GRAPHITES

GRAPHITES

(Black Lead, Plumbago)

Graph.

Like all carbons, this remedy is a powerful anti-psoric, especially effective for stout patients with fair complexion, prone to skin issues and constipation, fat, chilly, and costive, with delayed menstrual history, and easily catch colds. Children are impudent, teasing, and laugh at reprimands. It tends to develop the skin phase of internal disorders and eradicates erysipelas tendencies. It addresses anemia with facial redness, obesity, swollen genitals, gushing leucorrhea, aids absorption of cicatricial tissue, induration of tissue, pyloric cancer, and duodenal ulcer.

Mind: Great tendency to start, timid, unable to decide, lack of desire to work, fidgety while sitting at work. Music makes her weep. Apprehensive, despondent, indecisive.

Head: Rush of blood to the head with a flushed face and epistaxis, distention and flatulence. Morning headache, mostly on one side, with a tendency to vomit (migraine). Sensation of a cobweb on the forehead, feels numb and pithy. Rheumatic pains on one side of the head, extending to teeth and neck. Burning on the vertex. Humid, itchy scalp eruptions emitting a fetid odor. Cataleptic condition.

Eyes: Ophthalmia with intolerance to artificial light. Eyelids red and swollen. Blepharitis. Dryness and fissures of the lids. Eczema of lids.

Ears: Dry inner ear. Cracking in ears when eating. Moisture and eruptions behind the ears. Hears better in noise. Hardness of hearing, hissing, and detonation in the ears. A thin, white, scaly membrane covers the membrana tympani like exfoliated epithelium. Fissures in and behind the ear.

Nose: Sore when blowing; painful internally. Abnormally acute smell; intolerant of flowers. Scabs and fissures in nostrils.

Face: Feels like cobwebs on it. Eczema of the nose. Itching pimples. Moist eczema around the mouth and chin. Erysipelas, burning, and stinging.

Mouth: Rotten odor. Breath smells like urine. Burning blisters on the tongue, salivation (aphthae), sour eructations.

Stomach: Aversion to meat. Sweets nauseate. Hot drinks disagree. Nausea and vomiting after meals. Morning sickness during menstruation. Stomach pressure and burning, causing hunger. Difficult eructations. Constrictive pain, recurrent gastralgia, flatulence. Pain temporarily relieved by eating, hot drinks, especially milk, and lying down.

Abdomen: Nauseous feeling, fullness, and hardness from incarcerated flatulence; must loosen clothing; presses painfully at the abdominal ring. Croaking in the abdomen. Sensitive, swollen inguinal region (inguinal hernia). Flatulent colic, opposite the lying side. Chronic diarrhea, brownish, liquid, undigested, offensive stools. Very fetid gas precedes colic.

Rectum: Constipation; large, difficult, knotty stools united by mucus threads. Burning hemorrhoids. Prolapse, diarrhea; brownish, fluid stools mixed with undigested substances, very fetid, sour odor. Smarting, sore anus, itching. Lumpy stool conjoined with threads of mucus. Varices of the rectum. Fissure in the anus.

Urinary: Turbid, with sediment, sour-smelling urine.

Male: Sexual debility with increased desire; aversion to coition; too early or no ejaculation; herpetic eruption on organs.

Female: Menses too late, with constipation; pale and scanty, with tearing epigastric pains and itching. Hoarseness, coryza, cough, sweats, and morning sickness during menstruation. Pale, thin, profuse, white, excoriating leucorrhea with great back weakness. Swollen, hard mammae. Induration of ovaries, uterus, and mammae. Sore, cracked, and blistered nipples. Decided aversion to coitus.

Respiratory: Chest constriction, spasmodic asthma, suffocative attacks waking from sleep; must eat something. Mid-chest pain with cough, scraping, and soreness. Chronic hoarseness with skin affections. Inability to control vocal cords, hoarseness on beginning to sing, and breaking voice.

Extremities: Pain in the nape of the neck, shoulders, back, and limbs. Spinal pains. Lumbosacral pain with great weakness. Excoriation between thighs. Numb left hand; arms fall asleep; thick, black, rough, inflamed fingernails. Edema of lower limbs. Crippled toe nails. Stiff, contracted toes. Brittle, crumbling, deformed, painful nails. Cracks or fissures in fingertips. Offensive foot sweat.

Skin: Rough, hard, persistently dry areas unaffected by eczema. Early keloid and fibroma stages. Pimples and acne. Sticky exudation from eruptions. Rawness in limb bends, groins, neck, behind ears. Unhealthy skin; every little injury suppurates. Glutinous, thin, sticky fluid from ulcers. Swollen and indurated glands. Gouty nodosities. Cracks in nipples, mouth, toes, anus. Phlegmonous erysipelas of the face; burning, stinging pain. Swollen feet. Wens. Chronic Poison oak.

Modalities: Worse with warmth, at night, during, and after menstruation. Better in the dark, from wrapping up.

Relationship: Complementary: Arg-n. (follows well in gastric derangements); Caust., Hep., Lyc., Ars., Tub. Compare: Petr., Sep., Sulph., Fl-ac. Associated constipation with mucus-covered stools and flatulence should be considered to differentiate it from remedies like Petr. and Lyc. (Raue). Antidote: Nux-v., Acon., Ars.