Editor’s note: The homeopathic remedy Calcarea phosphorica is most commonly used to ease teething in babies. It is primarily used in biochemic calcarea phos form in 3X, 6X or 12X potencies. It is generally considered safe to use in low triturations and has no reported side effects.
Calcarea phosphorica is also used for Osteoporosis and bone decay. In higher potencies, it is used according to homeopathic principles. Its use includes, but is not limited to, recurring headaches, especially in school-going children, growth retardation, menstrual irregularities in young girls, pica, arthritis and grief.
Generalities
This tissue remedy though resembles in many aspects Calcarea Carb, it has its own characteristic symptoms. It affects the NUTRITION of bones and glands; bones become soft, thin and brittle; it promotes ossification of bones in non union of fractures. Glands are swollen.
Calcarea phosphorica has a special affinity where bones form sutures or symphysis; pain, burning along sutures. Patients esp. children are delicate, tall, thin or scrawny; with dirty brownish skin. Anaemia, after acute diseases or chronic wasting diseases.
Trembling or trembling hands; with pain or other complaints. Coldness or soreness in spots; vertex, eyeballs, tip of nose, fingers etc. Sensation of crawling and numbness; after bad news. Anaemic children who are peevish, flabby, have cold extremities and weak digestion; they start convulsively when lying on back better lying on side.
They lose breath when they are lifted. Discharges are albuminous. Shifting pains. Arthritis. Rheumatism. Mal-assimilation. Rickets. Addison’s disease. Ill effects of over-growth. Lifting. Overstudy. Sexual excess or irregularities. Grief.
Disappointed love. Unpleasant news. Operations for fistula. Getting wet. Girls slow in maturing. Effects of taking cold during first menses. Slow ossification; non union of bones. Idiocy of children. Diabetes, with lung affections.
Better
In summer. Warm dry weather. Lying down.
Worse
Exposure to weather changes. Drafts. Cold; melting snow. Dentition. Mental exertion. Loss of fluids. Puberty. Fruits, cider. Motion. Thinking of symptoms. Lifting. Ascending.
Calcarea phosphorica Mind
Peevish, restless and fretful. Forgetful. Always wants to go somewhere; when away from home, wants to go there and when there, wants to go some other place. Idiocy, agile cretinism.
Head
Headache; in occiput; down spine better cool bathing, or sneezing. Headache of school children; with diarrhoea. Burning; worse near the region of sutures. As if brain was pressed against skull.
Calcarea phosphorica has delayed closure or reopening of fontanelles. Skull soft and thin, cracking like paper, worse at occiput.
Cold or sore vertex. Head hot, with smarting at the root of hair. Sensation as of ice in occiput. Depression on occipital bone. Hydrocephalus. Cannot hold the head up, it wobbles.
Eyes
Cool feeling behind the eyes. As if something in, worse thinking of it. Diffused opacity of cornea. Cannot use the eyes in gas light.
Ears
Sudden swelling of external ear. Cold feeling in; noises in after stools.
Nose
Tip icy cold. Polypi; large, pedunculated. Coryza, with salivation.
Face
Pale, yellowish, earthy; full of pimples. Cold sweat on face. Upper lip swollen.
Mouth
Retarded dentition. Teeth; soft, decay easily. Complaints during teething; convulsions without fever. Teeth sensitive to chewing. Disgusting taste worse in morning; on awakening; bitter, with headache.
Throat
Sore aching in throat; feels hollow. Pain on opening the mouth. Tonsils enlarged. Adenoids growths.
Stomach
Infants want to nurse all the time and vomit easily. Calcarea phosphorica has craving for raw, salty, piquant food, ham, salted or smoked meat or bacon. Weak digestion; every bite hurts the stomach.
Persistently vomits milk; of breast or other. Desire for tobacco smoke which better headache. Vomiting; while hawking mucus, with trembling hands.
Abdomen
Colic, at every attempt to eat; by taking ice cream, cold water or fruits. FLABBY SUNKEN abdomen. Oozing of bloody fluid from navel of infants. Festering navel.
Tendency to diarrhoea; from juicy fruits; during dentition. Stools; foul, hot, lienteric, spluttering, watery, green, slimy, undigested; with foetid flatus.
As if something alive in. Fistula in ano, alternating with chest symptoms. Fissure of anus, in tall, slim children. Haemorrhoids, oozing watery fluid all the time.
Urinary Organs
Urine increased, with sensation of weakness. Pain in region of kidneys worse blowing nose or lifting. Pain in bladder worse when empty.
Male
Stitching in perineum extending to penis. Erections while riding in carriage, without desire. Weak feeling in sexual organs, after stools.
Calcarea phosphorica Female
Menses; early, scanty; every two weeks; excessive, bright; in girls; too late, with dark blood. Sexual desire increased; before menses, during lactation.
Abnormal craving during pregnancy.
Burning leucorrhoea; albuminous, from one term to another, follows pain in abdomen. Crawling; voluptuous in genitals.
Prolapsus; in debilitated women; worse while passing urine or stool; with menses; with rheumatic pains.
Calcarea phosphorica Child refuses breast; milk, tastes salty. Uterus; heavy, weak, or aching.
Eruption worse during menses. Late menses, with violent backache. Tumours in mammae (left), male, painful on pressure. Mammae; sore, feel large.
Respiratory organs
Child loses breath on being lifted up. Cough better lying; during dentition. Involuntary sighing. Phthisis; with cavities; with night sweats; yellow expectoration.
Pain in chest from drafts. Must scrape mucus from larynx before one can sing or talk. Whooping cough, obstinate.
Heart
Dropsy from heart disease. Palpitation, with trembling weakness in calf.
Neck and Back
Neck painful from drafts, Neck weak, thin; head bobs about. Curvature of the spine to the left. Violent pain worse least effort, screams, with pain.
Sacrum numb and lame. Lumbar vertebrae bend to the left. Spina bifida. Pott’s disease.
Extremities
Rheumatism in cold season. Fingers lips sore. As of a splinter under the nails. Buttocks numb. Weakness through the hips. Arthritis in hip joints, Hip joint disease.
Calcarea phosphorica has cold limbs with digestive troubles. Pain, burning along edges of nails. Hard bluish lumps in axillae. Trembling of arms and hands, with many complaints. Fistulous ulcers on ankle joint.
Sleep
Constant stretching and yawning. Children cry in sleep. Cannot get awake in early morning.
Skin
Dark, brown, yellow. Scars from amputation, ulcerate. Ulceration from mustard poultice.
Fever
Easily chilled. Chilly with pains. Chills up the back, but heat down the back. Sticky sickly sweat worse head and throat; at night.
Related
Carbo-animalis; China; Ferrum-phos; Natrum mur.
Calcarea phosphorica is Complementary to
Hepar sulph; Ruta.
He was convinced about Homoeopathy while going through Sir William Osler's writings on 'History of Medicine' so switched over to an entirely Homoeopathic Practice in 1932. He also started working on Homoeopathic literature along with his Practice.
He has contributed immensely to homoeopathic literature. He was an ardent follower of Dr Boger. His Repertory is based on Boger's ''A Synoptic key to Materia Medica'.