Conium maculatum:
A case of severe chronic photophobia in a six-year-old girl

"Madam, we must regard your child as blind; it is time to enrol her in a special school." It is February 2002 and A.'s mother is listening to Dr C., an ophthalmologist who is diagnosing her child's condition.
A. was born in 1996. It was a difficult delivery – an emergency caesarean after rupture of the membranes during a febrile illness of the mother and an Apgar score of 6/10/10.
A. has a 50% hearing loss, for which she received a hearing aid at fifteen months. From the age of eighteen months photophobia appeared, forcing her to wear dark glasses constantly. After a few years the light sensitivity became so severe that life in daylight became impossible.

At six years old she came to my practice as a completely withdrawn little girl. She constantly covers her eyes with both hands. She feels a burning sensation, her eyes are bloodshot, especially on the left, and they discharge pus in the mornings.

As regards diagnosis, after a complete check-up by our excellent Parisian colleagues several hypotheses were considered. Fundoscopy showed atrophy of the retinal pigment epithelium, particularly on the left. An early Usher syndrome was considered (a genetic disorder that would also explain the hearing loss), but psychological trauma was not excluded, although there are currently no psychotherapeutic indications.
However, none of these approaches promised improvement and the last resort seemed to be enrolling her in the school for the blind in Marseille.

The child's psychological trauma was triggered by the following incident: on a sunny day when A. was 18 months old there was a violent argument between her parents. They were walking on a snow-covered field and A. was being carried by her mother. The child had earlier urinated on a chair in the living room of their holiday flat at a ski resort, and the father accused his wife of neglecting the child's toilet training, while the mother argued that it was still too early. The argument escalated and ended with the father striking his wife violently. They then separated and A. saw her father only rarely. A. was the couple's only child and the father now has a new partner.

Faced with such a difficult case, I consulted the rubric "Photophobia" in the "Eye" section of Kent's Repertory: the main rubric lists 192 remedies, and none of the suggested sub-rubrics aroused my closer interest.

When I realised that I would not find a solution that way, I first examined the hypothesis that the photophobia, given its great intensity and the risk of blindness, might in some circumstances be psychosomatically induced: the child flees from the light. As is sometimes the case, in Kent's Repertory under MIND there is a rubric "Photophobia" containing seven remedies, of which only one is three-valued: Conium maculatum.
Children who need Conium maculatum are dictatorial and pedantic – character traits that fit A. well.

Consequently I prescribed Conium maculatum in ascending potencies; C15, C18, C24, and finally C30, one dose every two weeks. This followed a purge treatment with potencies of the vaccines she had received, which might form an energetic barrier to healing (especially the hepatitis B vaccine, whose side effects have been mentioned several times at ophthalmology conferences).

Follow-up:

A. returned three months later and was markedly improved. We could finally see her beautiful eyes, for she no longer hid them. Her behaviour had improved. Remarkably, the hearing loss had fallen to 30% without a hearing aid, and with a hearing aid she now hears normally!
In the meantime she had been treated for aphthae, which were cured with Baptisia tinctoria C7, three globules three times daily for two days; this remedy fits separation anxiety and is a great help when families break up.

We continued treatment with Conium maculatum C200, single dose. After another month 1M (1); a month later 10M, each as a single dose.

Two months later she presented with persistent sore throats. Her father has a new partner and does not want to sleep in the same room as her when she visits. Lachesis C15 as a single dose was prescribed; Lachesis is the principal remedy in the Oedipus complex and its characteristic jealousy.
Six months later the eyes had worsened slightly, but not so much that she would need the dark glasses again. I prescribed Conium maculatum 5M, one dose and two months later 10M, one dose.
A wart had developed on the sole of the foot.
Three months later the wart had disappeared, the eyes were no longer a problem, and her hearing had continued to improve; she no longer needed to wear her hearing aid at school, where she was progressing very well for her age. She does not like washing and appears somewhat untidy. I prescribed one dose of Sulphur C9.
Nine months later she was doing excellently: she had no more visual problems and looked well. She no longer used a hearing aid and said she did not need it. But now she had molluscum contagiosum on her abdomen.
Prescription: Psorinum C30 and two weeks later Conium maculatum C30.
Four years later she is a healthy teenager.

Comment:
This case once again demonstrates how indispensable homeopathic therapy is. It has effective solutions at hand when allopathy no longer knows what to do. The constant rejection of this non-violent and economical therapy by conventional medicine seems increasingly irrational at a time when electronic communication systems and nanotechnologies are making such great advances.

In our case A. shuts herself off from the means that allow access to knowledge: first through her deafness, secondly through her blindness. This tragedy develops at eighteen months, an important phase in psychological development, when the influence of the father must enable the child to leave the oral phase and the symbiotic relationship with the mother; the father is the representative of society.
Thanks to the limits and prohibitions imposed by the father, the child moves from the oral to the anal phase and acquires social rules. In this case we can observe that the father argues for toilet training, but is rebuffed by the mother, who prefers to prolong the oral phase a little so that the child remains in her boundless symbiotic love. Consequently the father reacts so violently that the marriage fails and his daughter suffers a psychological trauma, associating the glare of sunlight on the snow with her father's violence: light is dangerous; therefore she seeks refuge in darkness. Apart from the light, it is access to knowledge that is thereby impaired.

Dr C.'s suggestion to place the girl in a boarding school and thereby separate her from her mother is the trigger that prompted them to seek homeopathic treatment.

Conium maculatum enables, in its capacity as a homeopathic remedy for humanity, a rediscovery of the path to knowledge by moving energies from the lower to the higher chakras (as the Tibetans call them).

References

GRANDGEORGE, D., L'esprit du Remède homéopathique, Edicomm Ed., Juan-les-Pins, 2003.
English translation: The Spirit of Homeopathic Medicines, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, 1998.
German: Der Geist der homöopathischen Medizin

KENT, J.T., Repertorium der homöopathischen Materia medica, Sett Dey Ed. Calcutta, 1974.

Plato, Phaedo, 118a

Category: Cases
Keywords: severe photophobia, hearing loss, psychological trauma
Remedies: Conium maculatum