Phosph. acid. In cases with meteoristic distention of the uterus.
Platina. Particularly in Irish emigrants. Painful pressing, as of the menses would appear, with desire for stool and pain in the small of the back. Constipation with scanty, difficult stool; the stool often adhering to the rectum and anus like soft clay.
Pulsatilla. Particularly suitable in mild, tearful, yielding dispositions. Pale face; difficulty in breathing after slight emotion. Constant chilliness, even in summer when warmly clad. Leucorrhoea,; vertigo; throbbing headache; pressure in the stomach; pain in the uterus and dysuria. In cases which come on in consequence of wet feet. With ophthalmia. From nervous debility. With morning sickness, and bad taste in the mouth in the morning; no appetite, nothing tastes good.
Rhododendron. Her sufferings are particularly aggravated during rough and windy weather; or at the coming on of a thunder-storm. Every menstrual nisus is attended with fever and headache.
Rhus tox. In consequence of a severe wetting, as in a rain- storm.
Ruta g. A corrosive leucorrhoea attendant, which is the consequence of the suppression.
Sabadilla. The menses are suppressed immediately on their appearance, when they appear again, sooner or later; but are again suppressed, and so on.
Sabina. The sudden suppression is followed by a thick, fetid leucorrhoea.
Secale corn. Suppression of the menses in thin, scrawny, married females, who suffer much at the menstrual nisus with a continual, long-lasting, forcing pain in the uterus.
Sepia. In feeble constitutions, with delicate skin. Acrid leucorrhoea, with soreness of the vulva. A yellow saddle appears across the bridge of the nose. Sensation as though the vulva were very large. Pressure in the abdomen at the menstrual nisus, then soreness of the perineum and swelling of the vulva. Repeated shuddering, the whole day during the menstrual nisus. Coldness of the hands and feet and frequent flashing of heat to the head and face. Constipation and sense of weight at the anus. Painful sensation of emptiness at the pit of the stomach.
Silicea. Great costiveness at the approach of the menstrual epoch. Smarting, acrid and corrosive leucorrhoea with the suppression. Discharge of a quantity of white water from the uterus, instead of the menses. Frequent attacks of momentary blindness, or obscuration of vision.
Staphysagria. When the amenorrhoea is the consequence of chagrin with severe indignation. Much pain in the teeth at the menstrual molimina. She is extremely sensitive to mental and physical impressions.
Stramonium. Extreme loquaciousness at the menstrual molimina; tears and prayers and earnest supplications. Her face is puffed up with blood, and she is very fearful; and shrinks back with fear of objects on awaking from sleep. She desires light and society.
Sulphur. Stitching headache; vivid redness of the face; violent pains in the uterine region and itching pimples on the chest at every menstrual molimina. Haemorrhoids; flashes of heat; stitches in the side; and heat in the top of the head. Coldness of the feet; or burning in the soles of the feet at night in bed. Weak, fainting spells. Very short naps at night; or very heavy, dead sleep the whole night. She feels unusually hungry from eleven till twelve o’clock; she cannot wait for her dinner.
Valerian. Especially suitable for hysterical females who have taken too much Chamomile tea. Nausea with desire to vomit, as if a thread or something were hanging in the throat, coming from low down in the abdomen.
Veratrum. Nervous headache at every menstrual nisus, with cold sweat upon the forehead; leaden color of the face; with frequent nausea and vomiting.
Zincum met. In those cases of amenorrhoea, where alternate paleness and redness of the face is a strongly marked symptom.
DYSMENORRHOEA. Difficult, painful menstruation, may be attended with profuse, or with scanty flow, the latter in the greater number of cases. This affection is seldom confined to one or two menstrual periods; when it occurs, it usually forms the principal characteristic feature of the entire menstrual life. The distress may be moderate and last but a few hours; in these cases it is usually relieved by a tolerably free catamenial flow. Or it may be intensely severe, and continue in the form of a menstrual colic of several days; in such cases the flow is almost always very scanty.
Dysmenorrhoea is capable of being divided into four distinct classes, according to the temperament and constitution of the individual, or to the causes from which it originates. These are the neuralgic, the congestive, the membranes, and the mechanical forms of dysmenorrhoea.
Neuralgic Dysmenorrhoea is usually seen in persons of a nervous temperament; and is considered to be strictly a symptoms of irritable uterus. “The sensation of fulness and weight, the bearing down sensations felt at the vulva, the perineum, the rectum, and the coccyx, the frequent inclination to urinate, the fulness at the hypogastric region, the pain in the `small of the back’, down the limbs, in the hips, around to the iliac and hypogastric regions, are all of the same type. At the period, these symptoms of pain and distress become much aggravated, and often intense; the irritation extends from the nerves to the muscles, hence the spasmodic pains, violent cramps, of the uterus, of the vagina, and of the sphincters. These spasmodic pains are often of the most severe character, usually occurring in paroxysms, for hours, or even for days; and sometimes, although then more moderately during the whole period. They simulate the pains and agony of labor; and they are equally, if not more agonizing, for they are more protracted, and the intervals are less decided; sometimes indeed, the pain is almost continuous. Usually, after the first twelve or twenty four hours, when the secretion of the menses is fully established, the pain and spasms moderate or cease. Frequently, two or three days elapse before the poor woman returns to her usual state; and often the suffering is so sufficient time for recruiting her prostrate energies. The succeeding catamenial period brings renewed neuralgia and spasms; and so on, even for successive years, depriving the sufferer of all social and intellectual happiness. Hodge.
This melancholy picture of the sufferings of those afflicted with dysmenorrhoea, in the allopathic practice, is, we trust, but seldom verified under Homoeopathic treatment.
Congestive or Inflammatory Dysmenorrhoea is more nearly allied to inflammation of the ovaries, and is seen in females of a full habit and of a sanguine temperament, both the unmarried, and those who have borne children are very liable to it. Young girls of florid complexion and plethoric habit, suffer terribly in many cases before their menstruation is regularly established; and often in such cases the same congestive attacks follow them in after life. “For some time before and after the catamenia appear, the suffering is very great; the patient complains of pain across the back, aching of the limbs, weariness, intolerance of light and sound, the face is flushed, the skin hot, the pulse fall, bounding and quick, often upwards of one hundred. These sufferings are relieved by the menstrual flow, which although sometimes scanty, is often very profuse. For this form of dysmenorrhoea, Churchill, a standard allopathic authority, advises to take twelve or fourteen ounces of blood from the arm, or as much by cupping, from the loins, but, “sacrification of the cervix uteri, or leeches applies to this part (he thinks), will often be very useful, and in some cases supersede the more general blood-letting:!
Membranes Dysmenorrhoea may appear in connection with the neuralgic, or with the congestive dysmenorrhoea. This appears to be a complication of simple dysmenorrhoea, occurring in persons of some peculiar constitution, and consists in the formation of a false membrane upon the interior surface of the uterus, and its expulsion at the menstrual period. These cases, not very common, are extremely painful, and the expelled product, especially where, as is sometimes the case, them membrane is discharge whole in the form of a sac, is liable to be mistaken for he product of conception. A mistake that it might be very unpleasant for the physician to make with reference to an unmarried patient. In some instances this formation appears to hold over, passing the regular menstrual period, the menses intermitting, and the female deeming herself enciente. But when thrown off, in what was supposed to be an abortion, nothing appears but membranes.
The peculiarity of constitution which gives rise to such false membranous growths is not definitely known. In general, false membranes appear only in conditions of the organism in which the nervous system is remarkably affected; such is the case in croup, in diphtheria, and in dysmenorrhoea. The diagnosis of this rather rare from of dysmenorrhoea, is by no means easy or certain, especially in the case of married women, where it may be apt to be confounded with conception and impending abortion. But an attentive study and comparison of all the symptoms, will led to a proper prescription; indications for such membranous dysmenorrhoea, will be found among the remedies at the close of this section.
