Calcium fluoratum Case
(Taken by Rienk Stuut).
A woman, aged 24, comes with backache. She had a hernia operation when she was 16. In the past 6 months she has had a lot of back pains again, and even had to stay flat on her back in bed for two weeks. The pains keep coming back and she is afraid of another operation. The first time that the pains started was after an operation to remove an exostosis on her right little toe. She has problems with her feet, the arches are too high, and her left foot is two sizes smaller than her right one.
She has had many headaches since she was 12. One of the causes may be that she had many falls off her horse at that time. She used to be rather clumsy, and at the same time quite wild, which is why she fell off her horse so often. She is hungry before the headache. Now she often has headaches after stress, for instance, on the occasion when she was worried whether she would get her diploma, or when she worries if she is well enough to start her new job. Since she started work the headaches have increased. The pains are pulsating, with pressure in the throat and the feeling as if the blood is rushing in her head. Her desire to have everything perfect increases the headache. She also had it during the time her first boyfriend was unfaithful to her. She couldn’t bring herself to end the relationship.
She feels as if her thyroid gland swells up, and she feels very hurried, 'hyper' in her own words.
General characteristics:
Temperature: warm, cold feet.
Desires: spicy, pasta, sweet (2), salt, ice-cream.
Aversion: meat, coffee.
Menses: before the menses increased appetite, stabbing stomach pains,irritability.
Sleep: on her back; talks and walks in her sleep, while she dreams that she is
speaking and dancing with strange people; she also dreams that other
people or her dog will die; she wakes up crying.
Mind: she was always a ringleader, first to try anything. She can be very stubborn.
She also has fear of failure; she had diarrhoea once when she had to take an exam. She generally has difficulty with maths, is afraid that she can’t do it.
Her appearance is very important to her and she always looks great, brightly and fashionably dressed, but always very smart. She complains that her skin is discoloured since she started using the pill, but one can hardly notice it.
She likes going out and dancing.
Childhood: She used to be a noisy and wild little girl. She has a twin brother, but she was the brighter of the two, physically as well as mentally. She used to talk a lot and occasionally had hysterical temper tantrums, until she was blue in the face and gasping for air. She still tends to get angry about trifles. But she now suppresses her anger much more. Her parents tried to constrain her to give her brother a chance. This is partly why she now feels unsure of herself.
Work: She has done a degree in hotel management. She has a job in the sales and marketing department of a large organisation. Since she has started work, she has discovered that she wants to plan everything. She has started planning her whole life for the coming years.
She is very careful with money and wants to save it. She seeks security for the future, in her job as well as in her relationships.
Analysis
The key problem in her case is her anxiety about the future. She worries about getting a good job and a good relationship. Her back- and headaches are linked to this anxiety. Fear and anxiety about these aspects of life is the theme of Calc-f.
To confirm Calcarea we have the symptoms cold feet, desire sweet, back pains, uncertainty. To confirm Fluor we find: warm, desires spices, exostoses, back pains. The theme of Calc-f can also be found in her childhood: she was easy going and extroverted, her parents tried to constrain this and that is why she became unsure of herself.
Reaction
After Calc-f 1M she had an immediate amelioration. The head- and back pains disappeared almost straight away. Once she had a return of symptoms after a wisdom tooth extraction, but a repeat of Calc-f put this right again.