Basic Information:
- Common Name: Night-Blooming Cereus
- Source: Plant – Cactus grandiflorus
- Family: Cactaceae
- Miasm: Psoro-sycotic
- Acts on: Heart, blood vessels, circulation, female reproductive organs
Keynote Symptoms:
Sensation as if the heart is grasped and released alternately
Constricting pain – as if an iron band around the chest
Hypertension, hemorrhages, congestive headaches
“The Heart Remedy – As if Iron Band Around the Chest”
Clinical Indications:
Cardiac Disorders:
- Angina pectoris – severe constricting chest pain, radiating to left arm
- Palpitation, especially at night, with anxiety
- Hypertension with a sensation of oppression
- Myocarditis, endocarditis, weak pulse
- Heart feels clutched – as if by an iron hand
Circulatory System:
- Constriction in various parts of body (chest, bladder, uterus)
- Hemorrhages: bright red, often passive
- Congestive headaches, pulsating and throbbing
- Varicose veins, especially with bluish discoloration
Female Reproductive System:
- Uterine hemorrhage with constricting pain
- Dysmenorrhea, with squeezing sensation in uterus
- Metrorrhagia, especially at climaxis
- Palpitation during menses
Mental Symptoms:
- Sadness, fear of death
- Anxiety about heart, thinks disease is incurable
- Sleeplessness due to pulsation or worry
Modalities:
|
Worse From |
Better From |
|
Lying on the left side |
Open air |
|
Midnight |
Continued motion |
|
Pressure, touch |
Sleep, sometimes |
Potency & Dosage:
- 30C to 200C commonly used
- Repeated doses in acute heart cases
- 6C or Q for hemorrhagic/vascular complaints (under supervision)
Mnemonic – “CACTUS = Constriction And Cardiac Troubles Under Stress”
- C – Constriction (chest, uterus)
- A – Angina with iron-band sensation
- C – Congestive headaches
- T – Tightness around heart
- U – Uterine bleeding
- S – Sleepless from pulsation
One-Line Summary:
“Cactus is the top remedy for heart complaints with a sensation of constriction and oppression, especially as if an iron band were tightening the chest.”
Compare With:
|
Remedy |
Key Differences |
|
Glonoinum |
Congestive headaches, but more sudden, throbbing |
|
Digitalis |
Slow pulse, sinking at the pit of the stomach |
|
Spigelia |
Left-sided neuralgic heart pain, periodic |
|
Cactus |
Constriction – as if heart is grasped by iron band |
MIND SYMPTOMS
FORM DIFFRENT AUTHOR:
WILLIAM BOERICKE
- Melancholy, taciturn, sad, ill-humored.
- Fear of death. Screams with pain. Anxiety.
J.H.CLARKE
- Sadness and bad humor; taciturnity; melancholy; hypochondriacs.
- Cries, knows not why; < by consolation.
- Screaming with pain.
- During menses, hysteria.
- Fear of death, belief that his disease is incurable.
- Love of solitude.
S.R.PHATAK
- Taciturn. Weeps, knows not why agg. consolation. Believes that his disease is incurable.
- Sad. Ill humoured. Easily frightened. Cheerful.
- Fear; of death, of something will happen.
J.T.KENT
- That often accompanies the Cactus state, which is the opposite of most of the medicines that have such violent pains.
- "Sadness, taciturnity, and irresistible inclination to weep.
- Fear of death that is, he thinks he is going to die from the severity of the pain.
- "He believes his disease is incurable;" it seems to him that such suffering must end in death.
- That violent, irregular action of the heart is followed out through all the blood vessels, because the circulation is so irregular, is so spasmodic.
- He is not here, and cold there. Heat in the head, or heat in the chest.
- The circulation is that of determination to some particular part. With all the cardiac remedies we have violent dreams, great excitement of the brain during sleep, waking up startled and frightened, very commonly with a feeling of failing.
- Dreams of falling. Dreams full of excitement. These features run through Cactus, especially with the cardiac symptoms.
- "Vertigo from congestion; face red, bloated; pulsation in brain. Feels as if he would go mad. Vertigo, worse from physical exertion." With most of the cardiac remedies, or remedies where the circulation and heart are much involved, we have marked vertigo.
- "Vertigo; worse from physical exertion, turning in bed, stooping, rising from a recumbent position, and deep inspiration."
- Many of the complaints of Cactus are disturbed by irregularities of breathing. Here we see vertigo coming on from deep breathing.
- If he holds his breath, it seems as if his heart would fly to pieces, it would go so fast.
- Increased pulsation all over the body when holding the breath. Headaches
Tags
MATERIA MEDICA