A friend of mine is having severe anxiety about a break- up from a boyfriend. She blames herself and feels she will never have anyone as perfect as he was. Everyone else looks pale in comparison to him. She calls him once in a while and finds herself rejected all over again. She is worse in the morning and has felt better as the day goes on. I gave her 30C ignatia last week and she was better for a few days but she was taking some anti=depressant and who knows if that interfered. In the last few days she admitted, ashamed, that she has thought about killing herself. I gave her Ignatia 200C yesterday and this morning she had severe anxiety about going back to the city where she works and where this man is. She has thought about suicide would end the horrible feelings of self=blame. Strangely, around 12 or l in the afternoon, she starts to feel better and thinks she can get over this but it starts all over in the morning. Same thing happened today, the day after the remedy, a sigh, literally, of relief came at 1;00. She says its like being on a roller-coaster and then she gets off it for a while. She gradually gets better through-out the day but at night before she goes to bed she feels the anxiety again because she knows she is going to feel bad in the morning.She keeps saying "how can someone make me feel this way". She is a cold person. When she starts missing this boyfriend she gets a cold, tingly feeling in both her arms. She normally sees herself as stable, peaceful and confident, very organized. Now she feels totally disorganized. I have to go now . But I was wondering if the Ign 200C sounded right. She is also a very thirsty person for water.

Caroll, Ignatia is the first remedy in this case, but you should not repeat it. Leave the dose working and wait. If after a week or two the situation is still the same (worse in the morning) read up on lachesis and find out if it possibly covers the rest of the case. In cases like this I would give a 50M just before bedtime, so the problem can be resolved in dreams. mental cases like that do better on the higher and highest potencies. Hope this is of any help to you.

It must be 4.30 AM in Sydney when Ben posted this!!!

Carolorr: What type of menses that she has usually?

Thanks for your quick reply. When I said she was cold, I meant chilly, not personality wise.She isn't here right now but I'll ask about her menses when she returns. She is 26 years old.

I had a patient with similar and 1M Ignatia sorted it. He came back on the scene 6 months later so was given another 1M and this seems to be holding.

Carol Orr
Is you friend ok now?

Hi, Carol - My experience has always been that Ignatia is pre-eminently a grief remedy, and while your friend is grieving the loss of her relationship, it sounds like there's a good bit of fear, self-dislike and despair in there too. I've found that the Bach Flower remedies can work very well for such situations -- the trick is in picking the best match, because the differences are subtle! Can you get hold of a book describing the Flower remedies? If so, check out especially Mustard and Gorse.

My friend went back to California and got really bad, took the lM Ignatia, felt like she wanted to kill herself, called a suicide prevention clinic, made an appointment with a psychiatrist. Then she took the 50M Lachesis, and she felt better for a couple of days. She felt the beginning of the bad feelings coming back so about 5 days later she took another dose of the 50M. When she told me this I got really upset because I told her not to take a second dose of any of the remedies.Anyway, a week after that 2nd dose she called me and said she feels fine, working hard at her job and doesn't think about it at all. ??????? Beats me.Guess we'll have to see what happens in a couple of weeks from now.

One more thing, when I talked to her on phone she got kind of nasty in her attitude. I coughed and she said, "hey,quit coughing in my ear". I thought this was a great sign. She called later to apologize but I thought she sounded more real than ever before.