Clippety Clop

“Nerves of the foot” an illustration from the encyclopedia publishers Education, St. Petersburg, Russian Empire 1896.

I used to love riding horses. Sometimes I think about maybe doing it again one day, but I haven’t done anything about that. (I think I’m OK with that. I think. We’ll see. I digress…)

Once upon a time I was out for a little horse ride on a dirt road. My husband showed up in the car with his sister and her young children. One of them loved loved loved horses and jumped out of the [stopped] car and ran up to pet the horse in her bare feet. The horse stomped on her little foot! Needless to say, the tears came and they hopped (literally) right back in the car and headed to urgent care for an X-ray.

Fast forward to this week and a homeopath friend texted… wondering if I had any remedy suggestions to add for her niece who just had her foot stepped on badly by a horse. They were already on the Arnica and Aconite and the other usual trauma remedies but she wanted to make sure she wasn’t overlooking some potentially useful remedy. (See "Remedies to consider following a major accident" for more ideas.)

I immediately thought of Hypericum perforatum.

Back in the early days of learning homeopathy, I was taught Hypericum is one of the first remedies to consider for a crushing injury and I figured a horse stomp to the foot has to qualify for that description. The average weight of an adult horse is between 900 to 2,200 pounds (Johnston 2023) and when they decide to stomp, that has to be some serious weight/pressure in a concentrated area.

In particular, Hypericum is noted (bold and underlined) for crushed nail injuries. Why? Because there are a lot of nerves in the tips of fingers and toes. You see, Hypericum is known as “the Arnica of the nerves” meaning it's the go-to remedy for any injuries of nerve-rich areas.

In addition to all those 26 bones in the foot, there are a lot of nerve endings in the feet, in general, not just in the tips of the toes. A quick look at the internet tells me there are many thousands of nerve endings in the feet. That makes sense… how many people do you know who don’t have ticklish feet? All these foot nerves play an important role in sending information to the brain about the world around us — assisting us in balance and controlling the muscles in the feet and detecting hot and cold, to name just a few.

Sore feet can radiate up your legs and into your back and up to your neck. Or, conversely, foot pain can be caused higher up and radiate down and end up in the feet. (The all too painful sciatic nerve goes all the way from your buttocks down through the back of your thigh and into your foot. Sometimes this sciatic pain can be confused with plantar fasciitis.)

Where else other than a foot stomp might Hypericum be useful?

• Any pains that are radiating or shooting.

• Following dental work (the mouth is another nerve rich area).

• Puncture wounds or wounds from injections; stab wounds; stings; animal bites or gunshot wounds or splinter wounds (those are all puncture wounds, after all).

• Head injuries.

• Back injuries and back pain. (Hypericum has been shown to lessen the need for pain medication following lumbar spine surgery (Raak et al. 2022).

• Hypericum is also known to help with phantom pains following amputation.

What is it with homeopaths and their nieces getting their feet stomped on by horses? 🧐 I’m happy to report that neither horse stomp resulted in any broken bones. I wish I had known about Hypericum for my young niece all those years ago. Alas.

Julia Coyte, CHom

Classically Practical homeopath

#wellnessawaits