Thulium Phosphoricum

1. Thulium-phos: Brother has AIDS.
A married young woman has had migraines for many years. They are increasing in frequency and intensity. The migraine starts with a visual disturbance of the left eye in the form of a half-circle zigzag light (like the luminous outlines of the upper half of a blade of a circular saw). Her vision becomes foggy. Then follows nausea and vertigo. The visual disturbances fade and a persisting headache above the left eye sets in. She has an aggravation during weekends or holiday.

Her appearance and personality is a peculiar mixture of kindness and reservation. She loves her family, is good-looking and tastefully dressed. She is kind in contact yet somehow is hiding herself in an unseen mental veil which overshadows her inside mind. She feels like an expensive secret book with seven seals.

She has many allergies (strawberries strong) with hayfever and sometimes asthma. She also has stitching pains in her liver and gallbladder > stooping and frequent genital herpes II. Her father had died from lymphoma. Her brother has Aids.

She dislikes olives and soft raisins hidden in cakes. Her color preferences are light blue 16B and cyan blue 17C.

Former remedies that worked well:
Hayfever improves in a few minutes with Fragaria (chosen because of her strawberry allergy plus rose family themes), and acute asthma responds to Laurocerasus (also rose family with an emphasis on the suffocative symptoms). Her migraine was palliated by Iris (visual disturbance precedes headache, < weekend), but it didn't cure. Instead she became more and more gloomy.

Analysis:
The case was re-evaluated together with Markus Kuntosch. We did a kind of brainstorming and looked at the whole case from different perspectives. Migraine with visual disturbance indicates a lanthanide. Her many allergies, reserved nature and color preference confirm this, but which one? Then the story of her brother came to mind. Aids is Thulium, and brother indicates Phosphorus. This gave the idea for Thul-p, although it was not clear how deeply the state of her brother had entered her own mind. Anyway, the gloomy feeling and the veil/shadow theme were in line with Thulium, and her kind contacts reminds us of Phosphorus.

Follow-up:
Seven months after Thul-p 200 (twice since) no migraine in spite of many typical trigger situations. The day after the first dose she had a slight unsubstantial attack which was just ”mocking” the usual migraine. It started with vertigo and a slight visual disturbance, but no electric lights this time and no headache afterward. The second dose was given after two months. The following two days she felt some pressure in head, then a very light feeling. Since Thul-p, not only has the migraines left, but also the gallbladder-symptoms have improved. She feels more energetic and looks changed. In fact she is a changed person, more joy and ease, she can laugh, she talks more openly, more truthfully, and her beauty has become more natural.
Incredible, how a simple concept of only two key words can sometimes lead to success!