Ignatia Amara - The Homeopathic Remedy

General description and domicile:
Native to South East Asia but mostly the Philippines this small tree is very attractive with long, almost vine like, smooth branches and pear shaped fruit that contain one inch long fat pebble-like seeds that are hard and odor free but very poisonous and bitter. The seed contains more strychnine than Nux Vomica. 
Symptoms of mild poisoning are drooling, nausea, vomiting, delusions, involuntary muscular spasms and twitching, vertigo. In significant doses death follows rapidly.

Warning: Extreme care must be taken when handling this plant as very small doses of the seeds can be fatal.

Part used and extraction:
Dried seeds.

Remedy preparation:
Powdered and steeped in alcohol to obtain mother tincture

History:
The seeds were named Ignatius beans after the Jesuit priest St Ignatius Loyola. The Jesuits valued the seeds as a remedy against cholera (but as the difference between a therapeutic and fatal dose is small I would imagine that they may have killed as many as were cured).

Proved by Hahnemann.

How to use these pages:
What follows below is a profile of the homeopathic remedy. This profile must be compared with the profile of the person to be treated in great detail before treatment can be commenced. See How to Use these Pages

Remedy profile:
Ignatia people are artistic and creative. They are idealistic but tend not to express their feelings. They seem controlled and reserved but can be emotionally fragile and prone to bouts of self pity. They have pronounced mood swings and can often feel elated and sad simultaneously. They are inclined to hide depression and sadness from others. They fall in love easily, love very deeply and a loss of a loved one causes prolonged grief that they may never recover from. A child may grief for a lost pet long after the adults have forgotten the pet, a teenager breaking up with a boy- or girlfriend, an adult losing a close friend or a child.

This deep grief is often cloaked from all but the closest of friends and even then it is played down. The grief is silent and internalized and eventually affects the person's health.

Physical symptoms are contradictory e.g. a sore throat that feels better when eating. Other physical signs of an inner grief are frequent sighing and a sensitivity to pain.

Key Symptoms:
Conditions caused by grief, sensitivity to pain, hidden, bottled up emotions.

Used for treatment of:

Stress:
Associated with grief and crying while simultaneously trying to laugh it off

Cough:
A lump in the throat feeling with a tickle in the back of the throat that gets worse when coughing (again that contradiction in symptoms that is so typical of Ignatia)

Headaches (associated with grief or emotional stress)

Nervous disorders (associated with grief)

Shock (caused by grief and emotional upsets)

Chorea

Fevers

Nausea (accompanied by hunger - contradictory symptoms again)

Vomiting (better after eating - that contradiction again)
 

General Symptoms Worse for: Factors/Conditions that make the symptoms worse
Coffee
Tobacco
Touch
Cold air
Emotional stress

General Symptoms Better for: Factors/Conditions that improve symptoms
Resting
Pressure on affected area
Warmth
Peace

See also our Herbal page on Ignatia Amara.