Mental Exhaustion Remedies
Calcarea Picrica Calc-pic.
Guiding Symptoms
From Picricum acidum:
- Delusion that arms, tongue, face seem to reach the clouds.
- Warm-blooded
From Calcium:
- Stubborn
Calcium Picricum:
- A warm-blooded Calcium that is tired, apathetic, and wants to achieve
- Apathetic about what people think of her in personal relations
- Stubborn
- Weakness, exhaustion
- Warm-blooded
Picricum salts (Am-pic, Calc-pic, Ferr-pic, Kali-pic, Pic-ac, Zinc-pic)
- Difficult concentration, dullness
- Immense exhaustion – the opposite pole to the high achievement
- Clarke – “Great weakness, no anxiety, profound calm.”
Modalities
Picricum salts
- < exertion, mental exertion, sexual exertion
- < heat
- < 3 a.m. to 5 a.m.
- Desire fat
- Aversion to company, isolation, desire to keep a distance in personal relations
Psychology
From Picricum acidum:
- It seems that Picricum acidum wants to achieve something big – this comes through in Calc-pic.
- When the weakness becomes too strong in Picricum acidum, they become apathetic or languid, tame and void of emotions. They shun people and are indisposed to talk.
- Warm-blooded
Calcium Picricum:
- Desire to achieve something big and to receive applause for it
- Perseverance to achieve something special which leads to exhaustion
- Apathetic about what people think of her in personal relations
Picricum salts (Am-pic, Calc-pic, Ferr-pic, Kali-pic, Pic-ac, Zinc-pic)
- High goals to reach – need to achieve and perform at a high level
- Emptiness of emotion comes with the exhaustion
Pathology
Picricum salts
- Neurological disturbances, paralysis
- Vertigo
- Tinnitus
- Boils
- Frequent urging for urination at night
- Prostate complaints
- Warts
- Malignancies
Case
Female, age 13, recurrent furuncles (boils) for 4 years. Feels ill with a fever when they occur. Very painful (3) with a big black top, then lots of blood and pus (3) are discharged. Pain is worse when walking and from motion (3). Chronic fatigue (2), weakness. Apathy. (2) Suffers from long-lasting cold with a deep cough. Moderate eczema. Cracks near ears and lips. Rather obese, with pasty skin. Has many interests and can become fanatical about them. Wants to do something that attracts attention, to get applause, like giving a piano recital. Then she falls asleep from exhaustion. Known for her stamina in her scouting group – able to hike all night. Obstinate (3). Bullied by her classmates at age 9. Very little contact with her classmates from a young age – she played mostly alone. Missed a lot of school because of her complaints, more isolation. Says she isn’t bothered by it, apathetic about it. Fear of the dark (2), wants lights on. Desires porridge, macaroni, salads, fruit, pork, sausage and other fat foods, eggs, sweets. Aversions to slimy food, French fries, fish. Very thirsty for cold milk, tea, chocolate milk and juices. She is warm easily and intolerant of the sun. First prescription: Calcium muriaticum because of Skin, eruptions, boils recurrent (2) and Furuncles (3). And because her schoolmates had noticed that the child’s mother was hospitalized for 6 months with eating disorders and had bullied her with it. Also, Calcium has pasty skin and rather heavy build, cracks near ears and lips, weakness, fear of dark, stubbornness, bursting pains, aversion to slimy food, desire for milk, eggs, farinaceous, refreshing food. Strong aggravation for two weeks, then no further boils, but still lacks energy, still apathetic, and still has cracks near ears and lips. Five months later the boils return, even worse, with a large eruption near the mouth, no response to Calc-mur. Second prescription: Calcium picricum. Why? Picricum acidum is mentioned in Skin, boils, very painful. Also, she had Picricum acidum characteristics of wanting to achieve and to perform, together with weakness and apathy. Also < warmth, motion, touch. Plus all the Calcium symptoms. Result: Quick healing of boils which didn’t return. Social attitude and grades improve during next few months. After one year, deep and lasting change on many levels.
Comparisons
Am-pic, Calc-pic, Ferr-pic, Kali-pic, Pic-ac, Zinc-pic
Sources
Links 3/96, pg. 158-159, Anton Kramer
Kali Phosphoricum Kali-phos.
GUIDING SYMPTOMS
- Mental and physical exhaustion, especially after periods of stress or over-exertion, or studying too much. Especially needed when great exhaustion and mental dullness is associated with nervousness, irritability and over-sensitivity. (RM)
- Breakdown state: hypersensitive to all stimuli, frazzled nerves, flinch at least sound, tired, mind doesn’t work, can’t sleep at night, irritable over trifles, restless, feel unable to cope, nervous restlessness
- Great depletion, weakness, fatigue, muscular weakness – chronic fatigue syndrome (RM)
- Insomnia – from frayed nerves, nervous excitability (often given for insomnia only)
- Empathy for others but desire for structure
MODALITIES AND GENERAL SYMPTOMS
- Right-sided (JS)
- Chilly, < cold, > warmth and rest (JS)
- Aggravation at 3 a.m. and 9 p.m. (JS)
- Desires: cold drinks (JS)
- Aversion: salt, fish (JS)
- Craves: sugar (JS)
- Children: hyperactive, nervous, excitable, nightmares, crave sugar, can be very homesick if they move, lose contact with friends (JS)
- One-sided complaints
- < morning in bed, on rising, on waking, coughing, after coition, excitement, worry, mental/physical exertion, eating (Kent, Boericke)
- > moving about (gentle), open fresh air, eating(Kent, Boericke)
- Symptoms come during/after sleep (Kent)
PSYCHOLOGY
- PROSTRATION (Bo)
- The patient is often more extroverted than other Kali’s because of the Phosphorus influence (RM)
- Easily upset from hearing bad news or hearing of world catastrophes (Phos) (RM)
- Tend to be very open in homeopathic consultations (Phos) (JS)
· Strong desire to travel (JS)
· Can be nervous and restless (constitutionally) (JS)
· Easily frightened. Fears being alone, disease, death, something bad will happen (Phos)
- Feeling unable to cope – despondency, nervous dread, depression
- Sensitive to thunderstorms
- Flies into a passion and can hardly articulate (K)
- Aversion to answering questions (K)
- ANXIETY in evening in bed, during night, after eating, about future, health, salvation (K)
- IRRITABLE (K)
- Fear in evening, crowd, death, disease, solitude, evil, people (K)
- Easily frightened, which also makes his mental symptoms worse (K)
- Weak memory, forgetful (K)
- Imbecility (K)
- Slightest labor seems a heavy task (Bo)
- Kali: Principle and duty; Closed; Optimism; Work, task; Family.
- Phosphoricum: Communication; Sympathetic; Homesickness; Curiosity and travel; Restlessness and fears.
- Feel obliged to have a lot of contacts, to keep up your circle of family and friends. They enjoy having many friends and relations and contacts. Enjoy talking about all the things that are happening in their life (Phos). Like to stay in touch with their family, friends.
- If they lose contact with people, they feel unhappy, lonely, lost, homesick.
PATHOLOGY
- Also for multiple sclerosis, neurasthenia (RM)
- Diarrhea, vaginitis, headache, indigestion (RM)
- Hemorrhages of bright red blood
- Bone problems, growing pains, osteoporosis
· Neurological problems
· Migraines
· Tuberculosis, lung complaints, bronchitis, asthma
· Back pain, sciatica
- EMACIATION, WASTING DISEASES with putrid discharges and stools (Kent)
- Septic, putrid hemorrhages with great prostration (Kent)
- Violent headaches in sides of head (Kent)
- Anemia of optic nerve; eyes are dry and dull; falling of eyelids; inflammation of conjunctiva, injected blood-vessels and lachrymation (Kent)
- Photophobia; twitching of eyes and lids; weak eyes; pain in eyes on eye motion, reading, waking, sunlight (Kent)
- Ears: hot, swollen, pulsation, stinging; eruptions or offensive, putrid, purulent discharges (Kent); humming and buzzing (Boericke)
- Nose: dryness, obstructed, itching, burning, yellow crusts and dark blood (Kent)
- Mouth: BREATH OFFENSIVE, FETID; EXCESSIVELY DRY; paralysis of vocal cords (B)
- Stomach: nervous gone sensation at pit of stomach; seasick without nausea (Boericke)
- Diarrhea in morning, evening, night, during/after eating (Kent)
- Offensive flatus ameliorates symptoms (Kent)
- Pain/burning in rectum during/after stool (Kent)
- Heart: Palpitations, anxious, violent, weak (Kent)
- Menses: TOO LATE/SCANTY in pale, irritable, sensitive females (Boericke)
- Urination: VERY YELLOW URINE; incontinence, bleeding from urethra (Boericke)
- Respiration: YELLOW EXPECTORATION, SOB going upstairs (Boericke)
- Golden yellow discharges; Putrid discharges
CASE
A patient with excessive hungry feeling or nausea soon after taking food. A nervous depression “gone feeling” surrounds him. He flatulates with heart distresses and weary pain in left side of stomach. He has indigestion with great nervous depression. He is very thirsty, and empty sensation in stomach is relieved by eating. Belching of gas tastes bitter and sour.
REFERENCES
- Jan Scholten
- Kent
- Boericke
- Morrison, Roger. Desktop Guide to keynotes and confirmatory symptoms.
Lecithinum (Lecithin, from egg yolk) Lec
GUIDING SYMPTOMS
- Mental weakness, great fatigue or weakness from mental exertion (Pic-ac) (RM)
- Burn the candle at both ends, very little sleep
MODALITIES AND GENERAL SYMPTOMS
- Unrefreshed by sleep (RM)
- Children are excitable, vivacious, excited about life, ask a lot of questions, like to perform, very active in their playing
- Feel better at 11 p.m.
- Weakness
- Desires: wine
- Aversion: milk
- Aggravated by mental exertion
- Anemia and neurastenia
PSYCHOLOGY
- Excitability- especially when with company
- End stage – great forgetfulness, brain exhaustion and weakness, pathological changes in brain tissue, poor concentration, tired feeling in brain, mental exertion aggravates, fear of Alzheimer’s.
At this end stage, the excitability diminishes greatly.
- Mental tautness, rigidity, constriction
- Scleroderma starts to show up in their psyche as a kind of tightness – mental tautness, rigidity, constriction. They begin to demand a formal, ordered environment – want everything in the right place, like to know what’s going to happen next.
- Confusion as if in a dream
- Prostration of the mind
PATHOLOGY
- Main remedy for scleroderma – tightening, hardening, induration of the connective tissue, especially of the skin. Problems with the teeth, skin, lungs due to tissue changes. The Lecithin pathology progresses the same way that scleroderma does – tightening of the connective tissue. (LK)
- Sensation as if dried egg white were on the skin, a kind of tightness of skin
- Eczema, recurrent
· Every cold goes to the chest; Croup; Shortness of breath; asthma
· Heaviness of legs; Joint stiffness; Sensation as if muscles stuck together (Oleum remedies)
· Weakness and Chronic fatigue
· High thirst; Dry eyes; Dryness of mouth
· Dull pain in forehead
· Sensation of a lump in the throat
· Weight loss; wasting
· Loss of sexual power
· Late menses
· Gastrointestinal problems
· Eye problems
REFERENCES
- NASH Conference, Louis Klein, Vancouver, Aug. 28-29, 1999
- Morrison, Roger. Desktop Guide to keynotes and confirmatory symptoms
- Radar Keynotes 4.0
Picricum Acidum (Picric acid) Pic-ac.
Picricum acidum is a great explosive. It combines great energy and potentiality within a small volume. In the material world it is used to blast big rocks, and other tasks requiring great force and violence. Pic. Ac. exists as a bright yellow glistening crystal. It is prepared by adding carbolic acid to strong nitric acid and then boiling the compound and taking the bottom of the remaining mixture.
For the most part, the acid remedies are indicates in cases going towards collapse – in Picric Acid, the collapse is mainly in the area of the intellectual functioning
GUIDING SYMTPOMS
- Movement towards mental collapse that is caused by exertion- i.e. students studying too hard before an exam (RM)
- Mental weakness, dullness; unable to concentrate- “brain fag”- brought on by smallest mental exertion (RM)
- Everything worse from mental exertion- and therefore disinclined to do any work (C)
- Debility, weakness, languor and exhaustion (C)
- Gradual decline of vitality (C)
MODALITIES AND GENERAL SYMPTOMS
- Exhausted from mental exertion (RM)
- Everything aggravated by mental exertion (RM)
- Better lying down, resting, and a good sleeping (RM)
- Worse with heat and stool (RM)
- < 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. (K)
PSYCHOLOGY
- Mind dull, unable to read more than few minutes at a time (RM)
- Mental confusion (RM, C, K)
- Worse from trying to concentrate (RM)
- Delusion that arms, tongue, face seem to reach the clouds.(C)
- Wants to achieve something big (this comes through in Calc-Pic) (K)
- When the weakness becomes too strong, they become apathetic or languid, tame and void of emotions. They shun people and are indisposed to talk. (C)
- “Great weakness, no anxiety, profound calm.” (C)
- Desire fat (K)
- Disinclination to exertion of any kind (C)
PATHOLOGY
- Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (RM)
- Mental exertion brings on exhaustion- possibly with weakness, diarrhea, headache, back pain (RM)
- Brain: fagged condition of the brain leading to softening of the brain and finally paralysis (C)
- Head:
- Dull, heavy, full feeling in forehead which prevents concentration (RM, C)
- Headache from mental exertion or excitement, especially starting in occiput and neck (RM, C)
- Numerous, small, painful boils in auditory meatus (C)
- Musculoskeletal:
- Burning pains in spine (RM)
- Heaviness, numbness and weakness of lower extremities (RM)
- Weakness and heaviness in the back (RM)
- Neurasthenia (C)
- Feet always cold and chilly, covered with cold clammy sweat (C)
- Urogenital:
- Increased sexual desires; lascivious thoughts (RM)
- Constant or troublesome erections; priapism- fears rupture of his penis and followed by profuse seminal emissions and backache (C)
- Impotence (RM)
- Other clinical pathologies: Abscess, nervous dyspepsia (C), Diabetes with exhaustion (C), first and second degree burns (C)
COMPARISONS
- Ph-Ac- Mental weakness and collapse
- Kali-P- Exhaustion from mental strain
- Ars. Chin. Con. Calc. Gels. Iod. Lec. Nat-C. Nux-V. Phos-A. Sel. Sep. Sulf.
SOURCES
- Links 3/96, pg. 159, Anton Kramer
- A dictionary of material medica. Clarke
- Desktop guide to keynotes and confirmation symptoms. Roger Morrison
Picricum salts- as a whole, i.e. Am-pic, Calc-pic, Ferr-pic, Kali-pic, Pic-ac, and Zinc-pic
· Difficult concentration, dullness; Aggravation from mental exertion, sexual exertion
· High goals to reach – need to achieve and perform at a high level
· Immense exhaustion – the opposite pole to the high achievement
· Emptiness of emotion comes with the exhaustion
· Clarke – “Great weakness, no anxiety, profound calm.”
· Aversion to company, isolation, desire to keep a distance in personal relations
· Neurological disturbances, paralysis; Vertigo; Tinnitus
· Boils; Warts; Malignancies
· Frequent urging for urination at night; Prostate complaints
· < exertion, mental exertion, sexual exertion; heat; 3 a.m. to 5 a.m.
· Desire fat
Picricum Acidum (Picric acid) Pic-ac.
For the most part, the acid remedies are indicated in cases going towards collapse – in Picric Acid, the collapse is mainly in the area of the intellectual functioning – i.e. students studying too hard (RM)
Guiding symptoms
- Mind dull and unable to concentrate or read more than a few minutes at a time – brain fag
- Mental weakness and confusion
- Exhaustion from mental exertion – possibly with weakness, diarrhea, headache, back pain
- Dull, heavy, full feeling in forehead
- Delusion that arms, tongue, face seem to reach the clouds.
Modalities
- < trying to concentrate the mind
- > lying down, resting, sleeping
- general aggravation or exhaustion from reading or mental exertion (weakness, diarrhea, headache, back pain)
Psychology
- It seems that Picricum acidum wants to achieve something big – this comes through in Calc-pic.
- When the weakness becomes too strong in Picricum acidum, they become apathetic or languid, tame and void of emotions. They shun people and are indisposed to talk.
Pathology
- Burning pains in the spine, worse from mental exertion
- Heaviness, numbness and weakness of lower extremities
- Chronic fatigue syndrome (RM)
- Headache from mental exertion
- Priapism
Case
Dott. Massimo Mangialavori
Case of Picricum Acidum (1)
“I worked as a phone operator for a few years in the city hall and then I
retired with a disability pension”
I ask some more about his work “I have always been a simple person ever
since I was in school. I was really shy and I was always afraid of making a
mistake, even when I was a phone operator and I had to speak to people
without seeing their face. When the office manager would call me I felt
bad and I would sweat a lot even when I was a boy in boarding school I
was unable to speak and when I was at the board and I really didn’t do too
well in school”
I ask him why he had to go to boarding school and the sister answers:
“My poor parents sent him there because he just couldn’t study. Our city
had a very good religious boarding school and they sent him there
because they said he really had no system, but even there it was a
problem for my parents because he simply refused to study”
Amintore shyly intervenes:
“I couldn’t study, I was always sick and I have never been able to
remember things, I hated to read and to be in front of a book for hours on
end and then the Salesians scared me to death with their punishments.
They even made me read the same things one hundred times while
kneeling on beans”
Comparison
Oxal ac, Gels, Phos, Sil, Arg nit, Zinc pic, Ferr pic, Calc pic
Sources
Links 3/96, pg. 159, Anton Kramer, Roger Morrison, W. Boericke
Phosphoricum Acidum (Phosphoric acid) Phos-ac.
Guiding Symptoms
- Listlessness, lethargy, apathy, indifference, deadness, emotional numbness, no desire or energy to do the simplest tasks
- Ailments from grief or disappointed love
- Mental dullness, mind goes blank, slowness of mind, slow in answering
- From grief after the death of a friend, homesickness, trauma, stress, debilitating illness, overwork, overstudying, drug or alcohol abuse
- Keynote – homesickness
- Numbness of extremities
- Struggling to be on your own, but not able to do it.
- Romantic longing back to how things were, a kind of homesickness.
- Longing for company, for connection is very much part of Phos-ac.
- Looking for unity, for oneness, for connection. (All the Acids are looking for unity, for oneness. Hydrogen is like that also because it is an acid.)
- Weakness (from the Acids)
Modalities
- Craves fruit and fruit juices, refreshing things, cold milk
Psychology
- Very deep grief
- Grief from loss of connection
- “Emotional numbness, deadness”
- Generally an acute remedy for grief and exhaustion but it is also a rare constitutional type
- Characteristic feature is: emotional numbness, inability to feel any emotions, a feeling of not being alive, of deadness, just drifting through life, performing tasks with no motivation or satisfaction
- In constitutional cases, starts on emotional level, then moves to mental level – mental dullness, mind goes blank, answers questions with “I don’t know”, and goes through life with limited mental function
- Variation: Exhaustion from studying too much – similar to other Phosphoricums – but with more prominent apathy.
Pathology
- Collapse states from grief, illness, or alcohol abuse
- Collapse after long diarrhea or any loss of fluid
- Loss of weight or hair after grief, etc.
- Chronic or profuse diarrhea, sometimes painless and watery, colitis
- Strong chest symptoms
Comparison
Murc-ac, Pic-Ac, Phos, Sep, Carb-V, Ign, Aur, Nat-m, Hydrogen, Magn-mur, Causticum, Nat-carb
Case
Alize Timmerman Seminar, Aug. 30-31, 1999
NASH Conference, Vancouver
Female, age 36. Comes across as a very nice person, very refined.
Five years earlier, had acute tuberculosis from grief after her mother’s death (Note: very strong reaction to grief over mother’s death), not helped by strongest medications, had to have part of lung removed. Now her main physical problem is heart symptoms, palpitations at night. This began after a marriage breakup when her husband fell in love with someone else. Sadness, depression, changeable moods, sighing a lot.
“Forsaken feeling and sadness has been with me always, since childhood.” Father an alcoholic, violent, aggressive. Mother afraid of him. Felt her responsibility as a child was to resolve her father’s problems.
“I feel I can’t manage, I don’t want to manage, I want to give up … sometimes, but not always.” But she doesn’t give up, she struggles on, she keeps trying, but her weakness makes her want to give up.
Feels lonely, forsaken. “I have no brothers, sisters, husband or parents, just my children. I miss my husband a lot. I have nobody. I only have friends who care for me.”
Comment: Family and husband are much more important to her than her friends, although she has many good friends who try to help her financially, and with emotional support.
“I miss being touched.” Points to her heart.
Very impatient, irritated, angry with her children …”as if I am somebody else”. But loves them a lot and is very good with them otherwise. (Ages 6 and 11) Comment: Her grief is so great that her ego is splitting up, she is acting in a way that is not who she is. She is too weak.
Sources
Philip Bailey, Jan Scholten, Roger Morrison
Polystyrene (Plastic) Poly.
Guiding Symptoms
- Indifference
- Not involved in life.
- NO INITIATIVE
- LIE IN BED AND DO NOTHING
Case
Age: 47 years old
Sept 30, 1999
I took two doses of Aurum Metalicum and I still feel depressed, I still have headaches. The headaches are worse from the stress of work, from driving. I get headaches almost every day. I feel better when I am at my mother’s place or when I am taking care of her. I don’t like to be home alone. I have suicidal thoughts, life has no meaning, no fun, there is no point to life. I am dizzy at times, my asthma is worse. I have occasional problems with epididymitis. My eyes are sore, dry and I like something in it. My hips ache from time to time.
Life is flat, it is hard to feel positive. I feel indifferent, it’s hard to go to work but I am glad I go to work. Work is frustrating and tedious. I have a hard time to be creative at work. I am tired most of the time. I am chilly quickly, I don’t have much sex drive, I feel tense, my shoulder is tight. ( he sits quietly and says little)
I am always easily influenced, I try to please others, my character is not very strong, I don’t do much on weekends, I go and visit my mom, I sit and read. I use to read a lot (novels), I have no passion to meet people or do sports.
(He grew up in a quiet environment where there was no expression of emotions.)
A: new remedy
Dx: depression
P: Plastic 200c
Sources
Steve Olsen
