Case by Maarten van der Meer
An 80-year-old man diagnosed with ALS, he is lively, cheerful, and optimistic, occupies little space, but is present. It started two years ago, with the symptom that the muscles in the arm keep moving. It is even visible and continues 24 hours a day. Since two months the strength also deteriorates in the arms, and hands, especially on the right. He can hold a pen with difficulty. He often has cramps in his hands. The legs are good. He was always active, there were no problems in recent years. He now sits all day thinking, “Imagine,” “you are faced with it all day”. He also has dry skin, sometimes a sudden redhead, sometimes dizzy because of low blood pressure. Five years back he had heart surgery, and since then he has been on medication, the veins were clogged and the symptoms were palpitations. Previously he was an avid marathon runner, it was for fun, almost an addiction, in recent years he has been doing Nordic walking. He notices he is getting older, he starts losing weight and gets bony shoulders. There have been many examinations, a head scan shows that there is space developing under the skull. Previously he worked in a printing company, it was not always healthy work because of the chemicals. He worked his way up as a representative and technical manager, traveling all over Europe. That was great, it was varied, and you can explain something to people. He also served on several committees. The heart problems are familial. He has had an allergy for fifty years, has to keep a strict diet, he had a lot of abdominal complaints and diarrhea, was sick at night from it, not feeling well, and has nausea, and therefore sleeping badly. Now he likes to tinker but has too little strength for it.
AnalysisSeries 6: nervous system, heart problems, allergy, autoimmune.
Series 5: shoulder girdle (arms), representative, having something to say, traveling.
Phase 4: taking responsibility, having and feeling security.
Phase 3: he exudes a caution, combined with a stubbornness, fitting the combination
Phase 4 with
Subphase 3, as it can be seen in Chicory.
Stage 17: decline, degeneration.
Stage 16: decay, compare
Ytterbium (on the side-line).
Stage 11: holding one's position, and maintaining healthy life. Psychotria and marathon running have been seen together before. Here it is a pure hobby. Heart problems and palpitations have also been seen previously with
Psychotria viridis.
Prescription:
Psychotria viridis C12.
Follow upFour weeks, the tremors in the arms have lessened, only in the legs there is still the occasional tremor and occasionally he has cramps in the fingers. The weakening of the arm has also gotten less bad in the last weeks. Already after a few days the tremors became less and the pain he had in the upper legs and feet became a lot less. The energy overall is good, walking is not a problem. The mood is good. Tension is good now, he doesn't have to hold himself anymore. He can now stand wine again, otherwise, he still keeps diet. Sleeping is good, there are no more dreams. Still, he can suddenly have a red face, but always he is cold, it is almost scary, so cold. Over the next few months, it remains constant, the pulls in the arms stay away. On the bed, he can now feel pulls in the upper legs when he puts his hand on the leg. No dreams, but before sleeping with eyes closed he sees his mother, lifelike. Loss of strength in his right hand remains, he has difficulty holding his arms up (so his delta muscle). In the legs, it is a “lame” feeling. For more than a year he has noticed that he wants to check everything, whether the faucet is closed (and he turns it closed very tightly so that his wife has to struggle to get it open again). In recent weeks he also checks the locking of doors and goes into rooms to see if there isn't someone there when going to bed. He even looks under the bed. He makes a joke of everything and laughs it off, but in the meantime, he is annoyed with himself. He has been very forgetful for years, writing down appointments (in the past he remembered everything wonderfully well). The humor, laughing, and laughing away we know from
Lutetium,
Stage 17, the image of his mother, compare Muriaticum salts,
Stage 17. Later he receives
Psychotria nervosa C30 without much improvement. Psychotria virosa C12 is repeated, he continues to feel well, and there is no deterioration. After four months, the straight delta muscle does appear to have gotten worse. Checking remains, but his wife now does that. Walking continues to go well. Memory deteriorates, he does not notice it, but his wife continues to notice it, she calls it worrisome. Bowel continues to be difficult, with modification of diet he does well, otherwise, he has constipation. The following year he remains stable and feels well. The Stage is not quite clear to me yet. From a cooking prooving by a shaman (in which the herb is boiled for hours, the fumes inhaled), some of the symptoms, in this case, are recognizable and used as confirmation ascharacteristic feature of this remedy: the coldness, checking doors, getting out of bed at noises in the night to check the rooms against my better judgment, in the afternoon a hot head and glowing ears, dreams about deceased mother figure who also had shrinking brain and became very forgetful (of course I'm back!), dreams about making keys to be able to just go in anywhere. Particularly forgetful, scattered, not being able to find things by “looking over it,” going out the door without the shopping bag.