The Cysts Had to Be Routinely Cut Out. He Had Just Resigned Himself to It.

But an unconventional remedy soon put an end to that.

Mar 27, 2023

Photo by Ron Lach

The man who sat across from me was unusually soft spoken, tidy, and clean cut. Not effeminate or flat in affect. It was something else. I was searching for the word, as I listened and made my notes. Was he just shy?

With further questioning, it became clear he had very strong opinions - and no hesitation to express them - but in a very refined and soft spoken way. Refined. That was the word I was seeking. This and his very tidy appearance stood out amongst the clients I saw at the addiction treatment centre.

Halfway through the appointment he relayed that he had suffered cysts throughout his adult life. What kind of cysts, I wanted to know. Could he explain them in more detail? With that, he leaned forward, pulling his sweater off his shoulder in one fluid motion to reveal a round, flesh coloured nodule, about two inches in diameter, half protruding from his skin. There was no redness and no pus. Underneath and to the side of it were scars. He turned then, and raised the sweater up to sit over his head to reveal a spackling of the same scars and a few other cysts of varying diameters, across his shoulders and upper back.

What are the scars from, I asked, thinking perhaps this happened when the cysts ripened. “From when they cut them out,” came his quiet reply.

There were a good number of scars. The man was only in his 20s.

Sebaceous Cysts

Further questioning revealed the cysts had been diagnosed as benign sebaceous cysts that required removal regularly because they did not stop growing until excised. They were hard and slow growing, but not painful. No explanation for the reoccurrence had been given except that “sometimes this just happens.” He’d been instructed that his hygiene had to be thorough as a preventative measure, but he hadn’t seen any improvement.

It never ceases to amaze me that physicians still treat internally driven skin conditions as a product of poor hygiene. So the person who already suffers with an observable abnormality in the skin is made to feel somehow dirty for it.

Other symptoms included “being a worrier,” and feeling anxious or irritated, especially around others. He found the banter of the other men in the centre“too much,” and would tune out with headphones and music when he could. This could explain why he had been observed to be more of a loner. He found himself tired and wanting to lie down a lot instead of engaging in group activities. He was generally chilly and needed to cover up, especially his head and back, even now in the spring. He was picky with food and got an upset stomach frequently. He described this as painful gas and a tendency to constipation. He loved the warmth of the sun, but didn’t sunbathe anymore because he felt self-conscious with the cysts.

He was easy to direct in conversation through our visit, but rather obstinate about certain topics. I found that paradox interesting.

With most clients at the centre I used nutritional, herbal, and orthomolecular medicines. That is to say food, supplements, and herbs. But I felt this case would most benefit from a homeopathic intervention.

Silicea terra

I wanted to look at the homeopathic remedy Silicea terra more closely. It has the unusual ability to bring about suppuration of abscesses or indurated tissues when the organism doesn’t have the strength to mount the response itself.

What I already knew of Silicea was that the remedy is best suited to people with a refined or delicate appearance or affect. They are often nervous and easily fatigued. They can be very chilly and suffer from a lack of self confidence and grit. There are sometimes problems with absorbing nutrients and subsequent issues with development of the bones. The overall picture of Silicea clinically is one of a lack of internal fortitude of the body. The remedy seemed like a good match on many levels, but I wanted to look it up for confirmation.

We find in the (BOERICKE) Materia Medica for homeopathy these specifics that I felt matched his case well:

Mind.--Yielding, faint-hearted, anxious. Nervous and excitable. Sensitive to all impressions. Brain-fag. Obstinate, headstrong;

Head.--Aches from fasting. Better, wrapping up warmly;

Ears.--Sensitive to noise;

Stomach.--Disgust for meat and warm food. Pit of stomach painful to pressure;

Abdomen.--Pain or painful cold feeling in abdomen, better external heat. Hard, bloated. Colic; cutting pain, with constipation;

Skin.--Felons, abscesses, boils, old fistulous ulcers. Indurated tumors;

Fever.--Chilliness; very sensitive to cold air. Creeping, shivering over the whole body. Cold extremities, even in a warm room;

Modalities.--Better, warmth, wrapping up head, summer;

I explained the proposed treatment to the client with a description of how homeopathy worked. I suggested 1 water dose of Silicea terra 200C and he consented, rather sceptical that a sip of water with a pellet at the bottom of it could elicit any change in his health. That’s okay. Scepticism does not affect the outcome at all.

Redose

On the first follow-up a week later, the client was more relaxed in affect than he had been for the duration of his stay. He was calmer and reported he felt the worrying had lifted noticeably. He was more animated and was no longer wearing a sweater, but a shirt. It was spring in Ontario and the sweater had been noticeably unseasonal. There was no noticeable change in the cysts. I was happy with this progress, but he was not. The cysts were his primary concern and he didn’t notice the other changes (not an uncommon thing). The changes were a good sign, but not the ultimate goal. We agreed mutually to one more dose.

Healing Crisis

A few days later I received a distressed call from the client reporting that he was having a horrible head cold. The worst he could remember in years - maybe ever. He was stuffed up with a horrible sore, swollen throat, and very tired. His glands were very sore. Could he have decongestants? I managed the client care and pharmacy with the nurse practitioner and another nutritionist. They performed an examination and respectfully referred the client back to me, understanding he was under my treatment at the time and that a discharge (sinus) might be therapeutic. I encouraged the client to eschew decongestants, explaining that the sinus discharge was a good sign and would very likely help his cysts. He grudgingly acquiesced.

A few days later I heard from the other nutritionist and nurse practitioner that the client had again approached them both for decongestants. He was understandably uncomfortable with the sinus discharge and sore throat. I helped him to use steam and acetaminophen to alleviate the symptoms without interfering with the discharge and suggested a herbal detox tea to facilitate the body’s intuitive response to the remedy. I again explained that we wanted the discharge from his sinuses to continue to help remove the toxins from his body.

This continued for at least 3 weeks. The client was tired of the discharge and miserable about it. He was observed to ensure there was no fever or bacterial infection. I consulted my repertory again and found:

Respiratory.--Colds fail to yield; sputum persistently muco-purulent and profuse. Slow recovery.

I encouraged him and enlisted the other staff to help get him warm drinks of herbal teas and encourage him when he was upset.

Cysts - “disappeared”

Around the 4th-5th week after the onset of the head cold, the client greeted me for his appointment coming in from outside where he had been sunbathing shirtless. The cysts had ‘disappeared.’ All of them. Moreover, the scars had stopped hurting, he reported. He hadn’t originally told me they did, but on consulting my repertory I found:

Skin.--Scars suddenly become painful.

During this meeting the client was relaxed and exuded more confidence and a sense of ease. He was not worrying anymore and although still soft spoken and refined in his mannerisms, he no longer seemed nervous or high strung. He was relaxed and other clients didn’t irritate him as much. He was interacting with them a bit more. He didn’t understand how, but he felt the remedy had really helped him.

The patient was instructed to repeat the dosing if the symptoms returned or reach out for guidance. The cysts did not return for the duration of his treatment and he did not reach out again.

This case summarizes quite well the very gentle power of homeopathy to stimulate the body to correct an imbalance in itself. If you don’t understand what homeopathy is, let me explain.

About Homeopathy

Homeopathy is a holistic system of treatment that originated in the late eighteenth century by German physician, Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843). Hahnemann eventually left the practice of medicine because he was disturbed by the medical system of the day. He felt that many of the drugs and treatments did more harm than good to patients. Mercury, for example, was the treatment for syphilis (common), in his day. We now know mercury is extremely toxic and would often kill patients, but he observed and spoke out about this as barbaric when it was the standard medical treatment.

In working in pharmacy thereafter, Hahnemann came to recognize that a particular herb from Peruvian bark worked as a malaria treatment. However, the substance - quinine - was otherwise known to be toxic. He observed that in a healthy person this drug caused symptoms very similar to those of malaria and queried the old medical philosophy that like can cure like. He began experimenting and over decades developed the system of medicine we today call homeopathy. This system treats dis-ease with highly diluted micro-doses of substances from nature that would cause similar symptoms in a healthy person if given in a substantial dose.

For example, we use belladonna (extremely {thousands and thousands of times} diluted form of the plant deadly nightshade) to treat conditions of fever with redness, congestion, excitability, and rapid onset with pain. These are the symptoms of toxicity from the plant if taken full strength. But when diluted thousands of times to a memory of the original substance, it’s incredible as a remedy for teething in feverish babies. You may read online that it is dangerous, but there has never been a death due to homeopathic medicine and the same critics will also claim homeopathic remedies are nothing more than placebo pills because they are so extremely diluted.

Only recently has mainstream medicine come to accept and understand the therapeutic benefit of micro-dosing with psychedelic mushrooms for psychosis and PTSD. This is an example of homeopathic principles: dilution of the substance to micro-doses, and using a substance to treat the same disease a full dose might induce. The difference is that in homeopathy the substances are diluted thousands of times more to make it more gentle to the body and less likely to instigate any side effects.

I hope this helps readers understand that not everything we think we know about medicine is true. And not everything we don’t yet understand is suspect. Homeopathy is observed in many situations clinically, like my example above, to bring healing where other modalities fail. And for pennies. It’s the most economical medicine we know of. But it is neither endorsed nor understood by the modern medical establishment.

If readers have their own nutrition or health related question, you can reach me at nonienutritionista@gmail.com. If you or a loved one are seeking 1:1 holistic care, you can find me online at hopenotdope.ca.