Chimaphila umbellata
Prince’s pine, ground holly, pipsissewa, umbellate wintergreen. · Plant · Ericaceae
Those who respond best to this remedy tend to feel restless and hot but seem unable to sweat. They tremble inwardly, yet are outwardly calm and stable.
Chimaphila is used chiefly for urinary tract problems such as painful urination and obstructed urine flow. It is given for cystitis with blood in the urine and great urging to urinate despite an empty bladder. In men it is also prescribed for an enlarged prostate, urine retention, and a feeling that there is a ball in the pelvis.
Key symptoms
- Scanty urine loaded with ropy, muco-purulent sediment
- Must strain before urine flows; feeling of ball in perineum
- Burning and scalding during micturition
- Prostatic enlargement with retention
- Painful tumor of mammae with undue secretion of milk
- Unable to urinate without wide stance leaning forward
- Sugar in urine; incipient and progressive cataracts
Worse (aggravation)
Better (amelioration)
Pipsissewa
Acts principally on kidneys, and genito-urinary tract; affects also lymphatic and mesenteric glands and female mammæ. Plethoric young women with dysuria. Women with large breasts. Hepatic and renal dropsies; chronic alcoholics. Incipient and progressive cataracts.
One of the remedies whose symptoms point to its employment in bladder affections, notably catarrh, acute and chronic. Scanty urine, and loaded with ropy, muco-purulent sediment. Prostatic enlargement.
Head
Pain in left frontal protuberance. Halo about the light. Itching of eyelids. Stabbing pain in left eye with lachrymation.
Mouth
Toothache, worse after eating and exertion, better cool water. Pain as if tooth was being gently pulled.
Urinary
Urging to urinate. Urine turbid, offensive, containing ropy or bloody mucus, and depositing a copious sediment. Burning and scalding during micturition, and straining afterwards. Must strain before flow comes. Scanty urine. Acute prostatitis, retention, and feeling of a ball in perineum (Cann ind). Fluttering in region of kidney. Sugar in urine. Unable to urinate without standing with feet wide apart and body inclined forward.
Female
Labia inflamed, swollen. Pain in vagina. Hot flashes. Painful tumor of mammæ, not ulcerated, with undue secretion of milk. Rapid atrophy of breasts. Women with very large breasts and tumor in the mammary gland with sharp pain through it.
Male
Smarting in urethra from neck of bladder to meatus. Gleet. Loss of prostatic fluid. Prostatic enlargement and irritation.
Skin
Scrofulous ulcers. Glandular enlargements.
Extremities
Feeling of a band above left knee.
Modalities
Worse, in damp weather; from sitting on cold stones or pavements; left side.
Relationship
Compare: Chimaph maculata (intense gnawing hunger; burning fever; sensation of swelling in arm pits); Uva; Ledum; Epigoea.
Dose
Tincture, to third attenuation.
Pipsissewa. Prince's Pine. Ground Holly. N. O. Pyroleæ, a tribe of the Ericaceæ. Tincture of root and leaves, or of fresh plant in flower.
Clinical
Acne. Breast, atrophy of; cancer of; tumour of. Cataract. Cystitis. Diabetes. Dropsies. Fevers. Glands, enlarged. Gleet. Gonorrhœa. Intermittents. Jaundice. Kidneys, disorders of. Lactation, disorders of. Liver disorders. Nephritis. Proctitis. Prostatitis. Pterygium. Ringworm. Scrofula. Stricture. Syphilis. Toothache. Ulcers, malignant. Urinary disorders. Whitlow.
Characteristics
Chimaph. umb. is a medicine used by many North American Indians in gravel and urinary disorders. It has also been used as a vulnerary. Among the eclectics it is used as an "alterative" in skin affections, e.g., acne, herpes, eczema, in enlarged lymphatic glands, in articular rheumatism. It is said by them to act mainly as an eliminative through the bowels and kidneys. They use it in cases of chyliferous urine, cystitis, strangury, smarting, burning pains on urination, turbid urine and …
Phatak's chapter on Chimaphila umbellata is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
