Manganum CaseThis woman, aged 27, had been having earaches for the past year. The earache was on the right side and it came as soon as she was exposed to draught or wind. She always wore a scarf or used earplugs if she had to go outside. The ear would start to burn, with stitching pains, < at night when she was lying on it. The pain was radiating out and was worse when she turned her head to the right.
She also suffered from stitching pains under her left breast, < lying on her left side, > lying stretched out on her back. During these attacks she felt suffocated, but an ECG test had not found anything abnormal.
Her stomach is often swollen, with a burning sensation, < pressure, > stretching and belching. She usually feels hungry at the same time.
Pain in her right knee.
Before exams she gets flu with fever for three days.
Past history: her appendix has been removed but it wasn’t inflamed. Her left knee has been severely sprained. In 1985 she suffered from a minor nervous breakdown. Since that time she hasn’t been well. Had less self confidence, is easily tired, irritable and prone to illnesses. Her nails break easily and she suffers from constipation. It all started on the day that her sister had a baby.
General characteristics:
Temperature: < wind (3), < draught (3), < damp, fear of storm and thunderstorm.
She likes mountains and sea.
Desires: sweet, spices, cheese, milk.
Aversion: fat, tomatoes (2), meat (liver, kidney etc.)
< coffee, eggs, mushrooms (2), apples, carrots.
Menses: slight stomach pains during menses.
Sleep: she needs eight hours of sleep, she sleeps on her right side.
Mind: She seems very open and sympathetic. She feels responsible for other people's happiness. When she was only six she had already taken responsibility for the entire household, because she felt her mother couldn’t cope very well. She is very sensitive and she takes great care not to hurt other people's feelings or make them feel uncomfortable. She is sensitive to everything, including to noise. She sleeps with earplugs because she is afraid that the neighbours will wake her. But she is always alert, with eyes and ears wide open. She is a very refined sort of person, but also critical and fanatical.
She is always busy doing something, making her own clothes, doing some handicraft, designing things for the house. She would like to design her own dinner-service.
She has many fears, fear of the dark, fear of water. Once she nearly drowned when she fell through the ice in winter. She is also afraid of wind: she even felt very afraid once when she saw a picture of a tornado. Some of her fears are strange imaginations: for instance, when she walks in the wood she is afraid that bears will come and eat her. When she doesn’t have anything to be afraid of she will just invent something. She fears, for example, that she will die before she is 28, and she can’t get this out of her head.
Her parents had been very much in love with each other, but her father drank too much. When he was drunk they were always fighting, and eventually they got divorced when she was 16.
Marriage: she has been happily married for three years and they don’t have any children yet.
Work: she works for a firm of architects. Her boss used to let her do only odd jobs instead of serious designs. When she was given a more important task and succeeded in drawing a beautiful design, her boss used to get all the praise by pretending that she had designed it herself. This was when the ear problems started.
AnalysisThe ear aches are typical of
Manganum. Especially the modalities < wind and > earplugs are enough to prescribe this remedy. But the whole picture fits
Manganum: helpful, kind and artistic, with the original cause of lack of appreciation in her work.
ReactionAfter Mang-acet 1M the fear of dying disappeared immediately. The earaches got worse during the first two weeks and subsequently went away. The sensitivity to sound had almost gone after one month. She had some pain in her neck and a few bouts of fever. The stomach pains went away. The problems at work got worse and after one month she decided to leave. Four months later she found another job where she feels much happier.
She needed a repeat of Mang 1M after two months, when the earaches came back slightly.
Four months later she came back again with severe burning pains in her ear: it felt as if the muscles were being torn apart. She was also very irritable, particularly before the menses and she was taking it out on her husband. She remembers feeling like this twice in the past. The first time was when her father had got drunk and was quarrelling at Christmas one year. And the other time was when her parents were getting divorced. For this reason I gave her
Magnesium muriaticum 1M, after which the complaints disappeared. She has been well ever since.