“Heavy pain like a weight on vertex, better by pressure.”
Oftentimes the patient may be wrong in the idea of pressure that is felt in the head. They often describe it in the most marked congestions as if the head would be crushed in, when the congestion in the brain can be seen to be most violent, causing pressure from within out, and we would think they would be better from some sort of support externally, and yet they feel great soreness and feel as if the head is being crushed in.
Others with headaches feel as if the head is being pressed out.
“Heavy pain like a weight on vertex; better by pressure, but worse from sounds, hearing, talking, or strong light.”
This runs through the headaches. Greatly aggravated from hearing voices. The sound goes through the head. The brain seems to be sensitive, as if the sound were a material substance hurled at the brain. Right-sided headaches. Pulsating headaches. Heavy, pulsating pain in the head. Tensive pain in the head, tensive pain in the vertex.
A tightness across the vertex, as if the scalp was being drawn tighter and tighter upon the skull.
There can be no doubt about there being a marked cerebral congestion with all these symptoms. The eyes show it; the face shows it; the heat of the head shows it. It has been recommended for threatened apoplexy, when the congestion is so violent, and the face is flushed and purple, or very red, and the pulsation is felt in the brain and all over.
Cactus Grandiflorus has the violent congestion of the head found in Belladonna, but with Belladonna we have the intense heat of the body, fever heat which is not found in Cactus. In Cactus it is only a moderate fever. The heat is in the upper part of the body, in the head and neck.
Fullness of the neck; bloating of the neck. Feels as if the head would expand from the pressure of blood in the head, but without any great rise of temperature.
It has fever, but it has these without fever. But with Belladonna when you have these pulsations the patient is intensely hot, and he burns all over. There is some burning in Cactus, but not to be compared with Belladonna Heat in the head from mental exertion is a strong symptom of Cactus. This symptom is found in persons who are trying to break off from coffee and Cactus is often the remedy.
The Cactus Grandiflorus patient has choking about the neck, as from a tight collar. Constriction; tension of the skin and muscles everywhere. Choking about the neck with constriction of the heart. Choking about the neck in hysteria; globus hystericus; a lump or ball coming up into the throat, and she constantly swallows and choked and she goes into cramps with great numbness of the left arm.
Cramping especially of the left arm. Complete numbness of the left arm along with cardiac conditions in the history of rheumatism and in hysteria. The history of rheumatism goes well to fill up the Cactus case. The face is flushed bright red, becoming blue. With weakness of the heart it is blue, blue lips.
We need Cactus Grandiflorus for a patient that has constriction about the neck, with congested head, blue face, and lips mottled, numbness of the left band, constriction of the heart. The left hand mysteriously weak, or is numb, tingling and crawling, like a formication.
Congestion and hemorrhages: Another thing running all through the remedy is its hemorrhages. That is not surprising. Any medicine that has such cardiac conditions and such vascular conditions will at times have more or less relaxation of blood vessels, and it would be quite in the nature of it to bleed. It has hemorrhages of two kinds. Hemorrhage from vascular relaxation accompanying cardiac and vascular conditions, and hemorrhage from violent congestion of a part.
The rush of blood to the head is of such violence in the moderately plethoric patient that he bleeds from the nose, and hawks blood from the throat. Congestion of the chest so violent that he expectorates blood from the chest.
Bleeding from congestion, rather than from tuberculosis. Congestion of the uterus with bleeding. Congestion of the bladder and kidneys, with blood in the urine, with discharges of blood from violent congestion. In old cardiac conditions, where relaxation is present in most marked degree, haemorrhage from relaxation.
Strong pulsations felt in strange places, in the stomach, and in the bowels; sometimes in the extremities, the feet and hands, as well as in the head. Throbbing all over.
Around the attachment of the diaphragm feeling as if a cord was tied tighter and tighter; round the lower part of the chest. This is a strange symptom; it clutches him so tightly around the waist line that it takes his breath away, and he struggles for breath, and wants to do something. It clutches him tighter and tighter. Cactus produces congestion of the bowels; inflammation of the uterus. Gastric inflammation and with, it the clutching.
Cactus Grandiflorus for the cure of hemorrhoids; the relaxation of the great portal system, and the lower veins in the rectum, the hemorrhoidal veins. The veins are in such a state of relaxation that tumors will form, and bleed copiously. Bleeding hemorrhoids. Constriction of the anus. it has a very troublesome constipation; constipation in connection with hemorrhoids.
Bladder: It has a paralytic weakness of the bladder. It has retention of urine. Such a constriction of the neck of the bladder that the urine cannot be passed for a long time, and there is retention. In the kidneys such a congestion as favors suppression of the urine.
Bloody urine; blood in clots. It is a remedy that favors the formation of clots speedily. The blood that flows, clots so rapidly and so densely that it blocks up the way. Bleeding into the bladder blocks up the way. Bleeding into the vagina causes a clot difficult to expel, and pressing upon the urethra of the female that it is impossible for her to pass urine.
It is like an immense tampon. And hence it reads,
“urination prevented by clots,” clots in the vagina, as well as clots in the bladder.
Cactus Grandiflorus Female: Inflammation of the ovaries; inflammation of the uterus. It is a medicine that you will need to know when a young, plethoric, vigorous woman comes down violently with congestion of the uterus at the menstrual period, and she screams because of the violent clutching and cramping of the uterus.
Before the flow starts, or just at the beginning, there is violent spasm. The circular fibres clutch; and she describes it accurately as if a tape were tied around that sore and congested uterus.
The uterus fills with blood clots, and the spasm to expel that blood is like a labor-pain, and she screams again, and it is some time before the flow becomes free enough to give relief.
If this condition is met with in rheumatic diathesis, where there is more or less rheumatism of the joints, clutching pains and constriction in other places, we have a remedy in Cactus.
The excitement and the sharp scream, can be heard by the neighbors.
Suffocative attacks with these pains, because the heart suffers, and constriction of the heart will commonly go along with the constriction of the uterus. In cardiac conditions it seems as if he will die for want of breath.
Constrictions of the chest. Oppression as if a great load was on his chest, crushing the life out of him, so great is the constriction, and the congestion. A sudden congestion, and it comes on and ends without inflammation in many instances.
A violent rush of blood to the chest, with awful dyspnoea and constriction of the heart and it passes away without inflammation. At other times Cactus has conditions like pneumonia, inflammation of the lungs, and congestion ending in inflammation, with the usual expectoration, bloody or blood streaked.
Cactus is also a remedy for hypostatic congestion of the lungs. He cannot lie down, must sit up in bed, and there is a dullness of the lower part of each lung, gradually growing higher and higher from an effusion of serum into the lower portion of the lungs.
This hypostatic congestion is due to a cardiac weakness. Cactus will often relieve this a few times when it occurs in old broken down cases towards the end of Bright’s disease, and at the end of dropsical conditions and heart troubles.
It will postpone death.
“Could only breathe with shoulders elevated and lying on back.”
Lies leaning back or sitting quite upright.
“Periodical attacks of suffocation, with fainting; cold sweat.”
“Feeling as if heart was compressed or squeezed by a band. Cardiac rheumatism, Heart seemed to be held by an iron band for many hours. Pain in the cardiac region. Great pressure at heart, going round under left axilla to back.”
Often this pain shoots down the left hand, is attended with numbness, and sometimes with swelling. Numbness, tingling, swelling.
“Dull pain in the heart. Heavy pain in, the heart, aggravated from pressure. Contractive pain in the region of the heart going down to left abdomen. At times felt as if, some one was grasping the heart firmly. Paroxysms of pain in the heart,” that is this kind of constriction comes in periods of violent paroxysms. “
In 1881, Kent accepted a position as professor of anatomy at the Homeopathic College of Missouri, an institution with which he remained affiliated until 1888. In 1890, Kent moved to Pennsylvania to take a position as Dean of Professors at the Post-Graduate Homeopathic Medical School of Philadelphia. In 1897 Kent published his magnum opus, Repertory of the Homœopathic Materia Medica. Kent moved to Chicago in 1903, where he taught at Hahnemann Medical College.