Woman, 48, breathing problems, swelling in lower part of lungs.
For 15 years she was exposed at work to carborundum dust (silicon carbide, SiC, which occurs very rarely in nature, but is mass-produced for numerous industrial uses). She was also exposed to fumes from plastics that were used, and burned off, in the work processes. She is now sensitive to any particulates in the air, especially smoke, and to even tiny amounts of plastic combustion vapors. Pollen has also become a trigger. She is not sensitive in general to odors, or beauty or cleaning products, etc.
During her first year on the job, all her hair fell out, which was treated with steroids and it grew back, and then remained normal. Over the next 10 years, the breathing problem developed gradually, becoming critical about 6 years ago. She describes the breathing trouble as coming in “episodes” and says she is OK in between. However, she is continually disabled, as she has to take a rescue inhaler before any exertion, and must avoid strenuous activities. She has a heavy feeling in the lungs and fatigue. In the acute stage, the lower lungs swell and her breathing becomes shallow; and she must use her rescue inhaler and often her nebulizer, which she carries with her. She can turn purple, and needs to lie down. Her eyes and nose run profusely, lips feel swollen. After a bad episode, she has to sit or lie still for a few days, and feels extremely cold even in very hot weather, with heavy clothing and blankets.
When the breathing is worse, she also gets swelling of joints, puffiness, in knees, ankles, feet, hands, and fingers. Her legs feel heavy. This swelling is aggravated by salt and sugar, so she avoids them.
Doctors do not understand the lung condition, but consider it very serious, even life-threatening. It is not like silicosis or black lung, which are not associated with carborundum dust, which is very fine particles believed to be too small to harm the lungs. She has no detectible lung damage. She takes daily doses of Singulair and Zyrtec, and uses a steroid inhaler at bedtime. Take-as-needed medications include two nasal sprays, the rescue inhaler, and the Albuterol nebulizer. She takes birth control pills to counter puffiness from the medication. She also takes a daily pill for minor high blood pressure.
She loved her job as a machinist, and did not want to leave. She got along very well with her mostly male coworkers. When she became very ill, the personnel manager told her, “You are not dying in here on my watch,” and helped her get benefits so she could return to school. She got an advanced degree in accounting and now has a complex bookkeeping job for a hospital. She likes it because, like the machinist job, there is a right way to do it, with processes to follow precisely. Creativity comes in figuring out how to create the reports that the managers request. She has one bad boss, but she stood up to him and told him he could not speak to her that way. But she likes everyone else there, and could stay there for the rest of her life.
She is very tall, and strongly built. She has a calm, quiet demeanor. As a child she was shy, quiet, but very energetic, and easily distractible. She grew up on a farm, and had a lot of chores. She said her father “raised us to take care of the animals,” reminding them “they did not cage themselves.” It was not a commercial farm, but for food for the family and to share. Her parents both also worked at the local auto plant. She was one of the “farm girls” in a school with children from wealthy families, but this did not bother her. Her grandparents were also around, checking up on them, and she had a very happy childhood. She has an older brother, and a younger sister who she cared for often as a teenager. She reports being slightly clairvoyant, sometimes with precognitive dreams, and knows at a distance if her daughter is upset.
She rebelliously married “the love of my life” at 21, against her mother’s advice. Her mother, who had always been somewhat critical of her, then cut off financial support for community college, so she could not continue studying. She had her daughter right away. “When they laid my daughter in my arms for the very first time, a commitment was made.” She realized that her husband was not responsible enough to help raise the child. The pressure was too much and he started drinking a lot, and decided he wanted to engage in cross-dressing. She would not try to make him change, if that’s what he wanted, but it was not OK with her, for her daughter. She returned to her parents’ home with her daughter, and got a divorce. A few years later, she met her second husband, and “he was wonderful and romantic.” After they married, it didn’t go well, and she found out that he had previously been in treatment for mental health and drug rehab. He would misunderstand everything she said, his interpretation depending on his moods. Being a straightforward problem solver, she had him get his hearing tested, but they were told it was an auditory processing problem. He became strange and frightening, and was snorting some kind of drugs again. She became afraid that he would harm, even torture, her daughter. She didn’t leave or try to get him out because “he made it very clear that that would not be a wise decision.” After seven years of marriage, he left and moved away. She has always gotten along well with all her in-laws, despite these problems.
Her current husband was a coworker who reached out to her after the second husband left. She did not want to date anyone, but he was very kind and got along very well with her daughter. So, although they did not have a “crazy romantic sort of love” she has a stable marriage now. The most important thing now is spending time with her grandbaby, and helping her daughter plan and pay for her wedding.
Her father also had a very strange and rare lung condition due to industrial exposure to a fungus that usually will not grow in the lungs. He underwent extreme treatments and eventually had large portions of both lungs removed. Her mother also has breathing issues with mold. There is some diabetes and high blood pressure on both sides, but generally they are tough, strong people.
Analysis
First thoughts went to Silica: the exposure to a silicon compound; tall, lanky build; shy but knows her own mind; personal relationships, family very important; in the acute she is extremely cold and prostrated. Also iron series seemed indicated, in that she likes meticulous but ordinary work; very strong work ethic. However, she has no problems with work itself or getting along in the workplace; her problems have been in romantic relationships (silicon series). The lung trouble suggests silver series but here are no other silver or lanthanide issues.
Her color preference, 13AB, contains 8 members of the Poaceae family, out of 18 total remedies listed. The grasses contain much silica, and are placed in the silicon series. Scholten notes of the family, “They are more straightforward, like farmers, living a healthy life in the countryside.”
We can see phase 4 in her stability in the group, and her strong sense of responsibility. Her father reflects stage 4, raising them to be responsible caretakers. We can see subphase 2 in her shyness, and in her complete adaptation initially to the first two husbands, being swept up by them. Subphase 2 may also show in her work ethic, her feeling that she must work very hard, give it her all, and follow all the rules. Her mother may reflect subphase 2, being critical, and cutting her off from family resources temporarily for not following her mother’s dictates about the boyfriend. She came back into the fold, and conformed to the rules, once her own daughter was born and she wanted the best care for her.
I selected Lolium temulentum based on the symptom of “asphyxia”, also coldness and prostration. As to themes, “Husband does not understand his wife; avoids her, thinks he is good and she is bad” and “Shy, unmarried, no friends or social life; desire to be alone” are a good match to the state she was in when the second husband left, which was also the period of time when the lung issue was developing. We can see stage 5 in the malarial-type symptoms. She perceives her condition as alternating, frequently using the word “episodes.” When she has an episode, she can be completed prostrated. Also, her romantic life alternated between being wonderfully romantic and wildly dysfunctional and harassing.
Follow up:
One month after one dose of Lolium temulentum 1M, she feels 110% improved. She still uses her rescue inhaler in the morning before exercising. She “took a leap of faith” and stopped all the other medication, except for blood pressure. During the first week after the remedy, she had some sinus inflammation with headache. There was a big industrial fire near her home, and she was fine. As a test, she went to the casino, where smoking is allowed, and where she had not been able to go for years. She was fine, and next morning used her inhaler as usual, but not the nebulizer, and had just a little heaviness in the lungs. In the past, she would have had to use her nebulizer and be incapacitated for two days. Her blood pressure remains high. After this follow up, she decided to stop daily morning use of the rescue inhaler.
At two months she was getting sensitivity to smoke again, and she took another dose of Lolium temulentum 1M. At four months, she reports only using her rescue inhaler three times since the second dose, and remains off the other medications. She is doing meditation classes, and it helps her relax and gives her a break from thinking about work. She is so busy at work that she wakes up thinking about it. She is happy in her job now because the bad boss left, and now she gets along with everyone there.