Mirza Tahir Ahmad James Tyler Kent
This remedy is frequently used in the treatment of heart conditions. When somebody starts to tremble due to sudden fear, terror or intense grief, Laurocerasus will offer immediate relief. Its patient starts trembling when terrified in a dream or on the sudden appearance of a stranger before him. He becomes overwhelmed with fear when excited. The body becomes cold and bluish. Sometimes, such a patient may develop epileptic fits. The vision becomes blurred. Evidently, such a patient is a coward and weak at heart. Laurocerasus happens to be a cardio-tonic for such patients. In particular, it is relatively beneficial in older people. These patients have a weakening of the heart muscle, which results in accumulation of fluid in the lungs (i.e. pulmonary oedema), and causes difficulty in breathing. Generally, doctors give such patients inhaler treatment or strong asthma medicines. These help by relieving the constriction of their air passages and facilitates breathing for some time. However, on prolonged use, these medicines lose their effectiveness even if given repeatedly. The patient may, in fact, die during this attack of cardiac asthma. Laurocerasus helps to eliminate the need for using the inhaler. Laurocerasus is a very effective treatment for combating difficulty in breathing, (dyspnoea), suffocation, and tightness of the chest as well as the sudden feeling of being choked and sinking of the heart. It increases the efficiency of the valves of the heart and is very helpful in the treatment of heart murmurs. It also tones the heart musculature and thus relieves the backlog of blood in the lungs and the oedema of the lungs. It is particularly useful in the treatment of a cough arising from the failing heart which causes congestion of the lungs. Spongia also helps such patients. The face of a Laurocerasus patient turns bluish (cyanotic) due to the relative lack of oxygenation of blood in the lungs. Not all of its patients necessarily become cyanotic. In fact, some have a pale complexion. Such patients will need a different kind of therapy. Laurocerasus is famous for the treatment of cyanotic diseases of the heart.
In Laurocerasus, the chest muscles become weak (expiratory muscles). Sometimes, the diaphragm becomes weak and fails to expel air from the lungs i.e. expiration while breathing in (inspiration) faces no such difficulty. This type of symptom complex reminds one of Laurocerasus i.e. the chest muscles continue to help breathing in, though, breathing out is difficult and laboured.
A Laurocerasus patient feels very cold. Attempts to warm him up externally do not help either. Sometimes, there is severe pain in the stomach, so much so that the patient may not even be able to talk. The muscles on the face become tight and contracted, giving a grim appearance. Thirst is severe and the mouth is very dry. Small swellings form at the nails of the fingers and toes (clubbing of the fingers related to cyanotic diseases of the heart). There is a feeling of the hips and ankles being painfully sprained. The fingers become deformed and the dilated veins become visible on the hands.
In Laurocerasus, drowsiness and dizziness are not unusual. The patient may also faint. Mental infirmity induces loss of memory. Thoughts are no longer streamlined. Severe headache is associated with a cool feeling on the forehead. The patient feels very thirsty but his appetite is lost. The stomach feels contracted and hurts badly. The stools are watery, greenish in colour and associated with severe griping pain.
The ailments of Laurocerasus subside on sitting down. On lying down, coughing starts. There is a feeling of a big ball rolling from the stomach towards the back. On bending forwards and moving, all the symptoms become aggravated.
Potency: 30
by Mirza Tahir Ahmad
LAUROCERASUS
The many strange constitutional symptoms indicate feeble circulation and weak heart.
Great general coldness, that is not ameliorated by external warmth. It is like wrapping up a dead man. Yet if he approaches a warm stove nausea comes on. If he is in a warm room the sweat breaks out on the forehead and the forehead is cold; but if he moves about slowly in the open air the sweat ceases and the forehead warms up.
Want of animal heat. Want of reaction. Remedies act only as palliatives, act only as short acting remedies in constitutional disease, or the symptoms partially subside but the patient does not react. The patient does not convalesce.
It often cures the heart failure due to Digitalis in Old School hands, or when convalescence is attended by weak heart if there is cold skin and external heat is objectionable. It should be compared with Camph., Am. c. and Secale.
A prolonged fainting spell; twitching of the limbs, gasping for breath. Complaints after deep sorrow or fright. Chorea after every excitement. Spells of profound sleep with snoring or stertorous breathing.
In the spells of suffocation, he must lie down (Psorinum) but the dry hacking cough comes on as soon he lies down.
Weakness of body and mind. Fainting. Motionless. Apprehensiveness.
Vertigo in the open air; he must lie down.
Coldness of the forehead in a warm room, ameliorated in the open air.
Stupefying pains in the head, with pulsation.
Stitching pains in the head.
Periodical paroxysms of aching pain under the frontal bone.
Sensation as if brain fell forward on stooping.
Tension in the brain. Headache is sometimes ameliorated by eating. The scalp itches.
Dim vision. Veil before the eyes. Objects larger.
The face is blue, sunken, bloated, and expressionless; jaundiced yellow spot.
Formication of the face. Lockjaw.
Mouth and tongue dry. The tongue is dry, cold and numb; stiff and swollen.
Spasmodic contraction of throat and oesophagus; drink rolls audibly down the oesophagus and through the intestines.
Emptiness in stomach after eating (Dig.) as if he were still hungry.
Violent thirst. Loathing of food. Nausea on coming near a warm stove. Vomiting of food with the cough.
Eructations, tasting like bitter almonds. Violent pain in stomach, with cold skin.
Coldness in stomach and abdomen. Contractions like cramps in stomach and cutting in abdomen. Pain in liver as though an abscess were forming. Stitching pain in liver on pressure. Rumbling in bowels.
Diarrhoea, with green mucus, and green watery stools, with tenesmus.
Constipation, with difficult stool. It cures cholera infantum with green watery stools when drinks gurgle down the oesophagus and there is general coldness, blueness, and fainting spells.
The whole urinary apparatus is in a paralytic state. Suppression of urine or retention, or urine passed in a very feeble stream. Involuntary urination. Pain, in stomach when passing urine. These urinary symptoms sometimes come with palpitation and suffocation, and fainting spells, or other cardiac symptoms and Laurocerasus must be consulted.
Menses too frequent, profuse, thin, with tearing in vertex at night. Uterine hemorrhage, with flow dark and clotted during climaxis. Fainting spells with coldness during menses. Pain in sacrum during menses.
Heart patients that often suffer much from constriction of the larynx are helped by this remedy. Laryngismus stridulus.
Difficult breathing. Suffocation, oppression of chest, gasping in heart complaints, ameliorated by lying down. Clutching at the heart and palpitation. It has cured mitral regurgitation many times,
Short, hacking, dry, nervous cough. Cardiac cough.
Whooping-cough in puny children when there is a history of feeble heart, blue cold skin, and laryngeal spasm. Paralytic chest symptoms.
Irregular action of the heart, slow pulse, fluttering heart. Sitting up causes gasping; lying ameliorates the oppression. Feeble pulse, cold blue surface, twitching of muscles of face and limbs. Slight exertion aggravates all the symptoms. Cyanosis neonatorum.
Burning in chest on inspiration.
The veins of the hands are distended. Cold clammy feet and legs. Painless paralysis of limbs. Stinging and tearing in limbs. Feet numb from lying with limbs crossed.
by James Tyler Kent