IPECAC: Diarrhea with persistent nausea is characteristic of this remedy. Also characteristic is the child's clean tongue, despite the nausea. They have frequent salivation and painful urgings to have a stool.

Iris: These children experience a combination of headache with nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. They also have colic. Their diarrhea causes burning irritation at the anus (see Headache).

MERCURIUS: This is a common remedy for severe diarrhea or food poisoning. The children have burning watery stools and sometimes slimy blood-stained stools. Infants may have green stools. Whatever the stool looks like, it will have an offensive odor, and the children will experience pain before, during, or after a stool. They have frequent or constant urging and a never-get-done feeling. The anus is raw from burning stools. Their symptoms are worse in the evening and at night. They may feel pinching in the abdomen with chills. Their symptoms cause them to feel exhausted.

Nux vomica: Diarrhea from rich or spicy foods or from food poisoning typifies this remedy. These children feel better for a short period after a stool, but will have diarrhea again immediately after eating or immediately upon waking. They are chilly and irritable.

PODOPHYLLUM: This remedy is known to be effective for profuse, offensive, gushing, sometimes frothy diarrhea that tends to shoot out. These symptoms are worse in the morning (4 am to 10 am) and during hot summer days. The children have gurgling sounds in the abdomen and bowels. They experience diarrhea shortly after eating. They have general weakness with head sweat and coldness of the skin. They become restless at night and tend to grind their teeth. The liver area may be sore and feels better from rubbing or from lying on the abdomen. The child may have an empty, sinking feeling in the abdomen. This is a common remedy for diarrhea in teething infants.

PULSATILLA: This remedy should be considered when treating Pulsatilla children or treating children who have diarrhea after eating too much fruit, greasy or rich foods, cold or iced food or drinks, or after exposure to cold. They usually have diarrhea worse at night. In infants the diarrhea is watery and greenish. When children have diarrhea with changeable stools, consider thithithis remedy.

Silicea: When infants who fit this medicine's General Characteristics get diarrhea from mother's milk, consider this remedy.

Veratrum album: This remedy is for simple acute diarrhea as well as for severe diarrhea. These children usually experience great fatigue and have watery diarrhea with vomiting. They shiver, have cold sweats, and may collapse. Even their belly feels cold. Despite their chilliness, they actually have an unquenchable thirst for iced drinks and may want to suck on an ice cube. If they have an appetite, they will have a great hunger for cold foods and an aversion to warm foods. They will have an intolerance for fruit, due to its tendency to cause diarrhea. They may experience a profuse diarrhea that exhausts them.

Copyright 1992 by Dana Ullman, M.P.H. used by permission of the author from the book Homeopathic Medicine for Children and Infants published by Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam.

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