Unravelling the confusion around arnica's herbal and homoeopathic use

A rnica is one of Europe’s best selling complementary and alternative medicines (CAM). It is a medicinal herb widely available in the UK and is used in both homoeopathy and herbal medicine to treat a variety of conditions, but most commonly for soft tissue injury, especially bruising. There have been vigorous debates over its evidence base in homoeopathy, and this has sometimes led to the incorrect assumption that clinical research into homoeopathic arnica may be used when assessing the evidence base of herbal arnica products. Despite using the same plant source, the herbal and homoeopathic streams of CAM provide medicines which have fundamentally different formulae. The evidence base supporting each of them must therefore be reviewed separately. Homoeopathic arnica is commonly available in the form of pillules or tablets to be sucked or chewed. Oral drop formulations are available from specialist pharmacies. Herbal arnica on the other hand is restricted to external use. Accordingly, herbal arnica overthe-counter medicines are most frequently presented as creams, ointments and topical gels. Homoeopathic uses include treatment of the immediate effects of shock, falls, bruising, bleeding and injuries caused by blunt objects, and herbal uses include bruising, soft tissue injury, unbroken chilblains, alopecia neurotica, insect bites and rheumatoid complaints.