Hi Mom,
Hello, Miss Shana!
We should probably start with the Death Report. I have an unfortunate death to announce.
Oh no! Who is it this time?
I’m sorry to say we lost John Edwards of The Spinners, he was 80 years old.
This is terrible! There’s only one left, GC Cameron. OK, here’s John Edwards, singing lead on….
“Working My Way Back To You”
John joins, in heaven, Bobbie Smith, Pervis Jackson, Billy Henderson and Henry Fambrough. RIP, John!
Who’s in the quiz this month, Mom?
The Bennadettis.
Who?
Letty Bennadetti and her son, Benny.
Benny Bennadetti?
That’s right.
OK, Mom, if you say so!
So here’s what Letty Bennadetti wrote to me:
________________________
Hello Elaine, it’s Letty Bennadetti!
I’d like you to take the case of my 4-year-old. He’s had trouble breathing for 3 years and he has allergies.
We have the following symptoms:
– apnea
– enlarged tonsils
– snoring
– no air going to the brain from the upper face (i.e. the nose)
– runny nose
– sluggish
– wants to stay home
– no energy
– mouth-breathing
– a bit depressed (and depressing!)
– eats a lot and not in a nice way
– always seems dirty no matter what I do
– a bit of a retarded look/thought process
I really feel the key to his case is his mentals.
He’s a heavy child, he runs like a fat child, if you know what I mean; sluggish, wants to be pushed in the stroller! Even my 2-year-old doesn’t want to be pushed in the stroller anymore.
Also:
He’ll repeat the same thing over and over again if the person is not paying attention to him. He’s, like, heavy you know? Heavy, indifferent, even surly. Grumpy, definitely grumpy, like the smurf (“I don’t like fish” or “I don’t like this or I don’t like that”), really in a tone that makes me think of grumpy smurf. Grouchy. He’ll finish off almost a whole plate of food and then push it away saying he doesn’t like it! Indecisive. Doesn’t know where to sit on the bus, can’t decide what he wants on his sandwich. (But believe it or not, there’s a natural sweetness to him.)
He can also be afraid to cross the street, if he’s alone, even if there are no cars. He’ll just sit on the sidewalk and wait for someone to cross the street with him.
He learns very well, he’s not stupid or even slow. But he has trouble expressing himself orally, like he’ll need to scream at the top of his lungs – and it’s almost all the time towards his two bigger brothers, with whom he competes (or wants to compete).
Competing over what?
He wants to be part of the group. He’s sandwiched between two bigger boys (8 and 6 years old) and a little girl of 2. He just got out of baby world and now wants to be part of the gang. You know what I mean? So he competes against them to be accepted.
As I may have said, he’s quarrelsome so he’ll start a fight.
Over what?
A-n-y-t-h-i-n-g.
I just found them fighting with each other less than one minute after they were singing this beautiful song. The three of them on the floor, hitting one another, which usually means he comes to me crying like the poor victim.
What will he say?
“Mummy, Denny hit me.”
You should see the look on his face. I’m like “so next time, don’t start with him!” Sorry but he was really asking for it.
Or sometimes he’ll scream to me, as if I’ll agree to his demands more easily that way. I’ll just calmly ask him “Why are you screaming, I’m right here?”
Trouble expressing himself: physically, with his mouth. Also it’s as if he’s lazy with his mouth and won’t articulate much or will have trouble distinguishing syllables so I’ll have to make him repeat a few times before I understand what he’s telling me, which annoys him.
This morning he was really like the grumpy smurf. He asks for his usual cereal with yogurt and peanut butter, but doesn’t eat any of it and says “I don’t like eating.” Or I’ll ask him to help me prepare a pot of soup, which he usually likes to do, and he says, “I don’t like to help prepare soup.”
He does not like to be pressured in any way. It could be that all children are like that but I feel it more so with him. And I’m impatient so it can create sparks!
He clings to his father when he comes home from work and it’s very annoying.
And he doesn’t have a lot of energy. He likes to stay home.
He’s a quarrelsome boy, more than all my other children. He would even try to start a fight with a complete stranger! Meaning a child he doesn’t know.
The truth is, he’s very cute and sensitive (at the soul level) and I have no idea where that aggression comes from. I have to tell him many times not to shout in the house.
Let me re-iterate also that it’s very hard to understand what he’s saying. I have to ask him a few times. And even then, I don’t get the message 100%.
When he’s just a tiny bit upset he’ll react in a mean way, even to me. For example today, a few young girls were walking by and he just started with them and before they were gone he told them, “What do you want? You want to get hit?”
Oy vey!
He hits his brothers.
Yes, so I heard.
He still comes to me when he gets hit back, crying in a pitiful manner, “Mummy, Freddie hurt me!!”
OK, so listen, here’s what I think his remedy is: ____________30C. Let me know what happens.
OK, Elaine; so, I’ve given __________30C twice now and the improvements I’ve seen are as follows:
Nose has stopped running, less snoring at night and less apnea, and on the mental plane:
more energy, more independence (less clingy), more alertness, less of the baby/retarded look.
Symptoms improved:
– more energy
– more independent (he actually wants to leave the house to see his friends and play outside)
– sings and even tells a joke, his brothers (and I) are laughing out loud
– more alert mentally and physically
– no sluggishness
– cleaner
– no more runny nose
– happy child, the way they’re supposed to be
– allergies gone
– hitting gone
– clinging to his father, gone
__________________________
OK! Do you know what the remedy is? Write to me at [email protected] and let me know. The answer will be in next month’s ezine.
Mom, wait!!! You forgot our Birthday Shout-Out of the Month! Now, the problem is, you can’t imagine how many birthdays there are in May! Are you ready for this?
James Brown!
No way!
Johnnie Taylor!
Egads! Johnnie Taylor?
Frankie Valli
You’re kidding!
Gladys Knight!
Oh no! It’s going to be hard to choose, but, let’s go with Johnnie Taylor, one of the greatest blues singers of all time, but, he goes all the way back to The Soul Stirrers when he took the place of Sam Cooke as lead singer.
Johnnie Taylor, bottom, center
Then, probably the next time you heard from him was in 1968 with a big hit on Stax called “Who’s Making Love”.
But this is the one I want to play, from 1996.
“These Last Two Dollars”
Mom, it’s just “Last Two Dollars”.
Well excuse me, Mrs. Know-It-All!
But these last 2 dollars, I ain’t gonna lose
These last 2 dollars, sure ain’t gonna lose
One’s going for the bus fare
Other one’s for the jukebox
Got to hear me some blues!
Happy Birthday, Johnnie Taylor, May 5, 1934 – May 31, 2000.
___________________________
VOTES:
Chamomilla
Pulsatilla
Hepar Sulph
Cina-2
Hey, everybody! Who wants to go first?
Hi Elaine,
Hi Edina!
I’m thinking of Chamomilla for this case. Here’s why. Mentals overrule the rest.
So just because he’s heavy and sluggish, he doesn’t necessarily need calc-carb. Same with apnea, mouth breathing, etc.
So I went to the children’s chapter for most of the rubrics.
The most striking mentals are capricousness, contrariness, cross mood, hitting, wanting to fight, whining that doesn’t invoke pity, clinging, grumpiness…
I couldn’t find “grumpy” but I did find “contrary”, maybe that will do.
Chamomilla was the strongest contender.
Let me tell you about Chamomilla. Letty says her 4-year-old son is basically sweet, he’s a “sweet soul”, she says. Chamomilla is not sweet! People around Chamomilla are at their wits’ end, as nothing stops his screaming, crying and constant demands for one thing or another, for being picked up and carried, etc. Chamomilla is inconsolable; and usually, the cause is pain: teething, ear infections, etc.
Fear of crossing streets wasn’t a helpful rubric so, I don’t know what to do with that.
“Dependent”. He doesn’t take initiative.
I wasn’t sure how significant the speech issue was.
It was very significant because Letty kept bringing it up. Benny has a motor issue, and it extends to his mouth. Letty doesn’t think he’s making an effort to form syllables.
I did consider Hyoscyamus (loud, repetition, slurring) or Stramonium (enunciation, fears, violence) but I feel like he is not that deep into the mental pathology, especially for a 30c.
We can’t confirm Hyoscyamus or Stramonium. Hyoscyamus is very silly, laughing inappropriately and loudly, making goofy, facial expressions, touching inappropriately, eccentric behavior and dressing inappropriately for the occasion.
Stramonium usually has night terrors, fear of the dark, fear of being alone…. It’s a rabies remedy; so, a lot of varying degrees of violent behavior; Benny’s only “violence” is with his 2 brothers because that’s how they behave and he’s trying to be accepted by them, but he’s just a big baby and comes crying to his mother every time he gets hit.
Also, please know that even though Mentals over-rule a lot, they are not at the top of the Hierarchy of Symptoms. Above the “mentals” are Etiology and Diagnosis. I don’t see an etiology here, so we move down to Diagnosis: He cannot breathe, he’s a mouth-breather. He snores. Probably because his tonsils are enlarged. So…let’s go to “Throat: tonsils, enlargement”. Is Chamomilla there? No; so, that’s probably not our remedy then.
So, what we’re going to do, then, is go to that rubric (Throat: tonsils, enlargement), look at the remedies and say to ourselves, Do any of these “enlarged tonsils” remedies match the characteristic symptoms in our case?
For example, you mentioned “whining”, another one would be “contrary” (“I don’t like food … I don’t want to prepare soup….”).
And then there’s “clinging”; also, Letty says, he’s got a “retarded” look about him; so, I didn’t find that under “Face: expressions”, but I did find “Face: expressions, stupid”; another thing she complained about a lot was that she couldn’t understand what he was saying; so, you could look at “Speech: indistinct”.
Now, here’s another one, “Mind: dependent on others”. He won’t cross the street unless someone takes him, he takes no initiative, even when there are no cars in sight, he just sits there on the sidewalk waiting for someone to help him. Also, we’re told he’s indecisive, doesn’t know where to sit on the bus, doesn’t know what he wants on his sandwich. So, that’s just to get you started.
But, a word of caution: don’t let the “fighting” and “hitting” in the case throw you! It’s not about that at all! He’s just imitating his brothers! That’s all he’s doing! He’s really a big baby! He comes running to his mother crying, “Denny hit me!”
Plus, here’s a clue, Letty says, “He runs like a fat kid”, meaning, he probably waddles. Now, you’re not going to find a rubric for that, I don’t think? But you get the idea that he’s awkward. What else? His father comes home from work and Benny clings to him endlessly and its very annoying. What would you call this, “childish”? So you might want to look at that. So, I think I’ve given you a lot to do. We call these things the “Elements of the Case”.
Hi again, Elaine. There was no etiology and no actual diagnosis.
The chief complaint was: can’t breathe, enlarged tonsils, mouth-breathing, and snoring.
Apnea, snoring and swollen tonsils are secondary, right?
This is the physical pathology—enlarged tonsils, it’s the cause of the snoring, mouth breathing, etc.; so, the remedy has to be able to affect the tonsils.
Was it actually tonsillitis or adenoids? I missed that.
Enlarged tonsils. Not tonsilitis, which is painful. He wasn’t in pain.
So next was mentals.
So my reading of the case was different than yours. I got the impression that the negative mentals dominated and he’s only a sweet kid to his parents, although they are annoyed by his clinging and whining, while he’s always provoking siblings and other kids to fight.
Other kids—he’s repeating what he hears his brothers say and do. They are modeling behavior for him, and its not good behavior. Letty finally had a talk with them.
He wants something then he doesn’t. Cross, grumpy, screaming. I thought Chamomilla also covered respiratory issues. But not really the fears.
Based on your rubrics, I get Bar-c.
Yes, that’s it! It is Baryta carb! When Letty said, “He looks retarded,” I thought, oh geez, everybody’s gonna know now!” But you were thrown off by the hitting and fighting; but he’s just imitating his brothers, wants to be accepted by them, but he comes away crying to mommy! In truth, he’s backward, slow, sluggish, awkward, tired; in fact, everything in this case goes for Baryta carb.
I ruled Baryta out early, because I just didn’t see it in him.
I’m getting a different kid with the rubrics you chose….I totally misinterpreted the info.
Edina, Baryta carb actually covers the whole case. Have a look:
Is anybody else here today?
Hi Elaine
Hi Neil.
Not been on for a while…
I know! It’s good to see you back again!
I think this month’s remedy is Pulsatillsa. The mentals as suggested seem key, the capriciousness, the clinginess the manipulative nature all seem to point to Pulsatilla.
Well, it’s true, Neil. He does seem to be back-and-forth; he likes to make soup, then he doesn’t like to make soup, etc. and he’s certainly clingy with his father when he comes home from work; but, let’s dig a little deeper.
As you may know, Pulsatilla elicits sympathy from others, and is ameliorated by it. Our patient, Benny, is not eliciting sympathy from anybody; rather, his dad finds him annoying.
Pulsatilla is not a pathological remedy, it’s a normal remedy in childhood; you can count on almost any child being Pulsatilla; and what does that mean:
- As long as Pulsatilla feels secure, she or he can be joyful and charming.
- Fear of strangers, but, once she gets to know you, she can be your best friend, showing off new toys, clothes, dance steps, songs and poems she’s learned.
- Pulsatilla thrives in company, soaking in love, sympathy, attention, hugs and consolation and giving love in return.
Now, how does our Quiz patient fit into this list? Not very well. He’s anything but charming and joyful! In fact, he’s really not a normal child at all! And that’s the first thing you should notice about him, he’s not normal! And if he’s not normal, you’re not gonna be looking for a “normal” remedy like Calc-carb, Pulsatilla, Phosphorus or Sulphur. We have to start thinking about what “abnormal” child remedy Benny could possibly be.
The biggest clue of all was when his mother said, “He looks retarded.” And her biggest complaint of all, because she kept repeating it, was that he couldn’t be understood when he spoke! I took the rubric (in Murphy’s) “Speech: indistinct”. And then, as you pointed out, he’s very clingy—most notably with his father, but unlike Pulsatilla, he elicits no sympathy. So, what do you think it is now?
Thanks Elaine,
Maybe Baryta carb is indicated?
Yes! Letty did us all a favor by mentioning that he looks retarded. So now, here is our case: 1. Enlarged tonsils. 2. Retarded. And 3…. we’re done.
Gabi’s here!!!
Hi, Elaine!
The unintelligible speech is, to me, the most salient symptom.
Yes, Gabi, you saw that too; the mom mentioned it repeatedly.
The remedy suggested is Stramonium and its also quarrelsome.
Stramonium’s speech problem is that they stutter, especially the first letter of the first word they’re trying to say, and they stutter it rather forcefully. Benny Bennadetti, however, if I understand the mother correctly, seems to have such weak musculature in his mouth and jaw that he can’t enunciate. So, keywords: weak, slow, sluggish (4-year-old wants to be pushed in a stroller–really unusual).
For the speech problem, I picked the rubric “Speech: indistinct”. BUT, you have to remember, Gabi … the mom—Letty Bennadetti—says the chief complaint is, Benny can’t breathe due to enlarged tonsils. She suggests that not enough oxygen is getting to his brain! If, indeed, this is the root of all of Benny Bennadetti’s problems? Then we have to start the case off with “Throat: tonsils, enlarged, children”. Our remedy has to be there!
But if I had a kid in that conditon and because I don’t know the colour of the discharge from his nose or how long its been going on, I would have given Hepar sulph first.
Think of the hierarchy of symptoms, Gabi. Right up at the top is Etiology, next is Diagnosis, or, “chief complaint”; then we have “strange rare and peculiar”, then the mentals, then the emotionals, then the physical generals, and last are the particulars.
The color of nasal discharge would be right down at the bottom, would only be of use to us if a case had some indistinct diagnosis like “common cold”, with no peculiars, no mentals, no generals….then we’d say, “Tell me about the discharge: What’s the color, odor and consistency?” But otherwise, if we’ve got mentals? If we’ve got peculiars? An etiology? We will not be starting our case with the nasal discharge.
As I’ve said many times, when blockyzing a case, we go from “Big-to-Small”. Have you seen the “Rugrats” cartoon show? Chuckie (Arseniblock) tries to explain to Tommy (Sulphur) the correct way to put blocks back. “They go from Big-to-Small”, Chuckie says, “Big-to-Small, you lay down the big blocks first….” Tommy thinks that putting blocks away “properly” is so absurd, he kicks them across the room!
So, therefore, when we’re trying to find a person’s remedy, we ask ourselves, what’s the biggest thing? That comes first. What’s at the root of all this? Oh! His tonsils are enlarged, he can’t breathe, he’s not getting enough oxygen in his system, he’s lacking strength, he can’t think properly, what’s the remedy for enlarged tonsils? Oh! Wait! There’s more than one! Now what do we do?
Now we have to find out what’s characteristic—as you pointed out, he can’t speak; but what does that look like? Letty says he can’t form syllables. I take that to mean weak jaw muscles and tongue. She says he looks retarded. Uh-oh! BINGO! There ya go! That’s a keynote of what remedy? Baryta carb! Is Baryta carb in the enlarged tonsils rubric? You bet! It’s in Bold! So that’s it! As Judge Judy would say, “We’re done here!”
By the way what remedy selection app do you use now? I’d like to get it.
Go to this website and click on “Vision”:
Wow. Thank you for this. I used Baryta-carb so many times when the kids were young for the tonsils, yes. I completely forgot about that. I will have to sharpen my repertory reading. I am out of touch and yes I need to follow suit on what people are saying and what is the chief complaint and go from there! I will look into the app. Thank you.
I have to hasten to add….some people say the stupidest things are the “chief complaint”, and the more they talk, the more you realize they have something really serious wrong with them that they haven’t even bothered to mention.
Alternatively, you might find out they have an acute that they’re blowing off because of what they think their chronic complaint is, and you’re like, wait a minute! Did you just say you fell down the steps and have had a headache ever since?!
It’s like that article I sent you on the kid with Leukemia, the father wanted a cancer remedy and he was letting all these acutes go by! Falls, ailments from anesthesia, headaches from spinal injections (Hyperiblock)….he just ignored all of that like it was normal! So, moral of the story, you take down what they say is their chief complaint, but…it may or may not be! You have to discern that.
I see the gang from Slovakia is here!
Hello Elaine and Shana,
Hello Miroslav and Jitka!
We are sending our answers to the quiz for a remedy for Benny.
OK, great!
Miroslav guesses: Cina
Symptoms at the beginning of the story could be typical of Calc-carb, but the aggression doesn’t fit this remedy. Patient getting into fights even with stronger older brothers… Calcium is a softie who is afraid of the outside world, I don’t think he would be that brave. And it was the rubric: Children, fighting – brought me to Cina. These are quite aggressive and restless children and they are also in the rubric: Mind: carried, wants to be, which would explain his pblockivity in general. They also eat a lot and this child is obese.
Jitka guesses: Cina
Your patient Benny looks like Cina for irritable and restless children who are big, fat and always hungry. The child is very cross, irritable and dissatisfied with everything, hates being touched, carried or shaken. Desires many things but immediately refuses when offered. It is desperate and always restless.
Was he restless? I saw him as sluggish, tired. But, leaving that aside, I see what has happened here. You both were fooled by the fighting behavior with his older brothers. You know what? It’s Medorrhinum who will pick fights with kids older than he is, because Medorrhinum is impulsive, craves stimulation and gets bored easily. But here Benny, when he gets in fights, what does he do? He goes crying to his mother, “Mommy, Denny hit me!!!” What does that make him look like? A big baby!
So listen, why is Benny fighting? Is it because he’s aggressive? No. He’s imitating! He wants to be like his brothers, one of the “gang”, as it were, and that’s how the brothers behave! He wants them to accept him. But they are modeling bad behavior! Therefore, Benny is copying bad behavior—in order to “fit in”!
If his brothers were peaceful and loving, and he picked fights with them, we would be thinking, “Wow, this kid is really aggressive, what is his problem?!” We’d be looking at remedies like Medorrhinum that have no self-control, children who get bored easily, are impulsive, always looking to start something; but, Benny is not the initiator of this behavior, he’s just trying to gain acceptance; but his reaction is to act like a baby and run to Mommy!
So, that’s what we should take away from this, that he acts like a baby, clinging to Daddy, sits down at the curb and waits for someone to take his hand and walk him across the street even when there are no cars in sight, wants to be pushed in a stroller like a toddler, which even the 2-year-old no longer wants. Benny’s got arrested development!
And, moreover, the mother says he looks retarded. So, do you want to guess again?
We are going to try again.
Miroslav:
Since the main thread of this case is arrested development, then it could be Baryta carb.
That is correct!
Jitka:
Based on your explanation of Benny’s case, especially that the child looks and acts retarded, I think it’s a case of Baryta carb. I just didn’t quite understand, we were both guessing Cina and you were comparing case to Medorrhinum.
I was saying that the “violent” behavior in the case had to be scrutinized. Is Benny violent? Or is he just copying the behavior of his older brothers in order to “fit in”? If his brothers were peaceful, but Benny is picking fights with them, then we would have to look at our violent remedies—like Cina, Medorrhinum, Tuberculinum, etc. But his brothers are not peaceful! They are the ones modeling this behavior! Benny is not a violent child, he’s pretending to be like his brothers so he can be one of the “gang”, a “big kid”.
We may not fully understand the connection between these two remedies.
There is no connection. Medorrhinum is simply an example of a remedy that will start fights with no provocation, but there are a lot of such remedies; Medorrhinum is simply bored and has no self-control!
Another remedy that will start fights for nothing is Tuberculinum. These children’s brains are especially badly affected by milk and sweets, leading to hyperactivity, hitting, shouting, ***, kicking, screaming, breaking things, head-banging, complaining, refusing to cooperate in any way… If you change their diet, these kids become much better behaved.
Tuberculinum is very famous for restlessness. Benny is sluggish, wants to be pushed in a stroller. So, for many reasons, we wouldn’t pick Tuberculinum.
What about Cina? Cina is very intense, our patient is the opposite of that. He’s “Grumpy”; you might call it “reserved displeasure”. Let’s see what Sankaran says about Cina in Soul Of Remedies:
The main feeling of both these remedies (Chamomilla and Cina) is that they are not getting enough attention from their parents. Chamomilla reacts to this by loud shrieking and demanding, not quietened unless carried, whereas Cina reacts with irritability and temper-tantrums such as throwing things, capriciousness and pushing away the parents (“Touched, aversion to being”, “Caressed, aversion to being”, “Indifference to caresses”, “Striking in children”, etc.), as if to say: “Where were you when I needed you?” The need for attention in Cina is therefore seen as a refusal and rejection of the same, and as capriciousness, which involves also demanding many things without knowing what.
The symptom of Cina: “Children refuse hair cutting” is one I have verified.
Having a haircut has to do with touch, caress, nearness and trust, which the Cina child is averse to. Caresses are of no use – and this is the main symptom of Cina.
**************
I think it’s apparent that Benny doesn’t resemble this picture. “Caresses are of no use,” but Benny wants to be caressed by his father the minute he gets home from work. Benny is a big baby! We should not be fooled by the “fighting” in the case.
Thank you for explaining and clarifying remedies for the bully boys compared to mentally challenged children, I hope we will remember this forever.
Thank you. The point is, the case is deceiving! It’s very easy to think that Benny is a violent child who needs a violent remedy—Cina, Medorrhinum, Tuberculinum…. But we have to ask ourselves, What is really going on here? If he’s just imitating his older brothers? Then we have to throw that out! Kids are great imitators! They’re always pretending to be this or pretending to be that. So we have to be very careful when forming an opinion about who they are. For all we know, they’re repeating things they hear on TV and don’t even know what they’re saying!
I regret to say that we don’t have a Gold Star winner this time. But don’t feel bad. It was a deceptive case.
I should probably go to bed anyway.
See you again next time!
________________________________
Elaine Lewis, DHom, CHom
Elaine takes online cases. Write to her at [email protected]
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