Got impacted sinuses, or gunk constantly in your throat? Does your nose and throat burn? Symptoms like these lament about your stress. Translating from the phlegmish decodes the message.
According to the Alternative Medicine Review, approximately 14 percent of the population suffers from sinusitis.
Let’s examine this common problem from a mind/body perspective.
Consider your automobile’s carburetor, the engine component that mixes liquid fuel with air. When liquid gasoline is mixed with enough air to form a fine spray, the fuel becomes explosive and very easy to burn. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine theory your body’s Spleen is similar: It is responsible for metabolism, the conversion of foodstuffs into combustible metabolic energy. Just as a dirty carburetor makes for a sputtering car engine, a clogged Spleen causes metabolic inefficiency.
This is evident in low vitality and “dampness” features that include looseness of the stools, fatty tumors, mucosal and sputum irregularities. Being more than just an organ, the Chinese Medicine version of the Spleen is disharmonized by mental and emotional stress, particularly worry and anxiety.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) pulse and tongue diagnosis combined with the physician’s perception that his patient worries too much culminates in a Spleen disharmony-correcting action plan: Acupuncture points stimulation, possibly herbs and a directive to stop worrying so much.
Within homeopathy the prescribing is even subtler, taking into account whether the worrying has an angry, bitter, or disappointed quality. Remedy prescriptions showing awareness of “angry,” “bitter,” or “bitterly disappointed” phlegm result.
Some examples:
- Kali Bich: People needing this remedy have chronically impacted sinuses. They also tend to be highly family oriented and out of anxiety, prone to keeping their lives small, limited in the breadth of their concerns. They make for good civil servants in other words. Not that there is anything terribly wrong with such a world view but the “compacting” of perspective discomfits the Spleen and compacts phlegm within the sinuses.
- Kali Carb: Folks in need of this remedy are attached to existing structure. Overly judgmental and viewing ethical matters in black and white terms they are stressed by change, transitional situations, and inconsistency in other’s ethics. A Kali Carb person’s Spleen reflects this discomfiture, causing the mucous membranes to also become “black and white”: Insensitive to moderate levels of moisture they are always either too damp or dry. The throat constantly needs to be cleared since it is always full of gunk.
- Ammonia Carb: Someone needing this remedy is bitter with the world, often from having had a mean father. Trying to camouflage the bitterness, the vital force refuses to play along. The mindset is betrayed by the Spleen that diminishes fluid production (yin) resulting in angry phlegm. An aversion to water is also seen along with pathologies within mucous membranes of the respiratory organs, weakness of the heart, wheezing, and tendency to feel suffocated.
- Muriatic Acid: Someone needing this remedy is caught up in a deeply disappointed relation with his or her mother. The Spleen rebels by decomposing bodily fluids. What results is: Involuntary stools while passing urine, mucous membranes of the digestive tract particularly of the mouth and anus becoming dry, bleeding and ulcerated.
- Nitric Acid: A person in need of this remedy is negative, critical and grudge holding. His unhappy Spleen thus dries and stops up his nose. It also dehydrates the anus causing hemorrhoids. The stomach lining is inflamed causing susceptibility to heartburn and reflux.
As they never quite say in the TV commercials, if you suffer from sinusitis or respiratory congestion, talk to your homeopath. He understands Phlegmish!