The Clinical Specific Repertory
A new repertory by Dr Gaurang Gaikwad
Ten chapters drawn from a working clinic, arranged for the moment in practice when you need them. At the centre, a repertory of intercurrent remedies for the case that will not move.
Why I made this repertory
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My focus in creating this Clinical Specific Repertory was my own clinical practice, after treating complex cases for a few years. Especially in today's times, I found many cases stuck and blocked and not moving forward. I understood that these stuck cases required a much more multidimensional approach, and often intercurrent remedies as well. That is when, through my failure cases in the past decade, I tried to create this repertory of different chapters. The source for this has been my clinical practice, but also the clinical practice of many of my teachers, mentors and authors whom I have followed, including Dr Burnett, Dr Grimmer, Dr Boger and Dr Sunirmal Sarkar. |
 Dr Gaurang Gaikwad |
I highly recommend our readers to use this repertory with care, especially to read the remedies in the given rubrics, from different materia medica, classical and contemporary. And finally, the remedy should match the patient.
In many cases I have found that a series of remedies is required, especially in complex pathological cases. Hence a flexible approach is a must. I often go back to the writings of one of my favourite classical homeopathic authors, Dr Grimmer:
— Dr Gaurang Gaikwad
When the case will not move
Every practitioner knows the plateau. The remedy was well chosen, the early response came, and then the case stopped. You repeat it. You wait. You change the potency, you take the case again, and nothing moves.
The Clinical Specific Repertory opens on that problem. Its largest chapter puts one question to 220 clinical conditions: when this case is blocked, what is the intercurrent remedy to consider?
The shape of the problem the Intercurrent chapter addresses: a case that responded, then stopped, and moved again once an intercurrent was given.
From failure to discovery
Why did I make this repertory — the Clinical Specific Repertory? It's always your failures that teach you the most, and there have been so many cases over the last decade where I simply couldn't see the improvement I was looking for.
But part of the reason I kept running into failures was that the cases I was seeing were changing. Today's cases are more complex, more stuck, more blocked. The conventional forty or fifty polychrest remedies simply weren't helping anymore.
I remember one case in particular: a urinary tract infection that just wasn't improving, no matter what I tried. After every remedy I gave failed to help, I began to consider an intercurrent remedy. The one that fit best, based on my study of the literature, was a bowel nosode — Sycotic Co., the sycotic compound. You can read about it in Allen's Keynotes, or in any number of other texts. Given in the 30th potency, it genuinely helped that patient.
That case is what I really want to share with you, because it's what set me thinking: could there be, for every clinical condition, a group of specific intercurrent remedies? That question became the focus of my study for the last five or six years, and what you see in front of you now is the result of putting it all together.
What the Intercurrent chapter holds
Two hundred and twenty conditions, alphabetically from abscess to worms. Near the beginning: alopecia, Alzheimer's, amenorrhoea, angina pectoris, aphasia, apoplexy. Further down: fibroids, gallstones, hydrocephalus, keloids, leucoderma, Ménière's disease, prostatic hypertrophy, sciatica, tinnitus, ulcerative colitis, varicose veins.
Each entry names the remedies worth considering as an intercurrent for that condition. You are not asked to repertorise. You look up the condition and read what has helped.
The idea is simple: for every clinical condition, if a case becomes blocked, what could the possible intercurrent remedy be? Take prostate enlargement, for example — when all our usual remedies fail, the remedy to consider as an intercurrent, for a period of time, could be Medorrhinum.
Similarly, when treating a very difficult neurological case where every remedy fails but there's a sycotic miasm in the background, Medorrhinum could again be the answer. Read the first page of Allen's Keynotes — it states clearly that in many neurological cases of sycotic origin, Medorrhinum should be considered.
There is so much clinical experience like this that I wanted to put down on paper, so that both I and the next generation of homeopaths would have a reference: in a stuck, blocked case, what is the possible intercurrent remedy for every clinical condition?
— Dr Gaurang Gaikwad
Gems from the literature, sharpened in the clinic
Those who know me know that I'm a voracious reader of materia medica and repertory. I love it — I eat, drink, and sleep it. I've always loved reading every kind of literature on the subject, because this is the only thing I've done all my life. It's the only thing I know.
— Dr Gaurang Gaikwad
The literature supplies the candidates; the clinic decides which ones recur.
Ten chapters
874 rubrics in all. The Intercurrent chapter is the largest and the reason the book exists; the other nine fill niches that have been left largely unexplored.
| Chapter | Rubrics |
|---|---|
| Intercurrent remedies | 243 |
| Covid-19 | 153 |
| Biochemic tissue salts | 137 |
| Thyroid complaints (concomitants) | 75 |
| Diabetes | 70 |
| Post covid and post vaccination | 68 |
| Oncology, post chemo / radiation | 56 |
| Mammals DD | 29 |
| Infertility | 26 |
| Obesity | 17 |
| Total | 874 |
Modern rubrics, and groups within them
Many of the rubrics here are modern rubrics, of today's times. And in many of the rubrics I have added group indications, themes and remedies.
For example, when an infertility case is not improving, I will consider the Sarcode group. I may differentiate the sarcode remedies based on clinical materia medica, the patient's clinical situation, themes and so on. Folliculinum will have a feeling of excessive pressure or domination; Oophorinum may have concomitant skin or joint issues; Pituitary anterior may have thyroid or autoimmune issues; Thyroidinum may have lac ovis patterns.
— Dr Gaurang Gaikwad
Covid-19, and its long tail
The most specific chapter in the book. Which lobe is affected, right or left, upper, middle or lower. The clinical rubrics for pneumonia, including in children and in infants. The character of the cough, the pain in the chest, the fever, the state of mind in pneumonia.
Posture is worked out at unusual length, aggravations and ameliorations both: lying on the painless side, lying on the part he is lying on, lying stretched out, lying on the abdomen, and what happens after long in one position.
A second chapter follows the symptoms that stay. Post-covid and post-vaccination complaints are sorted by system, neurological through respiratory, psychological, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal and cardiovascular, with the female menstrual disorders that so often follow.
Oncology and the palliative side of practice
The Palliative Care Repertory is something I actually prepared for my own studies, because in our practice we're now seeing so many patients dealing with active cancer within our system. In day-to-day practice, you can't always immediately recall the indications for every remedy, so I wanted to put together a piece of literature that would help me quickly think through the possible remedies for these specific conditions.
Take, for example, a patient who has been through chemotherapy and is now dealing with a lot of mouth ulcers — a very important remedy to consider there is Kali chloratum.
— Dr Gaurang Gaikwad
The chapter is organised by what actually presents: metastasis, haemorrhage, insomnia, weakness and exhaustion, a blood count that has fallen, appetite gone, the neuropathy and nerve pains that follow chemotherapy, the mouth ulcers, the swelling, the hair.
The Schuessler tissue salts
Another repertory that I find very interesting — and one I've only been developing over the last few years — is the Schuessler Tissue Salt Repertory. For many years in my practice, I didn't really believe in Schuessler tissue salts, until, quite by chance, I saw a patient taking them on his own initiative. He improved on the tissue salts, and that's what got me using them more.
At the time, though, it wasn't especially practical for a newbie like me. So I started working on tissue salts properly — doing more research, studying the materia medica in more depth, and specifically looking at how to use them alongside classical homeopathy. That was the idea behind it.
What I also set out to do was build clinical rubrics: which are the possible clinical conditions for which I reach for a particular tissue salt most often? Ferrum phos, for instance, comes up again and again in certain situations. There are so many clinical scenarios like this, and I've tried to map out which tissue salts come up most often for which presentations — that's what I've tried to create here, and I really hope it proves useful.
I want to add one more thing: tissue salts can be given in isolation, but they can also be used alongside classical homeopathy, and I've seen some fascinating results doing exactly that — both in my own practice and through decades of learning from my teachers and from our homeopathic forefathers. I believe tissue salts deserve a firm place among the tools we reach for when healing our patients.
— Dr Gaurang Gaikwad
Around 135 clinical presentations, mapped to the salts that recur for them.
Five focused studies
Diabetes, infertility and thyroid are more like clinical hints that I have tried to collect together. This helped me in clinical practice.
I found that many of the latest repertories didn't have all the classical homeopathic literature material, especially clinical materia medica and the clinical hints of the masters. And sometimes the rubrics are not enough to showcase how a group of remedies is important in a particular clinical rubric.
For example, in thyroid cases Anterior Pituitary is very important in stuck, blocked cases. Similarly in diabetes cases: patients with many system failures, with hypertension, diabetes, liver issues and so on, with a history of very high pressure and responsibility and a history of junk food — Uranium nitricum is an important remedy.
— Dr Gaurang Gaikwad
Shorter chapters, each taking one subject and working it through.
- Thyroid complaints are treated as concomitants and laid out on a repertory schema: generals, mind, face, head, cough, throat, respiration, female, skin, rectum, abdomen, and what the clinical examination of a goitre shows.
- Diabetes is divided by type, by psychosomatic aspect and by associated complaint, and closes with points to remember.
- Obesity is entered through its causes: after menopause, during pregnancy, from hormonal treatment, with PCOS, with thyroid disease, with insulin resistance, after trauma or burnout, in children, in the old, and where the body is fat but the legs thin.
- Infertility is indexed by what accompanies it.
- Mammals DD differentiates the mammal remedies by family and by order.
Mammals: analogues, and the sarcode link
This is a very unique experience for me. It took me some time to create this for my own understanding, and it is also something I haven't done before.
I tried to create, for my own understanding, analogues — remedies closest to certain mammal remedies. This is through clinical experiences of mine, and also of my colleagues and authors.
For example, I found Lac def. comes very close to Puls. Many of my Puls patients who had lac patterns did well on Lac def. Many Lac asinum patients were the ones I was previously giving Mag.
Similarly, I feel sarcodes and mammal remedies can't be separated. It's interesting that Lac ovinum, Pancreatinum and Thyroidinum are all from sheep, so they have similar patterns. Similarly Lac eq., Hippozaenium and Castor equi.
This helped me in clinical practice.
— Dr Gaurang Gaikwad
Built for the pace of a clinic
Most rubrics are two or three levels deep, and that is deliberate. You are meant to find the thing and go, not to descend through eight subdivisions while a patient waits.
These chapters do not pretend to be a complete repertory and are not arranged as one. They are arranged as answers: a condition, a qualifier where the condition needs one, and the remedies to consider.
Who it is for
- The practitioner with a case that has stopped moving, who wants a considered intercurrent rather than a guess.
- Anyone carrying oncology or palliative work, who needs the indication now and not after an evening with the materia medica.
- Practitioners who have wanted to use the tissue salts systematically, alone or alongside a classical prescription.
- Students and teachers, for whom clinical experience in small, ordered pieces is easier to learn from than a treatise.
Only the beginning
Most of the work that I have shared is still work in progress, and I will be periodically working and brainstorming with my colleagues in my clinic and colleagues in my profession, to work more on this and add more.
This is only the beginning; there's much more still to be added, and I'm looking forward to hearing what you think once you start using it.
— Dr Gaurang Gaikwad
The author, in his own words
Hear Dr Gaurang Gaikwad explain the repertory, its clinical foundations and the thinking behind the intercurrent chapter.
Dr Gaurang Gaikwad discusses the Clinical Specific Repertory, its ten chapters and the clinical experience behind its development.