Uranium nitricum and hereditary lymphatic leukemia

Bracing herself in the face of a hereditary blood disease: I see decay and death all over but I rise up against all odds. 

She is a woman of 59 years, a therapist with Addison’s anemia* which is evolving into chronic lymphatic leukemia*. She looks younger than her age, bright, friendly, and always ready for a joke*; one could easily miss the seriousness of her state*. By and by, she comes up with a plethora of symptoms and complaints, which seem to have no end. There is a family history of CLL* (chronic lymphatic leukemia); her mother and sister have it, and her father died from bone cancer*. Her own blood count shows large unidentified cells* and atypical blasts (immature blood cells)*. She has swollen cervical lymph nodes*, high blood pressure, around 150/95, and because of Addison’s anemia*, she receives regular shots of vitamin B12.

She is lively and tries to take her fate from the bright side without being superficial*. She does not want to be a burden to others, which makes her especially sympathetic because there is no hidden egoism* behind her complaints. Her eyes are deep and radiate a strange power*, which does not want to take possession of others but let them be. Her gaze expresses an inner triumph over her own weaknesses. It feels as if she likes to play with situations and dislikes taking things too seriously*, although her condition is indeed serious because she can only handle her daily affairs with great restrictions. The longer she talks, the more one is surprised how lively she is under all these difficulties.

Her main complaint is her bowel problems. She has had constipation since she was 10 years old, with stinging, stitching pains in her right upper abdomen, as if someone is boring in with a sharp screwdriver. Only 6 weeks ago, she had a colonoscopy which showed putrid diverticulitis and ileocaecal abscesses. She finds relief with enemas and breathing exercises*.

She has had severe infections* during her whole life, but rarely with fever*. She has never been completely healthy; she was a sickly child* and was often closer to death than to life*. Before she was born, her mother had two abortions*. When she was born, she was a sad and puny child*. At the age of 2, she was paralysed for two days during an infection. She was suspected to have polio but it was not confirmed.

Did you have a striking experience which changed you?

“Yes, when I was nine my younger nephew died. I liked him very much. Then my mother thought that I should get acquainted with the reality of death*. She painted it nicely and dragged me to the morgue. There was the corpse of my beloved nephew: dead, with blue lips, and behind there were lots of others coffins with corpses*. It was a ghastly* scene, gruesome, and morbid*; death was horrible. It took me many years to get over it. From that time onwards, I had abdominal pains, cramps, and whenever I saw death or decay, I got abdominal cramps and also held my breath. Whenever I got sick, I was sure I would die. Wherever I went, I saw death and decay*; death seemed omnipresent*. I also had frequent anginas. Once, as I was very sick and close to suffocation, it was presumed that it was diphtheria because I could hardly breathe and the soft palate was paralysed. I lost a whole year then and slept most of the time, knocked out; I had to repeat this year at school. When I was 18, I had a putrid tumour at the root of the soft palate, which had to be operated; the operation took 7 hours. Many years later, during the climacteric period, I experienced again feelings of suffocation and fear of death*. It mostly came during the night, with palpitation; I thought it was the end and I would die from suffocation. Aconite helped me then.”

In spite of all her inherited weaknesses*, she slowly built up her constitution through a healthy and restrained life; she exercised regularly and lived a balanced life. She became skilled in the art of facing omnipresent decay*. When she came in contact with homeopathy, especially, things got better. Rosina Sonnenschmidt had helped her with Syphilinum and Uranium. Her infections became less frequent and less severe, and her blood count became better; the leukemic cells were reduced. In the last years, Phosphorus helped for chronic cough.

Her colour preference is warm yellow 3C and pure blue 15C. When looking at 3C she feels warm, calm, and relaxed; after looking longer, she feels a certain freedom rising up in her mind. With 15C, she feels wide, water, and moving freely in water.

Analysis and Follow-up

In retrospect, there are plenty of good hints for the Uranium series, as indicated by asterisks* in the text. She was even helped by Uranium in the past, and the main clinical direction (CLL and Addison’s anemia) also point in this direction. I decided, however, to follow the history of diphtheria with paralysis after the incident in the morgue, because she took this so seriously. Even many years later, she suffered from a tumour at the same spot, the soft palate, after many infections of the tonsils. A famous classical homeopath had already followed this trend of thought and given her Lac caninum but without benefit. The following Diphterinum intermezzo may be interpreted in many ways; it was, perhaps, necessary to clear a layer or needed in the drama, or it might not have been necessary, after all, and Uranium nitricum would have done the job straight away. Who knows?

After Diphtherinum 200, a veritable Pandora’s Box opened; 20-30 minutes after taking the dose, her old complaint of boring stitching pain in the right upper abdomen vanished. She then felt as if her throat was compressed; a tough membrane of slime formed on the epiglottis, which forced her to retch and gag and hawk, but she could not get rid of it, it was too gluey and tenacious. After a few days, she got very restless; she had nausea after eating and bright red bleeding gums when brushing her teeth. Her sleep, however, was more refreshing. After one week, she got worse; she could not concentrate, messing up dates and files in her practice. Her restlessness was very disturbing and she got vertigo with confusion; her blood pressure went up to 160/105. Her whole digestive tract seemed to burn from mouth to anus. “Everything is messed up, I can’t sleep although I’m dead tired, then I toss in bed and wake up frequently.”

Shortly after another dose of Diphtherinum 200, she had a spontaneous normal stool, which is very rare, but everything else got worse. “I’m so dizzy and restless in my head, as if the brain would burst.” In the course of the next week, she was less restless but “it is as if I have lost my brain, I cannot think, I cannot remember things, each mental task is a huge effort and exhausts me. I know this state from 10 years ago, when I looked at the Vatican ceiling frescos. It is like a cloud around my head, as if I have a veil before my eyes. I rub my forehead to wipe it off.”

Five weeks later she called, “I just survived a horrible flu.” She had tried several remedies on her own because she did not improve. Her concentration difficulties, particularly, were even worse than before and the constipation had also returned. ”It is like a swamp in my brain, like a fog, everything is in my head.” Two more weeks pass and she feels terrible; her head buzzes and aches, with constant dripping of pus from the nose. Her home physician has made a blood count, which shows abnormal white blood cells; L.U.C. (large unstained cells) went up to 10, atypical leukocytes, increased count of atypical blasts. The cervical lymph nodes became bigger; clusters of coherent lumps of the size of hazelnuts, painless to touch. He suggested a bone marrow biopsy. After a total of 3 months of therapy, the situation is worse than before.

It is only when she mentioned the expression ‘bone marrow’ that it finally triggered the idea of a remedy from the Uranium series, and then everything fell into place.

- Hereditary CLL. Lymph nodes with atypical leucocytes; Uranium series.

- She shows that she can brave the fear of decay and death and she proves that she can 

  overcome a seemingly inevitable fate; stage 6, Uranium.

- High blood pressure; nitricum

- hypochondriacal; nitricum.

Prescription: Uranium nitricum C30, plussing method (Ramakrishnan).

Then things went quite fast. In the first 2 weeks, her general well-being increased and the swollen lymph nodes melted away. After 3 months, she called just to thank me; she is completely fine, no complaints whatsoever, she just wanted to tell me the good news. She saw no reason to check her blood count since she is feeling so well. After another 6 months, she is doing fine.

Uranium salts and hereditary diseases of the blood

There are similarities between this case and that of another elderly patient who responds well on different Uranium salts since 12 years. He has hereditary thalassemia minor. His grandmother, who comes from the Mediterranean region, and her two daughters had inherited the disease. He is slightly obese, a passionate school headmaster, and is always ready with a smile, although he has frequent depressive phases. He has cultivated an attitude of taking things less seriously than they seem, without being superficial. He does not come across as artificial, it is a genuine humour. He does not like to complain, even when he is sick, but unlike Arnica, he tries to bring the doctor in a good mood by being cheerful. He was politically active in his younger days but without binding himself to a party. He would have liked to build up his own school to realize his model idea but this desire was thwarted by the realities of the present school system.

A younger patient, who responds well on Uraninitum, (see also Markus Kuntosch’s case) is suffering from a severe form of hereditary spherocytosis. Six family members have already had their spleens removed but he has chosen to not take this step and has opted for homeopathic treatment, which has been successful for the last two years. He was prescribed Uraninitum for the first time when he was 15 years old. He then had very high bilirubine levels (> 8 mg/dl, mostly above 5) and gallbladder colic due to bilirubine stones. He is strikingly hairy all over his body ever since childhood. After the first dose of Uraninitum, he had colic but then his bilirubine level sank to half of the original level. Since then, he takes it once a week and has made a beautiful development in the last two years.

Photos: Wikimedia Commons
High-power magnification of peripheral blood smear showing chronic lymphocytic leukemia; Mary Ann Thompson
Death allegory
Pitchblende from Niederschlema-Alberoda deposit; Geomartin