Not sure if Arsenicum album is correct for you? Consult with Dr. Dalpé and he'll tell you if it is or not and if not, what your correct constitutional remedy really is. Many people think they need Arsenicum when in fact they don't.

Arsenicum album is a great polycrest with many applications--but also one that is greatly abused and the cause of many provings in the hands of the untrained. Here I will emphasize the general materia medica of Arsenicum with special mention of its use in AIDS/HIV conditions. White arsenic is, of course, poisonous in crude form but in homeopathic attenuation or potency, the tonifying and strengthening powers of this grand medicine come alive, as it were. J. H. Clarke in his Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica tells us of how the Tyrolian dwellers of the Alps have in the past used up to six grains of crude white arsenic or the sulphide per day as a tonic to invigorate their muscles and breathing capacity and to enable them to withstand the strenuous conditions and laboring lifestyle of rugged mountain living. This is not a recommended practice, as I've said, arsenic is quite a poisonous metal and can kill rapidly and with much pain and anguish. Clarke speculated that the Tyrol were able to withstand and even benefit from these physical doses of arsenic because they were acting curatively and homeopathically to the general dyscrasia of the population imposed on them by the harsh conditions of life and their rugged lifestyle. Clarke adds that Arsenicum is a remedy indicated for the bad effects of feats of prolonged endurance. I would add to this that it is, more generally, a remedy for the bad effects of prolonged stresses of a weakening nature to the system such as malnutrition, a tubercular inheritance (N.B.: indeed many of the major A.I.D.S. remedies are strongly Tubercular Remedies!), prolonged neglect, poverty, poisonings from unclean food and drink, grief and need in general and from venereal taints and metallic poisons including mercury. These causations are common to most of the remedies presented here and are not solely characteristic of Arsenicum.

The general characteristics of a patient in need of Arsenicum are great weakness, anxiety, restlessness, fearfulness, burnings, dryness, emaciation, breathing difficulties or outright pneumonia (N.B.: Arsenicum album is by far the #1 remedy indicated in PCP pneumonia, a frequent cause of death in A.I.D.S. patients, especially in underdeveloped countries where there is a lack of antibiotics and HIV medicines. In most cases that I have seen, this remedy will not only cure an actively inflamed case of pneumonia but will also abort one just starting and can even pull a dying patient literally from the jaws of death in desperate cases. This is not to say that Arsenicum is the only remedy where there is pneumonia, but that it is a great remedy for the same when the symptoms of the remedy match those of the patient.) The physical and well as mental symptoms will be present where the remedy will do its powerful healing work: great fastidiousness, fear, restlessness and with a dictatorial, needy and clinging nature.

Today many cases are averted from an actual PCP illness through the use of prophylactic antibiotics. In addition, the use of antivirals and protease inhibitors have saved many from the grave, but in many cases that do not respond favorably to conventional therapy, where these allopathic medications are not available for one reason or another (usually economic and political) or for those who react badly to these medications, Homeopathic Medicine provides a viable alternative as indeed they do for those who prefer an holistic, natural and curative treatment rather than suppressive and chemical therapy which comes with a high price to one's health in the long term. Homeopathy is perfectly able to treat those with any disease, provided that a skilled and experienced Homeopath can be found to treat you. Homeopathy in the hands of the unskilled, untrained and uneducated is like playing with fire. Many will recall James Tyler Kent non-pc but relevant statement regarding ignorant prescribers in his lecture on Hepar sulpharis calcareum (from his Lectures on Homeopathic Materia Medica).

This simply emphasizes the need for many more fully-trained Classical Homeopaths. For the great majority of people, who neither understand how Homeopathy works nor how to go about finding a competent Homeopath, this is not a practical option. But, hopefully, with an increase in the number of homeopathic medical students and education and appropriate studies to show the public and the medical profession its efficacy, Homeopathy can and will offer a choice to the medical consumer as to how they wish to maintain and improve their health in the future. It's huge growth in popularity over the past several years foretells a time when allopathic and homeopathic medicine will be available to all, the individual possessing the right to choose the medical system which they prefer or a combination of the two or to choose other systems of healing entirely such as Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine.

When you first see an Arsenicum patient who is acutely ill, you will be impressed by the degree of weakness and yet restlessness at the same time. Their face expresses great anxiety and suffering. They have a plaintive and needy expression and indeed will demand what they need or want from you, sometimes to the point of irritating and alienating everyone around them. They are giving everyone orders and jobs to do. They are restless mentally and physically and wish to change beds, locations and positions and even try to get up when they are too weak to do so, frequently change their minds about all sorts of things, ask for one thing then another, et c. The patient is so needy and requires so much attention that you will frequently see several people waiting on the patient hand and foot, trying to put the person at ease by complying with their many demands. It usually fails to do the trick and the person continues to ask for more things to be done for him or criticizes what has already been done for them. Frequently they will burn people out and require new help new nurses and new friends to do errands and tasks for them, since they have usually burn out, underpaid, insulted or abused with harsh criticism those who have gone before them. They want you to straighten pictures on the walls or dust a favorite area of the house, run to the drug store for medications or implore you to do any number of things for them as they lay in bed very sick, directing and watching you.

The skin is either very fine, pale or waxy or can be ruddy, dry, scaly and inflamed. Their noses present a prominent ridge down the middle of their face with the rest of the face rather sunken, hollow and gaunt. There are frequently dark circles under the eyes (China, Merc.) and the face has a haggard, worn-out look (China). The face, particularly around the eyes, can take on this almost blackish tinge and this color may be present on other parts of the skin. Other remedies with blackish skin discoloration: Snake remedies, Stramonium, Plumbum, Secale and others. See the Repertory rubric: skin, discoloration, blackish). Red hectic flushes in the cheeks or spots on the zygomatic processes is typical. In cold weather, they will be wearing a hat, a scarf and a coat and are very well bundled up like a Silicea patient.

As mentioned above, the Arsenicum patient is very concerned with his or her appearance at all times and takes great pains to make themselves look as good as possible despite their rather gaunt, drawn, anemic and pinched facial features. Appearances are everything to an Arsenicum and this is where the can develop a sort of plastic or fake persona. As healers, it is incumbent upon us not to take any offense from demanding, inconsiderate, delusional, offensive or otherwise difficult patients. We view their difficult or unusual mental symptoms as part of the overall expression of the disease through mental, emotional and physical symptoms and reason with them as best as can be done, sincerely, with compassion and without judgement. It is the responsibility of the Homeopath to be what Samuel Hahnemann called "The Unprejudiced Observer". You must understand the patient and observe the symptoms that he is presenting to you be they mental, emotional or physical and no matter how annoying they may be.

The Arsenicum patient's demeanor is one whom few people would tollerate if it were not for the fact that the person was ill. These patients can be very difficult to treat due to the many difficult mental symptoms that they typically present, both chronically and especially in acute states. I have mentioned the extreme restlessness, anxiety and fearfulness already and these fears focus mainly around dying and losing material possessions, money and people they need. The Arsenicum patient is a very avaricious one, concerned with money and costs at all times. Also they have an extreme level of anxiety about their health and will go to great lengths to obtain many different types of herbs, drugs, supplements and even end up poisoning themselves from taking too many things in an attempt to assuage their extreme anxiety, restlessness and fear. It is an anguish similar to Mercury and most other syphilitic remedies. (Yes, Arsenicum is a syphilitic remedy as well as a sycotic and a psoric remedy. It is a tri-miasmatic remedy.) They will generally exhibit addictive and destructive behaviors. They may smoke, drink alcohol, take drugs and end up weakening their body's own healing powers further through excessive drug intake, polypharmacy and drug interactions. They are particularly demanding and fastidious people who require favors, assistance, help and all sorts of material assistance. They can be so anxious and fastidious that they will direct you to do things from the sick bed that they do not have the energy to do anymore, such as to straighten a picture hanging on the wall or to move the furniture around, or some otherwise seemingly ridiculous task for someone so sick to be concerned with. But therein lies the essence of their tortured mental and emotional state: they are in a state of constant, restless anxiety and "fussiness". They almost never experience complete satisfaction. Something is always wrong. This mental state usually becomes worse late at night, around midnight or an hour or two after. Typically, the Arsenicum patient becomes worse then from experiencing increased anxiety, restlessness and insomnia, increased fever and respiratory symptoms. Anxiety attacks and insomnia are worse at this time. They may think they are having a heart attack or are about to die. In serious conditions they may very well be near death unless they get Arsenicum or the appropriate allopathic medications.

One should not be surprised to hear a story something to the effect of: the patient collapsed after midnight after anxiously cleaning their home during a feverish state, as they are very germ phobic. Delirium will set in during these feverish times (most frequently as midnight, 1AM, 3AM or the same times during the day also bring on aggravations, though not usually as badly as at night), and their anguish and demanding nature may escalate. In this condition if no Homeopath is around it is best to take the person to the hospital and to give antipyretics while waiting for the ride to the emergency room. But if Arsenicum is given, and it is homeopathic to the case--that is--it matches the symptoms of the patient: mentals, physicals and modalities, then speedy relief will surely follow.

The fastidious nature of the typical Arsenicum album patient can be described as obsessive compulsive and can become quite severe, driving relatives and family members to despair. They will become positively abusive to those who do not follow the rules that they frequently lay down. They want things done a certain way and there is to be no discussion about it. They can be quite dictatorial (Merc., Lyc.). As a matter of fact, Arsenicum has the mental state which is "never satisfied", no matter what you may do for them. They will always find something wrong and something to criticize. Nothing is ever quite right. As they become acutely sick, their dictatorial nature and clinginess and neediness increase, until they are beside themselves and weep and carry on and yell at others. They reproach both themselves as well as others. They are so picky, that even what they do for themselves fails to satisfy them. A very annoying thing they like to do it to leave you notes to do or not to do things around the house or workplace. They want you to stop doing something, but they don't want to make a scene if they are trying to get along with you, so they try to soften the anger they feel and the indignation by avoiding a direct confrontation and use the passive-aggressive approach instead. This helps them to raise the subject in an indirect way. But a Homeopath sees the symptom as being dictatorial (and fastidious). But this is ultimately due not to some innate character flaw, but to the extreme anxiety, restlessness and fears that they are constantly experiencing. An Arsenicum roommate or live-in relative can drive you to drink, unless, of course, they get Arsenicum from a Homeopath.

Arsenicum is homeopathic to this state when the physical and general symptoms also match the patient. They are extremely afraid of dying in acute attacks and can become suicidal to relieve their suffering. Suicide by poisoning is the preferred method in Arsenicum. They also have the impulse to hang or shoot themselves. And if they do not intentionally desire to commit suicide, they frequently take too many medicaments and will eat unclean things--also Merc. and Verat.-- (usually so as not to waste them by throwing them away) and the end result is a propensity to poison themselves one way or another, intentionally from great anguish or inadvertantly by overmedicating or food poisoning. They are extremely impulsive like Mercury. Do not confuse these two remedies! They have many symptoms in common.

Arsenicum can get into some very co-dependent and strange behaviors similar to The Snake Remedies, Anacardium, Hyoscyamus, Stramonium, Tarentula, Thuja and others. Being a tri-miasmatic remedy it has the elements of all three miasms on the mental level: fear (psoric), manipulativeness (sycotic) and destructiveness (syphilitic). Arsenicum is not a stranger to controlling others with small rewards, bribes, threats and so on. If this behavior is coming from your spouse, your employer or a close friend, difficult situations will arise that make you very uncomfortable, such as, you can find yourself loosing out on a raise if you don't help your boss lay his patio, or, your wife won't let you have any unless you do something she wants you to do first, or, being forbidden from talking with or seeing a particular person related to jealousy, power or control issues, et c. These remedies all have these sorts of behaviors to one degree or another, it is generally their motives which differentiate between them. They have a desire for company. Arsenicum is particularly motivated to have someone around them all the time who can help them and give them things. Affection, money, physical labor, company, ideas, cookware to share--anything. With the other remedies the motives would be different; for example, Anacardium would want to screw around with the other person's head or try to assert a dominant relationship over the person, Lachesis and Hyoscyamus would have jealousy and high sexual need and desire as their motivations usually, Stramonium would manipulate you to make you do things that make him feel safer, since Stramonium thinking is dominated by fear--a warlike mentality (mind, delusions, alone, in a wilderness), etc.

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