655.26.13 Dirca palustris, Case
Girl, 12, headache.
She is frequently sick. She has a headache in her forehead and temples. It feels heavy, as if something is sinking downward. It is often a pricking, pulsating pain, going upward, better from lying, a warm bath and music, worse from reading and coughing. She often has a throat pain with the headache, a feeling as if her throat is swollen, with coughing up of mucus. This is better from having cold hands and a warm body.
She feels weary and dull, especially in the morning on waking.
She has abdominal pain and a heaviness in her stomach with an aversion to eating and drinking. Sometimes she can even vomit with it, feeling hot and then sweating a lot. The next day she has a headache and has to stay at home.
She often has a pricking pain in her throat, worse from eating, drinking and swallowing. It hinders her breathing. The glands in her cervical region are swollen with it.
She had herpes zoster left of her umbilicus and on her right temple.
She does not like school very much, especially mathematics and analytical reading. She has a teacher who cannot rule. She lacks self confidence at school. When she has a poor result in examinations she starts thinking that she cannot manage. She worries about her secondary school, that she will not be admitted to higher forms in school and that she can only do easy schooling. She would prefer to have some more difficult studies so that she will keep open the chance going to university.
Dream: a pig wanted to eat her and her younger brother; she could run away just in time, feeling his claws in her arm.
Dream: “a voice shouts, giving me assignments; I pull a blanket over me and think that I have to do what the voice says; I have to do something with the thick blanket; I see everything from far away, I feel that I am walking fast”. This dream often transfers to a similar situation in reality; in the night she feels as if she runs very fast to the toilet, whereas in reality she is walking very slowly; she has the idea that she is making a lot of noise. The idea of a voice and the dark blanket disappear when she has the lights on and starts reading. But half an hour later it can come up again. It does not help to neignoreglect the voice.
She has some problems with her parents, especially her father. He gives her tasks that she does not like, like cleaning her room. She does them then as fast as possible to be over with them. Because when she does not do it her father will start preaching to her. She cannot say no to her father, it feels useless to say that she knows all that already. Resisting her teacher is much easier and for sure with girl friends.
She likes animals very much, especially horses; she likes to ride horses and does it frequently. She would like to work with animals later, as a vet.
Analysis
The herpes zoster combined with loyalty problem towards her father direct us to the Euphorbiacaea and Thymelaeaceae. Her desire to keep possibilities open for university point more to Thymelaeaceae, as that is a Silver series aspect.
Her attitude is that of wanting to resist but not being able to do that all the time. With her father she just withdraws. This is stage 13.
Together that leads to Dirca palustris.
Follow up
One month after Dirca palustris MK the complaints have diminished for the most part. After some more repetitions of the remedy she is doing fine. Two years later she still feels okay, the complaints have not returned.