Positive Health Online

Thirty-eight year-old Iain attended the clinic as a referral from a local chiropodist. He had five large verrucas distributed over both feet. They had been there for years, and he had been having treatment from the chiropodist for over a year; this included liquid nitrogen, minor surgery and silver nitrate plasters amongst others. After all of this the verrucas were still there and causing him pain when he walked. Examination of Iain’s feet showed large ones on the soles, with the fifth on a toe. Each was hard and caused pain when pressed, a couple had a few of the usual small black spots in them, otherwise there was little to distinguish them. Verrucas are a form of warts called plantar warts and they tend to grow inwards, hence their surfaces are often flat, and the person may complain of a sensation of standing on a hard lump.

As a character Iain was a very ‘average’ sort of guy, pleasant to chat with but nothing really stood out about him. He didn’t know anything about Homeopathy and didn’t want to know anything about it; as far as he was concerned I was just another practitioner who might solve his problem. He still needed a full and thorough case taking so that I could cross reference other bits of information about him for my remedy selection (we have at least 50 remedies that could be used to treat verrucas). As I took his case two other factors became clear. Since childhood Iain had suffered from severe asthma, which in the last ten years or so had predisposed him to repeated chest infections each winter when it was damp and cold. This also meant repeated prescriptions for antibiotics. He was using two different inhalers several times a day in order to manage the asthma. It was interesting to note that as Iain spoke in the consultation, his voice had the typical asthmatic breathy quality.

The second factor about him was that he was under immense stress due to his job, and he felt he wasn’t dealing with it properly; he was in a constant state of anxiety, was snappy and impatient and had repeated nights of broken sleep.

I tried to explain to him that I would need to take into account the asthma and his anxiety in order to treat him properly, and he firmly, but politely, told me that he was only here for verruca treatment and if it was successful then he might come back to address the others.

When I did the analysis I was not surprised to see a remedy called Thuja come through. This is a very big wart/ verruca remedy; it is also an asthma remedy par excellence. I prescribed it at the 30c potency, one tablet daily for just five days. When dealing with warts and verrucas it is also handy to use a topical application of Thuja tincture too (regardless of the remedy prescribed). The best way to do this is to score the surface of the wart/verruca with a darning needle, or sandpaper, to rough it up, apply a couple of drops of the tincture, and leave it to air dry for a couple of minutes, repeat this twice a day. NOTE: do not draw blood; if this happens do not apply the tincture.

I saw Iain ten weeks later and his verrucas were still very much in evidence, and more painful than before. He of course was not at all pleased about this. After checking for infection, I explained that this is often the case with warts and verrucas and that it was a good sign. He also mentioned that his asthma was, coincidentally, much better. He was sleeping better too. I re-prescribed the Thuja, but this time only once daily for three days, and arranged to see him ten weeks later.

At Iain’s next follow-up, three of the verrucas had gone and the remaining two had shrunk and were not causing any discomfort, and he felt they were ‘…on their way out’. His asthma was much better; he was now only using one inhaler once daily, when he remembered! His work situation was still very much the same, but he was now sleeping most nights and feeling more energetic, he had adopted a more c’est la vie approach to it. I treated Iain from autumn through into spring, and he commented that it was the first winter that he had not had any chest infection or required any antibiotics for a very long time. He’d had a cold which would normally progress to his chest, but he fought it off easily this time. I sent him away with another prescription of Thuja 30c once daily for three days, and instruction to contact me if he needed to, otherwise he was signed off.

I selected this case because this knew nothing about homeopathy and did not want to know; he only wanted specific treatment for his verrucas. Because the remedy overlapped into the asthma and stress reactions, we saw an improvement in these as well. Bearing in mind Iain’s mind set and attitude, and the fact he did not know the remedy covered the asthma and stress, his improvement across the board is very unlikely to be due to the ‘placebo effect’ which is often levelled against any homeopathic success story.