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[box] After a few days I felt horrible stabbing pains in my knee joint. I was unable to straighten or bend my leg… [/box]

In order to get to the best fitting remedy for my condition, I tried to understand what happened to me. This is just what I would do when I take a patient’s case. Going back to the onset of a health problem can bring an understanding of the case and really help when it comes to selecting a Homeopathic remedy. The only event that I thought could have affected me happened the night before the swelling started. I was really upset by an intense family blow out.

At first I ignored this fact and approached the situation from an acute perspective, just looking at the symptoms of the knee and the obvious remedies for these symptoms. Then an embarrassing amount of Homeopathic remedies followed. I started with Apis for the swelling (but there was no redness of the knee), Causticum (for the stiffness), Symphytum (for the severe bone pain), Arnica (for the injury in general) and at the same time I applied Traumeel crème. Nothing helped. Quite the opposite, I thought some of the remedies aggravated the knee.

After a few days I felt horrible stabbing pains in my knee joint.  I was unable to straighten or bend my leg due to the large amount of swelling. I was unable to walk and worried because I had to get back to the US. Once back, after a grueling return trip on crutches and a missed flight in Newark, I went to see an Orthopedic surgeon. He diagnosed me with a knee effusion and Osteoarthritis (caused by many years of competitive running). It seemed like I needed surgery. I was unable to work and was on medical leave for the first time in my nursing career.

[box] After a few days I felt horrible stabbing pains in my knee joint.[/box]

Trying to avoid surgery I went to Physical Therapy and very slowly started to walk again. It was a painful and a very slow process of improvement. I could still not work because the knee flared up whenever I moved around too much. I became more and more depressed, anxious and had difficulty sleeping. Still, I could not find the proper remedy to heal myself. So, one day I thought I no longer wanted to deal with this state of anxiety and remembered that Phosphorus had helped me for another anxiety state in the past. I then took one dose of Phosphorus 200C.

Within one day I noticed that the severe pains in my knee had decreased significantly, then everything improved progressively and then the pains disappeared completely. It was like a miracle cure. It then dawned on me that Phosphorus was a remedy that worked well for me in general. It was a Constitutional Remedy (the remedy that fits the patient’s entire symptom picture) for me. And as a Constitutional Remedy it stimulated my vital energy so much that the remedy addressed the anxiety and could also heal any injury or acute condition I might experience.

Phosphorus is often used for a variety of symptoms in a bright, open, enthusiastic, creative and sympathetic person with poor boundaries.  Someone who would be in need of Phosphorus is generally sensitive to external stimuli, becomes anxious easily and is easily reassured.  Any idea may become the cause of anxiety, but usually the anxiety of a person in need of Phosphorus stems from health concerns. Homeopaths call Phosphorus a “big” remedy or Polycrest, as it can help with an enormous number of symptoms.

These include mental symptoms, such as anxious when alone, anxiety about health, fear of disease, the dark, thunderstorms, death and that something bad could happen. Physical symptoms include peptic ulcers and gastritis, recurring respiratory infections and left-sided pneumonia, heart palpitations when laying on the left side – and a number of musculoskeletal symptoms. I experienced many of these symptoms including the anxieties, the tearing pain in the knees, and the paralytic weakness in the legs with arthritic rigidity in the knee.

Phosphorus is also a wonderful remedy for children and often does wonders with children of a weak Constitution with recurring respiratory infections.