Case Hydrocyanicum acidum 1

Hydrocyanicum acidum First case
The first case concerns a woman of 43 years, born in 1953. She and her husband came together into my practice room, and, upon seeing her, I assumed that she was the patient, as she looked so very ill. She had very short, sparse hair, like someone whose hair is growing back after chemotherapy. She wore dark glasses, as the light was too bright for her eyes. She was thin and pale, with bluish lips and icy cold bluish hands. But it turned out that she was not the patient after all - she had simply come to accompany her husband. Still, she launched into her story when she saw my mistake, saying that everyone seemed to assume that she was dying, from the way she looked. She was already under homeopathic treatment elsewhere, but was making no progress. She had been very ill all her life, had been to multiple specialists who could not help her either, and had finally told her that they thought she was just a hypochondriac. She was personally convinced that her problems stemmed from a past life, and she wanted to visit my husband, a past-life regression therapist.

Under regression (a light form of trance, not hypnosis), she experienced several different lives. It was during the second session that the source of her present problems was tracked down, the first session often being one in which the client establishes a feeling of safety with the therapist. She experienced herself as a “he”, a six year old Polish boy named Jarich. “He” found himself in a train, jammed in with other people in terrible distress and discomfort. Going back in time, he saw himself at the family home where his parents were engaged in heated discussions about whether or not to flee, and to where. They were rounded up and pushed into a train with uncertain destiny. On disembarking from the train he was momentarily blinded by very bright lights, especially disorienting after all the time in the darkness. He lost his parents in the chaos, only clinging to his teddy bear. He was hustled along in a group, and finally told to undress to take a shower. Many naked people were jammed together into a large room, and them they started to scream and to tumble down on top of him. Being shorter than most, he was one of the last to breathe in the deadly fumes of the gas, Zyclon B (cyanide). He died in terror and pain.

The healing part of the session comes not merely by reliving the trauma, but by being able to understand it in its context in order to be able to release it. The person is encouraged to round off any unfinished business on earth, and is then free to go to a place of “oversight”, from where he can gain understanding and healing. “He” realised that he had been a Jewish boy, dying in the gas chambers of Auschwitz during the Holocaust. When asked if this short life had any connection with the complaints of our patient in this life, the answer came: “the gas, the gas”. The gas (Zyclon B) turned out to be already available as a homeopathic remedy: Hydrocyanic Acid. One dose of this remedy in C30 potency brought about dramatic changes in the woman. She started to gain weight, which had previously been impossible. Her hair began to grow back, and soon she had a full head of hair, as well as a great increase in energy. She used to be so exhausted that she could do little more than the daily chores around the house, needing frequent rests. Even short trips in the car would leave her drained. We made a list of the many complaints that she had had throughout her life, and watched them gradually decrease in the course of continued treatment.

“I have been sick my whole life. I’ve had breathing problems, asthma and a blocked nose. My digestion didn’t work at all; I had a nervous, over-reactive stomach. I am allergic to almost any kind of food - it is easier to ask me what I CAN eat than what I can’t eat. My oesopahagus has always been too narrow, and has always caused problems with swallowing. Almost anything I eat makes me bloated, sometimes even drinking plain water does the same thing. At 4 years of age my tonsils were removed, as they were always swollen and infected, but I was still sick. At 7 years I had a kidney inflammation with blood in my urine. After that it became difficult for me to concentrate and to learn at school. I’ve had a lot of very high fevers, but I never wanted to stay in bed, I was too restless. My ears were always cracking, making a rushing sound, and I couldn’t hear properly. I felt like I always had the ‘flu. I got a very enlarged gland on the right side of my neck. My eyes were always sore and itchy and irritated, with sticky mucous. My thyroid got swollen and lumpy. On the right side of my neck one artery is thick and swollen, making it difficult to turn my head properly. I seem to be allergic to all sorts of chemical things, like the smell of terpentine, paint fumes, or gas smells. I can sniff out the tiniest gas leak long before anybody else notices it. I was sent to a health farm for sick children, but my parents didn’t tell me beforehand. They just brought me there and left me, and I felt so abandonned. As a child I used to play “concentration camp”, even though I didn’t know the word. I would dress my doll in as many layers of clothing as possible, to make sure that “she” would be ready to flee, able to survive even the worst times. I used to dream about being in a place full of soldiers, and singing songs to make them like me. I get “flash-backs” about being pushed up against the bare, stinking buttocks of people, and being disgusted by the smell. I have always had a “thing” with the Jewish people and the Hebrew language (even though there are very few Jews in her part of Holland, and she herself is Protestant). It is as though I would be able to understand the language if I could just hear it a bit better. Every year on Memorial Day in Holland (May 5th), I make a special commemoration. My parents don’t do this, for them it is just a vacation. But I have always wanted it to be a day of silence and respect. My parents don’t understand my fascination with the Second World War - I have always wanted to read everything about it. If I was well enough and had the money I would go on vacation to Israel, not for the fun, but because I need to be there.”

Slowly but surely her complaints began to ease. Her eyes (diagnosed as M. Sjogren), began to produce tears, and became less irritated and crusty. She could gradually eat more and more different foods without suffering the consequences of palpitations and indigestion. Her breathing became easier, her nose unblocked. Her hair continued to grow. She felt that she was becoming psychologically more stable, able to undertake more now that she had more energy. She had enough energy to finally make her trip to Israel, and said that it was like “coming home” to be around so many Jews. She was good at monitoring her own needs, and knew when to ask for another dose - when her back became tense, as though she would bend over backwards (opisthotonus). At these times her circulation would slow down as well, and she would have a hot head and icy cold feet, and low blood pressure. During these times she was also especially sensitive to the smell of any gas, which would make her nauseous.

At a certain point there seemed to be a need for Ignatia instead of Hydrocyanic Acid. She was weepy and depressed, saying “I feel like I always want to call out to my mother, and she isn’t there. I feel like a small child who is abandonned.” This is possibly triggered by the fact that I was moving from Holland to New Zealand. It could have inadvertently been restimulating her feelings of abandonnment as a child in this lifetime, away from home in the health farm for children. This feeling in turn echoes back to the extreme abandonnment of the little Jarich, wrenched from his parents in the concentration camp. Ignatia helped her through this feeling, although on looking back I wonder if Hydrocyanic Acid might have done the same thing. It is interesting to note (for those who claim that any “collapse remedy” like Arsenicum or Carbo Vegetabilis, would have worked), that she had previously been treated with Arsenicum, and many other such remedies, to no avail at all.