Kalium phosphoricum

Preparing a Materia Medica Validating Day, in which a group of homeopathic doctors would discuss patients who reacted well for more than one year on one special remedy, I found a lot of successful treated patients with Kalium Phosphoricum, the remedy to discuss, in my computer.
It was in ’94 that I saw a man who reacted very well on Kalium Phosphoricum and it looks like I could understand better from that time on which patients needed Kalium Phosphoricum.
I will show you this case and three later cases, in which I gave Kalium Phosphoricum in the first consult and who reacted very well in the next year.
After giving you the stories of the patients and the symptoms I will discuss the 4 cases and what is the theme of Kalium Phosphoricum in my mind.

Case
A man of 54 years old comes to me because he has headache. The headache is worse in the last months and he had gone to an orthopedist, a dentist, a jaw surgeon, a KNO doctor and after this the general practitioner sends him to me. He looks a little depressed.
From the age of 8 year he had headache. The headache is a maddening pain what starts in the occiput left or right and what radiated by the side to the forehead.
The pain is worse by eastern wind and after draft on his perspired head. Warm water and pressure on the head gives him relief. Eating ice and every draft can cause the headache.
Having a terrible headache his vision to the lateral left and right side diminished.
Having headache the best is to be outside. He wants to be alone when he has headache. He doesn’t like people talk with him when he has headache.
He was very nervous as a child. They called him a “zenuwlijder”. He is operated for stomach pain. The surgeon cut some nerves near his stomach (vagotomie).
He is from a family with 17 children. He is the third in the row. The theme in the family was, working, working, and working. When he was 14 years old he went to a shoe factory, and later he went to a factory where they made dry soaps. In the factory everything has to go perfect, but after 23 years it was too much for him. His ideal was to become a truck driver, but he did not do this because of the insecurity to earn too little money for his family.
His two sons became truck drivers and when riding with them abroad he had the best time of his life. When he told me this his eyes are flickering. He wanted to be free. Now he is working for the municipality as a green worker.
He is working in the surroundings of a tennis court and he is his own boss. He can make his own decisions and makes his own talks with through passers. He likes this work.
His hobbies are fishing and training of dogs. His relation with his wife is well, he sleeps well and he has no fears.

Generals
He can not have raw vegetables, apples and boiled eggs because of regurgitations. He has a desire for sweets. He is using Tagamet for stomach pain. He perspires a lot all over his body with the slightest exercise. During the day he is going home for taking a bath and have some dry clothes.

Analysis
I was first looking to rubrics like:
Head pain schoolchildren
Head pain open air amel
Head pain draft of air agg
Head pain from taking cold

There was the libertinism and the desire to travel of Phosphor and the work/task/responsibility of Kalium.
Earlier in life there was anxiety about the future and anxiety about money matters
The most important in this case was, I thought, that because of his cares (cares about his family what had to do with work, task and responsibility) he did not do what his heart was longing for (be free).

Follow-up
He got kalium phosphoricum 200K and 6 weeks later he told that he reacted very strong on this remedy. In one day his head pain disappeared, but at the third day his nose began to run and did not stop for one week. There was discharge in great masses, in green yellow and white. It was a delight ness that his head pain was gone while his nose was running.
The second reaction was after three weeks. He got a very heavy diarrhea for more than three days, what he himself was reasoning as a reaction on porridge what he was eating for years and was maybe poisoning him (just in that days there was an article in the paper about this subject). After this the feeling of his stomach like a harness disappeared.
He could stop his Tagamet.
He could remember two dreams. In one dream he was going to die (fear of death) and in the other dream people were chasing at him. He was more free and loquacious. “The pressure is gone”.
Another 12 weeks later he told me that he had to take the Kalium phosphoricum 200K after two weeks and after three weeks. The complaints were coming back after three weeks and he was out of new granules but he waits a short time before coming back. He is dreaming about an accident with a car. His wife is hurt and had a hole in her head. He himself had broken legs and despite he knows he could not help the accident, he feels guilty (about his wife).
I prescribe Kalium phosphoricum MK.
Four months later I see him back. He took the remedy every three weeks. When he perceives the smallest headache he takes the remedy. Immediately this headache is gone and the discharge from the nose is coming for a short time. He is still sensitive for the Eastern wind.
Now there are dreams with anxiety for high places. He is standing on a high mountain and he looks down and has a tight feeling. Or he is in a hole in the ground and cannot come out of it. There is the same tight feeling.
In his work he is more relaxed. He can let the work the work. He wanted always to finish his work, but now he can say that he will do the work tomorrow.
His wife tells me he is more relaxed at home and in conversations with everybody.
On parties he wanted to go home soon, but now he can stay for a whole evening and is very communicative. On the video that I took of him you can see that he enjoys the consult. He is very enthusiastic and very open. There is nothing to see about a kind of sadness or a kind of irritation, what was to be seen in the first consultation
After taking Kalium phosphoricum 10MK his complaints of headache disappeared totally.
He was still sensitive for wind and still was perspiring easily. His whole family was astonished that he changed so much in his moods.

Comments
Work and task was in his family so important, and he was so very sensitive for this, that he could not feel his desires and his anxieties. In his responsibility for his family he could not change to a job what was more appropriate to him. By getting children he feels the responsibility but later on he also begins to feel what he really wants. He wants freedom and to be his own boss. When his children have their own lives he can take the decision to follow his heart and change jobs. But following his heart, his complaints are not away. The body carries the carves of his former life.

In this case I think that his complaints are reacting very quickly because on the moment of taking the remedy for the first time, he knows what he wants in his life. He does the things in his life what he wants, but it looks like that his body doesn’t know that. After taking the remedy body and mind understand each other.
In becoming healthier he is for the first time of his life aware of anxieties. This feels okay for him. He doesn’t complain about his anxieties, he is describing it like a spectator.
He notices that the surrounding of his stomach feels free. But also his family notices that he is more free, loquacious, cheerful and enjoying communication with all the people in his surrounding.
In this case we can understand why some contradictory rubrics are in the repertorium. It depends of the fact if the kalium phosphoricum person is feeling well or is feeling bad. We see the rubrics:

Mind aversion-family: to members of
Mind aversion-husband, to
Mind company aversion
Mind company aversion to-alone; when-amel.
Mind company desire for
Mind company desire for-amel. In company
Mind company desire for-friend, of a
Mind conversation amel
Mind conversation aversion to
Mind irritability alone-wishes to be alone
Mind irritability spoken to, when
Mind quarrelsome- family, with her

After this case I gave some patients with recurrent sinusitis maxilaris Kalium Phosphoricum when I heard of them in the anamnesis that they where doing a job what they didn’t want but had a job in their mind what was their ideal job. Most of them reacted very well and decided to change jobs or to change other important things in their lives.

Case 2
The second case is of a man of 54 years old. He is the director, wholesale dealer, doing business in paints and comes to me because he wants to stop Prozac what he is using for nearly 12 years. He notices that by using Prozac his mind is flattened and his communication with his surrounding is worse (irritability and indifference, less concentrated) but also his smell diminished and his respiration is more difficult. He cannot enjoy anything anymore.
Before the Prozac he was using 20 years Seresta. This was given to him because one evening he got palpitations, ear noises, perspiration and fear. He thought he was going to die, that special evening.
For me this man had a hyperventilationsyndrom, but I was the first doctor who asked him about this syndrome.
He was feeling a tension in his face and behind his nose. The stress had taken me, he told.
The stress takes the ground under me.
It started on an evening in a time that he was a sales representative in paints and his boss obliged him to work more commercial. So he could not spent so much time with communicating with his customers. Beside that in their neighborhood there was a robbery (what frightened him very much). On that moment this two facts had a big impression on him.
Eight years ago he bought the business of his boss and after that it was a little bit better with him.
He was traveling very much for his job what he enjoys. He liked to invite his customers and to give parties, when he felt well. He liked to make speeches when he felt well.
His biggest fear was that he could not enjoy with other people anymore. He had repeating dreams about dogs what frightens him. He had dreams in which he could fly when there were problems.
Sometimes he is frightened by sinless violence.

He came from a family with 7 children, his youth was nice, with parents who had attention for everyone. His parents were simple, social and very honest. When he sports 4 times a week he feels better. He did not have special aversion or desires. From beer he is the next day lighter in his head. From salt he is perspiring easier.

Analysis
It was very nice to talk with this man and he talked several times about communication and his complaints started in the moment he was pressed to communicate less with customers and while there was a robbery, so I took as first and second rubric:

Mind communicative
Mind fear of robbers

And also the next rubrics
Mind fear responsibility
Mind fear death of
Chest palpitation with anxiety
Face tension of skin

Follow-up
I gave him Kalium Phosphoricum LM6 1 granule a day.
After 8 weeks he was very optimistic about what happened with him in this 8 weeks.
In the first 10 days after starting the remedy he was very dull.
He tells spontaneously that he now can rule his own respiration. “I did not have the rest in my abdomen, but now my respiration is coming more from my abdomen”.
“I feel the same with this remedy as with Prozac, but with the big difference that this remedy doesn’t take anything of myself”. When he wakes up in the morning he feels better than before.
After another eight weeks he feels much better. He is more aware of his respiration.
The tense feeling in his face has gone. “ I am three times better than before”. His smell is normal now. He has much more energy and he is enjoying life.
After one year he tells me that he sometimes takes one granule of Kalium Phosphoricum LM6 and he is very grateful to me that he is so much better than in the beginning.

In this case I did not give this man respiration education.
What a physiotherapist could learn him in 6-12 respiration sessions in a short time after the complaints began, he did himself with the granules Kalium phosphoricum 33 years after the starting of his complaints. In this case the healthy side of this man was more visible in his story than in the story of the man in the first case. So I could not take the rubric mind-businessmen-worn-out businessmen, suited to.
On the moment I saw him, he also did the work he wanted to do, but fear and the reaction in his body on this fear restrained him to enjoy life totally.

Case 3
The third case is a 13 years old girl.
She is with her mother but she can tell her story very well herself.
She is looking tired and has dark blue circles around her eyes. She is lean and 5 kilo under her ideal weight. She has to eat frequent times because otherwise there is to less energy to do anything.
Her main complaints are tiredness, headache regular (but I did not ask what kind of headache) and vertigo, but she is also complaining about lack of energy and coldness. When she is rising from her bed in the morning there is the vertigo, but also late in the evening.
Sometimes she has herpes labiales. Earlier in her life there was eczema and some difficult respiration what was much better on a holiday in France.
She was known with serious homesickness (even with a girlfriend two houses away from her own house) and sometimes there was somnambulism.
There were dreams about school, about friends and about holidays. There were nightmares in which she was eaten by lions and that she was in prison under water.
Earlier she had a fear for fire and for spiders.
She was a nice and a little bit timid girl, but independent. Mother told spontaneously that she was very task directed and mother thought her complaints aggravated when she was going to the middle school and her responsibilities about schoolwork grew.
Before going to the middle school she played a lot outside with other children, more with little children than children of her own age. Starting with middle school she stopped playing outside.
She told that when she is older she wants to work with children.
She did not have her first menses. She desires sweets and has an aversion for champignons, brown beans and Soya products.

Analysis
In the rubrics
Head pain schoolchildren
Mind talking sleep during
Mind homesickness
Mind somnambulism
Dreams nightmares
Face discoloration bluish eyes circles around
Face eruptions herpes lips about
we can see Kalium phosphoricum, but for me the moment of aggravation, going to the middle school, for a task directed child with nightmares and dreams about, school, friends and holidays was enough to give Kalium Phosphoricum.

Follow-up
So I gave Kalium Phosphoricum 200K
Five weeks later I saw her back and the mother said there was not so much changed. She was much more quarreling with her smaller brother.
But the patient overruled her mother. She tells me it is much better with her. She has a lot more energy. She is playing outside with other children again. And concerning her brother she doesn’t want to undergo anything of her little brother anymore. She was more assertive to her brother. When the girl is telling that she is better, it looks like mother now can see for the first time it is really better with her daughter. She tells me that what is striking that her daughter is playing now with children of her own age. She has an unquenchable thirst. She is drinking much more than before. She can live now with less frequent eating. She is able to walk with a feeling of hunger. When the tiredness came back she took herself (outside the knowing of the mother) another two granules and the next day the tiredness was already better. Sometimes there was a little bit vertigo, but there was no headache anymore.
Two months later she was very well. The vertigo also diminished.

Case 4
The fourth and last case is of a man of 43 years.
He comes with several complaints. The main complaint is an itching cough what is there for several years and what also is a complaint of his family. His father has this same complaint.
The itching is behind the sternum and is worse when he is lying in his bed. He can wake up from it. In the morning he has a little bit expectoration by coughing.
Other complaints are: Tiredness after warm food. Irritation or inflammation of the gums. A bad smell of his mouth. Much stinking flatulence. He is too lean, he needs some kilos. He has blue circles around his eyes. He isn’t in a best condition, but he can easily drive a bike in the mountains.
In the years of his childhood he went several times to the general practitioner for respiration complaints (no real inflammation, but coughing and difficult respiration). There was a tonsillectomy and he thought there was a sinusitis frontalis. Later in his life he had a hepatitis on a holiday. He has no aversions and he likes pasta’s and red wine. He lacks heat easy and has cold feet.
His father was a farmer and a careful father. His mother was a little bit chaotic. He had one sister with whom he quarreled a lot. His sister was a girl with hair on her teeth, he himself was a boy seeking for harmony. On the farm he felt very lonesome. On school he was a good student, he was bad in sports but he could compensate that with making jokes. After secondary school he first did a technical education, but after that he switched to the social academy because he wanted to do something with other people. He was very curious and loved travelling. He told me, “in every men you meat the world”. He went to Asia several times and to Africa.
On one of his first journeys he got fear in the airplane. He was afraid to loose his control, so that he should jump in the cockpit and should pull the control column. After that he was some time very hurried. There is some fear of high places. He has two children and he is full of cares and can have catastrophal thoughts about them. He is afraid of aggression on his work.
Seven years before he woke up and felt totally paralyzed, as if he had no control on his muscles. He must think how to use his muscles and went out of bed.
He is working now as a family guide for a medical centre for pre-school infants. He likes to work with the parents.

Analysis
There was one striking word in the time of his youth in this anamnesis, where I looked for. It was “harmony”. I think I was very lucky that Kalium Phosphoricum was in that rubric, otherwise I had given him Phosphor. But when I saw Kalium Phosphoricum in this rubric it was clear for me that he must have this remedy.
I asked him about his responsibilities for his children. He could be very restless and would leave the house and leave the children. He would like to travel. He was doubtful that a man with cares could be a good father.

Follow-up
So he started with Kalium Phosphoricum LM6 1 granule a day.
Six weeks later he told me that his gums were much better, even the dentist was very optimistic.
He had a very good holiday and he could enjoy his children very much. He did really father things with them and that was great for him. It was strange for him that he had the rest to stay so easy with his children and did not have the tendency to leave.
The itching cough disappeared just as the stinking flatulence and the bad odor of the mouth.
He is more aware how he is feeling. On his birthday there were some people on his party, but he felt very lonely. But now it was okay for him. “I was the person who did not want to feel my pain and grief” and now I have to. I have to confront myself.
On his job he is also confronting his co-workers and that gives beautiful discussions. Two months later I see him with his daughter who needs Lycopodium and he tells me that he stopped the medicine because he feels very well. I gave him Kalium Phosphoricum 200K for the moment his complaints would come back. One year after starting the remedy I saw him back and he told me that when he notices his itching cough he takes his granules and within one or two days it disappeared. It is much better with him and his children. Nobody can make him hurry.
It is much easier to concentrate and it is easier to make music. He also started a new education for his job. There is a little bit eczema between the fingers of the left hand and a little bit on the sole of the left foot. It is always there in the summertime for years and the last symptom left.

Discussion
Mind Harmony-desire for
Mind cares full of
Mind fear high places
Mind fear responsibility
Mind hurry haste –occupation in
Mind indifference apathy relations to/ loved ones to

In this four cases we can see how helpful the words are what Jan Scholten gives to Kalium and to Phosphor in his book “homeopathy and minerals”.
Let us see;
Kalium: Duty, Principled, Closed, Optimistic, Work, Task, Family
Phosphorus: Communication, Sympathetic, Friends, Neighbours, Brothers, Homesickness, Curious and traveling, Restlessness and fears.

With this words Jan Scholten makes the next four themes:
1: They feel responsible to have many contacts.
2: The task is a barrier for them in making contact.
3: They have the task to learn well.
4: They have the task to communicate very well.

These are themes but not a real essence. Only case 3 of the girl I can compare with theme 3.
But with the words of Jan Scholten we can make many more themes, but is it possible to make one essence?

Rajan Sankaran gives as main feeling “I am not loved (Phos) by the people whom I seek support (Kali)”.
I can not see this feeling in my cases. I think it is another theme for Kalium Phosphoricum but it is not an essence or a main feeling. But in his writing about this remedy Rajan Sankaran gives the example of two cases in which there were frightening dreams. In both cases the patient is dreaming that he/she is chased by an animal (tiger) and that the dreamer has to look after her children in the dream. So there is the responsibility for caring. There is no main feeling in this dream but there are other striking resemblances with my cases. In my first case the patient is chased by persons.
In the second case the patient dreams about terrifying dogs and going to fly when there are problems. In the third case we see that the patient is eaten by lions in her dream. So the dreams are frightening but there is not the item of not being loved by the people whom I seek support.
In my first case we see the dream, after taking Kalium phosphoricum, that there is a car-accident and that the patient feels guilty what happened to his wife. I do not know or we may interpret this more as not fulfilling his responsibilities but it is better than interpreting it as a feeling of not feeling beloved by his wife where he seeks support.
Rajan Sankaran writes that the extreme anxiety in his cases is the anxiety of Kalium and that the caring of others is a feature of Phosphor. For me it is clear that the anxiety and the caring of others is of Kalium Phosphoricum but I am not sure what is of Kalium and what is of Phosphor.
Rajan Sankaran gives us the next physical symptoms and I notice in which of my cases it agrees:
Weakness-fagged out: paralytic weakness (see case 1, 2, 3 and 4, waking paralyzed).
Oversensitive physical states (this is a very general symptom, but it is for all the four cases).
Chilly patients (case 1 cold feet before headache, case 3 and 4).
Careworn look on the face (case 1 and 4).
Hungry soon after eating (case 3).
Craves sweets (case 1 and 3).

Now I will try to give a kind of an essence for Kalium phosphoricum,

“Fears and responsibilities (also the fear for responsibilities) are troubling the communication on the only way (journey of life) you have to go.”

For some people it is more important to follow their heart than other people. The person who needs Kalium phosphoricum gets complaints as soon as he goes of his course of life. Fears, communication and responsibilities, but also holidays and freedom are striking words, the same words as Jan Scholten uses.

I hope this article will help to come to a better understanding of Kalium Phosphoricum for the people who need Kalium Phosphoricum.

Literature
Synthesis edited by Frederik Schroyens, edition 8.1
Sankaran Rajan: The substance of homoeopathy 1994
Scholten Jan: Homeopathy and minerals 1993