Latrodectus-mactans
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 1993 Jul / Aug Vol II No 4.
Dr Tarkas P I.
` Lat-m

Make-up - Robust; active, lively, High strung and intelligent; the Why seeker. Congenial, Sympathetic,. Obese. Constitutional Syphilis and addiction (Alcohol, tobacco) Extremely hypersensitive reflexes to all nervous responses especially to slightest noise (Asar, Tarn, Ther), touch (Even hair); ladies during their crisis (puberty, pregnancy, climaxis). Retiring, seclusive, nervous and depressed, even lachrymose; yet restless. Exhausted and tired after struggles and tensions.

Highlights: Extremes of tension, spasticity and constrictiveness. They manifest themselves in the mind, chest, abdomen, lumbar spine and lower limbs. Universal commotion (trembling, twitching, cramps, paraesthesias and muscle spasms). Manifests the trio (like Sumb), hysteria, gas and heart.

Pains: Severe constrictive or cramp like pains, in waves (Like labour pains); muscles sore to touch; though restless, motion aggravates; calls for screams.

Convulsions: Clonic; tetanic. Hysterical effects; conversion hysterias, e.g. colic, lumbago (Plb, Taran, Zin-v); crying. Finally paralysis of all functions related to lumbo-sacral nerve plexus (rectum, urinary, genitals, lower limbs). Spastic paralysis. Left sided with heart pains of arms. Syncope; vasovagal attacks.

Blood: Does not coagulate. Other blood changes like pyemia, abscesses left for Ther, Apoplectic tendency; apoplexy minor.
Signs of reaction: Black stool or vomit.
Deadliest among the poisons known, though its action is not so much deep. However it is a dire necessity in the emergencies calling for it. The more virulent a poison is, the more superficial (through life saving) its action is homoeopathically. The animal poisons (a gift of merciful nature) offering thus a contrast to the inorganic substances and to some extent to herbal. Only homoeopaths can understand how "all is well and wisely put" by the Almighty Providence.

Selected particulars.
Mind - extreme restlessness, anxiety and fear. Inner restlessness. Hidden (often imagined) worries e.g. about her domestic affairs, but loath to disclose (esp. at climacteric). Sense of insecurity; of dissociation. Anxiety that is less mental and more nervous (an anxiety neurosis), due to some extent an inner apprehension or realization (in the latter case there might even be a pleasurable anticipation) of impending end. Hypochondriasis. Anthropophobia Sestomania.

Head - Constant headache; congestive, with apoplectic disposition; worse lying (an exception). Occipital pains (See back). Pain in the right ear. Catches cold after emotional stress, triggering troubles. Thick yellow discharge; Left nostril drips at night; or stuffy. Face expresses deep anxiety. Lips cracked.

Mouth - Teeth sensitive to touch, cold air and water, to noise; pain ameliorated by warm application, but also cold drink, noiseless dark room. Gumboil in a smoker. Teeth dirty yellow gums bleeding, soft spongy, (scorbutic). Fetor, dry or salivating. Sorethroats pain on swallowing; Better by cold water; after or alternating with lumbago.

Stomach - Averse to sweets. Thirst for cold water (little and often) Sinking sensation, or pain as if transfixed in epigastrium; apprehension in. Nervous dyspepsia. Acidity, flatulence. Biliousness; at climacteric (headache aggravated cold air, sun heat, acid; ameliorated bilious vomiting, warm drinks, flow). Loud belching. Hiccough. Gagging; with pain in the pit and the left chest, oppression, nausea and headaches after fried foods (incarcerated flatulence). Nausea, then colic or precordial pain; with other pains; motion sickness with vertigo; worse closing the eyes. Vomiting: bile, bitter brown matter, black.

Abdomen - Distended even tympanitic. Severe colic with nausea sinking in the epigastrium. Abdominal distress with poor elimination and no appetite; sometimes tenderness. Pelvic and lumbar heaviness after dinner. "Pain and flatulent tension in (lower left quadrant of) abdomen during a virus infection, with pain in the arms; lady at climacteric. Cramps; after nausea; after weakness of legs; from chest to abdomen.

Extreme gaseous distension, rigid as a board with anginoid symptoms (pseudo-angina pectoris; hysterical angina pectoris); cramps in abdomen with angina pectoris (Spigelia). Heart symptoms pose as if abdominal: abdominal symptoms borrowed from the heart.

The whole picture closely simulates also abdominal mischief : an acute surgical emergency like - perforated gastric ulcer, strangulated hernia or ruptured appendix or incipient peritonitis or ruptured peritonium. Also in milder cases; recurrent pain the right iliac fossa with a tender spot to the right of the lumbar spine and another to the right side of the occiput.

Rectum - Pain during stool. Inaction, obstinate constipation.
Urinary - Paralytic bladder; urine retained, better buy hot fomentation especially over perineum; hysterical retention. Urine albumin and sugar.

Sexual - Frequent prolonged erection. Menses delayed; scanty suppressed. Climacteric troubles galore: attacks of syncope, vertigo, left supra-orbital and left leg pain, cannot walk (intermittent claudications?), pelvic and lumbar heaviness, after dinner heaviness and uneasiness, sleepless palpitation, copious easy sweat, petechia (on arms), nasal, dripping; pruritis vulvae, eczema (amel washing), aching back and legs; flushes of heat, then chilliness and so on.

Chest - Extreme dyspnoea, gasping, grunting expiration. Hacking and oppression of the chest. Cramps (pleurodynia). hard ache in axilla; Left (Pseudo angina pectoris).

Heart - Great precordial anguish with sense of impending dissolution. After bite (in right finger) pain ascends up the arm to the nape of the neck, then down to the precordia and travels down to the left axilla to left finger tips via left arm (as in angina pectoris). Pain as if transfixed; in sternum attacks begun after a cold bath parasternal burning pain as a left hot poker were thrusted to the descending aorta (aneurysm). Constrictive pain (in lower part of sternum) extending to left shoulder, axilla and back (between the scapulae); to neck; to abdomen; to both upper arms; to left arm; sometimes to right arm. With numbness, tingling in fingers; numbness pain or paralytic lameness of left arm; anxiety; nausea; tendency to syncope; cold sweat, collapse, icy cold skin (as marble); thready pulse; often apnoea; sense of impending dissolution. Angina of effort; after dinner, crampy pain usual.

Angina pectoris vasomotoris. Coronary insufficiency; after abdominal surgery anginal pains, pressing in upper chest, the distension so caused awakens frequently, tightness in chest on hurrying, panicky with acute pains and pangs; pains began during considerable emotional stress. Sudden spasms of arterioles, then hypertension, then distension of Left ventricle (causing agonizing breast pang). Thrombosis of arteries (of legs, intermittent claudications); Coronary thrombosis (with ischaemic occlusion (with infarction). Embolism. Apoplexy. Hypertension. Flushes of heat, followed by chilliness. Subnormal temperature.

Stenosis of mitral orifice, heavy sweat. Goitre heart. Tubercular glands in the neck (Ther) Pulse rapid, weak, thready.

Back - Pain in the neck to occiput. A tender spot on the right of occiput or lumbar spine. Right lumbosacral area. Painful cramps in, constriction in; shooting pains; worse bending, motion (though restless); later paralysis. Back feels broken. (Spinal anesthesia and irritation).

Locomotor - Paraesthesia of lower limbs. Feeling of icy coldness from hips downwards. Paralysis, increased reflexes, spasticity, inability to lift legs from spasms of extensor muscles of hips; intermittent claudication. Crampy pains.

Tenderness of calves, with tingling and numbness in hands and feet. Burning and stinging in soles as if a fire. Swelling of ankles.

Sleep - Dreams of flying
Thermal - Chills with fever or after flushes of heat. Coldness predominant or only.
Easy, heavy sweat; collapse; hair - destroying; of upper half of the body; on trunk, on covering up in bed.

Relationships: Ver-a follows well. Sumb is milder Latro-m. Luco, Sumb and Lat-m are mutually symbiotics.

Compare : Ars, Cact, Cham, Cimic, Ign, Phos, Naja, Tarn, Ther, Tab. A cocktail of all these, isnt it? and therefore all the more welcome. "When needed it is badly needed", a veritable corpse reviver. Useful in acute emergencies surgical or circulatory, in spastic, neuralgic or paralytic syndromes. While invoking these medicines, this one should be considered especially for the shock stage or when one is fighting a losing battle, as during climaxis or an addict or aged. It deserves a clinical expansion especially in early stages and in non-cardiac side to upgrade it, like Cact to a polycrest.

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