 Opium den |
Opium is one of our best-known remedies for complaints following shock, when the patient is in a more or less stupefied state. Physical and emotional pain cause the soul to separate from the body, to leave the body to escape the trauma. Physical pain dulls, as can be seen in pain therapy with opiates, and emotional pain can also be avoided, as the example of oriental opium dens shows. However, this turns the body into an uninhabited shell, lacking the vital force that regulates mental and physical functions. |
With opium the bodily functions slow down; constipation and snoring with excessively deep sleep are among the main indications for prescribing opium as a medicine. The sensitivity of the senses can, however, also be heightened; barely perceptible signals are picked up, as if the person is scanning the surroundings for danger signals. For case-taking it is crucial to notice such signs and to include the possibility of a severe trauma in the past, even if the patient is not aware of it. As we will see in the following cases, the administration of opium can bring an underlying situation with all its pain to the surface so that it can be healed. It may be that then "painkillers" are needed or that remedies previously indicated suddenly exert their effect because the patient is now able to receive them. |
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Case 1: |
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| Her problem had begun twelve years earlier. She had caught her leg in barbed wire and the wound had become infected. Two small operations under light anaesthesia were necessary to clear the infection after antibiotics had failed to have sufficient effect. From then on she gradually declined to the point where she could no longer care for herself. I repeatedly gave her opium, first C 200 once a month, later 1M once a month. Slowly but surely she returned to life and to normal functions. Seven months later she was bright and lively, chatted happily and began to rebel against her parents' "interference" in her life. She was now able to manage alone, and I asked her the question that had long troubled me: "Have you ever suffered a severe shock?" | |
| It seemed to me that the two small operations alone could not account for twelve years of narcolepsy. "Yes. I have never spoken about it, but years ago I did something really stupid. It was a game we played with a few girls from the neighbourhood. We used to tease my neighbour by taunting his daughter. He was somewhat mentally handicapped and it amused us when he got angry and shouted at us; we laughed and ran away. One day, however, he chased us through the fields. My friend got caught in barbed wire and feared he would catch her, so she pointed to me as the guilty one. He caught me and began to beat and kick me so violently that I thought I would die; you wouldn't even beat a full-grown cow so hard. He completely lost control. I was so ashamed that I never told my parents, because I knew I had upset him myself." Apparently the operations only triggered an underlying trauma, a situation where she believed she must die. | |
| Case 2: A 37-year-old woman had many problems following an accident she had suffered as a child: at seven years she had been run over by a lorry which had shattered her pelvis. She had to spend months away from home in hospital in a plaster cast. After her return she constantly had accidents and broke one bone after another. People said she was "not quite right in the head", although she was very intelligent. Later she suffered from depression and underwent psychotherapy. Her bladder was greatly enlarged; this led to urine retention in the bladder, causing chronic cystitis and kidney disease. |
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| Thirty years after the accident she returned to the site of the accident because she felt she had to "call her soul back from there", as she put it. She found exactly the spot where she had been run over and remembered the long-distant event. "I was standing behind the truck watching a cat. I did not hear the lorry behind me, it hit me on the head, then rolled over me and I was underneath it, looking up at the dirty undercarriage and wondering if it would roll over me again. People came and pulled me out. Everyone stood around and talked to one another in panic, but nobody spoke to me. Nobody said to me: It's all right and you are well and you will stay alive." | |
| Taking opium was one of the many things she did to heal from the trauma, which had many layers. We see here how important it is to speak to someone who is in shock and to call them straight back to life. Even many years later opium can enhance the success of various other treatments by enabling the patient to be more present in the therapeutic process. | |
| Case 3: A small boy was brought to the practice for treatment of a severe constipation that had persisted for several months. Even with the help of laxatives his bowels scarcely moved and his few stools were rock-hard. His mother was clear about the cause of his complaints: "It began after he had an accident. Our dog got caught in barbed wire. He tried to free him, but the dog, almost mad with pain and fear, bit him quite badly. He was taken to hospital and by the time we arrived we had not even noticed that he had many more bites than we had seen; he seemed not to feel the pain. |
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He had not even noticed that a large piece had been torn from his leg, and he also had severe bites on his hands. The doctors say that has nothing to do with his constipation, but I know that that is the reason." Repeated doses of Opium 1M relieved his constipation and apparently also helped to lift a "cloud" that had hung over him since the accident. "He was not fully present, did badly at school, no longer got on with his friends and wanted to be alone. Now we have our boy back!" |
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| Case 4: A woman in her sixties came with complaints of hypersensitivity, especially to sounds. "I hear everything, even things other people cannot hear. I even hear the sound of electricity, the hum of the mains. It is not tinnitus, I know what that is; these sounds come from outside to me, I cannot shut them out." As she herself was a therapist, she directed me to where she wanted to go: "Do not bother to question me about my recent divorce or the death of my parents, it has nothing to do with it. Ask me about my dental history." |
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It turned out that as a child she had been sent to the dentist with her brother, which had been extremely traumatic for her. A tooth had been extracted and she bled heavily and felt she would drown in her own blood, but the dentist did not take her fear at all into account. "Later he told my mother he would never treat me again because I made such a fuss; I was absolutely hysterical with fear. I had to travel home with my brother on the bus and was still bleeding. It seems that because of the shock back then my palate stopped growing properly; it remained the same size for a long time, which required further dental treatment because there was not enough room for the teeth. It was a huge drama!" Here we see the opposite reaction to the well-known lack of reaction with opium. Opium proving shows both sides of the coin; there are also indications of extremely acute hearing: "Heard the flies crawling on the wall. Heard the sound of distant church bells". |
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| Case 5: A woman brought her 11-month-old baby, supposedly for treatment of her tonsils, because she believed they were the cause of her daughter's loud snoring. "She snores so loudly that she keeps us awake, even when she sleeps in the nursery on the other side of the landing." As far as sleeping was concerned, I noticed the child was extremely quiet. She had not opened her eyes at all during our lively conversation in the consulting room. "She is so quiet, such a good baby. She sleeps 25 hours a day!" That seemed to me to be excessive for a good baby, so I asked whether the child had ever experienced a shock or trauma in her young life. |
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| "Well - her birth was extremely traumatic, for both of us. It was a home birth - I am a midwife and wanted it that way - but everything happened so suddenly and I bled heavily before the doctor came, I nearly died from the blood loss. He grabbed the baby, who was healthy, and put her in a crib in which there was a hot water bottle. He did not look at her again until I had been stitched and was on a drip. When he finally looked at her he was horrified; she lay naked beside a metal hot water bottle, because in the panic nobody had thought to remove it from the crib. She had third-degree burns on one side, but she made no sound. Since then she has had so many operations, plastic surgery to repair the damage, but it keeps becoming infected and the grafts do not hold, so she has to undergo further operations again and again. It is a vicious circle." | |
| I immediately gave her a dose of Opium C 200 and warned the mother that her daughter might "wake up" and experience pain. In that case she should give Carbo animalis 200C for the burns. The next morning the mother telephoned me and said: "I am glad you warned me. I have never heard my daughter cry, let alone scream, and now she is bawling the whole house down!" Carbo animalis, made from burnt animal skin, helped to relieve her pain and healed her skin until proper scars formed and no further operations were necessary. The snoring stopped on the first night. The little girl was treated a few years later with Ferrum phosphoricum for cough. She has the same hair colour (sandy), build (square) and lively temperament as her mother, who responded well to Kalium sulfuricum for chronic fatigue and food allergies. Perhaps a homeopathic treatment of the mother before pregnancy might have prevented the near-fatal bleeding and the catastrophic birth. | |
| Case 6: A young girl was brought for treatment of a very unsightly birthmark on her leg. She had a large area of bright red skin that looked as if it had been burned, with visible veins protruding from the skin. She could not wear tight jeans because the skin would split and bleed under the pressure of the fabric. It reminded me of the burned skin appearance of the previous patient. Yet this birthmark had been present at birth and there had been no trauma during the pregnancy. After a dream in which she burned in a house fire, I decided to treat her as if she had a burn. I started with Opium C 200 and subsequently gave Carbo animalis C 200 repeatedly over several months. Slowly but surely the mark healed and the skin cleared. |
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 Car accident |
Case 7: A woman in her forties came for treatment of chronic vaginal infections. She had previously been treated by another homeopath with Sepia, which seemed suited to her nature and complaints, but it had not helped. "I hesitate somewhat to try homeopathy at all, because I am so sensitive. I take everything in and have even made counselling my profession because I feel what is wrong with people. Homeopathy throws me off balance when it does not fit optimally, so I prefer not to take remedies." That was a problem that required a different approach. |
| "My problems began 15 years ago, before that I was healthy. I had a severe car accident and was in a coma for eight months. During that time candidiasis began and since then I have not been able to get rid of it, whatever I do." We went back to the time of the accident and her subsequent coma and she received Opium C 200. As she was so sensitive, I asked her simply to hold the opium bottle in her hand. | |
| She reacted promptly: "Phew, here I am!" She made a movement with her hands as if pulling something down from the air into herself. The change in her eyes was astonishing: suddenly there was a clarity where previously there had been vagueness, and the white that had been visible under her iris was gone. However, she began to complain of pains as if she had been beaten. The opium was set aside and a bottle of Arnica 200C was given to her to hold while she groaned and moaned. | |
| Hypericum followed because of the stabbing pains she then described, and then Staphisagria because she felt she had been mistreated in hospital. "I was treated like an object because I was not conscious. They shoved a catheter in me with no regard for my dignity, and I watched it all from above!" The last remedy was again Sepia, although it had had no effect in the past. She held it in her hand for a while, then went to the toilet and passed a large mucus clot from the vagina. | |
| Later she received Aurum muriaticum for serious problems with her mother, which she "took" in the same way, by holding it in her hand and allowing the energy to do its work. It was the fastest response to a homeopathic treatment I have ever experienced, and although it did not follow the traditional rules, it opened doors for me in treating oversensitive patients. It showed me the necessity of really working homeopathically in the way that best suits the patient and taking into account their own pace and personal manner of coming into contact with the remedies. | |
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