Opuntia ficus
Opuntia ficus-indica · Plant · Cactaceae
Opuntia suits individuals with prominent digestive and bowel symptoms, particularly the peculiar sensation of the bowels settling into the lower abdomen with nausea and loose stools. The mental picture includes aberrant alternating moods with a tendency to blasphemy, recalling Anacardium.
Key symptoms
- Nausea extending from stomach down into bowels
- Sensation as if bowels had all settled down into lower abdomen
- Sick feeling in lower third of abdomen
- Diarrhoea with loose and frequent evacuations
- Enteroptosis presentation
- Blasphemous or alternately praying and swearing mood
- Sticking and pricking pains throughout body with numbness and tension
- Priapism with lascivious desire
Prickly Pear (OPUNTIA-FICUS INDICA)
Diarrhœa, with nausea. Feels as if bowels were settled down in lower abdomen. Sick feeling in lower third of abdomen. Enteroptosis with loose and frequent evacuations.
Relationship
Compare; Chaparra amargosa (which Mexican physicians laud as a specific in chronic diarrhœa). Ricinus communis (diarrhœa, dysentery, obstinate chronic diarrhœa).
Dose
Second attenuation.
1. OPUNTIA VULGARIS. CACTUS OPUNTIA. (Prickly Pear.)
Clinical
Diarrhœa, Nausea. Priapism. Spleen, pains in.
Characteristics
Two kinds of "Prickly pear" have been proved─Opun. vulg. and Opun. alba spina. Burdick took one or two deep inhalations of the tincture of the flowers of the former. J. H. Fitch (who proved many of the Cactaceæ) took ten drops of the tincture of the second. The bulk of the symptoms of the proving are Fitch's; but the most peculiar symptom (which has also been verified) is Burdick's: "Nausea extending from stomach down into bowels, with sensation as if diarrhœa would set in." Also "feeling as if bowels had settled down into lower abdomen." Fitch had actual diarrhœa. All the urinary and genital symptoms were his except "Bloody urine," which is an effect of O. vulg., but not Burdick's. Coldness was observed by both provers. The peculiar mental symptoms recalling the swearing tendency of Anac., are Fitch's. Sticking and pricking pains predominate, also numbness and tension.
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