Case 4.6
Jan Scholten
A man of 52 years old comes with complaints of palpitations. His hearth beats irregularly and sometimes very fast with a rhythm of 180 beats a minute. The complaints are worse in the evening around 7 till 8 pm when he comes to rest and in the night around 3 and 4 a.m. when he wakes from the palpitations. It’s also worse from lying on his left side. These complaints started some 15 years ago and are becoming gradually more problematic. His cardiologist prescribes him Tambocor, Sotacor, Ritmoferine and Digoxine. The conduction is going to fast he says. He proposes an operation to cut the heart in strips and then nit them together again.
His blood sugar has a slightly too high level.
His past history shows an appendectomy 23 years ago and an accident 15 years ago when he fractured his right calcaneus from a fall from 6 meters high. The remainders from this accident are fixed toes and sore pains in his foot, worse from long standing and walking, better raising his foot.
When asked about his inner agitation he tells about his business. He started as a mechanical engineer. He invented a special machine and got a patent for it. With that he started a business that grew gradually and now he has 50 employees. So he’s very successful in business, but he feels more like a technician than a manager. One of his managers is cheating him, charging his company with false bills. He cannot understand that and it gives him much sorrow.
When I ask deeper about how much this affects him he comes with his other problem which affects him much more. His wife isn’t open with him, doesn’t tell him about her past and what has really happened. She has been married before and has two children from that marriage. She told him that she has divorced because her husband was an alcoholic and beat her. She is from Finland and when they are visiting that country and her family, they are telling all kinds of other stories, that she many man and even doesn't know who are the fathers of her two first children; that she has been forced sexually and there are stories of incest. But when he asks her about those stories she says that it’s not his concern, stops talking about it, starts weeping and goes to bed. This worries him a lot. It’s not that he cannot handle it if such would have happened, but that she doesn't want to talk about it. He says “ When she would say it, it would all be over” and “ as husband and wife one should open each others heart for each other, otherwise one isn’t complementing each other”. He has the feeling that the relationship misses trust due to the misleading stories of his wife. He feels cheated, being made a fool. Deep in his heart this gives pain and grief.
In other aspects their marriage is good, his wife is caring well for the four children and sexually it’s going well.
Weather: he doesn’t like it when it’s very hot.
Time: < 7-8 pm, < 3-4 am.
Desires: sweet, chocolate, vegetables, raw food.
Aversion and aggravation from shrimps (2), muscles (3), oysters (2), lobster (2). He starts vomiting from them.
He dreams about technical problems and finds solutions for them in his dreams.
He wakes around 3 am with worries about his wife.
In his youth he has been harassed by his peers with words like “dirty German”, because his mother was German. But she came from the Baltic countries and had suffered herself much in Russian concentration camps. From these experiences he developed an attitude of proving himself: “I’ll show them what I’m able to do”. This attitude led him to start his own business.
His expression is serious and worried. He has a bit a sloppy outlook and keeps his coat on during the consultation.
Analysis
The main physical complaints the palpitation. The main psychological complaint is that his wife is closed. These go together. The heart is symbol for love. He expresses it himself with “deep in my heart this gives pain and grief”. In the mineral kingdom this leads to the sulphuricums, which fits with his outlook and being an inventor. But there isn’t a sulphuricum that fits well with his love problem. I thought about nat-s, because of the taciturnity and being closed of his wife. But with nat-s one would expect him to give up and retire himself.
Repertorisation doesn’t lead to a clear remedy. And I had nowhere read in the homeopathic literature about such a problem as he had with his wife. So for me this was a case where I applied the rule “in an unknown case, prescribe an unknown remedy”. I knew the plant family of the roses, the Rosaceae, to have much love problems. The rose is a symbol big for love in our culture. And as a consequence they have many heart problems as is known for Crataegus, Laurocerasus, Prunus spinosa and others.
But which remedie to give? Sometimes differentiation is possible with fruits desires and aversion. But he had no special relations to the many fruits out of the rose family: peach, prune, apple, pear, strawberry or blackberry. So these remedies didn’t fit well. So I choose first Spiraea ulmaria which didn’t do anything and then Sorbus domestica.
Reaction
The first prescription Spiraea ulmaria didn’t have any real effect.
One month after Sorbus domestica MK he feels better, his palpitations are less frequent and less violent. He fells less stress and is able to tolerate the pressure of his work, without feeling hurried. Three months later and after three repetitions of the Sorbus domestica he feels much better. The palpitations are more than 50% less. The relation with his wife is better. His wife is still as closed as before, but he is able to let it be instead of worrying about it. Sometimes the worries come back in his dreams. One night he had palpitations after a dream that his wife betrayed with another man.
In general he’s less busy with the past and so he’s less agitated. He sleeps much better, doesn’t wake at 3 am so often anymore.