I have a midwifery client that has condoloma. She has several small vaginal warts. They are not painful nor do they itch. She says they just bother her because she knows they are there. We have been treating them with tea tree oil and one or two have gone away but others have been more stubborn. thuja seems to be listed most often in the books I have but it is not recommended in pregnancy. I would really like to see them go before the birth as the warts cause the tissue to tear badly and is hard to repair after the birth. This couple was not open to homeopathy at first but they have opened up to it as of late. She is a very soft spoken woman, very fundamental/radical christian. Anyone have any experience treating something like this?
Michelle

Dear Michele

Although Thuja is the most commonly thought of remedy for condylomata there are quite a few. You would need to take a complete case wirth this to find the correct remedy. Did the warts appear after the pregnancy or did she have them before? Are they cauliflower-like? Are they on the labia or the vaginal opening?

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The warts are on the vaginal opening and the labia minora. She did not notice them until this pregnancy. She has two children already, I was her midwife with #1 and she had another midwife for #2. It is possible that they were there last pregnancy as the midwife was fresh out of her apprenticship and might not have noticed them. They are small and the tea tree oil seems to keep them from growing. She says if she skips a day or two they start getting bigger. They do look like the cauliflower type and I did the vinegar test to confirm. She says they don't hurt or itch but she is concerned as she was regularly bathing with her children and she does not want to pass anything on to this baby. I have explained that the risk is very small with a full term baby and given her places to research. I am more concerned with the quality of the tissue.
Michelle

Michelle, please could you explain what is the vinegar test because it sounds useful and I don't know about it.

Ref the remedy in this case, Barb is absolutely correct and there is no getting round the fact that it is impossible to prescribe a remedy on this one symptom. Boenninghausen lists a number of remedies for genital warts and it could be any one of these, depending on other symptoms.

I also think your patient needs to have a complete consultation, in person. But I'm concerned about the suppressive use of the tea tree oil on the warts. This should be stopped as soon as possible. If the warts are suppressed the result will be far more insidious and destructive pathology--something we would want to avoid at all costs.

If homeopathic treatment is simply not available right away, then I would try to lessen the damage you forsee during the birth, in some way. It is very possible that the warts will be curatively removed using homeopathy, but it may take a while--especially since the warts have been continuously suppressed through the tea tree oil use. The fact that they continue to come up again suggests to me that the patient is still strong enough to keep sending out that symptom. I'd be worried if they had been successfully suppressed and the symptoms simply moved inside, where they couldn't be detected easily and where the damage would be that much harder to "repair".

Divina

[ 02 February 2002, 13:38: Message edited by: Divina ]

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I agree with Divina
If tea tree is suppressing the warts then it is bad in itself. Also since tea tree is camphoraceous, it might antidote homoeopathic rememdies.

Ref para 190 Organon
"All genuine medical treatment of a malady that has arisen on exernal parts of the body(and that involves little or no damage from the outside) must therefore be directed towards the whole, towards the annihilation and cure of the general suffering by means of internal remedies. Only in this way will the treatment be expedient, sure, helpful and thorough"

To Anne
The vinegar test is simple. There are a number if skin abnormalities that can look like the vaginal warts that are caused by HPV. If you swab them with vinegar and they turn white you have a positive identification.

I know that the tea tree is just suppressing but these warts can grow very large in pregnancy due to the hormones mom is producing. I have seen them grow so large that they cover over the vaginal outlet. There are no classical homeopaths here and I am not experienced enough to take the case. They are also a very poor missionary family. They would not be able to afford a consult with someone out of state. They look at homeopathy as "energy medicine" which means to them new age or occult and up till now have restricted me from using any rememdies. I know this seems a bit conservative but we are in the bible belt and we have some very fundamental christians out here. I have reassured them all I can that this is jsut dilutions of the herbs and minerals that they are already using and theat is will just trigger her immune system to respond in a curative way. Sometimes my hands are so tied by the belief system of the client that I can't do what I would like to help them.
Michelle

Thanks Michelle for that gem of info.

I can see you are working under difficult circumstances. There are quite a few remedies it could be in general for genital warts in pregnancy - probably most often Calc, sometimes Lyc, sometimes Staph, occasionally Sabina or a few others. If you want to try using homoeopathy and have a materia medica you could check the remedy characteristics and modalities against what the patient is presenting in general during the pregnancy.

Hi Michelle,
I grew up in the Bible Belt...believe me I know the mentality all too well.

Do you have Kent's lectures on Homeopathic Philsophy? If so, there are references in those lectures that should calm their fears that Homeopathy is New Agey! (It is not!! be far!!).

I read (and I think it was Kent but can't remember for sure) that "Homeopathy is God's Gift to Man - if only he will listen." Or something to that affect. Tell them that.

Email me if you want some quotes to convince them..and I'll look them up for you.

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Carroll Dunham