Page 22 - Autumn 18

A case for Silica – Beatrice Milleder, Germany
Homeopathic treatment of an anal glad abscess in a four-year-old French bulldog.
“Frida” came in my practice as an acute case with a badly inflamed right side of her anus. I had only seen her once previously for a first visit without any complaints, something I like to do with my new patients if possible, so they can get used to the practice without getting treatment of any kind.
Frida is a very healthy spayed French bulldog bitch, and this was actually the first time she was sick. The right side of her anus was badly swollen and very red, digital examination showed a hard right anal gland that was not sensitive to light touch, but sensitive to any kind of hard pressure. What was even more curious, she didn’t want to be looked at and tried to turn away from us every time we tried to get a better picture of her behind. Otherwise she was fine, eating normally, even playing the way she always does.
Picture 1 shows the problem on day 1
We discussed options and the owner decided to go with classical homeopathy. So we started her on Silica D12 TID and on day 3 (pic 2) her anus was a lot better, the abscess had opened up and yellow-ish, slightly bloody, thick fluid
came to the surface. On day four it was worse again. So I decided to follow it up with one dose of Silica C200, which cleared the whole problem within 24 hours. (pic3)
In Classical Homeopathy it is always a decision between several possible remedies. Frida is a very nice dog, very healthy, likes to sit on her owner’s lap. She is friendly, but a little timid with other dogs and when she first came to visit, every time I looked at her, she would hide her face under her owner’s arm. Remembering that the decision for Silica was an easy one. Silica likes to hide – which Frida did not only with her face, but also with the actual problem, trying to get away from us, so we would not see the swelling. A keynote of Silica, when you look at the Materia Medica, is “timid stools”, which means they often have problems defecating, as the often hard stools come out, then slip back in again, which is actually the same idea as hiding your face or hiding your problem.
Talking about Paul Herscu’s segments – all these ideas would fit in the same segment, touching several rubrics (mental, emotional, physical) within one. Frida also has those timid stools from time to time, as her owner told me at more in depth case taking.
20