Sulphur — GIT and Skin Complaints

Gastrointestinal (GIT) Complaints

Mouth & Upper GIT

• Taste is offensive, sweetish, or sour in the mouth; offensive breath (fetor oris)
• Tongue coated with frothy mucus; aphthae in children
• Eructations are offensive-smelling, sour, or rancid, often at night during sleep; loud belching on pressure over the abdomen; heartburn
• Appetite is voracious yet the patient knows not for what — "drinks much, eats little"; marked sinking/faint feeling at 11 a.m. (characteristic keynote), compelling the patient to eat
• Nausea and qualmishness after eating; tenderness of the epigastrium after meals; retching; vomiting — first water, then solid food, may be sour or bitter

Stomach

• Burning in the stomach — a hallmark of Sulphur
• Contractive spasms after eating; burrowing and pressure in the epigastric pit
• Stitches in the hepatic region, both hypochondria, and spleen

Abdomen

• Loud rumbling and grumbling in the abdomen
• Obstructed flatus with pressure in the left side
• Stitches in the (left) side when walking
• Bellyache after drinking; sensation of a hard lump inside
• Hemorrhoidal colic; ascites

Rectum, Anus & Stool

• Diarrhoea — characteristically early morning diarrhoea (drives the patient out of bed); may be painless or preceded by colic; involuntary stool
• Constipation — hard, knotty, chronic; frequent ineffectual urging
• Dysenteric stool with violent tenesmus; blood-streaked stools
• Hemorrhoids — swollen, moist, blind, or flowing dark blood; violent bearing-down pains from the small of back toward the anus
• Prolapse of the rectum
• Itching, sticking, and burning in the anus — worse after stool and at night; child is constantly boring at the anus
• Burning and pressure in the rectum

Skin Complaints

General Character

• Skin is dirty, rough, unhealthy-looking, and harbours a tendency to eruptions
• Any suppressed skin eruptions drive symptoms inward → constitutional disturbance; Sulphur restores and brings them back out
• Discharges are acrid, excoriating, and foul-smelling wherever they contact skin
• Offensive odour of the body despite frequent washing; aversion to bathing

Eruptions

• Eczema — dry, scaly, or moist; intensely itching, especially at night and from warmth
• Psoriasis — thick, scaly patches; worse in spring
• Urticaria (nettle-rash) — with intense itching and burning
• Herpes — itching and burning herpes; scaly herpes; herpes across the nose transversely
• Boils (furuncles) — especially on the buttocks
• Erysipelatous inflammations — pale, hot, red swelling
• Milk crust (crusta lactea) in infants; facial eruptions
• Acne and pimples; black pores (comedones); painful eruptions about the chin
• Bluish spots resembling ecchymoses; liver spots (chloasma)

Quality of Itching & Burning

• Intense itching — burning after scratching; worse from warmth, heat, washing, bathing, woollen clothing, and at night in bed
• Burning in the skin is a keynote — burning hands, burning soles of the feet (wants to put feet out of bed at night to cool them)
• Rhagades (deep cracks) on the hands, between fingers, on finger-joints, and in the palms

Ulcers & Wounds

• Spongy, proud flesh in ulcers; skin cracks easily; chafing in children
• Dropsy with pitting of skin

Modalities of Skin

1. Burning everywhere — stomach, skin, soles, anus
2. Early morning diarrhoea driving out of bed
3. 11 a.m. sinking/hungry feeling
4. Suppressed eruptions → internal complaints (psoric miasm)
5. Skin dirty, itching worse from heat and washing; offensive discharges