Rhus Toxicodendron 30 ch Uses, Benefits – Rhus Tox Materia Medica

• Great restlessness; has to keep moving constantly which relieves the pain
• Prolapse of uterus from over reaching or straining
• Tonsillitis, after riding in cold wind
• Hypertrophy of heart from violent exercise, gets out of breath on exertion

Source: Vegetable kingdom
Synonyms: Poison oak, Poison ivy, Snowrose
Family: Anacardiaceae
Prover: Dr Hahnemann in 1816
Duration of Action: 1 to 7 days
Miasmatic Background: Psora
Temperament: Irritable
Diathesis: Rheumatic and gouty
Thermal Relationship: Very chilly patient

Introduction and History: It is a very important polychrest remedy. The name ‘rhus’ means red, because its flowers and leaves are red in colour in autumn. ‘Toxicodendron’ means poison tree. It was used as permanent ink for marking clothes. It was introduced in homeopathy by Dr Hahnemann in 1816. It is a most valuable medicine of homeopathy. Bryonia has almost identical symptoms, like Rhus toxicodendron. Hahnemann calls them these two antagonistic sister remedies.

Habit and Habitat: Rhus toxicodendron is a native medicine of North America, Canada and Georgia. It is found in the forests of United States. It is a deciduous plant, growing from 1 to 3 feet in height. Stem is reddish, branching and climbing by rootlets. Stem is red in colour. Leaves are alternate, ovate, pointed and downy (soft) beneath. Leaves are three foliate. Flowers are small, greenishwhite and appear in June. The whole plant has a resinous-gummy, milky, acrid juice. It is externally poisonous. Fruit is globular and of grayish colour.

Preparation and Parts Used: Mother tincture of fresh leaves gathered at sunset just before flowering time.

Constitution and Physiognomy: It is suited to persons of rheumatic diathesis; to psoric and tubercular constitutions. The patient is very chilly, easily susceptible to cold and aggravated by cold in general.

Ailments From: Slightest anger, cold, wetting head, using damp sheets, bathing in fresh or salt water, getting wet when heated, overstraining, overexertion, overlifting, raising arms high to lift things, drinking ice water, beer, bruises, getting wet in a rainstorm while sweating or when overheated.

Seat of Action (Pharmacodynamics): Joints, ligaments, fibrous tissues, tendons, mucous membranes, lymphatic glands, skin, muscular tissues, nerves, tissues, eyes, mouth, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, etc.

Active Principles (Chemical Constituents): It contains toxicodendralis, urushiol, pheridic oil, fisetin, gallic and tannin acid.

Physiological Action

1. Applied locally to the skin, Rhus toxicodendron is an irritant and causes itching and vesicular eruptions on the skin which may extend to the mucous membranes where it produces oedematous swelling, dryness, rawness and burning.
2. When taken internally or inhaled, there are colicky pains in the abdomen worse at night, diarrhoea, tenesmus, bloody stools and urine, and fever which is often typhoidal or intermittent in character; pains of a rheumatoid type in fibrous structures, joints and lumbar region, ameliorated by heat and aggravated by rest.
3. Fatal results have not followed any case of poisoning recorded.

Physio-pathological Changes (Pathology)

1. It acts upon joints and produces irritation and inflammation. Also produces serous discharge in the form of evacuation or oedema.
2. Acts on skin where it produces irritation and vesicular erysipelas, pemphigus and eczema.
3. It acts on the mucous membrane of the gastrointestinal tract, lungs, mouth, eyes and produces acute inflammation; also nausea, vomiting, enteritis, gastritis, pneumonia, stomatitis, conjunctivitis, etc.
4. It acts on the lymphatic glands causing generalised inflammation.
5. Acts on the tendons and muscles causing inflammation and rheumatic pains.
6. Acts on the circulatory system where there is blood poisoning resulting in depression of the heart and pulse, and typhoid-like symptoms with depression of vital forces.
7. There is febrile disturbance – intermittent fever.
8. If applied locally to the skin, Rhus toxicodendron, is an irritant and causes itching and vesicular eruptions on the skin which may extend to the mucous membranes where it produces oedematous swelling, dryness, rawness and burning.
9. When taken internally or inhaled, there are colicky pains in the abdomen worse at night, diarrhoea, tenesmus, bloody stools and urine, and fever which is often typhoidal or intermittent in character; pains of a rheumatoid type in fibrous structures, joints and lumbar region; ameliorated by heat and aggravated by rest.

Characteristic Mental Symptoms (Psychology)

1. Delirium with fear of being poisoned.
2. Great anxiety towards the evening.
3. Extreme restlessness, with constant change of position.
4. Fear that he will die, desirous of committing suicide. Thoughts of suicide; wants to drown himself.
5. Sensorium becomes cloudy. Slow in answering.
6. Sad; patient begins to weep without knowing why.
7. Dreams of working hard, swimming, rowing, his daily occupation and of great exertion.
8. Full of sad thoughts; anxious, apprehensive, specially in the evening and at night.
9. Fretful, impatient, ill-humoured, easily vexed.
10. Forgetful, cannot remember the most recent events. Forgetful; difficult comprehension. Low, mild delirium.

Characteristic Physical Guiding Symptoms

Restlessness: Great restlessness with continual change of position to obtain relief from pain. It is one of the Nash’s Trio of Restless medicines. Others of the trio are Aconitum and Arsenicum.

Tongue: Tongue dry, sore, red, cracked, triangular, red-tipped with imprint of teeth and bitter taste in the mouth.

Paretic and paralytic: It is a great antiparalytic remedy. Paralysis from lying on damp ground and rheumatic exposures. Paralysis with numbness of affected parts.

Relaxation: Relaxation of abdominal muscles, with general prostration. Involuntary stool due to relaxation.

Desires and aversions: Great desire for cold milk, sweets, oysters and beer, but aversion to liquor and meat.

Rigidity: Great stiffness and rigidity, with lamenes and pain, specially on first moving or on waking up in the morning; relieved by continued motion or by walking.

Sensitiveness: Great sensitiveness to open air, putting the hand from under the bedcover brings on cough.

Vertigo: Vertigo when standing or walking; worse when lying down.

Headache: Brain feels loose when stepping or shaking the head; sensation of swashing in the brain, as if torn.

Aching: Aching in left arm with heart disease and numbness.

Thirst: Great thirst for cold water with dryness in the throat.

Itching: Intense itching of scrotum with eruptions or oedema.

Pains: Pains as if sprained; as if a muscle or tendon was torn from its attachment; as if bones were scraped with a knife.

Cough: A dry, teasing cough, before and during chill, in intermittent fever; cough, with taste of blood.

Back: Pain between the shoulders on swallowing; pain and stiffness in small of back, worse sitting or lying, better by motion or lying on a hard surface.

Sweat: Sweat even during heat, except on face, with violent itching of eruptions.

Appetite: Hunger without appetite. Complete loss of appetite for all foods.

Sleep: Great sleepiness and lassitude after eating, spasmodic yawning, yet not sleepy, with stitching pain as from dislocation of jaw.

Urine: White, muddy, hot, pale with white sediment; dark, becoming turbid; passes in a divided stream; scanty and irritating.

Diarrhoea: Involuntary diarrhoea with beginning of typhoid; with great
exhaustion; stool watery, mucoid and bloody with nausea, undigested and very offensive. Frothy, white and painless.

Important Characteristic Features

Fever: It is a very good medicine for remittent fever, intermittent fever and continuous fever. In intermittent fever, when the chill begins in one leg, usually in the thigh or between the shoulders or over one scapula and is relieved by warmth; during the chill there is a dry, teasing cough (Bry, Chin, Sabad, Sulph); along with external chill there is an internal heat. Thirst is absent. Urticaria and fever blisters around the mouth. Sweat is very general, except about the face. In remittent and continuous fevers like, typhoid, influenza, dengue and others like them, there is usually an insidious onset, or when acute diseases assume a typhoidal form. Diarrhoea with beginning of typhoid. Patient is restless, cannot stay in one position; must change position often to obtain relief from pain. Has a triangular, red tipped tongue, which is dry, cracked, sore with imprint of teeth. Paresis or paralytic condition of single muscles after fever. Low muttering type of delirium, talks about rowing, swimming, daily occupation, etc. Typhoid may be due to summer bathing, rainy weather, damp weather, exposure to cold air, walking in a damp place.

Rheumatism: It is a very prominent medicine for rheumatism. It is indicated not so much in the inflammatory form as in rheumatic diathesis, when the characteristic modality (that is, relief of symptoms from continued motion and aggravation on beginning to move) is present and when there is aggravation during damp weather or from dwelling in damp places. It is especially suitable for rheumatism after exposure to cold or wet, particularly when one is over heated or perspiring. Another notable symptom is – restlessness all the time. There is prominent projection of bones which are sore to touch, for example, the cheekbones. Rheumatism of the muscles of the back and shoulders. Rheumatic pains in the interscapular region, worse from cold, better from warmth. Stiff neck. Colic; pain is better by bending double or moving about. Brain feels sore at every false step.

Skin: Indicated for urticarial rashes, herpes zoster, erysipelas and other skin diseases manifested by vesicles. Eruptions with incessant itching, burning and tingling. Itching is better by warm application. The patient develops urticaria on getting wet.

Paralysis: It is indicated in various forms of paralysis; especially in rheumatic patients, when the trouble has come on from overexertion or exposure to wet, as from lying on damp ground. It is especially useful in paralysis of rheumatic origin, provoked by exposure to a damp and cold atmosphere, particularly when there have been changes from tolerably warm to cold and wet days. It may also be indicated in paralysis following apoplexy, and in acute spinal paralysis of infants. It is more suited to chronic cases and in paralysis from cold.

Cough and cold: A very useful remedy for cold, cough and other respiratory troubles from exposure to cold open air, or getting wet in rain. Patient is very anxious and apprehensive. Hoarseness and rawness in larynx with roughness and soreness in the chest. There is a short, dry cough from tickling in the trachea. Cough in the morning, soon after waking. Cough is aggravated after midnight, on inspiration, on exposure to cold.

General Modalities

Aggravation: During rest, at night, after midnight; before storms, cold, wet, rainy weather, beginning to move, drinking cold water.

Amelioration: Continuous motion, moving affected parts, change of position, warm dry weather, warmth to parts, stretching limbs.

Remedy Relationships

Complementary: Bry, Calc.

Follows well: Ph-ac, Ars, Arn, Bell, Bry, Berb, Cact, Calc, Calc-p, Mur-ac.

Antidotes: Anac, Acon, Am-c, Bell, Bry, Camph, Coff, Clem, Crot-t, Cypr, Grind, Mez, Plb.

Inimical: Apis.

Compare: Bry, Rhod, Nat-s.

Comparison

Bad effects of getting wet: Rhus-t, All-c.

Cold from swimming or falling in water: Ant-c, Rhus-t.

Must move continually to obtain relief from the pain: Arn, Rhus-t.

Prolapse of uterus from over reaching or straining: Aur, Podo, Rhus-t.

Tonsillitis after riding in cold wind: Acon, Hep, Rhus-t.

Strain or injuries of single muscle: Rhus-t, Ruta, Calen.

Potency: 3x, 6x, 12x, 30, 200, 1000.

Dosage: Single dose recommended.

Repetition: Bears repetition very well.

Therapeutic Value: Abortion, Chilblains, Cough, Cyanosis, Dengue fever, Dysentery, Eczema, Enteric fever, Erysipelas, Eye and ear affections, Gout, Headache, Herpes zoster; Lumbago, Measles, Menstrual disorders, Neuralgia, Paralysis, Ptosis, Pyaemia, Restlessness, Rheumatism, Sciatica, Sprains, etc.

Note

Apis must not be used before or after Rhus toxicodendron.

In chronic rheumatism, higher dilutions seem to have made the best cures.

Lower potencies are very useful in rheumatism, paralysis and diseases of the eyes. Higher potencies are best suited for diarrhoea, dysentery and skin diseases.