A Synergistic approach: three cases
by Ashok Borkar
Case 1
This is a case of a fifteen-year-old girl with a painful keloid on the left arm.
P: “I have a keloid on my arm. It hurts me when I am studying and even when I go out. It appeared after a BCG injection, which was given at birth. It was very small when I was five, but now it has increased and itches a lot.”
Ashok Borkar (AB): Tell me more.
P: “It hurts all the time, especially if anyone touches it, and in between it is like a strike on the arm. Sometimes, I can’t raise my arm. It hurts more in winter.”
AB: Describe this a little more.
P: “It is as if a safety pin has pricked me and I feel like pressing it tight with my hand. But it goes on hurting, stitching. It also happens when I am sitting idle and when I am studying; then I just hold the arm with my hand till the pain is better. After some time, it hurts again. I am always conscious that this arm should not be touched. It hurts horribly and I feel as if I am going to faint. It hurts as if I have hit a cupboard door, or as if a sharp object is hitting my body. ‘Thaak! thaak!’ Then, the pain radiates down my arm. One second it hits me, and after two seconds again it hits me again, at regular intervals, then it becomes continuous.”
AB: Tell me more.
P: “It is a very tough pain. I get angry, tensed up, worried. I take that anger out on my sister. I beat her in anger. I feel as if somebody has held me very tightly and I am getting hurt. I can’t stop it. I try to pinch my hand to divert my attention. It hurts for two to three days. It is an unbearable stitching pain. The striking is so bad, so unbearable, that I feel frustrated. I feel almost unconscious for a moment till the pain decreases. At that time, I can’t talk to anybody. The pain is so intense that I am unable to sleep.”
AB: Tell me more.
P: “The arm muscle contracts and I feel as if it is held tightly and stamped on. It hurts badly, as if I am being hit with a baton; it is not stopping. The pain increases and increases, and it lowers my strength. Then, I feel tired. It is going above my limit, I just can’t bear it. I am tired of trying to stop it.”
AB: Tell me more.
P: “I feel like weeping. I don’t want to answer when people ask me about it. I feel downcast. Why me? I feel shattered when they ask me. I get angry, irritated, furious. I bang my hand in anger.”
Here we see some important emotions being expressed: weeping, downcast, shattered, furious, bang my hand in anger. She feels she is hit and then hits her hand in anger. In addition to this, she has a feeling of ‘why me?’
All of these descriptions are associated with emotions. From this explanation, we can conclude that the disease experience is intense at both the physical and emotional level.
AB: What dreams do you get?
P: “I am travelling in a car and the car is on a bridge. The bridge breaks and I am in the water. I try to save myself but the speed of the water is so much that I can’t do it. I am drowning, asking for help but no one is around. I am trying to come out of the water. I go completely blank at that moment.”
Her individual experience in this situation is that she is trying to come out and at that moment she goes blank.
AB: Any fears?
P: “When I hear of tsunamis and all, I feel as if I am struck. What will I do if a tsunami comes?”
Here, we get the same sensation that ran through and through the case, and this is the sensation of ‘being struck’.
Analysis
The sensation in this case is: hit, struck, and hurt. There is also an element of being very sensitive to touch, as it will cause pain. The same sensation is observed in all areas and indicates a plant remedy.
The passive reaction is: fainting, unconscious, and blank.
The active reaction is: anger and hitting. The plant family covering the sensation, passive reaction and active reaction is the Compositae family.
Some of my colleagues who watched the video of this case said that it was malarial miasm because of the intermittent nature of the pain and the persecuted (‘why me’) feeling (somebody beating me again and again).
However, the features of the cancer miasm came up strongly. The patient perceives the pain as ‘too much’. It is beyond her limitation and she tries hard to stop it.
What clinched the final diagnosis was the following rubric:
▪ Cicatrices, keloid (Complete repertory)
Bellis perenis is one of the remedies listed under this rubric.
The following symptoms of this patient are mentioned in Murphy’s Materia Medica and are covered by Bellis perennis:
▪ Pressure ameliorates
▪ Squeezing pain (sensation of being pressed tightly and stamped on)
▪ Feeling tired with the pain
▪ Injury to nerves with intense soreness (radiating pain, touch aggravates)
▪ Tumors from injury
The presence of Bellis perennis in the rubric ‘Cicatrices, keloid’ means that this remedy has the power to produce and cure keloids. Producing this type of pathology is a unique characteristic of Bellis perennis. Every remedy has its own special seat of action and the power to produce a specific disease process. The sphere of action and the type of action is always a characteristic symptom of the remedy.
In this case, the sphere of action is the scar tissue. The type of action is the tumor of the scar tissue (keloid) and the pain produced is a neuralgic type of pain.
Prescription: a single dose of Bellis perennis 200C, which is a remedy belonging to the cancer miasm.
Follow-up
After eight weeks, the pain and tenderness in the keloid stopped immediately. In two months, the size of the keloid reduced by five millimeters. The blackish discoloration around the keloid disappeared. She stopped getting angry and beating her sister, and she could concentrate on her studies. The patient’s father had taken a photograph of the keloid the day her history was taken in our clinic. He made a power point slide comparing this photograph with a new photograph two months after the remedy was given.
After nine months later, we observed that the keloid had flattened and become soft. The pain never came back again.