A case of Eupatorium Perfoliatum with a cautionary tale of why it took all day to find the right remedy.
One Sunday morning while at church (I sing in the choir) my daughter texted me and said: I am sick!
She was a teenager at that point and knew how to take homeopathic remedies, so I advised to take some Aconitum Napellus, which is known to help in rapid onset of acute illnesses.
By the time I came home, a few hours later, Aconitum had not helped. In an illness coming on this quickly and intensely I would expect a remedy to have at least some effect within a few hours. It had none.
Her complaints were in the beginning somewhat general and vague. She was somewhat alternating between hot and cold. She felt achy. She had a headache. There was a fever. She was sweating, but not much.
Over the duration of the day we repeated Aconitum, in several potencies. Then we moved on to Belladonna, which is another remedy for fast onset illness with high fever, headache and achiness. Then she was really thirsty for cold drinks, so we went with Mercurius Solubilis. After that remedy she slept a little bit, so I was relieved, thinking this was the end of it. You can imagine my disappointment when she woke up, a short time after, in utter distress.
Only then I learned that she had taken some NSAI’s (Ibuprofen) in the morning before she texted me. Nothing out of the ordinary, probably about 1-2 pills. So here we were, some 6 hours later and they had finally had worn off. Her REAL symptoms started to emerge: Everything amplified, and my poor girl became more and more:
- Very thirsty: Downing big glasses of ice water, stating that they wouldn’t even touch the thirst and after drinking she was as thirsty as before.
- Very restless, tossing and turning, complaining about not getting comfortable, no matter how she moved. She wanted to be still, but she couldn’t.
- She wanted me to be in the room with her, as talking to me would make her feel a little better. She would tell me in no uncertain terms how much she suffered and finally she screamed very loudly: “My knees are killing me!!!”
This is when I finally realized that she needed the remedy Eupatorium Perfoliatum. The taking of the NSAI’s had masked her symptoms until later in the day, so they only came out gradually as the medication wore off.
After the first dose of Eupatorium she went to sleep for the night, the next day she was 80% better and after a few more doses she was good to go within 2 days.
For me this episode was a valuable lesson on how taking a common and relatively harmless anti-inflammatory medication can mask the true symptoms of an illness. Since in homeopathy we are dependent on observing the symptoms that the body produces, the right remedy could only be found after the effects of the medication wore off. Once the right remedy was given, the suffering subsided very quickly, and the body started healing speedily and completely.
Please be aware that the information on this article is for educational purposes only.
