Everybody has had a cough. They accompany colds and they pass. But every so often a cough does not go away and morphs into an all-consuming torment. Such was the cough of an old patient of mine who called me in the winter of ’09.
He had already been to his local doctor for this same cough and probable bronchitis and had received a Z-pak and a Medrol pak (antibiotics and steroids). That treatment ended a week earlier but he was no better.
When we spoke, he was complaining of a tickling in the trachea (windpipe) that produced violent coughing. The mucus he expelled was “stringy” he said. He was coughing so hard it was lasting up to one even two minutes. “It’s like a spasm,” he said. “I have even gagged.”
He was feeling dull and lackadaisical. “Just sitting around,” he said.
He then began to speak about a deep sadness that had come over him.
“I feel kind of homeless since Ike,” he said. Ike was the hurricane that slammed Galveston and Houston in September, 2008.” He had been living in Galveston and was now further down the coast in Port Aransas.
“Why do you say you feel homeless?” I wanted to know.
“After Ike, I went up north and stayed with my brother and sister-in-law,” he said. “But the truth is I feel I am only welcome if there are projects for me to do.”
He had done a major project for them. As soon as it was finished he got the strong impression he was no longer wanted and left.
“I’ve been depressed,” he said, “wondering what the point of living is. Some times I feel that nobody loves me.”
He was a man in his sixties, a retired attorney. “I felt deeply hurt by my brother and sister-in-law,” he said.
He was very chilly and not tolerating the cold at all. “I couldn’t get warm in St. Louis,” he said. “I wore a stocking cap to bed.” His head was the part most sensitive to the cold.
He reported drooling at night and sweating on the head and front part of the neck.
He was having to force himself to drink.
He returned to his brother. “I felt very alienated and alone there,” he said.
It turned out that wherever he went (he travelled quite a lot being retired) he stayed with friends and always helped them out doing various projects. He liked helping others.
He was and had always been a diligent person, hard-working and responsible.
He was taking cough medicine to suppress the cough but it wore off in the early morning hours. At that time he would cough for one to two minutes.
There are over two hundred homeopathic medicines for coughs. A classical homeopath will select only one. In order for it to act curatively it has to match the nature of the cough and the nature of the person.
Analysis:
He felt alone, forsaken, and in grief.
He was benevolent, always helping others.
He was diligent, a hard, conscientious worker.
The cough was peculiar in that the more he coughed the worse it got.
The medicine selected had to be chilly and thirstless.
The medicine, Ignatia, fit both his cough, his chilly, thirstless nature and his emotional state. Within twenty-four hours of taking it he was markedly better and well within two days. Not only did the cough go away but he became his upbeat, cheerful self again.