Constipation: Indicated homeopathic Medicines and their comparative features

Presented By:

Dr Ravinder S Mann

Dr Vandana Patni

Constipation is not a disease but a clinical symptom, so whenever we need to prescribe a medicine for constipation always review and consider the underlying cause or disease which is causing constipation. Homeopathic medicines are prescribed on basis of complete symptom picture of a patient.

For effective treatment of your case consult  here with us.

Some Important medicines with their clinical features are:- 

Abies Nigra - Constipation in Low-spirited persons with dyspepsia. Pain in stomach always comes on after eating. Patient feels as though he had swallowed some indigestible substance which had stuck at the cardiac orifice of the stomach.

Aesculus Hippocastanum – Ineffectual effort with constant urging to stool. Large, Hard, Dry stool. This medicine acts especially on lower bowel. Dry, swollen mucous membrane of rectum causes burning and pain as if rectum is full of small sticks. These pains lasts for hours after stool. Low backache of lumbo-sacral region which worsen on walking and stooping. 

Aletris Farinosa - Anemic women who, feels tired all the time, in addition to uterine trouble and leucorrhea, have extreme constipation. Stool large, hard, difficult, great pain with great effort being required to effect an evacuation from the bowels.

Alumen – Medicine for one of the most severe kind of constipations. No desire for stool for days. Ineffectual evacuations . Stool hard, knotty and marble like. Long lasting pain and smarting in rectum after stool with itching in anus. Hemorrhage from anus. 

Alumina – Inactivity of rectum. No desire and ability to pass stool unless there is large accumulation of stool in rectum. Rectum sore, dry, inflamed, bleeding. Itching and burning in anus. Characteristic symptom of Alumina is that even soft stool passes with great difficulty. Very much straining.

This medicine indicates in constipation of infants and old peoples. 

Ammonium Muriaticum - Ammonium muriaticum acts on mucous membranes. All mucous secretions are increased and retained. Constipation is with hard and crumbly stools which are covered with glairy mucus. Burning and smarting in rectum during and after stool. 

Anacardium – Sensation of a plug anywhere in the body. Patient feels as if his anus is plugged. Great urgent desire for stool, but on sitting for stool; desire passes away without any evacuation. Itching in anus and moisture from rectum. Hemorrhage during stool.

According to Dr E. A. Farrington in his clinical materia medica “ The rectum seems powerless; he complains of a sensation as of a plug or of some foreign substance in the rectum; this symptom is not the mechanical result of the retained feces. Here again you notice the sensation as of a plug or some foreign substance interfering with the normal function of the organ. Now these symptoms that I have mentioned are more common than we think. When they do occur ,we are more apt to think of Nux Vomica, Ignatia, Sulphur and forget Anacardium.”

Antimonium Crudum - Diarrhea and constipation alternates, especially in old peoples. Summer constipation with thickly coated white tongue, irritability and fretfulness. Hard lumps of stool mixed with watery discharge. Piles continually oozing mucous.

According to Dr E A Farrington; in his Clinical Materia Medica; “If there is constipation, as is often the case when vomiting predominates, the stools will consist of white, hard and dry lumps that look like undigested curd. In older persons, particularly in the aged, for Antimonium crudum suits both extremes of life, we have an alteration of constipation and diarrhea: the stool, in constipation consisting of hard, dry lumps; that in diarrhea, of water mixed with fecal lumps.” 

Bryonia Alba – Mucous membranes are all dry. Dry, parched lips and mouth; excessive thirst, bitter taste; feeling of a stone in the stomach; stools large, dry as if burnt and hard. Stools brown, thick, bloody; worse in the morning, from moving, in hot weather , from cold drinks.

Complaints in warm weather especially after cold days. Bryonia patient can not tolerate the heat of sun. 

Cascarilla – Cascarilla has abdominal symptoms relieved by warm drinks, we use this medicine when there are hard knotty stools covered with mucus like Graphites, and constipation is associated with colic and burning.

Causticum - Stool is hard, tough, covered with mucus; shines like grease; small shaped; expelled with much straining or only on standing up. Rectum sore and burns.

Chelidonium Majus - Constipation with stools hard, round balls like sheep’s dung, bright yellow, pasty; clay colored, stool floats in water. Diarrhea alternates with constipation. Burning and itching in anus. 

Collinsonia Canadensis – Pelvic and portal congestion causes hemorrhoids and constipation, especially in females.

Hemorrhoids and constipation are with sensation of sharp sticks in rectum. Bowel symptoms are worse in evening and at night. Most obstinate constipation with aching in anus and hypogastrium. Constipation of pregnancy.

Collinsonia has a symptom found under Opium, namely, dry balls of fecal matter are passed from the rectum; but they differ from those of Opium is that they are of a light colour.

Graphites – Bowels are usually constipated. Stools are large, difficult, knotty covered with mucus or united by shreds of mucus. Smarting, sore anus with itching. Hemorrhoids which burn and sting, the anus is so extremely sore that patient is very much annoyed when sitting. Flatus is rancid or putrid.

Hydrastis – Constipation with sinking feeling in stomach and dull headache. Smarting pain during stool in rectum and long lasting pains after stool. The bowels are apt to be constipated, the stools being coated or intermixed with mucus.

Lac Defloratum – Constipation with ineffectual urging like Anacardium and Nux Vomica, feces dry and hard like Bryonia and Sulphur; Stool large, hard, great straining, lacerating anus;Painful extorting cries.

Lachesis – Constipation; inactivity, stool lies in rectum without urging; sensation of constriction of sphincter. Offensive stool. Constant urging in rectum, not for stool.

Lycopodium Clavatum – Medicine for intellectual peoples. Excessive accumulation of flatulence immediately after eating; not like Nux Vomica in which distress in stomach occurs sometimes later after eating. Cannot bear the pressure of clothing about the waist.

The bowels are usually constipated, however, with ineffectual urging to stool. Stool hard, difficult, small, incomplete. After stool there is a feeling as of a great quantity remaining unpassed.

Constipation since puberty; since last confinement; when away from home; of infants.

Magnesia Mur - Feces are so dry that they crumble as they pass the anus, stool hard, knotty, difficult passage, like sheep's dung, covered with blood and mucus and intestines get obstructed by this kind of stool. Abdomen tense, sore, sensitive to touch but ameliorated from pressure.


Natrum Mur - Constipation obstinate, stool hard, difficult, crumbling, difficult expulsion of feces, fissuring the anus, with bleeding during stool, leaving behind soreness at anus, constipation from inactivity of rectum, worse when walking about, with troublesome perspiration at the slightest movement. Natrum mur suits to depressed peoples who are prone to take cold, skin troubles like eczema and have irritability and dryness of mucous membranes and emaciated.     


Nitric Acid - Desire for stool but passes very little; ineffectual urging to stool with sharp, splinter-like cutting pains in rectum during stool and this pain remains for hours, patient feels as if stool remains in rectum and could not pass. 


Opium - Chronic constipation, no urging for stool for days, stool as few hard, round, dark-balls; inactivity of rectum. Dryness of mucous membranes. 


Sepia - Sepia patient has all-gone sensation in rectum & stomach and sometimes a sensation of ball in rectum. Constipation of pregnancy. Sepia patient is hypochondriasis with aversion to family and to household duties.


Silicea - Large stool, hard lumps which remains long in rectum, with violent efforts the feces are nearly expelled but suddenly recede into the rectum, even as soft stool  expelled with much difficulty, extreme hunger, aversion to meat, in women constipation before and after menses.


Sulphur - Habitual constipation, sulphur patient are hypochondriac, having hemorrhoids, complaining of dull feeling in brain with heaviness on top of head, weak, hungry sensation in stomach about noon, burning of soles at night, heat and itching of anus, stool hard, insufficient, difficult, first effort is so painful that patient stops straining, stool hard, black as if burnt, sleep short and broken easily.


 Some more Homeopathic medicines for constipation.

Bibliography:-

1. Homeopathic Materia Medica and Repertory by W. Boericke

2. Allen’s Keynotes by H. C. Allen

3. Clinical Materia Medica by E.A.Farrington

4. Homoeopathic Drug Pictures by M.L.Tyler

5. Leaders in Homoeopathic Therapeutics by E. B. Nash

6. Analytical Repertory by C. Hering

7. Homoeopathic Therapeutics by Samuel Lilienthal