Gelsemium or Yellow Jasmine.

Remedy picture as described in traditional homoeopathic texts.

Gelsemium is mainly used in home prescribing for cold and flu symptoms that leave a person with generalised aching, weakness and so tired that they can hardly be bothered taking a remedy. There is a slow onset of symptoms which often come on after a period of anticipation, fear or anxiety.

There is a kind a paralysis of the mind and body; the mind is sluggish, the muscular system is relaxed and the limbs feel so heavy the individual can hardly move them. Dizziness, dullness and trembling are characteristic symptoms of this remedy. The eyelids may droop, the muscles feel heavy, aching and weak.

Mental / Emotional Symptoms:

Dazed and dull, apathetic, weary and slow with apathy about their illness. Dizziness, drowsiness, trembling and a general feeling of discomfort. Vertigo and dread of falling. Wants to lie down quietly, wants to be held. Suits children and people of nervous temperament, who tend normally to be irritable, sensitive, excitable, hysterical, or timid. Fear of doctors and dentists. Anxiety and stage fright resulting in emotional withdrawal and trembling.

Physical Symptoms:

Eyes: Heavy, drooping eyelids, blurred / double vision. Pupils dilated, or one dilated the other constricted. Visual disturbance before migraine. Pain with contraction and twitching.

Face: Hot, heavy, flushed, looking drowsy. Trembling or twitching of single muscles eg. Face, chin or tongue.

Head: Headache begins in the occiput and spreads over the head, settling in the eyes. Occipital headaches with a feeling of a tight band around the head. Headache preceded by visual disturbance and relieved by profuse urination. Dull, heavy, aching, accompanied by muscular soreness of neck and shoulders. Pain in temple, extending to the ear.

Throat: Sore throat, puffy and red. Painful swallowing with a sensation of a lump. Pain shoots from tonsil to the ear.

Back: Dull, heavy pain with chills up and down the back better for walking. Weary, deep, bruised feeling; relaxation of the whole muscular system; pain especially in the neck and shoulders.

Kidney: Profuse, clear watery urine with chilliness and trembling.

Female: Dysmenorrhoea with scanty flow, pain extending to back and hips. Uterus sore, feeling as if squeezed.

Rectum: Painless diarrhoea in nervous people after grief, fright, bad news or in anticipation of an event.

Temperature: Raised temperature, with muscle soreness and chills up and down the back. No thirst, cold hands and feet.

Muscles: Weak, trembling, heavy, sore. Motor weakness or loss of function especially about the eyes, throat, limbs, anus and bladder sphincters. Every effort causes fatigue.

Sensations: Light headed, as if the head were enlarged, as if there was a band around the head, as if there was a lump in the throat that cannot be swallowed, as if there was a load in the stomach, or the stomach was gone, as if the heart would stop pumping if body movement stopped.

Keywords:

Heaviness

Weakness

Tremors

Aching

Dizziness

Dullness

Exciting causes:

Colds and flu

Fear and fright

Anticipatory anxiety

Anger

Bad news

Trauma

Alcohol or drugs

Modalities:

Better: For profuse urination; sweating; open air; movement.

Worse: For bad news; emotional upsets; 10am; tobacco; humid; damp weather; heat or warmth.

Desires: Alcohol

Aversions: Tobacco

Compare: Aconite, Argent nit, Lycopodium.