Ferrum muriaticum CaseA 35 year old woman suffers from tiredness. She has three children who have had many illnesses during the past years, but now that they are doing quite well she feels that she herself is about to break down. She feels anaemic, tired and slow in everything she undertakes. She can’t be cheerful anymore and she thinks she might need some psychotherapy but she has an aversion to it.
She doesn’t sleep well, wakes up many times, mostly around 3am. The disturbed sleeping pattern started when she had to get up every night because one of her daughters suffered from nightmares. She used to wake up in anticipation of her daughter calling out.
She also suffers from tiredness and irritability during menses, something she never had in the past. Six months ago she decided she did not want to have any more children and since that time she suddenly find her menses very tiresome.
When she was pregnant she used to be anaemic.
Her head and cheeks are often flushed, with stitching pains.
General characteristics:
Desires: meat, beef (3), fish.
Aversion: eggs, wine. She feels drunk after one glass of beer.
Mind: She used to be a ‘good’ girl. Her family lived in a small village and she was the eldest of 7 children. She had to help in the house, which was heavy work. She also helped in her uncle's house during the holidays when she was 14, because her aunt had to go to hospital.
She is afraid of criticism. When she was at secondary school she used to get notes that her work was not up to standard. These notes had to be signed by her parents but she always waited until the last minute and used to spend the whole weekend worrying about it.
She is still rather afraid of people, particularly when they stare at her. She immediately thinks: ’What have I done wrong?’.
It is difficult for her to accept psychotherapy; even homeopathy makes her nervous.
She is very sympathetic to children. She studied child psychology and has worked in this field, too. She likes the challenge of making contact with problem children, and she usually succeeds.
AnalysisThere are some obvious
Ferrum symptoms: red cheeks, tiredness with anaemia, dizziness after alcohol, < 3 h., aversion eggs and wine. On the mental plane we find the Ferrum traits of perseverance and the fear of criticism or punishment.
However,
Ferrum metallicum doesn’t quite cover the case, because there are a few Muriaticum symptoms in this case too. For instance, on the physical level the desire for fish, but even more on the mental level: the love for - and the desire to have contact with- children, as well as the past history of taking care of the entire household.
Finally we have a very strong Ferr-m theme: the feeling that she has to remain strong in order to take good care of her children, to be a good mother to them. As soon as she felt that they did not need her care as much as before, she broke down.
ReactionAfter Ferr-m 200 she felt very tired for two days. Then she started to feel better: she was more cheerful and she felt like doing things with the children again. She also started to look for a part time job. Her sleep improved and her dreams came back, particularly dreams which were meaningful to her.