Other important signs found under Ignatia are:
Aerophagy
Gastric symptoms
Intestinal symptoms.
The aerophagy is caused because of the hypersecretion of saliva which is swallowed and with it, air. The patient has a sensation of constriction of the pharynx and feels as if he has a ball in the oesophagus, which gives him a feeling of being strangled. This constriction is brought on by any emotion or opposition and disappears as soon as the patient swallows, even if he swallows only air. In the same way if he has a sore throat the pain is relieved by swallowing, especially if he swallows some solid food.
GASTRIC SYMPTOMS.
The patient is often hungry, suddenly hungry, and this is accompanied by a feeling of faintness in the epigastrium. This may happen at any time of the day, but more especially at 11.00 A.M. The patient feel suddenly exhausted and is compelled to take something to eat, but this does not relieve him. This is unlike Sulphur, who feels the sudden need of food in the middle of the morning, but is relieved by taking a snack.
The feeling of faintness of Ignatia may occur when the patient is in bed or sitting down, whereas the same faintness with Sulphur is especially noticed when the patient is standing, for he is a person who cannot stand up for very long.
Another symptom which accompanies the faintness is the continual yawning and involuntary sighing, of which the patient is unaware. The yawns and sighing are more marked before food and in tobacco fumes and then may also cause hiccough.
Nausea is a frequent symptom of Ignatia and it is relieved by taking food. The patient may sit down at table to eat and after a few minutes he wants to be sick. He then gets up and vomits and afterwards sits down and eats a good meal without any ill effects. This is seen with very nervous people who sit down at table with their family and are upset by something.
The patient can eat raw carrots or lobster, but if he has simple meal he has abdominal pain and sickness. In comparison, Bismuth also has a paradoxical symptoms with regard to drink. The patient is ill if the drinks water, whereas wine does not affect him at all. This is the only paradoxical symptom of Bismuth, whereas the paradoxical character of Ignatia is found in all its symptoms.
INTESTINAL TROUBLES.
The patient is often constipated and this is due to spasm of the bowel. If an X-ray is taken for intestinal trouble that has often lasted for a long time, the same picture is always seen. There is ptosis of the colon, which looks like a string of chestnuts. When the patient brings you an X-ray showing this picture and says that he has had all sorts of regimes and treatments you can be certain that he is amenable to Ignatia, or at least that he will need Ignatia among remedies top cure him.
Another interesting symptoms is an acute pain on going to stool, especially if the motion is soft. When he is constipated the patient has no pain. Intestinal atony is marked, especially with people who drink much coffee. The caecum is distended and pain in the appendix area is marked. This is not due to an appendicitis, but to spasm of the caecum. Prolapse of the rectum and haemorrhoids are often present.
The prolapsus is seen not only when the patient goes to stool, but when he stoops. The pain of the haemorrhoids is acute and as if he had a packet of needles in his rectum, and it is noticed when he coughs or stands or sits, and disappears when he gets up and moves about.
Another intestinal symptom is diarrhoea, a sudden from of spasmodic enteritis brought on by emotion such as an examination or before going to the theatre, or even on entering your consulting room. Another remedy, Gelsemium, has a similar diarrhoea. In this case the diarrhoea may by caused by bad news, such as the death of a friend or financial loss.
THE CHEST SYMPTOMS OF IGNATIA.
The cough is dry and persistent. On examination nothing abnormal is found in the trachea or lungs. The cough appears suddenly under the influence of emotion or annoyance. The patient coughs and coughs and the more he coughs the more he wants to cough and more he wants to cough and then sudden for no apparent reason he stops. He is then exhausted.
HEART SYMPTOMS OF IGNATIA.
The chief one is an emotional tachycardia. It appears suddenly and often occurs in the consulting room when the patient is being examined. It will also appear on the receipt of bad news. There are two outstanding sings; the pulse is very variable and may show astonishing variations from 70-120 beats per minute.
The arterial tension is also very variable and at the beginning of your consultation may be 190, but the needle of your sphygmomanometer will after a few seconds drop to 170, and if you take the blood-pressure at the end of your consultation it will be down to 150. Such an unstable arterial tension should make one think at once of Ignatia.
THE HEADACHES OF IGNATIA.
These appear abruptly and are at once very severe. They are often migrainous in type and occur in patients who are fatigued and overworked both physically and intellectually. They are aggravated by noise and light. They are also brought on by odours, especially that of tobacco. The whole head may be affected or only one side. The pain is beating in character, like blows of a hammer.
The patient says it is as a nail were being driven into his head, usually in the temporal or parietal regions. The pain is always relieved by pressure, by lying on the painful side. When the pain disappears the patient immediately passes a large quantity of urine. This reminds us to two other remedies, Gelsemium and Silica. Lac defloratum also passes a large amount of urine, but during the migraine.
THE MENTALITY OF IGNATIA.
Ignatia is said to be a remedy for women and Nux vomica a remedy for men. Strictly speaking this is not true. Nux vomica certainly is more suited to masculine temperaments and Ignatia to feminine temperaments, as the latter are more hypersensitive. In studying Ignatia one must not fall into the error of thinking that the remedy is purely nervous, exasperated and paradoxical. It certainly corresponds to many of the hysterical patients whom you see in the clinics or consulting rooms, but there exist two forms of Ignatia mentality.
The first is a state of profound depression, which may suddenly overwhelm the patient after great sorrow, such as the loss of a dear friend. The patient wishes to be left alone in her sorrow. She does not weep, but is in a state of profound shock. The second form very frequently is seen: i.e. with a certain type of woman who in the morning or afternoon is annoyed or upset by some member of her family, often, of course, her husband. She then has headache, nausea, abdominal pain and goes to bed with raised temperature and sulks.
Then in the evening a friend unexpectedly arrives with a bunch of flowers and proposed to take her to the theatre. Immediately all her symptoms disappear and she is happy and pleasant to every-body. There is, therefore, with Ignatia, on the one hand profound depression and on the other a marked instability of temper. When the patient is depressed, she always begins to suffer in silence and becomes melancholic. But when she is exasperated, she tends to quarrel with everybody around her. She may also even have convulsions and tremblings, and then becomes much more likely to need Gelsemium.
In chronic disease when the patients nervous hypersensitivity makes her amenable to Ignatia, it is best to give a dose of the 200 or 1m to desensitize the nervous system, for this will bring out the underlying symptoms and permit the deeper acting remedy, that may be indicated, to have a better chance of acting.
In acute conditions when instability of the nervous system is most in evidence, Ignatia is then the remedy that will restore the patients equilibrium.
Finally, what are the remedies complementary to Ignatia? Instability of the nervous system is, as we have seen, the general characteristic of Ignatia. It is this factor that enables Ignatia to restore the patient to his normal equilibrium. But it must not be thought that all patients showing mental instability are amenable to Ignatia. Each patient reacts according to his temperament and type.
In the troubled times through which we have lived during the past few years, people have been affected by their circumstances of peril and danger. Some are little affected, others are much affected. Some are depressed and others irritated. Homoeopathy does not offer them sedatives in the ordinary sense, but it can give them remedies which are efficacious so long as they are prescribed on the indications given in our Materia Medica.
In comparison with the nervous instability of Ignatia, we can described two states which cannot be confounded with it and the study of which is of great interest, since these two states correspond to two other remedies, Gelsemium and Sepia. The Gelsemium patient is extremely sensitive and irritable. The slightest trouble upsets him completely. Not only does bad news depress and dishearten him, but it causes tremblings, diarrhoea and insomnia. Being unable to bear any contradiction or opposition, he is afraid of conversing or discussing affairs with others.
