M.T. Ahmad J.T. Kent
Carduus Marianus is very important for the treatment of liver diseases and I have often used it regularly on patients with liver problems. Even on prolonged use, it has not produced any untoward side effect. Its main action is on the liver and the circulatory system.
Commonly, it is considered as the remedy for liver problems. It also has many other features like the tendency to nose bleed along with the feeling of cool breeze over the head. The eyes feel great outward pressure and the eyeball protrudes out. This particular sign is also noticed in Belladonna. In Carduus Marianus, the bleeding from the nose is preceded by irritation inside the nose.
In Carduus Marianus, there are symptoms pertaining to the stomach also. This is due to the fact that whenever there is a problem with the liver, the stomach is also affected. The taste inside the mouth is bitter and unpleasant. The tongue shows a dirty coating. There is loss of appetite. There is typical bad odour from the mouth, secondary to the stomach dysfunction. A stomachache, moving from the left to the right, is also a sign of Carduus Marianus. It shows that the liver disorder has disrupted the stomach function also. By this time, the patient vomits dark blood. There is pain on the chest and over the right-sided ribs, which becomes worse on movement. The pain over the chest may radiate to the shoulders, the back and the upper abdomen.
When the patient is lying on the left side, he feels pain on the right side, as if somebody is dragging him downwards. This symptom is noted in other remedies as well.
Carduus Marianus has been found to be very useful in the treatment of stones in the gall bladder. The lining over the gall bladder becomes swollen and painful. There is a piercing sensation over the spleen. The skin over the left side of the body becomes hypersensitive and sore. There is severe chronic constipation. Stools are clay coloured. Bleeding piles develop and urine is deepcoloured.
Due to the diseases of the liver, there is a cough affecting the lower part of the right lung. There is pain over the scapula like the patients of Chelidonium and Aesculus. There is pain over the right buttock and the hip joint, which radiates down the leg. Muscular spasms also occur. Carduus Marianus is very useful in the treatment of hip pain which gets worse on movement. In a patient of Carduus Marianus, there is a tendency to develop varicose veins. In all such remedies associated with bleeding of dark coloured blood, there is a tendency to develop spider webs of blue colour. Feet become swollen (oedematous). Cramping of the feet and the calves make walking difficult. Cramps of the legs which develop on walking fast, are best treated by the combination of Bryonia and Arnica. When the disease has reached an advanced stage, the patients of Carduus Marianus may not even walk a few steps. The feet become weak. Carduus Marianus is also useful in the treatment of influenza affecting the liver.
Potency: Q to 30, but mostly used in the form of Mother Tincture.
by Mirza Tahir Ahmad
CARDUUS MARIANUS
This is one of the most important liver remedies, if a homoeopathic author can be excused for the expression. There are many pains, pressing, dragging, drawing, burning; worse from motion.
The patient is very sensitive to cold, and is subject to attacks of bilious vomiting at regular or irregular intervals. The author has cured many violent sick headaches ending in vomiting bile, and cases in the habit of taking calomel, with this remedy (Sang.).
Dropsical effusions with liver diseases. It is useful in hemorrhages and jaundice, when symptoms agree.
Sadness, irritability and weeping. Congestive headaches; pressing pains coming periodically. Fullness and heaviness in the head. Sensitiveness of the scalp to cold air. Pressing outward of the eyeballs.
Yellow sclerotics. Burning in margins of lids. Burning inside of the nose. Epistaxis.
Taste bitter, insipid, or wanting. Foul tongue. No desire for food. Nausea, and vomiting mucus, then bile. Painful retching, and then vomiting sour greenish fluid. Drawing pains from left to right in the stomach. Burning in the stomach. Vomiting blood, very black.
The most important of all the liver symptoms. Dragging pain in right hypochondrium when lying on left side; like Arn., Mag. m., Nat. s. and Ptelea.
Pressing, drawing, stitching in right lobe of liver. This remedy establishes a healthy flow of bile, and thereby cures the condition that favors the formation of gall stones. It has many times broken up the tendency to gall stone colic.
Portal congestion and hemorrhoids. Sore, bruised, hard liver; sometimes the left lobe, but oftener the right. When complicated with lung and heart symptoms with expectoration of blood.
Drawing, stitching or burning pains in the abdomen. Distended abdomen. Cutting pains. The stool is black. Stool hard and knotty. Clay-like, bileless stool. Burning in rectum, and anus. Itching piles. Bleeding piles. Inveterate constipation.
Burning in the urethra. Copious high-colored urine, with copious sediment. Turbid urine. Retention of urine.
Menses copious. Menses suppressed. Uterine haemorrhage with portal congestion. Drawing in vagina, and leucorrhoea.
Liver cough, when lower portion of right lung is affected, with chronic congestion of the liver.
Pains in the chest with liver pains. Stitching pains. Drawing pains, aggravated by motion.
Pain in the back under the right scapula (much like Chel. and Aesc.). Drawing pains in the back. Sensitive spine.
Cramping, drawing, pressing, rheumatic pains in the limbs. Violent pain in the right deltoid. Pain in the hip joints, aggravated from rising, stooping, and motion.
Neuralgic pains in the lower limbs, worse from motion. (Edema of the feet. Varicose veins. Ulcers. Rheumatism, and jerking of the muscles. Cramps in the calves and feet. Walking almost impossible.
Gastric and bilious fevers.
by James Tyler Kent