Folliculinum: Mist or Miasm?
by Melissa Assilem, RSHomThis paper was first presented at the Society of Homoeopaths Seventh
International Conference at the University of Nottingham in September 1990. It is
reproduced here by kind permission of the author.
INTRODUCTION
Folliculinum is made from Oestrone, a synthetic form
of oestrogen. The source we are using today comes from Dr Donald Foubist (1). Although
there have been no organised provings in the traditional method, millions of women have
been proving it since the discovery of synthetic hormones in the 1940s. Dr Léa De Mattos
has done exhaustive clinical studies on the remedy, and has published her work in French
(2). You can also find a good picture in Julian's Materia Medica (3). Much of what I will
be relating here, however, comes from my own experience with the remedy, especially the
mental picture. I have been using it a great deal over the past four years, with
remarkable success.
I wish to begin by explaining how and why I came to see the
wide indications for Folliculinum. I feel that an inherited miasm is being created
by the indiscriminate use of synthetic hormones. When I was a student I was going to write
my thesis on the remedies with relationship to the moon. So about four years ago I started
using moon menstrual calendars, asking my patients to fill in their symptoms on the chart.
I am still using them today, because they are so incredibly useful. All sorts of
interesting patterns emerge. It soon became clear that many women had symptoms between
ovulation and menses, and most of them had been on the Pill at one time or another.
Another amazing thing to emerge was the fact that many
young women were having these problems, who had not been on the Pill but their mothers had
been on the Pill before they were conceived. Remember the Pill has been available for
thirty years now. At first I confused the picture with Medorrhinum symptoms such as
early sexuality, urinary infections, spaciness etc. but as I got to know the Folliculinum
picture better, it begin to dawn on me what the causation might be. I have used it with
both girls and boys in their teenage years, drained, slow, unable to identify with their
selfhood. I have heard it said that children of the sixties often are a bit spacey,
because of all the social drugs their parents were on. However there were many more women
using the Pill than were ever using hash or marijuana. Studies have shown an increase in a
rare type of chromosomal disorder in the aborted embryos of women who conceived within
three months of stopping the Pill. I would like to see questions asked in the initial case
taking, around these issues, so that we can see just how many children of Pill taking
mothers have been effected. I am afraid the signs are increasing to show the inherited
damage due to the Pill.
DIESTHYLSTILBESTROL
The other indicator towards inherited disease, through
hormone abuse involves a drug called Diesthylstilbestrol (DES). This is a man made
oestrogen. Beginning in 1940, it was given to pregnant women who had histories of
miscarriages, premature births, diabetes or hypertension, or showed signs of bleeding in
the early stages of pregnancy. We don't know how many women were given this drug in the
UK, but in the US, it numbered well over a million. It was well known as early as 1953
that DES did not prevent miscarriage, but it's use for this purpose was continued into the
70's. A previously rare form of cancer, vaginal clear-cell adenocarcinoma, has been found
in increasing numbers of daughters of women who were given DES. Over 500 cases have been
diagnosed with a direct link to the hormone. Although these cancers can start as early as
age eight, many are not triggered off until the girl is exposed to more hormones, i.e. the
Pill, or other hormonal treatment. (Perhaps this is a case of an acquired miasm triggering
off an inherited one?) There is growing evidence to show a sharp increase in breast
cancer, and as much as a five-fold increase of cervical dysplasia, in DES daughters. A
high percentage of those who have not yet developed cancer have a condition in which
glandular type tissue is found in the vagina, which is normally found in the mouth, a
matter of confusion in differentiation. They can have a whole range of abnormalities
including incompetent cervix which prematurely dilates, causing miscarriage, a higher
chance of having difficult menstrual problems, and a lower level of fertility.
Abnormalities of the genitals have now been found in male children also together with
small testes, infertility, subfertility; and as high as 40% of DES sons have low sperm
counts or abnormally shaped sperm.
The 'morning after Pill' is made from DES, and is still
administered quite freely, even though the effectiveness of preventing pregnancy is not
established. Large doses of DES were given to animals to fatten them up for slaughter, and
it is still used to dry up women's milk after childbirth. So, from these two facts alone,
DES daughters and sons, and children whose mothers were on the Pill before they were
conceived, we have a frightening idea of what we may be facing. Our regeneration is at
stake, much less our health. Folliculinum is a remedy which expresses so much of
what is out of order in our world today. So that we can see the whole picture of what is
going on today, we need to go back in history and lift some of the mists of time. So I am
going to tell you a little story. Let me call it a drama documentary. So settle back,
relax, close your notebooks and open your eyes, your heart your mind or whatever you need
to open when you read.
A STORY
Once in the very first times, there was a land where women
were respected ... where women's business was women's business, and they loved and
respected themselves and each other. The women lived a bit separate from the men at times,
in order to carry out this business. They were in charge of their own religion, and their
own bodies. They celebrated the monthly ritual of bleeding by the moon, and they all
menstruated together. It was a time of high energy and creativity, and the Great mother
Goddess was worshipped. She was earth centred and life giving. The celebrations took place
in the Women's House that was called TAPUU, which meant magic. When a girl had her first
menstruation, the women welcomed her into the magic of being a woman. Her expectations
were to celebrate being a woman. Her health and well being belonged to her sisters and
herself and she felt powerful.
To leave the story for a moment - and say that we know of
course that this story is true. From archeological remains, but mostly from the fact that
these things still happen with First Nation People all over the globe, in America, Africa,
Australia and the Pacific. People who have not lost their land connection. Early
anthropologists, and missionaries, white men from European cultures, interpreted these
separations as being a banning and turned the magical word TAPUU into TABOO, which has
become an everyday word in our language with quite a different meaning. We also know that
women living together in groups; nuns, nurses and others, synchronise their periods. There
is an energy between them, the meaning of which we have long since forgotten.So let us get
back to our story. Back to the land where time was told by the moon, and where a girl
learned of the tides within her body which matched the two great monthly heart beats of
the earth - beats of balance between the full and the new moon and the mother earth.
[picture] Time was told according to these beats, ovulation and menstruation, thirteen
lunar months, regulating the planting and the harvest; the conceiving and the birthing.
Then things began to change, and more father-centred
religions took over the women's business, and elite groups of men began to dictate how
things should be. Many people migrated and lost their connection with the land, and women
were separated from each other, and the father religions called the bleeding unclean, and
the father religions took the new born children and baptised them in deep cleansing
rituals, to wash away the mother blood from them. Father healers began to take over the
management and control of women's business. At first it was only the women of the ruling
groups who were controlled. Poor women continued to be healers and midwives. Then the
father religions began to burn the women healers and the earth religion was termed Devil
worship, and the women were called witches. Nine million witches were burned, and after
those nine million murders, much of the knowledge of our healing died. After that, women's
knowledge was derided and called 'Old Wives Tales', or 'Idle Gossip'. The father doctors
passed laws to make sure that other healers would never be as powerful as themselves.
Women's bodies became the property of the father doctors and father priests, and women
forgot their rhythms and their tides, and their earth connections. Women were now seeing
their menstruation as a curse, not a blessing. The father doctors had finally got control.
But they were not yet finished.The first surgical removal of ovaries was performed in
1809, and marked the beginning of a long and brutal history of excision as the answer to
women's ever increasing bad health. And then Hallelujah! the father doctors discovered
hormones.
HORMONES
What a panacea of control they had uncovered. They regulate
our periods and fecundity with the oral contraceptive, which totally blocks our ovaries
from working properly and tricks them each month with a false message. The very delicate
and complex pattern between pituitary, ovary, hypothalamus, and uterus, is deceived and
jangled. Just look at the picture of the reproductive cycle and see the intricate rhythms
of the oestrogen, the follicle stimulating hormone, progesterone, and the luteinising
hormone. It is an awesomely elegant rhythm which has evolved over millions of years, and
now, that rhythm is tricked and fooled with like a toy.
THE CONTRACEPTIVE PILL
The Pill of course, which this year had its thirtieth
birthday, makes us sexually accessible at all times with no fear of fertilisation, in fact
it often ends our periods altogether. There are no more eggs. When we are not fertile
enough we are given hormones in the form of fertility drugs to produce more eggs. They
induce our babies with hormones, often only for convenience sake, which is effectively
injecting our babies with hormones, before they see the light of day.
HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY
They inject depo-provera with its horrible side-effects
into women whom they consider not bright enough to follow the instructions on the Pill
packets - and the side effects are devastating, often causing flooding and pain. They give
us the morning after Pill - they can abort us with hormones, and now they have discovered
Hormone Replacement Therapy, which they say will keep us young and feminine and save us
from ageing naturally. But the major boon to this latest 'revolutionary medical
technique', is that studies have shown that they will save packets of money on us when we
are old, because osteoporosis is costing over £500 million a year in treating fractures
in old women. There are ten million post-menopausal women in Britain, and they wish to see
the majority of these women on HRT. It is seen as a 'cheap and safe preventative
medicine'. In fact it is being suggested that all women over forty be given it. They
administer hormones to both sexes of animals to plump up their breasts and flesh them out,
to produce more meat- they regulate the female animals - chickens, whose ovulation gives
us eggs, and cows whose yearly calving gives us milk. They put hormones in pesticides to
spray our grains and vegetables with, and now these hormones are excreted through our
kidneys and back into the water supply. In London, by the time we drink the water it has
been through seven pairs of kidneys and the hormones are in the water and can't be
filtered out. The tyranny of hormone abuse is complete, from conception to old age, it is
part of our life and a risk to our future. The rise in cancer in the reproductive systems
in young women is only the first sign of what is to come.
THE PICTURE OF FOLLICULINUM
So now you have the picture of Folliculinum:
- She feels she is controlled by another
- she is out of sorts with her rhythms
- she is living out someone else's expectations
- she feels she is being fed off emotionally or
psychologically
- she loses her will
- she over estimates her energy reserves
- she is full of self-denial
- she becomes a rescuer, addicted to rescuing people
- she becomes drained
- she has become a doormat
- she has forgotten who she is
- she has no individuality.
There is a very strong link here with Carcinosin,
and it is not surprising that Folliculinum works well when Carcinosin is
indicated but does not act. Cancer cells after all are cells which have lost their
identity, lost their ability to differentiate themselves, to individualise. They revert to
primitive cells with no selfhood.
- she loses sense of herself
- she may totally lose herself in her relationships
Folliculinum can help restore the will and
re-empower. Folliculinum comes up over and over again in cases where women have
been abused sexually, psychically or physically, either now or at any time in the past.
(This can be true whether she remembers it or not.) She may be tied so strongly to the
abuser, as in early childhood when the abuser was a parent or a loved carer. She may never
have been allowed to say NO. She may have evaded the process of her own growing up. Folliculinum
can help her to break the control. Folliculinum is a link breaker, and can give
extra vitality when having to face heavy rememberings. It can be useful for those with
emerging psychic abilities who can find no boundaries. The ovary is such an organ of
creativity. It simply seethes with life and activity. When it isn't functioning well
creativity can be blocked.
Maybe it is blocked by a domineering parent or spouse.
Maybe it is blocked by the way our society views women's creativity. If the energy is
blocked, and suppressed and tricked, where is it going to go? It goes into disease,
depression, anxiety, hypersensitivity and instability. She gets easily upset, easily hurt
and unsure of herself. She does not want to be alone, gets restless, goes hyper, gets
allergies. It appears like an oestrogen allergy. The body gets confused and rejects the
things that nourish it. The mind gets confused and can't make decisions. Folliculinum
helps to restore clarity. There may be panic attacks, dizziness faintness, she can become
aggressive, then depressed, put on weight without over eating, can gain up to seven pounds
before periods, can get into compulsive eating and have huge food cravings, especially
before periods but it can be at anytime. There can be both fat and water retention.
HORMONE IMBALANCE
I got really excited when I came across a piece of research
done by Dr Katharina Dalton, which helps to explain why we find allergic reactions in
cases of hormone imbalance. Under normal conditions, the ovaries produce the progesterone
needed for proper reproductive function and the adrenal glands produce chemicals that are
eventually transformed into a group of hormones known as corticosteroids. During the
process of chemical transformation, progesterone is manufactured. As the chain continues,
the adrenal progesterone is altered and eventually, corticosteroids are produced. Under
normal conditions, then, it has nothing directly to do with the sex hormone cycle of the
pituitary-ovary-hypothalamus. However when the corpus luteum produces less progesterone
than usual, the reproductive system appropriates progesterone from the adrenal chain. The
feedback system of the sex hormones is then able to continue and the menstrual cycle is
completed. It is almost like an extra back up system to ensure the survival of the
species. So despite a lack of ovarian progesterone production, the menstrual cycle remains
unbroken, but this occurs at the expense of the corticosteroid production in the adrenal
glands. The chain leading to their production is broken, when progesterone is borrowed,
and as a result fewer corticosteroids are produced. A little hormone snatching leads to a
large number of repercussions. The adrenal gland produces many corticosteroids, each with
a different function. Some are responsible for the water balance in the tissues of the
body, regulating the sodium and potassium in the cells, some prevent allergic reactions,
some regulate the level of blood sugar and others mobilize parts of the immune system
response. So we can see that this imbalance happening at the stage of the cycle before the
menses, would cause much disruption at this time.
SPECIFIC SYMPTOMS
Folliculinum is fairly well known. for having
symptoms from ovulation to menses:
- all symptoms < ovulation to menses
- all symptoms > menses except specific menstrual symptoms
- worse from heat, noise, touch, resting
- better from fresh air. So there are ovulation problems such
as:
- drawing, burning, gripping pains,
- spotting
- ovarian cysts
- polycystic ovaries
PREMENSTRUAL SYMPTOMS
Reading down the list we can see how it covers the majority
of symptoms found under the umbrella of the premenstrual syndrome:
- breasts swollen and painful < touch (Lac caninum)
- migraines (Natrum muriaticum)
- nausea and vomiting diarrhoea alternating with constipation
(both Pulsatilla)
- diarrhoea ten days before menses
- very low or high libido
- weepy and depressed
- hyperactive,
- indecisive, with
- panic attacks. with
- huge mood swings from aggression to
- apathy, and
- unable to tolerate noise, touch or heat
CANDIDA ALBICANS
We can also see a group of symptoms which might be
categorized as Candida albicans infestation:
- cravings especially for sugar and wheat
- rumblings, bloating, weight gain and itching
- and recurrent cystitis which returns at this time.
This candida picture may tie into the body's inability to
regulate sugar, due to the adrenal system not functioning properly, as I have already
shown with the previous diagram.
MENSTRUAL PROBLEMS
- painful periods centred in ovaries
- prolonged and heavy bleeding with
- bright red blood and dark dots
- all sorts of cycle problems,
- either too short
- too long
- or none at all.
MENOPAUSE
Folliculinum is a really brilliant remedy around
menopause, for which it is well known. It pretty well covers the whole range of physical
and mental symptoms we might find at this time. Let's have a look:
- cycle irregularities
- flooding
- hot flushes
- hyperactive < rest (hot and bothered)
- - night sweats
- air hunger
- dizziness and faintness
- abdominal heaviness
- fibroids
- folliculaemia (4)
- vaginal dryness
- slow movement and spacey chinking
- hypersensitive to noise, heat and touch
And of course, this covers any of these symptoms arising
from a hysterectomy which is like premature menopause.
CLINICAL SITUATIONS
There are too many here to go over each one, but there are
some special areas of interest here:
- history of abuse whether, sexual, physical or psychological.
- Myalgic encephalomyelitis; this is an obvious one when we
consider the overall picture of feeling drained and exhausted;
- fibroids; Folliculinum will help to regulate the
cycle while the tumour is shrinking. This of course is very important as there are often
frequent periods with very heavy bleeding accompanying fibroids;
- Raynaud's disease, a vascular disorder where the fingers go
cold and numb and lose their ability to circulate properly. Horrifyingly enough it has
been treated allopathically with the birth control Pill. Most of us are aware of the
dangers when there are vascular problems and the Pill is known to be responsible for
causing thrombosis;
- Cardio vascular problems: this aspect shows up in our Folliculinum
picture in angina, palpitations, tachycardia, and other heart irregularities;
- Eating disorders; it is not surprising that Folliculinum
is useful in eating disorders considering the mental picture of the remedy. Self-abuse
with substances which should nourish. Self-denial, but that is such a huge subject in
itself that I cannot elaborate here.
- Post-natal problems; another very interesting connection is
that of post-natal depression, difficulty bonding with the baby and children unable to
separate from their mother; all of these are about unbalanced connections. When our babies
are born it is such a poignant reminder of the unresolved hurts from our pasts. As for the
child, if the connections are not secure enough, or too tightly bound, the terror of
separation is too painful to contemplate.
TIMING AND POTENCY
I have found that an optimum time to use Folliculinum
is on the tenth to fourteenth day of the cycle. This of course is not always the case. It
would not be so for men or for amenorrhoea where ovulation is unknown or indeed for
postmenopausal women. I have used it a few days before the period, usually five days or
so. Léa de Mattos found that different potencies worked in quite different ways, and I
have found this to be true. The 3x or 4c stimulates and can bring on menstruation; the 7c
is a balancer, and the 9c is a menstrual retardant, where there may be very frequent
periods. There is a myth about not repeating Folliculinum to which I have not taken heed.
I have given it repeatedly every month, or on five consecutive nights and in many other
variations. As with any remedy it is important to be creative in its use. I have used Folliculinum
from 3C up to 10M.
COMPARISONS
Folliculinum is related to quite a few other
remedies:
Sepia is very close, but the cycle modalities are
stronger in Folliculinum.
Pulsatilla; but Folliculinum cannot stand contact.
Lachesis does the draining, Folliculinum get drained.
Zincum shares many symptoms but is > hard pressure and warm air.
Thyroidinum has a different focus but can look alike.
Hypothalamus shares characteristics of appetite.
Aristolochia clematis has never been well since the Pill and recurrent cystitis.
Natrum muriaticum re-establishes periodicity of the cycles.
Luna is out of tune with the world, and it's cycles.
Other remedies to consider include Staphysagria, Carcinosin, Thuja
and Lac humanum,(made from mother's milk.)
THE GREAT MOTHER
One of the reasons why I love homoeopathy, so much; because
something with all the sinister possibilities of synthetic oestrogen can be turned around
and used in such a powerful way. It is almost as if we can use it like a metaphor, to
reach back through our mother, and our mother's mother and her mother to our self
determined beginnings, to the first revered mother, The great mother Goddess. We can use
it to reconnect, retune ourselves to a sense of the pure feminine which has not yet been
colonised. The pure creative potential of all female energy in every human creation.
Before I finish, I want to share with you something which has given me great inspiration
in my work in homoeopathy. Perhaps some of you have heard of the sculpture, by the
American artist Judy Chicago. It is an amazing celebration of women through history. It's
called the Dinner Party; a giant triangular table set for thirty-nine guests. In the
entrance to the room which holds the triangle, she hung six embroidered banners, giving
them the collective name She and wrote about them that: 'She, the Goddess,
that is, the feminine principle and the spirit within each human being which affirms life,
gathers all people before her to witness a vision of an equalized world (symbolized by the
equilateral triangle) where disparities of difference are erased, and people live in peace
and harmony on Earth.'
So here are the six banners:
And She gathered all before her
And She made for them a sign to see
And Lo they saw a vision
From this day forth like to like in all things
And then all that divided them merged
And then everywhere was Eden once again
REFERENCES
1 - Donald Foubister, Tutorials in Homoeopathy,
Beaconsfield Publishers 1989.
2 - Léa de Mattos, Homéopathie et Gynécologie, Librarie Le François, Paris
1978.
3 - 0 A Julian, Materia Medica of New Homoeopathic Remedies, Beaconsfield
Publishers 1979.
4 - Folliculaemia. hyperfolliculinaemia or hypereserogenaemia is simply thc over secretion
of oestrogen. The oestrogen half of the cycle works, but ovulation does not happen, so
there is not enough progesterone produced. So periods happen every two weeks, or are
delayed or may then not occur for several cycles. Bleeding may be heavier than normal - a
characteristic of menstruation without ovulation. This happens in menopause, and in
ovarian disorders like polycystic ovaries. It can occur in endometriosis. The orthodox
treatment is to use Danazol. Danazol actually prohibits all the pituitary hormones!
Goddess forbid! Danazol is also used to treat what they call benign breast disorders and
precocious puberty.
5 - Dorothy Cooper, Folliculinum. British Homoeopathic Journal 79:4, ppl00-103.
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