Case Studies (Case Studies)
Asterix (Pet)
My Weimaraner dog passed away. He had a serious heart condition and we were told two years ago that he had three months to live, so we were very grateful to have had him for that long. He was 13 years and 5 months, which is a good age for a Weimaraner.
That left us with Asterix, the English spaniel. He is now 12 years and 8 months old, although mentally he is probably only about eight months old.
Asterix always lived with other dogs, as we initially had two Weimaraners and Asterix. After Guy died, Asterix wasn't too bad at first, but after about five or six days he started to get really sick. He wasn't eating properly, he wouldn't get out of bed, and the most annoying thing was that he didn't want to go out for a walk. That wasn't like Asterix.
I decided to try the Bach remedies with him, as I have used them in the past with all my dogs. The remedy I made was as follows:
Vine – about his personality
Walnut – for the change in his life
Mimulus – for a known fear, and the now timid Asterix
Gentian – for known depression
Crab Apple – I used it as he was bothered by an irritation on one of his hind legs, where a grass seed had to be removed in the past
The medicine was added to his water bowl and some treats that we used to entice him to eat. The change was almost immediate. I continued for about a week after that with the treatment, and now we have our old Asterix back.
• Source Material, Bibliographic reference from https://www.bachcentre.com/en/remedies/selecting-remedies/remedy-case-studies/
Ten-year-old girl
The other day I had a book case involving a ten-year-old girl. Her mother came into the health care store where I work and practice, she was fed up with the doctor's response to her daughter's constant abdominal pain, and we had an alternative.
I asked if her daughter was sensitive enough and she started talking about how nervous she gets over the smallest things and how her schoolwork suffers because she lacks confidence and that she also gets headaches often. She also said that she was quite moody, very up and down.
I asked if she was indecisive and her mother rolled her eyes and told me that she had spent the last few weeks deciding whether or not to go on a school trip. It was driving her crazy.
After a brief introduction to Bach flower remedies she decided to buy the emergency combination. I was itching to make her a blend, but she was very skeptical. However, I knew she needed others, so in the end she left with a blend of the emergency combination, Larch, Mimulus, Aspen, Scleranthus and Gentian.
Two days later, her mom came back with a bunch of flowers for me, saying how her daughter had changed overnight. After two doses that night she had slept well and the next day she had come down saying she had no stomach pain and that she had made up her mind about the school trip! And her teacher had come out at the end of the day and asked her mother what had happened as she had been very good at her schoolwork that day.
• Source Material, Bibliographic reference from https://www.bachcentre.com/en/remedies/selecting-remedies/remedy-case-studies/
Ten-year-old boy
This is a case I like to mention when I give talks on remedial measures, as it so clearly illustrates the natural consequences of imbalance.It's the case of a ten-year-old boy who couldn't leave his house without having a bad bout of diarrhea. This condition had started shortly after his father had a near-fatal car accident and had to spend a few months in the hospital.
I gave him Star of Bethlehem for the shock and Aspen for his general state of fear and terror. The Radishes were his kind of cure, as evidenced by the fact that he wanted his father all to himself and was always seeking attention and bossing his brother around. I also gave him Larch to help him regain his self-confidence.
Within a very short time, he began to feel better and was soon living a normal life again.
• Source Material, Bibliographic reference from https://www.bachcentre.com/en/remedies/selecting-remedies/remedy-case-studies/
New mom
I was presenting the treatments to a “mom-to-be” who was becoming very temperamental in the latter stages of her pregnancy. She lived in a remote area, and at her request, I flew out to meet her.
This was P's first baby. She seemed to be very irritable with everyone around her and found herself yelling and difficult to be with. No one could do anything to satisfy her and she was in a hurry for the baby to arrive so she could get on with her life.
I felt that Impatiens was the only treatment needed.
It so happened that two days later the weather forecast was quite gloomy and it looked like heavy snowfall was on its way. The hospital decided that P needed to book in immediately, otherwise it might mean having to use a helicopter when she went into labour to get her to the hospital.
Once she was at the hospital, the staff there decided to induce labor. But every time the day came to begin the process, another expectant mother would arrive at the cottage hospital, in full labor, who she obviously had to see first. Day after day passed, and in the end it was a full ten days before the staff were able to induce her baby.
How did this impatient, irritable mother deal with the delay?
Her family, the nursing staff and P herself were amazed by her patience and good humour. She laughed every time another mum was brought in and pushed to the back of the queue once again. She was praised and became a talking point among the staff. She told them her secret – Impatiens!
Needless to say, she is now a “Bach flower” mom and has the full set of remedies at home. Her Christmas gift last year from her father-in-law was a beautifully crafted box for her remedies.
• Source Material, Bibliographic reference from https://www.bachcentre.com/en/remedies/selecting-remedies/remedy-case-studies/
Learn more about Bach remedies and pregnancy…
Recovery
An old friend called for help. Her 30-year-old daughter, a new mother and recovering heroin addict, was enrolled in a methadone program in a rural area. It involved going to the local pharmacy every day to get her methadone.
A new pharmacist took over, mismeasured and overdosed her. She left the pharmacy feeling very ill and was immediately taken to the local hospital.
We are experiencing major funding cuts to medical services in our area, so there is not the time, compassion, and technical skills that were there in the past. The idea is to treat as quickly as possible and discharge patients, especially those with unpleasant difficulties such as drug addiction.Even though she was the victim of her recovery program, she was fed charcoal and sent home.
She was still very sick and felt like she was losing her mind. Her mother at this point called me and we put her on the crisis formula and Crab Apple. In a short time she began to come down and feel better and was well until morning. Both mother and daughter were very grateful for the treatments.
• Source Material, Bibliographic reference from https://www.bachcentre.com/en/remedies/selecting-remedies/remedy-case-studies/
Legal case
In August of last year I was on vacation in Geneva where I lived and worked for the UN. Friends in the UN service arranged for me to give a talk/workshop on remedies to about a dozen people. All of them were English speakers and some of them had experimented with the remedies.
I took with me a lot of information about Bach and spent a wonderful evening telling them all about the remedies. During my vacation I prepared many personal blends for friends and former colleagues.
A lawyer at the World Intellectual Property Organization assured me that the mixing bottle I made for her had saved her from a certain mental breakdown as she faced what seemed like an impossible deadline on a high-profile legal document. She was so impressed with the treatments that she bought a whole set and plans to return to the UK to take classes over the weekend.
• Source Material, Bibliographic reference from https://www.bachcentre.com/en/remedies/selecting-remedies/remedy-case-studies/
Indecisiveness
A friend of mine was visiting me for coffee and was in the process of deciding whether to visit her homeland in Africa. She was completely indecisive. She has two children. The organization of leaving her family for three weeks seemed difficult, but she really wanted to go. She knew about the treatments, but she had never had any.
During our conversation my youngest daughter picked up a bottle of stock. She dropped it and it broke. I cleaned it up, mourning the precious loss and mentally noting which drug had just been “killed.” The smell of alcohol filled the room, along with the substance itself.
Twenty minutes later, after he had left, the phone rang. It was my friend: "I'm at the travel agents, I just booked my flight!"
What was it that my daughter broke? You guessed it - it was actually Scleranthus.
• Source Material, Bibliographic reference from https://www.bachcentre.com/en/remedies/selecting-remedies/remedy-case-studies/
Wendy
Wendy had had a mastectomy. Her recovery went well for the first two weeks, but suddenly she seemed to lose her appetite and her pain tolerance. She also felt lethargic and weak – she couldn’t even keep her eyes open to read a book.
When Wendy visited her doctor, the nurse who was changing the bandages noticed that she had turned dark. She told Wendy not to give up and said there were some drops that might help. She recommended the crisis formula. Shortly after taking them, Wendy felt a little better.
She continued to take the medication on and off for the next 48 hours, whenever things seemed to get worse, and each time it only took a few sips to calm her down and help her get back to herself.
• Source Material, Bibliographic reference from https://www.bachcentre.com/en/remedies/selecting-remedies/remedy-case-studies/
Unknown
Tom worked in a stuffy office with very little ventilation.As a result, the windows were often left open, even in winter. Tom sat with his back to the window and seemed to have little resistance to the draft. He suffered forever from vague head colds, with fatigue, heavy eyes, and a runny nose, but his doctor told him there was nothing wrong with him.
He was given olive for fatigue and lack of energy and crab apple because he felt infected and full of disease. Soon the vague symptoms disappeared and he reported that instead of collapsing in a chair at the end of each day, he could go on for longer and do more things.
• Source Material, Bibliographic reference from https://www.bachcentre.com/en/remedies/selecting-remedies/remedy-case-studies/
Two children
There are two incidents I would like to describe.
The first was a little three-year-old girl who came to the consultation with her mother. She was calmly playing with some blocks that I gave her while her mother explained to me what was happening in the family.
Immediately, the mother told me that she intended to divorce the child's father. Suddenly, the little girl turned towards me and started vomiting.
I took the bottle of crisis formula and had her smell it, then put a few drops in her mouth. She came to her senses immediately, and her mother took her to the bathroom to wash her. When they returned, the little girl was shaking and scared, so I put more drops on her temples while talking to her gently. Three minutes later she was sitting on my lap, drawing as if nothing had happened.
The second case was a friend of mine whose two-year-old daughter is always on the go. Despite her age, she wouldn't stop talking to us and trying to convince us to do what she wanted. (If it weren't for the fact that she was only two years old, she would make a perfect politician.)
We were having a cup of tea at home while she ran and jumped around us. She couldn't stop moving and gesturing with her hands. Suddenly, within seconds, the little girl stood up on a chair and fell down, hitting her eyebrow on the edge of the wooden table. When her mother picked her up, her face was red with blood.
I ran to the supply bottles, got the Star of Bethlehem and after the mother cleaned the small wound (which continued to bleed profusely) I put a drop of the star on it. In seconds the blood flow slowed. I put another drop – her mother couldn’t believe her eyes because immediately after the second drop the bleeding stopped.
She looked at me in surprise and asked, "Are you a witch?" What could I say? I said nothing and just thought, "Thank you, Dr. Bach."
A few days later my friend told me that her little girl was telling everyone that I had "some drops that heal you when you hit your head on something and it doesn't hurt anymore."
• Source Material, Bibliographic reference from https://www.bachcentre.com/en/remedies/selecting-remedies/remedy-case-studies/
Sold!
On a recent flight, I was crammed like a sardine into a large plane that barely gave me room to breathe. And then, to top it off, a baby in the seat behind me was screaming nonstop, straining the patience of the already overworked flight attendant in my section, and I'm sure getting on the nerves of most of us sitting nearby.
Suddenly I had an idea. I called the flight attendant over and asked her if she had heard of the emergency formula. No, she hadn't. That made things a little more difficult, but I told her briefly and asked her to see if the baby's mother would agree to put some on the baby's pulse points. What did she have to lose? She agreed.
I explained the treatment as simply as I could to the baby's mother. There was some hesitation, but the baby's cries quickly changed her mind and she agreed that it was worth a try. I put a few drops on the baby's mother's fingers and she gently rubbed it into the baby's small wrists.
Within minutes the baby stopped crying and soon fell into a deep sleep. I looked back and we exchanged smiles of relief.
The flight attendant was 63 years old and had been with the airlines for 40 years. We talked a little and she said that in the last few years a strange phenomenon had been happening. She called it “Air Rage.” She said that people were more irritable, impatient, noisy and angry, with a suspicious look on their faces like she had never experienced before. Babies were crying more and more, and the things that the flight attendants had to deal with were beyond their call of duty.
I spoke to her at length about Dr. Bach's flower essences and suggested that she always carry a bottle of the emergency mixture with her. Looking down at the sleeping baby, she said, "Sold!"
• Source Material, Bibliographic reference from https://www.bachcentre.com/en/remedies/selecting-remedies/remedy-case-studies/
Alison and Michael
Alisson
Allison and Michael were in counseling to help them deal with some problems between them.
Alison was a quiet person who knew her own mind. She struggled to deal with indecision and an apparent lack of direction. She also became quite insecure and threatened by people on the edge of her space – children playing outside would approach her. And getting up in the morning to go to a job she no longer enjoyed became a real burden.
Alison described herself as completely self-reliant and said she had always been a loner. However, she had always worked in fashion retail – a field that required constant interaction with other people. She had been given her own store and was very good at her job. Her colleagues found her to be very energetic and a real live wire.
The conversation revealed quite a conflict between the two people inside her – the quiet, self-reliant Alison who needed her own space and became unhappy if she couldn’t have it, and the lively, vibrant Alison who held everyone else down with her energy. – conflict between Water Violet on the one hand and Agrimony on the other.
We considered it possible that in leaving the safety of childhood, Alison felt, even if unconsciously, that she had to protect her inner nature from the outside world and had used the coping strategy of hiding completely behind the external wire.
She took Water Violet and Agrimony from the beginning. We also used other remedies to deal with her feelings about her husband and their situation.
After two months of taking the medication, Alison woke up feeling refreshed. She felt like she had put herself back together without the hardness and that the shell was gone. Things had changed for her husband too and that, combined with her own progress, meant she felt much more relaxed, less emotional. She felt “quiet”.
Michael
Michael found the counseling sessions very enlightening. He discovered that he needed permission from others to do and be what he wanted. He also understood how much he worried, how afraid he was of getting it wrong – in fact, his worry had led to irritable bowel syndrome, depression and a host of other stress-related conditions.
A gentle man, Michael worked in finance with colleagues who became hyperactive from the pressure of the job. He was good at his job, but at great cost to his quiet nature. He had always been interested in the field of complementary medicine, particularly reflexology.
He and his wife dreamed of living in the country where they had a Little House, but Michael couldn't decide whether to quit his regular job.
For about six weeks he took Larch to boost his confidence, White Chestnut to relieve anxiety, Scleranthus for indecisiveness as well as the problems he had with balance and coordination, and Mimulus for his fears of doing what he wanted to do.
Then they went to their country house for a vacation. On the way back, he said that the vacation had not recharged him. He was feeling so unwell that he had taken time off work – something unusual for him. He had completely lost his appetite and felt like crying. “I’ve been here before,” he said.
We identified a lack of confidence in life, a constant fear that things were going wrong. We talked about how his sensitive nature was struggling to cope with the cut and thrust of his work environment, how in fact his entire system was crying out to live differently. We also discussed possible ways to move forward that would be more fulfilling for him.
In his personal bottle this time he had Chestnut Bud to help him move forward, Centaury and Walnut to strengthen and protect his resolve, Pine to banish any feelings of guilt for doing things his way, Larch to give him the confidence to do it, and White Chestnut to keep him from worrying.
The next day Alison came in for her appointment saying, “I have a new husband.” Michael had already turned in his notice and booked a reflexology class. He was full of life, had a clear vision of his path ahead, was determined, and was moving along it very positively. Now they were planning to take the leap and move permanently to the country.
• Source Material, Bibliographic reference from https://www.bachcentre.com/en/remedies/selecting-remedies/remedy-case-studies/
Starting school
My son started full-time school last fall. When we went to see the school over the summer, he was the only kid who wouldn't let his parents go to class for half an hour of story time. He was extremely nervous and clung to my husband like he was about to be abandoned.
I spent the rest of the summer working out what I would do in September when he refused to go to class on his first day. I made up a mixture of remedies in a dropper for what I thought he might need and started the drops about two weeks before the first day of term. It contained Mimulus, Larch and Walnut. (Usually the last things he needs are Mimulus and Larch!)
Learn more about the following:
- How Bach flower remedies are prepared and what is the Bach system.
- What is the right treatment for you? & read the Bach guide
- How do we drink and in what way? the Bach flower remedies;
You may also be interested in:
If you want to buy any of the flower remedies Bach, you will find them in Collection Bacch Remedies
The first day arrived. After a quick kiss goodbye, he ran straight to class by himself. Every morning he runs ahead of all the other kids and apparently takes care of the ones who are still upset. I helped out in class last week and now I've put him on Vine!
• Source Material, Bibliographic reference from https://www.bachcentre.com/en/remedies/selecting-remedies/remedy-case-studies/
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