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KALI CARBONICUM
Common Name:-
Carbonate of Potassium.
Constitutional Taint:-
Psoric. Sycotic. Syphilitic. Tubercular
diathesis. It acts very deeply into the constitution
and its action lasts for quite a long time.
The following lines of Kent are worth
their weight in gold.
"Kali
Carb.
seems to be a dreadful medicine to handle."
Do not give that constitutional medicine, that should
have been administered to these patients twenty years
ago, because there is no reaction enough in the life of
the patient to turn him into order, and he will be
destroyed. Someday after practicing awhile and making
numerous mistakes in attempting to cure incurables you
will admit the awful power of homeopathic medicine."
I myself seldom prescribe this medicine which I dread
most, (not without reason, of course) no matter if the
drug is strongly indicated. To state most briefly: when
clearly indicated and the diseases in which it is called
for is not in its advanced or rather in its fairly
advanced stage, it can well be harnessed in the 30th
or utmost in the 200th potency. And, even in
such a case, it should be given in a single dose.
Generally speaking, Kali carb. should be given
with caution in old gouty cases, old cases of nephritis,
and in advanced cases of phthisis. Just use one tiny
globule put into three-fourths of an ounce of distilled
water contained in an ounce phial. Add 2 drops of
rectified spirit. Then impart to the phial ten
succussions. This is quite sufficient for a dose.
"You
need not believe these things, you are not obliged to".
GENERAL VIEW:
Dr. Boericke states that
"weakness-
characteristic"
of all Pottasium salts is seen especially in
this, with soft pulse, coldness, general depression and
very characteristic stitches, which may be felt
in any part of the body, or in connection with
any affection. All Kali carb pains are
sharp and cutting; nearly all better by
motion. Never use any Salts of Potash where there is
fever (T.F.Allen) Sensitive to every atmospheric change,
and intolerance of cold weather. One of
the best remedies following labor. Miscarriage for
consequent debilitated states. Early morning
aggravation is very characteristic. Fleshy aged
people with dropsical and paretic tendencies. Sweat,
backache, and weakness. Throbbing pains. Tendency to
dropsy. Tubercular diatheses. Pain in small spot on
left side. Hypothyroidism, Coxitis.
Typical subjects:
Persons with ulceration of the lungs. Tubercular
diathesis. Hahnemann writes:"Persons
suffering from ulceration of the lungs can scarcely get
well without this anti-psoric."
Persons who are aged, of lax fibre and inclined to
obesity (Ammon-c., Graph.). Admirably adapted to the
old, fleshy, flabby, dropsical, paretic. Persons
affected byt kloss of fluids, particularly when anaemic.
"Very
efficacious during puberty."
Notes and features:
1. Stitching pains:
It leads all the remedies for stitching pains.
Bryonia stands next, but there is very marked
difference. The stitching pains of Kali Carb. are worse
during rest and lying on affected
side i.e. from pressure which are opposite
of Bryonia. Stitches in region of liver; also
burning. Stitches in kidneys; in ears; in eyes; in
chest; on back, etc.(Stitching pains of Bryonia are
oftenest located in serous membranes, while those of
Kali carb. are found anywhere and everywhere, and in
almost every tissue, even to the teeth). One of the
favorite localities, however for Kali carb. is in the
lower right chest. This sharp stitching
pain is likely to run right through to the back. This
symptom may be seen in Phthisis; also rattling and
wheezing breathing; great accumulation of mucous
in chest, but difficult to expectorate; intense
oppression of breathing.
2. Burning:- Burning
pains and burning sensations are found in many parts.
Burning in anus and rectum. Burning sensation under the
skin. Burning acidity rising from stomach.
"Urine
flows slowly with burning."
3. Dropsical conditons:
Dropsy all over the body. Dropsy of whole skin of the
body. Dropsy, esp. of old people. Such conditions may
be in complication with liver and heart disease. Face,
fingers, legs, abdomen, etc. bloated. Dropsical
affections of internal organs.
4.Sourness:-
Belching is attended with rising of sour fluids, that
set the teeth on edge. Sour vomiting of food.
5. Fullness: Feeling
of fullness even after little food or drink. Everything
seems to run into gas (Arg.n., Iod.).
Constant feeling as if stomach were full of water.
Feeling of lump in stomach.
6. Thermal: He is a
chilly patient. He is so sensitive to every atmospheric
change that he can never get the room at just exactly
the right temperature, he is sensitive to every draft of
air and to the circulation of air in the room. He
cannot have the windows open, even in a distant part of
the house. He will get up at night in bed, and look
around to see where that draft of air comes. His
complaints are worse in wet weather, and in cold
weather. He is sensitive to the cold and is always
shivering. His nerves feel the cold; they are all
painful when it is cold. The neuralgias shoot here and
there when it is cold, and if the part affected be kept
warm the pain goes to some other place. All his pains
change place and go into the cold part; if he covers up
one part, the pain goes to the part uncovered.).
Mind Symptoms:-
The patient is whimsical, irascible,
irritable to the very highest degree,
quarrelsome, despondent. He never wants to be alone,, is
full of fear and imaginations when alone,
"fear
of future, fear of death, fear of ghosts".
If compelled to remain alone in the house he is wakeful,
sleepless, or his sleep is full of horrible dreams. He
is never at peace, is full of imaginations and fear.
"What
if the house should burn up1"
"What
if I should do this or that1"
and
"What
if this and the other thing should happen!"
Alternating moods. Anxiety is felt in stomach,
Sensation as bed is sinking. He is obstinate and
hypersensitive to pain, noise, touch to any part of
the body especially feet.
Head:-
It has catarrhal congestive
headache. The headache is related to catarrh of
nose, whenever the discharge from nose ceases from
taking cold in a draft, on comes headache, and as the
discharge becomes free again the headache is relieved.
Headache from riding in cold wind. Headache comes
on with yawning. Stitches in temples, aching in occiput,
one-sided with nausea, on riding in carriage. Loose
feeling in head. Great dryness of hair; falls out
(Fluoric Acid.).
Eyes:-The
main characteristic symptom of this remedy is
"Swelling
over upper lid, like little
bags. Weak sight from excessive sexual
indulgence. Stitches in eyes. Spots, gauze, and black
points before eyes. On shutting eyes, painful sensation
of light penetrating the brain.
Ears:
.Stitches in ears. Itching, cracking, ringing and
roaring.
"Right
ear hot, left ear pale and cold.
"
Nose:
Whenever the patient goes out in the cold air, the nose
opens up and the mucous membranes becomes dry and burn;
when he return into a warm the nose commences to
discharge and the nose stuffs up so that he cannot
breathe, through it, and then he feels most comfortable,
so that it has stuffing up of the nose in a warm room.
and opening up of the nose in the open air. (Here when
the nose is open in the open air he can breathe through
it, that is the time the head is most painful; it is
painful to the cold air and the cold air makes it
burn.The cold air feels hot.)
With the chronic catarrh of the nose
there is a thick, fluent, yellow discharge;
dryness of the nose, alternating with stuffing up. Post
nasal dropping [Spigel.]. Sore, scrufy nostril;
bloody nasal mucus. Nosebleed on washing face in the
morning. Ulcerated nostrils. To explain this,
Dr.Kent says that the one who suffers from a chronic
catarrh will also have the discharge in the morning
which will fill up the nose with yellow mucus. In the
morning he blows out and hawks up dry, hard crusts that
fill up the nasal passage, clear over into the pharynx
and down into the throat. These crusts become dry as if
they were partly formed upon the mucous membrane and
when they are blown out there is bleeding. The bleeding
starts from where the crusts are lifted up.
Mouth:-
The mouth is full of little ulcers, little aphthous
patches. The mucus membrane is pale and ulcerates
daily. The tongue is white with offensive taste; coated
gray, with sick headaches. The teeth present a peculiar
state. The gums take on a scorbutic or scrofulous
character. The gums separate from the teeth and the
teeth decay and become discolored and loose, so that
they have to be extracted early in life. He suffers
from pain in the teeth whenever he takes cold from
riding in the wind and raw weather. Offensive smell from
the teeth; pus oozing out from around the teeth.
Throat:-
Dry parched, rough,. Stitching pain in the throat
(pharynx) as if a fishbone were sticking in it"
(compare Hepar sulphur, Dolichos, Nitric acid
and Argentum nitricum.) . Swallowing difficult;
food goes down oesophagus slowly. Mucous accumulating in
the morning.
Stomach:-Kali
Carb. fits many old dyspeptics.After
eating he feels as if he would burst, so blated is he.
Great flatulence; belches wind upwards and passes flatus
downwards; offensive flatus. The belching up is als
attended with fluid eructations, sour fluids that set
the teeth on edge; they excoriate, or cause smarting in
the pharynx or mouth.
"Abdomen
distended with wind after eating.They make us tbink of
Lcopodium,Carbo Veg & China but remember Kali carb.
is especially adapted to broken down, aged people who
are anaemic. Pain in stomach after eating, burning in
the stomach after eating. Gone feeling in the stomach,
that is not even relieved by eating. A peculiar
condition in Kali Carb, is a state of
anxiety felt in the stomach, as though it were a
fear. Dr. Kent says that one of the first patients he
ever had expressed it in a better way than it is
expressed in books, she said,
"Doctor,
somehow or other I don't
have a fear like other people do, because I have it in
my stomach.".
She said when she was frightened, it always struck to
her stomach.
"If
a door slams, I feel it right here"(epigastric
region). Well, that is striking , that is peculiar
of Kali Carb. A sudden touch of any part
of the patient without his or her knowledge- there is
an anxiety or fear or apprehension felt in the region of
the stomach. Epigastric pain to back. Gastric
disorders from ice-water. Sour eructations. Nausea,
>lying down. Constant feeling
as if stomach were full of water.
While many of the symptoms of Kali
carb. are < after eating, some symptoms are relieved
after eating. There is throbbing in the pit of the
stomach when the stomach is empty. Easy choking after
eating.
Abdomen:-
There are many old chronic liver subjects who talk about
nothing else but the liver. Every time they go to the
doctor's
office they talk about the liver; and about a condition
of
fullness in the region of the liver and
pain through the right shoulder blade and up through the
right side of the chest. Stitches in the region of the
liver. It is also indicative in liver
dropsies.Tremendous flatulence. When the attack of colic
is on it might remind you of Colocynth or of some other
of the acute remedies that cure colic in two or three
minuts, but you will find these acute remedies that
relieve colic so speedily when given in 2nd
or 3rd time do not give marked effect, then
you may think of anti-psoric
-
Kali carb which is a deep acting and long acting remedy-
if of course it fits the constitution of the patient. 3
Rectum
: It has a great many complaints of the
rectum and anus and of the stool.It has most persistent
and enormous haemorrhoidal tumors that burn, that are
extremely sensitive to touch, tht bleed copiously, that
are extremely painful making it impossible for him to
sleep. Haemorrhoids that come out after stool and bleed
copiously and are very painful; they must be pushed
back, and long after going to bed they burn like fire.
There is a great aggravation from stool which are
large, hard and knotty and requires great straining
to expel. Fistulae of the anus. Burning temporarily
relieved by sitting in cold water.
Urine:-
Burning in urethra during and micturition. Urine flows
slowly with soreness and burning.Kali carb runs
very close to Naturm mur in many of its old,
longstanding bladder troubles especially in gonorrhoea.
In Naturm mur the burning is after urination and
in Kali Carb, the burning is during and after
urination and you have the broken down constituion
.Involuntary urination when coughing and sneezing
etc.Obliged to rise several times at night to urinate-
especially wakes at 3
'o
clock and cannot get to sleep nntil 5 o'
clock in the morning.
Male:
All the symptoms are likely to be worse after coition in
Kali carb. He has weak vision, weakness of the
senses, tremulousness, and is generally nervous; he is
sleepless and weak, and he shivers and trembles for a
day or two after coition. Similar symptoms are observed
in the woman. In spite of the fact that the patient is
weak, the sexual desire is excessive. It is not
orderly. There is a sexual erethism, which is not under
the command of the will and in the male he is subject to
copious and frequent pollution, nightly dreams, sexual
prostration. Phosphorus is a medicine that is abused in
this sphere. Many physicians look upon it as one of the
great remedies for the weakness of the genitals organs.
In Phos. the genital strength of the genital
indications are extreme excitement, too active
erection,s a disorderloy weakness, as this is often
associated with very feeble constitutions, and Phos.
Not only fails to cure, but seems to add to the
weakness. It is a weakness that you will learn is a
vital weakness. Phos. will set patients to
running down more rapidly who are suffering from a vital
weakness, who are always tire, simply weak, always
prostrated and want to got to bed.
Female:-
Kali Carb. is often a remedy for vomiting in pregnancyh,
but to find out when it is the remedy for vomiting of
pregnancy we have to go to the whole constitutional
state. Vomiting of pregnancy is not cured, although it
may be temporarily relieved, by Ipecac., as this a
medicine that corresponds merely to the nausea itself.
In a large number of instances gagging and nausea are
only a second or third grade symptom in the remedy that
will cure. The condition really depends upon the
constitutional state, and the remedy
that is to cure must be a constitutional
remedy. Sulphur, Sepia and Kali Carb are among
the remedies commonly indicated. Sometimes, Arsenic is
needed. Of course, if a
pregnant women has simply disordered her
stomach and has vomiting bile a few times the remedy
might be Ipecac. When a pregnant women has no
constitutional symptoms at all and upon examining the
case you find nothing but the nausea, overwhelming
deathly nausea, with continuous vomiting day and night,
a single dose of Symphoricarpus rac. will
help(200th has proved curative.).Difficult
first menses. Delayed menses in young girls, with chest
symptoms or ascitis. Complaints after parturition.
Menses early, profuse or too late, pale and scanty, with
soreness about genitals, pains from back pass down
through gluteal muscles, with cutting in abdomen.
Uterine hhg. with violent backache.
Respiratory:-
In old asthmatic patients with weak pulse with
pulsations and palpitation with which he cannot lie
down. The only position it seems that he can find any
comfort is by leaning forward, with his
elbows resting upon a chair. The attack is violent and
continuous especially worse from 3 to 5 A.M. and worse
from lying in bed. He is aroused at 3 o'clock
in the morning with these asthmatic attacks. In patient
who always have rattling in the chest, rattling cough,
stuffy breathing with every rainy spell or misty spell,
or in cold, foggy weather, the condition becomes that of
a humid asthma.
The cough of this medicine is one of the
most violent coughs of all the medicines in the Materia
Medica. The whole frame is racked. The cough is
incessant attended with gagging and vomiting, comes on
at 3 o'clock
in the morning, a dry, hacking, hard,racking cough with
stitching pain in the chest.
"Suffocative
cough and choking cough at 5 a.m.. Great dryness in the
throat between 2 am to 3 a.m."
Think of Kali carb. when, after troubles like measles, a
catarrhal state is left behind, due to lack of reaction,
the psoric sequelae. The cough following measles is very
often a kali carb. cough. Kali carb;, Sulphur,
Carbo veg. and Drosera are perhaps more
frequently indicated than other medicines in such coughs
as follow measles or pneumonia.
Nothing is more striking in Kali carb.
than the wandering stitching pains through the chest,
and the coldness of the chest. Constant cold taking.;
better in warm climate. Tendency to tuberculosis. Lower
part of right chest to back(stitching pains runs through
the region in pneumonia.). Bronchitis, whole chest is
very sensitive. Wheezing.
Heart:
Palpitation and burning in heart region. There is
throbbing all over the body, pulsation to the fingers
and toes, there is no part that does not pulsate, and he
is kept awake by this pulsation. Pulsation even when
there is often no feeling of palpitation in the region
of heart Weak, rapid pulse; intermits, due to
digestive disturbance.Cardiac dyspneoa.
Back:
:The Characteristic peculiarities of
Kali Carb"
Backache, sweat and weakness.
Small of back feels weak-Constant
backache with feeling as if back and legs would give
out. Stitches in the region of kidneys and right
scapulae. Burning in spine[Guaco.] Severe
backache in pregnancy, and after miscarriage.
Hip-disease. Pain in buttocks and thighs and hip-joint.
Lumbago with sudden sharp pains extending up and down
back and to thighs.
Extremeties:
Dr. Kent says that one should prescribed
Kali carb in old cases of gout with caution. When you
get an old gouty subject who hs big toe joints and
finger joints, andthey are sore and inflamed every now
and then, you might think that Kali carb covers the case
very suitably; he is disturbed in just such weather,
his complains come at 2 to 3 o clock in the morning, he
has the shooting pains. But these gouty patients are
often incurable, and if so, to undertake to cure them
would be a dreadful calamity, because the aggravations
would last so long. If you give Kali carb. to
one of these incurable patients in very high potency, it
will make your patient worse, and the aggravation will
be serious and prolonged, but the 30th may be
of great service. Kali iod. when it
is indicated in the gouty state, acts as a soothing and
palliate remedy. Do not undertake to give medicine with
a view of curing these old cases of gout when the
nodosities are numerous. Never use high potencies in old
cases calling for Kali carb.
Then Kali Carb has pain from hip to knee,
soles are very sensitive. Paralysis of old people and
dropsical affections. Limbs go to seep easily. Tips of
toes and fingers painful.
Skin:
Great tendency to perspire during intellectual labour,
or any physical exertion. Sweats all night without
relief. Dropsy of whole skin of the body.
-esp.
of the old people. Burning as from a mustard plaster.
Sleep:
Drowsy after eating. Wakes about two o clock and cannot
sleep again.
Modalities:
Worse
: Touch; after coition; In cold weather; From soup
and coffee;
In the
mornings about three o'clock;
Lying on painful side
Week
before menstruation.
Better:
In warm weather, though moist
During
day, while moving about.
Summary of Indications:
Pain syndromes-low backaches-menstrual
disorders-bronchitis
Antidotes:
Camphora officinarum; Coffea Cruda.
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