
Bombay. She had a daughter who
expired at the age of 25 years. This was a great grief in her life. All
her mental symptoms developed
after this incident. She started having anxieties.
- Anxiety - Crowd ++ ( Fear - crowd)
- Fear - Crossing road
- Fear - Staying alone ++
- Something bad would happen +, especially husband passed away -
again she would be alone.
- Narrow places (lifts etc.)
She was fastidious, and very hurried in her work.
- Fastidious
- Hurried in occupation
- She started having palpitation in crowds after emotional
excitement.
The other rubrics selected were
1) Flatulence - Flatus pushing upwards.
2) Being fanned - ameliorated
3) Thirstless ++
4) Face - Perspiration +
5) Desires - Sour ++ and Salt ++
On the basis of the above rubrics Argentum - Nitricum was selected
which gave patient a long lasting
relief.

Culex
The females of most species apparently must feed at least once upon the
blood of some warm-blooded
animal before their eggs can develop properly. In any case, it is this
requirement which makes them a
nuisance to man and many other animals, and it is at the time of these
blood meals that they may either
acquire or transmit the protozoan parasites which cause malaria, the
virus of yellow fever (eradicated
from our region), the nematodes responsible for

filariasis

in tropical regions, and some other disease organisms. The mosquitoes of
the North Temperate Zone
and colder areas are not as dangerous from the disease standpoint,
although they have been established
as vectors of human encephalitis. Mosquitoes have become adapted to an
extreme range of climate, and
some species occur in tremendous numbers far north of the Arctic Circle.
The winter usually is passed
either in the egg or as an adult, according to species and latitude;
some winter as larvae frozen in the ice.
Farokh Master- Naja
A CASE OF FILARIASIS
This is a case of filariasis, in a lady aged 36 years, who came to
me in July 1996 with the following
complaints:
Location Sensation Modality
Foot Swelling A/F injury
Left Pitting on Pressure Worse Standing for a
Since longtime
10-15 No Pain winter, better still
in rainy season, but very bad in
summer. Lachesis has been helping her but not as much as I thought it
should. Lachesis is < by heat but
I do not know if it has summer bending forward). How does one
differentiate them?
D. P. R.: We have treated about 12, 000 cases of asthma. More than
one unit of CCRH, Kottayam,
Bombay, Delhi and others are engaged in this study and we have
identified the most efficacious
remedies and also the symptoms on which your prescriptions will not
fail. We also identified the reliable
indications and the potencies which are optimal. These are already
published. But again the individual
symptoms which have given us good results have been listed. Regarding
the question of differentiating
Cassia from Kali carb and Arsenic, Kali carb has a typical picture of
backache. In the case of Cassia it
has pain in the joints. Kali carb has the < time 2 A. M. - 4 A. M.,
extremely chilly, great flatulence.
Cassia has bland discharge from nose while Arsenic has an acrid
discharge.
Answering another question from the audience Rauwolfia serpentina
is useful in 1x (D1) potency for
hypertension and Syzygium was found in animal experiments as toxic even
to rats, maybe because of its
90% alcohol content. Even in my clinic my patients said they got relief
only for a week and was
ineffectual later. We finally came to the conclusion that it is not a
safe drug and we would prefer other
drugs like Cephalandra indica for diabetes and not Syzygium.
Dr. Devasikamani: (1) Why not homoeopaths write out the
prescription and leave it to the pharmacist
to dispense as is the practice among allopaths?
(2) Why homoeopathy cannot be standardised, say for heart diseases,
so that the system can develop
mass appeal.
D. P. R.: Regarding mass appeal what is needed is hard work and not
to go for numbers. Even if you
are able to cure one patient, this success can bring a large number of
patients. Such hard work will pay
you in the long run and is a strong point.
Regarding the other question, this open prescription is the custom
in Orissa and West Bengal. The
physician collects his fees, gives a prescription which the patient can
get dispensed from any pharmacy.
This is a matter of choice with the doctor, I cannot offer any comment.
Q: In one case of skin disease, the homoeopathic prescription is
creating an aggravation and the
patient is suffering. In homoeopathic treatment is aggravation a must?
Or does it occur only in a
particular patient?
D. P. R: This is an important question. Skin diseases are one area
where homoeopathy is most
successful, but at the same time it requires the greatest patience. The
first thing is that one must be very
sure of the prescription in skin cases, then comes the choice of the
potency - make a choice and then do
not repeat. If these instructions are followed there should be no
aggravation. I would rather say, if an
aggravation occurs it is more an excuse of the physician, to try and
satisfy the patient by telling that the
medicines help to bring out old symptoms. In many cases it is the
failure of the physician, not the action
of the drug - he had not given the right dose and it has been repeated.
So the golden rule in skin disease
is select the medicine, after differentiating from all the drugs, give
it in a single dose and wait. If you
repeat early, you are courting trouble. No other disease proves this
rule as clearly as skin disease. Take
for example Graphites where many physicians find its 1M potency does not
bring out any aggravation.
If used in 30th it may cause an aggravation. This experience varies but
the essential point is when the
drug has set up a curative action, repetition will create problems. So
give a single dose and wait is the
correct procedure.
D. L. N. summed up the crux and quintessence of the advice given by
the speaker: select the remedy,
potency and give a single dose and wait, and added that more often
physicians are tempted to repeat the
medicine too often in the expectation of getting better and faster
relief even though great homoeopaths in
the past had repeatedly warned against this. Commending the beautiful
example of Graphites cited by
Dr. D. P. R. He added that while he never used potencies below 30 as a
rule and used the higher and
highest potencies, in skin he preferred to start with 6x, then 12x, 12c
and go up very gradually with
drugs like Graphites and Sulphur and never had a problem. He also
commended the second best
prescription placebo and the usefulness of interpolating complimentary
remedies.
He paid a compliment to Dr. Rastogi for answering all questions
patiently and tactfully, without
creating controversy, clearing doubts and meeting the points raised,
thus projecting a perspective view of
our problems.
-
Glossary of indigenous Drugs in the Text.
Latin name Common name Telugu Common name English
Abroma aug Olatkambal Devil's Cotton
Acalypha indica Kuppichettu Indian Nettle
Achyranthes aspera Uthareni Prickly Chaff Flower
Aegle folia Bilvam, maredu Bael
Aegle marmelos Bilvam, maredu Bael
Alstonia constricta Aedakularitichettu Dita Bark
Amoora rohitaka Sevamanu
Atista indica or Glycosmis pentaphylla Vanamimbuka
Caesalpinia bondicella Gachakaya Fever Nut
Calotraphis gigantea Jilledu Gigantic Swallow - woop
Carica papaya Bappayi Melonenbum
Cassia sophera Paidi thangeidu or Senna purpurea Chennangi
Cynodon dactylon Garika Bermuda grass
Cephalandra Indica Dondatiga
Embelia vibes Vaividungalu
Hygrophilia Sp, Neerugobbi
Justicia Adh Vasaka Malabar Nut
Nyctanthes arbor Parijatham Night Jasmine
Saraca indica Asoka
Terminalia arjuna Tella Madoi
Terminalia chebula Karakkai Myrobalan

************************************
OVERALL SEARCHES
=====================================================================

FILARIASIS (vector is a nematode worm) (REFERENCEWORKS SEARCH):
Filariasis(rfw): ant-t., arg-n., culx., 3Naja, ratt-r., samb.

===================================================================

ELEPHANTIASIS (a manifestation of filiariasis from a particular specie
of nematode)

============
REFERENCEWORKS SEARCH:

Elephantiasis rfw: abrot., alum., anac., ant-c., ant-t., arg-n., ars.,
ars-i., asim., aur., bix., blatta, both-l., caesal., calo., canth.,
card-m., chin., chin-s., chin-sal., colch., coloc., com., crot-c.,
crot-h., culx., cupr., elae., funi-umb., germ., graph., ham., hell.,
hippoz., 3Hydrc., iod., kali-bi., lach., led., lepro., lyc., malar.,
merc., muru., myris., naja, nat-c., nit-ac., petr., phos., pip-m.,
psor., pyrar., raja-s., ratt-r., rauw., rumx., samb., sep., ser-ang.,
2sil., still., tere-ch., term-c., thuj., tinos., verat., vip.
===========

COMPLETE REPERTORY:

MALE; ELEPHANTIASIS scrotum (K694, G594, G608) (2) : anac., sil.

GENERALITIES; ELEPHANTIASIS (SRII-171) (44) : abrot., anac., ars.,
ars-i., bix., blatta, both-l.,
caesal., calo., canth., card-m., chin-s., colch., crot-h., cupr., elae.,
graph., ham., hell., hippoz., hydrc., iod.,
kali-bi., lach., led., lyc., malar., merc., muru., myris., nat-c.,
petr., psor., pyrar., raja-s., rauw., sep., sil.,
still., tere-ch., term-c., tinos., verat., vip.

GENERALITIES; ELEPHANTIASIS; arabum (SRII-171) (7) : ars., elae.,
hydrc., myris., raja-s., sep.,
sil.

COMBINED Rubrics (COMPLETE REPERTORY)Elephantiasis: abrot., anac., ars.,
ars-i., bix., blatta., both-l., caesal., calo., canth., card-m.,
chin-s., colch., crot-h., cupr., elae., graph., ham., hell., hippoz.,
hydrc., iod., kali-bi., lach., led., lyc., malar., merc., muru., myris.,
nat-c., petr., psor., pyrar., raja-s., rauw., sep., sil., still.,
tere-ch., term-c., tinos., verat., vip.

[Ananda Ruchira]

Dear Jeff,
I too would look towards "elephantiasis" for clues. I've treated old, severe cases of elephantiasis but with limited success.

consider therapeutically:

in tincture or low x form:
calotropis gigantea
hydrocotyle
ant. crud.

also in potency:
myristica sebifera
elaeis guineensis

Sincerely,
Didi Ananda Ruchira
Director, Abha Light
visit: http://home.pacific.net.sg/~rucira/alf