Clinical Cases

“My Face is Being Blown Off” A Case of Fumaria Officinalis

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Written by Linda G Miller

Homeopath Linda G. Miller presents a case of chronic skin eruption solved with a small remedy.

Initial Consultation:

My skin reacts to things. I get a symptom and it’s a flag. Ever since I was a little girl, my feet would swell from walking in the weeds so much that I couldn’t walk. I got in trouble for that.

I also get cuts on my legs up into my vaginal area. They bleed.

My legs turn out and my hips hurt. This is still from the car accident (6 months prior).

I get this weird eruption on the top of my head. My hair fell out with it. It was painful, sore, didn’t want to touch it. It was like you could stick your finger right through my brain. It was right at the fontanel closure.

When I press on that spot I feel unhinged, disconnected, like I’m floating. If I look in the mirror when I touch that spot I can’t tell the difference between me and my reflection. It feels like I might faint, a surrealness.

They thought I had epilepsy. I couldn’t tell between night and day, had no concept of time and space. At twilight I couldn’t tell if it was sun-up or sun-down. To know what day it is I need good hints.. I always have to ask, “is that real or not?”

In grade 5 the skin peeled off my nose from eczema. It was like the top of my head.  I get little bumps all over my arms…they become red and itchy. Sometimes my arms swell from it. It used to be all over.

I get open sores around my nipples. They looked like cigarette burns, up and down, red and sore. I passed out once and the paramedics thought I was being abused. Now I have them on my belly, for the last 3 years, round, itchy little blisters. They’re also on the top of my feet and the burn. They get large – 3 inches across. The eczema acts up, nickel irritates it. I get eczema behind my ears and on the left side at the hairline. It starts on the left side then goes to the right. It can dry up and then looks okay. It goes through cycles.

I feel constricted by rules. Everything has to be done the same way. The end result – it doesn’t matter. I feel, “is there a rule I didn’t get?” I do something backwards and then I wonder if it’s a conspiracy, that people know something I don’t know. I will always be able to take care of myself, figure out what works best for me. I help myself.

How does this condition affect you?

It’s a chink in my armour. I’m not prepared. I wore a swimsuit in public only once. It prevents me from interacting. There must be something wrong with me. I feel shame, like something is wrong, my body is dirty. I feel powerless. When it is on my face, people would see me as not right, a mess, not good enough. If you’re ugly it’s a reflection of who you are. I don’t engage. The barrier is too big to overcome to see who I am. It has interrupted a whole lot of things. I stay in dark rooms. I never showered with the lights on. I avoided sunny places, I didn’t want people to see me. I also want to sleep a lot and feel better in a dark room. All I wanted to do was eat fruit.

I lost my memory twice. In grade 2 I had to be completely re-taught. When my parents divorced I lost a whole year. I have had four nervous breakdowns.

I remember sitting on the step, crying for no reason. When I said anything it came out like Russian. I was completed detached from memory and language. No matter what I said no one understood me. I was alone, there was no communication. I liked earthworms and wanted to take them to school with me. I didn’t want to play with anyone. All I did at school was watch the tethered ball go ‘round and ‘round, that’s all I would do.

Dreams?

I was lying in a red canoe with a man on a lake in spring. I saw the sunshine and trees. I knew him, was comfortable. There was a connection. We were talking and laughing.

Connection?

I am not well-connected to my Mom. I don’t like being cuddled. Hugging with holding bugs me. I don’t like to be overpowered or sit with people in a closed space. Swimming in pools with people is like sitting in sewage. People soup with no clothes. It’s disgusting, repulsive. I wish I could enjoy hot tubs, hanging out on the beach. It prevents me from going water-skiing with my boyfriend and his family.

There is usually a dog in my dreams. My imaginary friend was a dog. The two happiest times in my life have to do with dogs.

I dreamt that everything was purple and I gave birth to puppies by throwing up in a toilet.

I dreamt I was in front of a big, stone building, a raised green lawn, stone steps. I am ascending or descending stone steps often in my dreams. I was seeing the Pope and the Cardinals in the stone building.

I have dreamt that my face is being blown off.

I dreamt that I was coming out of an elevator. There were people in a helicopter. I had had surgery, changed my face to someone else’s face. They come after me again and shoot that face off, too.

If I dream that I’m dying or in surgery, I feel calm. There’s a calm feeling if I’m dying. I don’t feel bad. There’s an end, things will be fine.

To deal with things, I sleep a lot. I have short naps and dream heavily. I miss not dreaming when I’m too stressed out. That’s my first weapon of defence – go to sleep.

I used to sleep in the dark on the cold floor behind the bar in the basement at my Grandmother’s house.  There is this weird exhaustion, no reason for it, in every single cell, in a big pit, I can’t see the end of it.

Sometimes I feel like I could faint – maybe a seizure. I smell bleach when that happens. I sit down or go to sleep. I slept one time in a back alley when that happened.

If I have one or two drinks then I have to sleep. If I have two glasses of wine I can’t cope.

Clairvoyance?

I get it, don’t have good control of it. When I was young it was really clear. I thought they were waking dreams. I saw an accident and the next day it happened. It frightened me. It was exact, clean, clear.

I get a migraine aura. It’s a numb feeling in my feet. The insides of my feet aren’t right. I’m not connected with the earth; I’m hovering. They’re tingling like there’s no circulation. I smell bleach and see very bright colours.

I lost my colour vision when I was sick. Everything was hazy – it is beige? green? gray? I got colour sick on things – nauseous, couldn’t concentrate, like motion sickness. I got tired learning a whole new language again.

My taste was crazy for awhile. Everything was so much more, colours, tastes.

Menses?

My period is regular, not overly heavy. I get tired with it. My whole body would fall out and my feet were lifting up off the ground.

If someone scares me my feet feel like they’re lifting up off the ground. It’s an anxious vibration. My mind is not going where I want it to go. Frazzled, staticky, deep inside something’s trembling, cold, nervous.

Someone scared me about an hour ago. My feet feel like I’ve been sitting on them. Everything trembles inside.

I get attacks of the tremors, can happen at any time. I get it in the late afternoon or evening from energy work, or if I stay up late. Then I can be up for the next 3 days with tremors. I can’t flex my feet to walk from tremors in my legs and I fall into the mirror.  It’s a hypnotic state. My eyes roll back. I get thoughts behind there.

If I see someone get hurt I feel it at the base of my spine. I feel it rising, get the shakes. I can’t watch the news, dinnertime TV. Breakfast TV is okay.

When I’m vibrating I’m not able to move, like a hummingbird or the helicopters in some of my dreams.

I don’t like to eat. I find it a nuisance. I put something in so I can function. When I’m eating well I am more flexible, not as dense. I don’t feel well when I don’t move. I was treated with cobalt for low thyroid. I use Rescue Remedy for tremors. I get waves of tremors. I can take off. They are crescendos, keep going. Makes me want to scream. I feel warmer when I scream. They do take off and are hard to stop once they get going.

When I started my homeopathic treatment I could only stay awake for an hour at a time. I was given herbals, too. Tomatoes and meat would go right through me, always liquid.

One the birth control pill my legs swelled and I would laugh uncontrollably. I went into hysteria. I have scar tissue around my heart caused by the birth control pill.

Wounds heal slowly. I have keloids. I avoid looking in people’s eyes. I get into staring, a fixed state. If I look at someone I feel like I fall into them. People can get drawn into that. I can encourage things I don’t want to know about someone. When I did acupuncture I knew that one man was beating his wife, and that he was having an affair. I pick up on emotions. One lady that couldn’t have children, I would get sick when she’d leave. The connection was overwhelming.

When I go to the planetarium, looking up at shiny objects, I get paralyzed, like asleep in a weird dream. It can also happen driving at night. My eyes water.

I couldn’t play video games with the dark screen behind. Or watching water, the reflection. If I bend backwards I will plummet into oblivion. Being shot upwards from chest and navel. I can’t see or hear, I’m gone. Everything is white.

Rx  Fumaria officinalis

First Follow-up (4 weeks after the remedy):

The leg turning out comes and goes. My hips are still really bad if I’ve been sitting.

The rash got really bad. It’s now going away. I never had it on the lump on the back of my neck. It’s usually been on the centre or bilaterally. I have shadows of the rash everywhere. My arms are not as red.

I had the bleach smell when walking the dogs in the first week. It was different, not in the front, more in the back of the nose. It was not as strong as I’ve had it before and it didn’t develop into a seizure or where I feel I have to lay down and sleep.

Dreams?

I dreamt I had pins and cardboard holding my face together.

Dream just as I’m falling asleep I am up a ladder picking oranges, I miss, fall, and wake up.

There seems to be a reconnection with my psychic ability. I had a premonition about a dog I saw yesterday and I saw a ghost in the store I work at. I wondered, “am I going to have a crazy episode?” But there is no out-of-control feeling with it that I get at the top of my spine.

Dreams come from the pathway that leaves from my spine and goes out the top of my head. It’s occurring without resistance. Now seems natural rather than part of crazy!  It happens that when I’m walking along a street I can trip and fall. I have had that quite a bit before the remedy.

Menses?

No change. (fine)

Overall energy?

Good. Less anxious. When I’m tired I still have to lie down. Yesterday I had to go back to bed, couldn’t cope.  I haven’t been fretting, worrying, unable to keep a coherent thought – that’s good! I am not overly worried with my stuff.  I have been able to think about things that are bothering me. I am making sure that I take a day off.

My eyes were bloodshot two days ago. My eyes get red when I’m tapped out, had enough. My blood pressure might be high. I get a weird headache. It used to happen a lot when I flew and it will happen when I’m around a lot of electrical stuff.

The anxiety and fear was not at the same intensity and didn’t stay for long. It used to be an ongoing thing.   The remedy so far has taken away the vibrating feeling. I didn’t get the chattery teeth. It’s less intense. It brought out the itchiness – hot, tingly, irritated itchiness.

Coping is better..the fatigue…wanting to be in a cave…well, I’m enjoying being with people more. I am able to be more in the moment, not getting messed by others energy. I used to be incredibly shy, an identity crisis. I would imagine being my sister to deal with things. I used to throw up if I had to be with more than 3 people at a time. I’m not getting overwhelmed by a group. All of those energies…I couldn’t separate them. It’s connected with epilepsy. I went to a wedding since the remedy and I was fine. I got the eruption on the back of the neck 5 or 6 days ago, but it’s going away.

The psychic stuff – I have a curiosity but I’m not overwhelmed. I’m relieved! Not second-guessing what I know to be truth for me. I am putting my words together much better, not finding it so hard to get a point across. I don’t have to tell my boyfriend not to talk. The vibrating feeling is more frequent but less intense. The other day it happened when I got into a hot bath. Usually only happens in cold.

I used to have lumps the size of chickpeas on the tendons along the gall bladder meridian – they are gone.

I’m not feeling like I’m insane.

This patient continued to respond to this remedy at varying potencies for over a year while in my care.

My understanding of this case came through Sankaran’s description of the sensation of the Papaveraceae family with its heavy sleep, anesthesia, fainting, narcolepsy, intense suffering, paralysis, clairvoyance, convulsions, tremors and vivid, violent dreams.

While well-known Opium would have fit the case well, the rubric, Mind; DELUSIONS, imaginations; Watching oneself (2) *: bute-j., fum., led me to look into Fumaria officinalis. Though a lesser known remedy, Rajan Sankaran’s designation of Fumaria as a Leprosy miasm remedy in the Papaveraceae seemed to fit the case. As Sankaran defines it, in Vital Quest, the Leprosy miasm sensation is “intense oppression and things are closing in and narrowing down on him so that he is completely isolated and alone. He feels that he

is dirty and disgusting and unfortunate and so subject to this kind of oppression and isolation. He desperately desires a very radical change to overcome the oppression but there is almost no hope of succeeding.”  The reaction is “violence, he shuts himself up, and avoids the sight of people. There is desperation with almost no hope of succeeding, the feeling of being doomed, that there’s nothing that can be done about it.”

About the author

Linda G Miller

An alumnus of the Vancouver Homeopathy Academy, Linda Miller is a homeopath known for a paediatric specialty, working in Calgary, Alberta, Canada since 2007. As founder of the Western College of Homeopathic Medicine, she directs a four-year programme whose mandate is to raise the standard of homeopathic education in Canada. Linda Miller is certified with the Council for Homeopathic Certification and a member of the Alberta Homeopathic Association. Her summary of the proving of Niobium metallicum, was published in the fall 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Homeopath. In 2012, her rubrics from the Niobium proving have been added to Schroyen’s Synthesis. A practitioner in the student-run medical clinic at Calgary’s Drop-In Centre in 2012, Ms. Miller has seen the potential of homeopathic treatment for the homeless, and continues to offer treatment at a low cost in Student Clinic at the Western College of Homeopathic Medicine. A dynamic speaker, she has been seen and heard on local television and radio giving her views on alternative medicine. A homeopathic product formulator, she has been involved in the creation of Health Canada approved Mozi-Q and Mederi line of products.

1 Comment

  • Unusual remedy. I would have used Thuja. Was she vaccinated? Also, this case is a clear picture of an engram in restimulation. I have often used Dianetics to totally remove the symptoms in a few hours with Dianetic counselling. Read the book!

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