The 57-year-old patient was born in 1957. Chief complaint: hypersensitivity to noise, from which she has suffered for 17 years.
History
The patient was treated by me for the first time in 1989. At that time she came because of a proctitis, from which she had suffered for 10 years and which had been treated by conventional medicine with sulfasalazine and prednisone. She responded very well to Natrium muriaticum MK; I will not go into the details of the prescription here. Two years later she became very noise-sensitive; at that time we did not attach much importance to it.
There is rheumatoid arthritis and tuberculosis in the family history.
Twelve years later (2002) she returned and reported that she was very depressed, very irritable and angry, at times even panicky. “I’m losing it; I’m out of control, the noise from the cars is driving me mad. It’s like a compulsion. My head actually gets hot from all the traffic noise.” (She lives in the countryside, in a small village. I would describe it as a quiet environment.) She is angry at people: “I want them to change, I want to teach them how to behave.”
“I can feel the noise invading my territory, my house. I wish I had been born 50 years earlier.”
I gave her Natrium muriaticum, without much success, and later Ammonium muriaticum MK because she harboured a long-standing resentment towards her mother.
In July 2002 she told me that she had moved into a new house with her husband and felt much better, only her joints and back still hurt. (She believed the old house had been the cause of her problems.) A rheumatologist diagnosed Bechterew’s disease (ankylosing spondylitis).
After a dose of Tuberculinum MK the joint pains decreased markedly and the patient told me that she had felt much better since the move.
At the end of 2002 she was doing fairly well; occasionally she still had slight joint pains, which however responded well to Bambus MK (whose positive effect in Bechterew’s disease I was aware of). I did not see the patient again for two and a half years after that.
At the beginning of 2006 she returned to my practice because of noise sensitivity and irritability. She is depressed and is receiving psychological treatment for this. She is very nervous and reports that the noise is unbearable for her 
.
“The noise of the cars, even when they are far away, penetrates my body like a wave. I struggle against something I imagine. I am in a terrible state. I think I’m going mad.”
She is almost suicidal but does not want to take an antidepressant because she has had bad experiences with them. “I am impatient, but I try to behave as normally as possible. I react very irritably to my work colleagues in the cheese factory (they make fresh sheep’s cheese there).”
She cannot find the cause of her complaints and finds it strange that she is not at all disturbed by noise within her own four walls. She struggles with the world and feels she must fight against it.
I ask her about her childhood and she says that she was never held. Her mother had been very strict and unloving. She was the oldest at home and had to help a lot with the household. Complaints were not tolerated. “I don’t want to be emotional, sometimes I cry, but I don’t feel any better afterwards.”
Through psychotherapy she has learned not to blame others, but she still feels that the world is against her.
While telling her story she makes many flowing movements with her hands. Again and again she says that she feels threatened by the noise. A noise could come from any corner; she is “constantly tense”. “Outside my own four walls I am not a whole person.” She experiences the noise as a personal attack on herself. She reacts neutrally to music.
Analysis:
The language of the patient during the last anamnesis interview made me think of a remedy from the animal kingdom: “territory; invasion, okay in the house, but outside she feels attacked; noise as a threat that penetrates the body.” (She had described it that way earlier, but at the time I had not given it any importance).
The remedy in which we see this extreme noise sensitivity is Theridion curassavicum (orange spider or fire spider), which was given as MK.
Follow up:
One month later a marked improvement was evident. The patient feels much calmer, not so stressed, she is no longer so angry and no longer reacts so irritably. The noise sensitivity has almost disappeared. “I can also sometimes give in, I have become gentler, can sometimes forgive and don’t always feel attacked.”
Her first period after the remedy was heavier than normal, but caused her no complaints. She looks more relaxed and no longer so snappy.
Interestingly she used the word “territory” for the first time during her initial consultation in 1989; I had even noted it down.
Three months after the remedy:
The patient is still well. The observation period is relatively short, but the patient’s response to the remedy was so excellent that I would like to present the case here.
Theridion is the most noise- and vibration-sensitive of all the spider remedies. The noise “penetrates into the body”, as this patient also described. You can even feel it in the teeth.
Literature
Sankaran writes: Theridion is a remedy from the spider group. It is closely related to Tarantula and also belongs to the tubercular miasm. Like other remedies from the spider group it shares an extremely sensitive nervous system and prominent features such as hyperactivity, sexuality, colours, music, dancing and a high energy level.
Other characteristics are: fear of being caught, being trapped and being killed. Haste, hurry and hectic activities also belong to the remedy picture, which fits the understanding of the tubercular miasm. Indeed, Tarantula and Theridion often resemble Tuberculinum children because of this restlessness. This aspect is confirmed by Phatak, who writes in his Materia Medica about the tubercular diathesis of Theridion.
Theridion people are always active, have a lot to do, but often remain unsuccessful in their activities. In Theridion women the need for a partner seems particularly pronounced. She needs a partner because otherwise she must face the dangers of the outside world, which is too threatening for her. Therefore she must remain attractive and put on a lot of bustle to find and keep a man. Music, dance and colours are part of the attractiveness, while fear and impulsive violence belong to the threat. Besides the strong need for a partner there is another peculiar symptom in Theridion: her identity seems to completely “merge” with that of her partner, i.e. she thinks and sees exactly like him, she sees the world entirely through her partner’s eyes and mind. If she is left by her partner she feels a great emptiness and needs a long time to feel herself again. Theridion has the delusion that her head belongs to someone else.
In some Theridion patients I have observed a fear of other people, especially when they are alone. They feel threatened by people approaching them and feel the impulse to strike or kill. They must hold themselves back from giving in to this impulse.
I have also observed these aspects in Tarantula and they seem to be common features of this remedy group. In Theridion I have seen a great aggravation from noise, startlement from noise and nausea from noise. They have a strong craving for bananas and oranges. The physical Theridion symptom that I can confirm from my practice is the cough: “coughing, violent, head jerking forward and knees up” and “coughing, body twitching”.
Rubrics: Busy – fruitless, unproductive * Confusion – mental, identity, duality, feeling as if the head were separated from the mind * Delusions – double; he is * Delusions – head – belongs; would to another * Delusions – head – detached; head separated from trunk * Fear – noises, from * Loquacity; busy * Loquacity – excited * Restlessness – busy * Sensitive – noises, to – slightest noise; to * Sensitive – noises, to – shrill tones * Sensitive – bell ringing, to; to bells ringing; to singing * Startled, flinching – noises; by * Nausea – noises, by.
Theridion is a remedy for noise- and sound-sensitive babies who were delivered with the help of a vacuum extraction (ventouse).
There is a lot of literature on Theridion – it is worth consulting all the old authors as well as Massimo Mangialavori and Jonathan Hardy.
R.G. Peters
Sneek 2006
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Category: Cases
Keywords: Theridion, noise sensitivity, sounds
Source: http://www.interhomeopathy.org/theridion_in_a_oversensitivity_to_noise_case
