Case by Maarten van der Meer
A 10-year-old boy has asthma and an allergy to dust and animals. From birth, he has had eczema, wet and scaly patches, and complaints from food, with cramps and diarrhea. Allergies are to dust mites, eggs, milk, dog, cat, hay, rabbit, and peanuts. The nose is congested, and around the mouth the skin is dry, he has scabs at the corners of the mouth and under the mouth. He has to sneeze a lot, and cough. He is asthmatic throughout the year, worse in winter, they can control it with flexotide and ventolin since he was four years old. His tongue is clean, he has sublingual hardened glands on the left. He always has to pick his nose, in the evening and night the nose is closed. The sniffling became more from 8 years of age. Except for the stuffiness, he is never sick. The pregnancy went well, mother was healthy. It was a tumultuous period for her though; she still lived at home, and after a few years she and her partner separated. He is sweet, caring, helpful, and has a great imagination, he is often restless: wiggling his legs, drumming, and tapping his fingers. He is very sensitive to emotions and sounds. He used to be loud, but now he quickly panics when others make noise. He has dyslexia, prism glasses help, making contacts does not go well, he will push or make noises easily, not grasping the social code. He eats everything, stools are often soft. The mother is single, and she has two children, despite the allergy they do have a dog. He sleeps well, from babyhood he goes head to head before he falls asleep. After
Neodymium metallicum he has short improvement. After three months he had status asthmatics, and nebulizing in the hospital did not help, after Ipecacuanha it was over within a few minutes. His mother calls off further treatment because he continues to do well with flixotide. After a year he comes again on a weekend: inhalers do not help, medication in the emergency room does nothing. Reserve Ipecacuanha C6 does nothing. It started with a cold, complaints of the nose and throat, and with a slightly barking cough. This had been prevalent for two weeks. His shortness of breath increased rapidly, and within a day the medication no longer worked. The night he had woken up screaming, he was very angry. Early in the morning, they are in the practice: well-behaved, full of expectation, a feeling unit. His tongue tip is red (reflex area of ENT, this indicates mucosal inflammation), sublingually there are enlarged glands, rhonchi left and right both above and below. When asked a question, he turns his eyes to me, but he does not look at me, keeps a gentle and easy distance, and stays in his world. The legs wobble, tapping the ground. The mother emphasizes the dyslexia, and the attention to it at school (as a possible stress factor), “he has to learn to deal with it”. He does not express himself easily, or what he thinks and feels. As mother tells this you see the boy go blissfully inward, into his world.
AnalysisIpecacuanha did nothing this time, besides, if a medicine is really good you don't need to repeat it. Possibly reason for the relapse was that the father with whom there was sporadic contact has now gone abroad. Because the family lives nearby, I saw them walking occasionally. A striking, and especially a beautiful “sight,” the harmony, suppleness, they looks so happy, have all a joyful expression, as if they were one person, and not three people and a dog. Among themselves they need few words, looking and feeling at each other prevailed. The softness, the atmosphere that the family radiates, the lungs as the center of the allergy symptoms, the dyslexia, the nonverbal communication, feeling the environment and each other, keeping the tension inside, being together and apart as a 'theme': all this suits the
Malvales. Shyness, expectant, shirking, and bronchial complaints, were previously seen with Althea.
Prescription: Althea officinalis MK
Follow upThe first week they still had to puff, three times daily, then it was over. Also, the cold is over. He is busier now, with lots of wiggling, tapping, drumming, and pushing the limit, it has become more intrusive. He goes on soccer and soon they dare to stop all medication. For the next ten years, he still has the occasional cold, but the allergies disappear. At school, he is doing very well.