A woman of 43 comes with skin complaints. She has a rash on her legs, hips and buttocks, sometimes also on the side of her neck. The rash is on both the right and on the left side. It consists of some kind of 'cloud-like' patches under the skin which burn and itch. She has to scratch, but that aggravates the burning. She is allergic to feathers (2), house dust and mites.
She also has problems concentrating: she has the feeling that she does everything unconsciously. Everything feels vague, as if she has cotton wool in her head. Her vision is also hazy sometimes. It gets better by blinking her eyes or opening them very wide.
She often has pains in her feet: they are stitching pains, especially in the left metatarsal bones. It is caused by walking or dancing a lot, and is worse when it is raining (2), and when she bends her toes.
Sometimes she feels suffocated, with a slight wheezing sound. This is worse on laughing, and better on being quiet.
She has been tired and listless for 4 years and feels this mostly in her chest and stomach. She feels that a burden lies on her shoulders. Everything is too much for her, especially visitors and holidays.
She has bad breath in the morning.
Her heart jumps sometimes, and her breathing stops momentarily when she gets afraid.
Her nails are pitted and split easily.
She starts to tremble if she does not eat at 11 am.
Dry and chafing eyes.
Dry, raw throat, < talking and swallowing.
Past history: When she was 8 years old she had severe pneumonia, after she had been exposed to cold. After that she often had bronchitis with tight feelings in her chest,until she was 16. The attacks lasted for a few days. She was < lying on her back, sitting half upright and leaning on her arms, > sea (2).
Twelve years ago her gall bladder was removed and at the same time they took her appendix out as well. She used to have gallstones and had attacks of terrible pain in the stomach area. After the third attack she was taken to hospital, screaming with pain.
Four years ago she nearly drowned after an accident.
General characteristics:
Physique: thin, tall, blonde.
Temperature: < heat, < before rain (2), aversion to draught and thunderstorms.
Perspiration: regularly copious perspiration at night on chest and back.
Time: < morning
Desires: meat, steak (2), sweet, sour, bread.
Aversion: milk, cabbage.
Menses: good.
Sleep: difficulty getting up in the morning. She sleeps on her side.
Marriage: her relationship is giving her problems. She married 15 years ago and has 2 children from that marriage. 11 years ago she got divorced. He was not a bad husband, but she did not have the contact that she wanted. He was rather distant, and she missed the warmth and attention; she wanted to enjoy doing things together. She often used to put him off too, in the way of: 'Don't touch me'. She did not get married because she was in love, but because she wanted to have someone. The sexual part of the marriage was merely a 'must'. She very quickly started another relationship. She thought and hoped that she had found someone this time who was ideally suited to her. But he is very closed too and he has hardly any contact with the children. She wanted to get married, but he has been putting it off for years. During the last few years his excuse has been that he wanted to get his PhD first. And when he himself finally brings up the subject, she says: 'Why now suddenly?' What she would really like is that he would beg her on his knees to marry him. She is afraid that he will reject her if she does not marry him. She is afraid to quarrel about it.
She often has the feeling that he is unfaithful. That feeling increases when he is happy in the company of other women. This makes her very jealous. She even dreams of a woman he once danced with.
Mind: sometimes she has attacks of panic in the morning, with the feeling that her whole body will explode. This is accompanied by pressure in the chest and heart region. Urination and stool ameliorate these complaints.
She sometimes feels more anger than sadness and feels like screaming at the top of her voice. The anger is less threatening than the fear.
On the whole she is quite anxious. She is afraid of disease, heart disease, cancer, accidents, horror stories. She is also anxious about her parents and dreams, for instance, that her father will drown.
Work: she has a job in an office for 16 hours per week and enjoys that.
Childhood: Her mother was also an anxious type of person, but she used always to dominate her father. The parents were not too strict, but she did have to do as she was told. Her mother was often ill. She has a brother, seven years older, and she used to quarrel a lot with him. As a child she suffered from homesickness and was very shy.
Analysis
In this case the key problem is the relationship. In all the consultations this was the theme that always came up. Deep inside she was continually making or breaking the relationship. Would he want to marry her or not, and would she want that or not? Connected to this problem is her anger. She did not dare to express her anger in case he would leave her. From her story it is also clear that her attacks of fear are related to her suppressed anger.
This theme is the essence of Mag-s: if I get angry, my partner will leave me. This theme can only be found by a group analysis. An ordinary analysis does not give a satisfactory result in this case, and you might not find Mag-s. Once Mag-s. has come to your mind in this case, everything falls into place. You find elements of Sulph: < heat, burning eyes, hungry at 11 h. And elements of Mag: < morning, aversion to aggression, desire for meat. The gall bladder problems are typical of the combination Mag-s.
This case helped me a lot with the development of group analysis. My understanding of the relation between Sulphur and a partner grew after I had studied this case.
Reaction
After Mag-s 1 M she quickly started to feel better, happier and more enthusiastic. The problems with her friend were solved. Magnesium carbonicum 1 M subsequently helped her for more than 6 months. Her fears became less and her energy was better. Her other problems however, did not improve. I had to repeat Magnesium carbonicum increasingly often and after those 6 months Magnesium carbonicum did no longer do anything. She was then back at her old level.