Dysmenorrhoea Therapeutics



AMBRA GRISEA (Anti-psoric)

Menstruation too early too profuse; appears a week before the time. Between the periods, discharge of blood in small quantities. Mental condition : Great restlessness with extreme nervousness; talks hastily, jumps from one subject to another; mind weak, forgetful; spells of mental excitement followed by great depression; the presence of strangers aggravate all her symptoms; vicarious menstruation from the nose; great weariness on awaking in the morning; frequent urination of sour-smelling urine; urine burns, smarts, produces itching and titillation of vulva; menses produce soreness, itching and swelling of the vulva; this itching of the pudendum becomes violent during the menses. Aggravations.–Music, touching hair or scalp, lying down in a warm place; adapted to thin people or people who are prematurely old and of a nervous, bilious temperament. Many of her symptoms are better by open air or by walking (Puls).

AMMONIUM MURATICUM

This is a pseudo-psoric remedy and adapted to fat and sluggish or fleshy, large women who are indolent. The menses are premature, profuse, dark, black, clotted (Ammonium carb.). She has contractive and compressive pain in the small of the back; flow < at night and on lying down; choleric symptoms at the menses as in Ammonium carb. During menses, great exhaustion with labor-like pains in abdomen and small of back, with frequent urging to urinate, menses accompanied with diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, pressure and contraction in abdomen, afterwards with pain in the feet, and much languor and weakness in the lower extremities. The mind is apprehensive, gloomy, not inclined to talk; stools hard, crumbling; menses flow freely during stool.

Aggravations. Night, 2 p.m., and during menses. (Puls, Phosphorus).

AMMONIUM CARBONICUM

This is a true pseudo-psoric remedy, it has the hemorrhage of that miasm, and is indicated in fleshy women who lead a sedentary life. About the time of the menstrual period there is an inclination to weep, as in pulsatilla; she has a tendency to faint, often feels faint; all her discharges are acrid–the saliva, tears, urine, leucorrhoea, menses, etc. Her tendency to faint is due to enfeeblement of the heart.

The menses are premature, abundant, dark, clotted, blackish clots, (Magnesium carbonate, Crocus sativus, Sabina), acrid, excoriating; flow < at night, when standing, or after riding in the cold air. Before menses the face is pale with a tendency To faint, griping, pains, like colic, violent pains in small of back between scapula; choleraic symptoms at beginning of menses (Veratrum alb., Arsenicum alb., Capsicum, Viburnum Bovista). Great fatigue in whole body, especially in thighs, with yawning and chilliness, and pains in small of back; violent cutting pains in abdomen. The sleep is full of dreams, dreams of dead people, of the dying, danger, ghosts, and all sorts of offensive things (Lachesis). Great swelling of external genitals due to acrid discharges; sensation of soreness and rawness in whole pelvis, worse at 3 A.M.; it has weakness of chest like Stannum. It is inimical to Lachesis.

Aggravation : Cold air, wet weather and washing.

Amelioration : Dry weather, and lying on abdomen (Pulsatilla).

ABSINTHIUM (Wormwood)

This remedy when first taken has a very pleasant and soothing effect. It contains a volatile oil (Absinthol) upon which its activity largely depends. It effects especially the central nervous system and produces symptoms closely resembling epilepsy, twitching of the muscles, especially of the face, clonic and tetanic spasms of muscles; cries out; grinds the teeth, urine passes involuntarily; salivation; convulsions followed by a period of unconsciousness. After epileptic attacks no recollection of them. It is one of the remedies that will bring on the menses, its dysmenorrhoea begins with darting pains in uterus and ovaries, followed by trembling all over the body, and with epileptic spasms and stupor (similar to alcohol, Belladonna, Hyoscyamus, Stramonium).

AESCULUS HIPPOCASTANUM

This remedy is indicated in the pseudo-psoric as well as the sycotic miasms. The hemorrhoids of the remedy are found in the tubercular diathesis, and are often worse at the menstrual period; especially in those patients with abdominal plethora and portal congestion. It is very markedly a venous remedy. Great weakness across the sacro-iliac region, with a constant backache across the hips, a sacral backache, with a throbbing behind the symphysis pubis. The backache is aggravated by walking or stooping. The pain is often a severe aching, a sensation as if the back would give out when walking. Hemorrhoids large, purple, painful, with cervical headache; another sensation is that of a fullness of the hands and feet during menses. This venous plethora is worse in warmth, or after a hot bath. Its congestions are all venous. The lower part of abdomen feels full and heavy before and during her menses. Varicose veins are common in this remedy. The bowels are sluggish, constipated with hemorrhoids; sensation of sticks or splinters in rectum; this latter has always been considered a leading symptom, but I have found the same under Sulphur. A dry, full, aching, uncomfortable feeling in the rectum is more like Aesculus. The mind is gloomy, despondent, irritable. It has many gouty pains, showing the sycotic element. Aggravations : Walking, stooping, hot bathing, warmth in general.

Ameliorations : Quiet, rest, and cool air.

AGARICUS

Agaricus is a syco-psoric remedy, it is adapted to light-haired women with lax skin and muscles. This is one of the strange and peculiar acting remedies; many of its symptoms are spinal or reflex in their character. Its reflexes are manifested by twitchings, jerkings and tremblings of the body even to chorea. All sorts of abnormal sensations are present during the menses; strange feelings and sensations, as of a cold, of heat, of insects crawling over the body, a sensation as of hot needles entering the flesh, as of stinging, burning, itching, pricking, and tingling, especially on the extremities. Menstruation is profuse with titillation in the genital organs and strong desire for sexual embrace. The flow is sometimes attended with very severe pains in the back and abdomen, which are pressing and tearing; itching and burning of the ears or of the feet, like frost-bite; palpitation of the heart during menses; twitching of the facial muscles; great sensitiveness of the spinal column; at every turn of the body, pain in the spine; nervous symptoms worse while awake and better when asleep. Spinal irritation often due to sexual excesses; whole mind is sluggish, stupid at times; cannot remember; co-ordination of muscles bad; drops things, and is clumsy, similar to Pulsatilla and Sepia in its menstrual symptoms. The heart, spinal and chest symptoms are worse during the menses.

Aggravations : Eating, motion, cold air, mental work, coition, and before a thunder-storm. (Phosphorus).

APIS MELLIFICA

Menses diminished or suppressed with congestion of the head, or of the ovaries. Flow intermittent, scanty, dark, mixed with mucus. Before menses, congestion of blood to head and stinging pain in right ovary; eruptions like bee stings (urticaria); sharp, cutting pain in uterus and right ovary; often oedema with the urticaria or oedema of the lower limbs and feet, incidental anasarca; much tenderness over region of uterus. Menorrhagia attended with bearing down pains, heaviness in abdomen, yawning and faintness, red blotches or maculae like bee stings. Stinging in region of ovaries, restlessness, irritability, constantly changing position. (Rhus tox., Arsenicum, Aconitum.) Irritable, jealous, constantly changing occupation; awkward, breaks things, drops things from her hand and then laughs about it.

Case 1. Swelling of lower extremities; bag-like swellings under eyes; stinging, cutting pain in right ovary. Eye-lids much swollen; oedematous, skin pale, clear, transparent, no thirst, better in cool air or by bathing the eruption in cool water. Eruption itches and stings; urine dark, smoky, and scanty.

Case 2. Severe stinging pain in right ovary; very sensitive to touch; oedema about the face and eyes, red spots upon the skin which come at every menstrual period (Dulcamara). She is very awkward and let things fall, often breaking them. Tips of ears red and swollen; skin dry and hot for a short time, then perspires freely; urine scanty dark, like beer; mucous menses; much tenderness of left ovary; labia swollen and sensitive.

ALOE SOCOTRINA

This remedy is adapted to phlegmatic women. The menses are too early, too profuse, long lasting and exhausting. Uterine hemorrhages occurring in women who are nervous. Flow is dark red, clotted and there is fullness and heaviness in the uterus or in the rectum, with a feeling as if she must go to stool, choleraic form of dysmenorrhoea; mucus stools with much straining; stool often involuntary with escape of much flatus, rumbling and gurgling in abdomen before stool; dysentery during menses with fullness and weight, and dragging in pelvis, worse when standing; pain in small of back, and pressing down in rectum with hemorrhoids which protrude during menses.

John Henry Allen
Dr. John Henry Allen, MD (1854-1925)
J.H. Allen was a student of H.C. Allen. He was the president of the IHA in 1900. Dr. Allen taught at the Hering Medical College in Chicago. Dr. Allen died August 1, 1925
Books by John Henry Allen:
Diseases and Therapeutics of the Skin 1902
The Chronic Miasms: Psora and Pseudo Psora 1908
The Chronic Miasms: Sycosis 1908