A Woman with Restless Leg Syndrome, Acne Rosacea, and Chronic Fatigue

Restless Leg Syndrome can be a relentlessly persistent and bothersome condition which often has no answer with conventional medicine. Judyth first heard about it decades ago when her mother, Essie, found her own solution, and wanted to share her successful discovery. And so it was that Essie wrote a brief letter to the editor of Prevention Magazine extolling the virtues of Vitamin E for the condition. Here we are, following in Essie’s footsteps, writing about the condition for Townsend Letter
readers. Genes rule!

We know there will be readers who will avidly devour this article, since it is the first time we have written about Restless Leg Syndrome since we began writing for the TL twenty-two years ago (we just looked in our archived articles and at first it looked like 1903, but, fortunately, that was a typo). Since we are, as you know, classical homeopaths, we must point out from the start that, to paraphrase Mahatma Gandhi, homeopathy treats people, not conditions. So, although Cat’s restless legs, the chief complaint, responded dramatically to her remedy (simillimum) from the start of treatment, do remember that it treats her other complaints as well (acne rosacea and exhaustion). And, although the homeopathic medicine that we prescribed for her does appear prominently, in black type, in the Complete Remedy, ReferenceWorks, it is certainly not a common one for the condition. That is the virtue of treating the whole person. The homeopath learns, as well, since we would have never known that the medicine could work so well for RLS.

Sensation Method Case Taking
We first saw Cat, a forty-five-year-old therapist, ten months ago. She had self-prescribed two over-the-counter homeopathic combinations without impressive results. “Spring a year ago I finished a work project and was exhausted. I took the summer off to regenerate, but it didn’t work. I am an athlete. A runner. I am always doing something… running, yoga. I finally stopped pushing myself. Then my rosacea really kicked in. Before I had just flushed with wine. Suddenly I was having breakouts all over my face.”

“I became increasingly tired. The rosacea spread to my eyes. My eyes sting a lot and I am becoming more farsighted. Recently I suddenly had allergies. Exhausted. They tested my Vitamin D, iron, thyroid. A couple of months ago I started waking up sick. As if I had the flu, but it wasn’t the flu. I just feel bad. Like I was poisoned. I feel fuzzy headed. A fuzzy stomach. Just fuzzy. Yucky. It is hard to focus my eyes, to concentrate. There’s a lack of precision in my body. When I run or do yoga, it can feel very precise. There’s none of that. I can’t pull myself together to concentrate.”

“ Fuzzy feels sort of like melting away. Like when you go to sleep and get disparate. As opposed to precise or concentrated. Fuzzy is blah, dissolve. “ We asked Cat to say more about disparate, which was a very unusual word for her to have used. ”Expand, Go unconscious. You let go. There’s a little vertigo. Like when you’re high up and your body goes woooo.” Cat made a hand gesture of swirling. “Like how you feel when you’re on a high building. Your mind is swirling. Your body is swirling.”

“It’s like particles. I feel a lot of energy particles in my body. Almost buzzing. Sort of electric. A background noise… buzz… in my body. They’re all buzzing randomly. It feels fuzzy. Like a lot of energy misfirings all through my body. “ We asked about the wooo swirling. “Like I can’t pull myself together. Like I’m on a roller coaster. Energetically things are going one way then the other…. It takes a lot of energy to concentrate. To feel myself solid in my body… A little jittery. A little electric in my body.”

“We asked Cat to tell us more about to not feel solid in her body. “Kind of floaty. And a little dizzy. Tired. Floaty. I feel disparate. Unfocused. Dizzy. I want to come back and feel more solid. Otherwise it feels too much nowhere. Nowheresville.” We know here we are on the right track because Cat is speaking nonsense rather than rational logic.

“Dizzy. Electricky. Ungrounded. Nowheresy. That feeling of being nowhere. I can’t related to anything and nothing is related to me. I don’t really exist. Like limbo. Neither here nor there. Not much meaning. Nothing really matters there.”

We asked again about disparate. “Buzzy, floaty. Unfocused. Spreading out. Like television in the old TVs. Staticky. You could feel the particles, but they weren’t a picture. Just little bits of light. Pilxilated in the modern terms. Little bits of light going in all directions. Not harmonizing. Electrical.”

We asked about the opposite. “Solid, harmonized. Flowing in one direction. More like waves instead of particles. “ Cat made a hand gesture here of a wave. “More solid. More earthy. Like a river in the earth. Flowing in the ground. Not atmospheric.”

We inquired about atmospheric. “All over the place. All aroundness. All over the place. Spacey. In space and spacey. Filling the space. Electrical. Disparate. Buzzy. Uncontained… Explosive. Moving in different directions. Like the particles. No center. Not explosive as much as moving out… Expanding and moving out. But there is no direction. Unfocusedness… An expansion that never stopped. A dissolution that never stops. Like a moving out. Entropy. Where things just fall apart and move out. Then you have to use energy to come back. That’s the law of entropy.”

“I have phlegm in my head, which doesn’t make me feel disparate… The vertigo that I was feeling definitely goes with the spaciness and the nausea. When I feel sick in the morning. I’ve often felt chronic fatigue. I’ve often been an afternoon, tired person. It feels heavy, sick. Not electrical and high. Like I don’t want to get up out of my body into the light of day. Heaviness. My body. My spirit. My spirit feels heavy in my body. The natural excitement is gone.”

“I used to meditate. I felt very clear. Electrical. Detached. Space, Disembodied… Expansive and light. Exciting. Thrilling. A sense of discovery. Limitlessness. I felt I was pure. Far away.”

“I’ve been tired all my adult life. It goes along with being disparate. I love going to bed early. I love not having my eyes open. Not having to think. I actually don’t think it’s different from all the disparate stuff. I’m tired of pulling back the disparate energy. I go to bed early so I don’t have to pull myself back. It takes a lot of energy to wake up and live….”

Sensation Method Prescribing
Cat presented a number of fascinating sensations. She started with a feeling of fuzzy in her head and her stomach. Then she mentioned precision, a mineral word relating to organization, structure, and, especially, performance. Then came the most interesting sensation: disparate. It is important to remember, with the Sensation Method, it is irrelevant what the homeopath thinks the sensation word means. Rather it is entirely up to the patient to elaborate on the experience in his or her own fashion, coming from that unique state. From disparate came expand, unconscious, swirling. Then particles, energy particles, buzzing, and electric. From this came not feeling solid in her body. Floaty. Then back to disparate, which indicated that we were on the right track. Electricky is one of those odd nonsense words invented by the patient when in the state expressing the sensation of the chief complaint. The same is true of nowheresy.
This was a wonderful interview for us because Cat so beautifully developed the sensation. The feeling of being nowhere. I can’t relate to anything and nothing is related to me. I don’t really exist. Neither here nor there. Not much meaning. Nothing really matters there.”

Then buzzy, floaty and again the particles. Again the mineral kingdom is confirmed. You could feel the particles… just little bits of light… pixilated. And back to electrical. Then waves instead of particles. Atmospheric. Spacey. In space. Explosive. Expanding and moving out, but no direction.

We prescribed Hydrogen for Cat. The particles, question of being stable or unstable, lack of solidity. A sense of lacking something, which is characteristic of a mineral. Explosive is another mineral word. Hydrogen is in the first row of the homeopathic periodic table. Row 1 represents a stage where nothing becomes something, where something comes into existence. The core experience of Hydrogen, according to the proving by Jeremy Sherr, is “a duality between energy and bodily existence.” The key question, according to Dr. Rajan Sankaran, is, “Do I exist or don’t I exist in the material form.” Hydrogen is the first element of nature, where energy gets condensed into matter. So the question is, “Am I energy or something material?” “Do I exist or am I just spread out?”

There is a predominant aversion to company in those needing Hydrogen and a preference for being alone. A feeling of being separated from the world. Of everything seeming strange and unreal. Patients can express a conflict between higher consciousness and world existence. A spaced-out feeling.

We prescribed one dose of Hydrogen 200C.

Response to the Prescription
Five Weeks:
“ I think I’m doing really well. Everything is much better. Oddly, it happened right away after I left your office. That evening the burning in my eyes disappeared, even before taking the Hydrogen. I wasn’t totally surprised, but I was very happy. Within the first week my rosacea got much better. I stopped using the antibiotic cream. I felt more energy. Less exhaustion and dizziness. I had a very strange dream of being shot. My consciousness was all over the place. Suddenly it occurred to me to get someone to take me to the hospital. It was a radical shift that I could get healed. I am increasingly not so dizzy. More grounded. I feel happier. Excited to do my work and finish projects. The restless legs come and go. I had very painful leg cramps as a child. It’s an electrical thing.” We instructed Cat to take the Hydrogen 200C in a plussed form as often as needed.

Nine Weeks:
“I am doing well. Things are working. I only took the plussed dose once. My skin [acne rosacea] is pretty fine. I am not so tired. Not so unfocused. Happier. I feel good in my body. Not achy anywhere. That’s good because I’m a runner and I often feel aches. The restless legs are better. Comes and goes less often. I feel much more in my body.” We suggested that Cat take the Hydrogen 200C once a week. We scheduled her for two months later.

Ten Months:
Cat did not call again for eight months. “I moved to the Rockies in Colorado. It has taken me a long time to adjust to the altitude. I still take the Hydrogen 200C periodically. It takes care of the restless leg syndrome immediately and usually the rosacea. I can still feel a little heady, high, ungrounded. But less so than before the homeopathy. I don’t feel connected to the people in my area. “ We prescribed Hydrogen 1M.

One month after she took the Hydrogen 1M, Cat got in touch with us:
” The remedy worked on my rosacea and restless leg right away, as well as my feeling dizzy and ungrounded. It has been a very tense time. I had to have my cat put down and I am in the process of moving. So some of the symptoms are returning.” We sent another dose of Hydrogen 1M.