Homeopathy I - Sepia:

Question 1

Background:

Answer 1

• The remedy is made by potentising ink from cuttlefish.
• If feeling threatened, cuttlefish spray dark ink that enters the water obscuring them from predators.
• The ink has been long used as a pigment in drawing and painting.
• It was Hahnemann’s observation of an unwell artist friend who was in the habit of wetting his paint brush with saliva, thus ingesting the ink, that led to the proving of this remedy.

Question 1

Sepia Names

Answer 1

Names: Sepia officinalis, common cuttlefish.
The family servant

Question 2

Mental picture:

Answer 2

• A key remedy for women (needed by men and children at times too!).
• Often fulfilling many roles in the family —mother, wife, career woman, cleaner, cook.
• Exhaustion from the expectations of all the roles she has to fulfill.
• Can feel indifference, resentment, irritable, angry.
• Wants to be left alone.
• Does not like sympathy or being consoled.
• Aversion to intimacy.
• Desire to run away, escape the demands of the family.

Question 3

General picture:

Answer 3

• Helpful for conditions associated with hormonal changes in women.
• Discharges tend to be milky —vomit, mucus, urinary and vaginal secretions.
• Desire chocolate and acidic foods / beverages.
• Feel better when they are occupied.
• > movement, dancing, vigorous exercise, eating, warmth, open air.
• < during menstruation and pregnancy, missing a meal.

Question 4

Indications

Answer 4

(If they fit the symptom picture):
* Menstruation / menopause, NEVER WELL SINCE hormone replacement (OCP / HRT)
* Any symptoms associated with pregnancy: Constipation, depression, weepy (< consolation —pulsatilla > consolation), pigmentation (chloasma / melasma = ‘the cloak of pregnancy’), morning sickness, haemorrhoids etc.
* Depression / post-natal depression
* Adrenal fatigue —exhaustion from fulfilling demands of those around them.
* Adrenal insufficiency (Addison’s disease).

Question 5

Pregnancy-associated symptoms

Answer 5

Examples of administration, acute prescribing:
Sepia 30C 3 x daily
* Morning sickness - nausea at sight / smell of food, in the morning before eating, not relieved by eating. Craves pickles / vinegar.
* Constipation - large hard stools, feeling of a ball in the rectum, pains from rectum shoot upwards.
* Haemorrhoids / varicose veins - bleeding after passing a stool, restless legs, legs twitch at night in bed, legs feel cold, heavy and bruised.
* PMS (sepia 30C taken 3 x daily when symptoms arise) -
* Irritability, angry at children, husband / partner, desire to run away.

Question 6

Case example:

Answer 6

• 62-year-old female, dressed all in white, hair pulled back tightly in a bun. Main complaint —still experiencing hot flushes.
• On further questioning she revealed the following:
• Loves dancing but does not dance anymore as she works long hours in a male-orientated workplace. She ‘fought’ many years to get to the management position she is in.
• She put her career on hold to have children and tend to the home. She loves her children, but admits feeling resentful during this time.
• She feels depressed and has thought about ‘just leaving’, saying, “I just want to walk into the ocean and not come back.”
• Prescribed sepia 1M to be taken once weekly for 3 weeks.
• Follow-up 4 weeks later:
• The client was hardly recognisable. She wore a mix of red, orange and brown colours, her hair was flowing over her shoulders, and she was smiling!
• She had joined a tango class, and was ‘loving it’, reporting that since starting the class she began feeling better.
• The depression had lifted and her digestion (which was not discussed at the initial consultation) had greatly improved.
  Note: Homeopathic remedies above 30C / 200C should only be prescribed by a homeopathic practitioner.