8.5 Samarium oxydatum caseWidth 6, Depth 3,
Cure 8, Duration 6
by Marguerite Pelt
A man of 43 years of age consulted me in June 2001 because of chronic erysipelas of the left leg. Other complaints were: low back pain, constipation, distension of the stomach and difficult respiration especially after milk and ice cream.
This very active man does everything at high speed. He used to work in a restaurant seven days a week and 10 hours a day. Now he is a supervisor in a call centre for travel insurance. He is very good at answering calls himself, taking some 100 phone calls a day. Next to this hectic job he does the (middle) management, coaching people and planning. Together with his work he finds time to study. He runs around all day but doesn't feel hurried.
In his free time he goes on vacation with handicapped people. In this situation he is also a leading figure, not afraid to send away their helpers. For example, once he dismissed another volunteer on the spot because he was a drug-user.
On the other hand, his immediate boss and owner of the call centre takes advantage of his leadership qualities and high sense of responsibility. The boss works from 9.00 to 15.00 but lets his best man (my patient) work six days a week and at least 10 hours a day. Our patient doesn't complain. He always seems calm, but on the inside he can be angry. He has a problem showing his emotions. He is the youngest (twin) in a family of six children. His birth was difficult. His parents are also hard working and talk little about themselves.
GeneralsTemperature: normal, desire for open air
Aversion: fat, meat, cabbage (2)
Desire: ice cream (2)
Food: nausea from alcohol
Sleep: jerking legs < left < before falling asleep
Restless sleep
Grinding teeth in sleep
AnalysisA Lanthanide is necessary because the patient is so in control. He has leadership qualities, but is not the director, so a remedy for him should be placed at the beginning of the
Gold series. He is doing tasks like the labors of Heracles: working very hard and never finished. He is also serving others, not only in his job but also when he is helping handicapped people on vacation. The remedy should be in
Stage 8 because the patient forces himself and pushes himself to the limit. Tension can be felt when he sits opposite me during the consultation. The oppression of the chest can be seen as a symbolic complaint of pressure. At birth even his expulsion was difficult. So this called for the remedy
Samarium: the Lanthanide in
Stage 8.
But this remedy
Samarium still lacked something: the suffocation that I sensed in his chest complaints. Because of his mother's emphysema I thought of Oxydatum to attach to the
Samarium. And yes, the Oxydatum would explain his tendency to be abused and to neglect his own desires and thereby his own body. Oxydatum would explain his attraction to handicapped people that are outcasts and the ‘dirty’ complaint he had at the beginning: the erysipelas of the leg that had led me to prescribe
Pyrogenium.
Follow upSoon after the remedy not only did his physical complaints subside, but he spontaneously started working less than 40 hours a week, sometimes even coming home at 2 o’clock. He was much more relaxed.
A year later he's doing fine.
His quality of life rose from 50 to 90
The first prescription was
Pyrogenium. The themes of nosodes were there: inflammation, always fighting, facing opposition, survivors, black-and-white in their opinions and problems in their immunity.
Pyrogenium has erysipelas and restlessness. First
Pyrogenium D12 later 200K and MK ameliorated the situation. The patient had no more erysipelas, had less shortness of breath, stopped grinding his teeth, but on the mental level nothing changed. He kept working too many hours and not expressing his wishes or emotions. He kept looking for acknowledgement for his work, but no one seemed to notice his dedication. And he complained of tiredness.
The second prescription was
Teucrium marum: lack of acknowledgement, the ambition, the difficulty expressing inner feelings, jerking of muscles. After this remedy the erysipelas of the leg continued to do well, the jerking of the legs decreased and the patient promised me he would work no more than eight hours a day, five days a week. He wanted to take more time off, but in spite of all the good intentions he couldn't live up to his own promises. He stayed tired, out of breath and coughing after an attack of bronchitis. His stomach was distended again and his back started hurting. In addition to his busy job his sick mother had been demanding a lot of his time.