EP10: Top Homeopathic Remedies for Bites and Stings

Welcome to the Homeopathy at Home Podcast. I'm Marcus Fernandez and I'm thrilled to have you join me on this journey into the world of homeopathy. This podcast is inspired by my book, Homeopathy at Home, which aims to empower you to take charge of your health using simple, effective homeopathic remedies. Together we're going to explore how homeopathy can be the key to unlocking your body's innate healing wisdom. Whether you're dealing with everyday ailments such as coughs, colds, strains and sprains, sore throats, or just seeking to enhance your health and well being, this podcast is your guide. So let's dive in and discover the transformative power of homeopathy in your everyday life. Hi there, this is Marcus Fernandez, your host for the Home Prescriber. This podcast is for all things homeopathy for home prescribing, acute issues that you can deal with at home. With some simple homeopathic remedies, we'll be covering everything from anxiety to cystitis, to sprains, strains, bumps and bruises to hay fever. Well, I'm going to show you the top remedies that you can use for home prescribing, so check us out now and become a confident home prescriber. So today we're going to talk about bites and stings and we can look at the top homeopathic remedies for that. But before we get into the stings, I just want to look at what to do if you've been bitten or stung. So to treat an insect bite or sting, remove the sting or tick if it's still in the skin, wash the affected area with soap and water and apply a cold compress such as a flannel or or a cloth that's cooled with cold water or an ice pack to any swelling for at least 10 minutes and raise or elevate the affected area if possible, as this can help reduce the swelling and avoid scratching the area if you can. I know it can be difficult to reduce the risk risk of infection. So when do you get medical advice if you've been bitten or have a sting? Well, get advice if you're worried about your bite or sting. You know your symptoms don't start to improve within a few days or seem to be getting worse, or you've been stung in your mouth or the throat or near your eyes, or if a large area around 10 centimeters like a patch, it starts to spread out from the bite or the sting and becomes red and swollen. Or if you have an increased symptoms of a wound infection, such as pus, or increasing pain and sweating or redness. And if you have symptoms are more widespread infections such as a high temperature. So getting swollen glands or flu like symptoms, that's a great time to get advice from a healthcare practitioner. Now, when to seek emergency medical help. Because, you know, a bite and sting is. People can have an allergic reaction or go into what's called anaphylactic shock. And this is where you'll get wheezing or difficult breathing, a swollen face, mouth or throat, feeling sick or being sick, a very fast heart rate, dizziness or feeling faint and difficulty in swallowing or loss of consciousness. Difficult. This is an emergency situation and you must get emergency medical help immediately. Okay. Because this is a severe reaction, because they need to be in hospital, have that emergency care. So let's look at the homeopathic remedies because homeopathy can be so effective for everyday bites and stings that you're going to get. And the first remedy we have to look at, and again, this is in alphabetical order, not in order of importance. Is the remedy APIs. So APIs is great where there's rapid swellings after bites and stings, especially after bee or insect stings. Okay. So it swells really rapidly and often it's like an allergic reaction. There can be a sudden, sharp stinging and burning pain as well with this bite or sting. And very, very sensitive, highly sensitive to touch. And the area can feel very, very sore. Obviously you can feel sore, but even if it's an insect bite, you can feel very sore and very sensitive. The part affected is red hot and swollen. When we say swollen, it looks. The skin area looks very stretched and shiny. And it's the edema, okay? It's the edema underneath it. And they'll be very restless, needs to move around, need to have movement. Better for cold applications such as eyes. So they want cold applications. And you'll see this with other remedies that they don't want cold. They want cool applications such as ice, worse for warmth, heat or touch. And they don't want you to go anywhere near them. And often this is a main remedy for anaphylaxis. So as you're funding for the ambulance or rushing to the hospital, take APIs because it will help in those situations. Great, great remedy to take. And as we know, it's made from the B. Second remedy is belladonna. Now, this won't be the first remedy you'll take. This will be after probably your second or third remedy. And again, with belladonna, as we know the chemist and remember, talk about keynotes, it's like if you played three notes on the piano or three chords on the guitar, you'd recognize the song. Same with homeopathy. We're looking for what we call keynote symptoms, characteristic symptoms of the remedy. And we all know with belladonna it's hot, dry burning. So if they have a bite or a sting, it'll be hot, dry and burning like it's on fire. In fact, the area can radiate heat. You can feel the heat coming off the bite or the sting or that area that's been affected. Very sudden, very rapid swelling and bright redness. With belladonna you see this in fevers, you'll see this in all different situations. With belladonna, very similar to APIs, but less edema, with more serious fluid rather than edema. And the thing about belladonna is it's a rush of blood to the area. So there's a rush of blood to the area and it can throb. There's a throbbing sensation with belladonna. So belladonna is often good to use at the beginning of it if there's inflammation. So they may have got a little bit infected. Then you may see this indicated for those early stages of infection. Again, very sensitive to touch and have knifelike pains. Belladonna worse for any jarring, you know, somebody's jarred or ah, you know, because they're so sensitive, better for warmth, they feel better for warmth, wrapping up warm. But again, look for those keynotes of belladonna, the hot, dry burning, like on fire, this radiating heat. And again differentiate it with that and with APIs. Next remedy is cantharis. So Cantharis, here you can see the picture of the Cantharis here it's called the blister beetle or Spanish fly, but really it's a beetle. And with cantharis is extremely painful with strong burning sensation, again with stinging pain. So a lot of these have these similar sting pains. But what you'll find with camphoris often is like a blister. It like it blisters, hence it's called a blistering beetle. So it blisters and it all forms in like little blisters after a bee sting or insect bite and burning again as if on fire. So again, you can differentiate between that and belladonna very similarly. It's the blistering that's going to get you into this, but very, very intense, incredibly intense. And the person's very irritated, obsessed with the Itching. They're itching and they become obsessed with this bite or with this thing. Better for cold applications and rubbing. Okay? Worse for touch. Again, worse drinking cold water. They feel worse if they drink cold water. And this remedy, Cantharis, is particularly good for horse fly bites, which are really nasty bites. Being bitten by a horse fly, you certainly know about it. But again, the keynotes with Cantharis is, is this intensity, this intense, extremely painful and the strong burning sensations, great, great remedy. Now remember, we cover Cantharis when we did the cystitis session. So if you want to go back to your cystitis session, you'll see we talked about things like belladonna and cantharis, number one remedy for things like cystitis. So remember the intensity of these symptoms and people get obsessed with the itching. That's all they can think about. Next, great remedy. This is one of our number one remedies. Now for insect bites, Hypericum, better known as St. John's Wort. Remember we use all these remedies in the homeopathic potencies like a 6C, 30C. And this is from stings of insects, bites of insects or dog or animal bites where there's a puncture wound, okay? And this is for, especially in dog bites or animal bites where there's lacerated wounds, where there's tearing of the flesh, okay? So there's the tearing of the flesh that is hypericum. And often with hypericum they are extremely, extremely airy. Feels very tender, almost out of proportion of what the bite or sting looks like because it's very, very tender. And it's often with sharp pains, especially in nerve rich areas. And the pain from the bite will go up and radiate to the body from the site of the sting, wherever it is. I keep pointing to my hands, it can be anywhere, these bites, but they'll radiate to the body, very sharp pains like they're running along the nerve. Because hypericum is about nerves and nerve pain, okay? So very painful. Better for rubbing the affected area so they feel better if they rub the affected area. Worse for cold, worse for damp, worse for touch, worse for pressure, okay? Big, big remedy for bites. And where there is those puncture wounds. So hypericum, great, great remedy. Also puncture wounds, when people have, for example, a lumbar punch or an injection or they stand in a needle, anything where there's a puncture wound, hypericum is very good, especially where there's a rich area of nerves and they can feel that, you know, it's so, so tender. So the next remedy, very similar to ledum, so to hypericum, is lead them again. This is the number one remedy for puncture wounds from insects and animal bites and sting. And with ledum, the wounded part feels cold to touch, so you feel it and it feels cold to touch and it looks purple and it looks puffy the area. So the part may feel cold or they may feel cold in themselves, but they are better for cold applications, which makes it unusual. It's better for like ice or something that's very, very cold on the part, they feel better for that. And you can use this again as a prophylactic against insect bites. So say you go into a place where there may be mosquitoes or you know you're going to get bitten. You have a predisposition or susceptibility to getting bites very easily. If you go out at night and different things, then you can take a dose of ledum before you go out, whilst you're out and when you come back. So it will help with that as well. And with ledum, you saw here, there's a picture of a cat. The difference between, like a cat bite is where it's a very sharp puncture wound, very sharp. So anything like that, any animal or thing that bites you with a very sharp puncture wound, then you think more leading than hypericum. Remember I said a hypericum is more lacerated, okay? The air is more lacerated. So again, better for cold applications onto the wound, worse for warm applications. So again, you're going to be differentiating between these remedies I'm talking about. So you just have to sort of decide which one you're going to go for. But lets you down to two or three remedies out of 3,000 remedies to choose from. So the next remedy is urtica urens, better known as like the stinging nettle. The nettle. And again, this is for insect bites and stings where there's like an allergic reaction. And with urticurines it'll be itching and burning, like with a nettle rash, or we call it urticaria. So it can be the whole body, so they can be bitten or stung and then the whole body erupts in this, like nettle, urticaria, nettle rash, like sting. So you know when you stung yourself, I did it yesterday when I was gardening and it comes up and it burns and it's stinging. It's the same people get all over the body. And this is actually good for flea bites. Okay, this is good when people get flea, flea Bites from fleas and with, again, burning, stinging pains and very sensitive. And you can use this externally. You know, you can use it externally like in a cream. You can get Urticurians cream, like you can get creams called Hypercal, which is Hypericum calendula. So you can use these things externally as well. But if APIs does very close to APIs, if APIs doesn't work, then go to Urticurens. So you may try it first. But if it doesn't work, then go to Urticurans. A bit like I said about Hypericum and Ledum. Look at those two remedies, because they often will go together and you have to differentiate between them. So worse cold applications, worse at night, better for rubbing. Okay, better for rubbing. But again, the keynotes here is almost like this allergic reaction after the bite, where they get like a nettle rash. It comes out like a little nettle rash. And you can give it for nettle rash, you know, try it for nettle rash as well. But it looks like a nettle rash, this allergic reaction. Or people call it urticaria or they call it hives as well. So again, you've just got to decide what it is. So that's the homeopathic remedies, the top six remedies, as I talked about, APIs belladonna, cantharis, Ledum, hypericum, Urtica, Urans. There is other remedies, but those ones I feel you need to know because they are the most useful ones to use for bites and stings. Now, here's a little home thing you can do at home, because this is for home prescribers. You can use baking soda. Now, I've used this. I've used this with my kids when they've been stung. I mean, my daughter got stung by a bee. You can get it make a paste out of baking soda and water, and you basically get a bit of small amount of water and mix a little bit of the baking soda into like a paste and then apply it over the affected area. I leave it on for about 15 minutes. Or you can cover it with a bit of a bandage as well, again for 15 minutes, then before washing it off. And what it does, it neutralizes the sting or the bite. It's like an alkalizer. So it alkalizes and neutralizes the bee sting or the insect sting and reduces the itching and swelling. I can tell you from personal experience, it definitely works. So if you haven't got remedies to hand, you could always go into the kitchen cupboard and get the baking soda. And I love all these. I want to do a video actually of in the kitchen. Things you can go to in the kitchen that you can use for everyday ailments and issues that can come up like bites and stings or people get, you know, cuts and bruises and different things as well as the homeopathic remedies. It's good to know all these different types of remedies as well. So that's really in a nutshell, bites and stings. Well, there is a remedy that I didn't mention which you can take as a prophylactic. I talked about Ledum, but also staphysagria. So some people get really get bitten. Staphysagia, the remedy is good for people who are prone to get bitten, who never used to be bitten before because staphysaguia is a bigger remedy. Picture is a remedy for people. Well, it's a remedy that people who get called the victim, you know, people victim remedy. It's called where people are get attacked or different things. So you could use it for insects as well. So thank you so much. Really appreciate you coming on. Thank you so much for joining me today on the Homeopathy at Home podcast. I hope you found today's episode enlightening, empowering and made you feel that you can become a competent home prescriber. Before we wrap up, I just wanted to invite you to explore my latest book, Homeopathy at Home, published by Hay House and Penguin Random House, where you'll find even more insights into homeopathy's transformative power. So for more resources updates, please look in the show notes below. And until next time, keep embracing homeopathy. Use it in your daily life. That's how you learn homeopathy, by using it. Until next time, take care. Thank you, Sam.