Calcium bromatum Case
An eight year old girl comes with a whole series of complaints. The main complaint is chronic bronchial asthma. She has sore eyes and she sneezes a lot, but she does not have much dyspnoea. Leeks, chocolate, strawberries, wool and animal fur all cause allergic reactions.
She also has a lot of headaches, combined with stomach aches. The pain is in her forehead and temples. She gets it every day, it can start at any time, but usually at night. Worse from running fast and reading, better from lying on the stomach, or having a hot water bottle, or lying on the left side with the right leg drawn up.
Her thyroid is also swollen. The specialists think she has Hashimoto. The swelling is variable in size and painful to touch. She has gained a lot of weight.
She gets tired very quickly. She is tall and growing very fast. She sometimes has pain in her right eye, as from a hammer.
Her past history reveals some serious problems. When she was 4 she had an inflammation in the sinuses on the left side, with fever and much pain. The inflammation subsided under treatment with antibiotics, but then she developed a pain in the left side of her chest. This was accompanied by fever which wouldn’t go down. When breathing became difficult she was taken to hospital, where it was discovered that she had an abscess in the lung. She spent 8 weeks in hospital. They even considered taking out her left lung.
After this episode she started wetting the bed at night.
When her mother was pregnant with her, she gained a lot of weight. The mother also had a strong craving for chocolate drinks. After the birth, the mother couldn’t breastfeed her for very long, because of an inflammation in her breasts, together with fissures around the nipples.
When she was 18 months old she had cystitis.
General characteristics:
Temperature: she feels suffocated in foggy weather; likes being outside.
Perspiration: copious on arms; back and head, mostly at night.
Time: < morning
Desires: meat and fish, hot chocolate and hot milk when ill.
Aversion: leeks (2), cabbage, beans.
Sleep: on left side; can’t get to sleep easily, reads in bed.
doesn’t feel refreshed in the morning; somnambulism.
Mind: She has difficulties in finding friends. She gets teased a lot. She is not allowed to join in with their games and this makes her very angry, which she takes out on her mother. She cannot tolerate injustice, or being left behind. She slams the doors and starts crying. She is very sensitive to what others think of her.
As far as learning is concerned, she is doing very well at school, although she can be quite restless during lessons. She has difficulties concentrating on the lessons, especially if she has been quarrelling with other children. She daydreams and messes up her work.
She is like a second mother to her little brother, but sometimes he is too much for her to cope with.
She is rather a tomboy, and climbs trees rather than play girls' games. She still sucks her thumb.
She likes doing things perfectly; she is afraid that her parents and other people will be angry if she does something wrong. She pulls at the skin around her nails.
Analysis
The essence of this case is the sensitivity to what other people will think of her. She thinks she isn’t good enough to play games with the others. This is the cause of all the other problems in behaviour, her restlessness and her aggression. We therefore have a clear Calcarea essence, but the question is: which Calcarea?
What is she afraid that others will notice? It is obvious that she thinks she isn’t good enough. She is afraid of doing something wrong. This indicates a Bromatum, thus leading to the remedy Calcarea bromata. The local complaints and the aggression fit into this picture too. The thyroid swelling, left-sidedness, abscesses and desire for chocolate are all Bromium symptoms.
The pulling of the skin around the nails could be a Bromium trait too. Boericke (1927, page 148) talks about nervous and irritable Calc-br. children. Although this is not very specific it could fit very well.
In fact, I have to admit that the analysis of this case happened a little bit on hindsight. I had a clear Calcarea case, and on the strength of a few local symptoms I selected Calc-br. It wasn’t until it had an excellent reaction that I started to analyse the case more deeply. The feeling of guilt shows itself again in this case and gradually the relation between guilt and Bromium became more clear to me.
Reaction
After Calc-br 1M she had a severe stomach ache for two days. Then she started to improve very rapidly. One month later she felt much better, but the complaints weren’t all gone yet. After a repeat of Calc-br it was a completely different girl who came to see me two months later. She was much better in all aspects of mind and body.