Minutus

Hi Beth-
I think you did well and it is unfortunate that the patient reacted
that way. I do not think you need to blame yourself.
You treated someone who had already been on so much antibiotics and
who had an ongoing kidney infection. Cantharis did seem to work -
right. Which means it was not totally a wrong prescription. It did
not work long enough may be- so the underlying infection still
progressed. In homoeopathy, as you are well aware of - there is no
certainty of reaction. I would say in any holistic medicine that is
the case. There is no absolute certainty after you give the medicine
as to what the consequences will be. Because the remedy is only a
stimulus- it is the individual's idiosyncracy that responds and no
one has an idea of all the dimensions of the body. We just do the
best we can. There is no need for shame or self-flagellation in this-
you did the best that you could. How do you know that the Cantharis
is not bringing out all the suppressed symptoms- she has been on so
much medication already?

You mentioned about Hallucinations. Were there any Bell symptoms ?
Probably I would look for some picture from the acute flare-up and
see if there are any indicators now. For all the symptoms that there
were in her before I would not say that there were any clear
indications - most of the symptoms you gave seem to be common. But
this acute flare-up seems to throw up more specific stuff. Pursue
those. In pregnancies - you get more constitutional symptoms coming
up for prescribing.

Please lift your head and spirits and continue the good work you seem
to be doing.
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I agree that you should not hold yourself responsible. But here we have a
case with an acute very physical situation that has already been suppressed
by antibiotics.
This is where I stop being "classical" and become "clinical".
What is important to treat in a case like that is the presenting
complaint/disease/situation until it is completely solved, and only then go
deeper (here the Sepia prescription).

I would have repeated the Cantharis to preempt recurrences (yes that is a
routine" prescription) because I know that this is bound to happen, so
instead of chasing the symptoms, as I know they will come back, I prevent
them.

I would also have given very material treatments like herbs to increase the
immunity and herbs with urinary tract and anti-infectious actions, to help
the weakened physiology defend itself.

As Julian Winston wrote, when the house is burning, you do not try to save
the piano.........same here.............
Dr. J. Rozencwajg, MD, PhD.
"The greatest enemy of any science is a closed mind".

Believe it or not, it's also true in allopathy that there are no sure effects of medicines -- a lot depends on the individual susceptibility of the patient. Allopaths do the same thing we do -- they try what seems best indicated and if that doesn't work as hoped, they try something else. I agree with others that you can't say you "goofed,' you can't beat yourself up. Obviously, there was more going on than at first appeared. It's also very possible that, as someone said, the true picture was suppressed when you first saw her.

It's very difficult, for sure, when our patients appear to get worse after we treat them. And we can't know everything. I find there are days occasionally -- like this one was for you -- when I wonder why I'm trying to do homeopathy, but then I talk to other patients and realize how well it works and how much my work has meant to them, and I feel better. Beth, I hope this has happened to you, also, by now. Rosemary

Dear Group,

Thank you all so much for you supportive e-mails regarding this case. I have
been feeling really disturbed by it as it certainly goes against the
permanent, gentle kind of cure I hope to achieve. Surely it makes sense that
the true state of her disorder had been suppressed by the repeated doses of
anti-biotics. I think Dr. Rosenswaijg's suggestion that persisting longer
with the cantharis -- as in going physical-- would have been a good idea.
I'm not entirely sure where to go with her from here. She is the daughter of
an osteopath and is not at all happy about the allopathic approach here.
Surprisingly, she wants to see me once she is out of hospital.

And yes, Rosemary, there are lots of cases where the benefits of homeopathy
are obvious and patients are truly grateful for doing so well. Those are the
easy days, but sometimes I feel as though I'm fooling myself, for surely
that is not the total picture. I guess none of us would be doing this if we
didn't have a certain percentage of such positive results.

Again, thanks for everyone's support. I do think we have so much to learn
from our mistakes.
Beth
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Where to go from here--*wonderful* that she wants to get back to you!
"Pretend" that her trouble was simply from "causes unknown"--as it
was!--and not your "fault"--you did what seemed right, and that's all
one can do. So begin where she is, and go forward again. If after
seeing her again you're not sure what you want to prescribe (ie.
whether sepia is still the most indicated, or whatever), don't hesitate
to tell her so, suggest a (short) waiting period--but of course only if
there's nothing urgent already happening, and making sure that this
time she *will* call you first, if anything further goes wrong.

(You also *might* want to consider going for a while with low potencies
[or LM if you're familiar with them] until you're sure how she's
responding--at least that's an approach I have come to like very much
for touchy situations.)

Shannon