Aesculus hippocastanum
Horse chestnut, conker. · Plant · Sapindaceae
This remedy is best suited to people who are very low, depressed, and irritable, with poor concentration. They may lose their temper easily, tending to brood afterward. The remedy is given primarily for treating hemorrhoids, especially when the rectum feels dry and uncomfortable, as though it is full of small sticks, or when the hemorrhoids are internal and associated with constipation and pain in the lower back. Often the anus feels hot, dry, and itchy. Lumpy stools may occur, with stabbing, tearing, or splinterlike pains in the anus. Distension in the bowels may develop, with colicky pain and foul-smelling gas. There may be varicose veins, and a feeling of congestion and tenderness in the liver. The hemorrhoids may be associated with pains and chills in the spine, and a dull, constant backache that makes bending down or rising after sitting difficult, and walking almost impossible.
In addition, the remedy is given for a dry, rough, burning throat accompanied by sneezing and profuse catarrh.
Key symptoms
- Engorged hæmorrhoidal veins with characteristic backache
- Venous stasis and varicose veins of purple color
- Much pain but little bleeding from hæmorrhoids
- Back aches and gives out unfitting for business
- Sluggish digestion, slow heart and sluggish bowels
- Flying pains all over body
- Liver and portal system congestion with torpor
- Blind and bleeding hæmorrhoids worse during climacteric
Worse (aggravation)
Better (amelioration)
Horse Chestnut
The action of this drug is most marked on the lower bowel, producing engorged hæmorrhoidal veins, with characteristic backache, with absence of actual constipation. Much pain but little bleeding. Venous stasis general, varicose veins of purple color; everything is slowed down, digestion, heart, bowels, etc. Torpor and congestion of the liver and portal system, with constipation. The back aches and gives out and unfits the patient for business. Flying pains all over. Fullness in various parts, dry, swollen mucous membranes. Throat with hæmorrhoidal conditions.
Head
Depressed and irritable. Head dull, confused, aching as from a cold. Pressure in forehead, with nausea, followed by stitches in right hypochondrium. Pain from occiput to frontal region, with bruised sensation of the scalp; worse in the morning. Neuralgic stitches from right to left through forehead, followed by flying pains in epigastrium. Vertigo when sitting and walking.
Eyes
Heavy and hot, with lachrymation, with enlarged blood vessels. Eyeballs sore.
Nose
Dry; inspired air feels cold, nasal passages sensitive to it. Coryza, sneezing. Pressure at root of nose. Membrane over turbinate bones distended and boggy, dependent upon hepatic disorders.
Mouth
Scalded feeling. Metallic taste. Salivation. Tongue thickly coated, feels as if scalded.
Throat
Hot, dry, raw, stitching pain into ears when swallowing. Follicular pharyngitis connected with hepatic congestion. Veins in pharynx distended and tortuous. Throat sensitive to inspired air; feels excoriated and constricted, burns like fire on swallowing, in afternoon. Early stages of atrophic pharyngitis in dried-up, bilious subjects. Hawking of ropy mucus of sweetish taste.
Stomach
Weight of a stone, with gnawing, aching pain; most manifest about three hours after meals. Tenderness and fullness in region of liver.
Abdomen
Dull aching in liver and epigastrium. Pain at umbilicus. Jaundice; throbbing in hypogastrium and pelvis.
Rectum
Dry, aching. Feels full of small sticks. Anus raw, sore. Much pain after stool, with prolapse. Hæmorrhoids, with sharp shooting pains up the back; blind and bleeding; worse during climacteric. Large, hard, dry stools. Mucous membrane seems swollen and obstructs the passage. Irritation caused by ascarides and aids their expulsion. Burning in anus with chills up and down back.
Urinary
Frequent, scant, dark, muddy, hot urine. Pain in kidneys, especially left and ureter.
Male
Discharge of prostatic fluid at stool.
Female
Constant throbbing behind symphysis pubis. Leucorrhœa, with lameness of back across the sacro-iliac articulation; dark yellow, sticky corroding; worse after menses.
Chest
Feels constricted. Heart's action full and heavy, can feel pulsations all over. Laryngitis; coughs depending on hepatic disorders; hot feeling in chest; pain around heart in hæmorrhoidal subjects.
Extremities
Aching and soreness in limbs, in left acromion process with shooting down arms; finger tips numb.
Back
Lameness in neck; aching between shoulder blades; region of spine feels weak; back and legs give out. Backache affecting sacrum and hips; worse walking or stooping. When walking feet turn under. Soles feel sore, tired, and swell. Hands and feet swell, and become red after washing, feel full.
Fever
Chill at 4 pm. Chilliness up and down back. Fever 7 to 12 pm. Evening fever, skin hot and dry. Sweat profuse and hot with the fever.
Modalities
Worse, in morning on awaking, and from any motion, walking; from moving bowels; after eating, afternoon, standing. Better, cool open air.
Relationship
Aesculus glabra-Ohio-Buckeye Proctitis. Very painful, dark purple, external hæmorrhoids, with constipation and vertigo and portal congestion. Speech thick, tickling in throat, impaired vision, paresis. Phytolacca (throat dry, more often in acute cases). Negundium Americanum--Box-elder--(Engorgements of rectum and piles with great pain, ten-drop doses of tincture every two hours). Compare also: Aloe, Collinson. Nux. Sulphur.
Dose
Tincture, to third potency.
Introduction
A peculiar kind of plethorais found running through this remedy, a vascular fullness which affects the extremities and the whole body, and there are symptoms showing that the brain is similarly affected.
Modalities
The conditions of Aesculus are worse during sleep, hence symptoms are observed on waking.
He wakes up with confusion of mind, looks all around the room in confusion, bewildered, does not know the people, wonders where he is and what is the meaning of the things he sees.
It is especially useful in children that rouse up in sleep frightened and in confusion, like Lycopodium.
The remedy produces great sadness, irritability, loss of memory and aversion to work. There are times when there is a sense of bodily congestion, fullness of the veins, and then these symptoms are most marked.
Hippocastanum vulgaris. Horse-chestnut. (Northern India and North America.) N. O. Sapindaceæ. Tincture of ripe kernel; trituration of dry kernel. Tincture of fruit with capsule (according to Hering, this is the best).
Clinical
Anus, affections of. Back, affections of. Constipation. Cough. Hæmorrhoids. Headache. Hernia. Intermittents. Jaundice. Liver, affections of. Lumbago. Prostate gland, affections of. Sacrum, pain in. Taste, altered. Throat, affections of. Tongue, affections of. Uterus, prolapse of.
Characteristics
Æscul. hip. is a great pile remedy. In some districts it is a popular custom to carry a chestnut in the pocket as a preventive. It produces many symptoms of disordered liver: Malaise; dulness of head and mind; fulness at root of nose. Follicular pharyngitis with dryness; burning; roughness; contraction in throat, as in follicular pharyngitis. There is soreness and fulness in liver region; the abdomen is sore to touch. There is jaundice with bileless stools. Throbbing in abdomen, especially hypogastrium.
Horse Chestnut (Sapindaccae.)
For persons with haemorrhoidal tendencies, and who suffer with gastric, bilious or catarrhal troubles. Fullness in various parts, as from undue amount of blood; heart, lungs, stomach, brain, pelvis, skin. Venous congestion, especially portal and haemorrhoidal. Despondent, gloomy; very irritable; looses temper easily and gains control slowly; miserably cross (Cham.). Mucous membranes of mouth, throat, rectum are swollen, burn, feel dry and raw. Coryza; thin, watery, burning: rawness and sensitive to inhaled cold air. Follicular pharyngitis; violent burning, raw sensation in throat; dryness and roughness of throat. Frequent inclination to swallow, with burning, pricking, stinging and dry constricted fauces (Apis, Bell.). Rectum: dryness and heat of; feets as if full of small sticks; knife-like pains shoot up the rectum (Ign., Sulph.); haemorrhoids blind, painful, burning purplish; rarely bleeding. Rectum sore, with fullness, burning and itching (Sulph.). Constipation: hard, dry stool, …
Anus and Stool
Sensation as if a foreign body was in the rectum, or as if it was full of small sticks, with fruitless efforts at evacuation and pains through hips and sacrum.
Female Sexual Organs
With uterine troubles constant backache across the hips and sacrum, < by walking or stooping.
Neck and Back
Constant backache affecting the sacrum and hips; very much aggravated by walking and stooping (Haemorrhoids; Leucorrhoea).
Neck and Back
Constipation; large stool voided with difficulty and followed for hours with severe pain in back, lumbar sacral region.
Generalities
Sensation of fullness in various parts, as heart, lungs, stomach, anus, brain, pelvis, etc.
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Dry, uncomfortable feeling in the rectum, as if it were filled with small sticks.
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Hemorrhoids like ground nuts, purple, generally blind, with burning; also with aching; lameness and shootings in the back.
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Thick, dark, corroding leucorrhoea, with aching and lameness in the back across the sacro-iliac articulations
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Constant backache affecting the sacrum and hips, very much aggravated by walking and stooping forward.
Phatak's chapter on Aesculus hippocastanum is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
