Homeopathy for HEART DISEASES, Cardiac Disorders

There is weakness and numbness of the left arm, and often blueness of the surface of the body, or cyanosis. The patient fears that the heart will stop beating if he should make any motion. This uneasy feeling about the chest rarely amounts to real pain. Gelsemium has the opposite symptom to this. The patient is roused out of sleep feeling that the heart will stop beating, and he is impelled to move about to keep it going. A number of drugs have numbness of the left arm in heart affections, notably Aconite, Kalmia, Rhus and Pulsatilla. These are not “keynote ” symptoms, however, as is shown further on. The Digitalis patient has a doughy look to the skin; there is often a sick feeling at the stomach after eating. Apis has a symptom that will lead to its use in heart affections, namely: “He does not see how he can get another breath.” In pericarditis with effusion it is one of our best remedies vieing here with Cantharis, but the latter has burning and spasms. Cartier recommends the 30th or 200th. Like Arsenicum and Lachesis, the tendency of Digitalis is downwards, and it must be used cautiously and only when indicated homoeopathically. There are numerous other symptoms that will indicate Digitalis. Disturbed sleep, apprehensiveness, deep sighing, slow respiration,, dry cough, suffocative spells; in fact, such symptoms as may be caused by an irregular distribution of the blood. Digitalis is also indicated in dropsical conditions dependent on heart trouble, swelling of feet and ankles, anasarca, cardiac dropsy associated with slow pulse, urine suppressed or scanty. Apocynum is similar in this relation. The special field of usefulness of Digitalis is inflammation of the heart muscle approaching insidiously and in sudden cases of myo-or endo-carditis with the symptoms above outlined. The first noticeable benefit is a steadier heart’s action and an increased flow of urine. To use it in strong doses for a long time will render the patient incurable.