The patient is a 30
year old woman who works as a translator. Her main complaint is progressive
muscular dystrophy, which began at the age of 12. According to the patient, it
started after a quarrel with a friend, which was a great shock. A friend told
the whole class that the patient liked a certain boy, and he made fun of her. His
mother also told her friends about her and the patient was afraid that they
would laugh at her. "At school I was the weakest, the slowest. Nobody
loved me." Because of this, she concealed her illness for a long time. Her
brother has also a serious disease, cerebral palsy, and she says that people
laugh and jeer at him, too. Her illness began with weakness in the legs; it was hard to climb stairs. The patient cannot get up from a chair or go out independently, and even a small hill is too hard for her to climb. She has been treated with Nandrolone. Her menses stopped five years ago. She has severe headaches, pain in the right hypochondrium, attacks of pancreatitis, constipation, and excessive hair growth on her body. She is slow and depressed, crying every night. She does not like to be told what to do and she protests, since she likes doing things her own way. Her hobby is psychology; she wants people to understand themselves and to “get to the bottom of the problem.” She dreams of the classmates who laughed at her. There are tensions in the family; she is always in conflict with her brother.
Analysis:
This is a serious hereditary disease, incurable in conventional medicine.
She does not like being ordered about, preferring to go her own way, and she wants to get to the bottom of things. All this points to the Lanthanides.
The fact that her friends and classmates were laughing at her, as well as her problems with her brother (who was also laughed at), points to a Phosphorus combination.
The fact that she had such a lack of confidence and felt unable to stand up for herself points to a remedy on the left side of the periodic table, especially Lanthanum.
Prescription: Lanthanum phosphoricum 200C then 1M, 1-2 times per month. I also prescribed a nosode for the disease itself: Dystrophia musculorum progression Nosode.
These remedies were given for 8 months.
Follow-ups:
During this time her mood has improved; she has stopped crying and has become more optimistic. Her stools have normalized. Her gait has become more solid and confident; she is able to walk more and she is less tired. Her headaches have gone, as well as the pain in the hypochondrium.
After one year: she was given Medorrhinum due to the “hiding” aspect; hiding her excess hair growth. She also loves to go to the sea on vacation, a confirmation for Medorrhinum. After Medorrhinum, her menses resumed.
Two years later: her condition continues to improve on frequent doses of Lanthanum Phosphoricum LM. She is renewing old acquaintances and making a lot of new friends. Her relationship with her brother has improved too, and she helps him with his work. It is becoming easier for her to rise from a chair, and her gait is more confident; she can now walk much longer distances.
The treatment continues.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Stairway in the auditorium of Miletus theatre; Wolfgang Glock
Keywords: progressive muscular distrophy, lack of confidence, being laughed at, hiding
Remedies: Lanthanum phosphoricum
From Interhomeopathy
Description
and Source:
Proving: 
The mother asks for help, so
that Dora can have sufficient platelets without a threat to her life (Theme:
fear of a new situation). Dora is an independent but awkward child, who does not
really know how to handle conflicts. She avoids conflicts and never takes part
in fights; she withdraws, both at school and in family surroundings. She has always been very independent and asked for freedom.
Ever since her youth, she regularly travels on her own to Canada to visit
her father. Her parents divorced when she was 2 years old and her mother never
talks nicely about the father.
A: “I
wanted to be perfect in relation to my older sister, who was academically
gifted. I was obsessed by it; I was always first of the class and first of my
year. Meanwhile, I had low self-esteem, I felt like I had no worth. My sister,
who was considered more intelligent than me, has failed in everything. She
failed her pharmacist studies and now she is just a pharmacist’s helper.”
He
is a good medical doctor, middle aged, well built, well controlled, well
dressed, well respected, and very successful; a real gentleman. One of his
hobbies is acupuncture. He suffers from a bad crusty and itching skin eruption,
which started 3 years ago in the sacral region and slowly spread all over his
body in a stricly symmetric fashion. Virtually, only his face and hands are now
spared. It is a real nuisance for him because he has to cover himself all the time
to avoid strange looks from his patients. The eruption and the itching is worse
in bed in the evening, from perspiration, from slight touch, and from warmth.
The dermatologist and the university had diagnosed psoriasiform eczema and
prescribed steroid creams. The skin improved but as soon as he stopped using it,
things got even worse. Then, he tried classical homeopathy with a renowned
homeopath but without success. He says: “I dislike the
dermatological treatment because it does not cure, it only suppresses the
symptoms. I’m sorry to say that the homeopath also failed, he is very sincere.
Then, I tried Sulfur on my own but it did not help my skin. The only
improvement is that I can drink alcohol now, which formerly caused a headache
after the very first glass of wine. What a pity that I don’t drink! I take
alcohol only on rare occasions and eat vegetarian food.” 
In
this article, Neodymium sulphuricum will be discussed as an example of one of
the Lanthanides. This remedy is frequently needed in our culture. Neodymium as
such is the most prescribed Lanthanide in our practice. This has to do with the
fact that our culture demands that people prove themselves. Situations are
stressful, work has to be done fast, and people are frequently subjected to new
challenges. The idea of calmly doing your job for many years has become a
rarity. These qualities of ‘challenge’ and ‘proving’ are found in stage 6,
where we find the Lanthanide, Neodymium. Neodymium sulphuricum is often
indicated for women. In our present culture, women are gaining their freedom
but many of them still have to fight for it in their intimate relationships.
This is one of the basic themes of Neodymium sulphuricum: they have to prove
their autonomy in marriage, they have to fight for their freedom in
relationships. The remedy is really a remedy for the women’s liberation movement.
The following 10 cases show different aspects of Neodymium sulphuricum. In many
of them, we will see the theme of women fighting for their autonomy and independence,
in marriage and love affairs. 
A.
a 53 year old woman came in September 2009, presenting with a large fist-sized
ganglion in her left hip. Her color preference is white C20/21: “I love white,
the colour of spring and new growth.” 
At this point, it was clear
to me that the growths had to do with the Stapylococcus aureus infection after
her tonsillectomy (encephalitis). I looked up Vermeulen’s ‘Monera’ which lead me
to the remedy Staphylotoxinum, which has the symptom: “Haemorrhage, blood
non-coagulable”. Staphylococcus aureus produces an alpha toxin with haemolytic
properties and necrosis of the skin. 
Themes from
Previous Consultations:
Conclusion:
Key
points of the case:
Mrs
E., born in 1939, comes in 2005, because of vulvar lichen sclerosus, which was
diagnosed by a dermatologist in 2003. She has a
lot of symptoms, especially burning and itching of a white eruption on her
labiae. The burning
is very intense, worse in bed, worse during the night, worse during heat. She has had
several corticosteroid ointments but none of them helped her; the complaint has worsened after two years of this treatment.
Christchurch was struck by an earthquake on the 4th
September last year (2010) and by a second one on the 22nd of
February, plus thousands of aftershocks. Many people in Christchurch have reached
a state where each significant after-shock is very distressing and upsetting. 
On reflection, I remember having had a feeling of tightness
and restriction in my back for months. It may also be significant that two days
before the onset of the severe pains I was driving home and saw that the River
Avon (which runs through Christchurch) was very high and was spilling over onto
the roads. This was happening because of extra high lunar tides combined with
the fact that parts of Christchurch had undergone extensive damage and had sunk.
The river Avon spilling over onto the streets is a very frightening thing and
driving past, it looked so high and vast, like the sea.