Any experience with Dr Angelica Lemke?

[Wombat140]

Has anyone here had any experience with a New York homoeopath called Dr Angelica Lemke who specialises in ASDs and PANDAS? I've got an appointment (via Skype) with her at the beginning of September, but I'm getting confused.

I've been to see another homoeopath in the past, and got some striking results, in both directions, but more or less at random - she admitted she'd never treated OCD before. And I had high hopes for Dr Lemke, because she specialises in OCD, ASD and PANS; but she's so hard to pin down.

She's anxious for me to learn muscle testing before the appointment, for one thing - seems to rely on it a lot in diagnosis. Now, I'm not at all sure how well that'll work, with the amount of twitches I have. Also, I looked up a few people and they all seem to do it differently. I asked her about both these things, twice, and she agreed that there were several schools of thought - but said nothing about which ones she approved of, or whether the twitches would rule it out anyway!

I suppose what I need to know is:
Is she prepared to come down to actual homoeopathy, and to do it the normal way, by symptoms, if the muscle testing and the other New Age things she favours fall through? I've nothing against "spiritual" techniques, but I've tried things like that many times and they've never helped - and, in fact, the worse my OCD is the less I get out of them. My symptoms are going to make this consultation pretty hard work, and besides she's charging through the nose for it; so I'd like to know that she wasn't just going to spend the whole time chattering about "getting in touch with your intuition" to no result...

Also, can anyone recommend a good book to learn muscle testing/kinesiology? Dr Lemke did suggest that it might be a good idea to start from books, but she didn't say anything about what was a good one, and you know how variable books on complementary medicine are.

[philamom]

Haven't read your entire post, but you may want to reach out to Stephanie2. Or read her posts. I think she has had success with Dr Lemke and also started her own blog on homeopathy.

[LaurenK]

Would not recommend her. She's very good about answering, she's also a very kind person. However, I wasted close to 2,000 dollars with absolutely no resolution in symptoms.

Edited July 20, 2013 by LaurenK

[Wombat140]

Philamom - Thanks for the reply. Yes, it was Stephanie2 that first recommended Dr. Lemke to me, but she now works for Dr. Lemke so it doesn't seem very polite to put such a question to her directly!

 

LaurenK - hmm. Not promising... Just for interest, did it make no difference at all, or did you get what I got with the local homoeopath, i.e. occasional big improvements but they eventually wore off and repeating the remedy didn't work?

Also, did she do mostly actual homoeopathy or was there a lot of time spent on what I'll loosely call "New Age stuff"? Not that I've anything against that, but it's never helped my OCD at all and I didn't have in mind to go to a specialist homoeopath just for that!

 

Anyone else with experiences, please?

Edited July 19, 2013 by Wombat140

[LaurenK]

At first, I was very excited to work with her, she told me that she had excellent experience treating PANDAS. She prescribed me several remedies, all of which helped- but none which brought me to a better place than conventional medicine did. She is also ALL about alternative methods. You can't take antibiotics at all while trying it. I personally felt like, she didn't have enough of a balance between natropathic and conventional medicine. Personally, I discovered CEASE through her and I like that better.

Edited July 20, 2013 by LaurenK

[Wombat140]

Hmmm. How much did they help, out of 10? And did they go on helping, or did it all stop working at some stage?

 

I'm undecided because conventional medicine hasn't made any difference at all to mine, so it wouldn't take much to beat that. Steroids, nothing; antibiotics, nothing; psychiatric drugs, can't take, as the OCD itself objects to them. So not being allowed antibiotics wouldn't be a problem, either.

 

By the way, does anyone know of any other homoeopath who has experience with these conditions and works in England, or who'll consult long-distance?

Edited July 21, 2013 by Wombat140

[LaurenK]

Angelica does skype consultations. How high of a dosage of steroids have you done? Have you done IVIG or PEX? Those are the more aggressive ways of dealing with PANDAS vs antibiotics and psychiatric medications. In terms of helpfulness, I would give her a 4. She really did try-but none of the remedies lasted. In terms of kindness, I 'd give her a 9. She also said my case was very complex. She said it's easier the shorter time a child has been sick.

Edited July 21, 2013 by LaurenK

[Wombat140]

*sigh* Sounds exactly like my experience with the local homoeopath who charges about a tenth as much. Maybe not, then.

 

Just for interest, what remedies did you have? I know it doesn't always translate to another person, but I'd be interested to know.

 

Prednisolone 5 mg morning and night for (I think) one week. No result. I think that's a fair-sized dose for predisolone, isn't it?

 

Have not done IVIg or PEX. I think I might have ALMOST got over my needle phobia, after much practice, but it's an academic question since Dr Goyal seems very sure I wouldn't be able to get them. (Although he said I should "consider" them - but later when questioned said he didn't think anyone would give me them! It's often difficult to get a sensible answer out of him by e-mail, as he's terribly over-booked.) Immunoglobulin is in very short supply in the UK and it's rationed to people with life-threatening diseases.

Edited July 21, 2013 by Wombat140

[LaurenK]

I had carcinoscin, strep nosodes, ignatia, nat mur,

[PowPow]

Wombat, that prednisone dose is teeny, unless you weigh 20lbs.

My kids start at 60mg or more. For a week. Then we go to 40 mg or 50 mg.We see improvements at about ten days.

[lfran]

Deleted post. Sorry.

Edited July 21, 2013 by lfran

[nicklemama]

My 60 lb son took 25 mg once a day for 5 days.

[jtp]

Wombat,My son and I are currently under Dr Lemke's care. She has never told me that we couldn't work with her if we were taking ABX. We really didn't discuss that too much since my son stopped abx a few months ago. I was also taking abx when we started but I was at the end of my prescription. I am trying to keep my son healthy enough so that he doesn't need to take an abx( it really messed up his gut). Only time will tell.

 

I know we will continue working with her and our regular PAN's(Mycoplasma triggered) doctor and Integrative MD for now and see how it goes(she is aware of this). I don't think this post really helps since we are fairly new to homeopathy, but feel free to PM me before your appt and maybe I can update you further. For now both my son and I doing well.

 

Good luck!

[Wombat140]

That's interesting about the prednisone dosage. How risky is that amount considered to be? I might just ask my PANDAS doctor about it, see if he's prepared to give it a try or whether he freaks out at the idea of giving someone 60 mg. (I'm only 90 lbs myself.) Steroids and their side-effects are taken very seriously over here, I don't know if it's the same in America.

 

I had Carcinosin myself; there seems to be a bit of a tradition of using it for OCD. The first time, it was 200c once a day for 5 days and made matters dramatically worse, she was very apologetic and said she got carried away and shouldn't have started so high. Later on she tried it again, just a single dose of 30c, which did nothing. I never had strep nosodes, because it hadn't occurred to us at that point that it might be PANDAS.

 

Thanks for the information JTP, I'll definitely let you know.

[cobbiemommy]

5 mg of prednisone is a very small dosage. I would look up prednisone dosing for autoimmune disorder on the internet. There is a formula... DS was on a taper that started at 60 mg for 6 days, and then tapered slowly from there. His weight at the time was 190. This step (steroid taper) was not taken lightly; DS was non functional at the point we started. Within a week, he was wonderful and by the end, I was ecstatic for his progress. I just wish it would have lasted.