Nux vomica [Nux-v]
Putrid or bitter taste in mouth, but food and drink taste right.
Repugnance to food.
Want of appetite, and constant nausea.
Dislike to accustomed tobacco smoking and coffee.
Eructation of bitter and sour fluid.
Nausea in morning (Sepia) – after dinner:
Qualmish nausea after eating:-
Inclination to vomit.
Contractive, squeezing stomachache.
Contractive pain in abdomen.
Distension and tenderness over stomach.
Flatulent colic upper part of abdomen, in the evening, lying.
Flatulence rises and presses under short ribs.
After a meal, flatulent distension (Lycopodium):-
immediately after drinking.
Cutting bellyache with inclination to vomit:- as if diarrhoea would occur.
Vomiting of sour smelling and tasting mucus.
Constipation from irregular peristalsis: frequent, ineffectual desire for stool: or passes small quantities with each attempt.
The typical Nux patient is:-
Very chilly and worse cold.
Very particular (Arsenicum), careful, zealous.
Gets excited, angry, even spiteful and malicious.
Easily offended.
Anxiety: sadness: scolding crossness.
Oversensitive to noise, slightest noise, strong odours, bright light, music.
Feels everything too strongly-music, singing.
May be suicidal, but afraid to die.
Sensitiveness; nervousness; chilliness.
Worse dry winds, east wind. Better warm wet weather. (Aconite, Asarum europaeum, Bryonia, Causticum, Hepar, K.c., etc.)
Spasms from disorderly peristalsis. Reversed peristalsis.
Pulsatilla [Puls]
In mouth, taste, as from putrid flesh, with inclination to vomit.
Dislike to butter-to all fats.
Bilious eructation in the evening.
Diminished taste to all foods. Adipsia.
Frequent eructation; taste of what was previously eaten.
Sensation of sickness in epigastric region, especially after eating and drinking.
Inclination to vomit, with rumbling and grumbling in subcostal region.
Aching and drawing pain, stomach, in the morning.
Immediately after supper flatulent colic: flatulence rumbles about painfully, especially in upper part of abdomen.
Flatus discharged with cutting abdominal pain in the morning.
Bellyache as if diarrhoea must ensue, yet only a natural stool occurs. Bellyache after stool.
Urgings to stool-to soft stool with mucus.
Frequent mucus stools with a little blood.
Bad taste: dryness in mouth, with no thirst.
Worse for pastry, cakes, rich, fat foods.
Not hungry: not thirsty: not constipated.
The typical Pulsatilla patient is:-
Mild, gentle, yielding: cries easily:- can hardly give her symptoms for weeping.
Sandy hair, blue eyes: inclined to silent grief with submissiveness.
Conscientious about business. Loves steady work, hates hustle.
Changeableness in everything:- in disposition: in the pains that wander from joint to joint: in character of stools-menses, etc.
Pulsatilla feels the heat.
Worse warm room, warm applications.
Better in cool, open air: by walking slowly: but the pains of Pulsatilla are accompanied by chilliness.
Loves sympathy and fuss.
“Little suited to persons who form resolutions with rapidity, and are quick in their movements.” (The antithesis of Nux.).
Sepia [Sep]
Nausea. Morning nausea (Nux).
Nausea after eating, or, often relieved by eating.
Vomiting of food and bile in the morning.
Nausea and morning sickness of pregnancy. (Ipecac.)
Peculiar faint, sinking emptiness and goneness at pit of stomach. (Sulphur)
Sagging of all viscera. Bearing-down in pelvic organs. (Lilium tigr.)
Aversion to food-meat-fat-bread (during pregnancy) to milk, which causes diarrhoea.
Nausea from the smell of food and cooking (Colchicum, Arsenicum, etc.).
Characteristic symptoms:-
Indifference: indifference to loved ones. (Phosphorus)
Wants to get away: to be alone. (Nat. mur.)
Hates full and sympathy (Nat. mur.):- talking; talking of others.
Hates noise.
Flashes of heat with perspiration, and faintness.
General relaxation, mental and physical.
Faintness-kneeling and standing.
Often, yellow saddle across nose and cheeks.
Ipecacuanha [Ip]
Nausea, with empty eructations and great flow of saliva. Vomiting.
Vomiting with a clean tongue.
Persistent nausea: not relieved by vomiting.
Distress as if stomach hung down, relaxed.
Griping, as from a hand in abdomen: esp. about umbilicus.
Diarrhoeic, as it were fermented, stools.
Sulky: despises everything: desires that others should not esteem or care for anything.
Phosphorus [Phos]
Excessive thirst. Thirst for cold drinks.
Regurgitation of food. Empty eructations.
Nausea. Vomiting. Burning in stomach. (Arsenicum)
Thirst for cold water. (Or unable to drink water, even the sight of it causes nausea and vomiting. Must close eyes when bathing.
Water vomited as soon as warm in stomach.
Goneness, as if stomach had been removed.
Weak, empty, gone sensation whole abdomen.
Stomach pains better for cold food, ice cream.
Profuse diarrhoea. Blood in stools.
Sphincter relaxed: involuntary stool. Oozing of stool from unclosed sphincter. (Comp. Apis.)
The typical Phosphorus patient is:-
Tall, thin, the artistic type. Fine, dark hair.
Easy bleedings of bright blood. Small wounds bleed much.
Bruises easily.
Desire for salt-for cold drinks-for ices.
Fear alone-dark-thunder; “someone-behind.”
Relief from rubbing: from a short sleep. (Sepia)
Burning; stomach, intestines, up spine, between scapulae (Lycopodium).
(N.B.-Arsenicum burnings everywhere are better for heat; distinguishes from Phosphorus)
Answers slowly. Indifferent: to loved ones (Sepia).
Arsenicum [Ars]
Burning pain stomach, relieved by heat. (Rev. of Phosphorus).
Burning, violent pain, like red-hot coals.
Epigastrium sensitive to slightest touch.
Great anxiety about epigastric region.
Acute gastritis; painful vomiting of grass-green solids: or fluids; or after drinking.
Haematemesis, often with black stools.
Violent pains in abdomen with great anguish: rolls about on the floor and despairs of life.
Periodic colic.
Burning in intestines. Abdomen distended.
The great remedy of Ptomaine Poisoning.
The burning pains of Arsenicum are everywhere relieved by heat.
Diarrhoea, worse after midnight and after eating, with great prostration.
Vomiting and stool may be simultaneous.
Intense thirst:-for small quantities:- for cold drinks, which disagree.
Characteristic symptoms:-
Great anguish. Anxious impatience.
Great Anxiety.
Great Restlessness.
Great Prostration.
Worse at night: after midnight: 1 to 3 a.m.
Worse cold air: cold drinks: cold applications.
Chamomilla [Cham]
Putrid breath after dinner. Ptyalism.
The pains are aggravated by eructation.
After a meal distension, with heat of face.
Obstructed flatus. Vomiting of bile.
Typical characteristic symptoms:-
A spiteful, sudden, irritable incivility.
Moans, weeps and howls in sleep.
Shivers at cold air. Redness in one cheek.
Evenings, burning cheeks with transient rigor.
Extreme restlessness, anxious tossing, with tearing pain, in abdomen.
Howling on account of a slight, even imaginary insult-perhaps long ago. (Staphysagria)
Wants this or that; then refuses it, or knocks it away. (Staphysagria)
Oversensitive to pain. “Unsuited for persons who bear pain calmly and patiently.”.
Sulphur [Sulph]
Burning in stomach. (Phosphorus, Arsenicum: Phosphorus desires cold drinks, ices; Arsenicum hot drinks.)
Empty, weak sense (stomach) about Ii a.m.
Big appetite: craves food at Ii a.m.
Or, drinks little, but eats much. Worse for milk.
Desires sweets, fat, alcohol, beer and ale.
Liable to early morning diarrhoea.
In the typical Sulph. patient, worse for heat: intolerant of clothing and its weight.
Natrum carb. [Nat-c]
“Greedy persons: loves sweets and nibbling.”
Excessive flatulence: always belching with sour stomach, and rheumatism.
Better eating. When chilly eats, and is warm.
All-gone feeling and pain in stomach, which drives him to eat. (At about Ii a.m. Sulph.)
At 5 a.m. so hungry; is forced out of bed to eat something, which also ameliorates the pain.
At Ii p.m. hungry. (Ii a.m. Sulph.)
Fatigue and weakness; mind and body. Nervous exhaustion.
Confusion. Bad tempered.
Cannot digest milk: diarrhoea from milk.
Flatulence and looseness of bowels from starchy foods.
(Patients who take much carbonate of soda to neutralize acidity, with temporary relief. Where indicated acts curatively in potencies.).
Bryonia [Bry]
After eating, pressure in the stomach; it was as if a stone lay there and made him cross.
Stomach extremely sensitive to touch and pressure.
Vomiting : of bile: of what has been eaten.
Mouth dry: tongue white: thirst for large quantities at long intervals (Comp. Phosphorus)
Patient cannot bear a disturbance of any kind, either mental or physical.
Cannot sit up in bed, as it makes him so sick and faint.
Better lying quite still, and left alone.
Stools dry, hard, as if burnt; dark.
Nausea on waking: from slightest motion.
Unnatural hunger: of loss of appetite.
Desires acids, sweets, oysters, etc.
Characteristic symptoms:-
Worse for motion. Dryness of mucous membranes. Pains stitching in character, provoked by motion.
Anxious; irritable.
Dreams of quarrelling, and of business.
Antimonium [Ant-c]
A characteristic symptom is Thick, milky white coating on tongue (Bryonia)crud.
Deranged stomach from eating what does not agree.
Easily disturbed digestion.
