Spongia has traditionally been used for the relief of symptoms associated with croup and tickling in the throat where the person has a dry, barking cough like a seal. This remedy follows Aconite well for croup that is worse around midnight with marked anxiety.

Spongia may address a dry cough that is intensely hacking and dry. The cough may sound like the barking of a seal, or a saw moving through a wooden board. Exhaustion and heaviness after exertion comes on so suddenly that the person feels they may fall and must lie down. There may be a sense of raw burning, fullness and weakness in the chest. Anxiety with difficulty breathing. One of the key notes of Spongia is awakening from sleep with a feeling of suffocation, a violent cough and great alarm, with difficult or fast hard breathing and a flushed anxious face. This remedy is often recommended to follow Aconite for the management of croup.

Keywords

• Squeezing pain
• Dryness of mucous membranes
• Dry, barking, sawing cough
• Wakes feeling suffocated and panicky
• Burning, raw weakness in the chest
• Exhausted and must lay down

Modalities
Better: Warm drinks and food, bending forward, warm steamy air, resting in horizontal position
Worse: For being aroused from sleep or after sleep, midnight, dry cold wind, cold drinks, touch or pressure, from exertion, full moon.