Spartium, Scoparius, Craetegus, Strophanthus Hispidus, Kalmia Latifolia, Aconite. Homeopathic treatment

Cherishing The Heart

In the world of homoeopathy and indeed healing in general, there is a universal law which attracts to the healer those patients whose symptoms have been in our thoughts or echo our own experiences of dis-ease. I certainly found this to be true in the early years of my practice in Nottingham in the mid eighties. The two sets of symptoms that presented regularly in the first few months of practice were anxiety attacks and heart symptoms. I had suffered dreadful anxiety attacks during my early twenties, with heart palpitations, overwhelming fear of my heat stopping in the night and sharp pains.

The first patient who came for homoeopathic treatment of breathlessness and angina in 1985 was a striking tall, heavy boned woman in her fifties. Analysis of her case showed her base remedy to be Calc Carb, she was quite fearful but put on a good front as she didn't want others to know that she wasn't really coping with her illness. As I had only recently qualified so I was not confidant that Calc alone would address her heart symptoms, I spent many hours researching the 'smaller' heart remedies to see which fitted her symptoms best. Through that research I found a wonderful group of medicines which, case after case, earned they way onto my 'reliables' list and were used to good effect many times over the subsequent years in practice. This group includes Spartium Scoparius, Craetegus, Strophanthus Hispidus, Kalmia Latifolia and Aconite.

My patient's general symptoms responded well to a monthly dose of Calcarea and her heart symptoms to a daily dose of Craetegus. She was able to reduce her allopathic medication and as her 'constitution' strengthened so she regained her confidence in her heart's ability to keep pumping. Although I no longer recall her name, I do remember vividly how very pleased she was that her breathlessness was markedly improved, especially as she lived at the top of a steep hill, and the painful attacks of angina diminished in frequency and power.

Then, a few years ago I had one of those years from hell, stress levels were through the roof and I was hardly sleeping or taking care of myself at all. Suddenly my heart again became the centre of my attention. I knew that my blood pressure was probably high but I had studiously ignored the thought until a routine check up brought me up sharp. My GP thought we should check out whether there had been any long term damage, and soon after I found myself lying on a hospital bed with a clinician running an imaging transmitter up and down over my whole heart area. The monitor showed surges of color, red, purple, violet, yellow, blue and orange moving around inside me. It was reminiscent of those in-vitro photographs taken of my children when I could never see anything resembling a child in the jumble of shapes. Now I couldn't make out the shape of my heart or the complex of veins and arteries. However, as the nurse pointed out the oxygenated blood coming in from my lungs and being pumped out at reassuring force, gradually the shape emerged.

It was one of those times when we are brought sharply into the moment and the memory of that event is as clear as if it was yesterday. I saw my heart, pumping. In myself, I had always thought of it as the seat of love and affection, the source of feelings of happiness and sadness, the poetry I write and music I am affected by. I hadn't really ever regarded it as a mechanical pump or a muscle, in spite of having learned the structure for exams in anatomy classes. My anxiety about its ability to keep pumping caused me to begin to think of it as an object, that I had to take for a walk or a swim for exercise, and for a while it lost all its metaphoric connections. Fortunately though, these have returned but I now hold more respect for it as an instrument whose tubes and passages need to be kept clear and toned.

Here are some of the key indications for two of my favorite homoeopathic heart remedies, Strophanthus and Craetegus. They can be taken alongside allopathic heart medication, regularly and in a low potency and can work wonderfully well to strengthen and tone the heart muscle.

Strophanthus is a cardiac tonic that can be used where there is muscular debility of the heart with pains and breathlessness. It has palpitations, ailments from smoking tobacco, enlargement of the heart, clogging up of the arteries and fatty degeneration. If the heart flutters weakly or feels as though it was going to cease beating, Strophanthus could be helpful.

Crataegus has a weak and rapid pulse, breathlessness and water retention, the person feels their heart may falter from the least exertion. Moreover, they are irritable, angry and depressed. It is considered to be a great heart tonic and there are many cases of its use documented from the 19th century in which Crataegus was used for cardiac pathology.
Of course, these days we would not use it alone in Western medicine, but an important remedy like this can still hold its place as a support for many heart affections.

Recently I have found myself become increasingly interested in the connection between the heart and the brain, thoughts, emotions, memories and biochemistry. Roberts Sardello said that "the heart has its own intelligence. It knows what to do without orders from the brain. The heart has reasons that may or may not find sympathy from the brain. It has its own style, beating with special force, in states of passion as in anger and sex. The brain thinks cool thoughts about cold reality, while the heart thinks in heated rhythms."

This view resonates with my own. We are all our own healers, and as such we must be careful to take care of the pump and to nourish the organ. Exercise, stopping smoking, eating less fatty foods, reducing the weight of fat that may have accumulated across the heart and chest area.. all of these are well known physical actions we can start to take today. Go into a health food shop and buy a tub of lecithin granules to sprinkle on your cereal each morning and you will be adding a component which, studies show, can scour the insides of our arteries and reduce the likelihood of an embolism forming.

But we must also remember to nourish and strengthen our metaphoric heart, putting money into our 'deposit account' by adding droplets of pure joy, passion, gratitude, elation and love into its memory banks whenever we can. Take time to revisit your happiest memories and feel the pleasure of those times again, for as you do, biochemists now assure us, the peptides which are released by those pleasurable feelings act as antioxidants of the most powerful kind, fighting disease and strengthening cells.

Jude Cresswell DSH BHSc Homoeopathy

Jude Cresswell has 20 years experience as a homoeopath and trainer and offers consultations via email.

[http://www.help-me-natural-health.com]

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