Agoraphobia
It is not uncommon for patients to come in with a long list of symptoms. For most doctors practicing regular medicine who have time restraints this can cause a lot of frustration for both them and their patients.
For a homeopathic physician, the more unique symptoms a patient has the easier it is to narrow down what is their ‘constitutional remedy’. Often we’ll spend more than an hour in evaluating one’s case to determine which of the 1,000’s of remedies best matches our patient’s complaints.
Patricia, who was nearing her 50th birthday, had such a list. Her symptom included fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, depression, impatience, anger, dysphagia (trouble swallowing food), balance issues, coordination problems, agoraphobia and low self-confidence.
To assist in narrowing down which homeopathic remedy Patricia needed to bring about a cure I use a program called McRepertory. As you can see below it allows me to ‘repertorize’ her symptoms and come up with specific homeopathic remedies to consider.
After considering Patricia’s entire health history starting with childhood traumas and verbal abuse to present-day complaints, I felt that her low self-esteem was at the core of her mental, emotional and physical complaints. As a result I prescribed her the remedy Anacardium orientale.
Patricia’s symptoms started decades ago and as a result I expected gradual improvement. When she returned for her 1 month follow up she mentioned that she had been sick twice which in her words “I can’t even remember the last time I was sick.” From a homeopathic perspective this was a good sign that she was responding to the remedy. I often find that people with deep pathologies rarely get colds or flues. And as they begin to heal they will get sick. But more importantly she mentioned that her agoraphobia was 80% improved.
With each successive visit she reported improvement with all of her symptoms. By the time her year anniversary of treatment came around she was experiencing no anxiety, agoraphobia, brain fog, fatigue, irritability, coordination issues or depression. Her dysphagia was not gone but had improved to where she could eat meat as long as the pieces were small.
As I continue to treat Patricia with higher and higher potencies of Anacardium, I am hopeful that even her remaining symptom of dysphagia will resolve.
Terry Pfau DO, HMD