4.8.4 Ferrum silicatum, Case 1A 35 year old woman suffers from frequent colds, sinusitis and coughs, which take a long time to clear up. Her first child was born one year ago and since then she has been feeling very tired. She spent 4 months at home being ill. It started with a dry cough, worse at night with a stopped up feeling in the chest. After that she got herpes on her top lip on the right side, something she has had from time to time since she was 16. She also started to get dizzy, < standing and < moving her head.
Pain above her right eye and pressure underneath the eye, which turned out to be a sinus infection. Complaints are < at night, pressure, eating and cold. It isn’t getting better, even though she has plenty of sleep and goes to bed at 9 pm.
Her daughter goes to the creche two days a week and she has a part time job working with computers. She finds these days quite hard, because of all the hurry. She feels the responsibility of working and having a child is a bit much because she is too much of a perfectionist. Several times a year she has a dream that she is in the final year of a secondary school and wants to transfer to another college but she can’t finish the required reading list. This wasn’t the case in real life, but she recognises the feeling of not getting things done on time. She feels ‘she has to be able to do it’, and she has great difficulty admitting she can’t. ‘‘When I start something I don’t give up until it is done’. She is always busy planning and making sure her schedule runs on time. She grew up with the idea that ‘things have to get done, it is no good sitting still, you have to set yourself some targets’.
She wonders whether she should carry on with her job or whether it is better to stop for a while. ‘But I can just imagine what my friends would say’.
She finds it difficult to stick up for herself. She used to be very shy as a child, always did as she was told. Her mother did not want her to go to university so she didn’t. her only form of protest was ‘doing nothing’. She never learned to answer back, but she quietly goes her own way.
She dislikes job interviews and is afraid of failure or being criticised on what she has to say for herself. She only feels confident when she is sure that she knows more about a particular subject than the person she is talking with.
She used to suffer from boils on her buttocks, back and legs. She also used to have problems with her teeth, she had large ‘fangs. Seven years ago she had a myoma removed because of severe bleeding and anaemia.
GeneralsWeather: < cold (3); cold feet < evening.
Perspiration: on her chest at night.
Time: < night.
Desires: warm food.
Aversion: meat, because it isn’t good for your health and she feels sorry for the animals, coffee.
Menses: profuse, clots; sacral back pains < before menses, radiating to right leg.
Sleep: bad << daughter waking up frequently; on right side; frequent waking, difficulty falling asleep.
Analysis and reactionSilica seems to be the indicated remedy if we use the old way of analysing the case: She is sensitive, suffers from sinusitis, feels tired, cold, perspiration at night, aversion to meat, boils, teeth problems.
After Silica 1M she feels much better, less uptight and less colds. Six months later she comes back because she ‘can’t carry on like this’. She is 4 months pregnant and she has frequent colds again with a tickling cough that sometimes makes her vomit. Involuntary urination from coughing. White leucorrhoea with burning and itching. Anaemic again, ‘I am still so tired, I simply can’t go on’. She is afraid that she won’t be able to cope without her husband who is going away for 3 weeks.
Silica 1M brings some improvement but she remains very tired. The anaemia doesn’t get better, the iron level is low. She says: ’I still feel I have to prove that women who have children can also have a job’. On the other hand she feels sometimes that people think: ‘one of those working mothers again!’ ‘I have to make a good impression, especially at work’.
She had a dream that she went to the higher education college and her best friend told her that two boys in her class wouldn’t accept her. One of the teachers had persuaded her to take the step and the challenge had appealed to her. She always told people she had done badly in an exam, to protect herself from a possible disappointment.
On further analysis it becomes clear that there is something else beside the
Silicium element in this case. The perseverance, the anaemia, the profuse menses, < night, fear of failure and right sidedness are all part of another element, i.e. Ferrum.
Taking these two elements together we see the combined theme of
Ferrum silicatum: ‘I have to make a good impression at work’. She has to make a good impression at all costs. She doesn’t want to appear a failure in front of her family and friends, ‘she has to be able to manage’.
After
Ferrum silicatum 1M the improvement is lasting. She can manage quite easily, even with two children. The pressure has gone, everything runs smoothly.