I am hoping some of the fine homeopaths on this board can help shed some light on my remedy reaction and hopefully offer some advice. I find myself in a great deal of pain and very much sleep deprived. So forgive me if this doesn't seem to make sense.
I have been seeing a homeopath and after 2 attempts at finding a remedy and some difficult dissimilar reactions, I was given Silica 1M (march 11), large dose (many pills). It seems to be helping my main complaints which were skin related, but I am now experiencing great pain and a little inflammation in my left wrist which is indicated for Silica - I read Clarke when it started. I did have pain in my right wrist, hand and shoulder about 10 years ago after doing some demolition work but that was resolved with somatic education exercises and has been fine for the last 7 years. It was not exactly like this pain, more pins and needles kind of numb pain. This is definitely a sharp shooting type of pain that makes my cry .
Worse with rest, better with motion. I spoke to the homeopath and he suggested I take Rhus Tox 7 ch several times a day for a few days and if I have no relief to call him back next Tuesday.
When the wrist pain began about a week ago it still allowed me to sleep at least until 5AM when I would be woken up with excruciating pain (like I had sprained my wrist) and would sort of shoot up towards my baby finger and then I would have to flex the muscles of the wrist for about 15 minutes before I could rest it again and hopefully be able to get back to sleep.
Last night was the worst, I was woken every hour or so and really had to flex those muscles for long time before I could get back to sleep. At one point at around 4PM this didn't seem to be working anymore so I got into a hot bath which relieved it for awhile and I was able to crawl back to bed and get another hour of sleep. I only had Rhus tox D4 liquid solution and tried it last night but it didn't seem to have any effect, so then I tried the arnica gel & got perhaps a little pain relief from that but not enough to allow me to get back to sleep. Ended up taking acetaminophen (that is how desperate I was - I never take it - a very last resort) and got a little relief and was able to get another 1/2 hour or so of sleep.
I have already decided to change homeopaths for several reasons, but won't be able to see the other until this summer, when my children and I will fly to London specifically for that. Initially I thought I would just cruise with the one dose of Silica keeping good notes and advise the new homeopath of my reactions. But now that I am in PAIN and unable to fully function I think I would like to antidote it.
So how to antidote it? Silica at a low potency? Flour A and Hep were mentioned as antidotes on a list of remedy relationships that I found. Should I antidote it when it seems to be at least a partial simillimum?
Please, any advice here would be greatly appreciated.
Later today I will buy some Rhus Tox 7 or 12 as well as 30ch, & perhaps some Ruta and give them a try before antidoting unless the brilliant minds on this board feel I should definitely antidote as soon as possible. Which I think may be a good idea in light of what DL said in a recent mail on remedy reactions on a homeopathic mailing list. I can't think very well at the moment after a week of sleep deprivation. Any advice, suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Quote from DL’s remedy reaction part 2
3. When the new symptoms are strong they should be antidoted as fast as
possible. Here there is no time to wait and watch. If the case has organic
pathology there can be damage to tissues, organs and systems. The antidotes
of the negative remedy are studied in the materia medica, lists of
antidotes, and Boenninghausen's concordance, and the closest remedy is
chosen. If no antidote is known one may try physical antidotes such as
coffee and camphor. Sometimes, especially when the dose is large and the
potency is high, such physical antidotes will not work. In this desperate
situation one must try to use method two. The signs and symptoms will lead
to the antidotal remedies and the case can be reconstructed over time.

Perhaps Hans, Anna or Chris could comment on this since they seem to be so well versed in Boenninghausen’s concordance.
I thank you all for any advice you can offer here.
Gini

__________________
Gini

for your pain ginimas, i think sepia is the remedy for you at the moment.
i used several broad rubrics from boenninghausen's TT for your state including the concordances II and III for silica, and then checked the remedies that came through with allen's encyclopedia.

alternatively if you want to see if you can get over it without using a homoeopathic potency, try an application of tiger balm which contains a lot of camphor.

Dear Gini,

Well this remedy and dosage has really set the cat amongst the pigeons!! Sounds like you may have a trapped nerve aggravated by the inflammation, and vice versa. Very painful situation.

I did a Boenninghausen rep with the symptoms and modalities you listed, as well as antidotes for Silicea, and Rhus tox clearly showed up.

I think the potency schedule your homoeopath has suggested is not nearly strong enough to deal with the level of pain and inflammation you are acutely experiencing. I would be trying 30C or even 200C in a split dose. That is, ONE pillule in 4oz bottle of water, with a few drops of alcohol. Succuss twice, pour one tablespoon into 4oz glass of water, take one tablespoon dose. You should know fairly quickly whether the remedy is helping, repeat only if and when symptoms of pain or inflammation return.

Redosing with a lower potency of the same remedy is highly effective as an antidote. In your case, not knowing more details as to whether Silicea was a good choice to begin with, I'd go with the obvious presenting symptoms and modalities - to me they appear to be Rhus tox.

Good luck.

You could also try taking the Silica down with one dose of 30 C or 6C if you have it.It worked for me once when I had a bad agg from a remedy my homeopath gave tp me.

__________________
RSHom - Registered Homeopath

Thank you Anna, Ricky and Chris.

I had a very busy day yesterday, so I didn’t get back to the computer until late. I was also VERY thankful that the pain almost disappears with motion, and allowed me to complete forget about it during the preparation of a rather large luncheon that had been planned for ages. I was big time stressed yesterday morning.
Last night, when all guests had left, and soon after I went to bed, the pain started again and kept me from sleep. At that point I took one dose (3 pills) of Rhus Tox 7ch. (I hadn’t yet read your post Chris - & by the way, are you saying that Rhus Tox is an antidote for Silica? Or was just indicated for the wrist pain?). I felt almost immediate relief and drifted off to sleep right through the night. A good night sleep was really needed after a week of interrupted sleep. For that I was very thankful. I woke feeling refreshed, and even though I could feel the tightness and pain in my wrist I know it hadn’t been the pain that woke me, it was because I had had enough sleep. I tell you, after a week of interrupted sleep I was very happy.
I will prepare a liquid solution of Rhus Tox 30 for tonight and only take it if the pain is so bad that it keeps me awake. In the past I talked to my homeopath about using 30ch for an acute my daughter had but he was quite adamant about using the lower potencies for acutes, and it seems large doses of 1M is his starting point for chronic problems. And as he is the expert, I didn't argue. I tossed the older bottle of D4 as I now think that it may have been affected by heat or something in the year or so that I have had it.
I have noticed a slight change in the intensity and location of the pain today. It seems to now be milder and moving up the back of my hand, less in the wrist area, and rather than shooting up my baby finger, it now seems to be moving up my ring and middle finger. I am taking this as a good sign that it is moving on and out instead of deeper as it has seemed to be doing for the last week. Any comments? And I have been wondering……..as I mentioned in the first post, I had pain in my right wrist and shoulder years ago from demolition work. This pain is different and it is my left wrist and occasionally feeling something in the elbow and shoulder (to be expected I am sure with the muscular self protection when in pain – does that make sense?) But, because of the similarities, I am now wondering if this pain is a similar reaction and is being manifested in the opposite arm because the remedy is balancing OR is it dissimilar and a proving as wrist pain is indicated for Silica? It is interesting to me that the somatic exercise I did for my right shoulder pain also involved the elbow and wrist and is balanced since I do both sides of the body at the same time. Any comments on the above, if it makes sense to you, would be appreciated. I often find it difficult to express myself in writing and even more so in this type of forum. I have always used my hands a lot when talking , so I feel quite limited here. The icons help somewhat but.....they are limited as well.
I do think that Silica is a good remedy choice for me and would like to ride out this, imho, overly large dose, and see what else happens. My notes will hopefully help my new homeopath in choosing whether to continue with Sil or change to something else. Fluoric Acid keeps coming up for me when I research ........and apparently it follows Sil well.
I think I could really start to ramble on here now, thinking out loud, about the various reactions I have had esp in terms of what DL has been saying recently about remedy reactions and post a long list of questions, trying to wrap my mind around it all, but I think for now, I will just leave it with a BIG thank you to all for just being here.

__________________
Gini

Dear Gini,

I think Chris prescribed Rhus tox, not so much as an antidote, but because your sufferings seemed to match those of Rhus tox.

This is a great lesson for us, namely that if a prescription causes problems we can match the symptoms to a remedy rather than just looking for an antidote, like coffee, or a lower potency of the same remedy,etc. I'll let Chris handle the rest. I'm glad you were able to find a way out of this painful situation!

Snoopy

Gini, Snoopy,

When you repertorize with Boenninghausen's Concordances you don't only "match symptoms", you also integrate the overlapping similarities that the previous remedy had in the case. The combination of all these symptoms together are factored into the repertorization.

So in this case, the repertorization showed that Rhus tox was suitable not only in the modalities of the wrist pain and inflammation, but also is compatible to Silicea's previous action.

This is an important point, Gini, Rhus tox has not antidoted ALL the good effects of your previous Silicea dose. It will only antidote those accessary or dissimilar symptoms produced by the too large dose of Silicea. The antidotal action targets those bothersome symptoms, but because it is complementary to Silicea it will also move your whole case forward to a new level of health.

Who knows whether the wrist symptoms were caused by the Silicea dose, or whether it is a pathological symptom that was due to come out regardless. It is simply apparant that Rhus tox was the next step forward on every level.

Good luck with your English homoeopath. Choose them well.

Hi Chris,Snoopy,

Thanks for the clarification. I thought as much but wanted confirmation since I have found in past searches that antidotes, complimentary remedies etc. will sometimes vary from text to text. Very Confusing!

Thanks

__________________
Gini

Hi Chris, what do you mean when you say "...integrate the overlapping similarities that the previous remedy had in the case. The combination of all these symptoms together ..."
Leela

__________________
http://www.homeopathy2health.com

ginimas, sorry for the duff info [img]redface.gif[/img]
it didn't occur to me that your first RT potency might have been affected adversely.
it's a lesson.