Case:
In this case the non-verbal element expressed by the body movements is very important. The text mainly serves to complement the movements that lead us to the remedy.
Patient (P): “I’ve come because of two problems. I always have pain in my legs, it’s the muscles. My doctor says it’s fibromyalgia. It’s worse at night. I have restless legs — I just can’t stop moving them back and forth, and that disturbs my sleep. I also have menopausal problems.”
JTC: “Tell me something about the menopausal symptoms.”
P: “I have hot flushes and night sweats from time to time — it’s not regular. I also have pain in the lower abdomen and in my back. My osteopath can’t find anything, and my gynaecologist says it’s hormonal. Sometimes I can’t sit still. I also have pain across the right side of my head.”
JTC: “What bothers you most?”
P: “My legs. That’s an old symptom. During the day my thighs ache, and sometimes my feet hurt too. As soon as I lie in bed for about ten minutes at night, I start to toss and turn. I move like this (she moves animatedly, it’s like a dance — first she moves her back, then her shoulders, and finally her legs). I think it’s the nerves in my legs and in my body that keep me awake for hours. The restlessness wakes me at night so I have to get up. I take a shower, and then I have to move. I move my legs, but at night I can’t stand it. In the morning when I get up I’m not rested at all. It also happens during the day, like I have a tic.”
JTC: “You make this gesture (like a crab with its claws), and say: ‘It gets on my nerves.’ Could you explain that a little more precisely?”
P: “It’s as if there is something that wants to grab me. It’s not inside me, I am overtaken by something. I don’t know what it is. It starts in my back and then... I feel it in my legs and arms. In bed it’s unbearable. I have the feeling I’m not myself anymore and it’s so terrible that I fear I might do something stupid when it happens. It’s so strong, I can’t explain this force. I bang my head against the wall. I want it to stop, to leave me alone. It exhausts me physically, and mentally it’s unbearable. Sometimes I think there’s something wrong in my head, something that isn’t functioning properly. My doctor gave me antidepressants, but they didn’t help, so I stopped taking them. He says I should increase the dose, but I don’t want that.”
JTC: “You say: ‘That’s not me!’ — Tell me more about that.”
P: “I can’t control my body; it’s not me doing it, but I don’t know what it is. I don’t know where it comes from. If I could be myself, I could master it, but I can’t. It overwhelms me.”
JTC: “It overwhelms you?”
P: “At night I can’t see it so well because I try to be stronger than this thing and during the day I try not to think about it. During the day it bothers me, but at night I do everything possible. I thrash about, turn and toss around. That’s why I say, ‘That’s not me!’ I don’t have that kind of temperament, that’s not how I normally am; it’s something that comes at night, but I don’t know what it is.”
JTC: “How long has this been going on?”
P: “It’s been a long time, with ups and downs. Since 1995/96 I’ve had sleepless nights. It wakes me up at night. I lost my brother and I thought it would be over with that, but it continued. I already had sleep problems before my brother’s illness, but only occasionally, and I was given medication for it.”
JTC: “So you were dealing with this problem even before your brother’s illness?”
P: “Yes, but it wasn’t as bad as it is now and only from time to time. When it came over me as a child, my mother used to say: ‘See? It’s the moonchange!’ As a child I had trouble falling asleep. There were times when I was very restless or woke up. There always seemed to be a reason — either it was full moon or I had worms...”
JTC: “How have you experienced this condition?”
P: “It’s as if I had scabies (she scratches her arms). It starts at the spine and goes down. It’s everywhere, as if I had something between my skin and the flesh, something that is there, like an alien. I don’t like films like that. And then it spreads everywhere and I have to move (she fidgets on the chair). It’s as if something wants to crawl into me. I don’t know what it is, maybe scabies mites. It’s something that forces me to scratch, it irritates me. It’s as if something says: ‘I’m here, I don’t know why I’m here, but I’m here to torment you.’ It starts in the back, then seizes the head and finally runs through the whole body. I tell myself: ‘I’m not quite normal.’ I have to move, something tingles inside me. The worst is what’s happening in my head — it’s unbearable and I have to bang my head against the wall. It’s as if something wants to take my place, something that wants to take over my ‘I’. The next morning I have injuries all over. It’s dreadful when you can’t control yourself.”
JTC: “What is it like for you when you feel like that?”
P: “It’s as if someone is trying to harm me, but I don’t know who. At first I thought it had to do with my brother, and I felt guilty. Had I failed to do something I should have done for him? Maybe he was waiting for something? I thought I had done all I could, and because it was already there before he became ill, I thought it must have to do with someone else. Eventually I stopped thinking that way — it didn’t seem the right approach. The problem occurs as soon as I relax.”
JTC: “Tell me what happens then.”
P: “I’ll show you with gestures: it’s something that penetrates me, it’s hard to explain. It’s like an electrical tension and it forces me to move (feverish hand gestures). It’s very strong, and when I move like that the tension eases (she makes movements as if kicking a ball). It’s as if I release something, like a channel that was blocked. It doesn’t penetrate me all at once, it takes its time, it comes and goes. I think my body tries to resist this thing, but it keeps finding a new way. ‘If you do this, I’ll do that.’ It looks for an entrance and tries everything imaginable, like an intelligent head.”
JTC: “What does that mean to you? You frown when you talk about it.”
P: “It’s so exhausting and so hard to describe. I can’t get it out. I grit my teeth, I swallow. When there are problems in the family I withdraw, close myself off and grit my teeth. When I wake in the morning my jaw joints ache.”
JTC: “What medical problems have you had in the past?”
P: “Between 1984 and 1995 I had long-lasting depression. I had pushed myself to my limits. For several years I’ve had fibromyalgia. At the age of 12 I saw everything ‘black’, I had a severe depression after a move.”
(She speaks about her childhood and her feelings of inferiority. Her mother was depressed and suffered from anorexia. ‘I was very close to my mother and my little brother.’)
JTC: “You say you have the feeling you have something under the skin?”
P: “It feels like scabies. My son had that.”
JTC: “Do you feel the cold easily?”
P: “I’m often cold. Sometimes I don’t get properly warm, even when it’s 10°C. I can put on piles of clothes and still be cold. The only thing that helps is having a hot water bottle at my back. Sometimes I feel ice-cold inside.”
JTC: “What do you like to eat?”
P: “Sweet things. But there’s actually nothing I don’t like.”
Prescription: Psorinum 200K, with remedy X in mind.
Follow-ups
Second consultation, three weeks later (abridged): She shows a general improvement. The crises now occur only just before falling asleep and wake her during the night, but they are less severe and no longer last so long.
P: “I feel less ‘consumed’ than before. It still bothers me, but it doesn’t get so deep under the skin. I don’t have to fidget my legs so much anymore. I still have tics. My legs burn, it’s like needles in them, like fire in the legs — yet the legs are cold; inside it’s hot, and my skin is cold. I also have pain in the heels. I don’t question everything as much anymore. Before I used to tell myself: ‘I mustn’t let myself be overwhelmed!’ Otherwise I would have had a panic attack.”
JTC: “You speak of a ‘small thing’ that could get into you. Tell me more about that!”
P: “It’s a small thing that tries to get into me — it crawls. It penetrates. It looks like an octopus with many arms and a small head, a head that looks around. It’s a black pest with big claws and it tries to get in. It’s not big, but it has many legs (she makes a movement to show how the legs move). The worst thing is that I help it to get into me, and that I give in to it. When it reaches my head I bang my head against the wall. It’s terrible, I have the feeling I’m going crazy. I could really hurt myself. When it happens like that my tongue swells, it doubles in size and I have the feeling I’m choking. The first time it happened I thought I was having an allergy. It tingles in my mouth. I move my tongue. It feels as if my head could explode, it scares me and I panic. I am afraid of doing something stupid. I am no longer able to control myself.”
JTC: “What would be the worst?”
P: “In my dreams I kill someone when I’m angry.”
JTC: “What else?”
P: “I have the feeling of going into another world that I don’t know at all. I don’t feel insane, but I have a psychotic crisis on the edge of madness. Something in me is not connected. My head boils (she describes circles around the head), it’s like a whirlwind. Sometimes it happens at night when I don’t even consciously experience it, and in the morning everything hurts. It comes quickly and goes quickly. I don’t know whether I should trust your little pellets...”
Third consultation, six weeks later
The crises have recurred. In summary, the following points are significant: yearly periodicity, especially bad in spring (February/March) and autumn (October/November). Periodicity during the day: worse around 22:00 and at night. Improvement when she rocks herself back and forth, by hot showers, by movement. As a child she suffered from pinworm infestation (oxyuris).
Prescription: Sarcoptes scabiei 200K
Fourth consultation, two months later
JTC: “How are you?”
P: “Not bad. There are times when it’s like this (she draws a horizontal line with her hand with some ups and downs at the end). It seems to be going in the right direction. Sometimes I wake at night, but it doesn’t last long and is no longer unbearable. It doesn’t prevent me from sleeping, in that respect I’m satisfied. It’s not so strong anymore. The crises are rarer and no longer last so long, now about 15 minutes, whereas before they lasted up to three hours. It doesn’t happen regularly, sometimes I don’t have it at all. At present I do wake up, but I fall asleep immediately again and don’t get up like I used to. It’s only very short. A positive change is occurring.”
JTC: “How do you experience this change?”
P: “I live from one day to the next. I tell myself more that I must achieve something good. I say: ‘Tonight will be good. I have done something well, we’ll see.’ Before I tried many things that seemed to go well at first and then went very badly later.”
JTC: “You say it passes quickly, it only lasts 15 minutes?”
P: “I mostly go to bed early now. In the evenings I’m tired and can fall asleep easily; that wasn’t the case before. I wake at night. It’s annoying, but it doesn’t last long. I massage myself, scratch myself, fidget and toss about in bed, and then I can fall asleep easily again. It really only lasts a fairly short time. It is still quite intense, but it no longer lasts so long. There is a ‘crescendo’ — it gets worse and before it would then become almost unbearable, but now it’s not so bad. It’s annoying, it wakes me, but it’s much less intense and much shorter. It’s by no means what it used to be. It is still a nightly disturbance, but the next day it no longer affects me in the sense that I would be tired and everything would hurt.”
JTC: “What about the pain in the legs and muscles?”
P: “At the moment everything is fine.”
Follow-up after six years
The sensation is still there, but much less intense and less frequent and the patient does not want to talk about it anymore. I treat her husband, who reports to me about his wife’s situation. He says profound changes have taken place and that she is very optimistic. She sleeps much better and no longer has restless legs problems, so they have returned to sharing a bedroom. The muscle pains have completely disappeared. The only symptom that remained was the hot flushes, which were successfully treated with Sepia. She no longer has depression.
Sarcoptes scabiei is known as the scabies mite; it burrows into the skin of mammals.
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This article was published on www.interhomeopathy.org
Photos: Nude, topless woman, scratching her neck. back view. On black background. - ©shutterstock.com - Piotr Marcinski
scabiei, the mite that causes scabies (seven-year itch) - ©shutterstock.com - molekuul.be
Keywords: Restless legs, fibromyalgia, clenched teeth, under the skin, beaten child
Remedy: Sarcoptes scabiei
