In case study 3 the patient is a 36-year-old woman, born in 1960. She is very thin, with hollow cheeks and large, anxious eyes – a face that reminds me of Edvard Munch's famous painting 'The Scream'. She complains of dizziness and pain.
“I am constantly dizzy, especially when I have nothing to do. When I'm dizzy I have to lie still for about half an hour, I'm so tired. I feel as if I'm on a carousel ride. I don't feel like I'm going to faint, but when I try to look at something closely it seems to move, to tremble. When reading I have to keep starting again because I can't concentrate.
All kinds of tests have already been done to see whether I have epilepsy or a brain tumour, but there's nothing. I also have back pain because of a scoliosis. Physiotherapy and manual therapy do not help the pain. Since the birth of my daughter 13 years ago I have had kidney stones and was operated on for them after the birth. I often have colicky pains in my right kidney that radiate into the groin and into my buttock. I don't have pain when urinating, but I have a lot of pressure on my bladder and then only a small amount of urine passes. I also often have blood in my urine. When I have a renal colic, not even morphine helps.
I have abdominal pain, it is bloated and it rumbles. I have abdominal pain and used to have diarrhoea often, which I don't have anymore. My menstruation is irregular and heavy, with dark blood and clots. The dizziness is worse before my menses and I get headaches, like a pressure across the forehead. I often catch colds, and every cold settles on my chest. I used to have asthma. Both my knees ache all the time and I have pain in my right shoulder that shoots into my arms – I can't sleep on that side at night. In the mornings I am stiff and sore and everything creaks: my neck, my throat, my shoulders and my back. During the day I am exhausted, want to sleep, but sleep does not refresh me.”
“I have terrible nightmares. As a child I repeatedly dreamed of war, I dreamt that I had to flee and would be caught. 'They' were after me, the German soldiers. I see tents and uniforms; I try to hide, but they find me anyway. I am always occupied with the Second World War, not with other wars. I keep dreaming that they are pursuing me. I wish I could simply be in a hospital where someone would look after me; I would feel safe there. I have phobias; for years I hardly left the house because of the anxieties. No one knew about my anxieties. I took part in family gatherings, I then remained very quiet. All the many people in a room made me nervous, although I'm not claustrophobic. I always stayed only a short time and then went home again. I often had the feeling of choking in my throat. I could hardly swallow and my heart raced. I would lie in bed trembling with fear.
I am afraid for my health, I'm afraid that I might have cancer. I worry about everything: my health, my children, that I might lose my mind.”
At this point I decided to stick with the main complaint, the kidney stones. I gave Berberis C200 and waited for four weeks. The patient returned and she had not improved. In fact she had been in hospital with a renal colic and, as she said, “was relieved to be cared for”. This time I decided to consider the totality of the picture instead of the local complaint. The overall picture seemed to resemble my two earlier cases of Hydrocyanicum acidum: the dreams and anxieties, the asthma, the diarrhoea as well as the kidney problems and the cramps in the joints. I gave her Hydrocyanicum acidum C200 and was astonished when I saw her four weeks later. She had gained weight, which she had not been able to do before. The kidney pains had markedly lessened, without other medication. The back pain had also diminished, as had the pains in her joints. Her asthma had briefly returned, but she felt confident she could get through it without medication: “I feel lighter within myself and not so anxious. I sleep better and don't have terrible dreams. Nowadays I feel refreshed when I wake up.”
In the following months the improvement continued as she gained weight and confidence. The dizziness disappeared, except under stress. She said: “If I had not taken this remedy, I would certainly have ended up in a psychiatric hospital, but now I can begin again to live my life.”
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Source: http://www.interhomeopathy.org/case_hydrocyanicum_acidum_3
Photo: Shutterstock_1273303840, Copyright: Kleber Cordeiro
