Calcium phosphoricum Case
A woman, aged 35, has mental problems. She has the feeling that she can’t do things the way she wants to. She feels that she has to cope with everything on her own. It is really all too much for her. She feels there is no time left for herself, and she is not satisfied with that. She has to be there constantly as a mother for her two children, as a wife, as a friend, as a teacher. She wants to do a lot of things besides that. She does do a lot of courses and therapies as well as her housework and her job. She doesn’t want to play the victim. As a child she learned to take on lots of work: 'no complaining, there are jobs to be done'. She often had to help in her parents’ bakery and on her afternoon off school she had to do the delivery round. Now she is searching for further self development. Of all the children she is the only one who went her own way and she is very involved in all sorts of alternative therapies and ways of thinking.
She is an open type of person who talks readily and shows her feelings easily. She is very spontaneous and often acts before she has thought about it properly. As a child she was very playful and happy. She would rather climb trees with the boys than play with dolls. When she was 12 this spontaneous playfulness changed. It happened during a parents' meeting at school, when she was handed her final school report. The head teacher told her parents that she was not very good at studying and he advised them to send her to an easy secondary school. This shocked her terribly. She decided to go to a grammar school after all and she worked incredibly hard to show everyone that she was capable of studying. This turned her into a serious girl.
She cannot make choices.
Dreams: she dreamt that her arms were changed around, but her left index finger kept on pulsating, it wouldn’t heal. Somebody said 'You used to have such brave little hands, why do they have to be changed?'.
In another dream she was getting out of a car with a child in her arms, when a big tiger suddenly came towards her.
Complaints: She often has a low backache, at the level of her sacro-iliac joints. This complaint started after her pregnancies. The pain is nagging, the spot is hot and red. The pain is worse before menses, > pressure of her hands, < lying on her back. The above mentioned mental problems also play a role here. When she wants to do too much and keep on top of everything, the pains are worse. When she lets things be she feels better.
Since her pregnancies she has difficulty passing stools. She also started to suffer from piles, with pain and itching. Because of the tensions she grinds her teeth.
Past history: She often used to have bronchitis and she had pneumonia once. She also regularly had colds with sore throat and ear ache. These complaints stopped since her pregnancies.
Itching palms of the hand.
When she was 16 she got arch supports for her shoes, because of pain in her feet.
General
Temperature: cold feet. < draught, wind, damp, humid weather.
-> fresh air, open spaces: this makes her feel good.
Time: > evening, when she can do things for herself.
Desires: sweet, spicy, cheese, fruit, raw vegetables.
Aversion: cauliflower, snails.
Menses: late.
Sleep: good, but less sound if she has to work very hard.
Analysis
The dissatisfaction and the boyishness already make us think of Calcium phosphoricum. The back pains also fit in this picture: 'back pain, sacro-iliac' and 'back pain sacral, lying on back ameliorates'. Other symptoms that fit are: < draught, < wind, desires sweet and spicy food, and the many bronchial complaints.
But even more striking is the incident at the age of 12 that made her lose her spontaneity. She was told, in the presence of a large group of people, that she had learning difficulties. And this is the central theme of Calcium phosphoricum.
The dream about her hands is also important. Hands are to do with writing, language and doing arithmetic. You can use them to manipulate things, knowledge for instance.
Her little hands, once so brave, had to be changed around. So she was obviously not good enough, could not use her hands properly. This fits the situation in which she was told that she was not a good student.
Reaction
After Calcium phosphoricum there was a marked improvement, more than 80%. She felt much better and calmer, she even got back her old playfulness. The backache disappeared too. After a while she needed Graph. as a complementary remedy for her feelings of uncertainty.