When to start taking arnica?

[Madamecastafiore]

I read in here need to take before c section which is booked for first thing Friday morning!!!

DC3 and have only given birth naturally before.

When do I start taking it and how many?

I have 30c pillules from Boots.

Do I continue afterwards too.

Sounds silly but want to do everything to make it easy and least painful or DH will probably not let me leave the house till the new year. He is being overly lovely and protective but may end up with me stabbing him!!!

Don't bother - they are homeopathic tablets, so purely sugar with no active ingredients. They have no effect whatsoever beyond the placebo effect.

This is what the NHS says about homeopathy - "homeopathic remedies perform no better than placebos, and that the principles on which homeopathy is based are 'scientifically implausible'. "

Really

Bloody waste of money then!!

Thought was going to dance out of hospital bruise less on Saturday!!!

I don't know how Boots etc can still get away with selling them, to be honest. They aren't allowed to say they actually treat anything (the Advertising Standards Authority has clamped down on that) but people still buy them on word-of-mouth recommendations from people who haven't a clue what is actually (not) in them.

But good luck with the c-section - I think how badly you bruise has more to do with the skill of the surgeon and the position of the baby than anything you can control. At least you've got a DH who will look after you however you are feeling!

Thanks expat. Bought them on the say so of section prep threads here.

Don't normally go in for that mum I jumbo but willing to try anything!!

Thanks expat nice to see someone posting some common sense. I would have posted the same thing. You probably have to take about a million tablets to get any arnica. My midwife recommended them to me but as soon as I found out they were homeopathic I just assumed she had lost the plot. Tea tree oil in the bath afterwards is good though.

Nct teacher recommended them. Cue inward eye role. She's supposed to be a health professional!

My midwife recommended them in 2001. I was Homeopathy is such a scam.

If you've bought them use them wheres the harm you already own them, you may be surprised.
I don't know anything about homeopathic stuff but one of my charges who was two used to have the little black current ones in hes nappy bag, he was an accident prone kid and never ever had a bruise on him, I thought it might of been fluke that he doesn't bruise easily. First week at playschool he was covered in them by the end of the week.

If you haven't opened the bottle yet, you could always try taking them back to Boots for a refund, complaining that they shouldn't have sold you something that was officially completely useless.

arnica capsules have the arnica montana flower stuff in it, they aren't just sugar...

I took them for my last birth - only one when I wasn't battered and bruised underneath - took them starting 24 hours before I was induced.

Herbal arnica (cream) has some effect - is that what your NCT teacher meant? Not sure if you use it on a c-section scar.

Homeopathic arnica is bollox.

I took Arnica. I started taking it when I first went into labour (every hour till things heated up and I forgot) and then for the first week or so after giving birth. I think taking it 24 hours before your section would be good and I'd continue afterwards.

Don't know if it was placebo or coincidence or good luck or there is something to it that isn't understood, but I found it helpful and my second degree tear healed v quickly.

While I know it's unproven, it certainly isn't harmful and I wasted a lot more money on a lot more useless crap for my pregnancy/pfb than £5 on Arnica! I would take it again.

Your DH sounds great.

Random - the OP says she has 30c arnica pills. That means the original arnica tincture has been diluted by putting one drop in 100 drops of water, 30 times, and the resulting solution has been dripped onto sugar & lactose pills. There might be one atom of arnica left in the whole bottle, if you are lucky.

As Ben Goldacre explains: "Many people confuse homeopathy with herbalism and do not realise just how far homeopathic remedies are diluted. The typical dilution is called "30C": this means that the original substance has been diluted by 1 drop in 100, 30 times. On the Society of Homeopaths site, in their "What is homeopathy?" section, they say that "30C contains less than 1 part per million of the original substance."

This is an understatement: a 30C homeopathic preparation is a dilution of 1 in 10030, or rather 1 in 1060, which means a 1 followed by 60 zeroes, or - let's be absolutely clear - a dilution of 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000.

To phrase that in the Society of Homeopaths' terms, we should say: "30C contains less than one part per million million million million million million million million million million of the original substance."

Yes, yes, yes.. but the water has the memory of the arnica, so it must be doing something!!