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| The Homoeopathic Interview / Case Taking |
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Monday, 09 August 2004
You will wonder, if you have every consulted a homoeopathic physician, why he asks you so many questions that do not seem to have any apparent connection with your ailment. Why is it so?You will wonder, if you have every consulted a homoeopathic physician, why he asks you so many questions that do not seem to have any apparent connection with your ailment. He will ask you about what food you like to eat, what is your posture during sleep, how much you sweat, your nature, what are your dreams etc. The focus of the homoeopathic physician is to understand every patient as a whole and to determine what it is that seats him apart from others, what it is that makes him individual. Each one of us differs from others around us, not only in our appearance or manner of talking, but also in the way we feel and think, in the way we react, in the way we view the world, around us, in our natures and temperaments, in the foods we like to eat, also in the kind of diseases we suffer from. If there is an epidemic, say of influenza or of conjunctivitis, some people, not all, will come down with the infection. How does this happen? We have, each one of us, our own individual tendencies towards diseases. A boy aged ten years came down with fever and chills. His temperature had been intermittently rising to a hundred and two degrees Fahrenheit since two days, and since the onset of fever he was afraid in the dark and would cling to his mother. His blood sample tested positive for the malarial parasite. He received the homoeopathic remedy Stramonium, and recovered over the next two days. A couple of days later his brother, aged eight years, also came down with fever measuring a hundred and two degrees Fahrenheit. His blood sample, too, showed the presence of the malarial parasite. He had no chills and his temperature remained consistently high. This boy was listless and prostrated, and was barely able to lift up his head and answer. He had absolutely no appetite, would refuse any food offered to him. He wanted to be fanned continuously. One one instance he had very high fever and he had became delirious. In his delirium he muttered that the cupboards were falling on him. He responded well to the homoeopathic remedy Carbo Veg. How is it that although in both cases, the infection was the same, the pictures were so startlingly different? Each of us has our own individual reactivity, and so the symptoms and the pace of infection differs in every case. Recently a cyclone in Orissa devastated the lives of tens of thousands of people. TV pictures shows the plight of the victims:homeless, hungry, lost, separated from their near and dear ones. This was a large scale human tragedy, yet it invited a variety of reactions from amongst us. Those who were sympathetic got into the act of collecting funds and supplies for the victims. Still others volunteered to go to Orissa and help the victims first hand. On the other hand there were those who were quite indifferent because events like this keep happening from time to time. Our politicians did not spare the opportunity to blame each other formismanaging the situation. Much as we would hate to admit it, they too are human. And so different people feel differently and react differently even to human tragedy. Identical twins developed from the same single cell can also have startlingly different natures. There are a lot of differences between individuals, and the homoeopathic physician tries to identify these differences, these individualizing features in each patient. Man can be considered to be an amalgam of two essential parts: the spiritual and the material. The two cannot be separated, but for the sake of convenience let us understand each of them separately. The material part consists of his body, his various organ systems, his glands, his tissues and fluids, his brain. The spirit is the non-material part that gives life to the body, that governs it and controls its functions. It permeates each and every all of the body. Without the sprit, the body is dead. The body can be compared with an automobile. For it to run, you have to fill in fuel. The fuel gets converted into electrical energy which them drives the car. The spirit is also energy that imparts life, and that drives and regulates the body. An in addition, the spirit is also responsible for our natures and temperaments, our moral values. It is what we call 'the soul' in common language, or 'aatma' in hinduphilosophy. It is the soul that imparts individuality. Homoeopathy recongnises both the spiritual and the material parts of man, and here it differs from conventional medicine. The Homeopathic physician regards disease as a disturbance of the spirit or the Vital Force. And so in taking your case the Homoeopathic physician will look for symptoms in your body and also give equal importance to your nature, your feeling and reactions, your dreams, etc. So, in Homoeopathy, each patient is regarded as a sum of his symptoms, his innermost feeling. Since the aim is to understand each person as an individual, the physician looks for things that are most individualistic of people. These are one's innermost feelings. The innermost feelings can be identified by incidents in a person's life and also from his dreams. these became just as important as the ailment of a patient. Briefly, the Homoeopathic physician requires the following for a good and complete history. 1. The exact description of the physical ailments, past and present. · How it began? Was the onset sudden or gradual? · When is the exact sensation ? For e.g., if there is pain, is it burning, shooting,throbbing, pulling etc. · What makes it better or worse : Is there any time of day that the complaint increases in intensity, or then abates ? · What upsetting incidences happened at the time that the problem manifested ? · What does your problem make you feel ? 2. General Symptoms: · What do you like in food and drink ? · How much is your thirst ? · How much do you sweat and where? · How is your sleep ? What position do you sleep in ? · About your pattern of urination and bowel habits. · Your menstrual functions. · About which side of your body tends to be affected more. · What complaints you are prone to : allergies, obesity etc. 3. Symptoms of the mind: · Your nature. · Incidences that have affected you deeply or that have had an impact on you. These are very important to the Homoeopathic physician, especially what the person felt and how he reacted in the incident. The homoeopathic remedy becomes clearer from such instances. · Dreams: These have immense value as symptoms as they reveal one's innermost feelings. · Interest and hobbies. · Innermost feelings, hopes and aspirations, disappointments, impulses, unwanted thoughts. Once the physician has derived a complete picture of you as an individual he attempts to match you with a very similar picture from homoeopathic text-books. Homoeopathic medicines are described in a lot of detail; each medicine is described as if it were an individual. He has already studied these medicines and he tries to find one that matches the patient in his physical symptoms and in his mental make-up. It is like finding the key to a lock. Any lock can only be opened by one particular key. In the same way any one patient requires a remedy whose description he matches. There are over three thousand remedies in the Homoeopathic Material Medica, and each remedy is a conglomerate of several symptoms. Sometimes a single remedy may have over a thousand symptoms. It is impossible for anyone to remember every singly symptom and sometimes the physician may not be familiar with the symptoms that the patient narrates. In such cases he can use an index of symptoms to search the specific symptoms: this is know as a Repertory. Repertories are now also available as computer programmes. To a very large extent the Homeopathic prescription depends on the details of the history that the patient furnishes. If the exact homoeoopathic remedy is administered the results can be quite amazing. This can be illustrated with a case. A woman in her fifties had sever knee join pains. Her X-Rays showed early arthritic changes. The pain was like shocks and came on whenever she had to do housework. She was the only one who used to do the house work and when unable to do it she would weep and blame herself. She had the constant feeling since she had been married that because she was uneducated, she could not contribute financially and was making her husband unhappy. She blamed herself for his problems and felt that the would be happier and he married someone else. When her husband and children were out of the house she would weep with this thought. She would never share her feelings with anyone, keep everything bottled inside. She had dreams of her mother being in very bad health and she would be blaming herself for neglecting her mother. There was an incident in her childhood that had a very deep effect on her and which she narrated very reluctantly. Once her older brother had caught her playing with a friend the had warned her to stay away from. He had taken her home and whipped her as a punishment. She felt that she had done something wrong and blamed herself. Ever since then she obeyed everything she was told to. Throughout her life she had the feeling that she had done something wrong and she would keep blaming herself. This greatly affected her relationship with her husband; rather than communicate with him she would blame herself and keep all her feeling bottled inside. she also mentioned that it was impossible for her to sleep on her back, she would always have to take a deep breath. She had a liking for sweets and sour fruits. the homoeopathic remedy Inertia exactly fits the description of this woman. After three week of tarting treatment her joint pains had reduced by fifty percent. She felt a feeling of peace and calm which she had not experienced in many years. Once her usband said something to her which mad her weep. she stopped crying a litter later she said she realized for the first time that it is not her fault, nor his, but that they are both different people and both can be right. This made her feel much easier. |
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