Scalded Tongues and Shrieking Legs

No, it's not Halloween leftovers, although it certainly sounds like it and the time of year is apropos. Happy November!

The subject of today's blog is two of my own personal experiences, and how Homeopathy miraculously works on acute problems. Yes! Homeopathy works NOT ONLY on long-standing chronic issues. It also works on acutes.

Yes, and it also works on cuties and beauties. You're getting my inner punster going, as well as my inner alliterative loon. It must be the aftereffects of Halloween, when my true nature (ahem--ALTEREGO!) comes out. (Can you tell I wrote this two weeks ago? Just haven't gotten around to sending until today!)

Now back to the subject at hand. We are living in our own house in Seattle again after many years away. This house is blessed with a wonderful gas stove. (Yes, I picked it out and installed it myself around 16 years ago.) Today I remembered one of the pitfalls of using it when I picked up (without mitts) my favorite little pot with short handles. Having screeched "ouch!" and running to the tap for a cold-water bath on my little finger, I remembered there's an instant remedy for burns.

A few years back, our son had a sleepover while we were still living in Marin. As usual, we were sipping chai in the arbor the next morning. Our son's friend sipped too fast out of a Yeti mug and burned his tongue. I gave him a pellet of Cantharis and told him to roll it around on the tip where he'd burned himself. Funnily enough, I had done the same thing at the exact same moment, so we both took our Cantharis. It was like magic. We both regained full tasting ability and the scalded-tongue feeling dissolved by the time the pellet had disappeared.

To note, I've also had success with grabbing an ice cube the moment I scald my tongue, and holding it there until it melts. That also works. BUT the Cantharis works better. It works even if I don't stop what I'm doing to run to the freezer. Cantharis works even after the fact.

And now for the funnier-sounding part of the story--the shrieking leg part. A few years ago, I kept thinking mosquitos were attracted to my left leg. I'd be somewhere minding my own business and all of a sudden there'd be this weird stinging sensation on the outside of my left thigh. It was a rather shocking sensation. I would jump up, shriek and look around for a mosquito, a wasp or some other guilty winged creature.

Bit by bit, it grew worse. I'd be sitting or standing somewhere minding my own business and all of a sudden, there it would be again. It got so severe that it would compel me to shriek and jump up to shake out the leg. Finally it got so bad that it started to interrupt my meditations (!!!) and would keep me awake at night. I was sure there was some strange insect hiding in my pants leg or lurking in the bed. The stinging episodes were growing longer and more pronounced. Now I was sure there was a scorpion lurking somewhere. I'd never been stung by one (thankfully!) but I imagined it would feel about like my left leg did.

The episodes grew longer and the spaces between grew shorter. I'd get an episode of several in a row, and I began to imagine that this is what an electric shock would feel like. Occasionally, I'd forget about it in between and then boom! All of a sudden it would come shocking again, and I'd jump up and shriek.

I figured out that if I did a little extra yoga, the effect was slightly lessened. And so, I increased my yoga. But when it feels like electric fire, "a little better" still isn't very helpful. I was just pondering that I needed to schedule a visit to the Osteopath when the word "sciatica" started echoing around in my head.

"I don't have sciatica!" My mind echoed back. "I don't have back problems!" the voice shrieked again. "I do yoga, for goodness' sake!" "I'm fine! Leg, would you just behave and shut up!" etc. And yet, the word kept echoing.

Finally, I sighed in defeat and did what I ought to have done from the start. I called a friend (a fellow Homeopath) and said "Help!"

One thing--it's hard to see the picture to treat when you're in it. You see, I'd tried all the usual suspects and nothing helped. It was all the more disconcerting because in this one instance alone, "Homeopathy didn't work." I'd gotten pretty spoiled with it working instantaneously, or if not instantly, then at least, very very fast. Now I started to doubt. I was sure that nothing my friend suggested would work. Because I'm a Homeopath already, and I'd tried "everything" already, right? I may have mentioned in a previous blog post that it's best not to treat oneself. I tend to be a particularly baskety basket case when the problem is my own. The shrieking leg was no exception and truly took the cake.

And so, my friend used her trusty Repertory, and her knowledge, and her intuition, and suggested three remedies: Cicuta virosa, Colocynthis and Rhus tox.

I was fairly certain none of them would work. I thanked my friend and got off the phone, then talked to myself.

"Rhus tox? THAT won't work. I've already taken it and it makes me feel busy and buzzy. It must be the wrong remedy for me."

"Colocynthis? Isn't that for stomach aches? And sciatica? I DON'T have sciatica. That one won't work."

"Cicuta virosa? I've barely heard of that one so it won't work. BUT...what do I have to lose? I guess I'll try it."

I happened to have the third one in one of my kits. Almost as soon as I was off the phone, nature provided me with an opportunity to test it out. The shrieking started. So I popped a pellet.

Whoooooa! Instant relief. About a minute after the pellet dissolved, it started again. I popped another Cicuta. Again, the relief was as instantaneous as the pellet hitting my tongue. The shrieking stopped. Instantly! I was floored. This Cicuta was a miracle drug! Reading the Materia Medica, it became obvious why Cicuta was the right remedy. It is called for in cases of violent pain, including when the patient is compelled by it to jump and shout.

Over the next few days, I began to run low on Cicuta (naturally, since I was taking it 20-30 times per day.) The high quality place where I could order from would take a couple of weeks to arrive, and so out of necessity, I tried copying it on my remedy maker. This was another test. I hadn't really tried out the remedy maker yet and I doubted its abilities. And yet...it worked! Instantaneously.

Furthermore, the Cicuta I had in my kit was a 30c. When I made it on my device, i made a higher potency, a Cicuta 1m. Not only did it work as instantly as the traditionally-made pellets, but the 1m potency lasted longer. The space between the jumping and shrieking incidents would be longer when I used the 1m, and the episodes themselves shortened. I made a Cicuta 30 on my machine too, to see if it made a difference. The difference was in the potency, not whether it was made on the machine.

Now I must digress. A client of mine, right after my discovery of this new remedy, called me one night with a severe issue for which I urged her to go to the ER. She refused. The problem: She had severe pain in her head that caused her to jump and shout. (Clue here? Thank you Universe, for the first hand experience that gave me the knowledge to know immediately what remedy she needed.) It was so bad it caused fever and nausea and night sweats. She was delirious and practically going mad. Her husband, who was across the country, was beside himself. She was also not home--she was out in the desert, with no Cicuta to be found in a 200 mile radius. Believe me, I called around. And so, I broadcasted Cicuta to her via the remedy making machine. The very next morning, she was fine! She drove herself 12 hours back home, and I met her at her house with her very own vial of Cicuta virosa 1m. She took it a few times thereafter, and the problem never returned.

Back to my own problem. Soon I made a discovery. That pesky word "sciatica" kept turning up in my mind. One night when I lay down to go to sleep, it seemed like the bed bowed in rather a lot in the middle. I thought it was "normal" since David's weight would naturally press it down there. Nonetheless, I looked under the bed. The middle post that holds up the center beam (that in turn holds up the slats that hold the mattress) had slipped out. The bed was definitely bowed in.

Aha! Sciatica! The bowed bed had caused it. And it had been bowed in like a bowl for who knew how long? Taking stock of my body, I now noticed some odd strains where they didn't belong.

"Ohhh, it WAS sciatica. But see? It was all the bed's fault...there's STILL nothing wrong with me."

The discovery of sciatica, or rather the undelusion of not having it, prompted me to re-read the medicines my friend had recommended.

Colocynthis: Good for left-sided sciatica. Good for left-sided issues in general. Ummm, Bingo. I remembered back to a few years before when in a cartoon-worthy moment, a horse I was riding took off, while I (the cartoon character) hovered in midair for a moment before plummeting to the ground--onto my left side. And a year after that, taking a Muni rail a little too parallel on my fast electric bike and falling--again onto my left side.

Instead of Cicuta, I began to take Colocynthis. It worked in about half a second...not QUITE as fast as the Cicuta, but after taking a single pellet or a spray of Colocynthis, sometimes the shrieking would stop for hours or the whole day. Now I began to run low on Colocynthis 200, so made some on my machine. It worked just the same.

Going forward a few weeks with greatly reduced terror of shrieking, I read the medicines again.

Rhus tox: Good for sciatica. (Grrrr! I only had a TEMPORARY bout with it!) and keeping bones in alignment. Wait. I knew that already. And so, I tried it again, this time in a 1m. Now that I *needed* Rhus tox, I no longer got the "busy" feeling it had given me before. And after taking Rhus tox for a bit, the problem reduced even further.

Still though, the leg would shriek occasionally when I was least expecting it. Alignment was still a bit out of whack. We had a trip planned to Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar at the Art of Living Center in LA. I dreaded the thought that in the middle of a meditation with him, the leg might start and I'd be compelled to jump up and shriek. For that reason, I kept Colocynthis in my pocket. Then a miracle occurred while we were there with Gurudev. I literally felt my hip bone shift in its socket and the small of my back thud gently to the floor, newly realigned, while I was lying on the floor after a meditation.

Now, Colocynthis and Rhus tox became part of my daily preventative regime. Meditation of course has always been part of it.

Whatever your issue, know that the right Homeopathic remedies can knock it out--sometimes immediately, and very often permanently. And...it helps to work with an actual Homeopath, especially if you're a bit stubborn like me. So, if you'd like to experience the magic of Homeopathy, contact your favorite Homeopath, or contact me.

That goes for learning meditation too, if you haven't already. I'm teaching a Sahaj Samadhi class November 24-26, the Sunday-Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

And...if you'd like to have your own kit on hand, let me know--I have a few kits available. It is a high-quality, traditionally-made kit from the UK. You can buy it from big tech or you can buy it from me.

Much love and happy fall!

Cheers,

Lisa

PS the packages and booking system on my website are being changed, so just contact me if you'd like to work together.