Natrum muriaticum [Nat-m]
“One of our best remedies for chronic headaches,”
“The headaches are awful: dreadful pains: bursting, compressing as in a voice: as if skull would be crushed in.”
“Little hammers in the head as soon as moves: on waking in a.m.”
May begin at 10 or 11 a.m., last till 3 p.m. or evening.
Periodic, every day, or third or fourth day.
Better sleep: must go to bed and be perfectly quiet ( Bryonia). Intermitted fever headaches, after much malaria and quinine. Relief from sweating: or relief to all but head from sweating. ( Gelsemium has (>) from copious urination.)
May begin with fiery zigzags ( Sepia)
Beware of Nat. mur. when acute and violent: it may needlessly increase the suffering: give its “acute” Bryonia: and after the paroxysm, Nat. mur.
Characteristics. Weepy ( Pulsatilla) but no one must see. Emotional to pathetic things, books, plays. Worse, or anger from consolation. Aversion to bread, fats : desire for salt. A crack in middle of lower lip ( Sepia).
Sepia [Sep]
Headaches nervous, bilious, periodic, violent.
Better lying and quiet : often cured by sleep, even a short sleep ( Phosphorus).
Relief from lying down, or from violent motion (slow Pulsatilla). Long walk in open air that warms her, relieves.
Worse stooping, coughing, jarring, light, thinking. Better hard exercise or a tight bandage, or applied heat: but worse hot room.
Occipital headaches, loathing of food: then nausea and vomiting: then sleep and wakes without it. Headache with nausea: worse smell of food. Fiery zigzags ( Nat. mur.).
In the Sepia patient: characteristically sallow with brown patches. Indifferent: wants to get away and be at peace. Hates fuss.
Aconite [Acon]
“The headaches can scarcely be described, they come with such violence.
“Tearing, burning in brain, in scalp, with fear, with fever, with anguish,”
Fullness and heaviness in forehead, as if an outpressing weight there : as if all would be forced out at the forehead. (Compare Sulph., Belladonna, down one nostril Borax.)
Throbbing in left forehead with strong beats in right side by fits.
Skull constricted by a ligature ( Sulph.).
Aconite is sudden: wild : worse from cold winds; with restlessness, anguish, fear.
Belladonna [Bell]
Headaches of great violence.
Congestion: red, hot face: dilated pupils.
Violent throbbing in brain and carotids.
Violent shoots and cutting stabs.
Jerking headache: worse walking, going up stairs. At every step jerked downwards like a weight in occiput.
Cutting knife-stabs and shoots.
Bursting pain: as if brain would be pressed out : worse stooping, as if brain would fall out, push forward: or eyes would drop out.
Worse noise, jar, motion, light, lying: better pressure.
Rush of blood to head.
Violent headaches, better for drawing head back.
Headache with dizziness: worse stooping.
Headache from washing the head.
Belladonna headaches comes suddenly, last an indefinite time, and depart suddenly.
Case.-A little maid would come down at night, “Oh my head my head “- frantic with pain: her hands held out quiveringly before her. A dose of Belladonna and, in a few minutes, suddenly, “Its gone” and off she would go happily to bed. (A case of cerebral tumour, as it turned out: but showed the wonderful palliative action of Belladonna.)
Another case:- boy, after exposure to a very hot sun, got a terrific headache, with very high temperature. Belladonna: and well by next day. (Compare Gloninum).
Glonoin [Glon]
Very like Belladonna: perhaps “more so,”
Upward rushes of blood ( Belladonna).
Waves of terrible, bursting, pulsating headache. (“A tempestuous remedy.”)
Worse bending head back ( reverse of Belladonna).
A great remedy for sunstroke ( Belladonna).
Worse for having hair cut ( Belladonna, head washed).
Can’t bear heat about head.
Throbbing head; holds it with both hands.
Brain too large: full : bursting: throbs at every jar, step, pulse ( Belladonna).
Head hot; face flushed- purple or bright red.
” Skull too small: brain will burst it.”
Waves of pain: and brain seems to move in waves.
Case.- Youth, after an appalling smash (motor bicycle) skull fractured: terrific, unbearable pain in head for which he implored morphia. Got Glonoin instead, and never asked for morphia again. It’s effect was magic.
Melilotus [Meli]
Congestion to brain equal to Belladonna and Gloninum
Intense redness of face: throbbing carotids.
Better for profuse epistaxis.
Lachesis [Lach]
Violent congestion to head: with vomiting and loss of sight. Almost delirious with headache.
Throbbing, bursting pains in head ( Belladonna, Gloninum) as if all the blood of body had gone to head.
Sun-headaches, of the more chronic type ( Belladonna, Gloninum for the very acute violent “sunstroke” headache). Chronic headaches whenever exposed to the sun. Worse heat.
Pressure on vertex: relieved by pressure: often extending to root of nose.
Sleeps into the headache: dreads to sleep, as wakes with such a distressing headache ( reverse of Phosphorus and Sepia). Headaches from suppressed discharges- nasal, uterine, etc. Relief from their reappearance.
Characteristics. Loquacity: or great slowness. Intolerance of pressure, especially on throat and abdomen. Left-sided ailments; may cross to right side.
Cocculus ind. [Cocc]
Headache as if skull would burst: or like a great valve opening and shutting.
Sick-headaches with vertigo.
Thought or smell of food nauseates ( Arsenicum, Sepia, Colchicum): makes the patient gag.
“Train sickness” with nausea and vertigo.
Effects of night-nursing and loss of sleep.
On motion, eyes as if being torn from sockets : or head empty and hollow: or constriction.
Pulsative pains, vertex or temples.
Headache, occiput and nape, pain as if opening and shutting like a door.
Worse eating, drinking, sleeping: better rest indoors.
Slow in answering.
Least jar unbearable ( Belladonna, etc.).
Crot. cascavella [Crot-c]
Skull compresses brain like an iron helmet.
Something alive walks in a circle in the head.
Head and chest compressed by iron armour.
A red-hot iron stuck into vertex.
Acute lancinations right temple (many of the pains are lancinating).
Shocks in head, almost throw her off balance.
Headache after sleep ( Lachesis)
Headache, epistaxis and great excitement, caused by starting from sleep.
Great coldness: icy feet.
Crot. casc. has peculiar hallucinations.
“This terrible serpent whose poison acts with frightful intensity.”.
Gelsemium [Gels]
Congestive headache: most violent in occiput.
Every pulsation, ” a hammering base of brain.”
Lies high, exhausted and paralysed with pain.
Later whole head congested. One grand pain too dreadful to describe; lies bolstered up in bed, eyes glassy, pupils dilated, face mottled, extremities cold.
Or, neuralgic headache, temples and over eyes, with nausea and aggravation from vomiting.
Relieved by copious urination, i.e. urine, scanty, becomes free, and headache subsides.
A great influenza medicine.
Phosphorus [Phos]
Congestive and throbbing headaches.
Better from cold: worse from heat. Worse motion; better rest; but worse lying down.
Phosphorus is chilly and worse from cold, yet needs cold for his stomach and head: craves ices or quantities of ice-cold water.
Headaches most violent; with hunger, or preceded by hunger. With red face: scanty urine.
Violent neuralgic pains also; darting, tearing, shooting.
Periodic headaches: from mental exertion: with stiffness of face and jaws.
Worse noise; light; becoming heated.
Pulsatilla [Puls]
Throbbing, congestive headaches.
Head hot, better for cold applications.
Better slowly walking in open air.
Headaches connected with menses: or from suppressed menses.
Periodic sick headache : vomits sour food.
Headache from over-eating: from ice cream.
Thirstless: easily weeping: changeable.
Must have air; better motion. Worse heat.
Apis [Apis]
Pain, occiput, with occasional sharp shrieks.
Pains like bee-stings, with the thrust and the burning pain following.
Brain affections of children with sudden sharp shriek ( Crie cerebrale). Bends head back, or bores in pillow.
Thirstless: sweat without thirst; scanty urine: piercing screams sleeping or walking.
“Bruised all over, ” sensitive to touch.
Worse heat: warm room: hot bath. Better cold room: cold air: cold applications.
“Alternately dry and hot, then perspiring.”.
Chamomilla [Cham]
A little headache seems an enormous thing.
Congestive headaches.
Pressing, bursting pain, worse thinking of it.
Irritable: capricious: over-sensitive to pain.
“Cannot bear it.”
Face red and hot on one side, pale the other.
Mercurius [Merc]
Congestion, head : feels it will burst : fulness of brain: constricted by a band: as if in a vice, with nausea : worse at night.
Burning in head, especially left temple : worse at night.
Headache over nose and round eyes, as if tied with a tape, or tight hat pressing.
Sensitive to air : worse cold, damp : violently worse in a draught.
Better in room; worse in cold or warm room.
Wants to be covered, but worse from heat.
Dirty offensive tongue and mouth : offensive sweat.
Catarrhal, rheumatic or syphilitic headaches.
