Head.-One form of headache in kali carb. patients is felt mostly in the forehead and temple, chiefly on the right side. Vomiting may occur with it without any great nausea, but in some cases of vomiting of pregnancy, great nausea may accompany the headache and vomiting. A sensation of something (” in the brain”) being loose in the head and striking against the skull is described, and has been a useful guide to the remedy. A general headache may also be present extending into the eyes, brought on by walking in the open air. Other headache modalities have just been referred to. The scalp is dry and the hair falls out. Vertigo on turning the head is a frequent indication, and a tearing pain in the right orbit.
Sleep.-After about 1 a.m. up to 4 or 5 o’clock, sleep is broken; the patient is restless and has anxious dreams, and talks or starts in his sleep, Eating at once causes drowsiness.
Digestive System.-In digestive troubles requiring this remedy the patient generally has a slimy feeling and an unpleasant taste in his mouth, and the tip of the tongue may have sore pimples or papillae on it, and the complexion is pallid with a tinge sallowness. The gums recede and pyorrhoea may bring on caries, offensive breath, and toothache, worse from contact, especially of extremes of hot and cold substances. The parotids become inflamed and tender. Swallowing is difficult on account of a shooting or sticking pain in the pharynx and a feeling like a fish-bone in the throat; pain between the shoulder-blades is felt as the food travels down the oesophagus. Food easily passed into the larynx. The patient feels as if the stomach were swollen and heavy, burning acid “risings” occur. In spite of this there is longing for acids; as also for sugar; also there is often aversion from heat. The abdomen feels cold externally and internally, a not very common symptom, round also in the pathogenesy of thuja. The swollen or bursting feeling of the stomach and intestines occurs immediately after all kinds of food- the patients describe it as “everything turns to wind”. Fulness in the right hypochondrium and pain extending thence up the right side of the chest to the shoulder suggest the consideration of kali carb., especially when associated with bilious attacks and difficult breathing at or about 3 a.m. Recurring attacks of colic are often curable by kali carb. Given on the basis of all the patients symptoms (rather than for the attack only) and administered in the interval.
There is usually constipation in these patients, with large, but not necessarily hard stools, or the faeces may be small agglomerated lumps, like sheep;s dung; defecation is difficult on account of lack of expulsive power, and may be preceded for an hour or more by colicky pains. Diarrhoea may occasionally alternate with constipation, or chronic diarrhoea in patients with a preponderance of kali carb. symptoms may require the drug. Burning, shooting and itching at the anus may be present, with or without piles. When they are present they are often large and bleeding, or large, burning, inflamed and thrombosed.
Urinary System.-Renal symptoms are not usually found in these cases, but there may be nocturnal pyknuria, accompanied by delay in establishing the flow, the patient waits and strains before the urine will pass, as with some cases of enlarged prostate. The association of chronic cystitis would be further indication for this remedy. A scanty, thin gleet and pain during and after micturition indicate kali carb., in contrast to natrum muriaticum, the dysuria of which occurs only after the act is completed.
Sexual Organs.-The functions of the reproductive organs are affected in the direction of increased excitement in both sexes, but the sexual act is followed by abnormal depression and weakness, and by aggravation of all the patient’s general symptoms.
Menstruation is apt to be premature, prolonged, and or profuse, and the flow clotted; leucorrhoea is frequently present and is often acrid, and with it and during the period there is very severe backache, and bearing -down pain the abdomen and vagina. These are more indicative of the remedy than is the menorrhagia. The patient feels ill for a week before the period, and is liable to be constipated at this time, if not usually so.
Kali carb. has been advantageously used in mild puerperal fever cases, where the shooting pains (with appropriate modalities) and weakness are prominent. It is useful for subinvolution, and has gained a reputation in uterine myomata, in which it is said to check bleeding and reduce size. It may be counted upon where ineffectual labour pains are so severe as to be almost intolerable, the lumbo-sacral region and hips suffering chiefly; also for weak, anaemic conditions after haemorrhages, leucorrhoea and other losses; or after miscarriages. Vasomotor disturbances, such as flushings, palpitation, vascular throbbings in any part, occur in the pathogenesis of kali carb. and it is correspondingly useful in menopausic disturbances.
It is sometimes very valuable in the vomiting of pregnancy, but is should not be prescribed for the emesis only, but upon the totality of the patient’s (other) symptoms.
Mind.-The patient (often a woman) is fearful of some illness coming on, or of the issue of an existing malady, and for this or other reasons is particularly averse from being left alone. Kali carb. subjects of either sex are extraordinarily irritable and quarrelsome, and at the same time full of fears-vague fears of the future and of death. Any poignant emotion may induce nausea.
General Symptoms.-Clinical experience has shown that kali carb. is most useful in old people inclined to obesity, and who have dark hair and sallow complexions; its subjects are often anaemic, weak, with a feeling of powerlessness of certain groups of muscles. They are sensitive to cold air and wet weather, and to every atmospheric change; and they readily and constantly take cold from the slightest exposure. They are chilly, shivering people, and are weakest and most ill during the morning hours, and from the exercise of normal functions (ex. gr., sexual intercourse), from walking (Causing too easy sweating), &c. Cold sweats, especially nocturnal or after fatigue and hectic fever may be present. On the other hand, many of these patients are usually unable to perspire. Exaggerated reflexes: there is surface sensitiveness to a light touch (as with lachesis and china), and starting whenever touched, especially on the feet. The soles of the feet, the abdomen and elsewhere are abnormally ticklish. The limbs are painful in the parts rested against any object, and the tips of the toes are painful on walking and from the pressure of the boots (surface tenderness).
Noises and vibrations (ex. gr., slamming of a door), seem to cause sensations of pain and an indescribable “feeling of fear,” located in the epigastrium; this, though difficult to interpret, is an important indication for the remedy.
Kent, from his experience (Mat. Medorrhinum, p. 616) issues a warning against the prescription of kali carb. in advanced tuberculosis, chronic gout and “old cases of Bright’s disease,” lest serious aggravation should be produced. Finally, the symptoms and states calling for kali carb. are often insidious in their onset.
LEADING INDICATIONS.
(1) Often suited for old, fat flabby subjects with dark hair.
(2) Great sensitiveness to cold air and wet, cold weather; constantly taking gold.
(3) Surface sensitiveness to a light touch; and sensitiveness to noises with vibration, causing a curious feeling in the epigastrium, composed of pain and fear; abnormal ticklishness.
(4) The nervo-muscular pains are characteristically sharp, sudden, darting pains; they may persist during rest, and are worse when lying on the affected side (bryonia pains are the reverse).
(5) Aversion to being left alone; lack of will power and of courage; irritability and quarrelsomeness.
(6) Weakness, when walking (feels must lie down); when eating; after menstruation and coition.
(7) Backache severe, making patient cry out; after illnesses, from walking, before and during menstruation, relieved by support; backache, sweat (from pain) and weakness are an indicative trio; lumbago and sciatica.
(8) Cough and asthma with aggravation, 1 to 5 am.; relief from sitting bent (asthma).
(9) Expectoration of tough masses, forcibly ejected after violent coughing; cough like whooping-cough.
(10) Menorrhagia (with backache).
AGGRAVATION
Of symptoms between the hours of 1 and 5 a.m. (cough, dyspnoea, sleeplessness,, mental symptoms, &c.), lying on affected side, eating (toothache, flatulence), solitude, walking, after coition (weakness), before menstruation (backache), loss of fluids, rest (?), movement, cold winds, draughts.
AMELIORATION:
Support (back); sitting bent forward (asthma); warmth of fire.
Edwin Awdas Neatby founded the Missionary School of Homeopathy and the London Homeopathic Hospital in 1903, and run by the British Homeopathic Association. He died in East Grinstead, Sussex, on the 1st December 1933. Edwin Awdas Neatby wrote The place of operation in the treatment of uterine fibroids, Modern developments in medicine, Pleural effusions in children, Manual of Homoeo Therapeutics,