Homeopathy helps phobias
Homeopathy is very effective for relieving phobias. As our kids all head back to school I thought I would share a severe case of school phobia with you, from my case files.
Billy’s mother told me that he had been “frantic” for the past six weeks. Three weeks ago, he had started vomiting before going to school and did not want to attend. His sleep was very disturbed, and he would wake up between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. feeling anxious and restless. At the age of almost seven he also had a history of ear infections, asthma and constipation.
Billy had taken over 100 courses of antibiotics in his young life! He had had ear tubes inserted and his adenoids removed. Since five years of age he had been on a steroid inhaler for his asthma, and at the time of this visit he had been on an Albuterol inhaler for a week.
Desperately seeking sanctuary
When Billy came to see me he was clearly very disturbed, pacing rapidly up and down my consulting room for a full hour without stopping. His mother reported that he did this at home too, and the pacing could make him dizzy. He was very tense; his jaws were visibly clenched. He had told his mother he really didn’t want to be seven (his birthday was fast approaching). He asked her if he would have to move away from home if he became a daddy. He didn’t want to go to school because he was lonesome for his mother and scared of being bullied. Billy said to her over and over: “I love you desperate … I’m desperate happy … but I don’t want to go to school.”
Watch out for that truck
I remember a homeopathic lecturer once describing how to choose between the remedies Aconite and Arsenicum in cases of intense fear and restlessness like this one. A person who needs Aconite feels like, “Oh my God I’m about to be hit by a giant Mack truck and I have one second left to live,” whereas a person who needs Arsenicum feels more like, “Oh no, someone has slipped me poison and I’m about to die a long, lingering death …” After putting Billy’s symptoms into my specialized computer software I saw Aconite covered his symptoms well and matched the case, including the terrible panic and urgency I felt from him.
Fast acting Aconite
I gave him Aconite 30C and told his mother to call me if there was no change within two days. In longstanding or chronic cases I normally ask people to wait three or four weeks until the follow-up appointment before assessing whether or not the remedy has worked. But Billy’s symptoms were intense, and in my experience, the more intense the symptoms are, the quicker a homeopathic medicine will work. If I had chosen the wrong remedy, I wouldn’t want Billy to suffer unnecessarily for weeks.
No news is good news
The days passed and I heard nothing. Four weeks later we had a follow-up appointment. Billy’s mother told me that after his constitutional treatment with Homeopathy there had been a fantastic improvement. He now felt OK about going to school and about turning seven. He had stopped pacing and had no dizzy spells. His sleep was very good, and he had not been up at night since taking the remedy. He had had ear pain the day after taking the remedy. I believed this to be a positive sign as it is common to experience a return of old symptoms when a homeopathic medicine is working well.
Homeopathy hits a home run
At the second follow-up visit, eight weeks after taking Aconite, Billy and his mother reported further improvement. He no longer took his inhalers. His nose was running, where it had been very dry before. He had had profuse discharge from his left ear. Despite the discharge, he had had no further ear pain and no other symptoms. He also had a lot more energy. He had “filled out” and had a better color.
More lessons to learn
There is so much to learn from Billy’s experience that I have written a follow up post.