6.12.2 Mercurius dulcis, Case 1A 40 year old woman has painful breasts before the menses. It starts one and a half weeks after the previous menses and lasts for about two weeks. I makes her feel irritable towards her husband and her son. She feels that everything is getting too much. There is a conflict between work and motherhood. She loved becoming a mother, it was awe inspiring: ‘It is the biggest change in your life’. But she did not find it easy. She wants to carry on the way it was before, but it is impossible. She has had to adapt and work fewer hours.
Her mother had arranged her life around the children and was always at home. She doesn’t want to become like her mother, she would like to be able to continue her job as manager in a publishing company. She wants to do something that gives meaning to her life, something impressive. She wants to achieve something especially on the intellectual level and often wonders why she just can’t sit quietly at home. She needs to be complimented on her achievements and wouldn’t like to be like her sister who can never participate in a reasonably intelligent conversation. She likes her work. Her whole family is ambitious, her father is a professor and her sister has got a degree.
She tells me about her character: ‘I am proud and ambitious. She likes to pull the strings. She is rather closed and only really talks with her husband, parents and a few good friend.
I noticed that her eyelids were trembling a lot, especially when she was speaking. There is something heavy about her.
When she was 22 she had a viral meningitis and spent 3 weeks in hospital. It started after a neglected flu with stomach cramps, diarrhoea, vomiting and fainting. Her symptoms at the time were: double vision, tingling all over her body, weakness and difficulty in moving, speech slurred with swollen tongue. She felt so numb that she wasn’t even afraid of possible paralysis or death.
GeneralsWeather: cold, cold feet (2).
Perspiration: frequently wakes up soaked with sweat at night.
Time: after 10 pm.
Desires: sweet, biscuits, cheese.
Aversion: fatty meat, sour.
menses: with backache, stomach ache and much bleeding.
AnalysisThe conflict between work and motherhood reminds us of one of the Muriaticums. The fact that the conflict is centred around her work indicates a metal. Her pride and ambition indicate a metal from the
Gold series, as does the fact that she likes to be a leader and that it all feels rather heavy.
But which metal? The way she goes about her job as a manager doesn’t give us many clues, although she tended to be rather irritable when her employees did not cooperate. This would indicate a metal from one of the later stages:
Aurum, Mercurius,
Thallium,
Plumbum.
Symptoms that might go for Mercurius: night sweats, trembling eyelids, meningitis after diarrhoea. I decided to give Mercurius muriaticum but once again I had to make a choice: which of the two Muriaticum:
Mercurius dulcis or
Mercurius corrosivus?
Mercurius corrosivus seemed a bit too aggressive for this case so I chose
Mercurius dulcis.
ReactionOne month after
Mercurius dulcis the pain in her breasts is as good as gone. She also feels much better. The tiredness and the heavy moods and irritability before the menses are still the same however. During the next six months her energy increases and the irritability before menses decreases. She has also decided that her son is her first priority. She takes more time to enjoy being with him, she is not always in a hurry anymore.