A Case of Lung Fibrosis
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 2000 July / Aug VOL II NO 4.
Extracted from:
The System of Homoeopathy by Dr Rajan Sankaran.
'Op

Dr: How would that be expressed?
Pt: I say to my brothers that whatever problems we have today, they are because of our father.. that helps us to compromise.

Dr: What are your worries?
Pt: The only thing I am bothered and worried about is that some day I will die. Will it be sudden, like suffocation, or gradual? How much time do I have? Will I be choked so that I cannot breathe? My chest gets so congested that there will be enough time for me to get it cleared up. Will I be traveling to work and meet with an accident? Or will I suffocate on the spot, because I will not be able to bear the pain?

Dr: Why should it worry you?
Pt: Anyone wants to know, to some extent, what chances he has. How long to live, what to plan.

Dr: Have you not planned something already? And if you died today would there be a big confusion?
Pt: No

Dr: Then why are you worried?
Pt: Maybe because I would like to let everyone know that it is my last .. not happen suddenly. Want the satisfaction that everything will happen like I want it to, and to my satisfaction. I would like to meet all my friends and relatives.

Dr: And do what? Why do you want to meet them? (He does not have an answer). What would they come and do or say?
Pt: I would just see their reaction.

Dr: Shat should they say to make you happy finally?
Pt: Nothing particular, I would be happy just to know that they will be sorry that I am going to die. Then I know they care for me.

Dr: Why should they care for you?
Pt: Because I have been there for them all my life.

Dr: You have done so much for them?
Pt: I want them to feel for me.

Dr: Not only because you did so much?
Pt: No

Dr: Did you ever feel loved by anyone as you are, without having to do anything?
Pt: Yes, I feel a lot of affection.

Dr: From whom?
Pt: From my relatives and friends. People at the office.

Dr: What about someone for whom you did nothing?
Pt: I am not sure.

Dr: What do you feel about that? Would you like that?
Pt: May be. Yes.

Dr: And that has not happened?
Pt: No

Dr: Can you think why not?
Pt: I do not know. Maybe I did not go about searching for that kind of love at all. As I was too engrossed in the recognition and appreciation given to me at work for the last ten years.

Dr: Is there any character in history or from the present day who impresses you or whom you would like to be like?
Pt: You mean a saint or someone? I used to have Mother Teresa's photograph with me earlier. I had brought it home and put it up out of admiration. But later on the admiration died. There were reports that she did these things only for recognition and propaganda.

Dr: She does not move you anymore?
Pt: No

Dr: So, what about her having impressed you at first?
Pt: Her passion for the most deprived. First and foremost to grow that old, to be loving and kind as she is. I thought she was the only true person, the existing proof of what people talked about. I wished I had a mother like her, here was a living example others were only stories of the past.

Dr: If you were to use just three words about her, what words would you use?
Pt: Kind, loving and gentle.

Dr: And why did you turn against her when you heard about the propaganda?
Pt: I started to think that it is others who do all the work and she is taking the cake.

Dr: What cake?
Pt: To be called a living saint.

Dr: If she did the work and got the recognition, it is okay?
Pt: Yes

Dr: You feel she is not doing it?
Pt: No, I feel her attitude has changed. She did not bother coming into the public before, Now she comes into the public. She is looking for recognition rather than really doing work.

Case Analysis
While taking the case and at the end of it I did not have any idea of what the remedy could be. And so my questioning was only aimed at understanding the person.

Look at the definite symptoms in the case:

• He saw a snake. The snake kept getting bigger and swallowed him whole.
• He was walking faster than others and flying.

• Delusion, enlarged;
• Vertigo, walking open air, as if feet did no touch the ground;
• Delusion, snakes

I understood the case thus: He is creating this tragedy of his life with wanting friends and family to be there at his death. So his feeling is that no one cares for him and he wants at least that at the moment of death that someone can say they care for him. He is a man who is been doing for others all his life. He lives away from his family, still supports them and is dying.

Mother Teresa represents self-denial and service and unconditional love. His feeling is you have to serve without recognition and thus his admiration for her later dies. He sees a life where there is no loving and kindness given to him, thus his idealization of a kind and loving person as Mother Teresa.

One should go through the history of a patient and try to discern his story from how he perceived his life. That is his delusion, and his disease, and that is what has to be understood.

He dreams of a snake enlarging and eating him. In the other dream he is larger and flying above others. I could bank on these because these are totally not understandable. This means that somewhere in his deep subconscious these are important. They were recurring dreams.

This was my first case of a remedy belonging to the drug group or the group of addictive substances. This was a whole area I had not understood so far. The only thing I knew about Opium was pain/painlessness, visions, and constipation. I had nothing better to give him. So I gave him one dose of Opium 30C. From a study of these remedies of this group, I found some common themes;

• A feeling of total isolation as if there is a distance between him and others, as if he lives in a vacuum and there is no possibility of any connection. Feeling isolated but not forsaken.
• In order to connect they need to do a lot and help others. The symptom: "Benevolence" is common to the drug group of remedies.
• In spite of doing a lot they do not get connected and they need to find something higher and hence the spiritual delusions and living in a world of fantasy.
• In the feeling of isolation there is tremendous fear and fright, especially fear of death and injury. Death means isolation. "Fear of dark, groping in the dark" is a symptom if Opium. There is fear of the unknown: "Alone", "Frightful, dark".
• Dreams and delusions of flying are also common to all drug remedies.

Last time, I missed out one thing: Just after I realized in 1986 that I had this problem with me I left my job. I was so frustrated it led to suicidal tendencies. I took a piece of lead and put it in water and drank it. I do not know if I have been lead poisoned. I am generally better by ten to fifteen percent and more helpful.

(Comment: Opium is listed in italics for "effects of lead". More interesting is the suicidal ides: Opium is listed in suicidal by poisoning as an addition.)

One month later (09.03.95): Energy better. Dream that there is drainage all around the room and dark black water is gushing out and it is all out. The gutter is clear. Nothing is blocking it this time.

Pt: Mentally, I feel I will be one hundred percent cured and physically feel twenty-five percent better.

18.04.95: Less short of breath while walking. Dreamed of a snake, and I saw a sports field and there is a pit with mighty snakes. Two players fall in and the snake swallows them. Earlier it used to be me being swallowed.

I have a happy feeling, am mentally and emotionally stable.
The fear of everything coming to an end is far less.
(Comment: A healing dream)
The remedy was repeated again in the 30th potency.

The healing continued for 6 months and then he stopped the medicine, as he was feeling well. with one dose of Opium 200, when he reported an incident where he felt threatened.

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