4.8.1 Ferrum nitricum, Case 1A 30 year old woman has menstrual problems. The problems start 8 to 10 days before the menses, when she feels restless and less able to restrain her impulses. She walks up and down, is busy cleaning all day, her heart misses a beat from time to time, gets an urge to spend money on books and clothes. She feels tired and energetic at the same time, she can’t stop all day. She can’t get to sleep and keeps thinking about her job, feeling it is all too much. She starts to worry about herself and her family, that they might get ill or die, or that she will get AIDS because she made love without a condom one day. She has no patience, she ‘jumps on’ anybody who does something wrong. She feels she will explode when she gets angry.
When she was 20 she had a sort of identity crisis. She became terrified of trains, couldn’t be in any enclosed space, afraid of getting locked in. She stopped her job as a nurse and moved in with her sister for 6 months, working in a shop for a while. Afterwards she took up her old job again, but this time the hierarchies in the system annoyed her so much that she gave up again. After that she retrained as an activity leader and at the moment she works in a day centre for psychiatric out patients. Her psychologist helped her discover that she still had not got over the feeling of: ‘Who am I, am I allowed to be here?’ Her mother also had this problem.
She says she is very emotional. She has a strong will and is very direct. She used to play truant at school and did not mind the punishment.
Her cheeks and neck tend to get flushed, especially when other people tell her she is a bit ‘hyper’. This makes her feel that she is not allowed to be who she is, i.e. someone with a huge amount of energy.
She gets very angry when people abuse her or treat her unjustly.
She loves children, but doesn’t want to have any herself. She is afraid that children might demand her undivided attention and she is afraid she won’t be able to put her own wishes aside for them. Her mother had not particularly looked forward to her birth because they already had 6 children and now there was another one on the way. All the pressure and work of having a little baby would start all over again.
Her mother got toxemia during the pregnancy.
She (the patient) doesn’t have a relationship and doesn’t want one either, she is too afraid of being tied down. She thinks it will oppress her and force her to invest a lot of energy to keep it going. She is afraid that her own self will suffer and get more diffuse. She has had a boyfriend in the past but she felt suffocated. It made her feel: ‘I am stuck with this boy and now I have all sorts of obligations’.
She broke it off just before her menses and felt very relieved. She thinks this fear of getting tied down has something to do with the smothering love her mother used to pour over her. She couldn’t pursue her own interests.
She is blond and blue eyed, fashionably dressed, wearing lipstick and giving a very lively impression.
She had a recurring dream that she was lying on the floor and couldn’t move, talk or run away, while something frightening was very nearby. Another dream was that a child had been pushed into the water and people had blamed her for it, while she had been doing her best to save the child.
GeneralsWeather: war, <- gloomy weather, fear of thunder.
Time: < 1 to 4 pm.
Desires: chips, brown bread, sweet, bacon, fat, milk.
Aversion: fish, game.
Food: < alcohol: red face, tired the next day.
Menses: later, used to be profuse; tension in breasts before menses.
Sleep: unrefreshed, fear of not being able to sleep.
AnalysisThe main theme is her fear of being tied, either to a relationship, or to her mother. Her mother experienced a similar fear during the pregnancy.
She feels oppressed and suffocated in relationships, as if she has to put herself aside and do things for the other person, it feels like a heavy task. Her mother felt this too. There is no more space (pressure,
Ferrum) for the pursuit of her own pleasures (Nitricum). She also feels as if she will explode (Nitricum) when she gets angry (
Ferrum). She has to fight (
Ferrum) in relationships that are too oppressing (Nitricum).
The suffocative and oppressed feeling points to Nitricum, which is further confirmed by the following symptoms: warm, -> fat, -> bacon, -> chips, <- game, > outside, unrefreshed in the morning.
The other side is that she puts herself under pressure, with a feeling that she must do this and must do that and she mustn't give up. This points to
Ferrum, further confirmed by: blushing, red face < alcohol, profuse menses, hard work.
ReactionFour days after
Ferrum nitricum 1M she gets a sore throat for 5 days. After that she slowly starts to feel better. There are still some times when she doesn’t feel very well, but on the whole she is improving. After 6 months all the complaints are 70% better.