Sept 1990, Fatima, 62 years old, single, retired civil servant. She lives with her single brother and sister in her parent’s house. (Brazil)
Synthesis of the consultations from Sept 1990 to Nov 2004
Severe scoliosis which impedes deep inspiration causing many respiratory problems. (Colds, pneumonias, asthmatic bronchitis, dyspnoea going up stairs, tiredness, watering nose from changes to cold weather)
Stools usually from soft to diarrhea; she evacuates involuntarily every time she urinates. Abdominal bloat, colic, cannot tolerate pressure around the waist.
Glaucoma for the last 10 years. The eye drops cause urinary incontinence, so she has to go all the time.
Vegetarian, loves sweets, eats little. She is not hungry and is afraid the food may harm her. She is underweight. She is very thirsty but only drinks small amounts at a time.
Varicose veins in the legs, more on the left. Congestive head ache with a sensation of heat and heaviness on her head, worse in the morning. Intense weakness, sometimes feels as if she may faint, cannot stand for long, she ‘drags herself along’ causing cold sweat to break out.
Ice cold legs, loss of sensation in the feet, cramping during cold weather.
‘I am completely depressed, my life has no meaning, I am bored, I am indifferent to everything, I feel no emotion, I have no feelings but that of total failure, a wasted life. … I feel inferior, I have no sparkle … I do not enjoy the things I enjoyed before (shopping, going out eating)…. I have the impression there is a barrier in front of me, a wall … I avoid people … I don’t want to go out … I want something but I don’t know what. I am ungrateful, I have all I need but I cannot think of the good things… I have the impression I will never be well again. I only think of the bad side of things, what may happen to me. The bad news I hear on television or the radio keeps going round in my head, it is what is going to happen to me…’
Anguish when she wants to go out. ‘I spend hours arranging my things, I touch them but can’t decide where to put them and time goes by, I get worried. Everything I do is because I have to, not because I like to.’
Extremely meticulous: ‘I cannot stand disorder; everything has to be in the right place.’
She does not accept her age: ‘I always felt younger.’
Ambivalence and duality: ‘I feel double, part of me wants to be better, another part not, a part of me wants to change, another part not, part of me does not want to put on weight because I will lose all my clothes but I have always been frustrated with being thin.’
Aggressive, no patience, tolerates no contradiction: ‘I cannot stand the intervention of others, it is always me who imposes, I have never tolerated any orders from others. I am critical, intolerant, radical, aggressive.’
Great sense of culpability: ‘I dwell on past regrets. I feel guilty not wanting to get better, not to have a goal in life but I don’t want to annoy myself with the problems of others … even with my sister’s who does everything to make me feel better, I am hard, unpleasant. I feel guilty about the past, about having done what I should not have done or not done what I should have, … not having helped my other sister (married with children).
Part of me is lazy, it makes me feel uneasy, guilty, I am worried about it. I have lots of rancour about what people told me or did to me in the past, I forgive but do not forget.
Nostalgia for the past : ‘I am nostalgic about the times when I went out, travelled, enjoyed myself. I feel a prisoner of the past, I feel as though I belong to another era, before all was better: people, places, restaurants, I cannot get used to it…. Nowadays all is mediocre, art, music, food…’
‘I hate moving things to different places, I hate to touch them.’
She keep everything, throws nothing away. ‘I find it difficult to detach myself from objects, journals, old clothes… , I keep everything, even old packaging material; I cannot make the decision, I keep everything in one room (called the room of the nuisance)… I cannot give away what is mine, one day it could come in handy. I would like to get rid of all these ‘things’. I would like to but I cannot, I may need it one day. This possessiveness is terrible, I am egoist, tight,…’
Much rancour towards her brother: ‘He helps the youngsters, he gives them all he has, his money, he allows them to take advantage of him and I have the impression it is me who is being taken advantage off. My brother and sister are generous; they think about the others, I feel guilty to be like what I am.
(Note: she never wanted to pay for the consultation and would negotiate till the end.)
Everything is dirty: ‘I feel dirty, my mentality is polluted, grey, it inhibits the passage of good feelings … I am disgusted, sometimes I wake up with a bad taste in my mouth.’
Never had any sexual relationship. ‘I never fell in love, I have always suppressed my sexuality… Sometimes I get excited, for no reason and I wet myself, as if I were an animal. … I am shocked about the behaviour of the youth of today: they dress badly, they have no dignity, they display their bodies. I don’t go to the cinema anymore because the films are shameful, indecent, filled with naked women. ‘
‘I was very religious (Catholic). The family always went to mass. I was mystic, I could concentrate myself for things to happen. I participated in many meetings about ‘mental power’. I was strong. I could see things, obtain results. Now I don’t have the faith anymore, the power is gone. .. I listen everyday to a radio program by a famous priest, it makes me feel good, I believe in him but I do not have faith as before.’
Dreams often that she walks in the mud, paths full of mud. She associates the mud with the dirt inside herself and the colour of her expectorations. She keeps washing her hands.
She is very well dressed with a perfect hairdo and makeup. Her skin appears old, yellow, she is very thin. She has tics of the eyelids/eyes. Her abdomen is swollen, hard and painful. During auscultation, wheezing and a few crepitations are heard at the bases of the lungs more to the left.
Over the 14 years of follow up, I prescribed: Ars-alb, Anac, Thuya, Lac-c. They procured some ameliorations but no break-through. The glaucoma worsened and she was nearly blind now.
After having again read through the case I decided to use Vipera, based on the themes of the remedy by Dr. Fayeton:
Refuses any change due to nostalgia of the past
Immobility and conservatism
Keeping things in the right order, keeping tidy
Nastiness
Sadness and ennui
The forbidden
Resentment
There are themes which were not present in Dr Fayeton’s work:
Shame about sexuality (theme of the forbidden)
Dirtiness and mud (immobility)
Duality, ambivalence
Barrier, wall (immobility)
Fear of going out (immobility)
Food that may harm
Isolation, does not want to meet anybody
Other themes are present that we can find in the pathogenesis of Allen and a case presented by Dr. Fayeton:
No appetite, not hungry
Sluggish
Weakness
Fainting
Excessive eliminations
Blindness
The Dynamism:
The loss: According to the hypothesis of the AFADH, the loss for Vipera is: the incapacity to enjoy a new experience, new things. Loss of the delight one can find in change. Loss of the acceptance of the benefit that can arise from change which is normal in the human condition.
My patient could not enjoy the present and was fearful of the future because she refused any new experience, no change in routine: she was a prisoner of the past.
The nostalgia: She still lives in her parents’ house, she complains about the immorality of modern life, she is a prisoner of another time.
Culpability: She dwells on past regrets and feelings of guilt. She feels guilty of not wanting to get better and not having a goal in life, for being tough on her family, not having done what she should have done, for being lazy.
The punishment: The present is not lived (enjoyed), her attachment to the past paralyses any movement forward or it is perceived as suffering (physical and psychological: fears, blindness, boredom, does not want to age, pains, difficulties walking (=going somewhere), difficulties breathing (=exchanges). The future is full of bad things.
Egotrophic reaction: The need to accumulate everything in a room, intestinal bloat, thirst (which can only be quenched with small sips of water).
Egolytic: Feeling of total failure, feels inferior to others, isolates herself from others. She feels dirty: this is normal because she cannot change anything, she cannot even breathe deeply.
Alterlysis: cannot tolerate any intervention from others, not even from her siblings who try to help her.
The affected levels:
Nutrition: cannot eat, fear the food will hurt her, weight loss, thirst and not being able to drink much, excessive diarrhoea and constant need to urinate.
Locomotion: she drags herself, tired
Improvement: early ageing
Generation: sexually repressed which shows on occasions through certain moments of sexual excitement, animalistic.
When she is 76, I prescribe Vipera 1M
Evolution from Nov 2004 – December 2008.
She is now 80. She has not managed to gain any weight but she eats well and does not worry about putting on weight. She has one cold in the winter which passes without any complication after one or two doses of Vipera 200. (She used to suffer with respiratory problems all the time) Her dyspnoea no longer prevents her from walking for ½ hour in the garden.
The glaucoma is better, intra-ocular pressure has stabilised, she uses less eye drops. Stools are still not firm but there are no more involuntary evacuations and no more abdominal crises.
Cardio-respiratory checks show emphysema and increased atrial pressure and extra-systoles but she does not want to take the medicines for fear they may harm her.
She has taken a taxi on several occasions (weekly and without complaining about the fare) to go shopping or go to mass.
On occasions she complains she does not have the physical abilities of the past but feels well in general. She now accepts life with its inconveniences and limitations without complaining.
There is no longer the sensation of a barrier or wall, no more depression, boredom (apart from some occasions), no more sensation of dirt. When there were workmen in the house last year she said: ‘it was annoying but I made the best of it, I arranged things so it did not inconvenience me too much.’
Two years ago, she decided to have her cataract operated on; she now sees better. She reads the paper everyday without complaining about the bad news.
After the 2nd dose of Vipera 10M she started talking about her sexuality. ‘I looked at the cleavages of women and I had obscene thoughts, I found it degrading, I could not stop myself. I have always had sexual thoughts full of sins, it was a vice, it hurt me but I could do nothing about it. … I always dreamt of somebody ideal, but I never came across this person, I never fell in love. I envied my sister who was very pretty. I was frustrated. .. I would never have been able to have a family. I am not made for children and I would never have had any patience with children.’
She started to clear out the room with the annoying things, but there are too many things, ‘I tried to throw out journals and magazines but I cannot see an end to it. It is difficult, it is as if I have to change my person,… out of 10 things I throw away 3.’ She does not keep anything anymore, after three days all magazines and papers are thrown out even when she has not finished reading them.
One thing had not changed, she still does not meet up with other people: ‘I don’t want to be bothered with their problems.’
She does not complain about the cost of the consultation anymore and for Christmas I received a nice present: a jewel and perfume.
According to the hypothesis by the AFADH, Vipera envies the Divine perfection: refuses change, cannot arrange anything. When one accepts that change is necessary, things are not perfect. Vipera does not tolerate the lack of perfection which is a normal part of humanity. My patient told me recently that the priest in her church told her often: ‘but you are not perfect’.
Following this case and the study of the remedy, I have had 9 more successful cases of Vipera, four of them had the theme of dirt and five had the theme of a barrier, a wall.
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