Clinical Cases

A Case of Sapphire

Written by Camilla Sherr

A useful article about A Case of Sapphire.Full details about A Case of Sapphire

The proving of Sapphire was conducted by Jeremy Sherr and proved by his Dynamis School students in Florida in 2000.

In this article I’m trying to convey some of the ideas of this remedy through a case study and associated proving symptoms. Please understand that the whole picture of Sapphire can only be attained by studying the proving in its totality and that this article is a mere attempt at getting an angle into the remedy.

Female, age 53

“I feel like a pressure cooker. All the stresses, the hot flushes… I feel like something might explode. My head is throbbing with a hot flush, I can feel the heat rising to the head. My gums are throbbing, my mouth is throbbing, my heart is throbbing, like I’m going to self combust. I want to take Belladonna! (She has had Belladonna and Gloninum in the past with temporary relief).

The hot flushes are worse from exertion, hot drinks, wine, coffee and heat. I feel like I want to take all my clothes off, but the next minute I’m freezing cold. My back gets so boiling I have to expose it. I feel the hot flush in the legs first, then the heat travels up to my head which starts to tingle, then gets hot and starts to sweat. It is exhausting! I wake up at 5 a.m. with the sweat.

Right knee is painful and swollen, it feels hot, < being still, going down the hill.

My nose is full of dry snot, I pick it and it bleeds, then scabs over and I have to pick it again. This continues and doesn’t seem to be getting better at all.

I keep thinking what other people think of me. I have a very rich new friend whom I don’t want to see my house. I’m embarrassed about my house. I really don’t want her to see it. You know, your house and car are a projection of your self.

I’m negative towards the children, they’re all lazy bums, expecting me to cater for them. I have always over done it for them, been the perfect, efficient mum, always sorting everything out. I’m so much quicker and better at doing everything so I just do it. They never had to do anything around the house or for themselves. I feel extremely resentful about this, used and abused. I nag at them about not filling the dishwasher and about everything else but nothing happens! I have no sense of humour left. I just nag. The kids complain that I don’t listen to their answers.

I feel very alone and afraid of a lonely future. Not just from a company point of view but from a financial standing as well.”

Comment: This woman is known for her efficiency and organisational skills. If anybody wants anything done, they call her. She can do it all; family, cooking, cleaning, work, with her hands tied behind her back. She works as a matron in an old age home.

Rx: Sapphire 200c, single dose

Follow up 3 months later:

“The pressure cooker feeling went almost straight away, the hot flushes are much better, they haven’t gone totally but are 85-90% better. I hardly ever wake up in the night with them. The headaches have improved a lot, but are coming back now somewhat. My knee is much better. The nose scab was better but then I had a cold and got it back again.

I’m more laid back about things. I try to nag less. I don’t want to be dumped on anymore and I must say the kids are helping much more in the house. I don’t care about what people think about me nearly as much.

Worrying about the future is less, in fact future doesn’t seem bad at all anymore!”

Rx: Repeat of Sapphire 200c

She continued to do well for another 8 months, when the hot flushes and heat in the head returned. She had a repeat of Sapphire 200c and responded beautifully again.

Analysis & Comments:

The first thing that comes up in this case is the feeling of a pressure cooker. We can see it on a mental level as well as on the physical level: ‘I feel like a pressure cooker… I feel like something might explode’, together with the rising heat and throbbing sensations. We see this aspect in the proving: ‘I get so angry I feel I’m going to explode’, ‘I lose my temper readily and explosively over the least offence’,’ Extreme outburst of anger over a trifle’ , ‘I am easily irritated and short tempered. Scream at the kids for small things. I feel bloated and tense like a bomb ready to explode, < before my period’.

On a physical level the patient felt throbbing and flushes throughout her body as well as boiling in her back and burning in the knee.   From the provers: ‘Menses started. Uterus feels full to bursting, feeling “puffy”.’Sensation of burning in mid chest like an exploding firework’. ‘Intense heat from skin, feels as if I will combust’

On another level we see a woman who is highly efficient and organised. She does it all, is good at it all, and resents it! Here are some comments from the provers: ‘Effective and focused. Able to accomplish more and still stay on time’, ‘Eliminate, prioritize, delegate, organize. That would sum up the themes in my professional life’, ‘I started thinking about making work more efficient, productive and lucrative’.

About resenting it: ‘I feel like a martyr with housework… How did this happen to me?’, ‘Comparing what I do and what husband does.  A misery-competition of who works more. I feel like writing a list and comparing’, ‘I feel like I’m the maid and the cook and the everything. NO SUPPORT. I’m all alone in this big house DOING all the time and still it isn’t good enough and husband complains, “You’re not very good at ironing collars,”‘, ‘I accuse my husband of things that are not true. All this time he has been telling me to advertise for house-help, to get a gardener, but I choose to do it all myself and I choose to SUFFER and be a martyr. God knows why’.

A patient who did fantastically on Sapphire said: ‘I get so angry with the kids. I’ve come to a point where I don’t care if my son screams all night, I’m not going to get up anymore, I used to do EVERYTHING for the children, I really resent it, I’m blaming my husband. I’m mean, envious, horrible and nasty. Why can’t anything nice happen to me?! I’m sick of putting everyone else’s needs first, I have no time for ME’. And she continues: ‘A friend said: ‘you’re a slave to your children’; I’ve only seen it now myself. I’ve never considered myself in the situation. My husband does nothing around the house, I do everything. I went out one night and when I got back in the middle of the night one of my children was up and the other one asleep in his clothes! I was horrified. I cook, I clean, I look after the children, study, do jewellery and my husband spends his time ‘looking for work’! HA!’

This is what the provers said about nagging: ‘I feel like an old nag. I am an old nag. I’m surprised my husband hasn’t kicked me out yet. Nag-nag-nag. I know it but I can’t help it’, ‘I feel like nobody else can do anything well enough. Only I can. I rather do everything myself because the end result of anybody else doing anything is just NOT GOOD ENOUGH’, ‘Little things really get to me, like putting the plates too close to each other in the dishwasher’, ‘I’m so full of anger and hate, frustration. This is especially what I feel with my husband. He can’t do anything right.  Only I can do things the way they should be done. I’m a nag. The prototype of a nightmare wife who thinks her husband is a loser who can’t even fill up the dishwasher correctly’.

On a physical level the one symptom that always makes me think about Sapphire is the nose crust. Having experienced it myself I now have immense sympathy for people who suffer from this condition. I once had a patient explain to me the birth, death and re-birth of her nose crust for 11 minutes – I timed her! She had been doing well on Staphysagria and went on to do brilliantly on Sapphire. Sapphire and Staphysagria have a strong relationship and I have seen one follow the other in two cases, as well as one proving being antidoted with Staphysagria.

Another proving was antidoted with Alumina, which is interesting since Sapphire has high quantities of alumina in it. We also have clinical evidence that Sapphire follows well Adamas (Diamond).

Platina gave great relief to a prover who suffered from severe nymphomania during the proving. This is something that has been clinically confirmed (although the opposite can also be true), where a patient described it as ‘If I’m not doing it I’m thinking about it or planning it’.

Other aspects of the remedy are issues about money and independence: ‘Acting decisive, making good money decisions, very determined.   Decided to make money and be rich. Want to buy lots of houses. I feel more independent and my own person. Decided to keep my old name, started taking up a salary, opened my own bank account and decided to make my own money’.

Sapphire can also be judgmental, critical and bear a grudge. A patient who did very well on Sapphire used to feel extremely resentful of her husband. He had cheated on her and has been consumed by his own profession, so the patient didn’t feel supported or heard by him. ‘I can’t let go. It’s with me every day’. This was so intense that I considered giving her Nit-ac (which she had had a few years back from another homoeopath). However the rest of the case was pure Sapphire so she had a 1M. She came back a month later stating that ‘I have to accept him for what he is – after all this time… I haven’t got time to feel resentment, there are more important things to life. The past is gone, I’m moving forward.

In the proving people stated: ‘During this proving I have been able to release a lot of old pain from my past. It has been good for me. Proving this remedy brought some truth into my acceptance, forgiveness and judgment of these issues. I now find life in general easier to accept and I am more in present time.’ And ‘Improved relationship with spouse. Issues of past not there. I began to act rather than react. Prior conflicts with spouse not an issue anymore. Not dredging up the past. Feels like I got rid of old baggage’.

Studying a new proving is sometimes hard. Hopefully, this short case and synopsis will be useful in understanding Sapphire and will give an edge to further study and interest in this multi-faceted, sharp remedy.  Full proving information will be published in Dynamic Provings Vol 3.

About the author

Camilla Sherr

Camilla Sherr

3 Comments

  • Hi Camilla
    Where can I find a full write up of the sapphire proving?
    thanks
    Vivienne
    Homeopath, Israel

    • Hi Vivienne,
      Unfortunately nowhere… It is still unpublished.. so sorry.. We are looking into a publishing website so hopefully this won’t take too long…
      Camilla

  • Hi Camilla,

    Did you managed to publish the sapphire proving o a website ?

    Kindly

    Lucian

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