This was a case of a 14 year old boy who had received a back injury 6 months previously. He had then developed pain in the lumbar region, on either side of the spinal column. X-Ray had showed oedema of the disc. He had been advised bed rest and pain relieving drugs which had apparently cured him.

When I saw him in early 2006, he had a recurrence of the pain for the last 15 days.
There was back pain with tightness all over the back. It was worse by standing long (about 1/2 an hour), worse on lying down initially for 5-10 minutes. He was better on walking, sitting, lying on his sides and by pressure.
Since about 2 weeks, he had pricking and aching pains in both his heels which was worse on rising after sitting for some time.
He had a tendency to dry lips. His lips chapped all the year round and bled in winter. He also complained of headaches on returning from school. It was located in the forehead and over the eyes and was better by lying down and by pressure. He also had visual blackouts on playing in the sun.

He loved sweets, ice cream, sour foods like lemons and tamarind which he ate with sugar and salt. He was very fond of cheese and loved cold milk. He drank about 10 glasses of water daily and was fresh after 8 hours of deep sleep; he slept mainly on his left side.

He was born during the 7th month of pregnancy and was in an incubator for about 2 weeks. His mother was 17 years old at the time and she went into labour following the exertion of travel on a bumpy road. He had pneumonia at 1 year, typhoid at 4 years and jaundice at 9 years.

He was an obedient boy but enjoyed teasing his younger brother who was 10 years old. He was friendly by nature, mixed easily with others and enjoyed entertaining people with magic tricks. He enjoyed movies and music and was scared of dogs. He enjoyed physical activities like cricket, football, volleyball and wanted to join the National Defence Academy when older.

Considering the old injury, my initial prescription was of Arnica 1M. After a week, he was much better and was asked to see me again after a fortnight. When he came to the clinic again, he still had a backache though his heel pain was much better. Based on his general characteristics, he was given a dose of Phosphorus 200 along with the biochemic Calcarea Phos 6x, three times daily.

His backache cleared up along with his other constitutional symptoms and he didn’t show up again for 6 months after which he returned since the dryness of his lips was recurring. One more dose of Phosphorus 200 was repeated. I presume he has been fine since he hasn’t visited the clinic again.