666.44.05 Eupatorium perfoliatum, Case
Woman, 25, infertility.
After her first child she had two miscarriages with a lot of bleeding. Tests in the hospital came to the conclusion that she has a congenital problem with one of the coagulation factors. Her infertility was diagnosed as PCOS, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. She has infrequent menses, every 6 to 8 weeks.
A second problem is that her resistance is lowered, she feels vulnerable. The last year she has been ill often, especially in the winter from the cold. She has had sinusitis, maxillary and frontal, with pain better with rest and worse from pressure and stress. It ameliorated with rinsing with salt water. She had frequent throat infections, with pain in her throat worse from swallowing. With those complaints she was really ill, stayed in bed for 4 days, slept the whole day and had fever of 39 degrees Celsius. With the infections she had a backache and she could not lie on her back.
A third complaint is backache, which mostly starts suddenly with some motion. She cannot do anything anymore and has to stay in bed for a day. It is a neurological pain, starting at lumbar vertebra 5 and extending to both legs. The pain is worse from cold, better from warmth but worse when it is too hot, better lying on her side. The backaches are better on holidays. They started in her puberty around 15, when she was growing fast.
She has sometimes problems to stand up for herself. She gives in too easily to the demands and requests of others. She feels that there is little space for her own life. Most of the time she does what others ask of her. She hesitates, has an aversion to confrontations, having only tried to confront a few times.
Her father died some 6 years before. She had a very good bond with him; they understood each other just by looking. It felt like an amputation when he died.
She has started several studies like history and law but did not finish them. She would like to study psychology but for that she needed mathematics knowledge. She thinks about art history as a study but has a fear that she will fail. She has the tendency not to start with studies or work out of a fear that she will not succeed. She has a fear that she will not progress and that her world will become too small by not really studying and just taking care of her child. She feels that she has to be pushed, kicked to do something. She feels she should do something instead of being the “eternal doubter”.
Weather: chilly, averse rain.
Time: worse winter, worse 9 to 10 am.
Desire: sweets, sugar, Italian food.
Averse: liver, organs, bitter, ginger.
Food: diarrhoea from heavy fat food.
Dreams: disease of herself, her father, husband or son, her son drowning, stress, war.
Analysis
The feeling of vulnerability is typical for the Asteraceae
Asteraceae: resistance is lowered; infections with high fever and backache; miscarriages; bleeding, coagulation problems.
Stage 5: eternal doubter; irresolution; careful; gives in too easily; little space for her own life; hesitates; avoiding confrontations.
The tendency not to start with studies or work out of a fear that she will not succeed is typical for Stage 5, where they have doubts that they can reach their goal. The irresolution is a strong feature of Stage 5 (also of 2, 3 and 4).
Eupatorium perfoliatum: need for a good father; backaches < lying on it; < 9 am.
Follow up
After a month she feels much better. Her energy has gone up, she feels more vital and she did not have any infection. She feels less vulnerable, as if she has a protective layer around her. She wants to do things instead of just sitting. Her dreams are nice now and no longer about diseases.
She feels better about her father; she can look at his photo without starting to weep as she did in the past. She is more at ease with others and feels more at peace with her environment.
She is not hurt anymore by remarks from other women like “you have only one child?”.
Half a year later she is pregnant. She gets a healthy child.
The infections stayed away.