Vanadium Case
A 30 year old woman is suffering from bulimia. When she has one of her eating moods, she eats anything she can lay her hands on. Afterwards she will cry and feel very guilty. Sometimes she feels sick and has stomach aches afterwards. When she eats very little for a long time she starts to feel very nice and clean, but restless at the same time. She has to walk a lot and she wakes up very early. When she has had a binge she becomes quiet, but sad. She will cry at anything. Sometimes she is afraid that her internal organs will burst because of all this excessive food, or that her heart will give up.
Her body retains too much fluid and her face feels bloated after she has taken sugar.
Lumbar back pains, > making the back hollow, warmth, < sitting, at the end of the day, walking. The pain in her back is a nagging pain, radiating to the back and the sides of her thighs, and down to the big and the second toe. Her right hip is lower than her left one and it creaks. She has a swelling above the trochanter. Her big toe is turned inwards. It feels as if the muscles in the back of her thigh are too short.
She also has a pain,as from an ulcer, in her right shoulder, radiating to her right arm.
The joints of her hands often feel lame.
Losing a lot of hair. Pressure in her right ear. Burning of the right cheek.
Pressure in the right eye. Sometimes the pupil is either dilated or contracted. The right eyelid droops a little.
Pain in the throat on the right side, often during flu or colds. She coughs up green or yellow bits of mucus.
Pain in the right lower abdomen. Pain in the right ovary.
Abdominal cramps during menses.
Family history: her father has a hardening of the aorta, her grandmother died of cancer of the liver.
General characteristics:
Temperature: cold, fingers numb and painful,< cold.
Desires: sweet, chocolate, liquorice (3), bread, cheese.
Aversion: hot food.
Menses: little or none at all. She retains a lot of fluid.
Sleep: wakes up at 7 am
Mind: Her father was very authoritarian. He was strict and spoke loudly and sternly. She is still afraid of him and doesn’t dare to resist him or argue with him. Her father always has to have the last word. If she happens to have a different opinion, she doesn’t dare to stick to it. Her father used to be afraid that she would be smarter than him. He denied all her successes, for instance, he did not say a word when she had passed her driving test. A few years ago she bought her own flat; her parents urged her to do this, although she did not want to. She feels the flat to be a symbol of not daring to take risks.
She feels small and stupid. Her brother also had some power over her. Not long ago she had a dream in which her brother tortured her: he called her names and stabbed her with her knife. She often has dreams of tortuous situations whereby, for instance, she just doesn’t catch the bus, or just doesn’t get to the telephone on time.
She considers the sudden eating sessions to be a compensation for her need of warmth and support. She wants to cuddle up close to someone and dislikes being alone.
She often feels depressed and tired, particularly around the time of ovulation.
She hates it if she doesn’t succeed in doing something. She finds it difficult to make decisions, and once she has taken them she keeps doubting them.
She resists being a woman, she would rather remain a child. It is as if her left and her right side are fighting against each other. Her face also feels distorted and has nervous twitching.
Relationship: she doesn’t have a boyfriend. Her first boyfriend said she had to choose between him or her parents, and she couldn’t do this. When he broke off the relationship after 18 months she was very upset. She often silently cycled past his house during the next 6 months.
Work: she is a physiotherapist, but is not really enjoying this.
Analysis
There are several remedies that come to mind: Bar-c, puls, mang, but none of these really fit. In such a case, when it is difficult to find a clear picture, it sometimes helps to approach it as follows: ’an unusual disease calls for an unusual remedy’.
From the mineral therapy vanadium was known for the treatment of anorexia. Added to this, we have the compulsory aspect of the Ferrum group, hence the choice of Vanadium for this woman.
Reaction
After taking Vanadium 1 M she felt as if she was involved in a tremendous struggle. But now she has started to stand up for herself. Her guilty feeling towards her father has disappeared and she feels more free to show who she really is. She wants to start travelling.
She had a dream in which she had to choose between an older and a younger man. She chose the young one, although she previously would have gone for the older man, in her need for protection and wanting to be the little girl.
The eating spells diminished after two weeks. One month later she got a vaginal itch. She used to have this when she was 15 and she had her first boyfriend. Her elbows started to feel rough and covered with hard skin. She also got severe pains during ovulation, similar to 5 years ago. Her menses are heavy for the first time in her life. She also had some pains in her knees and her index finger.
Four months later she had a slight relapse. She started eating again and felt anxious and insecure. This relapse happened after a psychotherapy session with the whole family. But in spite of the old feeling of ‘how am I going to manage this?‘, she also very clearly felt an inner conviction of: ‘I will be able to overcome all this, I am nearly there’.
A repeat of Vanadium brought a lasting improvement.