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Helen Seymour is in Peri-Menopause, or she thinks she is. In her new weekly column we will follow her on her journey towards the menopause, learning as she does all about the big M.
“How do you feel about snakes?” says Dr Dolan. He’s not looking at me as he says this. He is staring down at the “Big Book of Homeopathy” sitting in his lap. That’s not what the book is called, but that’s what it is. My mother has one. It’s like an encyclopaedia of homoeopathic remedies. This book was taken out a lot in our house as we grew up. In fact my Mother tried very hard to get me to read it on a number of occasions. Trust me when I say it’s not an easy read.
“I don’t like snakes” I say. Dr. Dolan looks at me. He starts to smile. “In fact I hate them” I say. His smile widens. “Why are you asking me about snakes?”
“I have a remedy here” says Dr. Dolan. “It’s called Lachesis.”
“Lachesis?”
“Lachesis,” he reads out loud, “helps hot flushes, headaches, that kind of thing. And it’s suited to extroverts.”
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“I’m not an extrovert,” I tell him. He looks at me. “I’m not” I say. “I mean I know I have a good personality, but I get tired around people. People drain me. I’m an introvert. That’s what happens to introverts.” (Sidebar. This is something I read on Instagram). Dr. Dolan looks at me. “I am” I say. “I’m an introvert.” Dr. Dolan looks back down at the Big Book of Homeopathy.
“I think this will help” he says, studying the write up on Lachesis closely. “But it is made from snakes. Snake poison. The venom.”
I don’t know what I’m more upset about. That Dr. Dolan won’t believe I’m an introvert, or that I have to ingest snake venom. Not happy about this. Definitely not happy. But I pretty much will do anything Dr. Dolan recommends. I have that much faith in him. Like I told you before. He’s Dumbledore. In Clontarf.
The very fact that he’s giving me a snake tincture, makes me start thinking about the Menopause being Voldemort. There are so many direct comparisons to the evil. I wonder was JK Rowling going through the Menopause when she wrote in the character of Voldemort. No, definitely not. She had another kid after the first few books came out. Still, Voldemort was at his most evil by the last book. She could have been Menopausing then. She might even have been in Peri-Menopause when she wrote the Dementors. Dr. Dolan hands me a prescription.
“… Lachesis” says the woman with the black curly hair behind the medicine counter in Down To Earth on George’s Street. She says it like I’ve asked her for a packet of Tayto. But then she says “I’ll make it up.” And that’s the giveaway.
A lot of homoeopathic medicine is available in pre-packaged capsules they just lift off the shelf. You know it’s something special when they have to take out the tincture and make it up in front of you.
Funny, isn’t it? That behind the rows of gluten-free granola, organic deodorant, and coconut oil at the front of this shop in Georges Street, there’s a woman down the back with curly black hair who knows how to mix snake venom. And who apparently mixes it on a regular basis.
“Oh yes, it’s very effective” she says when I ask her does she sell much of it. “Really good for hot flushes. You should take a Vitamin B Complex as well. That’ll help too.”
She hands me a small glass container, filled with tiny tablets, now covered in snake venom. “One a week” she says.
“I’ll set an alarm in my phone” I say, and promptly forget.
The first day I take it, which was the minute I leave the shop, nothing happens, and I have constant hot flushes across the day. “So much for the snake bite” I think. However, in the following days the hot flushes lessen. They do still come, but they’re not half as bad as they were, and there are definitely less of them. Old Snakey is working a charm. I’m taking the Vitamin B Complex she recommended as well, so maybe that’s helping too. And guess what? The headaches are gone.
Unreal. I’m a new woman.
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