A big shock, a big boom, like a gasp of air; a case of Glonoine

Presenting complaint: referred to Bristol Homeopathic Hospital with severe acne, age 26.

Initial consultation: January 2002 

Patient: “I have had spots since the age of 11, they have been really bad. All I see in the mirror are spots, I feel dirty. I got teased, I used to come home crying. I am low in self-confidence, I feel people look at me because of my skin. A relationship never develops because of my skin. I am shy meeting new people, I am not very outgoing.

“My sweating is outrageous. I can sit at rest and have profuse beads of sweat. I sweat under my eyes, on my back, my chest, I also feel the cold. My hands and feet are hot now but sometimes they are freezing. A ridiculous metabolism – I’m always hungry, I can’t put weight on.”

Tell me more about yourself.

P: “I am very creative, I love jewellery, stained glass. I like partying. My friends are like family. I am cautious about judging people, but this evil guy who married my sister, I hate him. My sister was torn away from me. He was violent. He attacked this guy – I witnessed it. I said I wouldn’t lie for him; he threatened to kill me, he was spitting in my face. I felt absolutely mad. I want to let rip and tell him everything. I’m a worrier.” 

Dreams?

P: “I started to have tidal wave dreams. In the last one, I was clutching my twin sister. A tidal wave had hit the roof. I also dream of a panther.”

Remedy: the first remedy I gave her was Silica 30C 

Follow up: she is not looking in the mirror so much, not feeling so neurotic.

Two weeks after Silica, she developed a large boil on the right leg.

May 2002: boil recurs.

Remedy: Iodum 30C

She improves, sweats less, feeling good in general. 

She is re-referred in November 2007. She has had recurrent boils with staphylococcus inter-nasally treated with antibiotics.

Tell me more about the abscess?

P: “I couldn’t walk, it’s horrible, burning. I couldn’t put weight on my legs. It’s excruciating, extremely hot and angry. I had a kidney infection and was in hospital for a week. I was rolling around at night with this pain.”

She has slight sweat on the forehead and pale unhealthy looking skin, with scars from acne. 

What was the pain like?

P: “It was a deep, dull, ache.” 

I notice at each point that I need to ask her rather than anything being spontaneously volunteered.

Tell me more about the pain.

P: “It is hot, burning. I used to get recurrent cystitis as a child. I remember trying not to pee, it was so painful, hot, and burning.”

What about your childhood?

P: “I had absolute freedom, making dens, running around, but mum and dad had a troublesome separation. They had nasty arguments. My grandmother describes me sitting in a trance.”

What was your feeling?

P: “I felt helpless. I would cry, like in a trance state, missing my mum, staring into the space. I try to block it out.”

The consultation feels difficult to flow into deeper levels, level 3. I come back to the immune system.

 “It’s really low.”

And your acne?

P: “When I was 12, I used to come home crying, being teased. The skin feels smoother, not as angry. I have to stop scratching and picking, but this neurosis builds up. I want to even out my skin. It was horrible, ugly. I used to smoke. I had pale skin with angry red spots, they were really uneven. I didn’t have any self confidence.”

What is it like not to have confidence?

P: “Not to know who you are. I couldn’t go into feelings, although I was over emotional.”

What would you say your feeling was?

P: “I was angry. To feel so horrible about yourself, I was angry about the cards I had been dealt. My largest organ was freaking out.”

Describe what it is like to be uneven. 

P: “I don’t like it, I want it smooth.”
What is uneven?

P: “It is anguish and pain. Unconfident.”

What is it to not know who you are?

P: “I know who I am but I won’t give myself credit. It’s a horrible feeling about my exterior. My skin heals more quickly if I am happy or positive.”

The sweating?

P: “Pain or nerves will make me sweat. My body is freaking out, it is breaking out. My brain has gone totally dead. Extreme emotion makes me sweat. If I get very angry, I will sweat; like in an argument. I will sweat from the forehead or the top lip. I can sweat from pain. It’s warm, but if it is cold my hands and feet are freezing.”

What about this situation where you might sweat when you are angry?

P: “I get frustrated, I get a wound up temper. I like things tidied up, I can’t think straight in clutter. I am trying to throw stuff away and not hang on to it for sentimental reasons.”

The feeling?

P: “Helpless, I can’t make things right for my twin sister. We have been through it all. Her ex-husband brainwashed her. As soon as she came back, I felt whole again. I wanted to kidnap her, steal her away. I felt so sad. I was holding onto the anger, hateful, with so much anger. Passionate hate. I hate him and his family. That will make me angry.”

Dreams?

P: “I am walking along the beach and I know something will happen. There is this massive amount of water.”

Feeling in the dream?

P: “Absolute fear, helplessness, nothing you can do with something that big. You must get away, grab anyone, run. There is an urgency to get away.

“I remember dreaming that me, mum and my sister were holding on to each other. The windows were shaking, everything is buffeting (gesture).”

What is this buffeting?

P: “It is a big shock, a big boom, buffeting. All the pressure is changing.  It is the shock. It makes you jump. It will wake you up. It’s like a back draft, a suction of air, like a gasp of air.”

Remedy: Petroleum 30C, three doses, 12 hours apart

Follow up January 2008:

P: “I feel my skin has been healing quicker, it’s been smoother. I still hold onto stresses. I haven’t had any abscesses; it’s not been as inflamed. I am not sweating as much, the anger has improved.

“I dreamt a man was trying to get me, like the dream I had as a child, you think you get away but they are waiting for you and you won’t get away. I work myself up.

“I also dream of this big black cat, something chasing me, something in the dark.

“I always get really hot in those dreams, freaked out.”

Follow up April 2008:

P: “I am very highly strung, arguing with my boyfriend. My skin is healing quicker but I am too wound up, too quickly irritated with his talking, he doesn’t know where it comes from. I have this nervous energy, getting too wound up too quickly. I work frantically. Traffic bothers me if it gets chaotic, people driving like idiots. I think my skin is regenerating well.”

Remedy: Petroleum 200C

At this point, although I am aware this wound up is still not settling, I stay with Petroleum and increase the potency. 

Follow up: August 2008. She has had a 3cm abscess for the past 10 weeks.

P: “I worry about the Roaccutane I was on 7 years ago. I got this excruciating vasculitis and a poison in my thumb that swelled up, yellow and green nastiness, had to be lanced. I never had a boil or abscess prior to the Roaccutane.

“It is depressing. Burning, angry, heat. It ruins my thought process. I am trying to burn it out, with hot compresses. I am screaming in agony. It’s a deep aching, affecting the nerves, teeth. I dreamt that it burst. It is much worse for touch. It feels like a pressure. It’s extreme. I felt like I would go insane, the pain was so intense. I felt confused.”

Remedy: Petroleum 1M

Follow up March 2009: 

“My skin was good and I was happy. My skin didn’t freak out.”

Remedy: Petroleum 1M

Follow up June 2009:

“My skin is still freaking out. It gets red and itchy. It is always worse with the hot weather and before my period.”

Tell me about the hot weather.

P: “I have always had a tendency to heat stroke, my brain starts blipping out, I get totally wavy vision, it was like the right side of my head had exploded. If my head gets too hot, I will faint or fit, such extremes. I get incredible headache like being hit by a hammer, banging, intense, and throbbing. I have to keep out of the sun or my head feels cooked, building up, like my blood pressure is going up, it gets intense. My head is swelling, as if it is trying to escape, waves of heat coming off my head. It’s like I have lost my senses, I feel very confused. I didn’t know where I was, my brain shut down.”

Remedy: Glonoine 30C daily for five days

At this point, it seems clear that the remedy is Glonoine. She tells me her skin came out red, angry and itchy but it has not been bad since; the skin on her back is 100 per cent better. She has had no boils. She is feeling better in herself.

Analysis for Glonoine

Glonoine is nitroglycerine, a highly explosive compound of carbon and nitrogen.

 “The pressure is changing. It is the shock. It makes you jump. It will wake you up. It’s like a back draft, a suction of air, like a gasp of air.”

Explosion: “The windows were shaking, everything is buffeting. It is a big shock, a big boom.”

“I have always had a tendency to heat stroke, my brain starts blipping out, like the right side of my head had exploded. I have to keep out of the sun. If my head gets too hot I get this incredible headache like being hit by a hammer, banging, intense, and throbbing. I dreamt that it burst.”

“Extreme emotion makes me sweat. If I get very angry, I will sweat; like in an argument.”

“My skin is freaking out.”

“I like partying. I love my friends, my friends are like family (Nitrogen theme).”

Glonoine substance:

Glonoine is prepared from the explosive nitroglycerine Gl O N3.

The highly explosive volatile liquid was made more practical for industrial use by the addition of a silicate earth-forming dynamite. The profits from this discovery funded the Nobel Prize. Given as a heart medication for angina pectoris, the nitroglycerine is converted by the body into nitric oxide, a natural vasodilator.  

Glonoine as a remedy:

Build up of pressure, threat of explosion, sudden explosion, red in the face, hot, angry. Sunstroke, angina, pulsating headache, migraine, constriction, surge of heat at menopause, migraine instead of menses. Migraine is relieved in a darkened room; lying with the head covered.

Petroleum substance:

Petroleum is a hydrocarbon, a fuel made from hydrogen and carbon.

Petroleum as a remedy:

Travel sickness, nausea in pregnancy, skin of hands cracked, psoriasis (unfeeling), eczema, skin suppurates, cold skin, cold sensation in the chest. Similar skin symptoms to Graphites.

We know that Petroleum has the feature of unhealthy skin but many of the hydrocarbons appear to be related to wound healing, such as gunpowder, and with this case, we could include Glonoine. In my experience, boils are a feature of the explosive hydrocarbons for obvious reasons.

Photos: Wikimedia Commons
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Fire on an offshore drilling unit; US coast guard