Selenium — Homeopathic Remedy Profile

Selenium is a mineral remedy with a narrow and forceful picture: debility that follows heat, sun, mental strain and seminal loss; hoarseness that ambushes the singer at the first phrase; hair falling from scalp, whiskers, brows and pubis; and a sexual weakness in which desire outlives capacity. Boericke lists all potencies, the historical range. Hering conducted the original proving. Raeside repeated it in London on sixteen provers in 1959–60, using 6C, 12C, and 30C.

At a Glance

Source and Preparation

Berzelius discovered selenium in 1818 and named it after the moon (Selene), because he found it associated with tellurium (from Tellus, the earth). Sulphur is the third member of that chemical group, and much of what Selenium teaches in the clinic is intelligible in relation to Sulphur's picture. The homeopathic preparation is a trituration of the pure element.

A note the source itself insists on: two prescribing registers coexist under the name selenium. In the crude, dosimetric register, selenium is a trace element with narrow therapeutic and toxic margins, and it is subject to interaction and cumulation. In the classical homeopathic register, at 30C and above, no molecule of the element is present. What acts is the dynamic preparation, prescribed on the totality of the case. Trace-mineral toxicology governs the crude substance; it does not describe the remedy at 30C. Colloidal selenium has been used as an injection in inoperable cancer, with reported reduction of pain, sleeplessness, ulceration and discharge; that is an observation on the crude register, and it stands beside, not within, the homeopathic picture.

The Essence of Selenium

Read Selenium's materia medica and one image forms. A man past his prime, thin about the face and hands, tired from a walk in the sun, weak at the small of the back. Hoarse when he opens his mouth to speak. Hair thinning in patches on scalp and brow. Unable to complete what he begins in bed or at his desk. The organism has lost its rebound. Heat undoes it, and only the cool of evening restores anything.

Two threads run through everything the source records. The first is weakness that heat provokes: mental labor, hot weather, sun, night watching, and above all seminal loss. The hotter his body, the weaker he is. Strength rises as the sun sinks. The second is the irritability of exhaustion. The Selenium patient is antagonized by noise, by conversation, by the company of intimate friends, and after intercourse he becomes confused, low in spirit, and driven by lascivious fancies that no longer meet an equal power to act.

The keynote by which Selenium is remembered, "increases desire, decreases ability," sits at the crossing of the two threads. Sexual thoughts remain, sometimes multiply; the penis relaxes on attempting sex; semen is watery and odorless, dribbles in sleep, during stool, at urination. The patient is lascivious but impotent, and afterwards worse.

Clinical Portrait

Mind and Temperament

Dullness of mind is the first mental symptom. Comprehension is difficult, concentration harder. Mental labor fatigues; a little of it makes the patient sleepy. There is a peculiar and diagnostic amnesia: forgetful in work, but dreams of what he has forgotten, or recalls things distinctly in half sleep that would not come to him awake. Reading and hearing pass without lodging. Lack of interest, apathy, an absence of enthusiasm settle over the day.

Sadness in the Selenium picture is extreme, worse in the evening, with reveries of a religious and melancholy character. Despair. Dread of society, aversion to the company of intimate friends. Talkative when excited, but stammers under the excitement and pronounces some words incorrectly.

Two idiosyncrasies belong here. First, dipsomania before menses: a driven craving for spirits tied to the menstrual cycle, which places the remedy briefly in a female picture usually written for men. Second, an easy drunkenness. The patient becomes drunk on very little, and headaches follow the debauch.

A note from a colleague's consulting room: a chorister in her forties, well-schooled, presented with a voice that would fail on the third bar of any piece she attempted, and with a peculiar complaint that she could no longer remember the lyrics of her own repertoire during rehearsal, though she recited them without hesitation while falling asleep. She had been sent home by two teachers with lozenges and instructions to rest. Selenium restored both threads at once — the throat and the recall — because in her case they were the same thread.

Head

The Selenium headache has a signature: pain over the left eye, worse walking in the sun, worse from strong odors, worse from tea. It is a headache of the intellectual worker, of the alcoholic, of the man who has read late by lamplight and gone into the morning sun. It is periodical, often every afternoon, and comes after debauchery of any register — drink, sex, or study. Nervous headaches with profound melancholy accompany it.

The scalp itself takes part. It feels tense; hair feels as if pulled from the root; the patient dislikes to have the hair touched. This is Selenium's second characteristic gesture, and it opens onto the whole picture of hair loss for which the remedy is best known.

Hair and Skin

Loss of hair from scalp, whiskers, eyebrows, axilla and pubic region. Selenium is one of the small handful of remedies in which alopecia appears at multiple sites at once. The scalp underneath oozes a thin fluid after scratching, an eczematous eruption of moderate character.

Beside the alopecia stand the skin's oiliness — greasy shining face, comedones on an oily surface — and its itch. Frequent tingling in circumscribed parts. Itching about the ankles and folds of skin, between fingers, at wrists and palms. Vesicular eruption between the fingers. Dry, scaly eruption on palms with itching, on what Clarke described as a syphilitic base; Clarke frequently relieved psoriasis palmaris with this remedy. Miliary eruption. Flat ulcers on the lower legs. Painful hangnails. Scabies-like pimples on the hand.

Boericke and Clarke both note the relation to itch cases whose surface has been suppressed. Itch checked by Mercurius solubilis or Sulphur will often need Selenium to complete what the suppression interrupted.

Male Organs

The male chapter is the largest section of the materia medica and the reason many practitioners reach for the remedy. Sexual weakness with lascivious fancies: desire persists, power does not. On attempting sex the penis relaxes. Erection is feeble. Semen escapes with little provocation, is thin and odorless, dribbles during sleep and while sitting or walking, escapes especially when straining at stool. A long, voluptuous thrill accompanies stool without erection. Irritability follows sex, then confusion, then an almost paralytic weakness of the spine.

Prostatitis, prostate adenoma, hydrocele, chronic gleet, chronic urethritis, papillomas on the penis. Dribbling of urine follows both urination and defecation; involuntary dribbling occurs when walking. Nocturnal frequency. Nocturnal bedwetting in the elderly patient whose bladder shares in the general atony.

Female

The female picture, though smaller, is coherent. Menses rare, early, scanty, painful; painful especially on the first day, and severe enough to awaken the patient. Menses may be delayed by about eight days, or copious and dark. Throbbing in the abdomen during pregnancy, worse eating. The dipsomania before menses noted above is a strong indication where craving for spirits coincides with the cycle.

Digestion and Liver

Chronic liver affections are prominent. Enlargement of the liver with a fine rash over the region is a small, dependable objective sign. Sensitiveness of the liver to external pressure. Sharp stitching pain, worse on any movement, extending to the kidney region and worse on inspiration. Coryza that ends in diarrhea is an odd sequential pattern worth recognizing.

Anorexia in the morning with a white-coated tongue. Hunger at night. Craving for alcoholic drinks, brandy, tea. Aversion to salted food. A sweetish or bitter taste in the mouth. Extreme dryness of the mouth. Nausea and general weakness one hour after eating, with thirst for cold water. Pressure in the stomach as if cramp were about to occur.

Constipation from rectal weakness with flatulence. Stools large, hard, requiring a great effort, sometimes mechanical aid; they threaten to tear the anus by their size. Hard stools are followed by a discharge of mucus or blood when the last portion passes. A curious note: filament-like hair in the feces. Anal itching towards evening.

Throat and Voice

Chronic laryngitis. Voice hoarse and husky as soon as the patient begins to sing, talk or read. Voice rattles. Nodes on the vocal cords. Incipient tubercular laryngitis. Throat dry and painful on waking, especially on the left, with extreme thirst. Cough in the morning with bloody mucus. Above all, and characteristic: hawking up of clear, starchy mucus every morning, with a frequent necessity to clear the throat. Clarke reported many cures in singers on this indication alone.

Chest and Cough

Weak feeling in the chest. Frequent sighing respiration. Difficulty breathing when walking in open air. Respiration obstructed at night when lying down. Dry hacking cough, worse in the morning. Hawking clear mucus and small clots of blood. Constrictive or stinging pain behind the sternum and in the upper left thoracic region.

Back, Bones and Limbs

The back becomes almost paralytic after a temporary illness. Paralytic pain in the small of the back, better lying on the abdomen. Severe pain in the coccyx, worse sitting, better walking. Cramps in the calves and soles. Sudden left sciatic pain leaves soreness behind. The knees crack when bent. Osteoporosis during menopause. Inflammation of bones and cartilages in the young adult, moving from knee to elbow to hip. Bones fragile.

Emaciation of face, hands, thighs, single parts. A signature. The Selenium patient is thin where it shows, and the thinness is often selective rather than general.

Eyes and Ears

Blepharitis with thick yellow morning discharge; heavy, burning, bloodshot eyes with red marks on the lids. Itching vesicles on eyebrows and margins of the lids. Falling off of eyebrows. Styes. Dacryocystitis. Spasmodic twitching of the left eyeball. Blurred vision with difficult accommodation; myopia; pain deep in the orbits.

Deafness from hardened wax, ear stopped up. A small chapter but characteristic; the deafness belongs to the general atony of secretion and inspissation seen throughout the picture.

Sleep

Sleep prevented by pulsation in all vessels, worse in the abdomen. Sleepless until midnight, awakens early and always at the same hour. Insomnia after alcoholism, after infectious diseases, after heart disease. Jerks in the body on going to sleep. Erotic dreams. Dreams of fire, murders, robbers, quarrels, unnatural cruelty.

Temperature

Chilliness followed by hot flushes. A constant alternation of heat and cold. Perspiration on chest, genitals and under axilla, which leaves yellow or white spots on the linen and stiffens it: one of Selenium's small, unmistakable objective signs. Perspiration from least exertion. Sweating as soon as he sleeps, day or night. Aversion to a draft of air, whether warm, cold or damp.

Modalities

Worse:

• Hot weather, sun, and with the sun's increase
• Loss of sleep, night watching
• After sleep and after rest
• Open air; draft, even if warm
• Singing, talking, reading aloud
• Mental exertion
• Touch, pressure, motion
• After seminal losses, after stools
• Wine, tea, sugar, salt, lemonade, cinchona
• Every afternoon (headaches)

Better:

• After sunset
• Inhaling cool air; cold air or cold water taken into the mouth
• Lying on the abdomen (back pain)
• Walking (coccyx pain)

Relationships

Antidoted by: Ignatia, Pulsatilla, Muriatic acid.

Compatible after: Caladium, Natrum carbonicum, Staphysagria, Phosphoric acid — the last especially in sexual weakness, where the two remedies share the terrain of exhaustion and seminal loss.

Incompatible: China, wine.

Compare:

Argentum nitricum for nervous imbalance with weakness, trembling, vertigo, ataxia. The Argentum patient is anticipatory and hurried; the Selenium patient is exhausted and slow.

Alumina for paretic weakness, especially of rectum and bladder. Selenium shares the rectal atony and the dribbling of urine, but with a stronger male sexual chapter and the characteristic hair-fall.

Stannum for nervous exhaustion with extreme weakness of the respiratory organs, hoarseness of singers, and clear starchy morning mucus. This is the nearest single remedy to Selenium in the voice picture, and the choice between them turns on the sexual chapter and the hair symptoms, which are Selenium's alone.

Caladium for the depressive state that results from tobacco and sexual over-indulgence. Often followed by Selenium when the picture deepens into full atony.

Sulphur for itching in folds of skin, and the frequent sequence where Sulphur has partially resolved an itch that then requires Selenium to complete the reaction.

Clinical Uses

Hair loss

Selenium is a leading remedy where hair loss affects scalp, whiskers, eyebrows and pubis at once, on a tense scalp that dislikes touch, with an eczematous ooze after scratching, and a constitutional debility that follows heat or sexual exhaustion. The remedy meets not a target follicle but the whole atonic state in which the loss occurs. Given at 30C or higher, repeated only when the picture recurs.

Hoarseness of singers and speakers

The single most reliable indication in the source. Hoarseness that appears as soon as the voice is used; frequent hawking of clear, starchy mucus in the morning; worse from continued use of the voice. Clarke testifies to cures in professional voice-users. Prescribe at 30C and above, on the totality of the general picture, not on the throat alone.

Sexual weakness in elderly men

The Selenium keynote (desire without ability, dribbling of semen at stool and in sleep, feeble erection, irritability and confusion afterwards, prostatorrhea) governs a large portion of the male chapter. It is often placed after Caladium or Phosphoric acid where those remedies have partially relieved the case. In classical prescribing, the higher potencies are chosen when the mental picture — apathy, forgetfulness, dread of society — is clearly present.

Chronic prostatic complaints

Prostatitis, prostate adenoma, dribbling of urine after urination and stool, involuntary dribbling on walking, nocturnal urination and bedwetting in old age. Selenium meets the whole atonic state of the pelvic organs rather than a discrete gland.

Alcoholic headache and headache of the intellectual worker

Pain over the left eye, worse walking in the sun, worse strong odors, worse tea. Periodical, often every afternoon, after debauchery of drink, sex or study. Profound melancholy attends the pain.

Chronic liver disorders

Enlarged, tender liver with a fine rash over the region; sharp pain on inspiration extending to the kidney; worse pressure and worse movement. Coryza ending in diarrhea belongs here as a sequential indication.

Psoriasis palmaris and eczematous scalp

Dry scaly eruption of the palms with itching, on what Clarke called a syphilitic base. Clarke cured many such cases in his practice, and the clinical link between psoriasis and Selenium rests almost entirely on his authority. On the scalp the eruption is moist and oozes after scratching.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Selenium homeopathic medicine used for?

Selenium is prescribed for a distinctive picture of debility following heat, sun, mental exertion or sexual exhaustion, with hair loss from scalp and body, hoarseness that ambushes singers and speakers, chronic liver disorders, prostatic weakness with dribbling of urine and semen, and alcoholic headaches over the left eye. Boericke names it especially for elderly men, but the mental and menstrual chapters extend the picture beyond that group.

What potency of Selenium is generally prescribed?

Boericke lists all potencies. Raeside's twentieth-century proving used 6C, 12C and 30C. In classical prescription the working potencies begin at 30C, and higher potencies are chosen where the mental and general picture is clearly present. The dosimetric register for selenium as a trace mineral is a separate matter and should not be conflated with the homeopathic remedy at 30C and above, where no molecule of the element remains.

How does Selenium differ from Phosphoric acid in sexual weakness?

Both remedies address weakness after sexual loss and seminal drain, but Phosphoric acid follows a specific shock or grief and shows profound apathy without lascivious thought. Selenium keeps the desire alive while the power fails, and its pattern of dribbling — after stool, during sleep, on walking — is more marked. Selenium is often given compatibly after Phosphoric acid in these cases.

Can Selenium help hoarseness in singers?

This is one of its best-known indications. Voice hoarse and husky as soon as singing or speaking begins; frequent morning expectoration of clear, starchy mucus; worse from continued use of the voice. Clarke reported many cures. The remedy is not a lozenge but a match to the general constitutional atony that lies behind the voice symptom, and the mental picture — apathy, forgetfulness, aversion to draft — should be present.

References

1. Boericke W. Pocket Manual of Homoeopathic Materia Medica and Repertory. Boericke & Runyon, 1927.
2. Clarke JH. A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica. Homoeopathic Publishing Company, London, 1900.
3. Hering C. The Guiding Symptoms of Our Materia Medica. Estate of Constantine Hering, Philadelphia, 1879–91.
4. Phatak SR. Materia Medica of Homoeopathic Medicines. Foxglove Publishing, 1977.
5. Murphy R. Nature's Materia Medica. Lotus Health Institute.
6. Raeside JR. "A Proving of Selenium." British Homoeopathic Journal, 1960.