Know Your Remedies: Kreosotum (Kreos.)

Common Names: Beechwood; wood-tar creosote.

General Information

Kreosotum (Kreos.) is an important remedy for menstrual and hormonal disturbances, and excoriating, acrid, offensive discharges that cause swelling and inflammation of the affected area. Many problems occur during teething in infants or in menstrual period when there may be abnormal bleeding. The person needing Kreosotum often feels chilly.

Mental-Emotional Symptoms

  • Sensitive and restless, especially before menses (menstrual period).
  • Fear of sex.
  • Dreams of rape.
  • Dissatisfied, irritable infants and children.
  • Premenstrual syndrome – irritability, headache, nausea.

Head

  • Headache worse before or during menses.

Eye

  • Hot, salty, excoriating lachrymation.

Nose

  • Excoriating nasal discharges.

Mouth and Teeth

  • Difficult dentition (teething) – irritability and crying.
  • Dentition with acrid diarrhea.
  • Rapid or easy or rapid decay of deciduous (infant) teeth.
  • Gums spongy, inflamed and painful – bleed or ulcerate easily.
  • Offensive odour with decayed teeth or inflamed gums.
  • Black spots on teeth.

Cough

  • Cough provokes yawning.

Urogenital

  • Night-time bed-wetting, especially in the first part of the night.
  • Offensive and scalding urine.

Female

  • Vaginal, cervical and uterine excoriation, inflammation or haemorrhage.
  • Putrid, excoriating vaginal discharge with intense itching and swelling of the vulva.
  • Menses excoriating and offensive.
  • Heavy menses worsened by sexual intercourse.

Where do I find it?

Kreosotum (Kreos.) is available from our online store as a single remedy in either pills or liquid, and as part of the following Complex (combination remedy): Bed-wetting (Enuresis).

Home Treatment Guidelines

Acute, Self-Limiting Conditions

Conditions like colds or minor injuries, which are short-term and typically improve on their own, can be managed at home with homeopathy. However, in emergencies or if symptoms worsen, contact your healthcare provider.

Chronic Conditions

These home treatment instructions do not apply for ongoing issues, whether mentioned above or not, like persistent allergies or chronic pain. You should consult a qualified homeopath for a personalized treatment plan to achieve the best results with homeopathy for chronic conditions.

How to Take the Remedy for Acute Conditions

  • Take one pill or five drops of the remedy. The frequency depends on symptom severity. As examples:
    • For life-threatening symptoms, take every 1 minute and seek emergency help immediately.
    • For mild symptoms, take every 4 hours.
  • Stop taking the remedy once you feel better. Resume if symptoms return.
  • If no improvement after four doses, choose a different remedy or consult a professional homeopath.
  • For more details on dosing, refer to: How Often to Dose with a 30C Homeopathic remedy.
  • For information on the different potencies, read: Guidelines on which potency to use

Additional Notes From Past Masters

Homeopathy is a 200-year-old system of medicine.

Early homeopaths recorded detailed notes on how remedies worked, including initial tests, remedy relationships, and their experiences. These writings were shared to improve homeopathic practice and now offer fascinating insights into past uses of homeopathy.

Here’s an example, edited and modernised for clarity, from Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics (1898) by E. B. NASH M.D.:

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics by E. B. NASH M.D.

Kreosotum

Cholera infantum; profuse vomiting; cadaverous smelling stools.

Hemorrhagic diathesis; small wound bleeds profusely (Phos.).

Acrid, fetid, decomposed, mucous secretions; sometimes ulcerating, bleeding, malignant.

Gums painful, dark red or blue; teeth decay as soon as they come.

Sudden urging to urinate or during first sleep, which is very profound.

* * * * *

This curious substance seems to act chiefly upon the mucous membranes, producing profuse and offensive secretions and ulcerations, with greatly depressed vitality.

This is especially true of the genital organs of the female. Leucorrhea is putrid, acrid, corrosive, staining the linen yellow. The parts with which the discharge comes in contact itch and burn, while scratching does not relieve but inflames the parts.

This remedy has a tendency to hemorrhages, which are often very obstinate. The hemorrhages occur with leucorrheal trouble; they are intermittent, will almost stop, then freshen up again and again. This is often the case with the lochia after confinement, when the choice may lie between these three remedies, Kreosote, Rhus tox. and Sulphur. The other symptoms must decide between them.

This ulceration may be found in cancer of the uterus, and then Kreosote will often be of great value. I have no doubt that many cases which degenerate into cancer might be prevented by its timely use. In some cases there is awful burning in the pelvis, as of red-hot coals, with discharge of clots in foul smelling blood.

I see that Guernsey recommends it in cancer of the mammae, saying it is hard, bluish-red and covered with scurvy protuberances. I have never so used it, but in corrosive leucorrheas and ulcerations I have with great satisfaction. I generally used it in the 200th, with simply tepid water injections for cleanliness.

There is perhaps no remedy that has a more decided action upon the gums (not even Mercury) than this one. It is not used often enough in painful dentition. The gums are very painful, swell, look dark-red or blue, and the teeth decay almost as soon as they are born. A child that has a mouth full of decayed teeth, with spongy, painful gums, will find its best friend in Kreosote.

Cholera infantum in such children is of common occurrence, and is of a very severe type, for the vomiting is incessant and the stools cadaverous smelling. Never forget Kreosote in cholera infantum, which seems to arise from painful dentition. or in connection with it, for I have seen some of the finest effects ever witnessed from any remedy from this one. I have used it here also in the 200th.

Kreosote is also one of our best remedies in other kinds of vomiting; in the vomiting of pregnancy and in that other intractable disease of the stomach, known as gastromalacia. I do not know any characteristic indication for it here; but should I find the troubles before mentioned, in part or whole such as corrosive leucorrhea, or the hemorrhages, or a general hemorrhagic tendency, small wounds inclined to bleed profusely (like Lachesis and Phosphorus), I would feel confident of Kreosote.

Kreosote has strong characteristics in regard to urination.

First, it has copious pale urine.

Second, they can’t go quick enough, the urging is so great or sudden. (Petroselinum.)

Third, the child wets the bed during first sleep, which is very profound, can hardly wake it. (Sepia).

Can only urinate when lying. (Zinc. met., only when sitting bent back).

To recapitulate. Bad teeth and gums “from way back,” fetid corrosive discharges; great debility and hemorrhagic tendency, should always call to mind this remedy.