Know Your Remedies: Sulphuricum Acidum (Sul-ac.)

Common Names: Sulphuric acid; H2SO4.

General Information

Sulphuric acid is one of the constituents of combustion engine exhausts (cars, planes, diesels, etc) which may explain why so many who need it in potency are also sensitive to smoke, smog, and odours. Other common symptoms include sourness of discharges such as perspiration, eructations (burps), reflux, vomit, and breath, hot flushes during menopause, and tendency to bruises or haemorrhage. The person needing Sul-ac. may also be chilly, complain of internal trembling, and be weak with perspiration. Pains appear gradually but disappear rapidly.

Mental-Emotional

• Hurried – walk quickly and eat rapidly.
• Confusion and awkwardness from hurry.
• Nervous and anxious to get things done.
• Dissatisfied and irritable.

Skin

• Easy bruising – from the least bump.
• Useful for bruising when Arnica doesn’t relieve.

Gastrointestinal

• Painful ulcers that often appear at regular intervals.
• Heartburn and gastritis (inflammation of the stomach).
• Craving for brandy.
• Dislike of water unless alcohol (especially brandy) is added.

Where do I find it?

Sulphuricum Acidum (Sul-ac.) is available from our online store as a single remedy in either pills or liquid, and as part of the following Complexes (combination remedies): Bruises; Heartburn & Reflux; Hot Flushes (Flashes). 

Important

While above self-limiting or acute complaints are suitable for home treatment also contact your healthcare provider during emergency situations or if symptoms worsen or fail to improve. Chronic or persistent complaints, which may or may not be mentioned above, require a different treatment and dosage protocol so are best managed by a qualified homeopath for good results.

Dosage Instructions (suitable for babies to adults)

For the home treatment of acute and self-limiting complaints take one pill or five drops of the remedy every 1 minute to 4 hours (1 minute for intense or emergency symptoms (plus seek emergency help), 4 hours for milder ones). Once an improvement is noticed, stop dosing and repeat the remedy only if symptoms return. If there is no improvement at all by three doses, choose a different remedy or seek professional guidance.

Note: Chronic symptoms or complaints require a course of professional treatment by a qualified homeopath to manage the changes in potencies and remedies may be required.

More Information

Guidelines on which potency to use

From Past Masters

Homeopathy is a 200-year system of medicine. Early medical homeopaths recorded initial provings, remedy relationships, and their early experiences with each remedy in great detail.

These writings were then shared with others to advance homeopathic knowledge and practice.

Today, these same writings give a fascinating insight into the symptoms and clinical conditions for which each remedy was used.

The following extract, with minor editing, is one example.

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

SULPHURIC ACID.

Extreme weakness, with sense of internal trembling, which is not observable to others.

Hæmorrhages from every outlet of the body, with ecchymosed spots under the skin.

Child smells sour all over despite the actual cleanliness. Sour, acid vomiting.

Adapted to the light-haired old people, especially women; flushes of heat in climacteric years.

Aphthæ, of mouth, gums, or entire buccal cavity, gums bleed readily; ulcers painful; offensive breath. Bad effects from mechanical injuries, with bruises, chafing and livid skin; prostration.

Sensation as if the brain was loose in forehead and falling from side to side (Bell., Bry., Rhus, Spig.). Often very useful in the stomach troubles of old whiskey topers.

* * * * *

Sulphuric acid is another remedy of value in aphthous affections of the mouth. It is particularly efficacious in greatly debilitated subjects, and in children with marasmus with this kind of mouth. There is often present sour stomach (Iris versicol. and Robinia, sour eructations and vomiting) with sour, vomiting, and the child smells sour all over despite the greatest care in regard to cleanliness (Rheum, Hepar and Magnesia).

One of the strongest characteristics, perhaps the strongest, in weakened subjects in which this is the appropriate remedy, is a sense of internal trembling. This is a subjective symptom, for, notwithstanding this positive sensation, to a degree that is very distressing, there is no visible trembling.

This symptom is frequently found in old topers (see Ranunculus bulb.), who are broken down or almost wrecked in health by strong drink. The symptom, however, is not confined to such subjects, but is often found in other cases when the debility is traceable to other causes; when markedly present from whatever cause Sulphuric acid should never be forgotten.

We have already spoken of the value of this remedy in purpura hæmorrhagica. Like Crotalus, it has hæmorrhages from every outlet of the body (Acetic acid, Thlaspi), and the blood also settles in ecchymosed spots under the skin. This last symptom would indicate that Sulphuric acid might be useful in black and blue spots in the skin, as the result of bruising, and practice corroborates it, and it follows well after Arnica.

Ledum palustre is also one of our best remedies for ecchymosis from bruises, “black eye,” for instance; this is, of course, for bruises under the skin; While Ruta is just as efficacious for bruises of the periosteum.

There is enough of the Sulphur element so that it may succeed in “flushes” of heat, after Sulphur has failed at the climacteric.