Natrum Carbonicum

Proved by Hahnemann, Hering and others.

Persons who are in the habit of taking carbonate of soda for sour stomach get a proving of this remedy. I have met some of these people and been able to confirm many Natrum symptoms.

Old dyspeptics who are always belching and have sour stomach and rheumatism; after twenty years they are stoop-shouldered, pale, sensitive to cold, chilly, aggravated by the least draft; require much clothing; unable to resist the cold or the heat; require a medium climate; are worse from the changes of the weather; their digestive, rheumatic, and gouty troubles are all worse from the weather changes.

Mind: A state of trepidation from the slightest noise, the slam of a door; nervous excitement and palpitation with great prostration; nervous weakness with trepidation; weakness from slight exertion of mind or body; internal and external trembling.

The rattling of paper causes palpitation, irritability and melancholy. Estrangement from family and friends. Aversion to mankind and to society; to relatives, to strangers; feels a great division between himself and them; sensitive to, certain persons.

Music causes a tendency to suicide, melancholy, weeping and trepidation; playing the piano is so exhausting that she must lie down; music causes great sadness which increases to religious insanity.

This is true of all the Sodiums, but especially so of Natrum carb.; aggravation from the slam of a door, a pistol shot, which causes headache and complaints in general, aggravated from music.

Digestion: The more soda these patients take, the more flatulent do they become; they are stoop-shouldered; digestion is difficult, and finally milk will not digest at all, bringing on a diarrhoea with undigested, lienteric stools; also, starch causes flatulence and looseness of the bowels, Many symptoms from drinking cold water when overheated.

Urine offensive like that of a horse, from a vegetable or milk diet. This is not so marked as in Nitric ac., but resembles it.

Skin: Natrum carb. throws out eruptions upon the knuckles and fingertips; also the toes; vesicular eruptions open up and form ulcers on the joints of finger-tips.

Borax, Sepia, Ars., and Natrum carb. are the remedies most inclined to produce ulceration of the tips and knuckles of the fingers, and also the toes.

Vesicular eruptions on the body in patches and circles; the herpes family is especially, related to Natr. carb.; zona, herpes labialis, herpes preputialis; patches as large as a dollar on the hips, thighs and back. Smaller patches show vesicles containing a white serum, burning, smarting and itching, better from scratching.

The eruption passes away with a crust, but will often ulcerate, it does not heal and an ulcer forms. Circulation feeble; wounds suppurate. Feet and skin burn. Crusty eruptions on the skin that have not been vesicular; but most Natr. carb. and Natr. mur. eruptions are of the vesicular form. Tingling, biting, itching, changing place, now here and now there; cold skin; sweaty body.

Mind: Nervous exhaustion, physical exhaustion, weakness of mind and body.

Book-keepers lose the ability to add up figures. In reading a page, the one previous to, it soon goes out of the mind. The memory will not hold out from the beginning to the end of a sentence. Forgets what he reads.

Confusion of mind follows and then he is unable, to perform any mental labor. Men become so fatigued from the details of business that a confusion of the mind comes over them, they get brain fag.

Oversensitive to heat, especially after sunstroke, even some years after; has to be well shaded when walking in the sun, must seek a cool or dark place the patient has not had the proper acute remedy during the attack the remedy is aggravated by both cold and heat, but this is a special aggravation from the heat of the sun; head troubles are not worse from cold in Natr. carb.

Old cases of brain fag with weakness and trepidation. The body troubles are aggravated from cold and in the winter; as cold as if he had no blood in the body, extremities cold, and he cannot get them warm; cold as ice to, the knees and elbows.

The body and extremities are worse in winter, the head in summer.

Anxious trembling and sweating during pains.

The senses are all disturbed; oversensitive to light pain in the eyes from a bright light.

Oversensitive hearing; little noises seem enormous, like thunder; the crumpling of paper seems like the crashing of a waterfall.

Taste perverted, too sensitive, so that the tasting of things ordinarily grateful becomes painful; sometimes loss of taste.

Loss of smell. Hay fever, catarrhal fever; where catarrhal conditions are present there is copious, thick, yellow, purulent discharge from the eyes, nose, vagina.

The vesicles are filled with thin, white serum, but the pustule, when it ruptures, throws out a thick, yellow discharge. Leucorrhoea thick, yellow, ropy; gonorrhea of the same character; thick, yellow, ropy, purulent discharge from the bladder which clogs up the urethra when urinating.

Otalgia, with sharp, darting, piercing pains when the mental state, the chilliness and other generals are present. The discharges are commonly offensive.

Coryzas trouble much; always has a cold in the head the watery discharge is of short duration and is soon followed by a thick copious flow of yellow mucus.

Ulceration, thick crusts; sleeps at night with the month open; dry, yellow crusts are blown out with pain and bleeding. The catarrh increases with each fresh cold, until it becomes foetid; the bones of the nose are affected; almost a constant headache over the eyes, in the forehead, at the root of the nose; congestive headaches, worse from change of weather, cold room, damp weather; increased by every storm.

Most foetid ozoena, mucous membranes ulcerated and destroyed.

Pale face with blue ring around the eyes, yellow blotches on the forehead, puffiness. There is puffiness in general; the hands, feet, face pit on pressure; infiltration of the cellular tissue; those states of the heart and kidneys that favor dropsies; old malarial cases, flesh doughy; urine albuminous.

Enlargement of the glands with induration, axillary, inguinal, abdominal, salivary. Especially suitable for enlargement of the prostate in old men. Chronic enlargement of the parotids, slow and of long duration; of the tonsils.

Ulcerations of the mouth; nursing sore month in women; thrush in infants; little white aphthous patches, especially in nervous, withered infants who cannot stand any kind of milk, who have diarrhoea from milk; they thrive better on cereals; when asleep the child jumps, cries, springs up and grasps the mother; a nervous, cold baby, easily startled like the Borax baby.

So are the Natrum babies in general.

Accumulation of mucus in the throat and posterior nares, generally yellow in color, while with Natr. mur. it is white; the latter spits up copious, thick, white mouthfuls.

Natr. carb. is ameliorated by eating; when chilly, he eats and is able to keep warm; the pains are ameliorated after eating; he has an all gone feeling and pain in the stomach which drives him to eat; he gets hungry at 5 A.M. and 11 P.M. 5 A.M. is the favorite time for the Natr. carb. aggravation; he becomes so hungry at this time that he is forced out of bed to eat something, which also ameliorates the pain.

Headache, chilliness, and palpitation better from eating (Ignat., Sepia, Sulph.).

Nervous hunger in pregnant women, who cannot sleep unless they get up at night and eat crackers, calls for Psorinum.

Locomotor ataxia with its fulgurating pains, amel. by eating; gnawing, all-gone, hungry feeling in the stomach. Soles numb, in males erections and priapism, sensitive thighs, hypersensitive spine; the results of too much excitement.

Emissions; ejaculation of semen premature.

Thirst in the afternoon, incessant; thirst between chill and heat great desire for cold water a few hours after dinner. Extreme aversion to milk.

Flatulency and accumulation of wind in the bowels; diarrhoea; stool yellow, soft with violent tenesmus and urging; a yellow substance like the pulp of an orange in the stool; diarrhoea from milk.

The most troublesome constipation; stool hard, dark, smooth and crumbling. All the Natrums take away the desire to go to stool; no ability to bear down; stool large and hard, great effort to pass it.

Prostatorrhoea after urinating and a difficult stool.

Sterility, a constitutional state in a woman where she is unable to, conceive; she is nervous, cold to the knees and elbows; cold body in winter, hot head in summer; always tired; relaxation of the sphincter vaginae causing the seminal fluid to gush out as soon as ejaculated by the male, thus causing sterility.

There may be a spasm of the sphincter, producing the same effect, or a clot of blood or mucus shoots from the vagina with noisy flatus. Nervous, fidgety, excitable, lean, dyspeptic women, not hysterical. Menses too soon or too late; neuralgias, oversensitive to drafts and dampness, sensitive spine, legs numb; leucorrhea yellowish-green, copious.

Paralytic states; ptosis or spasms of the lids; difficult swallowing, must drink much water to wash the food down on account of paralysis of the pharynx; paralysis of the bowels, cannot bear down at stool; stool like sheep’s dung; paralysis of the left lower extremity with tingling.

Palpitation at night when ascending and while lying on left side. Many spinal symptoms. Goitre.

Stiffness of the neck, violent backache after walking. Rheumatic pains in the extremities. Jerking in all the limbs. Stumbling while walking. Weak ankles in children. Heaviness of the legs. Pains in the hollow of the knees on motion. Tension in the bend of the knee. Easy dislocation of the ankle.

The soles burn while walking. Ulceration of the heel from blisters. Icy cold feet. Weakness of the legs. Vesicles on tips of fingers and toes. Spots and tubercles on the skin. Skin dry and cracked. Itching and crawling.