Paul Herscu
In his
newsletter nr 8 Paul Herscu described the below remedies:
In terms of the larger remedies, the main effective homeopathic remedies have been, in order of likelihood: Sulphur, Lycopodium, Bryonia, and then less likely Phosphorus, and Arsenicum album. By far, at this moment, the most common remedy is Sulphur. The more acute remedy seems to be Bryonia.
Here are the most important symptoms the individuals describe:Sulphur:1. Feeling of heat, warmth in the body overall and also in a hot face, eyes, ears, with or without fever. Just a sense of warmth. They may describe burning pain and burning sensations.
2. As a consequence, they want cool air, feel better in the cool air, and are very thirsty for cool, cold, or icy drinks (but discourage the patient from having ice, see below).
3. Dryness in the nose, mouth, throat, bronchi. Limited perspiration.
4. If they have a cough, the cough is felt as dry. If they have a cough, it comes later in the process, not as a first presenting sign.
5. They are extremely tired, fatigued, and/or sleepy.
6. They want company, and talk more than the other remedies listed here. As a matter of fact, they feel very comfortable and want to talk to doctors and others about their symptoms.
7. That said, they may become slightly irritable. Disgusted by the idea of picking up germs from other people.
8. If they have digestive complaints, which are rare, there may be vomiting or diarrhea or disordered stomach. And while the keynote of the remedy is these discharges being excoriating or acrid, in this instance, at this time, discharges are actually more bland.
Lycopodium:1. Feeling of heat alternating with chills. They may feel warm originally, but become more chilly over time.
2. They may still want cool air, but the thirst here has changed clearly for a preference to warm drinks.
3. Here too there is dryness in the nose, mouth, throat, bronchi with scant sweat.
4. Here too, extremely tired, sleepy, and fatigued.
5. Here the openness found in Sulphur is missing. They become easily irritable early on, perturbed, or annoyed in a ‘flat’ sort of way (the way we sometimes think of Sepia). Here, they do not want to be talked to, do not want to be disturbed or interrupted. They want to just be alone and yet want someone around. But there is this ‘unfeeling’ sensation in their emotions.
6. They become slightly anxious, mostly around how strange they feel and the dire news, but anxiety is not the predominant feature here, as they are too ‘flat’ for that.
Phosphorus:1. Feeling of heat, warmth in the body overall or only as a hot face, eyes, ears, with or without a fever.
2. Regarding temperature comfort, they may desire cool or warm air
3. The thirst is very high for cool drinks.
4. Dryness in the nose, mouth, throat, bronchi, with scant sweat.
5. Extremely tired, sleepy, fatigued.
6. Very fearful, wanting very close company, wanting to be held and clearly ameliorated by the comfort of others.
7. They are restless from the anxiety but easily consoled.
Arsenicum album:While this is the remedy that everyone mentions, in fact this is less common as the others.
1. Feeling of heat, warmth in the body overall and also a hot face, eyes, ears, as well as a fever.
2. However, their desire is warmth.
3. They have a thirst for warm or room temperature drinks.
4. Dryness in the nose, mouth, throat, bronchi. No perspiration.
5. Extremely tired, sleepy, and fatigued.
6. They are very frightened and anxious and more so from the news when they hear how many died.
7. They are internally restless, tossing in bed or pacing, and worried about how bad this infection really is.
Bryonia:1. Feeling of heat, warmth in the body overall and also a hot face, eyes, ears, as well as potential fever.
2. The want cool air and great thirst for cool drinks.
3. Dryness in the nose, mouth, throat, bronchi, with scant sweat.
4. Extremely tired, sleepy, and fatigued.
5. They are very ‘actively’ irritable. They really do not want to move or be bothered, yet people bother them. They really do not want to talk. They are monosyllabic, and do not move much.
6. They are not very restless.
As this is a helpful guide to the symptoms seen thus far, for the homeopath, at this time, I have two requests. The first is, if you interact with a person who has a confirmed COVID-19 case, could you please send me their symptoms, paying most attention to the
modalities of the case. And second, as an observation, over the past three decades, when I highlight a specific remedy and indication for that remedy, others take that information as their own, and then sort of add symptoms from the materia medica that are keynotes of that remedy. As mentioned above, most of the time this is both incorrect, and not helpful and actually misguides other prescribers. If those symptoms were present, I would have included them. By doing this you introduce errors into the literature. Can I ask you to keep the data flow as clean as possible. If you want to add anything, can you at least write something like, ‘Paul Herscu ND, MPH gives these indications only, though I want to add this or that.’ Help me try to keep the inaccuracies and noise down and the data clean, as this helps limit confusion and helps the homeopath, but more importantly, the patients in our care, most.
Clinical Prediction ToolsI am in the intense process of developing a Clinical Predication Guideline, but this takes a great deal of time to get accurate. As soon as I have completed this, I will send it out.
DrynessAs you can see, this observation of dryness of the mucous membranes is a common feature for many people with COVID-19. Encourage your patients to drink often, to stay moist and hydrated. This will help keep the viral load down. Sips of warmer water through the day. The virus is sensitive to heat. Try to cut out ice, or very cold drinks. Let’s make it a bit more difficult for it to take hold and set up shop. I still believe that summer warmth will slow this virus down, end the first wave, but the slower we pass it from person to person, the more time we have to come up with a more permanent fix. This is why from the very beginning, we underscored the public health hygienic habits to adopt.
To read all newsletters see here
