Patient, 18 years old; main complaints: metrorrhagia (since menarche), anorexia, depression with suicidal tendencies; suicide, cancer and depression in the family history.
Observation: 1.65m tall, weight: 40kg, raven-black hair, which she wears piled high in a bun like a tower on her head.
Initial consultation in April 2011
Patient (P): “I am extremely nervous, anxious and think about suicide. I can only sleep when I am utterly exhausted or take medication (I have tried everything). In the evenings, when it is time to go to bed, I am extremely exhausted but then suddenly become revved up, alive, yet at the same time half dead. I find it hard to distinguish this revved-up state from the anxiety. I have always been an anxious person. Sometimes I have a fear of dying when falling asleep. I find it so difficult to fall asleep.”
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MIND – FEAR – suicidal tendency, with
MIND – ELATION – at night
MIND – FEAR – sleep – before
SLEEP – FALLING ASLEEP – difficult
SLEEP – INSOMNIA – exhaustion
“When I have my period I bleed extremely heavily. It has always been like that since I first got my period at age 9. Before my period I have terrible nightmares. I have stabbing pains in my ovaries. My menstrual blood is rusty-brown. I was diagnosed with pernicious anaemia.”
FEMALE GENITALIA – MENSES – brown
FEMALE GENITALIA – METRORRHAGIA
FEMALE GENITALIA – PAIN – OVARIES – sharp
DREAMS – NIGHTMARES; NIGHT TERRORS – menses – before
GENERALITIES – ANAEMIA – menses – after – agg.
“As a child my father always told me I was ugly and fat. I only take one meal a day. I prefer to take only liquids (e.g. smoothies). Sometimes I wake early between 3 and 4am and have to vomit. I am anorexic.”
MIND – ANOREXIA NERVOSA
GENERALITIES – FOOD AND DRINK – liquid food – craving
Homoeopath (H): Can you say more about ‘half dead’ and ‘fear of dying’?
P: “Half dead, it is like a vampire sucking your blood until you have almost no blood left in you…. When I was about four years old my brothers and I went swimming in this lake and were covered in leeches. I was terrified of dying. I fainted. I remember my vision going white and then I hit my head on the ground. My grandmother helped us. She was the only good thing in my life. She died a few years later in her sleep when we were visiting her….”
“My whole childhood was traumatic; my parents fought constantly, I was terrified. I felt I was constantly being watched and had the feeling that someone would follow me if I was not good. I was always afraid of falling asleep because I thought I would die and not wake up, like in the children’s prayer ‘If I should die before I wake…’”
MIND – DELUSIONS – persecuted, he would be persecuted
MIND – DELUSION – observed, she would be
MIND – FEAR – death; before – sleep – falling asleep – after falling asleep
“I am really afraid of dying; but at the same time I am afraid of living. My grandmother was my life… It’s strange, but the worst experience of my life – the day we went swimming – was at the same time one of the best days of my life. It’s almost as if those leeches poisoned me and left me half dead.”
H: Can you tell me more about that day at the lake?
P: “Sometimes, when I am so exhausted and finally manage to fall asleep, I have these dreadful dreams: I see myself covered all over with leeches. Then I faint. In the dream my head and body merge with the ground I fall on, I become one with the earth, the mud and my grandmother comes and plants a garden in my body. It is a very bizarre dream.”
“Since my grandmother died I feel there is no one left to look after me. I feel she was the only one who tidied me up and knocked the dust out of my clothes. Everyone else is like leeches that attach themselves.”
Repertorisation with Synthesis 2009V taking into account the rubrics mentioned above.
Key themes:
Anaemia
Anxiety
Anorexia
Menstrual complaints
Paranoia
Insomnia
Analysis
The repertorisation showed remedies such as Carcinosin, Medorrhinum, Ferrum metallicum and Lachesis mutans. When dealing with an unusual case in which the usual polycrests seem indicated, it is worth considering other approaches. The recurring theme of the leeches led me to explore the obvious (an approach I was warned against in my homeopathic training). I came across the provings of Hirudo medicinalis, the leech, published in Dr Pichiah Sankaran’s 'The Elements of Homeopathy' and further information in Clarke (The New Clarke) and Vermeulen’s 'Synoptic Materia Medica Vol. 2'.
Hirudo medicinalis covers the following symptoms: dangerous haemorrhages, anxiety states, indifference to food and eating, menstrual complaints in women, sharp pains in the ovaries, and left-sided complaints. I chose Hirudo not only because the leech was central to my patient’s story, but also because the descriptions in the relatively limited literature fit this case so well.
Prescription: Hirudo medicinalis C200, single dose
Acute telephone consultation two months later, in June 2011
P: “My period came two weeks early and I am bleeding very, very heavily. It is a strange mix of rusty-brown, dark red and sometimes even black. It is terrible. Also I am dizzy and – sadly – have an insatiable appetite. It’s as if you have switched my appetite on with that remedy.”
Prescription: To reduce the aggravation from Hirudo medicinalis C200 the plussing method is used: stir a glass of water for two minutes, one dose = take one teaspoon of this three times in a row at 12-hour intervals.
Follow-ups
February 2012: “This underlying depressive feeling has lessened. It feels as if my grief has strengthened. I found a photo of my grandmother. I have the feeling that someone really loved me as a child (even if only for a short time). One could say the remedy helped me detach from the negative voice of my father in my head.”
“Unfortunately I must report that I now weigh 49kg. I eat several small meals a day. I try to be more mindful with food, but the appetite is simply there now. Overall I have less anxiety, I am less burdened. I am disappointed because I weigh so much, but to be honest — and I don’t like to say this — for the first time in my life I can accept my body as it is.”
“I can now fall asleep well. I feel very alive. My grandmother is with me, in my life. She supports me. I can feel her love.”
Prescription: wait and see.
Final analysis
The patient’s response to Hirudo medicinalis was remarkable. She was given rare doses of Hirudo medicinalis C200 or 1M, either directly or by the plussing method. Occasionally an acute remedy was prescribed as needed. Her lifelong anxieties and depressions disappeared completely, as did the menstrual complaints and the pernicious anaemia. She now maintains a weight of 51kg. Fortunately she no longer has nightmares and for the first time in her life sleeps soundly. She continues to dream often of her grandmother; these are loving and empowering dreams. Four years later the patient successfully completes training as a nutritional scientist.
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History of leech therapy
Hirudo medicinalis was used as early as 600 BC in Ayurvedic medicine and later in the 2nd century by the great Roman physician Galen. The use of leeches for bloodletting – a widely practised therapy in Europe and America in the early 19th century – was described by Hahnemann in his Organon as barbaric. Compton-Burnett advocated the use of a potentised tincture (then known as 'Sanguisuga') to stop bleeding.
Leeches live in water and belong to the annelids. Due to their strong teeth (over 100) they can suck very powerfully. Their saliva contains an anaesthetising substance that numbs the bite wound, dilates the local blood vessels and prevents blood clotting. The victim usually does not notice the bite. It is all the more remarkable that this substance in homeopathically diluted form is not harmful but can effect a deep cure.
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Photos: Shutterstock
Woman with stress; aastock
Leech; sydeen
Category: Cases
Keywords: Anorexia, depression with suicidal tendency, anxiety, insomnia, cancer, metrorrhagia, leech
Remedy: Hirudo medicinalis
Copyright: Interhomopathy
