EXAMPLES
OF HOW TO CHOOSE THE HOMEOPATHIC REMEDY
It is usually enough to have 'three
legs of the stool' to decide a remedy in ACUTE
conditions, that is, three distinct aspects of the remedy
that match three aspects of the patients symptoms. Just
as a stool with three legs is more stable than a stool with
one or two legs, a medicine given on the basis of three
key symptoms is more reliable than if given on one or two
symptoms alone (and remember a diagnosis is not a symptom).
Of course the more symptoms that fit the better, three isn't
the limit!
Example:
Three legs of the stool could be:
1/ main complaint,
2/ the mood, 3/ the
modality
- if the patient is nauseous,
anxious, worse
late at night, the remedy might be
Arsenicum;
- if the patient is nauseous,
irritable, worse
early morning, the remedy might be Nux-vomica.
In both cases the patient would be
complaining of feeling sick, but their temperament and modalities
help decide the remedy.
In the example
above Arsenicum is differentiated from Nux-Vomica: because
it has the anxiety (about their health usually)
that Nux-Vom doesn't, (you can quickly tell if a patient
is very anxious or not) and because the time when the complaint
is worse is different for each remedy.
Alternatively
you could replace one of the legs of the stool e.g. one
modality with a different modality:
Three legs of the stool could again be:
1/ main complaint, 2/ the mood, 3/ modality
- if the patient is nauseous, anxious,
with burning pains,
the remedy might be
Arsenicum;
- if the patient is nauseous,
irritable, with cramping pains,
the remedy might be Nux-vomica.
or
Three legs
of the stool could be:
1/ main complaint, 2/ modality
3/ modality
- if the patient has a fever, is
prostrated, takes
small sips of water, the remedy might be
Arsenicum;
- if the patient has a fever,
cough causes headache,
too hot but shivers at slightest uncovering,
the remedy might be Nux-vomica.
The legs of the stool
are different in each of the examples above but by swapping
modalities belonging to each remedy we still get the same
remedy for any given set of symptoms. There are obviously
many more possibilities but I have just used two remedies,
Arsenicum and Nux-vomica, in these examples to keep it simple.
The three legs of the stool examples here have just used
the remedies' Keynotes to differentiate between them.
A useful exercise would
be to look at the matera medica for Arsenicum and for Nux-vomica
and see if you can insert different aspects of the remedies
into the examples above. Start with a different complaint
from the materia medica and then use the same modalities
as above or different ones from the Materia Medica; you'll
see that it is the modalities as much as the complaint that
decide the remedy
For more examples look
under the various Ailment sections to see how remedies are
described in relation to specific problems
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