M.T. Ahmad J.T. Kent
Cistus is prepared from a flowering plant which grows wild in snowy areas. The nature of this medicine is very cold. Every kind of ailment related to it carries the feeling of chill and cold.
Cistus is a profoundly effective antisporic medicine, meaning that it is basically related to skin diseases. Whether these diseases involve glands or mucous membranes, they are still called as Psoric. Cistus is one of those medicines used for the treatment of psoric ailments. Thus, it is very important in the treatment of gravely dangerous diseases. Lupus and cancer too are not beyond its jurisdiction. Compared to Calcaria, it is somewhat mild but in some diseases, it actually works better than it and also over the diseases of the glands. It is also useful in the treatment of intestinal diseases. In intractable diarrhoea which does not respond to any other medicine, especially when associated with inflammation of the glands, one should not forget Cistus. Similarly, the chronic cold in a patient who has the disposition of Cistus will not be treatable with any other kind of remedy. Such patients are, in general, flabby and pale in colour. They easily become short of breath, especially on climbing heights.
Peculiarly, Cistus is very effective in treating headache during fasting. Lycopodium, Bryonia, Nux Vomica and Gelsemium also may be useful in treating the headache resulting from prolonged fasting or starvation.
In Cistus, often the irritation is not manifest externally but remains suppressed in the deeper layer of the skin. Therefore the skin feels uneasy with a sensation of crawling like the movement of ants over it. The patient may feel a sinking of the heart and as a reaction, he constantly pounds the area over his heart with his hands. Prolonged itching over the skin makes the disease manifest externally. Blisters form that bleed when scratched. The use of Cistus will offer relief to the patient. However Cistus should be repeated often, with intervals, to cure itching of long standing. It is indeed a very strong and effective medicine. The experienced capable physicians have claimed that this alone can cure Lupus of the face, which is considered almost incurable. Cistus is well known in the treatment of cancer of the lower lip.
The symptoms of Cistus related to the teeth and gums resemble those of Sulphur, except that in Sulphur there is intense burning and stinging sensation, and the teeth tend to rot. In Cistus, the jaw muscles become weak resulting in relative loosening of the teeth, but there is no burning sensation. The cold in the patient of Cistus also is devoid of any burning sensation. The nose, in fact, feels cold inside. The feeling of cold actually brings on the symptoms of the common cold. The timely use of Cistus will stop the cold developing. Once the cold has settled and there is an accumulation of discharge in the nose (which causes burning when scratched) Cistus should be used. In the case of Arsenic, the burning sensation continues even in the presence of discharge. In the case of Cistus, when the discharge is let out, the patient feels relief. There is a cold sensation in the mouth and throat. The dry cold air provokes pain. The throat/pharynx becomes inflamed and then proceeds to pus formation. Secondary to the inflammation of the throat and pus formation, the person’s head turns to one side (due to spasm of the overlying muscles of the neck). The patient feels cold in different parts of the body. There is a feeling of cold in the stomach and the abdomen before and after taking food. The patient likes to eat cheese. The stools are thin, watery and propulsive, and more frequent in the morning. The patients, especially women, love to eat spicy food. In Cistus, the skin of the hands becomes hard, dry and thick and itches a lot. The patient cannot sleep due to restlessness.
Cistus is also useful in the treatment of the diseases of the breast in women (mammary glands). Though there is no one specific sign, probably the presence of other symptoms would settle the diagnosis. Enlargement of the mammary glands can sometimes transform into cancer. Cistus could be one of the possible remedies. The presence of a chain of swollen, enlarged glands in the neck is a typical sign of Cistus. Absence of the involvement of the glands inside the throat and outside on the neck rules out the diagnosis of Cistus.
Cistus may be of use in the treatment of intractable itching of the ear, which develops sores as a result of scratching, and then pus formation. The cough of Cistus is also, associated with itching and irritability. The disease process being seated in the deep tissues will not benefit from superficial scratching unless the disease manifests itself externally on the surface of the skin. According to allopathic science, diseases deep inside the body and the ones on the surface of the skin are different. But according to the homoeopathic view, both are the manifestation of one basic weakness, affecting the inner linings, the glands, as well as the external surface of the skin.
Cistus is very important for the treatment of nail problems. Many diseases, when well established, affect the nails. Streaks form over the nails, which become thick and deformed. Cistus is a prominent remedy for treating the skin condition due to chronic diseases. There are some other medicines also which can be used for the treatment of the nails. In Cistus, any kind of deformity of the nails can be expected. Other symptoms of Cistus being present, this would be the most ideal and the best remedy to treat the skin condition. The symptoms of Cistus aggravate on touch, movement, draft of cold air, at night and by mental work. The symptoms ameliorate after taking food or bringing out sputum.
Adjuvants: Conium, Carbo Veg, Calcaria and Argentum Nitricum
Antidotes: Rhus Tox, Cepia
Potency: Commonly 30 but high potency may be used as needed
by Mirza Tahir Ahmad
CISTUS CANADENSIS
This remedy is an antipsoric, a deep-acting remedy. It runs very close to Calcarea, but is milder in its action. It has the same exhaustion from exertion, dyspnoea, sweating and coldness that we find in Calcarea.
What will forcibly call your attention to a remedy will be the curing of a bad and typical case. I remember the first time my attention was decidedly called to Cistus.
I had put it on my list to study from time to time and had come to the conclusion that it was only a side issue, until a young lady of nineteen years of age fell under my observation.
Glands: The glands of the neck were large and hard, the parotids especially; she had foetid otorrhoea; her eyes were inflamed and suppurating; there were fissures at the corners of the eyes; her lips were cracked and bleeding, and she had salt rheum at the ends of the fingers.
I could not make Calcarea fit the patient, but after much study this little remedy seemed to be just what I needed; and although she had had an immense amount of Homoeopathy, good and bad, this remedy cured.
The glands inflame, become swollen and suppurate. It causes cries and cures old ulcers. It has a scrofulous constitution. It is useful in chronic diarrhea, with enlarged glands, even in those who are flabby, sickly and pallid and who cannot go upstairs without losing, their breath.
Mucous membranes: All the mucous membranes throw out a thick, yellowish, offensive mucus and hence it is suitable in old and troublesome catarrh. The chest fills up with mucus and he feels relieved after expectoration, but after he empties the chest it feels raw.
It has eruptions, herpes, tetter, scaly eruptions, salt rheum on the hands and ends of the fingers, with cracking and bleeding of the fingers in winter and from washing in cold water.
All its complaints are worse from mental exertion. He is excitable. His cough, headache and pains are worse from mental exertion. Pains shoot from the head to the ear. Shooting, stitching, tearing pains in inflamed parts. Red discharges from the ear date back to eruptive diseases.
Headache: He feels as if paralyzed after mental exertion, and mental excitement increases his sufferings, like Calcarea and Borax. If he is compelled to fast headache comes on, and like Lyc., the headache will be relieved after eating.
Frontal headache with coldness. In a warm room the perspiration comes out, and it is cold, and the more he sweats the colder he gets. Pain in the forehead with cold sweat, and the colder he gets the worse the pain becomes.
Sick headaches and great prostration with the headache. Sensation of internal coldness of the forehead, especially in warm room. Pressing pain at the root of die nose with headache. The parotid gland is so much enlarged that it pushes the head to one side.
The glands of the abdomen swell with chronic diarrhea, and the swelling may be tuberculous. Enlarged glands, with or without eruptions.
Skin: All over the body there is a sensation of crawling; formication tingling and creeping like ants, and no eruption. He scratches till the skin is raw trying to get relieved of the itching and prickling. Eruption upon the face; eczema. Eruptions about the ear.
Cold feeling or burning in the nose, This is difficult to distinguish. In acute coryza the nose fills up with thick, yellow mucus, and when this is blown out it leaves the nasal cavity empty, and there is irritation; one will say it is a rawness, another will say a coldness, and another will describe it as a burning.
Nose: There is relief when the nose fills up again with mucus. In Ars. the mucus in the nose is so acrid that it burns, but in Ant. c., Aesculus, and in this remedy when the nose is empty there is a burning or rawness. The sensation of rawness, coldness or burning is caused by the inhalation of air.
An epidemic of coryza was prevalent, and this was the strongest symptom, the pain caused by inhaling air, great burning from inhaled air. But it is not in the acute coryza that we see the value of this remedy, it is in the old, chronic case, with thick discharge, and a cold feeling or burning in the nose when inhaling air.
"Sharp shooting, intolerable itching and thick crusts, with burning on right zygoma."
Face: This remedy has cured lupus on the face. Caries of the lower jaw. Open, bleeding cancer on the lower lip. Lupus exedens. Pain in all the joints of the face. It cures old, deep-seated, eating ulcers about the ankle and shin, with copious acrid discharge, formication and swollen glands, aggravation from bathing, extreme sensitiveness to the open air, only comfortable when very warm.
The teeth have all sorts of disturbances; the gums settle away, the teeth become loose; scorbutic gums. The same cold feeling is described in the throat as in the nose-smarting and coldness. Mouth and throat full of mucus. The throat feels rough, as if full of sand. Dry spots in the throat. The throat looks glossy, shining as if vanished, in old atrophic catarrhs.
Every cold settles in the throat. Hot air feels good everywhere. In old cases there is trouble with scrofulous glands, which are enlarged, and the patient wants the heat; goes to the register and turns the heat on, wants to feel the heat in the nose, throat and lungs.
Patients going into tuberculosis have that desire for beat; chilly persons, They do not feel cold to touch, but they are cold subjectively, chilly. Hawking of gum-like mucus, especially in the morning, fauces inflamed and dry. Suppuration of the glands of the throat.
These patients crave pungent things, and especially want something to warm them up, something to build them up, something stimulating herring, cheese; something strong.
"Chronic induration and inflammation of the mammae.
Left mamma inflamed, suppurating, with a feeling of fullness in the chest.
Sensibility to cold air,"
with inflamed glands. We see its tendency to produce enlargement of the glands, and this would make us think of it in growths with involvement of the glands all around. The glands of the neck are enlarged in lines, like knotted rope, as in Hodgkin’s disease.
Only a limited number of remedies have this knotting. Itching of the skin and mucous membrane. The itching in the ear is not relieved by scratching, and the part is raw from the constant rubbing and scratching. The eyes constantly itch. In the throat there is continuous itching. In the chest there is a constant tickling, causing cough. At the anus and all other orifices there is itching, and the itching parts are rubbed until raw and bleeding.
Scrofula; swelling and suppuration of the glands of the neck. Eruption on the back like shingles. Scrofulous ulcer on the back. Burning, bruised pain in the coccyx, worse from touch.
That is like Carbo an., in which the coccyx burns when pressed on, especially after a slight injury in a nervous woman.
Tetter on the hands; blisters oozing after scratching. Diseases of the nails. Hard, thickened places on the hands of workmen, with deep cracks.
The febrile symptoms have not been sufficiently brought out. In chronic cases there is copious sweat with exhaustion. Night-sweats.
by James Tyler Kent