EP26: Homeopathy for Mouth Ulcers and Cold Sores
24 Nov 2023 · 22 min
Podcast episode (Marcus Fernandez) teaching practical home-prescribing for mouth ulcers and cold sores. For mouth ulcers the episode highlights three primary remedies — Arsenicum album (burning, better for hot drinks, anxiety/fear, right-sided tendency), Mercurius/‘Merc sol’ (stinging pain, metallic taste, profuse saliva, foul breath) and Nitric acid (splinter-like pains, acidic saliva, irritability) — plus a Hypericum/Calendula mouthwash as a topical aid. For cold sores the episode highlights Natrum muriaticum (dry, cracked lips, clear ooze, triggered by grief), Rhus toxicodendron (yellow blistering, worse in cold/damp, restless) and Sepia (hormonal-related, exhausted, left-sided). Practical dosing advice: use 6C or 30C potencies, give three to four doses and reassess; if symptoms persist seek a qualified practitioner. Episode date cited in metadata: November 24, 2023.
Questions this episode answers
November 24, 2023
Arsenicum album; Mercurius (Merc sol); Nitric acid
Natrum muriaticum; Rhus toxicodendron; Sepia
Use 6C or 30C potencies and give three to four doses, then reassess
Chapters
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, welcome to our session on mouth ulcers and cold sores. The top homeopathic remedies that you can use for home prescribing. Yes, there's these remedies that you can use. You can buy them over the counter, you can buy them from a homeopathic pharmacy, but these are the remedies you can use for mouth ulcers and cold sores. And I'm sure some of us have had this before, especially mouth ulcers. Occasionally people get cold sores, but really uncomfortable, not nice to have. And instead of maybe using medications allopathically, you can use homeopathy to help. Well, listen, hopefully you're going to find this really useful. And I mean, honestly, I had this all the time with people. Mouth ulcers, these little things that we think are little actually are huge for people, especially, you know, when you're struggling and suffering and often it can be an indication that you run down. But the remedies are so good. They're so good. And this is how we encourage people to use homeopathy, because if they try and it works, then it is fantastic. You know, people then go, oh, what can homeopathy do for this or for that? Okay, let's start mouth ulcers and cold sores. So let's get into this. So what are mouth ulcers? Well, mouth ulcers are common, as we said. Often people have had mouth ulcers and normally they clear up within their own within a week or two. Okay, Very painful if you have them. I used to suffer from mouth ulcers and if you've had a mouth ulcer that's last more than three weeks, go and see a healthcare professional, GP or dentist just to check out. And mouth ulcers are rarely a sign of something Serious, but you may be uncomfortable with, live with. And when you have mouth ulcers and over you, you feel grumpy, feel irritable, the slightest little knock and it's, oh, painful. So it's not really a great state to be in. And they need time to heal and there's no quick fix from them. But you do find with homeopathy, it will help and it helps the healing process. And as you know, avoid anything that irritates your mouth ulcers, such as, like spicy food or sometimes hot drinks or cold drinks can aggravate. But we'll see some of the remedies actually are better or worse for that. Some of the causes of mouth ulcers biting the inside of your cheek. How many of us have ever done that? You're chewing your food and you bite the inside of your cheek really painful, then it can go into an ulcer badly fitting dentures or braces or rough fillings or sharp tooth if the toe broken off or, you know, been to the dentist, that can often cause a mouth ulcer, cuts or burns while eating or drinking hard food, hot drinks again, I'm sure we've all done that. Possible reasons for the mouth ulcer can also be a food intolerance or an allergy to something. And people can come out in mouth ulcers damaging your gums. You know, it can mean hitting the mouth or like I said, toothbrush. You're brushing your teeth too vigorously and it can cause a mouth ulcer or feeling stressed and tired and anxious. And again, we'll look at some of those remedies which will cover that, but also can be triggered by hormonal changes such as pregnancy, but also around your period, around menopause. It can happen, or after birth, your genes, things that we've inherited. I come from a family where they have mouth ulcers and so you can get them more often or some kind of vitamin deficiency, so B12 or some kind of iron deficiency. So this is all from what the NHS and the NHS website talk about. So if you guys haven't already, please subscribe to the YouTube channel, click on the subscription. We've got just under a thousand people now subscribed, so be great to get up to the thousand. If you can do it this week, please share it. Share with your friends and your family. So the more that people know about homeopathy, the more they can use it in their lives. So let's look at some of the homeopathic remedies for mouth ulcers. First, remedy arsenicum Album. Now, if you've watched any of the other videos in the series of what we've been doing with these lives, we talk about arsenicum a lot now. Remember, with these remedies they've got these keynotes and the keynote for arsenicum is burning. Okay, so they have mouth ulcers with dryness of the mouth and burning, burning heat. They can feel like the mouth's on fire sometimes or the ulcer can feel like it's on fire. They have a bitter taste in the mouth after eating and drinking. There's this. They can't get rid of this taste. They're trying to get rid of this taste mouth. Well, like a bitter taste. And they can also with the mouth ulcer and I've seen this a few times, people get a burning tongue. If tongue feels like it's on fire, okay, it feels like it's on fire. And they can have swollen bleeding gums as well alongside it. But the ulcer pain is better with hot drinks. This is like a strange, rare, peculiar thing. With arsenicum they're better for heat, so they have this burning pain which is better for hot drinks. It gets relieved by it. Now you think that would be the opposite, it would be cold. No, it's hot drinks. Then you know you've got an arsenicum. So they can be worse for cold drinks, worse for cold food, worse for cold ices like ice cream or an ice lolly or anything ice. This is worse by and as we know with arsenicum can be worse around midnight and that can be between 11pm to 2am okay, so just don't think it's going to be on the 12 o'. Clock. The clock strikes 12 and all the symptoms appear. It can be leading up to midnight and a couple of hours after midnight as well. And with arsenicum there's an affinity to the right side so they can have a right sided ulcer. So sometimes you're asking right, left can be both sides. They all point to different remedies. Often with arsenicum it can be on the right side, but if it's on the left and it says how all these modalities and sensations and burning, it still could be arsenicum. Okay, just don't do it on that one characteristic alone. So they can be often with arsenicum, as you know, they can be anxious, full of worries and that can be everything from fear of getting ill, that this could be something more. My goodness, what it is. And they're on Google trying to find out what they it could be. Oh my God, I've got this disease I got this is arsenicum. They just go into this whole spin of what it can be. Despair of recovery. They've actually got something worse. It's incurable. It means it's a whole disease. It could be just they brushing the teeth and they did it too vigorously and they damaged the cheek on the gum and it turned into an ulcer. But while Seneca. It's very difficult to reassure arsenicums when they're anxious. But also it can be deal with financial problems or issues or like a lot of people in the face facing of the world at the moment, there is financial worry. The big thing with arsenicum it has fear of poverty. So the financial stress. When they're worrying about that they're anxious and they're worried that they can have that alongside these mouth ulcers. And with arsenicum there's exhaustion from this. Okay. They feel exhausted and they also feel restless. So like they'll be tired but they'll be walking around. They can't find any relief. And that points to the arsenicum picture. Okay? So remember you don't need all of this. You just need like three major. We call the three legged stool, as you've heard me say, or the keynotes. If you played a song, you play three keynotes, you'd recognize that song. Next remedy mercsol. So this is a very common remedy often used for mouth ulcers. And here the ulcers are very painful but often stinging. Stinging pain with merck salt. And they can have. A characteristic symptom is that they can have a metallic taste in the mouth, profuse saliva. So the metallic taste tastes like metal in the mouth. But they have profuse saliva. It's like drooling out of the mouth or in the pillow at night. It's drooling. The mouth is full of saliva. So those two keynotes are huge. For mercury, okay. For merck salt, huge. They also have a foul smelling breath and it really feels foul as though something's like putrid and dyed. With great thirst for cold drinks. Okay? Great thirst for. They want cold drinks. Now remember with arsenicum it's more warm drinks and ulcers that are often on the gums or on the tongue, you know, that's merck salt ulcers on the gums and the tongue. But also with merk salt they can feel like their glands are up here as well. It feels a bit like the glands are raised. It can feel a bit like they've got a bit of a sore throat along with the mouse ulcer. Point towards Merck soul. And often the pain is so painful, this lady here, so painful they can't even speak because it's so painful. Okay, they can't speak because of the pain. And the worse for touch, worse for eating food. Again, worse at night. So two remedies there that are worse at night. Okay, so that's Mercsol. Again, look at the keynotes of the remedy. And the next remedy is nitric acid. Nitac as a homeopathic remedy. So you can see this face. People who are nitric acidric acid ulcers, extremely irritable, can be very sort of angry as well. So they have sharp splinter like pains from the ulcers normally on the soft palate. That's where normally a nitac ulcer will go. They can bleed as well and they can have pimples on the side of the tongue. But again, a foul putrid breath. Another keynote of nitac. Again, excessive saliva in the mouth. But with Nitak it sort of burns the corners of the mouth here. It's like the saliva is very acidic and they can describe it like that. It's like it's burning the corners of my mouth. So again we're seeing some similarities in the merk salt here. But that ascaric, that sort of acidic feeling is much more Nitac can be extremely angry, extremely irritable. Okay, Much more than those other two remedies we talked about. This can be loss of sleep, whether it be nursing the sick or the loved ones being up all night and this girl going on for days, weeks, months and then getting worn down by it, the lack of sleep. Remember, sleep is absolutely key to our health and well being. We need to be able to sleep. It's absolutely key to health and vitality. Check out my insomnia video if you want to know more about how homeopathy can help with that. But you've got to get your sleep on track. Number one thing. Anybody have ever suffered from issues with insomnia or talking about nursing the sick or you just having kids, you know what lack of sleep can do. You know what that feeling is? It is the worst feeling. It's like within three days you'll be like just on a whole nother planet with lack of sleep. You've got to get good sleep. It's important. So often they've been worn down by that. Like I said, nursing the sick or nursing the loved one. Or could be being a carer for a loved one or even your job where that's, you know, you're on night shifts all the time. Also for acrimonious situations like this could be a divorce, this could be a lawsuit, it could be a row with their neighbours. It's something that's going on and on and on and on. Now they become bitter with that. Again, it's quite acidic. As I said, this remedy become very bitter emotionally and they can be quite revengeful. But in a way, if you think about mouth ulcers, if you look at the mind body connection, it's ulcerated. It's sort of what aren't you saying or what are you dwelling on? You know, look at that connection. It's really important. What's going on emotionally for us can often the symptoms can be an external manifestation of that internal state. So we've got to be very, very aware of how we're feeling and how we seeing the world. Because it can also manifest physically as well side effects of medications that can also be. People get mouth ulcers, as I mentioned before. So again, Nitac is great for that, particularly with things like antibiotics or people with mercury fillings. If they have mercury fillings and they have mouth ulcer scents, the Nittak is a great remedy for that. But this is very similar to Merck salt. So if Mercsol doesn't work, look at Nittak as the next remedy for that. Okay, so there were the top three remedies I wanted to share. There's other remedies for it, but I just want to give you the top three I think you should know about. The other thing you can try as well is Hypercal, which is Hypericum calendula. Do it as a mouthwash. And this is made from a natural, you know, herbal preparation of calendula, which is marigold combined with hypericum, St. John's wort. And you can purchase this from health food stores or from pharmacies. And you take a few drops and just follow the directions on the bottle. But normally put a few drops of the tincture in a glass of previously boiled water and then you can use it as a mouthwash. You know, swirl it around, you know, say a minute and then get rid of it and do that twice a day. Can be so, so healing and get rid of a lot of the pain because it's got the hypericum side as well as the healing with the calendula and it promotes rapid healing. And plus it's an antiseptic as well, as we said, as well as being pain relieving. So you'll get the slides, the Slides should be up on the session. So, yeah, just download this, although those instructions. Let's look at cold sores now. Again, not everybody has cold sores, but when you do have them, I mean, I personally never had a cold sore, but my daughter's just had one the other day, so it was good. I was doing this live session, so I can go through it. But what are cold sores? So they're quite common, but they usually, again, clear up within their own within 10 days. But there's things that you can do to ease the pain. Check if it's a cold sore because it normally starts with a tingling, an itching or a burning feeling. And then over the next 40 hours, they start to heal, but are contagious and irritating as well. So you got to be careful, got to be careful with other people because they can be quite contagious and it can be quite painful when they're healing. Some people find things trigger a cold sore, such as an illness. The sunshine, the seashore. I've seen with people as well as their menstrual periods around the hormonal time. So again, we got to look at the hormone. And that can not just be around your period. It can be, I said mentioned pregnancy as well as childbirth, any random hormonal changes, even the menopause, again, they are contagious. So from the first moment you feel the tingling or other signs of a cold sore or when it's coming on or coming on, then the cold sore is completely healed. So let's look at the first remedy. Natrin Muir. So Nat Muir, Big, big remedy, okay? Big, big remedy for cold sores. I'd say it's probably the number one often you think of, and this is cold sores around the mouth, around the lips with a dryness. And there's often cracking of the lips. Okay, so the lips are very dry and cracking. That's a general feeling. With Natmuel, there's lack of water, there's a dryness, but it can ooze fluid. And often when you ooze the fluid that it oozes, it will be clear. Okay. It's a clear fluid with nature Muir. But again, the corners of the mouth can be dry and cracked as well. And tingling in the lips. Now, it hasn't got that. It's not sort of cracks which are painful from the saliva, like nitric acid we talked about before. This is just the lips are so dry. They can even have a crack in the middle here. They can have a crack on the middle of the bottom lip. But they have the tingling in the lips as well. Now with Nature Mule can often appear after some kind of emotional upset, a grief, a loss, or a disappointment. So if you've had one of those and all of a sudden the cold sore appears, this is why, okay, this is often the cause behind it. So again, this is an external manifestation of our internal state. So it can be worse. Also, this is for people that don't like to express themselves. So a Nat Muir person tends to keep everything in. It's like they don't like to express how they feel. They keep it in and they internalize their emotions and they keep it in. It will come out, as I said, it will manifest itself if we don't express it. Worse at the seashore. This is for people that get cold sores at the seashore, at the beach, they get in from sunlight or the heat of the sun. This is Nature Muir. And as I mentioned, worse for suppressing their emotions. It's got to come out. Those emotions have got to come out. We've got to express them. If we don't, then it will come out often as symptoms. Why? Because the body's telling us there's a problem here. I always use that analogy of the car dashboard oil light flashes. It means there's something wrong in the engine. We just suppress the symptoms. Just take the bulb out, the solar problem in the engine, and the car is going to break down two or three miles down the road. So what we want to do is get to the cause, and that mule will help with that if there is a grief. Again, I did a video on grief. Check out the top remedies I did for grief. Nature Mule is up there as one of the number one remedies for grief, especially when people hold on to grief and can be quite resentful. So again, you could maybe upset somebody who needs this remedy, and they won't react. They'll be very stoic. But they feel it, but they won't express it. And then they'll get a cold sore, which is an expression of it can desire salt. Big keynote for nature immure or salty food. And often thirsty for large quantities of water they need to drink. There's a whole thing around fluid and water with Nature Mule. Very, very dry, but they're thirsty for large quantities of water. Next big remedy for cold sores is cold sores, which are yellow and blistering. Okay? So they come up and they're all blistering, and they're all yellow around the mouth, around the lips, and they get Like a neuralgia like that. Shingle like pain as well. And itching, some intense itching and burning with the cold sore. Again, this is a keynote of rust tox. The worse and sensitive to cold air. They'll say that really aggravates it, the cold sore and generally, you know, the aggravated bit. They're also worse for damp weather or worse for being chilled. So they've been warm and they suddenly get chilled. It can bring it on better for warm, dry environment. It can really help the cold sore and help them generally. And they will be quite restless as well. That's the keynote for a rhus tox. They'll be quite restless. And this is more of a physical restlessness rather than arsenicum, which we mentioned before about with mouth ulcers. But this is much more physical. They need to move where arsenicum. What's driving them to move is their anxiety. It's the mental health rather than that physical. So first toxites keep moving and feels better for that and feels better for motion. Another big remedy there for cold sores. Last one, sepia. So this is. I wanted to include this because often. This is not often thought about as a remedy for coleslaws. But I've used this a lot with people. And this is for. People have cold sores around the lips, mouth and the nose, but is exhausted. They're exhausted and this is a remedy. There's affinity to the female hormonal system. And with the sepia is indicated when it comes again around the menstrual period, before during pregnancy, after childbirth or around the menopause. We talked about this earlier on. This can be a trigger. Sepia is your remedy in that situation. They have no energy, they're very irritable and want to be left alone. They're just like this, exhausted. They're exhausted. So it could be, you know, they met with the kids or exhausted ever since childbirth. They're just exhausted. They just want to be left alone. But they're better if they exercise. So they feel better for moving and exercising. Just moving around it like it gets the whole system going and it can rejuvenate them. So they'll say, I insist back going to their exercise class or going to the gym because that's when they feel the best because they're moving. Also better for hot applications, especially on the cold sores. Okay. It can feel better if there's some kind of warm application. Worse on the left side with the cold sores. Worse during pregnancy. We said this childbirth around period or around the menopause. Anything around the hormonal system. So if you yourself or somebody you know always gets cold sores around the period or after childbirth or after anything hormonal, think of sepia. Great, great remedy. And homeopathic prescribing. As I always say, use the 6C 30C of the homeopathic remedy we've talked about. You get these over the counter at health food stores or from homeopathic pharmacies and often in homeopathic remedy kits. And if you've got a cold sore, I mean, I would probably do three or four doses of that. So just do three or four and you'll see the shift. Remember, keys to a lock. You give the indicated remedy, it will start to move it. You know, just see how you feel when you take it. But just do it for three or four doses or until the symptoms improve. Again, I repeat this, it's so important. Look for the keynotes of the remedy. Now, I've given you three remedies for mouth ulcers, three remedies for cold sores. So what you need to do is just look at those three for each of those and say, does it fit? And if you just down to two, then just give one of them and then you know where to go to next. But those remedies I've talked about will cover most of those conditions. But if the symptoms persist, seek a qualified practitioner. Maybe something historic that's gone on for you may have these for many, many years. There may be something else that is triggering it. That's often where we need to go and see a qualified practitioner. Okay, but for the purpose of this video, what we're talking about today is really about things you can do in the home to go to first without necessarily having allopathic medication. So that's pretty much it. So thank you everybody for that. I hope you enjoyed it and hope you will use these again. I talk about these remedies. Please use these remedies. They can be so effective. And if you look at all the other videos that on the YouTube channel, you see all the different things that we cover and yeah, great. Just please prescribe as much as you can when the opportunity arises. And that's how you learn homeopathy. 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.