My homeopath is now out of commission for I don't know how long. Her infant daughter is very sick and I'm stuck for an answer which I was supposed to be getting this week.

My daughter is 17. She was on Lac Caninum 12 ch for approximately 3 months daily. Eventually she got an urgency/incontinence problem so she was told to stop the Lac and wait. She hasn't had a remedy since about the beginning of July. Incontinence went, but big urgency to pee is still there, though she drinks large amounts of water at one time, 3 to 4 times a day (ie maybe 26 to 32 oz each time).

The rest of her problem still is this:

She was anorexic from last March 1998 til Apr 99 until she decided that she wanted her life back (which I partly attribute to the fact that I had given her some Lac Caninum during that time and also partly due to the very good hospital program she was in). It's all been very scary for her on the road to recovery, but now she has started to eat regularly scheduled meals and snacks - but according to a plan, not according to true hunger - because she doesn't know when she's hungry or full.

Her bowels are very slow - never returned to normal after her anorexia, though I don't think she was ever very regular in the first place.

She still has OCD, though much, much, much less. However, she still has to have clean clothes (won't wear anything twice), has to have a shower every day (though that seems normal to many people - it's because she "HAS" to not because of a normal kind of need. She is being helped very much by a cognitive behavioural psychologist. Contrast this to having to wash her hands 60 times a day, having to have me dress her, having someone have to open every door and light switch for her for fear of getting dirty, (just got over the doors and lights in the past two weeks - she wouldn't tie her shoes because I had once tied them for her after having chocolate - for fear the calories would go into her). Her thoughts are still fairly obsessive.


The thing that worries me most now is this:

She feels like she has not got herself back. She is very vulnerable. She won't speak up for herself if someone says something she doesn't like about herself or anyone else - she always was the first to do that. She feels so low about herself. Like she can't do anything, like she's so stupid, like she is fat and ugly, like she's very selfish, like no one likes her. This is all so highly contrasting to the way she was before the anorexia took over. She had this huge self-confidence, no negative thoughts, she was sure of herself and everything was fun. She had a terrific outlook on life.

There has been this negative voice which she called "Jack" which she is now starting to think of as herself (which I see as a healthy sign). Still the negativity, whether it's Jack's or her own internal voice, is very much with her all the time and is making life miserable for her.

My homeopath said she wanted to wait but she was going to decide this week what (I guess if anything) to do next.

So I'm wondering whether she should be taking anything or waiting more.

I know it's hard to jump in in the middle, but are there any ideas?

I'm sure I'll think of other things I've missed later. She is on three medications now: one fairly high dose anti-depressant, one very low-dose anti-psychotic and a digestive aid. Eventually I want her to be off of these, but it won't be right yet.

Thanks.

Suzi

Dear Suzi,

I do not know how in depth you wish to go , here on the forum; But I will ask questions anyway.

How long ago (exactly) did you come to knowledge of your daughters condition?

Is she willing to remove herself from the medication she is on, if need be?

The medication is hindering her.Yet , to remove her from the medication without a plan of action will be drastic.


Has she had this feeling of "JACK" being around before she was put on the medication she is taking now? (please explain)

Do you Know of anyone named "JACK"? ANYONE AT ALL?

Can you attribute anything at all to her entering this state?
Does she attribute a cause to her condition?

What were the key symptoms that your homeopath based her prescription of "LAC-C" upon? (please explain)

Is she in any pain?

Does she look at ( eyes or face) whom she is speaking to ?


Does she openly speak? Does she respond appropriately in conversation? Does she cry easily? Does she ever get very angry ? (please explain)


Is she better with company ? or Prefers to be alone? Do strangers bother her?

Where is she all week? Why is it you only see her on weekends?

"LAC-C" has a GREAT fear of snakes . Does this apply to your daughter? Has she ever mentioned such a fear?

Is her menstruation regular? Any abnormalties? (please explain) At what age did her menses began? How has her menses been affected with the occurrance of her condition? (please explain)

Is she suspicious (about ANYTHING)? Does she give you that suspicious feeling?

What was her boyfriend's name (the lead in the play ; + 3 her age)? Was there relationship over before the anorexia? (please explain)


Does she ever complain about ANYTHING? What is her tone and mood if and when she does?

Have you ever seen her hysterical? If so , then when? Why? How did she resolve it ?

I am trying to sort out what symptoms are existing due to the medications she is repetitively taking and what symptoms belong to her.

This is redundant;But what homeopathic remedies has she taken and dates (from ? to ?).

I will stop here for now.

I look forward to your response .



[This message has been edited by Johnstanton (edited 19 August 1999).]

John

There is a long history to this on the BB. To read up on it (if you have time, they're quite lengthy), see two threads
1) Can Pellets be crushed and swallowed on March 3, 1999, and
2) Looking for Order on June 26.

I have to go to work now, but can answer your questions later.

Thanks

Suzi

Dear Suzi,

After reading the past posts, I have revised the questions in the previous post (above).Please answer EACH question.


PLEASE RESPOND BACK.

Suzi, I see Arsenicum here, the obsessive cleanliness, the fear, not knowing when to eat etc. Smell the secretions and ask what clour the stools are - if dark and/or offensive, go for it.

Ben:

Arsenicum was the very first remedy she was placed on. She never gave it much of a chance. She was on a huge, quick, downward spiral. She took it two or three times twice, but to no avail. Then she wouldn't put anything in her mouth at all. So that was that. It was hard to tell if anything happened. She was determined to starve herself at the time.

So we could try that again. This time on the road to recovery.

Her stools ARE very dark and offensive. What potency would you suggest.


JOHN:

Here are your answers:

She got in trouble with binge eating about 3 years ago, getting progressively more out of control til March 98. Never throwing up. Her binges however, were not really big like lots of other people. Just enough to hurt her stomach - make her uncomfortable. To other people, her meals were small. Then March of 98, she found a way to stop bingeing, by eating only bread. Then she reduced this when she realized she had more control and then the rest was history til she was eating only 1 thing a day and no drinking, then hospitalization for anorexia, and dangerously low blood pressure.

I think she wants to be off her medication, but my feeling is it's too soon. She's still working on getting her OCD under control with it.

Jack came right along with the anorexia. Same time. And along with the anorexia came the OCD. Some say Jack is the voice of the anorexia, some say it's the voice of OCD. The OCD and anorexia are two separate disorders I am told, but very closely related. She named the voice Jack because it was so evil and Jack was the name of the guy in the movie, The Shining, who was SO evil. This was before she was put on medication. She was started on medication around the end of June 98. She was highly resistant to the idea at first, then gradually she wanted whatever help she could get re the OCD and negative thoughts. That took a good 7 months before the right medication mix was found and her OCD started to calm down.

We feel there were many causes for her condition. The boyfriend thing, the many pressures on her to be perfect - mainly by herself, schoolwork was getting harder - yet she wanted to maintain her excellent grades- she was sacrificing fun for work, many friends wanting all of her time. She had stopped eating all junk food (to be good) several months before the bingeing began. This "deprivation" inevitably leads to eating disorders of one sort or another. The household and extended family including grandparents was always very "low fat" conscious. I look back on that and shudder.

The LAC-C was prescribed for her very severe contamination thoughts at the time and for her very fragile and divided mental state.

Right now her pain is mainly emotional. However, she has a "full stomach" state that causes some pain quite easily.

She does look in peoples' eyes when talking to them.

She gets upset very easily by very innocent questions. (About what she ate, about how she's feeling at a certain time - she doesn't like to be asked how she is and about other things too.)

When you ask if she openly speaks, I don't know if you mean about personal things or about anything. About personal things, she openly speaks to me only at just the right time - she'll have to be in her pajamas on her bed - comfortable - after a shower. She has to be clean. She speaks to friends about other things all the time. Some, she talks about her feelings to.

She sometimes gets angry very easily - again usually about touchy things and calls me bitch and other horrible things she would never, ever say to me before. She tells me that she doesn't mean it and she would never normally say these things to me, but that she has to say these horrible things, with this voice inside her. You'll also hear her say from time to time "shutup you f'ing bitch" or something like that, but she's trying to get the voice to shutup and she's not talking to anyone else. She never swore in her life before this condition - she'd reprimand others for swearing. She'd reprimand others for smoking or drinking too. Her friends would all take this in stride because she was totally sweet and funny about it. Now she can't stand this about herself.

She cannot stand to be alone AT ALL. She's been diagnosed with separation anxiety twice in the last year. She won't eat alone and she can't stand to just be alone for more than a few minutes. She never did like to be alone, but she would. Now she won't unless she's absolutely forced to by the circumstances - and then only for maybe an hour or a little more if it has to be.

She was in the hospital day program which is why I was only seeing her on weekends. She hasn't been there since the end of April, when she decided she had to leave there in order to start to get her life back her way. Now I see her all the time - of course I work during the day. I saw her on weeknights then too, but she had already eaten everything for the day at the program, so it was only that I didn't have access to her for meals during the week.

She is not menstruating. She hasn't ever regularly. She did maybe three times, six months apart, before she got sick.

She's not the suspicious type at all. Sometimes if it has to do with measuring the right quantity of food, or encouraging her to have something she doesn't think she's supposed to have - so it's only around food. She never was before.

She and her boyfriend broke up mutually when the anorexia started. The relationship became ridiculously strained by it.

She complains about her weight. She complains about her feeling like a victim and a follower now when she used to be a real leader and a totally un-self-conscious person. She hates that and talks about that a lot. She can't stand that. She also feels like she is very selfish and thinks only about herself and she doesn't like that about herself. She feels like she has to get herself back.

She also needs someone to tell her she has to eat because she doesn't want the responsbility of the thought that she's eating voluntarily. But that's going away a little. But aside from that, she doesn't know when she feels hungry and can't tell when she's full.

She was hysterical at me in the worst times (before the remedy)and before she started "turning around" and before the medication really kicked in. She'd kick me and hit at my arms, at one point she kicked the walls. She'd prick her skin with her fingernails and she liked the feeling - because she would feel something. She hasn't done any of those things in the past few months. Before the anorexia - nothing like this EVER happened.

The only other remedy besides the lac-c was arsenicum as described to Ben at the beginning of this post. It was before the anorexia was in full force and only two or three doses of 12 I think. Then Lac 12 started on weekends from February to April, then daily from May to July. That's it!

Hope that helps.

Suzi

Suzi, Is your daughter seeing a therapist who is trained in Dissociative Identity Disorder? (Multiple Personality Disorder.)
That would be imperative for her. Can she ask herself WHO has anorexia and WHO has OCD? Also, if she is not afraid to ask herself these questions she could also ask who is selfish, who is acting in the other ways that she does not like. She may like knowing if it is not her, or she may not like knowing that. This is something that will require special help. If she does not already have a DID (MPD) trained therapist, she needs one. An important thing for her is to be able to accept her condition and not make enemies of her voices (or alters, personalities, if there are more than one.) This is why I said one time to be patient about her getting well, it will take time. And it will take high potencies, although I should say that I do not know what a ch potency is, I just assumed that a 12ch is low. That may be necessary for now, I don't know. Best wishes, trust in the ability of your daughter to heal, especially with the help of the remedies.


------------------
Kescah

Kescah

No one is saying that this is a multiple personality disorder thing at all. Apparently this negative voice is common to anorexia and/or OCD but is not thought of as multiple personalities, like in Sybil or whatever. That is definitely NOT the diagnosis. She has begun to call those thoughts hers and not Jack's recently, so it's not like she actually thinks it's another person. She doesn't change personalities. She knows she's Alex all the time.

Whether DID still helps for this I don't know.

Let me add that if she has DID it is 100% curable in time.

Oh, sorry, somehow I missed your post. I did not think there were likely to be names with the OCD voices, but now I see how she got the name. MPD is often misdiagnosed, but likely this is an OCD voice, just ignore me.

------------------
Kescah


[This message has been edited by Kescah (edited 21 August 1999).]

Dear Suzi,

Do you or did you and your daughter talk (truthfully) to one another about her relationship with her boyfriend?

It is at this point that the scale tipped for her.

Remember her own words. She didn't feel right about it. But much more emphatic and described differently.

Before this relationship she was (and still is ) a sensitive girl. She had been walking on a border for some time before the relationship. Then comes a boy she likes and he (?) likes her. Think back; can you remember how she felt when she 1st started with this boy. Think ; and maybe you can remember the girl you always referr to ( as before the anorexia) changing.
Do you know what was said to her (when "they mutually decide to breakup")? Do not really answer that question; just remember.
You may find something was said to your daughter that disturbed her GREATLY. If she has not told you, then that still does not mean it did not occur.
Perhaps her friends may know.THIS BREAKUP and what went on during (leading to the breakup) IS THE PIVOT POINT OF YOUR DAUGHTER TIPPING THE SCALE OF DIS-EASE (which she already had brewing; only to be propelled deeper by this circumstance). You may find that the breakup was not mutual.

The main issue is ..What can we do?

IF the right remedy is administered to her while she is taking no other medication, then there will be results.My thinkings tell me that your daughter is not lost to this DIS-ease. Our biggest obsticle (right now) is the MEDICATION she is on. If there was someone with enough courage and conviction in homeopathy (working in accord with support group therepy), then your daughter could be removed from her medications and be prescribed for as the characteristic symptoms show themselves. This is what GOOD homeopathy can do.
But whom will take this on.

Next problem is the parents and those locked into suppressing good symptoms; just because it is better to see her sedated and sort of functioning rather than FULLY EXPRESSING her dis-ease. I do understand that fear is the basis and what or whom is going to take this on so that suppression is not done.Will your homeopath take this responsability? If not , then you are doing all you can do .; And it is NOT wrong what you are doing. The only wrongness I see is the lack of conviction to homeopathy that a "homeopathic" practitioner exhibits. How can any true holistic approach become available if no one is willing to take responsability for the TRULY dis-eased.
Homeopathy leans on allopathy; even if only to put allopathy down. But I will say this for allopathy, Allopathy is not AFRAID to stick it's neck out, stand alone and prescribe. THOUGH I AM TOTALLY (almost) against SUPPRESSION.

I do not know how the BB (here) can truthfully help your daughter by only giving opinions.(This may help you though). We truthfully need to see her,; interact with her; get to know her; and then prescribe. Whom on the BB will be willing to come to your daughter and freely take this case on and truthfully TRY to help.This is if you even wanted or welcomed them.

I tell you that I would.


You do not know me . You have no reason to trust what I say. There is no way for you to know if I am telling the truth.You have no proof of my credintials or licenced ability.

I have no credintials or licensed ability to show or prove to you that I have any ability in homeopathy ; only my talkings and writings; But that is no proof.


Well , that was a mouthful; And ABSOLUTELY NO OFFENSE or ILL is meant by what I have written; only good intentions as far as I can see.Your daughters case stirs me deeply.
Please excuse my fanatical approach; but I feel much better for relating this to you ; And I truly do mean every word I have written and I will stand behind them until PROVEN otherwise.

Please , feel free to respond and/or question.