Humulus lupulus

Case Humulus remedy
By Jan Scholten
A boy of 13 years age has been in consultation from time tot time since 10 years. The main problem is enuresis and that was already present at the start of the treatment. In general he’s bedwetting 3 to 4 times a week. Sometimes he wets his paints a bit during the day.
At the age of 2 his sister was born and then he started with tonsillitis a few times. Thus at 3 his tonsils were removed.
When he was 4 he went to kindergarten. This was a very difficult time for him. He was an anxious and timid boy and had much difficulties leaving his mother. He wept when brought to school and was very eager to find his mother on a fixed place when she came to get him form school. His father tried to force him and was very hard, but that had only the opposite effect on him: he became more anxious and weepy. During that time he started bedwetting again.
He developed bronchitis, especially with changes to cold wet weather like in September and spring. He had a nervous cough all night, worse when he was lying in his bed. The cough arose from a nervous tickling high in his throat, better by distraction. A few times he had been asthmatic. These complaints were accompanied by fatigue and aversion to eat. A slight coryza could lead to bronchitis or asthmatic attacks. At this time he came in consultation the first time.
He is very timid and nervous, is afraid for new things and situations. He is disturbed when there’s a new teacher, startles with strangers. He is anxious and weepy, has trembling knees. He’s very vulnerable and needs a safe environment. He’s quiet and retires most of the time. He cannot stand hard noises and airplanes coming over. At school he’s often bullied, the boys stand around him and start pushing and tearing at him. He often tries to protect himself by retiring into a corner. The festivities at school at the end of the year were a disaster for him. Due to this all he hates other kids. He is very sensitive to aggression, cannot see violence on television, cannot stand aggression of his school mates. At the other side he can be bossy towards his younger sister. But in general he’s very soft and sympathetic. For instance, he was very touched when his mother told that she didn’t get something as a child. He’s very concerned about his sister, He is very attached to his mother and wants her to be at this his bed when he goes to sleep, especially when he doesn’t have his cuddly toys. He’s often fighting with his father, He’s a member of the world life fund. He likes the company of known ones like his mother and has an aversion to stay at home alone or go to school alone.
He is attached to routines, has an aversion to changes and new things. This can even look rigid form time to time. For instance, he was out of balance when the old car was sold. Or, when his mother came to get him from school she has to be standing on the same place.
He is very clever and intelligent. He looks a bit like a professor with extensive vocabulary and interests. As a baby he was already very alert, looking around him. He can concentrate very well, can play for hours. He likes computer games, and can play with war games a long time. He’s very serious and earnest. He knows a lot about nature, exotic animals, When he has to prepare a talk for school together with a schoolmate he does the majority of the work, formulates most of the sentences. In contrast with his intelligence, he has difficulties remembering faces. He has difficulties in feeling if the behaviour of others is real or play. Sometimes he doesn’t hear what others say. He is day dreaming, lives a lot in his own world.
He is quite obese, in abdomen and chest. Due to this he’s not very handy, a bit clumsy and he hates gymnastics. He’s bullied also because of his obesity. He has a round face, looks female.
He’s sleepless, cannot sleep when his parents are asleep. This is better on holidays when the whole family sleeps in one tent.
Fears: sea, the waves at shore, water, swimming; thunderstorm, dark < night and < outside of the house.
Dreams:
I’m locked in by a man, could flee when the man was gone, had to follow blue small poles to his home, but it was difficult to find the way.
I’m lying in bed, the radio man says that UFO’s have landed on earth, but I don’t have a radio, so it’s impossible; I wake with fright.
On a turning platform in the twilight is a figure with long teeth, like shark teeth.
I’m in a house with very low ceilings, so I have so move on my abdomen.
A ship from 17th century where the lower decks for the crew are very low.
The pregnancy in general was good, but the mother had to take iron tablets for her anaemia and follow a diet with low salt due to oedema. His birth was difficult due to occiput presentation, he didn't engage and labour was ineffectual for a few hours. The doctors did a vacuum extraction. After birth he was blue, had a purple face for some 5 minutes.
Generals
Weather: <- sea, < change to cold wet weather.
Perspiration: head, whole body, < night.
Time: < after 4 pm, < 9 pm
Desire: sweet, chocolate, farinaceous, bread, raw cabbage.
Aversion: warm food, meat, egg, cheese.
Food: < colour additives, they make him wild; < spinach.
Sleep: position on abdomen; falling asleep is difficult when his parents are not there. He has somnambulism.

Analysis
There are a lot of symptoms for Calcium remedy: timidity, fear dark, fear obesity, perspiration head, <- egg, But typical is a desire for eggs instead of an aversion, enuresis and somnambulism are atypical. And he’s very clever, one could say precocious, which doesn’t fit this remedy either. His strong fear of noise isn’t fitting either.
Barium remedy is also indicated as he’s powerless against being bullied. And it resembles Calcium remedy very much. But he never used the expression “being laughed at”. And his main complaint of enuresis and somnambulism are not typical for this remedy.
Cancer like remedies have many symptoms of his picture: precocity, -> chocolate
Brom remedies: bronchitis, < sea, anger << colour additives, -> chocolate, < 9 pm.
Beryllium remedies are a possibility: timidity, many fears, enuresis, position problems at birth.
After having tried most of the above remedies without success one is stuck. The picture doesn’t fit one of the known remedies. Many types of analysis were tried without given a fitting remedy. So I tried to take just one, physical, acute symptom and do a search with that. A search of “enuresis” in Reference Works produced 209 remedies. Going through the list and searching for a fitting remedy, Humulus remedy was found at place 107. That remedy was striking as it’s known for its oestrogen like qualities. It’s the main herb in beer and produces beer belly and gynecomasty in beer drinkers. Those symptoms were prominent in the boy. Further it’s known as a sedative, alleviating sleeplessness. The picture of the patients fits most of the essentials of Humulus remedies. The mind details cannot be found in the literature.
An repertorisation was done afterwards with the symptoms below gives 420 remedies with Humulus remedy at about place 380 with only enuresis covered.
MIND; TIMIDITY
MIND; FASTIDIOUS
MIND; PRECOCITY
MIND; OBSTINATE, headstrong
MIND; FEAR; dark
MIND; FEAR; out of doors, to go
MIND; FEAR; noise, from
MIND; SOMNAMBULISM
BLADDER; URINATION; involuntary
BLADDER; URINATION; involuntary; night, incontinence in bed
GENERALITIES; OBESITY
CHEST; SWELLING; Mammae
COUGH; LYING; agg.
COUGH; LYING; agg.; bed, in
COUGH; NERVOUS
COUGH; TICKLING
COUGH; TICKLING; throat, from
COUGH; TICKLING; throat-pit, from
FACE; DISCOLORATION; bluish; babies, in
GENERALITIES; FOOD and drinks; farinaceous food, starchy; desires
GENERALITIES; FOOD and drinks; bread; desires
GENERALITIES; FOOD and drinks; eggs; aversion
SLEEP; POSITION; abdomen, on

Reaction
The first prescription was Carcin like remedy MK. He reacted reasonable well to it. In the course of 3 years the remedy was repeated 4 times when the complaints came back. Psychologically he was a little bit better. But after 3,5 years Carcin like remedy stopped acting, the complaints stayed, his timidity and anxiety were the same, just as his enuresis.
The next 1,5 year he got a Brom remedy MK 4 times. The bronchitis and asthma disappeared and in general he was quite better. If the Brom remedy had an effect if difficult to ascertain without doubt. His bronchitis and asthma disappeared, but that could also be palliation. His timidity, enuresis and sleeping problems stayed. The most probable interpretation is that the Brom remedy was curative for a layer on top of the Humulus remedy , that he was feeling an outcast at school due to his inner weakness. This because the bronchitis didn’t come back even after 4 years.
4 years later he came back again. He was anxious, bullied, obese and had sleeping problems and enuresis. Barium remedy MK was given 4 times, because it seemed to help in the beginning but it didn’t hold.
A Verbascum remedy MK was given on the small basis of enuresis, but it doesn’t fit his mental picture. It had no effect.
A Beryllium remedy MK, once a month during almost a year seemed to help him, but after a year the situation seemed more or less the same and it stopped acting.
The Humulus remedy MK made a big change. He started to fight back, so the bullying stopped quite fast. His school mates became much nicer towards him. He started liking school and told enthusiastic about it for the first time in his life. His anxiety diminished enormously, he even forgot that he had had a fear of the dark. He had a dream that he was swimming in water and that he could breath in the water, he opened a door and suddenly all the water disappeared, it was a nice dream. His enuresis disappeared almost in a month and completely in 6 months. Later he had a dream were his black cat returned home, missing one ear, he took his cat to the plastic surgeon, but first magic the cat into a human being to help the surgeon, a dog was licking the cat. 3 years later he’s still doing fine.

Discussion
The first conclusion that can be drawn from this case is that homeopathic analysis has to be adapted to the case. A strait forward repertorisation is useless in case of a little known or unknown remedy. The indicated remedy will be lost in repertorisation. A solution can be to take just one symptom, preferably an acute physical symptom that can be produced easily in a proving, and differentiate all the remedies.
The next conclusion is that information from sources as herbology and botany can be useful in homeopathy. Although the source of information in herbology many times is unknown it often turns out to be reliable. The information can be confirmed by provings or cured cases.