A case of panic attacks in a young boy

Michael was nine years old when I first saw him in 1998. He had curly dark hair, large brown eyes and cherubic features. The mother had brought him to me as a last resort because he had been suffering from intense panic attacks and constant anxiety for about ten months now. He had seen a child psychologist for nine months already, with minor improvements.

"Michaels does not want to school because he is afraid that we'll die while he is away. He is also afraid that he will die. Any time he hears an ambulance he thinks they are coming for him because he is very ill or dying."

He was afraid to be alone, especially at night, and clung to his parents.

Camping misadventures

Asking about what happened when all this started I learned that Michael had gotten lost in the woods at night during a camping trip the previous summer. Now this was in Algonquin Park, a large wilderness reserve in Northern Ontario. I was familiar with the area as I had camped there myself before. I remember being very impressed as well as kind of scared by the moose we saw close up and I was an adult. There are wolves and bears in that park as well.

So the poor little guy had wandered off with another child at dusk and somehow got caught in the dark, all this for two or three hours before being reunited with his family.

Ah, the homeopathic antennas were already twitching.

There is a famous rubric in our repertories: "Delusion, alone in the wilderness". Now, the word delusion is used rather loosely in homeopathic lingo and is applied to actual events as much as to imagined ones, as the experience in either case takes place in the person's mind.

Another kind of trip

Now as if that had not been enough, Michael also suffered from occasional asthma attacks from colds, and, sure enough, had one shortly after returning from the fateful camping excursion. This time it was a trip to the emergency room with an already panicked Michael who refused to let the medical staff put an inhaler and oxygen mask on him, so he was held down forcibly by three paramedics.

Now the antennas were really going full tilt! Horror and terror with fear of violence are other hallmarks of the remedy I was already suspecting. A small child, unable to breathe, being taken to a hospital via ambulance and held down by complete strangers, if that's not scary I don't know what is. The remedy was Stramonium, derived from the plant Datura stramonium, also known as Thorne Apple, Jimson Weed, Loco Weed, Angel's or Devil's Trumpet.'

Plan:

Stramonium 200CH one dose, return in one week for a follow-up.

Follow-up:

In one week Michael was already improving. He was actually able to go to school again without being afraid to die. I asked the mother to bring him back in another two weeks.

Follow-up three weeks after remedy:

He was doing much better, about 70% improved with his fears. The parents were amazed and very happy and so was I. Stramonium is a classic remedy for a situation like this and well known in homeopathy. An intense fright can create a post-traumatic shock, a well-known fact in psychology and psychiatry. It is as if a switch has been thrown in the organism and it is in panic mode all the time.

Neurotoxic properties

Stramonium as a plant has strong neurotoxic properties which can lead to intense delusions, delirium, fears, all kind of bizarre and possibly violent behaviour as well as death. It has a tradition of use as a hallucinogenic in Medieval Europe as well as South Asia and North America where it was used during certain religious ceremonies.

Based on the homeopathic principle of like curing like it's a fantastic remedy for children with night terrors or fever-induced deliriums. I have lost count of how many children with night terrors I've treated with this remedy over the years, dozens. Of course the homeopathic preparation does not contain any of the toxic properties of the plant, only the energetic information. 

Michael recoverd completely after a few more doses of Stramonium and later on Calcarea carbonica, which was his constitutional remedy.