Selenium

4.16 Selenium, Case 1A 40 year old man has come for a consultation because he is infertile. His sperm appears to be to weak without any obvious reason, because he hasn’t had any infections and his hormones are okay too. He wants to have children and he is curious what a child of his would look like.
He suffers from frequent watery diarrhoea with stomach cramps, especially at 5 am.
When he is tired and has worked long hours he gets shivery. When he plays volleyball he gets shoulder pains on the right side.
He has had mononucleosis in the past and had to stay in bed for 6 weeks with a high fever. As a child he often got bronchitis. Ten years ago he was circumcised because his foreskin was too tight.
He has been a heavy drinker in the past and sometimes he is afraid he’ll succumb to it again.
He works as editor of a magazine which he loves. He can do a lot of it at home. He has a degree in biology. he works on his own and finds it hard to meet deadlines. There are times when he simply can’t get going and he doesn’t dare phone other people for their contributions. he feels it is really a bit too much for him and things don’t run smoothly. His concentration is not very good and he is easily distracted. He feels ashamed when lots of little things go wrong. His desk is an absolute chaos. He can be quite down and anxious, especially when it looks as if he won’t get his work done on time. Alcohol helps him to feel better.
He has always admired his father who used to take him under his wing. His father was in the army but he what he had really wanted was to study chemistry. His father never had to double a class at school and was therefore very disappointed when he (the patient) had had to do the second year at secondary school twice. Later on he had to disappoint his father again by refusing to do military service.
He says he is a quiet person on the whole who can see things in their proper perspective. Other people find him easy to get on with and he likes company.
But he can also be very stubborn. He gets into a temper, shouting and slamming doors when people tease him or when he doesn’t get his own way. He can be quite insulting and cynical on such occasions. Criticism makes him feel indignant ‘What on earth have I done wrong now?’ He will mutter and grumble about it for a long time before he lets it sink in what people really said and why they said it.
He often dreams of ordinary things that go wrong in a totally irrational way and when he wakes up he wonders how that could possibly have happened. He usually has short and repetitive dreams, often quite chaotic and confusing. He once had a dream that he fell in the water and couldn’t get out so he drowned. In real life he nearly drowned once when he was swept away by a current.GeneralsWeather: < heat; < gloomy and damp weather; fear of thunder as a child.
Perspiration: profuse during sports; sometimes at night; sweaty feet.
Time: < 11 am to 3 pm.
Desires: delicate and refined little amounts, nouvelle cuisine (3), meat (3), fish, spices.
Aversion: milk.
Food: < snails (3): suffocative feeling.
Sleep: wakes up early, around 5 am.AnalysisThe diarrhoea, < 5 o’clock and < heat might make us think of Sulphur, especially if we take into account the untidiness, the chaos and the indifference. It could hardly be any other remedy but Sulphur. However, Sulphur only worked for a short while and it did not really solve anything. It isn’t particularly well known as a remedy for infertility either. Furthermore, this man has problems with his job, which is more indicative of the Iron series than the Silicon series to which Sulphur belongs.
The Iron series has a remedy that is quite similar to Sulphur and that also belongs to stage 16, namely Selenium. And this remedy does have problems with infertility and with alcohol abuse. Let us have a look at the way he goes about his work: He has difficulty finishing his it on time, always behind the deadlines. Although the job (Iron series) isn’t very difficult, he treats it with indifference and is inclined to give up (Stage 16). He can’t compete with his father anyway, his father who never doubled a class. His father had high expectations but he disappointed (Stage 16) his father by refusing to do military service. His father could only dream (Stage 16) about his own chemistry career that never happened.
His dreams are also very typical: things go wrong in a totally irrational manner. As if things will go wrong anyway, whatever he does, and he can only hope (Stage 16) that it will turn out alright. In his dreams or his imagination (Stage 16) things go quite differently from the way he expected.
other Selenium symptoms: his desk is an absolute chaos, frenulum too short, diarrhoea, < heat, profuse perspiration during sports, night sweats, foot sweat, <- milk, < snails, < 5 am.ReactionAfter Sulphur 1M things improved for a while. The quality of his sperm went up. But after two repeat doses things got worse again. He became depressed and was afraid of turning to the bottle again.
After Selenium 1M everything is much better. The sperm samples are completely normal. He feels much better in general, doesn’t panic anymore when he is faced with problems. Physically he feels better too, his sleep is good, no more shoulder pains or foot sweat. After 6 months and three repeat doses the spells of depression are much less frequent and much less intense. The alcohol consumption is completely under control.
ProvingBy Kees Dam and Yvonne Lassauw.Dreams: we were driving in a car and came to a railway crossing. Kees couldn’t see [imagination, stage 16] whether there was a train coming, there were no barriers or lights. We were already crossing the tracks when we saw a train approaching at full speed. We just managed to get to the other side and narrowly escaped being killed. I did not know who to blame: Kees because he hadn’t noticed the train or the railway officials because they hadn’t put up warning lights and barriers.
We were at the same crossing, this time there were both warning lights and safety barriers and we thought: ‘they could have done that last time’. We are waiting at the red light when a solid looking car (something like a Volvo) approached and drove straight through the barriers. At the second barrier he got stuck because the car had been damaged by crashing through the first gate. He was just clear of the rails. No train appeared but I knew what could happen because it had just happened to us. And this time all the warning signs had been in their proper place.
Dream: I was in my parents house in a bedroom looking out at a large tree with lots of foliage, a slightly melancholic atmosphere. My mother was downstairs doing housework but I heard her saying ‘ouch’ from time to time, when she had caught her thumb in a sort of glove made of cheesecloth. She was in great pain, a muscle in her upper arm was very swollen. I felt very sorry for her and had to relieve her and massage her muscles. I noticed there was some shit amongst the washing, my mother had had a little accident. But there seemed to be much more than appeared at first sight. Lots of shit [neglect, stage 16] all over the place. My father came in and started ranting and raving as usual, he said it was impossible that this muscle should give my mother so much pain and we were being ridiculous. But I took no notice and protected my mother, what he said was totally unfair.
dream: my father wanted to go to the loo but he was very clumsy and helpless and he did not make it in time, so the shit was all over his trousers. I simply had to step in and help him.
Dream: I was with a friend and I noticed how bald he was. An acquaintance of ours was driving his car with a baby in the back seat. He wanted to turn left and he suddenly crossed the road without warning while many of cars were approaching from the right, it was quite reckless [neglect, stage 16], stupid, he only just made it; more luck [expectations, stage 16] than good judgment. We were driving behind him. The surface of the road he was taking was very strange, like a swamp, mud mixed with grit. The road we had just come from was quite normal.
I drop a book, very clumsy.
Kees: pain in the glans, no more hair pains, pain in sacrum/coccyx on sitting down and getting up from sitting (well known symptom, prostate reflex zone). Pain and cramp in anus after stool in the morning (?). Pain in forehead after being in the sun for quarter of an hour, as if burnt (old symptom).