This case was shared first in the NZ Homeopathic Society Newsletter. If you are not already a member – join! There are fantastic resources, you will be supporting Homeopathy in New Zealand, and there is a newsletter which always has a range of different things in it, including book reviews and cases. It is only $45 annually, and you can join at www.homeopathy.ac.nz
This is a personal story of mine, and is about my son, aged 6.
For some background, when he was 2 he fell face first into a table, and landed on his front teeth – the upper central incisors. At the time I gave Arnica, and we also visited the doctor to register this for ACC – in case there was damage to the adult teeth that were buds in the gums.
Unfortunately, those two upper central incisors died, getting a pegged shape, one turning brown, the other grey. (Perhaps if I had given Hypericum regularly in the early stages I could have saved the nerve!). One of these teeth then abscessed – despite the dental nurse telling me that abscessing teeth require antibiotics and it will reoccur and need to be removed, we just used homeopathic remedies, the abscess resolved and never reoccured.
This meant that the two dead front teeth could stay in the gum and hold space for the adult teeth when they were ready to erupt.
At the end of February 2023 (aged 5y 8m), the left adult central incisor popped through the gum. At this stage he still had both baby teeth, although the left one was wiggly, so we encouraged lots of wiggling and this eventually fell out. The average age for these teeth to erupt is 7-8 years so this was early, but he had also been an early teether with his first tooth arriving around 4 months.
In September 2023 the right central baby tooth also fell out (and the tooth fairy visited), but we did not see the adult tooth. October and November passed, and still no sign of the adult tooth. December came and we started to worry – had this tooth been damaged by the accident and was not there to come down? Was it impacted (although there is plenty of space for it)? Unfortunately the dental clinic was unable to make bookings, so we went on a waiting list for January so we could investigate whether the tooth was in the gum at all.
So, I turned to Homeopathy.
My repertory (Complete Dynamics app) had the rubric Teeth: Dentition; slow, late, which had 28 remedies in it, the top remedies being:
Calc carb (4), Calc phos (4), Silica (4), Mag Mur (3), Zinc (3), Ferrum (3), Fluoric Acid (3), Mag carb (3), Mercurius (3), Sulphur (3), Tuberculinum (3), Bacillinum (3) and Phytolacca (3).
While he was not slow to teethe – quite the opposite, his were early compared to other children – this particular tooth was late coming through.
Previous constitutional remedies for him had been Tuberculinum and Sulphur, and he had had both between September and December. While these two remedies were indicated, they would already have worked if they were going to.
I compared the other remedies and discarded them for various reasons, relating to how my son is – while he is obstinate like Calc Carb, he does not have the observe then act nature, and unlike Silica he is robust, high energy, restless and not at all shy.
The remedy I chose was Calc Phos.
Calc Phos has a strong affinity to the teeth, this is also the Schuessler Tissue Salt for Bones and Teeth. Calc Phos has a feeling of dissatisfaction and boredom, they want constant entertaining. They are restless and always seeking something to do, and will complain a lot when they do not get their way. Physically as well as teething problems they can become exhausted, there can be abdominal pains, headaches or growing pains in school aged children. There can be cravings for smoked or processed meat like bacon, salami, ham and hot dogs, and they like ice cream.
While my son did not have the other physical symptoms, we were definitely feeling the holiday boredom and whinging.
I gave a single dose of Calc Phos 10M on December 31st.
Why 10M? My son responds really well to high potencies, and generally does better on 1M and 10M than lower potencies. We were also out of routine with the holidays, so a high potency single dose was much easier to administer than a week of Calc Phos 30c once daily.
Then we waited – and in the second week of January the tooth came through. We were all very pleased!