Homeopathy is used in all sorts of serious illnesses, among them rheumatoid arthritis, thyroid dysfunction, epilepsy, manic depression, cancer and heart disease to mention just a few. In an extract from my book Homeopathy for the Soul, I describe how one particular homeopathic remedy helped a woman suffering from multiple sclerosis.

Case study; multiple sclerosis

Maria, a middle-aged woman, came in suffering from multiple sclerosis, a disease where the sheaths of the spinal chords progressively degenerate, causing neurological symptoms. It had started in her twenties and although the neurological episodes were infrequent and only mildly disabling, she was worried that they were getting worse in intensity. Before having children, she had been busy and driven in her job as a legal secretary. She was indignant about the fact that she'd had to leave work after the birth of her second child, and that now all the domestic duties fell relentlessly on her shoulders.

She rarely went out in the evening because she was too tired after looking after her two children and her husband's mother who lived with them. Since her mother-in-law had joined the family, Maria felt ignored and acutely resentful. The mother seemed to have her son wrapped round her little finger, and he would not listen to his wife's complaints. The elderly woman needed a lot of care, but Maria had noticed that she conveniently refused to do whatever she did not feel like doing. She was grumpy and apparently treated Maria like a piece of furniture.

The marriage was under a lot of strain, and she did not want to remain in it. Their sexual relationship was more or less over. Maria said she was staying only for the kids, and so she tried not to 'rock the boat'. She would lose her temper with the children over silly things, like finding their clothes, but she did not dare row with her husband because he could get into a fit of rage. She said he had become more domineering, and she could not find a way of redressing the balance. Most of the time she was sweet and compliant, although, inside, she seethed with resentment. She was afraid of divorcing in case her condition got much worse, leaving her unfit for work. She could not believe she had become stuck in this situation. She seemed depressed to me, although she did not complain about that.

When she consulted me, Maria was in the active phase of the disease, which caused numbness down one side of her torso. She was worried that her eyesight was beginning to be affected, which frightened her. Whenever she sat and brooded on her lot, she said that she was more aware of numbness in the affected parts of her body. The next time I saw her after she had taken Staphysagria, she seemed brighter and livelier when she came in. She told me that her eyesight had improved immediately, and that she hadn't had any further episodes of numbness.

The remedy had also put her in touch with her desires and she had become more proactive about trying to get attention. The situation with her husband was just the same, but she had been having more fun with her children. She said she had not noticed how they had come to feel quite distant; she had been so wrapped up in her own problems that she had not taken the time for heart-to-hearts with them. Her older daughter had obviously realized that her parents were not very close and took her mother out shopping and to the movies. Once Maria started taking more of an interest in her children and making some time for them, her energy actually started to improve.

When her mother-in-law grumbled at her, she no longer smiled sweetly: she just left the room as soon as she had done what she had come in to do, and occasionally she erupted into uncharacteristic rudeness. Her husband responded to his mother's complaints by having a big tantrum, but Maria surprised them both by shouting back. The end result was that he ended up spending a bit more time caring for his mother himself, and came to see how demanding she could be.

Maria stayed in remission from the multiple sclerosis for a longer period of time, but she found that taking the Staphysagria had minimised the physical problems she was having. Over a period of time, it became clear that her homeopathic treatment was stopping the condition from progressing. Consequently, she was able to focus on finding constructive ways to improve her domestic situation..