DRUGS AFFECTING THE OCCIPITAL REGION


DRUGS AFFECTING THE OCCIPITAL REGION – remedies having pain or eruptions in the occipital region of head….


(Confirmed symptoms are marked; merely clinical,; (>)means amelioration; (>>)entire relief; (<) signifies aggravation; (<<)marked aggravation.)

Aconite.- Occiput: as if injected; jerking, tearing; shooting. Head drawn backwards.

Useful in congestion; Neuralgia; Convulsions.

Actea Spicata. Hammering pain in occiput; rheumatic patients.

Aesculus Hippocastanum.- Heavy feeling, pressure; bruised feeling with lameness in back of neck; dull pain to ears; lancinating, at base of brain, as if too full. Dull pain, flushes of heat in integument.

Useful in congestion, especially, in persons suffering from Piles, suppressed haemorrhoidal flow; or from the characteristic spinal weakness.

Aethusa Cynapium. Distressing pains in occiput and nape of neck, extending down spine; feels, as if, stretching stiffly backwards would relieve; striking and beating in upper part of right side of occiput. A tearing in right occiput, shoots through the whole head and extends to the right side. Tearing stitches from occiput forwards.

Doubts have been thrown upon the validity of the toxic symptoms of Aethusa. The above, however, are unquestioned and suggest the drug in irritation of the brain and spine. Crampy, constrictive and band-like pains, so common in this drug, shows its spinal action. These symptoms seem to be reflex from gastro-enteric irritation, for nausea, vomiting, tendency to diarrhoea, and a sense of a lump or load in the stomach attend or precede them; while excessive prostration, shrinking and dryness of the skin, peaked face and coldness, show how damaging the drug is to nutrition, and warrant out common use of it in Cholera Infantum, dentition, etc.

It seems that the distress in the occiput and the desire to bend back as in opisthotonos, tally well with the toxical cases, which claim cerebral congestion and effusion, and intestinal inflammation. I should then consider it.

Useful when the occipital pains are accompanied by the gastro- enteric characteristics, or even by convulsions, with colic, green stools, tenesmus, distended abdomen, clenched thumbs, up- turned eye-balls.

Agaricus Muscarius.- Boring, burrowing, pressive, drawing, tension, sense, of heaviness; tearing, stitches; creaking; stiffness.

Useful in Chorea, cerebro-spinal irritation from abuse of Alcohol. It has been given successfully for irritation in back of brain and in spine, with rolling head in pillow.

Ailanthus. Electric thrill from brain to extremities. Darting through temples and back of head, with confusion of ideas. Pain in occiput, dizzy, ringing pain in forehead; left side of face swollen, face erysipelatous; patient heavy, sleepy, nauseated at times. Beating in occipital arteries.

Useful in the course of Scarlatina, Erysipelas and Typhoid States, when occiput, pains, mind is dull and face of a dark, livid or mahogany color.

Alcohol. Sensation of fulness at crown and back of head. Apoplectic congestion, with snoring, usually deleted pupils, suffused, dark face and paralytic trembling and weakness. Muscles of neck and back give out.

Employed more for general cerebral congestions, especially with evidences of organic lesions of brain; but may be useful in the progress of typhoid states, when congestion of brain and spine obtain, with above symptoms. It compares here with; Bellad., Opium, Agaricus, and Particularly ABSINTHIUM.

Allium Cepa.- Headache in occiput, then in right side over eye. Headache on both sides of occiput, afterwards in two large round places in upper posterior part of head; later, a general humming of part as if asleep: seems to be in the bone, rather than in the scalp; also with confusion in the occiput; better in open air, worse in warm room.

Useful in “catarrhal patients,” who suffer from headache if they study or work in a warm room.

Allium sativum. Dull pain in occiput in morning, while lying on back.

Aloes. – Congestion to occiput: sense of dull pressure in whole head when walking, shaking, as if, brain was loose, worse in fresh, cold air, also on lying head down; then and a while after rising, beating, thumbing pain, like pulsating, especially in Occiput. In the occiput and abdomen, beating at night when lying down; stitches when stooping; external soreness.

Useful for passive hyperaemia accompanying or rather depending upon abdominal congestion. Haemorrhoidal and abdominal symptoms must decide, though if the occipital symptoms are accompanied with dull pain over eyes, lids feel heavy and draws eye-lids together for relief, Aloes will remove all. Compare Ailanthus, but particularly Sulphur.

Sometimes the Aloes-headache alternates with pains in the lumbar region.

Alumina.- Pressure on occiput and forehead as from a tight hat. Short-lasting, dull pain in occiput. Headache in occiput. as if bruised; passes off on lying down. Pain in head and nape of neck; increases on going to bed, ceases in the morning or rising.

Ambra Grisea. Pressive drawing from nape through head, and over root of nose, considerable pressure remaining in lower part of occiput. Confusion of occiput. Tearing and pressure up, as far as top and forehead.

Useful in nervous patients, hurried manner, anxious; when conversation unduly fatigues, causing heaviness of head, oppression of chest, tremor and weakness. Limbs go to sleep easily; loss of sensation in feet. Comprehension slow; memory weak; nervous vertigo, especially in old persons.

Ammoniacum. Pains pressive, (<) supra-orbital and occipital regions; confused, intellectual labor interfered with.

Useful for those who are subject to catarrhal Asthma, violent action of the heart, ebullitions of blood; or, for those whose eyes become easily strained when taxed; bright sparks or mists before eyes.

Ammonium Muriaticum. Occiput feels, as if in a vise; later, in sides of head, with excessive ill-humor.

Amyl Nitrate. – Throbbing and fullness of head to bursting, even becomes, unconscious; face livid. Throbbing in occiput; not here distinctive, but only a local manifestation of the general action of the drug upon the blood-vessels.

Anacardium. Constrictive, band-like, headache: feeling, as of a tense band from nape to ears; must lie down.

Dull pressure as from a Plug: Characteristic, is the peculiar pressure. Anacard. is especially called for when when the occipital headache is accompanied by a contractive stiffness of neck, felt at rest and not usually worse from motion, though it may be. (Compare Rhus Rad.) Angustura. Pressure in occiput, afternoon. Drawing at sides of occiput. Tension and drawing in muscles of neck. Drawing in occiput, sides of head, fingers, etc.

The occipital pain is merely a part of the general tension caused by the drug-an action that has led to its use in tetanus, and this, too, since, the discovery that there are two sorts of Angustura; one the Vera; the other, a variety of strychnos Nux Vom.

Antimonium Tartaricum.- Occiput becomes heavy, with an anxious, oppressive sensation. On stooping, sense, as if, something in occiput fell forwards. Raging or throbbing pain on right side of occiput.

Probably useful in chest and stomach affections, when the occipital heaviness indicates a congestive state of the medulla and base of brain, with consequent involvement of the pneumo gastrics. Antimony has an affinity for the base and medulla. Heart symptoms, dyspnoea, drowsiness, nausea one or all will be present.

Apis. Aching, increased by shaking head. Headache with fullness and heaviness in occiput. Pressure. Tension from the back of the neck. Violent drawing from back of neck over left half of head.

The well-known value of Apis in Meningitis, leads us to infer that the above may very readily indicate irritation, congestion, etc. within the cranium.

Argentum Metallicum. Pressing pain in forehead with stupor, and drawing pressure in occiput. Nape of neck feels stiff; there seems to be something foreign in the occiput, a sort of drawing and pressing.

The silver-headache is neurotic, seemingly in the brain substance and outgoing nerves. It reaches its culmination, raging as if a nerve were being torn into, and then suddenly ceases. Sometimes the occipito-frontalis muscle twitches spasmodically. There is also painful tension on both sides of the foramen magnum.

Argentum Nitricum. Digging, cutting motion through left hemisphere from occiput to frontal protuberance; increasing and decreasing rapidly. Bandlike strips, traction, from occiput into middle of brain.

Digging and tumultuous raging in right hemisphere until he loses his senses; if pain abates in forehead, it increases in sides of head and towards occiput, extending thence down the neck.

Arnica. Pressive headache, now more in forehead, now in occiput. Pressive, as if, head were being distended; pain seemingly from something soft in vertex, with drawing in occiput. Violent sticking in forehead and occiput on waking in morning. Pain in occiput, as from electric shocks.

Headaches in general are accompanied with confusion, fullness, heaviness, with dizziness; burning in brain, the body being cool. Occipital pains are not characteristic.

E. A. Farrington
E. A. Farrington (1847-1885) was born in Williamsburg, NY, on January 1, 1847. He began his study of medicine under the preceptorship of his brother, Harvey W. Farrington, MD. In 1866 he graduated from the Homoeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania. In 1867 he entered the Hahnemann Medical College, graduating in 1868. He entered practice immediately after his graduation, establishing himself on Mount Vernon Street. Books by Ernest Farrington: Clinical Materia Medica, Comparative Materia Medica, Lesser Writings With Therapeutic Hints.