Introduction
Hypertension is the medical name for high blood pressure. Blood exerts pressure. This fact was first discovered by an English physician ‘William Harvey’ (1578–1657) in 1600s. Until nearly a century later, no one actually tried to measure the blood pressure. The English clergyman and physiologist Stephen Hales devised the first blood pressure measuring device. He cut open the blood vessel in various animals and inserted a metal pipe into the vessel. He then connected the pipe to a long glass tube. Blood was pushed out of the vessel into the glass tube. The blood rose to different levels in the tube for different animals.
It took another century for the physicians to find a way to take the blood pressure without actually cutting into the blood vessel. In 1876, the German physician ‘Samuel Siegried Von Basch’ (1837–1905) invented the first sphygmomanometer for measuring the blood pressure.
Description of Hypertension
The two stages of high and low blood pressure have special names:
Systolic Blood Pressure
The highest pressure reached by the blood in the arteries is called the systolic blood pressure. It is the force of blood in the arteries as the heart beats. It is shown as the top number in a blood pressure reading.
Diastolic Blood Pressure
The lowest pressure reached by the blood in the arteries is known as the diastolic pressure. It is the force of blood in the arteries as the heart relaxes between the beats. It is shown as the bottom number in a blood pressure reading.
Symptoms
Most people with primary hypertension do not have any obvious symptoms at all. The symptoms of hypertension vary from person to person. These symptoms could also be symptoms of other health problems; however the more common symptoms of hypertension are:
- Chronic headaches
- Dizziness or Vertigo
- Blurred or double vision
- Drowsiness
- Nausea
- Shortness of breath
- Heart palpitations
- Fatigue – general tiredness
- A flushed face
- Nosebleeds
- A strong need to urinate often (especially during the night)
- Tinnitus (a ringing or buzzing in the ears)
Prevention
- Reduction in salt intake
- Reduction in fat intake
- Losing weight
- Regular exercise
- Quit smoking
- Reduction in alcohol consumption
- Learning how to manage stress
Treatment
Homoeopathy does miracles if prescribed on the basis of the simillimum.
Aconitum Napellus
- Great distress in the heart and the chest
- Dreadful oppression of the precordial region
- Inward pressing in the region of heart
- Palpitation with great anxiety and difficulty in breathing
- Anguish with dyspnoea
- Sensation of something rushing into the head with confusion and flying heat in the face
- Sudden attacks of pain in the heart with dyspnoea
- Aconite is anxious and restless with fears. Fear of death.
- Sudden acute conditions from chill, shock and fright
- All ailments and fears are worse at night
- Sits up straight and can hardly breathe. Aconite has violent cardiac irritation, pulse fluttering, weak, full and bounding; sits up in the bed, grasps the throat, wants everything thrown off; before midnight a hot skin, great thirst and great fear – everything is associated together.
- Sudden attacks of pain in the heart with dyspnoea. Breaks into a profuse sweat. Awful anxiety’ – Kent.
Apis Mellifica
- The lancinating, darting pains, palpitation and orthopnoea have rendered Apis invaluable in cardiac inflammations and dropsy.
- Sudden oedema, dyspnoea, and sudden lancinating or STINGING pains, restlessness and anxiety.
- Think of Apis for burning and stinging pains – anywhere
- Apis is generally thirstless
- Worse after sleep, from warm room and heat; better cold air, cold room, cold applications
- Skin alternately dry and hot, or perspiring
- Pain in the region of heart, as if it were squeezed together or had a shock or blow
- Heart first rapid, then extremely slow
- Stitches in the cardiac region; stitches left to right
- Pulse feeble, hurried and irregular
- Horror of instant death with cardiac distress in the night
- One of our greatest remedies for tired heart; dilated after strain or exertion
- Tired out from physical or mental strain
- Feels bruised, beaten, sore; bruises easily
- Restless because bed feels too hard
- Does not want to be touched; fears approaches
Arsenicum Album
- Useful in advanced and desperate heart cases
- Palpitation with anguish; cannot lie on the back; worse going up stairs; walking. Heartbeats irritable.
- Palpitation and tremulous weakness after stool
- Angina pectoris; sudden tightness above the heart; agonizing precordial pain; pains extend to neck and occiput; breathing difficult; fainting spells. Least motion makes him lose his breath; sits bent forward, or with head thrown backward.
- Worse at night, especially 1 – 5 a.m.
- Rheumatism affecting heart with great prostration; cold, sticky sweat; great anxiety and oppression; burning about heart
- Pulse small, rapid, feeble and intermittent
- Valvular disease with dyspnoea and anasarca
- Hydropericardium with great irritability, anguish and restlessness
- N.B. – The cardinal symptoms of Ars. are extreme restlessness, driving out of bed, or from bed to bed.
- Thirst for small quantities and often
- Aggravation from cold and relief from heat. But one has seen Ars. rapidly curative in a desperate case of hydropericardium, where these were absent.
Aurum Metallicum
- Frequent attacks of anguish about the heart and tremulous fearfulness
- Violent palpitations of the heart
- Rheumatism that has gone to the heart (Kalm.)
- Acute rheumatism with desperate heart conditions; extreme dyspnoea; impossible to lie down.
- A queer symptom – heart seems to shake, as if loose, when walking
- Profound despondency and melancholy
- Disgust for life. Tendency to suicide.
- Loss of enjoyment in everything
- Pains wander from joint to joint and finally settle in the heart
Aurum Muriaticum
- Valuable in heart troubles
- Hering’s Guiding Symptoms says, ‘Angina pectoris (next to Arnica indispensable)
- Heaviness, aching and sensation of rigidity in heart
- Cardiac anguish
- Sticking in the heart
Cactus Grandiflorus
- Palpitations; heart squeezed
- Sensation of constriction in the heart, as if an iron band prevented its normal movement
- Several violent and irregular beats of the heart with a sensation of pressure and heaviness
- Small and irregular heartbeats with the necessity for deep inspiration
- Congestion in the chest
- Painful constriction of the lower part of the chest. Sensation as if a cord was bound tightly around the false ribs obstructing breathing.
- Great constriction of the sternum. Sensation as if compressed by iron pincers.
- Tightness and constriction about head, chest, diaphragm, heart, uterus, etc.
- Chest as if filled with hot gushes of blood
- Profound curative action upon the heart. Fear and distress. Violent suffering.
- Screaming with the pain
- Strong pulsations felt in strange places: stomach, bowels and even extremities.
- 11 o’clock remedy; Fever paroxysms at 11 a.m. and 11 p.m.
Crategeus Oxycantha
- Weak heart muscles
- Pulse irregular, feeble and intermittent
- Must be used for some time to obtain good results – Boericke
Digitalis Purpurea
- Sensation as though heart stood still, with great anxiety; must hold the breath, dare not to move
- Pulse slow, thready and intermittent
- Sensation as if heart would stop beating if she moved
- Respiration difficult; sighing; stops when she drops off to sleep
- Digitalis affects the heart and the liver; jaundice – white stools with very slow pulse
- Diarrhoea and nausea with heart disease
Kali Carbonicum
- Stitching pains in the chest and heart; extort cries.
- Stitches about the heart and through the scapula
- Heart’s action intermittent, irregular, tumultuous and weak. Mitral insufficiency.
- Leans forward resting on the arms to take the weight off the chest
- Stitching pains (like Bryonia), but is not aggravated from motion and respiration (like Bry.)
- Worse from 2 – 4 a.m.
- Profuse sweat. Puffiness about the eyes.
Kalmia Latifolia
- Violent palpitations of heart with faint feelings and oppressed breathing
- Wandering rheumatic pains in the region of heart, extending down to the left arm
- Heart disease, after frequent attacks of rheumatism, or alternating with it
- Hypertrophy and valvular insufficiency, or thickening after rheumatism; paroxysms of anguish about the heart, with dyspnoea and febrile excitement.
- Remarkable slowness of pulse (Dig.). Pulse very feeble, heart’s action very tumultuous, rapid and visible (Spig.).
- ‘When rheumatism has been treated externally and cardiac symptoms ensue’ – Kent
Lachesis Mutus
- Cramp-like pain in the precordial region causing palpitation with anxiety
- Heart feels too large for containing cavity
- Bluish lips. Cyanosis (Spong.)
- Intolerance of touch or pressure on the throat, larynx, stomach and abdomen
- Sensation as if something swollen in the pit of the throat would suffocate him
- Worse after sleep (Spong.)
- “Lachesis is one of our most useful remedies in heart troubles, acute or chronic; the peculiar suffocation, cough and aggravation from constriction being the guiding symptoms” – Nash.
Latrodectus Mactans
- Violent precordial pains extending to axilla and down to left arm, forearm and fingers with numbness and apnoea. Angina.
- Violent precordial pains and pain in left arm which was almost paralyzed
- Pulse uncountable: quick and thread
Lilium Tigrinum
- Dull, oppressive, sharp and quick pain in the heart with fluttering
- Aroused from sleep by pain as if heart was violently grasped, the grasp gradually relaxed, interrupting heartbeat and breathing
- Sensation as if heart was grasped or squeezed in a vice (Cactus); as if all the blood had gone to the heart; must bend double (reverse of Spig.)
- Heart alternately grasped and released
- Heart feels over-loaded with blood
- Palpitation with throbbing of carotids
- Depression of the spirits. Weeps.
- Hurried feeling as of imperative duties and inability to perform them
- Pressure on the rectum and bladder. Terrible urging to stool and urinate all the time.
- Bearing down with heavy weight as if every content of the pelvis would issue through the vagina
Lycopus Virginicus
- Protrusion of eyes, with tumultuous action of heart. (Spig.)
- Eyes feel full and heavy; pressing outwards
- Cardiac irritability. Pulse frequent, small and compressible or quick, hard, wiry and not compressible.
- Trembling hands
Naja Tripudians
- A great heart remedy but proved in low potencies, so we lack the finer indications
- Heart weak. Post-diphtheritic heart.
- For the heart damaged by acute rheumatism
Phosphorus
- Violent palpitation on slightest motion
- Precordial anguish from emotion
- Heaviness of the chest, as if a weight lying on it
- Constriction; pressing sensation about the heart
- Burning pain between the scapulae (Lyc.)
- Tall. Fear being alone, of dark and thunder. Thirst for cold drinks.
Pulsatilla Pratensis
- Rheumatic irritation of heart, where pains shift rapidly about the body
- Heart symptoms reflex from indigestion
- Heaviness, pressure and fullness about the heart
- Violent palpitation with anguish; sight obscured
- Patient nervous, weepy and intolerant of heat. Craves air and fuss.
Sepia Officinalis
- Violent palpitations of the heart and beating of all the arteries in bed
- Stitches in the heart
- Violent palpitations of the heart as if it would force its way through the chest wall, relieved by walking a long distance and by walking very fast.
- Indifferent; hates fuss
- Tendency for ptosis and dragging down, especially in the pelvic organs (Lil. tigr.)
- Profuse perspiration, especially axillae
- General relief from motion, food and sleep
Spigelia Anthelmia
- Violent beating of the heart. He could hear the pulsations or the beasts could be seen through the clothes.
- Palpitation aggravated by sitting down and bending forward (rev. of Kali carb.)
- Heart seemed to be in tremulous motion
- Worse for deep inspiration or holding the breath
- “Heart sounds may be audible several inches away” – Nash
- Must lie on the right side, or with head high
- Pains are stitching, sharp and neuralgic in chest, head, heart, eyes, etc.
- Worse for slightest motion
Spongia Tosta
- Constricting pains (cardiac) with anxiety
- Attacks of oppression and cardiac pain < lying with head low
- Anxious sweat
- Palpitations violent, with pain and gasping respiration; suddenly awakened after midnight with suffocation, great alarm and anxiety.
- Awakes often in a fright and felt suffocating (Lach.). Lips blue (Lach.).
- Angina pectoris; contracting pain in the chest with heat, suffocation, faintness and anxious sweat
Sulphur
- Anxious and violent palpitations
- Rush of blood to the heart. Too much blood in the heart (Cact.).
- Heart feels enlarged
- Great orgasm of blood with burning hands
- Stitches in the heart and chest; worse deep breathing
- Hungry, untidy and argumentative
- Worse heat; intolerant of clothing. Fond of fats.
Diptherinum
- With history of Diphtheria
- Feeble, irregular or intermittent pulse, quick or slow with vomiting and cyanosis.
Syphilinum
- Pain and pressure behind the sternum
- Lancinating pains in the region of the heart at night, base to apex (Medorrhinum. is worse during the day)
Medorrhinum
- Heart feels very hot, beats fast with a bursting sensation or feeling of a cavity where heart ought to be.
- Sharp pain at the apex, worse motion
- Great pain in the region of the heart extending to left arm and throat
- Intense pain in the region of the heart which radiates to all parts of left chest: worse least movement
- Worse during the day – sunrise to sunset
- Everything seems unreal like a dream
- Time moves too slowly; things done an hour ago seem as if done a week ago (Cann. ind.).
- Anguish; introspection; always anticipating evil happenings
- Thinks as if someone is behind her
- Cannot concentrate; forgets what she is reading; cannot spell simple words
- Heart cases where there is a family history or past history of tubercular manifestations
- Palpitation with heaviness. Pressure over the heart.
- Irritable on waking; nothing pleases; nothing satisfies.
- Wants to travel; cosmopolitan condition of mind. Suffocates in a warm room (Puls.)
References
- Radar 10
- Encyclopedia Homoeopathica
- Handbook of Hypertension by W.H. Birkenhager
- Hypertension: A Companion to Braunwald 2007, by William White
- Clinical Symposia: Hypertension 1991, by Frank Netter