• Backache, sweat and weakness in association
• Bag-like swelling between upper eyelids and eyebrows
• Cannot bear to be touched, starts when touched ever so lightly,
  especially on the feet

Source: Mineral kingdom
Synonyms: Carbonate of potassium, Potassium carbonate
Family: Mineral salt
Prover: Dr Hahnemann
Duration of Action: 40-60 days
Miasmatic Background: Psora
Diathesis: Tubercular
Thermal Relationship: Chilly patient

Introduction and History: The drug is prepared from potassium carbonate, a chemical compound which is soluble in water but insoluble in alcohol. It is a right sided medicine. According to Kent, ‘The Kalium carbonicum patient is a hard one to study, and the remedy itself is a hard one to study’. Farrington says, ‘It is a drug much neglected in practice, for the same reason that many other remedies are because the hurried and careless physician falls into routinism.’ According to Dr Hahnemann, ‘This drug is indicated for persons suffering with ulceration of lungs and they can scarcely get well without this antipsoric.’

Preparation and Parts Used: Triturations are prepared with sugar of milk from which the higher potencies are prepared.

Constitution and Physiognomy: The patient is dark skinned and haired, but of lax fibre with an inclination to obesity. Especially helpful in diseases of old people who are fleshy with a dropsical condition. Puffiness of upper eyelids.

Ailments From: Catching cold, overstrain, suppression of eruptions in childhood, closing of ulcers or fistulous openings, miscarriage, labour, sexual excess, loss of vital fluids, ice cream, iced water.

Seat of Action (Pharmacodynamics): This drug acts specifically on the respiratory system, mucous membranes, digestive tract and upon the ovaro-uterine system, heart, liver, kidneys, etc

Characteristic Mental Symptoms (Psychology)

1. Despondent.
2. Conservative, loyal, moral, proper people.
3. Very irritable. Quarrels with one’s bread and butter, with his family.
4. Rigid, unable to break even a trivial rule. Dogmatic, dislikes change.
5. Obstinate and hypersensitive to pain, noise, touch.
6. Never wants to be left alone. Desire for company, yet treats them outrageously.
7. Anxiety and fear when alone. Fear of death when alone.
8. Full of fear and imaginations.
9. Fear – of impending disease; of ghosts, being alone, of dark, of the future, of death.
10. Frightened from touch.
11. Easily startled; starts when touched, especially on the feet; on falling asleep.
12. Starting from unexpected noises.
13. Shrieking at trifles.
14. Starting from noise.
15. Antagonism with herself.
16. Anxiety when hungry. Anxiety felt in stomach.
17. Want of self-confidence.
18. Imagines himself sick.
19. Hurry in mental work; in occupation.
20. Weakness of memory; for expressing oneself.
21. Weeping with headache; when telling of her sickness.

Characteristic Physical Guiding Symptoms

1. LOSS OF VITAL FLUIDS, particularly in case of anaemia.
2. PAINS, stitching, darting. Worse on rest and on lying down.
3. Cannot bear to be touched, starts when touched ever so lightly, especially
   on the feet.
4. Very inclined to take cold.

Important Characteristic Features

Puffiness: Bag-like swelling between the upper eyelids and eyebrows. Weak eyes, after measles, abortion, coition and pollution.

Toothache: Toothache only while eating. Throbbing pain on touch by anything warm or cold.

Cough: Dry, paroxysmal, loose, viscid mucous or pus which must be swallowed. Spasmodic with gagging or vomiting of ingesta; hard, white or smoky masses fly from the throat when coughing.

Asthma: From 2-4 am. Relieved by sitting up, or bending forward, or by rocking.

Gastrointestinal tract: Sensation as of a fish bone in the pharynx. Difficulty in swallowing. Sticking pain in pharynx as if from a fish bone. Stomach distended, feels as if it would burst. Excessive flatulence. Everything she eats or drinks appears to turn into gas. Constipation, stool large, difficult, stitching with colicky pains an hour or two before.

Backache: Backache with sweating. Weakness after abortion, labour, metrorrhagia, when eating. While walking, patient feels as if she must give up and lie down.

Female genital tract: Very weak before menstruation. Backache before and during menstruation. Labour pains insufficient. Violent backache, wants the back to be pressed.

General Modalities

Aggravation: After coition, during rest, cold weather, morning, lying on left side or painful side, 2-4 am.

Amelioration: Warm weather, while rocking, during the day and when moving about.

Remedy Relationships

Follows well: Nux-v.

Antidotes: Camph, Coff.

Comparison

Fear of being alone: Arg-n, Ars, Con, Gels, Hyos, Lyc, Phos.

Worse after eating: Aloe, Ars, Bry, Calc, Caust, Coloc, Kali-bi, Lyc, Nat-m, Nux-v, Phos, Puls, Sep, Sil, Sulph

Lying on painful side: Acon, Ars, Bar-c, Hep, Iod, Kali-c, Nux-m, Phos, Sil.

Potency: 30 and higher potencies.

Dosage: High potencies are not to be given in case of advanced gout, rheumatism, phthisis or Bright’s disease.

Repetition: Single dose is to be given

Therapeutic Value: Anaemia, Asthma, Backache, Cold, Cough, During
labour; Ear and eye affections, Fatty degeneration of heart, Gastrointestinal troubles, Headache, Menstrual disorders, Uterine disorders.