The Mueller Method in Practice: Six Cases

This is an edited and augmented excerpt from one of Manfred Mueller’s tutorials. Manfred developed The Mueller Method™ which introduces many features that go above and beyond standard homeopathic practice. The following cases will help the reader to have a better overview of how The Mueller Method™ works in clinical homeopathic practice, with a special focus on identifying causes, so-called “obstacles to cure,” and how to overcome them. For more information on The Mueller Method™ and its features, please read the article “The Mueller Method™ – Digging Deeper Into Your Homeopathic Toolbox”.

 

Case 1: Perineal Rash in an Infant

Infant girl, two months old. A painful, red, irritating rash appeared on the perineum after three weeks of daily dosing with Q potencies of the remedy Carcinosinum (one drop dose daily, beginning with 1Q and raising the potency to 2Q after 10 days, and so forth), given as a constitutional remedy. Medorrhinum was the only remedy found under the rubric for “eruption; perineum, infant.” Instead of using Medorrhinum, which only covered this one symptom and not an entire “syndrome” or the constitutional characteristics of this child, I looked at the case more thoroughly.

Why would Carcinosinum bring out a rash in the perineum? My guess was, an obstacle to cure existed – either something that was being used topically or there was a contact dermatitis of sorts.Carcinosinum was too dissimilar to this “condition” but similar to the “patient” and brought out a group of newer, latent symptoms. Upon further questioning of the mother, I decided that the “natural” diaper wipes the she’d been using could have been responsible for the eruption. While the ingredients seemed innocuous, I did find one potentially offending substance – potassium sorbate. I looked up the health effects potassium sorbate and found, yes, it can cause skin rashes. So the mother discontinued use of the wipes and we gave Potassium sorbate in a 30C potency in water, 3 doses day, for 3 days. By the next day the rash was gone and there was never any recurrence, even after months of being on her daily dosing of Carcinosinum.

Case #2 Ingrown Toenail

A 32 year old woman was waiting in her car to pick up her friend. She had to park her car under a supplemental power line coming from a substation in front of a building. She stayed in the vehicle for approximately 5 minutes while waiting. After arriving home, she noticed that she’d developed an ingrown toenail that she did not have before. This was on the inside of the great toe of the left foot. It was painful, red, angry looking and shiny. By the evening, the toe already looked infected. There was pain on walking especially when she was putting weight on the foot. Now obviously we could all come up with some remedies for this toe, but I was operating under the hypothesis that this ingrown toenail had a clear cause – the electromagnetic field from the power line.

The woman had not yet made an acute appointment with me, however, the next day, she had to return to this building to again pick up her friend. She had to park in the same place, again for about 5 minutes. This time, the exposure made her pain disappear and by the time she returned home, the ingrown toenail was completely gone. Apparently, a similar (perhaps weaker or more dilute?) dose of the identical exposure acted this time as a cure! Observations like this make you think.

 

Case#3: Inflammation of the Skin of the Face

I recall a case where a constitutional remedy, in this case Natrum muriaticum was prescribed to a woman in her early 50s. She was taking a one drop-dose of Nat-m in the liquid 1Q potency. It was subsequently noted that she was very, very sensitive to all sorts of things like fragrances, certain foods, and more. She did not make that clear during her initial consultation, so I did not at first assume that she would be so sensitive to homeopathic remedies. After 3 weeks, during her first follow up, she reported that her face “had exploded,” in her words. It looked like she had a sunburn, a very, very red face. She emailed a picture as we were consulting over the phone. The facial skin was tight, bloated and swollen, dark red and burning “like she had been burned by a fire or by a terrible sunburn.” While I immediately thought of the remedy Cantharis, among other remedies, I had to look further into this case. This was not the state of her face BEFORE she began treatment! She clearly had had a reaction to the Nat-m, but while Natrum muriaticum has a nettle rash, with itching and burning, this seemed altogether different.

She had not been in the sun and she had not used any new products on her face, so it was clearly another obstacle to cure that we had encountered here. Upon further questioning, she explained that,for the last several years if not decades, she had been using an Amway brand facial lotion and I suspected it to be the cause as it was full of irritating chemicals. We asked her to send us some of that facial lotion so we could make a clearing remedy from it. We prepared it in a 30C potency and sent her the remedy. She treated herself with the facial lotion remedy diluted in water, dosing one time a day, for 10 days in 6 dosage cups (an olfactory dose) and her bloated face quickly reverted back to normal. She did not dare to touch Nat-m.again for 2 years, this is how scared she was of that remedy afterwards!

Remember this reaction was not really caused by the Nat-m, but,yes, in a way it was triggered by it because her vital force rallied and tried to overcome something which was not similar enough to the remedy Nat-m, just as in Case #1 with the infant’s perineal rash. Natrum muriaticum could not overcome this problem, so it forcefully brought out latent and suppressed symptoms. This is not the gentle approach! Hahnemann says that if after a remedy a different picture appears then another remedy needs to be given. This was the case here. The biggest difference to the method I use here is, instead of looking for another polycrest or other classical remedy, I look for the obstacle to cure – the “offending” substance or exposure that caused the suppression in the first place– and try to antidote it with a homeopathically prepared version of the substance or the nearest and best antidote (which in some cases may be a classical remedy).

 

Case # 4 Brain Injury Induced Schizophrenia

This is an interesting case. A client was treating her 24 year old daughter without the daughter’s knowledge. The daughter had been diagnosed with schizophrenia or psychosis, as a possible result of a severe and debilitating brain injury due to a car accident and a subsequent fall where she hit her head on a porcelain sink. The State wanted to take custody away from the mother and hospitalize the daughter in a mental institution. They tried several times, but they mother kept fighting it.

The daughter made very good progress for several months under homeopathic treatment when the mother noticed a substantial setback. Due to sensitivities to the remedy, the daughter had been on a steady dose of ascending Q potencies of Natrum sulphuricum diluted in 28 dosage cups, going up in potency every 9 days. Once the trouble began, the mother looked through her daughter’s room and purse and discovered that her daughter had begun to self medicate with Tramadol and Valium without the mother’s knowledge!

The mother noticed that whenever she gave her daughter a dose of Nat-s, the daughter would hear voices and have paranoid fantasies, and she was suspicious of everything her mother did or said – she was clearly having an aggravation of her existing symptoms. This Nat-s, which was given in a very, very diluted dose, was being given by touch (haptic or “transdermal” dose). The mother would put a few drops on the refrigerator door, so whenever the daughter touched the refrigerator, she would get a dose of the remedy. Or she would put drops on the floor in front of the refrigerator and every morning the barefoot daughter would get her dose.

The mother was instructed to temporarily stop the Nat-s and instead give the daughter 3 doses of Valium 30C first, followed by 3 doses of Tramadol 30C (one dose daily for each), which removed the symptoms. Afterwards, she was to resume treatment with the next higher Q-potency of the Nat-s. Three weeks later at the next follow up, the mother reported, “it was like peace had been brought back to our house again.” We then continued with the previous schedule of Nat-s in 28 dosage cups in ascending Q potencies without any further incidence. It took another 2 ½ years of treatment with Nat-s, Arn, Phos, Anac, Carc (mostly in alternation), repeating more of her clearing remedies and a few other classical remedies, but we were able to reverse the schizophrenia and help the girl be able to work and resume her normal functions in society again.

 

Case #5 Emotional Problems

A 3 year old girl had been sitting, rocking and crying to herself all day long – for weeks when the parents finally brought her to my practice. I tried Pulsatilla in Q potencies, which seemed to fit the girl perfectly after taking her case, but there was no improvement. In the history, it was noted that she had recently received a DPT shot.The vaccine remedy DPT in 30C potency was given 3 doses a day for 3 days, in water in the drop dose. After finishing 9 doses of DPT, Pulsatilla was given again and this time the behavior immediately changed for the better. The parents reported they finally had their little girl back.

 

Case #6: Kidney Failure, Complicated by Bipolar Disorder

I would like to give you an even more dramatic and complex case. This is actually a typical case, meaning this is my everyday life now in my clinic, even though this case was taken more than 13years ago. Somehow, even over the internet, I have developed a reputation for working with very complex cases!

This was a 52 year old gentleman who had presented with kidney failure. His creatinine levels were high, and there was albumin in the urine. There was also glucosuria. Decades ago, he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had been treated with multiple medications throughout his life. He spent several years in a mental hospital, but he had been on Lithium for 18 years straight and at the time I took the case, he had a few other health problems, e.g. he was on thyroid medication for an underactive thyroid, and so forth.

So looking at the whole case, the first thing that was done was to make a chronological history of his background. The chronological drug history is also important because the first and most blatant drug that needed to be looked at was Lithium. Lithium treatment, it turns out, can produce kidney failure beginning with an increase in blood creatinine levels! So this was a significant drug, and the effects weren’t limited to kidney failure. By now the kidney failure had also produced high blood pressure, so this man was also on blood pressure medication. This was a complex chronic case. The most recent medication that had been added was a diuretic. He decided to go off of the diuretic feeling he did not need it, having never had any significant edema, and we cleared for the effects with that same drug in the 30C potency, 3 doses per day for 3 days in water in the drop dose. He also had been on several other less important medications, i.e. for insomnia, etc. In the subsequent weeks, gradually all current medications were removed and their effects cleared, in the protocol previously mentioned.

For a brief time, he needed to be on Viscum album tincture, because the blood pressure was somewhat high, and we did not want to risk harming the kidney. Viscum album worked for him. It is much less toxic than most blood pressure medications. It works when the increased blood pressure was caused by stress, something I considered to be at least a part of the case. Over 3 or 4 follow-ups over 12 weeks, there were also personality symptoms that were taken into consideration, so the personality very much matched that of a hyper, overconfident person, and also a very selfish person.

He had a history of multiple flu shots containing mercury, CT scans, chest X-rays, a tetanus shot, pneumonia shot, Hydrocortisone shots, medications for a rash, and more. He took pharmacodes for these in reverse order over the next several weeks – each substance in potentized form (as mentioned above) in order to remove the suppressions and new disorders (both latent and visible) these agents produced, starting with the most recent first.

After this clearing treatment was completed, there was much improvement in his overall wellbeing—all symptoms had improved except the insomnia! You can tell right away when you see a chronic patient like this— that they feel better overall after we get through even just a small part of the clearing process. It confirms they were suffering from a drug disorder(s)! The remedy Cocculus was chosen now to cover his insomnia and Natrum muriaticum was chosen because there was still a certain amount of depression and the symptoms seemed to match. They were given in alternation in Q potencies while the clearing took place. This was a more normal depression, not the kind you see after rebounding from a manic episode. He would take Natrum muriaticum 1Q in the morning, then 3 doses of whatever clearing remedy he was doing for that three days, and then Cocculus1Q at night before bedtime.

On his third follow-up, it was clear that Cocculus was not helping the insomnia, but his joy of living had returned. He was much better, had much better energy and he actually noticed on taking his blood pressure daily that his blood pressure went up first and then down. Another month later, he discontinued the Viscum album tincture. He did not feel he needed it anymore. He had long discontinued Atenolol (a blood pressure drug) and his blood pressure was normal. He noted that the rash that he originally had been taking Hydrocortisone for disappeared after he discontinued the Atenolol and took the clearing remedy for it.

After several months, overall his mental state had clearly improved. There was no sign of the manic personality that was still very much present when I first met him. He seemed relaxed, and contented with his life. He continued to work with his psychiatrist without telling him about his homeopathic treatment. He never even told him that he was discontinuing the medication!

These first 5 months were all good news. All exposures were gradually cleared in the fashion mentioned above. It was pretty clear that the underlying personality was that of a very dominant person. He had several characteristics that were of interest. On the one hand, he had the symptoms of Lycopodium and on the other hand, he also had the well-known symptoms of a cancer diathesis, very much those of the remedy Carcinosinum, which is known for a gentle disposition, hypersensitive to emotions, fear of criticism, suspiciousness, perfectionism, etc., and all of this was there. Yet, at the same time, there was this other part to him, this overconfidence and dominant personality. So I chose 2 remedies to add to the daily doses of Natrum muriaticum—Lycopodium and Carcinosinum.

Lycopodium was given daily in the morning and Carcinosinum daily at night, both in ascending Q potencies (Nat-m at lunch). By that time, there was nothing more to clear as far as medications were concerned. He had even cleared all of his childhood vaccines. There were no eventful follow- ups for the next 2 months. He just went up after every 10 days to the next higher potency level of daily doses of Lyc., Nat-m., and Carc. His creatinine had not gotten any worse, whereas, prior to treatment, it was gradually getting worse. So now over a period of 4-5 months, he had no longer seen any physical symptoms and it was noted that some of the old symptoms had returned. If you are familiar with Hering’s Law, that is another confirmation that we were moving in the right direction.

At this point symptoms of the original kidney problem returned, with pain and weakness, and the creatinine suddenly went back up. Rather than taking this as a bad sign, I felt like this was the time to now give the Lithium carbonicum again, even though it had been cleared once already at 3 doses a day for 3 days in the liquid 30C potency. I now used the Q potencies, 1 dose daily for 10 days, then moving to the next higher potency. Within a month, the creatinine levels stabilized while personality symptoms continued to improve. There were mild bipolar symptoms off and on, which I did not address with anything other than steady dosing with Lyc, Nat-m and Carc, a regular, daily dose of each over time. The thyroid improved on homeopathic Lithium. In other words, thyroid tests returned to normal. The thyroid medication was the only one he had continued to take. Even after two thyroid tests found the levels to be normal, he had continued the Synthroid. After several months of feeling low energy he finally decided to try getting off of Synthroid completely. He took the pharmacode to clear for its effects. His energy levels improved significantly.

After more than 2 years of homeopathic treatment it was very clear that this treatment had successfully stopped any further deterioration of the kidney. At this point the patient was told by his doctors that he should be prepared to go on dialysis and suggested a port should be installed. At the time he started homeopathic treatment, creatinine levels were over 5, I believe. He levels were now near 3 or slightly below! He declined the port.

At this same time, his mother died, causing a crisis in his financial situation. He discontinued treatment, against my urging for him to continue at least another 6 months to solidify even further the improvements in the kidney and personality disorder. I never heard from him again. This is a case that you generally could say is a difficult if not incurable case. Under treatment, he had not needed dialysis and was basically in good health. He hadn’t had any more manic-depressive episodes, and I think as far as the manic depression was concerned it was likely cured. As far as the kidney disease was concerned, it had stabilized. I do not think that this level of damage to the kidney can be recovered completely. But in this case, we will never know!

 

Reprinted with permission from Hpathy.com ezine, September 2014

Header Photo Credit: UNLV Medicine