Words: Dr Joette CALABRESE
The first time I witnessed a panic attack was in a young mother after she had taken a conventional medicine for pinworms. Within minutes of taking a dose of this drug, which was essentially a pesticide, Paula flew into a surge of physical and mental restlessness. She described it like this: “It was as though my body was possessed, like I had drunk a pot of strong coffee and eaten a pound of sugar all at once.
My mind was racing; my heart pounding and perspiration was beading on my face. I was actually dashing about my living room like the house was on fire and I needed to escape, but it was only happening to me. My family stared at me in wonder. I knew it was the drug I had just ingested and I also knew when I took it that it would be risky, since I’m sensitive to lawn pesticides. They make me feel the same way, but this experience was ten-fold, because I swallowed those horrible pills.”
The remedy that not only relieved Paula’s symptoms, but put her in a better state for when her neighbours sprayed lawn pesticides was the homeopathic remedy, Arsenicum album 30C. “Within about five minutes of taking the little pills, my shoulders dropped, and the intense fear and restlessness melted away. It was miraculous.” Paula has since learned how to treat pinworms with homeopathic remedies, instead of submitting to toxic allopathic strategems and she is prepared with her protective remedy should pesticide exposure affect her in the future.
There was my cousin Mary who called me one evening describing conditions similar to Paula’s. Mary had no idea what had caused her fearful sensations. She was certain, though, that she was about to die of a heart attack; she was not in pain, yet she couldn’t get the thought of impending death out of her mind. She decided to call me before she left for the emergency room. I asked her what she had been doing that day to see whether we could unearth the exciting cause.
Mary’s family had been out for the day and she saw this as an opportunity to hunt through her children’s
Halloween candy stash. Her intention was to eat only 1-2 small pieces of chocolate, but after eight morsels, her heart began pounding. She recalled that when she was a child, she had eczema and that chocolate exacerbated the rash. Ever since understanding the damning association of the two, she had
always felt deprived of chocolate. Nowadays, whenever the opportunity presented itself, she would steal away and indulge in her sweet secret.
Mary hadn’t considered the premise that the excess of chocolate was the problem until we began talking about it. “I never had this kind of reaction to it. In the past, it might have caused some loose stools, or a little re-emergence of dermatitis [eczema], but not a feeling that my heart was racing.”
If you are already familiar with homeopathy, you might guess the remedy that I chose for Mary. It is one that is used after overindulgence, particularly of a stimulant.
If you guessed Nux vomica, you are correct. Mercifully, Mary had a homeopathy kit and I waited on the ‘phone while she dropped a few of the little pills into her mouth. For her, it required a second dose about 20 minutes later for her galloping heart to calm and I witnessed her demeanour transform from terror to tranquillity. The next day, she told me that shortly after we hung up, she slept for 12 hours. “Today, I feel better than I have for weeks.” Should she ever overindulge again, she’s prepared with her remedy.
But, what if the cause of panic attacks has nothing to do with what was ingested? What if they seem to appear from nowhere? This is when homeopathy can do its niftiest work, because we homeopaths don’t always need to discover the aetiology [cause] of the condition.
