Pains in nape of neck darting down the spine; headaches pressing outward or upwards, with sensation as if the top of the head would lift or burst open, or headaches centering in the back of the eyes (ciliary neuralgia); patient is gloomy, sad, and sleepless, and thinks she will go insane if relief is not obtained; she cant bear the slightest touching of the hair, which is actually painful to her, causing an increase of headaches; when a period is thought to be coming on there will be a great increase of all mental and nervous distress, with greatest irritability; such a girl is not “naughty”; she needs a little homoeopathic help.
The pains in the uterine region dart from side to side with neuralgic intensity, from one hip joint to its fellow opposite, with terrible backache, and pains in the spine itself, all due to uterine- reflex. All this is so simple that any sixteen year old girl can differentiate between these remedies, so it ought to be easy for any allopathic doctor to cure you. Are these “drug pictures” clear?.
(3) Sepia (30th potency or higher. Lower strengths are often inert in such cases).
This is made from the black juice of one sort of octopus ( cuttle fish). Its greatest value is at the menopause, but it has its value herein, when the patient will complain of nervous and hysterical headaches, coupled with intense general weakness, or sudden spells of faintness; her back is so weak and aches terribly, always worse on walking; flashes of heat and great perspirations of a peculiar sweetish, sickly odour; actual internal throbbings and hot sensations; acrid leucorrhoea causing rawness and soreness of skin in place of menses;
Urine very foetid, must remove it from room, with deposits reddish, adhering to vessel; feels she must sit tight and cross her legs to support her insides, as she experiences a bearing down in the lower abdomen (pains “from side to side” require Actea racemosa); patient becomes indifferent to her occupation, and her family, even disliking those she really loves best; one-sided headaches (hemicrania), with pains in terrific shocks, so as to jerk the head in spite of herself, all with a painful sensation of emptiness, goneness or faintness in the region of the stomach.
(4) Ignatia (12x to 30th).
The patient requiring Ignatia will sigh and sigh, all quite involuntarily and without knowing she is doing so. However much you tell her to “stop it”, she cant. You have seen such. Give the next case you see some Ignatia.
She has a sad, sighing, suddenly changeable disposition, one moment moody, next moment wildly excitable and even gay. It is a remedy of paradoxes, with an emotional element uppermost, highly hysterical, alert, nervous, apprehensive, rigid, tense, trembling, suffering in mind and body. Moods change instantly, from gaiety to introspective brooding and silent and deep melancholy (compare Aurum metallicum, using the 30th potency, for melancholy, but for this remedy, Aurum, her phase has a hopeless, and religious undercurrent; she is sure of eternal damnation, etc., whatever your estimate of this may be).
The Ignatia patient is above all a sighing, sobbing one, without apparent cause, other than as you will recognize, from a disturbance of the forces of her sex-organism. For further details of the case, study the drug at leisure.
(5) Calcarea carbonica (12x, 30th or higher for the most chronic forms).
This remedy is most often employed for the “great bleeders” at menstruation (see HEAL THYSELF, July-August, 1934), but, if you can find the personal symptoms of your non- menstruating patient in any or all these constitutional signs or imbalance indicated here, then this is the remedy for your case which has the menstrual function suppressed or in which it has never appeared. The “keynote” of homoeopathic success is to treat the patients symptoms of the moment, irrespective of the diagnosis. Here are a few Calc. carb major signposts. See if they fit your patients ill-health.
Firstly, the faulty body forces pile on too much fat, especially in the abdominal region. Then this class of patient will always have icy cold and damp hands and feet, which have a tendency to go waxy-white (dead), with very cold sweats of extremities, also about the head and neck, or even to local night sweats; (if the foot sweats rot her stockings and smell badly, she will require Silicea high, say the 30th potency, intercurrently with Calc. carb. before being entirely cured). This Calc. carb. case will complain of much inward coldness; at the same time going icy cold up to the knees; the whole body has a sour smell, sour eructations, sour stomach, and even sour smelling stools; a milky leucorrhoea takes place of normal menses. The general make-up of the Calc. carb. patient is, fair of skin and hair, fat, flabby, cold, damp, and anaemic.
There are many other remedies known to and recorded by homoeopathy, for anyone to study, for particular personal variations of absent menstruation. The foregoing is meant to convey briefly the “lesson” how we determine one remedy from another, hoping that sufficient detail has been outlined to make you desirous of further personal study.
But I must include here one more help. It sometimes happens that instead of the normal menstruation, the youthful patient will start up a “vicarious” menstruation, the most common example of which is frequent and annoying “nose bleeds”. Many such cases can be cured by Bryonia alba (3x, 6x to 30th) or Hamamelis virginica (in same strengths), but those in charge should not delay in employing the constitutional cure, as above outlined. For the pressing needs of these “nose bleeds” it must be noted that Bryonia acts best when the blood is active, bright, red, and profuse while it lasts, and that the blood coagulates quickly (normally).
Hamamelis will be more appropriate and succeed better where the bleeding is of sluggish flow, being much darker in colour, with very slow or absent coagulation on standing. You mark the great difference? If any such haemorrhage is slow and very persistent, and wont coagulate, then say Sanguinaria (3x or 6x). This is obtained from the common leech, which animal contains within itself a secretion which liquifies the blood of its victim, so that it can better suck its fill. This was introduced to homoeopathy by the late Dr. John Compton Burnett in the 1870s. If these “nose bleed ” remedies dont exactly fit your case, then read up our snake venom anti-haemorrhagics, such as Lachesis, Crotalus, or Bothrops, and so learn your Similimum.
