Ammonium muriaticum Case
A woman of 30 comes because of 'cafe au lait' marks on her chest. Her skin is sensitive to the sun and burns easily. She sometimes has a pain in her right ear when she lies on it in her sleep.
Past history: Before the age of 8 she had a lot of lung problems, including pneumonia, for which she was treated with penicillin many times. She used to have a high fever with delirium, seeing balloons in the sky. She was not frightened by this, quite the opposite. She liked it because it gave her a feeling of oneness with her mother. Later on her tonsils were removed and the complaints went away.
She often suffered from tonsillitis.
The pains in her throat were sharp, worse when swallowing and worse just at the back of her mouth and the beginning of her throat. Her tongue used to be patchy red and white. The attacks came and went suddenly. She used to feel cold and she sweated a lot, but she did not have a fever. She felt as if a line was going from one ear to the other.
She also had an inflammation of the uterus twice. This started with a vague pain in her lower abdomen, followed one day later by a flow of blood. She ended up with peritonitis, for which she had to spend ten days in hospital. She was completely 'absent' at the time, feeling it was all happening outside herself.
She is usually very active, but can become tired quite suddenly.
General characteristics:
Physique: tall and thin; blonde.
Temperature: cold, with cold fingertips; during puberty she disliked the sun because she missed a sense of being protected and enclosed.
she likes fresh air, seaside and mountains.
Perspiration: minimal.
Time: < winter
Desires: coffee(2), chocolate(3), fish (2), sweet, salt, cabbage.
Aversion: meat, sour (2), milk; coffee makes her restless.
Menses: copious; before the menses she feels bloated, has swollen breasts and feels irritable and emotional.
Sleep: on the left side.
Mind: She is a very closed person, and doesn’t express her irritation easily either. She has the attitude of wait and see. She talks slowly and thoughtfully.
She is quick thinking and can perceive situations fast and accurately. She has an analytical mind and has to take care not to get lost in details.
She is very critical. When she walks through the town she is always silently criticising everything: 'This isn’t right, that should be changed' etc.
She is frightened of narrow spaces, in planes and in lifts.
Dreams: she dreams about big buildings or tunnels from which she is trying to escape. She also dreams about the sea, where the waves get bigger and bigger and threaten to drown her.
Relationships: Up until 2 years ago she had many boyfriends, but nothing serious. It was all rather superficial and childish.
Work: She has a nice job as a graphic designer.
Analysis
Once you know the theme of Am-m, it is not difficult to recognise it in this case. She lived in an ideal world with her mother until she was 8. She is very resentful towards her mother, very critical and reserved.
The success of Am-m in this case has taught me a lot about the remedy.
This is how I came to prescribe it: I recognised the bitterness and the resentment from my previous experience of Am-c. But Am-c did not fit this case very well, because we don’t see the fight with the world and the hardness. Instead we see an attitude of 'poor me', which belongs to the Muriaticums. And so I was led to the combination Am-m.
Reaction
At first she received carc 1M, which gave no reaction. After the first dose of Am-m 1M she felt better in general. The menses were better too. In the beginning she had a reaction in the form of sore throat and swollen glands in her neck. Three weeks later she had this again: it suddenly started within an hour. She felt very suffocated on two occasions, just as she used to in the past. But she felt stronger inside, more able to relax and let it happen, instead of resisting it.
Because of her throat complaints I repeated the Am-m after one month. To this she reacted by vomiting bile the whole night. That was a turning point for her; she decided 'I don’t want this anymore'. She felt as if she had to force some things out of her body and mind. After that she felt weak for quite a while, but at the same time she knew that it was the beginning of her recovery.
She subsequently developed bronchitis, with a violent, dry cough. It was very deep seated, but she was confident that it would clear up sooner or later, something which she had never felt in the past. Finally her complaints started to clear. The brown spots had disappeared completely after 3 months.
There were also some very deep mental changes. Her critical and cynical attitude made way for feelings of softness. She became more gentle to herself and to others. She also started to have more trust in her body, even expressing this verbally at one time.
After a few months she started to receive comments from other people that she had become so much softer and kinder.