The Homeopathic Remedy Bryonia is a comprehensive remedy that may be best known for relieving intense, bursting headaches, migraines a...

The Homeopathic Remedy Bryonia is a comprehensive remedy that may be best known for relieving intense, bursting headaches, migraines and hangovers.

It was given the nicknames ‘grumpy bear’ and ‘hangover’ remedy because it applies best when stress or illness sets off a grumpy irritability that refuses comfort, and does not want to be spoken to, bothered or moved in any way.

Swollen, red, hot joints, stiff necks, and certain cases of whiplash, low back pain and sciatica need Bryonia’s soothing support as well.

Bryonia is a good remedy to choose in cases when affected person just wants to sit still, without moving. Pain and pressure in the stomach, also with vomiting and nausea, are symptoms to use this remedy.

Bryonia is commonly used for:

Headaches:

Bryonia has earned much fame by relieving intense, bursting, frontal headaches that may build to cover the whole head and do not want to be moved or jarred in any way.

Dry Painful Coughs:

Bryonia helps with slow moving flu and colds that are marked by dryness. The affected person has a dry, hacking cough with stitching pains, bone-aching, chill-ridden fever, with a great thirst for cold water, dry throat and a “don’t touch me, leave me alone” growl.

Joint Sprains and Strains:

Joint issues may be due to injury, strains or aging. Bryonia can be very helpful for stitching pain and stiffness in the small of the back and in the neck. Its ‘keynote’ symptom ‘pain worse from slightest movement’ applies best to its swollen, red, hot, stiff, aching joints with stitching pain.

Bryonia’s Personality Profile:

Bryonia is used most often as a homeopathic remedy for those who are highly irritable when they become ill. They tend to live a very clean life and are meticulous in their nature. They are commonly demanding when they are sick. If they become disturbed for any reason, they usually give into their anger and frustration. They are very often full of anxiety on a regular basis.

Bryonia’s Materia Medica:

Mind: Exceedingly irritable; everything puts him out of humor. Delirium; wants to go home; talks of business.

Head: Vertigo, nausea, faintness on rising, confusion. Bursting, splitting headache, as if everything would be pressed out; as if hit by a hammer from within; worse from motion, stooping, opening eyes. Headache becomes seated in occiput. Drawing in bones towards zygoma. Headache; worse on motion, even of eyeballs. Frontal headache, frontal sinuses involved.

Nose: Frequent bleeding of nose when menses should appear. Also in the morning, relieving the headache. Coryza with shooting and aching in the forehead. Swelling of tip of nose, feels as if it would ulcerate when touched.

Ears: Aural vertigo (Aur; Nat sal; Sil; Chin). Roaring, buzzing.

Eyes: Pressing, crushing, aching pain. Glaucoma. Sore to touch and when moving them.

Mouth: Lips parched, dry, cracked. Dryness of mouth, tongue, and throat, with excessive thirst. Tongue coated yellowish, dark brown; heavily white in gastric derangement. Bitter taste (Nux; Col). Burning in lower lip in old smokers. Lip swollen, dry, black, and cracked.

Throat: Dryness, sticking on swallowing, scraped and constricted (Bell). Tough mucus in larynx and trachea, loosened only after much hawking; worse coming into warm room.

Stomach: Nausea and faintness when rising up. Abnormal hunger, loss of taste. Thirst for large draughts. Vomiting of bile and water immediately after eating. Worse, warm drinks, which are vomited. Stomach sensitive to touch. Pressure in stomach after eating, as of a stone. Soreness in stomach when coughing. Dyspeptic ailments during summer heat. Sensitiveness of epigastrium to touch.

Abdomen: Liver region swollen, sore, tensive. Burning pain, stitches; worse, pressure, coughing, breathing. Tenderness of abdominal walls.

Stool: Constipation; stools hard, dry, as if burnt; seem too large. Stools brown, thick, bloody; worse in morning, from moving, in hot weather, after being heated, from cold drinks, every spell of hot weather.

Urine: Red, brown, like beer; scanty, hot.

Female: Menses too early, too profuse; worse from motion, with tearing pains in legs; suppressed, with vicarious discharge or splitting headache. Stitching pains in ovaries on taking a deep inspiration; very sensitive to touch. Pain in right ovary as if torn, extending to thigh (Lilium; Croc). Milk fever. Pain in breasts at menstrual period. Breasts hot and painful hard. Abscess of mammæ. Frequent bleeding of nose at appearance of menses. Menstrual irregularities, with gastric symptoms. Ovaritis. Intermenstrual pain, with great abdominal and pelvic soreness (Ham).

Respiratory: Soreness in larynx and trachea. Hoarseness; worse in open air. Dry, hacking cough from irritation in upper trachea. Cough, dry, at night; must sit up; worse after eating or drinking, with vomiting, with stitches in chest, and expectoration of rust-colored sputa. Frequent desire to take a long breath; must expand lungs. Difficult, quick respiration; worse every movement; caused by stitches in chest. Cough, with feeling as if chest would fly to pieces; presses his head on sternum; must support chest. Croupous and pleuro-pneumonia. Expectoration brick shade, tough, and falls like lumps of jelly. Tough mucus in trachea, loosened only with much hawking. Coming into warm room excites cough (Nat carb). Heaviness beneath the sternum extending towards the right shoulder. Cough worse by going into warm room. Stitches in cardiac region. Angina pectoris (use tincture).

Back: Painful stiffness in nape of neck. Stitches and stiffness in small of back. From hard water and sudden changes of weather.

Extremities: Knees stiff and painful. Hot swelling of feet. Joints red, swollen, hot, with stitches and tearing; worse on least movement. Every spot is painful on pressure. Constant motion of left arm and leg (Helleb).

Skin: Yellow; pale, swollen, dropsical; hot and painful. Seborrhœa. Hair very greasy.

Sleep: Drowsy; starting when falling asleep. Delirium; busy with business matters and what he had read.

Fever: Pulse full, hard, tense, and quick. Chill with external coldness, dry cough, stitches. Internal heat. Sour sweat after slight exertion. Easy, profuse perspiration. Rheumatic and typhoid marked by gastro-hepatic complications.

Modalities: Worse, warmth, any motion, morning, eating, hot weather, exertion, touch. Cannot sit up; gets faint and sick. Better, lying on painful side, pressure, rest, cold things.

Bryonia alba

Is best adapted to persons of gouty or rheumatic diathesis; prone to so- called bilious attacks. Bryonia patients are irritable, inclined to be vehement and angry; dark or black hair, dark complexion, firm muscular fibre; dry, nervous, slender people (Nux). Pains: stitching, tearing, worse at night; < by motion, inspiration, coughing; > by absolute rest, and lying on painful side (Ptel., Puls. - stitching pain, but < and > are opposite, Kali c.). Excessive dryness of mucous membranes of entire body; lips and tongue dry, parched, cracked; stool, dry as if burnt; cough, dry, hard, racking, with scanty expectoration; urine, dark and scanty; great thirst. Vicarious menstruation; nosebleed when menses should appear (Phos.); blood spitting, or heamoptysis. Ailments from chagrin, mortification, anger (Col., Staph.); violence, with chilliness and coldness; after anger chilly, but with head hot and face red (Aur.). Complaints: when warm weather sets in, after cold days; from cold drinks or ice in hot weather; after taking cold or getting hot in summer; from chilling when overheated; kicks the covers off; from exposure to draft, cold wind (Acon., Hep.); suppressed discharges, of menses, milk or eruption of acute exanthema. One of the chief characteristics of Bryonia is, aggravation from any motion, and corresponding relief from absolute rest, either mental or physical. Desires things immediately which are not to be had, or which when offered are refused. Children dislike to be carried, or to be raised. Delirium: talks constantly about his business; desire to get out of bed and go home (Act., Hyos.). Constant motion on left arm and leg (Apoc., Hell.); Patient cannot sit up from nausea and faintness. Great thirst for large quantities at long intervals. Headache: when stooping, as if brain would burst through forehead; from ironing (Sep.); on coughing; in morning after rising or when first opening eyes; commencing in the morning, gradually increasing until evening; from constipation (Aloe, Colin., Op.). Pressure as from stone at pit of the stomach, relieved by eructation (Nux, Pul.). Constipation: inactive, no inclination; stool large, hard, dark, dry, as if burnt; on going to sea (Plat.). Diarrhoea: during a spell of hot weather; bilious, acrid with soreness of anus; like dirty water; of undigested food; from cold drinks when overheated, from fruit or sour krout; < in morning, on moving, even a hand or foot. Mammae heavy, of a stony hardness; pale but hard; hot and painful; must support the breasts (Phyt.). Cough: dry, spasmodic, with gagging and vomiting (Kali c.); with stitches in side of chest; with headache, as if head would fly to pieces; < after eating, drinking, entering a warm room, deep inspiration.