The general condition of Arnica is exhibited, in the mouth by soreness of the teeth. Soreness at the roots of the teeth, as if they we being pressed out. The gums bleed easily. Haemorrhages from the gums after extraction of the teeth. This is one of our leader in bleeders after teeth extraction. Soreness of the gums after extraction. This remedy will do more to remove the soreness from the gums after extraction that all the mouth washes you ever heard of. (Sepia is another remedy which is useful in this condition, specially in the nervous women who have been made sick by having a few teeth extracted.) The mouth tastes bitter and like rotten eggs. This is from eructations, which are bitter and have the odor of spoiled eggs; this taste remains in the mouth and you can almost smell it on the breath; therefore, the books give “putrid smell from the mouth;” this as well as the eructations are worse in the morning. These eructations burn as they come up and cause a burning from the stomach to the fauces.
With this large amount of gas in the stomach we have a loss of appetite.
A loathing of food; even the sight of food is repulsive and nauseates. Meat, milk and broth are especially repugnant, and even his tobacco nauseates. Aversion to tobacco, to even the smell of tobacco smoke, stands high in this remedy. (What does a peculiar symptom like this mean and what weight shall we place on it. We cannot place all the ladies and others to whom tobacco may be offensive a dose or two of Arnica and make them lovers of the weed, but where a man has become a user of the weed, where the habit has become fixed so that his tobacco is a necessity, and then have some disturbance of his economy so effect him that what he desired and craved he now dislikes, and has such an aversion to it that even the odor is nauseating, we have what we are justified in calling a peculiar condition, and when this arises we will give it a prominent place in our symptom picture.)
The generals are still with us when we study the effects of Arnica on the stomach. The sore, aching extending through to back. The stomach is so sore it feels as if it rubbed the spine, and as if the spine was made sore by this pressure. Pressing pains in the stomach; as it was pressed by the hand. This pressure continues until it seems to rise to the neck; then he feels nauseated and bitter water comes into the mouth. The stomach is so sore that everything seems to press against it as if the xiphoid process was pressed inward; as if a weight was on or in her stomach; as if a stone laid in the stomach. Nausea; retching; ineffectual retching; they retch and retch and try to vomit, and after straining for some time they vomit blood and bloody mucus. The blood will be dark and coagulated. After this the stomach will be more sore and burn.
Inflammation of the liver and spleen often taken on Arnica symptoms. Shooting and stitches in the spleen and pressure as if from a stone in the liver are found under this remedy; with this condition we have a distended tympanitic abdomen with passage of much foul flatus smelling like rotten eggs. The soreness and bruised sensations are stronger in all the abdominal symptoms.
With a condition in the stomach and bowels which led to the above symptoms you would expect to have trouble with the stools; you would look for a diarrhoea, and under Arnica we find slimy, mucus stools; brown, fermented, like yeast; undigested; bloody; purulent; dark, bloody mucus; large fetid, faecal; yellow, offensive and sour.
A peculiar stool symptom of Arnica is the involuntary stool during sleep. The rumbling and colic in the abdomen are relieved after stool. Another of the peculiar symptoms of this remedy is that the diarrhoea is aggravated, as well as the accompanying bowel symptoms, by lying on the left side. During the stool there is urging, tenesmus, sore bruised pain in abdomen; cutting in intestines; rumbling and pressure in abdomen. Tenesmus in rectum and bladder. After stool they are weak and prostrated and are obliged to lie down.
From the low state that the Arnica patient represents we would look for its counterpart in typhoid, where its general soreness and weakness resemble Baptisia, Pyrogen, and Rhus; but where the general and characteristic symptoms of Arnica are present it will be curative in cases where vaccines and other remedies fail.
The peculiar urine of Arnica is dark brown, with brick dust sediment; the urine is full of urates and uric acid that we find associated with rheumatic cases. From the general relaxed condition of the blood vessels we get bloody urine, haemorrhages from the bladder. “Urination involuntary when running” is peculiar to Arnica.
The symptoms of Arnica referring to the female sexual organs are distinctive, here we find the character of the haemorrhage changed to a bright red flow mixed with clots. The flow feels hot as it passes the vulva. Menses are profuse, especially after a blow, a fall or a shock to the system. The general soreness is marked, and the pelvis is so sore it prevents her from walking erect. The uterus is sensitive, bleeds easily; discharges of blood between perios, with nausea. Bleeding after coition. Arnica is especially useful in nervous women who cannot stand pain.
Not only for the resulting shock and effects of the bruising resulting from labor is Arnica useful, but it has a field of usefulness in changing the character of the labor pains. These pains in your Arnica patient will be too feeble and irregular, resulting from fatigue of the muscular tissue. They do nothing, although so severe that they drive her to distraction. Feels sore and must often change her position. Vagina sore and sensitive so she does not want to be examined. Great soreness of the back during labor. Arnica high will often prevent afterpains. It will contract the blood vessels and prevent post-partum haemorrhages. Used in routine practice it does much to relieve the distressing after symptoms, both mental and physical, of labor.
The cough of Arnica is dry and is caused from tickling in larynx and trachea; the cough is worse in evening until midnight, from motion, warm room and after drinking. The expectoration is scanty, difficult, of glairy mucus mixed with tiny clots of dark blood. The general soreness of the remedy is marked in the chest and is shown in whooping cough where the child will cry before the paroxysm. The coughing causes blood-shot eyes, nosebleed and expectoration of foaming blood. With the cough is a burning rawness of the chest, stitches in left chest, which are worse form motion and pressure.
From the general soreness and bruised sensations in the muscles you would be led to think of your Arnica patient as a rheumatic patient, and such is the case. Arnica is full of bruised, paralytic, sore and stiff rheumatic pains. The joints ache and feel as if they were bruised. The soreness is so marked that the Arnica patient is full of fear; afraid he will be touched; afraid of jars; doesn’t want you to come near for fear you will touch and hurt the sore joint or muscle.
In the back we have violent pains in the spine, sore pains; spine feels as if it would not hold the weight of the body. Small of the back feels as if it had been beaten. Pressive pain between the scapulae.
The rheumatic pains in the extremities are associated with heaviness. The legs are so heavy that it seems as if he could not lift them; this heaviness is due to the paralytic pains in the joints, and is constant both when at rest and in motion. Limbs are sensitive to concussions, as the jar of carriage or of walking. In the arms we have violent twitchings going from the shoulder to joints of middle finger. Crackings in wrist joints, worse in right, as if dislocated; drawing pains in wrist relieved by letting hand hang down. Pressing, tearing pains in fingers. Cramps in fingers of left hand. These tearing and drawing pains as if sprained are also found in the lower extremities. The hips feel as if sprained, with a pressive drawing in the left hip, which is worse from extending the thigh when sitting. The tearing pain on right external malleolus and on dorsum of foot with drawing in outer half of foot is peculiar to Arnica. Gout in joint of great toe with redness; pain worse towards evening and from pressure. These pains as if bruised and sprained with discoloration are a picture of sprains and here the remedy administered internally will take the soreness and discoloration from the sprained ankle and remove the first effects of the sprain; those symptoms which remain after Arnica are usually amenable to Ruta and Rhus.
The most severe action of the remedy on the nerves is the paralysis, the prostration, the general weakness and sinking of strength; so weak he can scarcely move a limb. The prostration and general sinking of strength corresponds to the low state found in typhoid and other zymotic fevers.
The Arnica patient has many symptoms during sleep, those symptoms which resemble the stupor of apoplexy and the sleep symptoms of meningitis find their counterpart in Arnica. One of the peculiar sleep symptoms is that the patient will be sleepy all day but cannot sleep at night.
