642.16.07 Anamirta cocculus, Cocculus, Case
Case by Alex Leupen.
Girl, 16, migraine.
She has migraine for 7 years, two attacks a month. Usually, a sudden attack, for instance during a lesson at school. It starts with spots before the eyes. Her left visual field is lost, which is frightening, so she cannot see where she is walking, which is nightmarish. She also has tingling in left arm and hand, sometimes tingling in the lips on the left side.
Then she gets a pounding headache, her right neck and above the right eye. The headache is made worse by light and sound. She is queasy in these attacks and sometimes she vomits. The headache lasts 3 days. During the headache she cannot stand it when her boyfriend is watching her. She needs a cold washcloth on head and neck.
As a child bronchitis with expectoration of mucus. Pseudo-croup. Rubella with high fever.
She is not chilly, she always has warm hands. No reaction to the sun. Sunlight causes some headaches. Sweating under the armpits.
Desire: ice-cream (3); chocolate (3); sweet (3), vegetables (3); eel (3); mackerel (3); pickles (2), vegetables (2), mayonnaise (2), eggs (2).
Aversion: mushrooms (3), cheese (3); certain fish species (3), meat (2); fat meat (2), milk (2), buttermilk (2).
Normal thirst. Cola drinks and tea, sometimes coffee.
Relief: every other day. Constipation with school.
Sleep: on her left side; often talks during sleep, babbles, once about spiders.
Dream: a boy fell into the water, nobody came to his aid, they pulled him from the water.
Often dreams about ghosts.
Her periods last 5 days, with a lot of blood loss. She has back pain and a squeezing pain in the left lower abdomen, sometimes stinging. Sometimes she feels dizzy too.
She is the only child, lives with her parents. She has a steady boyfriend.
According to her mother, she is too good, too kind to others. As a small child she did not hit back if she had been beaten by other children, was afraid of hurting others. For example, on vacation a friend had sprained her ankle, she kept everyone behind to help her.
She would later like to work with small children, she wants to be a carer.
Fear: ghosts; spiders.
Analysis
Her character in combination with the migraine points in the direction of Cocculus. Think of Florence Nightingale, the nurse who wanted to alleviate the suffering of humanity. Typically, the Cocculus patient has classic migraine, or migraine with neurological symptoms.
Follow up
After two doses of Cocculus 200K, the migraine disappeared. She has never had migraines since then, a follow up of 16 years!.