You are feeling perfectly alright. But then it is time for your regular visit to the OB/Gyn, or annual physical exam with your physician. Now in the office, one glimpse at her white lab coat and your mouth goes dry and your heart jumps into your throat. Struggling to contain a mounting, uncontrollable fear: “What if they find something…..?” your heart beat is racing. The cuff is placed around your arm, then tightened. What a powerful pulsation. “Hmm, your pressure is through the roof,” the nurse calmly intones. A few more readings and after multiple deep breaths your blood pressure finally drops. As usual, nothing is found wrong with you. Time to go home. But what an ordeal! Wouldn’t it be nice if just for once the be-well visit were not so damned stressful?
Homeopaths seldom select a single remedy for a single symptom. In fact, their prescribing usually entails eliciting additional features and symptoms. Like a character witness testifying on behalf of a defendant, such information works to confirm the aptness of a judgment, in this case the correctness of a remedy. So saying we discuss Aurum Muriaticum, a remedy whose “character” we now implicate in the treatment of White Coat Syndrome.
Derived from chloride of gold, Aurum Muriaticum is chiefly prescribed for heart ailments featuring angina, arrhythmia, palpitations, uterine fibroids and even malignancy. Within the mental and emotional sphere it comes up for depression. But many remedies address this same constellation of ailments. What distinguishes Aurum Muriaticum from competing remedies? Moreover, what renders it relevant in high blood pressure in the doctor’s office? Narrowing the field for our consideration are Aurum Muriaticum’s keynote mental features. These are specifically:
Anger when thinking of his ailments. Delusion that he has every disease; if left alone he thinks about nothing but his ailments
So no homeopath would recommend giving this remedy to just anyone suffering from White Coat Syndrome, he or she would consider prescribing it when: 1) The client has a history of depression, especially if this mental state is tied into general Aurum characteristics (that include a susceptibility to guilt and carrying heavy responsibility in life); and 2) When such Aurum features are found crossed with a history of grief; and 3) The requisite heart features we have listed are evident. An appropriately golden opportunity then present itself: Not only can a prescription made that treats fear of doctors, but the underlying cause of fear as well. Chronically ongoing but undetected stresses of the heart when the client is outside of the doctor’s office may then be dealt with as well.
In similar discriminating fashion fear of the dentist can likewise be addressed. A list of remedies to be considered in this case would include: Alumina, Alumina Silicata, Calcarea Carbonica, Pulsatilla, Sillica, and Tuberculinum.
As they don’t quite say in the television commercials: Ask your homeopath about…!