Arnica Injuries Extended

• Posted on 18 February 2015
• By Dr. Jill Tack
• Posted in arnica, injuries, injury, Richard Pitcairn
• 0

We’re welcoming Dr. Richard Pitcairn back to our blog for part two of his series on Arnica and its applications for pets. If you’re interested in using this herb with your animal, we recommend Nature’s Sunshine Distress Remedy.

We’re welcoming Dr. Richard Pitcairn back to our blog for part two of his series on Arnica and its applications for pets. If you’re interested in using this herb with your animal, we recommend Nature’s Sunshine Distress Remedy.

Before we go on to discuss uses of Arnica outside of injuries, let's further explore how Arnica can be used in different types of injuries. If you remember from the last discussion, a homeopathic prescription consists of using a medicine (remedy) that matches the condition the person is in. To decide what to use for an injury, we first find out what is the result of the injury. Then knowing this, we can select the medicine with accuracy. For using Arnica, what we are matching is a feeling of soreness of the muscles and tissues because of being hit or falling down. If we use this understanding as a guide, then we can realize that there can be this soreness, at least as part of the problem, from being bitten, or from breaking a bone or some other cause.

For example, if a bone is broken it usually is because of a hit or fall, and so the tissues over the bone are sore, along with the bone itself being broken. Having stated this, you can see how Arnica can be useful in treating a fracture, but at the same time you realize there is more to the injury than the soreness of the soft tissues. In practice then, it can be appropriate to start with a dose of Arnica, but then following in a few hours with another remedy that addresses the bone injury. To make this more clear, if there is very little soreness of the tissues outside the bone itself (perhaps a break occurs from stepping wrong) then Arnica will have very little or no effect when it is used. It does not correspond to the pain coming from the periosteum (the covering of the bone from which pain is generated).

However, can you also see that there could be a type of bone injury (that being the diagnosis) where the major damage is to the soft tissues (around the bone)? There is a type of fracture called a compound fracture, which means the bones are so separated that they stick out at an angle. For example, if it is a leg bone, the sharp broken ends can be sticking into the muscle, or even coming out through the skin. In this case, Arnica is a medicine par excellence because it addresses all that damage to the non-bone tissues which is the cause of the pain and suffering.

Also, with an injury involving multiple body areas, the overwhelming experience can be the pain of the many macerated tissues even though there are also broken bones as part of what has happened.

Here is an example taken from the autobiography of Richard Moskowitz, M.D., who has had a career in homeopathic practice for several decades.

“My first patient was myself, waking from a concussion after a head-on collision with a drunk driver; bleeding from a scalp laceration, and in considerable pain from several rib fractures. Sitting erect in the ambulance, I felt dazed but otherwise tolerably OK until the EMT deposited me onto a gurney at the ER, flat on my back, helpless, and immobile, the slightest change in position sending stabs of pain through my chest that sapped my strength and will to recover. When my nurse arrived to take me home, I took from my bag a powder of Arnica 200, put a few granules on my tongue, and within a few seconds was able to lift my bloody shirt over my head and take it off without her help, an incredible feat under the circumstances. Feeling no more pain for several days, I recovered without further incident.”

— From Plain Doctoring, Selected Writings 1983–2013.

We see in this example, that the primary injury was the massive and multiple concussions to his head and chest, and that Arnica corresponded to this and therefore acted magnificently. This points to the observation that has been made in homeopathic practice that if we identify and remove (by using the appropriate remedy) the primary disturbance, then the body responds by rapidly healing all that is wrong. In other words, one does not always have to treat 'separate' parts like the head injury, the scalp laceration, and the broken ribs. When the appropriate remedy is given, the whole machine jumps into action and healing begins.

In my next piece, I'll further explore the non-injury applications for which Arnica can be the best medicine.

About the Author

Dr. Richard Pitcairn graduated from veterinary school in California in 1965. He first practiced with with a variety of animals: livestock, farm animals, circus animals, and pets; then after two years he took a faculty position at the Washington State University veterinary school. For a year he taught and operated the large animal clinic before he entered graduate school full time in the department of microbiology. After a seven-year period of study and research, with a major in immunology, he again joined the faculty to teach and do research. During this time an interest in nutrition developed and led him to re-enter practice to put nutritional therapy to a practical test. In 1978, Dr. Pitcairn began the study of homeopathy, and in 1985 established a clinic in Eugene, Oregon, which for over 20 years offered only nutritional therapy and homeopathic medicine. With time he began teaching others in this method, establishing a yearlong post-graduate training program for veterinarians, which is still ongoing and has graduated 500 veterinarians trained in homeopathic practice. In the 1990s he was one of the founders of the Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy, the first veterinary homeopathy professional organization in the United States. In 1982 Dr. Pitcairn, along with his wife Susan, published a book on natural animal care that is still in print, in its third edition, and has sold over 400,000 copies. Now retired from practice, Dr. Pitcairn focuses on writing, teaching, and research in the focus area of homeopathy.