Positive Health Online

Molly was a 30-year-old housewife who had been plagued by an anal fissure for several years. She had received orthodox medical treatment which included surgery twice. Unfortunately, the surgery did not help beyond Molly being fissure free for no more than a couple of months.

Being of an enquiring mind, and basically downright fed up with the fissure, Molly had done a lot of research into complementary medicine, and which therapy might suit her, as a form of treatment. She had consulted a nutritional therapist for 18 months prior to seeing me, and although this had tidied up her diet and helped her to feel very well in general it did not help with the fissure. Granted, she was not bleeding every time she went to the toilet as before, but she was still in a lot of pain. She made one more trip to her Medical Consultant who said that the only option left for him was more radical surgery which has mixed results, and could leave her with scar tissue in the anal region… she declined!

When Molly consulted me she had a very sharp searing pain each time she defecated; her inclination was to hold on until she couldn’t any longer, in order to put off the painful moment. Being a rational person she knew this would make things worse, so she grit her teeth and got on with it when the need arose. The pain caused tears to run and Molly to groan, or sometimes whimper, as she passed her stool. She would bleed several times a week, sometimes what seemed like large amounts, into the toilet.

As well as the general fissure symptoms, Molly was becoming depressed and very irritable. The person who came off worst was her husband, so much so that lately he could do nothing right, and Molly would be at him as soon as he came through the door. There was no underlying reason for this, and before the fissure problem they had been a very close couple. Their sex life had gone to nothing, Molly having no interest in it. Of late her periods were early and heavy; they used to be bang on 28 days and of a moderate flow. Accompanying this change in her periods were strange sensations of heaviness in her pelvic region, like “…everything was hanging down, like a weight pulling on her innards”.

Analysis of her case had the remedy Sepia almost jumping off the page. Sepia is a remedy prepared from cuttlefish ink and has the following key features, all of which fit Molly’s case: sensations or pains of a bearing down nature in the pelvic region; intolerance and irritability to a husband or children; indifference to sex and lack of libido; early and profuse periods; and shooting pain upwards into the rectum during stool along with blood loss. In short, Sepia was a very good fit. I prescribed a split dose (just two tablets) of Sepia 1M. Alongside this, I prescribed China tincture – this tincture is made from the bark of the Cinchona tree and is indicated almost as a ‘tonic’ where there has been loss of ‘vital fluids’. If we consider the amount of chronic blood loss, with the fissure and heavy periods, there is indication enough for the tincture. She took five drops in half a glass of water once daily ongoing.

At her follow-up five weeks later Molly reported that her mood had altered dramatically, she felt a lot happier in general, was a lot less irritable with her husband (much to his relief), and had a lot more energy. That she should feel such an improvement in general surprised her as her fissure symptoms had only got a little better. I explained to Molly that where we have a mix of mental/emotional symptoms and physical ones, it is often the mental/emotional area that changes first.

I repeated everything and arranged to see her five weeks later.

At her second follow-up she reported that she had a lot less pain when she went to the toilet, and the blood was mostly spots on the toilet paper now, and infrequent. Her period had been 28 days after the last and wasn’t as heavy. The odd sensation of heaviness in the pelvic region had gone. In fact she had forgotten about it until I asked her. I repeated the prescription again, but this time without the China tincture.

Molly carried on with a couple more doses of Sepia 1M over the next two months or so, and I signed her off after she had been free of pain and bleeding for two consecutive months. She had a Sepia prescription to hold onto just in case the symptoms came back, but so far has not had to resort to it. Molly still has treatment for minor things, and since the fissure has had a baby who has treatment every now and again. The fissure now appears to be a thing of the past.