Finding the best homeopathic remedy involves lots of details. Coughs can be notoriously difficult to find the right remedy, there are so many remedies with similar symptoms.
However when you have a chesty cough with phlegm have you ever thought about the taste?
I was reading Boenninghausen’s Lesser Writings a while back, and he had a whole section on expectoration (the bringing up of phlegm during coughing), including taste. This was fascinating, with so many different options. Some are things that we probably wouldn’t know or recognise these days, like ink, pitch, chalk, rosin, tallow, tar and tobacco juice.
Here are a selection for you, just the unusual tastes. Some like metallic, rancid and like the last food eaten had quite a few remedies and I have not added below.
Almonds, like sweet almonds or nuts: Coffea, Digitalis.
Broth: Iodum
Burnt: Drosera, Pulsatilla
Cooked cabbage: Sulphur
Cheese: China, Lycopodium
Rotten cheese: Aurum, Kali Carbonicum, Zinc
Clay: Cannabis Sativa, China, Phosphorus, Pulsatilla
Fish: Aconite
Flour: Lachesis
Herby: Caladium, Nux Vomica, Phosphoric acid, Pulsatilla, Sarsaparilla, Stannum, Veratrum album
Herrings: Nux moschata
Mould: Lycopodium, Mercurius, Rhus Tox, Thuja
Onion: Asafoetida
Peas, raw: Pulsatilla, Zinc
Pepper/ Aconite, Mezereum
Pitch: cantharis
Sugar: Calcarea Carbonicum, Lycopodium, Sepia
Wine: Belladonna, Bryonia
This is not an exhaustive list, and more remedies will have been added in the more modern repertories. But the next time someone complains of a chesty cough, and they’re bringing up phlegm, ask them what it tastes like- it might just be the shortcut you need to find the remedy.
Another thing to remember with coughs is they often go through several stages before stopping completely. Often when working with a client with an acute cough we will use one remedy, the cough will change and so the remedy changes, then the cough changes again and a new remedy is needed. This can be frustrating, but it is all part of the healing process.
If nothing is helping or you need support for this or another complaint please make an appointment on my website, or email me for an acute consultation.