5.2.1 Strontium muriaticum, Case 1
A 40 year old woman has come because she has had breast cancer. A small lump under her left nipple had been taken away and hap proved to be malignant. There is a lot of breast cancer in the family. She had breast fed her two children for many months without any problems. When she was 15 she had had an acute inflammation of her left breast. This happened after the death of her father. Her family had stopped her from being with him because she was the youngest but she had felt very hurt and left out. She had always got on very well with her father, much better than with her mother.
Another complaint she has is a suffocating cough which sounds like whooping cough. It is worse in wet and cold weather, worse outside and at night. She can’t stop coughing and it sometimes makes her retch. She coughs up yellow-green mucus. She gets sore muscles in below her right breast, bending double and hard pressure. She gets frequent colds with sore throat and swollen glands, especially in cold, damp weather. She gets ear ache in cold wind.
She used to be a doctor working in a nursing home, but she became a homoeopath later on. She feels very responsible for people, wants everything to be perfect and tends to feel she isn’t good enough. She is critical towards herself and puts all her energy in caring for other people, sometimes a bit too much. She worries about her patients. It is as if their problems become her own and she can’t shield herself.
This situation often makes her think of her relationship with her mother. She never could make contact with her mother who was simply not there for her. Her mother fended off any emotional involvement with remarks like: ‘Don’t be so silly’ and left her feeling alone and confused. Her mother is friendly towards the outside world, but very hard towards her family.
She still doesn’t get on with her mother. When she tries to discuss certain matters with her mother, her mother will often use that information to make nasty remarks about it later. When she was little her mother used to make negative remarks about her in front of her school friends, leaving her feeling powerless. When she left home to go to college her mother gave away her dog without telling her.
She takes over her mother’s moods and feelings without wanting to, she can’t protect herself and she dare not show her own vulnerability. There is no way she can make real contact with her mother. She had a dream that portrays this feeling very well: her mother has neglected to clean the house, the place is full of dust, rubbish,cobwebs and cockroaches. When she points this out her mother she denies everything.
She used to have a very negative image about herself. As a child she was very shy, blushing at the slightest thing. Her father had made sure that she could go and study medicine and once she was a university she started to develop her own ideas. Later on her husband helped her to feel more positive about herself. But she still dreams of being inferior and getting rejected.
Other peoples’ opinions are very important to her, she likes to be appreciated as a homoeopath and to be admired by other people.
She has taken responsibility for herself from an early age. She is very idealistic and puts all her energy into caring for others including her children. An example of her involvement with others: when her children have a friend to stay she worries whether this child might feel short of breath because of the cat’s hair. This extreme sort of involvement or projection has been troubling her for a long time. When some friends of her had to go for psychiatric treatment she felt guilty, thinking she should have talked with them more often etc. She often wonders whether she has said things properly or whether she has done enough for her patients. Her work has to be perfect and she spends a long time on each patient. She doesn’t need anything for herself, but she feels very vulnerable when something goes wrong.
She likes reading and used to play the piano.
She dreams about being abandoned by her family and not getting anything to eat. She also dreams of driving a bus and the brakes don’t work.
Past history: during both pregnancies she felt sick, and during the second one she had a lot of stomach aches.
Generals
Weather: cold, < cold (2); < damp (2); sun, < twilight.
Perspiration: < pregnancy (2), < exertion, < emotions.
Time: < twilight, < 7 pm.
Desires: sweet, salt, spices, pizza, fruit.
Aversion: tomato, raw onion.
Menses: used to be accompanied by stomach pains and diarrhoea, at night.
Sleep: awake early, difficulty falling asleep << thinking about work; on right side.
Analysis
In the past she had reacted very well to Phosphorus, often felt much better within an hour of taking the remedy. More energy and feeling better in general. She was therefore very surprised and shocked when she heard she had breast cancer. Her confidence in her body had been shocked.
This problem, the appearance of cancer after an apparently well prescribed remedy, has been known for quite a while and was mentioned by Feldman (1994) with a request to receive our opinions or possible explanations of this phenomenon.
In my opinion the solution to this problem lies in the complementary remedies. The idea of one remedy for life simply doesn’t fit in these cases.
But which remedy is the indicated one for this woman at this moment?
The theme of mother, care and breasts makes us think of a Muriaticum. And the perfectionism, idealism, responsibility and being a homoeopath would indicate a remedy of the Silver series. If we take the feeling of inferiority as a general theme we know the remedy can be found in one of the first few stages, particularly Stage 2. All this information together brings us to Strontium muriaticum.
She gets overwhelmed (Strontium) by her mother (Muriaticum). She also gets excluded (Strontium) by her mother (Muriaticum). She gets overwhelmed (Strontium) by nurturing (Muriaticum) instincts. She gets ridiculed (Strontium, Barium) by her mother (Muriaticum).
Further confirmation for Strontium: < cold, < damp, piano, left sided, lung problems, feeling excluded, needing nothing for herself, blushing.
Muriaticum symptoms: infection of breast, left, -> salt and starch, perspiration < pregnancy, problems around menses.
Reaction
One week after Strontium muriaticum 1M she gets ill with a cold and sore, swollen throat. She also gets an infection with pus around her left ring finger, the doctor had to lance it. But after a month she feels much better. She doesn’t get quite so involved in everything. Things don’t affect her so deeply on the physical level either. She now feels brave enough to take on her mother and provoke her into a reaction.
She had a dream that her younger sister had died and her mother was discussing the will in the presence of several solicitors and notaries. She herself was not allowed to be present during this meeting. She got very angry and said she never wanted to see her mother again. This was the first time she expressed her feeling about being excluded.