Treating
asthma is a great challenge. But a homeopath never thinks that it
cannot be cured. For treating asthma with homeopathy we have to pay
attention to lots of issues. In this article it will be discussed
basically how homeopathy or homeopathic treatment is effective in
treating asthma which is now a days a very common and chronic ailment
all over the world. The orthodox medicine has already declared asthma as
incurable. But experience and research shows that there are lots of
possibilities in treating asthma with homeopathy. In all the cases we
must have to proceed with a holistic approach. We have to consider the
physical, emotional, mental and the spiritual aspect of every patient.
We must consider that we have to treat the patient as a whole; we have
to treat the whole human organism.
What is Asthma?
Asthma
is a chronic illness relating the airways in the lungs. These airways,
or bronchial tubes, allow air to come in and out of the lungs. The
airways of an asthma patient are always inflamed. They become even more
swollen and the muscles around the airways can tighten when something
triggers the patient’s symptoms. This makes it difficult for air to move
in and out of the lungs, causing symptoms such as coughing, wheezing,
shortness of breath and/or chest tightness.
Major Asthma Symptoms
According
to the leading experts in asthma, the symptoms of asthma and the best
treatment for asthma patients especially for the children may be quite
different than for someone else with asthma. The most common symptom of
asthma is wheezing. This is a scratchy or whistling sound when the
patient breathes. Major symptoms include:
• Shortness of breath
• Chest tightness or pain
• Chronic coughing
• Trouble sleeping due to coughing or wheezing
Other symptoms of asthma are the following
•
Coughing that is constant or that is made worse by viral infections,
happens while the patient especially the child is asleep, or is
triggered by exercise and cold air
• Wheezing or whistling sound when the patient exhales
• Shortness of breath or rapid breathing, which may be associated with exercise
• Chest tightness (young child may say that his chest “hurts” or “feels funny”)
• Fatigue (child may slow down or stop playing)
• Problems feeding or grunting during feeding (infants)
• Avoiding sports or social activities
• Problems sleeping due to coughing or difficulty breathing
Allopathic Treatment of Asthma
There
is no cure for asthma, but symptoms can be controlled with effective
asthma treatment and management. This involves taking medications as
directed and learning to avoid triggers that cause the patient’s asthma
symptoms. An allergist will prescribe the best medications for the
asthmatic condition and provide the patient with specific instructions
for using them.
Controller
medications are taken daily and include inhaled corticosteroids
(fluticasone (Flovent Diskus, Flovent HFA), budesonide (Pulmicort
Flexhaler), mometasone (Asmanex), ciclesonide (Alvesco), flunisolide
(Aerobid), beclomethasone (Qvar) and others).
Combination
inhalers contain an inhaled corticosteroid plus a long-acting
beta-agonist (LABA). LABAs are symptom-controllers that are helpful in
opening the airways. However, in certain people they may carry some
risks.
Homeopathic Treatment of Asthma Patient
From
the above discussion, we can conclude that asthma is not curable in
allopathic medicine. But Homeopathic medicine has so many things to do.
Homeopathy considers lots of related issues. Genetic predisposition,
family or personal history of some diseased conditions is very
important. If there is family or personal history of recurrent asthma,
bronchitis, tuberculosis then we have to pay special attention to the
patients. Further, we see lots of asthma cases where mental and
emotional conditions affect asthma patients seriously. We do not need to
analyze only the allergic triggers as an allergist does. We have seen
that emotional conditions like silent grief, disappointed love etc.
create a sort of suffocation in the emotional level which later on acts
as a trigger to asthma.
In
homeopathy, the homeopath always individualizes the patient and does
not treat only the asthma. He must have to adopt the holistic approach.
He will always consider the accompanying or the concomitant symptoms of
the patient. There are so many things in the mental and emotional
levels.
The following symptoms may play significant role in treating asthma, we should say the asthma patient.
Generally,
the asthma patients have the following symptoms which are directly
associated with asthma, cough and some general symptoms. The general
symptoms are different in every patient. Most of the patients are
affected by dust.
One
of the peculiar mental/emotional symptoms is asthmatic respiration
after anger, mortification or fright, grief, disappointed love.
There
is a tendency that if the patients’ skin eruptions are suppressed
earlier, most of the time they get asthma in the long run. These
patients have the history of suppressing the skin eruptions by
allopathic treatment. Sometime we see the asthma is associated with
eruptive diseases.
The
time modalities are a significant factor in treating asthma. Asthmatic
respiration may take place in the daytime, morning, early in the
morning, forenoon, noon, afternoon, evening, evening in bed, night,
particular hours after midnight or any particular hours of day and
night. The treatment will be different as the time modalities are
different for every patients.
The
asthma may have the weather modalities. Again, for every patient it is
different. It may be aggravated or ameliorated by cold air, open air,
change of weather, cold or hot weather, cold or hot room, damp weather,
windy weather and cold wet weather. Some patients may want to open the
windows; some must sit by the window to feel better, some cannot
tolerate open air. The patient may feel warm in a warm room and becomes
deathly pale and must remain quiet. Entering a warm room from open air
can change the condition some patients. A few patients may want to be
fanned to feel better.
Asthmatic
symptoms may develop when the patient has particular movement of the
body for example- bends his body or his arm backward/forward, but it may
also be ameliorated by the same activity. Sometimes patient has to bend
his head backward and must rise up and bend his head backwards to get a
short relief. Ascending or descending also aggravates or ameliorates
the symptoms.
Motion
especially slow or rapid motion is also a factor. Motion of arms or any
sort of physical exertion or exercise may trigger the symptoms.
In
the same way standing positions like normal standing, standing in water
may aggravate the symptoms. Walking may make the symptoms better or
worse. Sometimes walking rapidly may make the patients better or worse.
Symptoms
of asthma may arise if expectoration is checked and the patient may
feel better if there is expectoration or coryza or discharges. Coryza
should never be checked by allopathic medicine.
Positions of the
body also influence the symptoms. For example, sitting, standing, and
walking. These also make the symptoms better and worse in particular
patients. The posture include sitting, sitting bent backwards, sitting
bent forwards, half sitting, sitting upright, sitting with head bent
forward on knees etc.
Position
of lying of the patient plays an important role. The patient’s
conditions may be better or worse if he is lying on the back or abdomen,
lying on the back with arms outstretched, lying on the back with
shoulders elevated, lying on right or left side.
Symptoms
may occur before sleep, when falling asleep, after short sleep, during
and after sleep. The patient can also be awakened from sleep to avoid
suffocation. Sometimes we see that if the patient’s head touch the
pillow, difficulty in respiration starts. So he has to jump from bed.
Female
patient may get asthma during pregnancy or delivery or with every labor
pain. Some patients experience difficult respiration along with pain in
heart.
The
patient may experience panting, rattling or wheezing respiration. These
may be associated with cough which may be choking, suffocative in
nature. Patient may vomit on coughing.
Asthma
patients most of the time have a tendency to take cold from the
childhood. There is a history of tuberculosis or recurrent bronchitis in
the family and personal life of the patient. These conditions are
controlled by allopathic drugs which in the long run cause asthma.
So we can see that there are lot of issues a homeopath needs to consider in asthma patient.
Following are the most used medicine
Any
homeopathic medicine if prescribed correctly will help the patient to
cure. Depending on the previous treatment and suppressing factors,
family history some patients need long time comparing to others to reach
a final cure. Some important medicines are:
Aconite,
Apis mel, Antim tart, Arsenicum album, Bryonia alb, Carbo veg, Cuprum,
Drosera, Hydrocyanic acid, Ipecacuanha, Kali bichromicum, Kali carb,
Lachesis, Lobelia, Lycopodium, Moschus, Natrum Sulph, Nux vomica,
Sambucus, Spongia, Sulpher, Viscum Alb, Zingiber.
Dr. BM Benojir Ahmed
Consultant Homeopoath
email: drbenojir@gmail.com