The name is derived from the Greek 'dysprositos', meaning hard to get. Dysprosium is in Stage 12 of the periodic table of the chemistry which stands for fighting to retain, to hold something. The following phrase comes to mind with this mineral which is why the picture was chosen: “Stand for something or you will fall for anything. Today’s mighty oak is yesterday’s nut that held its ground.” ~Rosa Parks
Dysprosium is a chemical element with symbol Dy and atomic number 66. It is a rare earth element with a metallic silver luster. Dysprosium is never found in nature as a free element, though it is found in various minerals, such as xenotime. Naturally occurring dysprosium is composed of 7 isotopes, the most abundant of which is 164Dy.
Dysprosium was first identified in 1886 by Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, but was not isolated in pure form until the development of ion exchange techniques in the 1950s. Dysprosium is used for its high thermal neutron absorption cross-section in making control rods in nuclear reactors, for its high magnetic susceptibility in data storage applications, and as a component of Terfenol-D. Soluble dysprosium salts are mildly toxic, while the insoluble salts are considered non-toxic.
Dysprosium is a rare earth element that has a metallic, bright silver luster. It is soft enough to be cut with a knife, and can be machined without sparking if overheating is avoided. Dysprosium's physical characteristics can be greatly affected, even by small amounts of impurities.
Dysprosium and holmium have the highest magnetic strengths of the elements, especially at low temperatures. Dysprosium has a simple ferromagnetic ordering at temperatures below 85 K (−188.2 °C). Above 85 K (−188.2 °C), it turns into an helical antiferromagnetic state in which all of the atomic moments in a particular basal plane layer are parallel, and oriented at a fixed angle to the moments of adjacent layers. This unusual antiferromagnetism transforms into a disordered (paramagnetic) state at 179 K (−94 °C).
Applications
Dysprosium is used, in conjunction with vanadium and other elements, in making laser materials and commercial lighting. Because of dysprosium's high thermal-neutron absorption cross-section, dysprosium-oxide–nickel cermets are used in neutron-absorbing control rods in nuclear reactors. Dysprosium–cadmium chalcogenides are sources of infrared radiation, which is useful for studying chemical reactions. Because dysprosium and its compounds are highly susceptible to magnetization, they are employed in various data-storage applications, such as in ard disks.
Neodymium–iron–boron magnets can have up to 6% of the neodymium substituted with dysprosium to raise the coercivity for demanding applications such as drive motors for electric vehicles. This substitution would require up to 100 grams of dysprosium per car produced. Based on Toyota's projected 2 million units per year, the use of dysprosium in applications such as this would quickly exhaust its available supply. The dysprosium substitution may also be useful in other applications, because it improves the corrosion resistance of the magnets.
Dysprosium is one of the components of Terfenol-D, along with iron and terbium. Terfenol-D has the highest room-temperature magnetostriction of any known material; which is employed in transducers, wide-band mechanical resonators, and high-precision liquid-fuel injectors.
Dysprosium is used in dosimeters for measuring ionizing radiation. Crystals of calcium sulfate or calcium fluoride are doped with dysprosium. When these crystals are exposed to radiation, the dysprosium atoms become excited and luminescent. The luminescence can be measured to determine the degree of exposure to which the dosimeter has been subjected.
Nanofibers of dysprosium compounds have high strength and large surface area. Therefore, they can be used to reinforce other materials and as a catalyst. Fibers of dysprosium oxide fluoride can be produced by heating an aqueous solution of DyBr3 and NaF to 450 °C at 450 bar for 17 hours. This material is remarkably robust, surviving over 100 hours in various aqueous solutions at temperatures exceeding 400 °C without redissolving or aggregating.
Dysprosium iodide and dysprosium bromide are used in high-intensity metal-halide lamps. These compounds dissociate near the hot center of the lamp, releasing isolated dysprosium atoms. The latter re-emit light in the green and red part of the spectrum, thereby effectively producing bright light.
Several paramagnetic crystal salts of dysprosium (Dysprosium Gallium Garnet, DGG; Dysprosium Aluminum Garnet, DAG; Dysprosium Iron Garnet, DyIG) are used in adiabatic demagnetization refrigerators.
Like many powders, dysprosium powder may present an explosion hazard when mixed with air and when an ignition source is present. Thin foils of the substance can also be ignited by sparks or by static electricity. Dysprosium fires cannot be put out by water. It can react with water to produce flammable hydrogen gas. Dysprosium chloride fires, however, can be extinguished with water, while dysprosium fluoride and dysprosium oxide are non-flammable.Dysprosium nitrate, Dy(NO3)3, is a strong oxidizing agent and will readily ignite upon contact with organic substances
Homeopathy
Dysprosium metallicum: problems with sugar
by Annemiek Klitsie
Case
I would like to present to you a case of a thirty year old woman who visited me for the first time in January 2004.
Her main complaint was having problems with the intake of sugar. She called it hypoglycemia.
The classical known symptoms of hypoglycemia are:
paleness, trembling, perspiration, feeling of weakness, rapid heartbeat, hunger, agitation, irritability, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, blurred vision, temporary loss of consciousness, convulsions, coma.
Her main complaints after using sugar: she was very tired the last months of 2005 and she had troubles concentrating. There was an aggravation on these points when she used sugar. She was using a diet since an electro-acupuncturist noticed the hypoglycemia in 1992. She often had headaches on both sides of her forehead with blinding pain, aggravation with light, amelioration by pressure on her forehead, nausea - but not always vomiting, without any prodrome (sign that the headache was coming): so she suffered of migraine-like headaches.
The problems with her concentration were accompanied by amnesia such as, forgetting appointments, forgetting what she just saw on television or just read in a book or newspaper.
Her hands were trembling and she had weak arms and legs, as if “they didn’t wanted to do what I did, they stayed behind”. She was very aware of having extremities and her hands and feet felt cold. She perspired.
Her eyes were sensitive to light and her contact-lenses seemed to be blurred now and then and they gave her a burning sensation.
High need of sleep: she could stay in bed for 2 days continuously.
Emotionally she felt more unstable: people could convince her more easy than before.
Frequent urination after the use of sugar. Sometimes the feeling of having a flush of heat after sugar-use.
After using sugar she got a mycosis, a vaginal infection.
When she eats sugar, the complaints specified above started 2-3 days later.
Compared with the classically known symptoms of hypoglycemia, my patient didn’t suffer of a rapid heartbeat and the more severe symptoms like convulsions or coma.
The extra symptoms she mentioned after using sugar were a migraine headache, frequent urination and a vaginal infection.
Why did she have an aggravation around the time she came to me for the first consultation?
In 2001 she went to the USA where she stayed for 2 years. In the USA she got a sort of overdose of sugar because all the American food-products contain sugar. You can hardly buy any food without sugar added to it. So she developed a lot of symptoms at that time.
In August 2003, back in Holland, she fell in love and started to live together with her lover. In November 2003 they broke up and her ex found another within a month and still lived in their former home. She was very angry at him and only shortly before our first consult in January 2004 was she on speaking terms with him again on neutral subjects. She balanced on the edge of a depression and had a few consults at a psychologist she knew.
In January 2004 she thought: “I will fight for myself” and decided to take care for herself. She had the feeling nobody else would fight for me, something she was used to from her youth. Again she had to look after herself alone, she had to do it on her own.
She is rather ambivalent to her ex: on one hand the feeling that their relation will be OK, but on the other hand the knowledge that he told so many lies about her, that it’s impossible to expect that everything will be OK again. So she chose her own way, starting to look after her own interests.
About her mind: She is an autonomous woman, sometimes a little bit stubborn/obstinate. She can’t stand authorities. She is a strong woman; knows what she wants. Always has the spirit to overcome problems no matter how heavy they might be. Has a sense of humor. She likes to do everything as perfect as possible. She is open and communicative. She is spiritually interested. She knew a lot of homesickness in the USA, probably by the hard work she did there with shifts of 16 hours. (She was working in a home for Mentally Handicapped People and was asked to be supervisor of that home in her second year, so she had the capacities of a leader.) She suffered from homesickness as a young child, but grew out of it, she thought.
Desires: She likes the autumn and eventually winter. She loves the seaside. She loves thunderstorm and stormy weather.
Fears: She is afraid of birds, especially doves and crows (big black) because of the flapping of their wings.
She is a thirsty woman and has no aversions to food or drinks. Desire for bread, cheese, diner, cookies, sweets, salt, sour and eggs. Aggravation from alcohol, fruit juice, sweets and sugar.
Background:
Father, mother and brother who was 3 years older. Her brother was a problem child because he had difficulty learning at school. She lacked attention from her parents because of his difficulties. When she was 20 years of age she left home and started to study. She is sexually abused by her brother on the age of 12 years. Her parents didn’t know it at that time. From then on she had to take care of herself.
Later on she told it to her parents. When her mother asked her to take care for her brother when her parents couldn’t do it any more, she refused and explained what had happened. From that time on when she is at her parents home, her brother is somewhere else.
Mother: A warm woman with possibilities of talking about emotional items. She works as a case manager for students in order to help them to finance their study. She is a smart woman, but never got the chance of studying because her father left the family when she was ten years of age and left her mother with 4 little children. Mother was the eldest.
Father: Was also the eldest of 4 children. His father died when he was ten years of age. Fathers mother was a cold, heartless woman, but father himself is a good-natured chap who is not very talkative. He has an own business in office machinery. He is very introverted, but can show his affection for his daughter without words; arm around her shoulder.
Schools: Primary school was fine, one of the best students; learning was fun. Lots of friends. Secondary school: Average student, at first fighting at it to be the best like at primary school. Later on, especially after the sexual abuse of brother, she felt OK with her position and had a less prominent presence.
Work in 2004: Group Worker within a psychiatric ward for young ones in a big psychiatric hospital. Nowadays: Group Worker within a ward for young ones with a mental handicap combined with problems in their behaviour. She is the co-ordinator of a residence where about 10 mentally handicapped youngsters live.
Differential Diagnosis:
What is the main problem? There are several ways of looking at this case:
When you just look at the physical symptoms of the problems with the intake of sugar, you can think of Saccharum album. A clinical way of looking at it.
When you look at the childhood of both her parents, you see a shortage of love and care, so you can think of Natrium muriaticum.
When you look at her anger toward her brother because of the sexual abuse, you can think of Ammonium phosphoricum.
When you look at her furious anger at her former boyfriend you could think of Ammonium sulfuricum.
When you think of her way of dealing with her surrounding, with the world around her, you can think of a Lanthanide. Because of her autonomous way of being, her strong will and her spiritual interest. Also because of her eye symptoms and migraine headache.
The first time I gave her Saccharum album MK with a reasonable effect:
- Reached her old weight. Didn’t achieve it since she broke up with her former boyfriend.
- All her symptoms were less and when she used sugar, the duration of the hypoglycemia-attack was shorter.
Later on it seemed that the symptoms were suppressed by the Saccharum album because the good effect didn’t continue and she was extremely tired again and had regularly headaches, migraines like as before.
At that time she was busy fighting to keep love and attention from her parents. She had an enormous fight (discussion) with her mother because of the way she was treated in the house of her parents, like the little girl she used to be. She had to fight to hold the attention because her parents were used to giving more attention to her elder brother even when he wasn’t in their house at that time.
So I switched to a Lanthanide:
(This picture shows you Gadolinium, one of the Lanthanides, being triturated in dehumidified Argon environment. It shows how difficult it is to handle with the Lanthanides.)
Because she told me she was fighting to stay with herself, to maintain to herself, I gave her Dysprosium metallicum. After this remedy she improved a lot.
She ate a lot of sugar (relatively) during her holiday without it bothering her. She had to work real hard, but it was no problem. She had no mycosis after the use of sugar which she had regularly before (so she told me at that time). She felt better emotionally in her mind. She was OK, she was tired, but it felt as a healthy sort of being tired from hard working and not the exhaustion from the use of sugar. She had faith in coming through problems with financing her new house. She even had a better understanding with her brother.
This was a breakthrough. It happened in the summer of 2004 and in January 2006 she told me: the hypoglycemia is over.
Nowadays: She had ups and downs in her relationship with a man during 2006 and in her work with the mentally handicapped youngsters. Especially in her work she had a problem with authority, she had an incompetent chief and fought to stay with herself again. Her own standards were the most important.
That brings me to the discussion around the confirmation from the symptoms to the remedy:
First: Why a Lanthanide?
Autonomy: Goes her own way, aversion to conventions. For example: She was invited to the wedding of her nephew, very high class with a special dress-code, gala or full dress. “No way”, she said, “I’ll choose my own clothes: a fine pair of blue jeans with a neat blouse will do.” She can hardly stand authority, when her chief says right, she will try left first, for example. She doesn’t accept anything for granted.
Spiritually interested; reading spiritual books and discussing them with friends.
Among the symptoms around the problems with sugar there are problems according to the eyes (blurred vision after sugar-use) which fit into the Lanthanides.
Also the migraine headache fits into the Lanthanides.
Why Dysprosium? Stage 12 is a stage in the periodic table of the chemistry which stands for fighting to retain, to hold something. She was fighting to retain herself, fighting to stay with her own self, to stick to herself.
So the main remedy which helped her was Dysprosium metallicum.
A remedy I learned from the book Secret Lanthanides by Jan Scholten.
