Post by Admin - Joy Lucas on Jun 3, 2021 14:34:05 GMT
NARCOLEPSY
This is a condition which has been around since the beginning of time one would imagine although serious scientific interest appears to date back to the the 19th C. The original greek definition extends our understanding of the term - not just being an inability to control sleep patterns but to have potentially extremely disturbing sleep patterns that experience numbness and stupor with an attack mode as well, i.e. hallucinations.
“Narcolepsy is the english form of the french word ‘narcolepsie’, and was first used in 1880 by the french physician Jean-Baptiste-Edouard Gélineau (1828-1906). The origin is from the greek, ‘narke’ (numbness, stupor) and ‘lepsis’ (attack, to seize)”.
Common symptoms of narcolepsy are: overpowering need to sleep; comatose sleep; sudden falling asleep; awakening many times during sleep; inappropriate times of falling asleep; hallucinations during sleep; sleep paralysis; emotional disturbance; weak muscles; and more. These latter symptoms are often referred to as Cataplexy.
Our Repertories are full of disease names and as long as we individualise cases it does no harm to include the specific rubrics relating to a disease name in our case analysis.
Of course we would use ‘comatose’; ‘overpowering’; ‘sleep sudden’; ‘overpowering sleepiness’; ‘heavy sleep’; and specific rubrics pertaining to all the sx mentioned above if they present in each case but I think it is curious that there are so few remedies in the named disease rubric, especially when knowing that there can be a multitude of reasons and causes for this condition to exist and it is quite common (estimated 1 in 2/3000).
As Homeopaths we know that each individual will present with different symptoms and that this is what guides us to the simillimum, rather than the disease name but here I just wanted to open up a few lines of thought pertaining to this condition.
Narcolepsy is a condition where the regulation of sleep patterns is missing and this emanates from within the brain. The damage comes from within the brain and we have to remember this affinity when it comes to choosing the first rx.
Repertories include the following rx in the specific ‘narcolepsy’ rubric:-
Chloralum hydratum (Burnett); Ephedrinum (Madaus); Hydrocyanic acid (Blackwood); Nux moschata (Morrison, Vithoulkas); Opium (Vithoulkas).
So, only 5 remedies and 3 of those are modern suggestions but obviously all pertain to the overall sx of Narcolepsy as we can see.
Chloralum hydratrum - a gas from chlorine water, used as a powerful hypnotic and used crudely causes hallucinations of a terrible nature, emotional excitability, muscular prostration, spasms, convulsions, paralysis, insomnia, somnolence, audio terrors, horrid dreams and night terrors and fatal toxicity (causes haemorrhages). The brain becomes totally congested and there is a profound fear of becoming insane.
Ephedrinum - this is a substance taken from one of the conifer plants. It has been used medicinally for centuries but now sold on the open market as a ‘fat burning’ diet pill (direct action on metabolism) which, if taken in excessive doses causes seizures, strokes, heart failure, restlessness and irritability and more. It has also been used as a performance enhancing drug due to its stimulant abilities and found in methamphetamine. Its use in Homeopathy is much more interesting though!
Crude allopathic side effects often give an indication to the symptoms that can be cured when used homoeopathically and the proving showed this substance to have a definite Mania side to it. Any excitability could be a trigger with a potentially mad attack phase. It has an affinity to the liver and bladder, nerves (pain is often neuralgic), muscles (become weak and useless), sphincters (involuntary actions), hypertension after anaesthesia and a night time phase, so it is easy to see how this all fits in with the state of narcolepsy - a manic and uncontrollable phase and a stupor phase.
Hydrocyanic acid - this is a rapidly acting deadly poison. Sudden collapse, spasms, constrictions, convulsions, suffocation. Sinking, hysterical, lack of consciousness, violence, contortion, delirium, tetanic narcolepsy that includes irresistible drowsiness and vivid incoherent dreams.
A curious symptom of this remedy is a bluish or violet discolouration (cyanosis, although can be extremely subtle in one needing this remedy, slightly blueish lips for example).
Nux Moschata - another remedy with both hysterical and comatose states and will present with changeability between both and not just one or the other., often described as a double personality - Jekyll and Hyde. Mesmeric drowsiness or exalted hysteria as well as a loss of memory are important keynotes.
Fright can be a trigger and although this could be an acute episode the lasting symptoms become chronic. Clairvoyance is often referred to so one could present as a very sensitive person with a tendency to having a sense of duality about them.
Interestingly, Phatak refers to this remedy as having a state of ‘sleep attacks’ (emphasis on the mention of attack) which are sudden, falling in an out of consciousness. All complaints come with this sleepiness which the materia medicas inform us comes more frequently than with Opium.
Opium - possibly the most well known of these 5 remedies. Again fright or fear can be the trigger with long lasting results.
The symptoms border more along the lines of depressive and painless stupors, although there is a manic side with twitching, delirium, tremors, convulsions, overall the person is placid and the drowsiness extreme - the brain is paralysed and they are indifferent to their condition.
Many people who suffer from epilepsy or other convulsive states are often known to have profound sleep disturbances that would fit in with the known symptoms of narcolepsy - a deep sleep following on from a seizure is really quite common and covered by at least 40 other homeopathic remedies.
As homeopaths we know that causation can be a key feature when analysing the case. Fear and brain poison appear to be important factors with these remedies.
Modern allopathy defines narcolepsy as a lack of a brain substance called hypocretin (orexin) which is responsible for allowing a normal sleep pattern. But why would this be deficient? At what point in one’s development did the brain lose this chemical or the brain become abnormal. Is it mainly due to an intrinsic cause, such as a congenital defect or is it due to modern day brain poison such as vaccinations and consumption - voluntary or involuntary. Typically, people develop symptoms in their teens but it is also a disease of older people and I have been involved with cases where the onset of sx began after ‘flu vaccinations. But the world we live in is a truly toxic one - consumption of brain poisons such as fluoride, aluminium, mercury, lead, arsenic, toxic chemicals and so much more is now and has been for a long time, at deadly levels. Allopathy might deem narcolepsy to have ‘no known cure’ but we homeopaths know better.
This is a condition which has been around since the beginning of time one would imagine although serious scientific interest appears to date back to the the 19th C. The original greek definition extends our understanding of the term - not just being an inability to control sleep patterns but to have potentially extremely disturbing sleep patterns that experience numbness and stupor with an attack mode as well, i.e. hallucinations.
“Narcolepsy is the english form of the french word ‘narcolepsie’, and was first used in 1880 by the french physician Jean-Baptiste-Edouard Gélineau (1828-1906). The origin is from the greek, ‘narke’ (numbness, stupor) and ‘lepsis’ (attack, to seize)”.
Common symptoms of narcolepsy are: overpowering need to sleep; comatose sleep; sudden falling asleep; awakening many times during sleep; inappropriate times of falling asleep; hallucinations during sleep; sleep paralysis; emotional disturbance; weak muscles; and more. These latter symptoms are often referred to as Cataplexy.
Our Repertories are full of disease names and as long as we individualise cases it does no harm to include the specific rubrics relating to a disease name in our case analysis.
Of course we would use ‘comatose’; ‘overpowering’; ‘sleep sudden’; ‘overpowering sleepiness’; ‘heavy sleep’; and specific rubrics pertaining to all the sx mentioned above if they present in each case but I think it is curious that there are so few remedies in the named disease rubric, especially when knowing that there can be a multitude of reasons and causes for this condition to exist and it is quite common (estimated 1 in 2/3000).
As Homeopaths we know that each individual will present with different symptoms and that this is what guides us to the simillimum, rather than the disease name but here I just wanted to open up a few lines of thought pertaining to this condition.
Narcolepsy is a condition where the regulation of sleep patterns is missing and this emanates from within the brain. The damage comes from within the brain and we have to remember this affinity when it comes to choosing the first rx.
Repertories include the following rx in the specific ‘narcolepsy’ rubric:-
Chloralum hydratum (Burnett); Ephedrinum (Madaus); Hydrocyanic acid (Blackwood); Nux moschata (Morrison, Vithoulkas); Opium (Vithoulkas).
So, only 5 remedies and 3 of those are modern suggestions but obviously all pertain to the overall sx of Narcolepsy as we can see.
Chloralum hydratrum - a gas from chlorine water, used as a powerful hypnotic and used crudely causes hallucinations of a terrible nature, emotional excitability, muscular prostration, spasms, convulsions, paralysis, insomnia, somnolence, audio terrors, horrid dreams and night terrors and fatal toxicity (causes haemorrhages). The brain becomes totally congested and there is a profound fear of becoming insane.
Ephedrinum - this is a substance taken from one of the conifer plants. It has been used medicinally for centuries but now sold on the open market as a ‘fat burning’ diet pill (direct action on metabolism) which, if taken in excessive doses causes seizures, strokes, heart failure, restlessness and irritability and more. It has also been used as a performance enhancing drug due to its stimulant abilities and found in methamphetamine. Its use in Homeopathy is much more interesting though!
Crude allopathic side effects often give an indication to the symptoms that can be cured when used homoeopathically and the proving showed this substance to have a definite Mania side to it. Any excitability could be a trigger with a potentially mad attack phase. It has an affinity to the liver and bladder, nerves (pain is often neuralgic), muscles (become weak and useless), sphincters (involuntary actions), hypertension after anaesthesia and a night time phase, so it is easy to see how this all fits in with the state of narcolepsy - a manic and uncontrollable phase and a stupor phase.
Hydrocyanic acid - this is a rapidly acting deadly poison. Sudden collapse, spasms, constrictions, convulsions, suffocation. Sinking, hysterical, lack of consciousness, violence, contortion, delirium, tetanic narcolepsy that includes irresistible drowsiness and vivid incoherent dreams.
A curious symptom of this remedy is a bluish or violet discolouration (cyanosis, although can be extremely subtle in one needing this remedy, slightly blueish lips for example).
Nux Moschata - another remedy with both hysterical and comatose states and will present with changeability between both and not just one or the other., often described as a double personality - Jekyll and Hyde. Mesmeric drowsiness or exalted hysteria as well as a loss of memory are important keynotes.
Fright can be a trigger and although this could be an acute episode the lasting symptoms become chronic. Clairvoyance is often referred to so one could present as a very sensitive person with a tendency to having a sense of duality about them.
Interestingly, Phatak refers to this remedy as having a state of ‘sleep attacks’ (emphasis on the mention of attack) which are sudden, falling in an out of consciousness. All complaints come with this sleepiness which the materia medicas inform us comes more frequently than with Opium.
Opium - possibly the most well known of these 5 remedies. Again fright or fear can be the trigger with long lasting results.
The symptoms border more along the lines of depressive and painless stupors, although there is a manic side with twitching, delirium, tremors, convulsions, overall the person is placid and the drowsiness extreme - the brain is paralysed and they are indifferent to their condition.
Many people who suffer from epilepsy or other convulsive states are often known to have profound sleep disturbances that would fit in with the known symptoms of narcolepsy - a deep sleep following on from a seizure is really quite common and covered by at least 40 other homeopathic remedies.
As homeopaths we know that causation can be a key feature when analysing the case. Fear and brain poison appear to be important factors with these remedies.
Modern allopathy defines narcolepsy as a lack of a brain substance called hypocretin (orexin) which is responsible for allowing a normal sleep pattern. But why would this be deficient? At what point in one’s development did the brain lose this chemical or the brain become abnormal. Is it mainly due to an intrinsic cause, such as a congenital defect or is it due to modern day brain poison such as vaccinations and consumption - voluntary or involuntary. Typically, people develop symptoms in their teens but it is also a disease of older people and I have been involved with cases where the onset of sx began after ‘flu vaccinations. But the world we live in is a truly toxic one - consumption of brain poisons such as fluoride, aluminium, mercury, lead, arsenic, toxic chemicals and so much more is now and has been for a long time, at deadly levels. Allopathy might deem narcolepsy to have ‘no known cure’ but we homeopaths know better.