5.13 Indium, Case 1
A 38 year old man gets frequent headaches. His head feels heavy and it makes him feel very tired. It happens especially in damp weather with low clouds. It is worst just before rain or thunderstorms, because he cannot tolerate the light that is reflected from the clouds. Sometimes he vomits during the headaches, with alternating heat and chill, chattering teeth and inability to lie still. Other modalities: < constipation, > stools, > vomiting, > dry weather, > sleep, < 1 pm, and < red vegetables like red peppers. The headaches started when he was at secondary school, because he often felt tense before doing a test. He was not interested in school or homework, only in art. When he was at university he hardly ever had a headache, but when he started work the headaches came back.
He is often constipated especially when he is busy at work. Sometimes the constipation turns into diarrhoea. He gets stomach pains when he doesn’t eat for a long time. He can also get them from eating bread. His joints, particularly his hips and legs, get stiff when the weather is damp. He also feels tension in his chest, as if it is being tightened. He is afraid that it result in a heart attack. During the last two years he has had frequent colds with sore throats and much mucus in his nose and throat, difficult to dislodge. The mucus is yellow and very tough. It is worse in the morning and better in the fresh air.
He is a serious type of person, in fact, very serious. He has difficulty taking life at it comes. You can notice this by the way he speaks: very quiet and with a very serious tone of voice. He is a typical observer, who watches every detail. He is rather obsessive and describes himself as a perfectionist.
He is always convinced he is right and is proud that ‘he knows it all’. He feels he doesn’t have to enter into any discussion because his opinion is the only right one. He tends to be very forceful in his ways. But he is also very sensitive to atmospheres.
He likes anything that is old; it makes him feel slightly melancholic. He has turned collecting old things into a hobby and he is now a great expert in antiques. He has learned so much about the particular sort of antiques that he specialises in, that his knowledge often surpasses that of the professional antique dealers. As he is a great perfectionist he thinks very carefully before he will buy something. He often takes several days to consider whether to buy a certain piece or not. Sometimes the piece in question has been sold by the time he has decided to buy it. When he is on holiday he visits many museums to further his knowledge of art.
He pays the violin and is a member of an orchestra. When he started it was very hard, but since his playing has improved he has started to enjoy it a bit more and he feels emotionally involved in the piece they are playing. But he still gets very tense and nervous before a performance. It irritates him when there are some people in the orchestra who can’t play as well as the rest.
Antiques and his work are everything to him. His wife and child only come in third place. He was an only child and spent a lot of time with his father. His father had the same interest in art and antiques and had a hobby of repairing old things. He himself can’t do this, unfortunately: he has got two left hands, he says. His father was very critical, a dominating type who never saw much good in what other people achieved. He himself is more refined: he weighs up what is good and what isn’t.
When he was little he used to have recurring dreams about a sort of strait-jacket, like a hollow tube in which he was imprisoned.
Another theme in his dreams was that he had very fat fingers and couldn’t grasp a thin object like a blade of grass.
Generals
Weather: < damp (3), < before thunder and storms (3), stifling weather 93), > dry; cold.
Time: < 1 pm.
Desires: sweet (3), salt, meat, beer with yeast, fried potatoes.
Aversion: dry food (2), lentils, boiled potatoes, egg.
Food: < bread, peppers, beer with yeast, tomatoes with pips, tea.
Sleep: on stomach.
Analysis
The extreme sensitivity to heavy and damp weather reminds us of remedies like Natrium sulphuricum, Rhus tox or Rhododendron. Symptoms that might confirm Natrium sulphuricum are: wife and child only come in third place, serious, melancholic, -> sweet. But does not have the typical theme of perfectionism, knowing best, pride and sensitivity to art that we see in this case. But the most important reason why Natrium sulphuricum is not the correct remedy is that it only worked temporarily!
And there are few reasons to choose Rhus tox or Rhododendron, apart from the sensitivity to storm and damp. So this symptom alone will not lead us to the right remedy.
Another modality that is very strong is the aggravation at 1 pm. When we look it up in the repertory we find Argentum metallicum, Argentum nitricum and Indium, all remedies from the Silver series. This seems to be more appropriate, as the patient is very involved with art. I chose Indium because the Argentum did not quite seem to fit the case. It wasn’t until later that I learned that the stubbornness and conviction that they know best is typical of Stage 13. His love for conserving everything that is old is also expressed in his love for classical music. His irritability and refusal to listen to others is typical of this stage too.
DD: Argentum, Silica, Germanium, Calcium carbonicum, China, Cobaltum Carcinosin, Stannum.
Reaction
The first remedy he was given was Natrium sulphuricum 1M. After a month he felt much better: he felt less locked up in himself and the headaches were less frequent, even during damp weather. This seemed an excellent reaction, especially because he had an initial aggravation of the stomach pains. I repeated Natrium sulphuricum but three months later we were back to square one.
Then I gave him Indium 1M and after a month he felt better again. He had the impression that this remedy worked better but more slowly. He felt stronger, calmer and more grown up. He did not get nearly so worked up when he had to preform or achieve something. This time the amelioration continued and he has remained well for three years.
His three year old daughter also did very well on Indium. She was a serious, pale little girl who did not like to mix with other children.