NO.1 REMEDY FOR BITES AND STINGS.

APIS can be effectively used when symptoms fit the following picture: Oedematous swellings, redness, pains burning and stinging. Restlessness. Thirstlessness. Better from cold applications. Worse from heat and between 4 and 6 pm.

The homeopathic remedy Apis Mellifica is made from the honey-bee poison. It act mainly on cellular tissues, causing oedema of skin and mucous membranes. The apis state can arise from infection, allergy or inflammatory causes - and caracteristically the swelling is so prominent that it gives the impression of a balloon ready to burst.

The personality of Apis often has a busy intensity, vitality and strength.

Key prescription areas are:

• Angioneurotic edema in allergic crisis.
• Pharyngitis with bag-like swelling of the uvula.
• Glomerulonephritis. Nephrotic syndrome, with dramatic edema of the entire body.
• Urticaria, with burning pains.
• Herpes zoster of the face, with marked swollen lids which can hardly be forced open.

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The no.1 remedy series is inspired by the Helios basic guide to homeopathy for the basic remedy kit.

NO.1 REMEDY FOR NIPPING COLDS IN THE BUD.

ACONITE is useful in the early stages of colds, fevers and inflammations. It suits healthy people whose complaints come on suddenly. Possible causes are cold/dry wind, as well as fright/shock.

The symptoms are characterized by extreme restlessness and fear. The patient may have an unfounded fear of death. The skin is dry and hot. Symptoms are usually worse in the evening/around midnight. Thirst for cold drinks. May say everything tastes bitter, except from water. The patients condition is better from fresh air, and is getting worse from touch.

In the acute conditions, there is a rapidly developing inflammations of almost any organ system. In severe acute conditions the fear may be intense, however in minor conditions the fear may be entirely absent. The infection and inflammation in Aconite rarely extends to the purulent stage of the disease.

In addition to being the no.1 remedy for nipping colds in the bud, it is also a main remedy for early stages of croup.

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The no.1 remedy series is inspired by the Helios basic guide to homeopathy for the basic remedy kit.

HANDS GOING NUMB AT NIGHT

This evening I read a comment on one of the Fibromyalgia groups on facebook which I have to address here, not only to still my own flow of thoughts - but to potentially give something to this group of people, suffering a condition where little help is offered by conventional medicine.

Fibromyalgia, also known as soft tissue rheumatism,non-articular rheumatism and fibrositis, is a condition that affects tendons, muscles and ligaments. It is a very common disease that gives rise to a widespread pain in all joints that connect the bones. Fibromyalgia sufferers are therefore subject to regular chronic fatigue and sleep trouble as a result of swelling of joints and tissues or pain . These people are so much affected by this condition so the researchers in the medical community have searched for the cause of this problem but have not found the source of the problem.

This woman's request for help and understanding were as followed (freely translated into English): "Anyone else which suffers from "sleepy" hands at night? It hurts so much that I wake up from it. Then it disappear for a little while, but as soon as I fall asleep again, so do my hands. It hurts tremendously..."

After this statement I couldn't help myself but to analyze this symptom more closely in my homeopathic analyzing tool - the book synthesis.

The main symptom would in homeopathic terms be defined as:

Extremities - numbness - hands - night

And the homeopathic remedies which possibly could help in this conditions are listed as:

agar, ambr, ars-i, bry, carb-v, ham, kali-n, lyc, mag-m, merc-pr-r, pall, prot, sep, sil, vanil

If we consider more the pain symptom, there are various example of that as well, in our "little red book" - with of course additional remedies (not listed here):

Extremities - pain - hands - paralyzed, as if

Extremities - pain - hands - night

Extremities - pain - hands - asleep, falling

And I could go on and on and on with the differentiations of certain pains, but I believe I made my point clear.

The remedies noted above are by no means remedies which the patients themselves should investigate and "try out". It is meant as an example and an encouragement that there might be treatments "out there" that can have a positive influence on their condition.. Homeopaths never subscribe a remedy only from one symptom; the whole physical, emotional and mental history of the patient needs to be taken into consideration before the correct medicine, the patients' constitutional remedy, can be found.

To read more about homeopathic treatment, check out one of my first posts on this blog here..

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A colleague of mine and I will launch a full treatment plan for fibromyalgia patients in a couple of weeks. People living in the Oslo area are welcome to participate! Its a program in which we have a special discount on all treatments (its homeopathic treatment combined with eastern medicinal treatments).

If you need more information on this treatment program, you are welcome to contact us at post@inspirerthverdag.no.

TARANTISM AND THE HOMEOPATHIC REMEDY TARENTULA

Tarentulas belong to the spider (Arachnida) family. Tarentulas are nocturnal predators, killing their prey including birds, lizards, snakes, frogs and toads by injecting venom through their fangs.

The town Taranto, in Southern Italy, gave the spider its name. The bite of this spider was once believed to cause a fatal condition called tarantism. The illness was first recorded in medical journals in the 14th century. Occurring every summer for three hundred years, Tarantism reached its peak in the 17th century. According to the local belief, the only cure was to dance to certain music — tarantella — for days or even weeks.

Actually, the bite of this spider is not even particularly painful, let alone life-threatening. Because proteins are included when a toxin is injected, some individuals may suffer severe symptoms due to an allergic reaction rather than to the venom.

In the 1600s, people discovered that these spiders were virtually harmless. Many then concluded that the whole phenomenon of Tarantism was simply an excuse for a wild party. However, it is now suspected that there has been an entirely different kind of spider in the fields around Taranto that caused fairly severe bites (one candidate being the malmignatte or Mediterranean black widow), but the tarentulas, being wolf spiders, were fairly large, out in the open, and were frequently seen running around, which drew attention to them, and so they got the blame. Join that factor with the belief in tarantism and the supposed need for wild dancing to prevent sure death, and the fearsome world-wide reputation of the tarantula was guaranteed.

The Lycosa Tarentula’s bite was said to cause hallucinogenic effects. In some versions of the legend, the venom itself caused the dancer to move uncontrollably. The condition that results from the bite of Lycosa Tarentula was common in southern Italy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Many people have suggested that the whole business was a deceit to evade religious proscriptions against dancing.

The amatory dance is a very important feature in the spider’s romance life. Several males will dance for one female and it is her, who then picks her chosen one to reproduce. The dance is also important for the Tarentula patient as his symptoms are influenced by music.

Tarentula cases are sometimes caused by anger, bad news, emotional excitement, excessive joy or disappointed love.

All these possible causes suggest that in a Tarentula case, unexpectedly the rhythm or the balance get upset. Tarentula’s nervous costume is tensed, like a coiled spring ready to jump any time it is released. And this is exactly what Tarentula does: the least emotional / mental excitement brings the normal flow of emotions and thoughts in him to a stop or changes the direction and he ‘jumps’.

Symptoms. In the 17th century, Tarantella was recommended after a bite of a tarentula; indeed, such a bite causes violent movements of the muscles that remind one of an eccentric or macabre dance. Tarentula is one of the hastiest remedies in the homeopathic Materia Medica, if not the hastiest of them. E.g. The patient suffers extreme restlessness of his legs and of the whole body or tosses and turns in bed all night long. Not only is this restlessness of a physical kind, but emotional and mental as well.

Tarentula patients are impatient with themselves as well as with fellow humans, especially when they deal with individuals that are slower. The reason for this impatient restlessness is partly to set free the enormous energy that inhibits Tarentula and partly that these are individuals driven from anxiety.

The excitement of Tarentula can go from extreme gayety and much singing (as far as) to hysteria, when the state of insanity becomes more severe, and can generally cause all kinds of strange, paradoxical behavior.

Since Tarentula’s nervous costume is so tensed, so under pressure, music can have a very soothing effect on him. Music comes along with rhythm and brings relaxation of the mind and the body for Tarentula, though the ‘wrong’ music can aggravate the complaints as it will be perceived as a disturbance. The music needs to be of the same rhythm as the patient himself and then his thoughts and his movements will be graceful, flowing and elegant. This is, why Tarentula sometimes sings his own song

Tarentula is afraid, that he gets out of the rhythm that keeps him in balance. He fears, something could go wrong or that he can’t get all work of the day done. This is, besides the nervous excitement, the other reason he becomes so fast in everything and is so restless.

When the restlessness of Tarentula gets slowed down or even stopped by external circumstances, he can become very aggressive and violent. The patient then develops vandalism, which he can hide very well at first. However, even the smart Tarentula patient can’t hide his anger for long and the stronger the pressure grows, the more his rhythm is disturbed, the angrier he becomes and his anger will eventually turn into rage with a desire to even kill. Tarentula’s anger always has a true exciting cause and will not get out of hand that much. The patient will stop raging, when this cause is eliminated. The greater the disturbance of his inner rhythm is the angrier will the patient be.

There are strange sensations as if his legs were cut off or he is floating in air. Both show somewhat the affinity to spiders: 8 legs that are so important to crawl along the threads in the spider’s net and the feeling of floating in air, when swinging on these threads. Tarentula might also feel smaller than he actually is.

In emergencies Tarentula most often is used for epilepsy, chorea, spasms and affections of the heart (angina pectoris).

Constitution. Hering considers Tarentula suited to “nervous, hysterical patients, who are subject to choreic affections” and people that have a “mischievous and destructive tendency”. Sometimes in Tarentula, one pupil is much dilated, the other contracted. The eyes might be glassy, red and have blue circles around them. The face itself is flushed or pale / earthy, possibly in strong contrast with the purple neck and shows the expression of terror. The hands might be hot and sweaty.

Physical Symptoms

• Alternating Symptoms
• Discharge of blood alternately with leucorrhea
• Burning heat alternating icy coldness that causes trembling & shaking (in fever)
• Concomitant Symptoms
• Constrictive headache with pain in uterus
• Headache with restless, has to move about
• Vertigo with bad taste in mouth and headache
• Vertigo accompanied by incomplete erection of penis
• Snapping and pain in ear with hiccough
• Toothache with hiccough
• Tonsillitis with fear & sensation of suffocation
• Throat complaints or cough accompanied by smarting in eye
• Gastric complaints accompanied by neuralgic ones (head, face, ears, teeth etc)
• Pain in uterus with constrictive headache
• Faint feeling in stomach with frontal headache
• Nausea with dizziness
• Lancinating pain in spleen, with pain in stomach and uterus
• Hard stool with blood
• Profuse diarrhoea with prostration, nausea, vomiting and fainting
• Constipation with involuntary passing of urine on coughing
• Menses accompanied by toothache
• Uterine trouble with bearing down pains
• Precordial anxiety with tremulous beating of heart
• Heat of face and palms
• Intermittent fever with choreic convulsions

Characteristic, peculiar Symptoms

• Desire to pull out his hair on account of burning heat in scalp
• objects seen with the left eye appear bright red
• Cough > smoking
• Stools occur on washing the head
• Wetting hands in cold water <>
• Cannot keep quiet anywhere or in any position
• Right sided complaints
• Sensation of cold water being poured over a body part (eye, head, inside of throat etc)
• Complaints > music & dancing (fast)
• Desires sand, ashes or cuttlefish, spiced food and craves cigarettes

Source: Hpathy.com

FACTS ABOUT LYME DISEASE

Lyme disease can affect the skin, and in some cases - with time, the nervous system, joints, heart. The bacteria which causes this illness is named Borrelia burgdorferi, and it is transmitted through bites from certain types of ticks, however not every infected person develops symptoms.

Lyme disease has been known in Europe under various names since the late 19^th century. The Lyme name came from the town Lyme, Conneticut in USA. In this town some children developed arthritis, which was originally thought to be rheumatoid arthritis, but investigations showed that this illness was caused by an infection transmitted from ticks.

Risk factors to attract the disease include increased outdoor leisure activities in tick habitats. Ticks are tiny, spider-like creatures, which you’ll find in grassy areas and in the forest. They usually feed on blood of mammals or birds. If a tick feed on an animal, which is infected with the Borrelia bacteria, they become infected and may pass on the infection to other animals (including humans).

Even if you get infected after a tick bite you don’t necessary develop symptoms. The most common sign of infection is a pale, pink or reddish rash, which spreads out from the site of the bite, usually within two weeks. Fever may also accompany the complaints, and some people experience enlargement of the lymph glands near the site of the rash. Tiredness and aching pains might follow the other symptoms.

In more serious conditions, some people may develop nervous system complications – with weakness and paralysis of muscles. Other neurological symptoms include: burning in the skin, numbness or shingles-like pain. The complications occur some weeks or months after the bite of an infected tick.

Lyme disease has been known to occasionally trigger arthritis, usually affecting the knee or other large joints. In most cases this settles down after antibiotic treatment. Lyme disease may also affect the heart, thereby causing an abnormality of heart-beat rhythm. This is although very uncommon, and will usually respond well to treatment.

Blood tests will be negative in the initial infection stage. It will, however, detect antibodies to the Borrelia bacteria within three to six weeks of being infected – if untreated. Usually a treatment with doxycycline or amoxicillin for 14 days is recommended and effective of shortening the duration of the rash. Homeopathy may prove effective as an extra aid in treating Lyme disease, as it strengthens the body’s own immune system. We also do recommend a preventive aid, by giving certain remedies at once someone has been had a tick bite, and follow it up for a duration of 2-3 weeks. (More information on this in the article: ‘Lyme Disease; Emerging from a Tick Bite.’

Remember to always consult with your Homeopath before taking any kind of homeopathic remedies.

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