INFLUENZA PANDEMICS

Influenza pandemics have for centuries posed the greatest threat of a worldwide calamity caused by infectious disease. Over the past 300 years, ten influenza pandemics have occurred among humans. According to recent analysis, the 1918-19 pandemic killed 50 to 100 million people globally. Today, even a "mild" pandemic could kill many millions of people.

Influenza manifests in the respiratory system and produces generalized aches and pain, especially in the limbs and back. It produces malaise; prostration; fever; coryza, headache; with photophobia and retrobulbar aching; and inflamed respiratory mucous membranes. The incubation period is around 48 hours.

The symptoms begin with sore throat with substernal burning; nonproductive cough; and coryza. Cough usually becomes severe and productive and causes pain in the chest. The soft palate, posterior hard palate, tonsils and throat become reddened and painful. The eyes water easily and the conjunctiva may be mildly inflamed. Sweating and weakness may continue for weeks. Complications include bronchitis; pneumonia; breathlessness; spitting of blood; pulmonary edema; encephalitis; and death.Old people; babies; those confined to bed; or with chronic pulmonary or heart disease are the most at risk.

During the 1918 influenza pandemic it was young people, 25 -34 years of age, which were most severely affected. They appeared to have no immunity and succumbed to a pneumonia that would kill within days. It was not uncommon for someone physically strong and in good health to get up feeling well in the morning and by bedtime they would be dead. During this flu pandemic large numbers of people sought homeopathic care and were restored to good health; in numerous cases their lives were saved

An article published in the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy in May 1921 states that Dean W.A.Pearson of Philadelphia collected 26,795 cases of influenza treated by homeopathic physicians with only a mortality rate of 1.05%, while the average conventional medical approach had a mortality rate of 30%.

During this time there were many Medical Doctors practicing homeopathic medicine throughout Europe and in America, much to the chagrin of non-homeopathic doctors and pharmacists. While conventional hospitals in the US had an 80-90% loss of life during the scarlet fever, Cholera and Flu epidemics around 1919, Homeopathic Hospitals had only a 2-5% loss.

There is however a possibility that some of these high numbers of positive effects of homeopathic treatment can be subscribed to the ill effects of the conventional treatment. Many homeopaths reported a decrease in chance of survival in those that had, previously to homeopathic treatment, been taking Aspirin. A.F. Stevens, M.D. in St.Louis said about the patients undergoing conventional treatment: “They died like flies around a plate of poison although ‘science’ did all that could be done to ‘save’ them”.

There has been at least three large scale double-blind placebo- controlled trials to treat people with flu or influenza – like syndrome. Each of these large scale studies were conducted by independent researchers, and a treatment is considered proven when at least three independent studies verify positive results.

Several studies have suggested that the homeopathic remedy oscillococcinum, which is prepared from a duck liver, is a very effective treatment for influenza. One study found that the remedy significantly increased the rate of cure within two days of diagnosis. This was a high- quality trial, published in an important, non- homeopathic journal and involving large numbers of patients (237 treated and 241 on placebo).

It is generally impossible in homeopathy to pinpoint a few remedies that would help in general against the flu. But, what is fascinating is that during an influenza epidemic, a remedy or two will work marvellously. This remedy is sometimes referred to as genus epidemicus. The homeopathic Materia Medica has well over 3,500 remedies. There is no one remedy that is specific to the flu because individuals will manifest symptoms in different ways that are unique to them. The most important point to remember about homeopathy is that it treats the individual.

ACONITE is useful in a sudden onset of the flu with great anxiety and fear. The individual experiences high fever, dry cough, sore throat and feeling of great worry and fear, with restlessness. Typically symptoms occur after exposure to a dry, cold wind or from an emotional alarm or fright. The patient always feels better in fresh air; and feels worse in a warm room, in the evening or at night and while lying on the left side.

ARSENICUM ALBUM
Influenza in children with sudden onset and much prostration. Flus caused by gastric derangements.
The patient is extremely restless, oversensitive, anxious and weak.
The face is pale with an anxious expression.
Burning pains that are better with warm applications.
Thirsty, drinks in small sips often.
Worse between 1 and 2am.
Vomiting and diarrhea are common. The diarrhea has acrid, offensive, watery stools.

BAPTISIA
The flu comes on suddenly and is associated with high fever and a bruised feeling. The patient looks drowsy and drunk. He has profuse sweating with a high fever and an intense thirst, and the bed feels hard.
The flu is associated with a stupefying headache, with confusion.
The fever is associated with a delirium with strange sensations, as if there is somebody else in bed with him, parts of her body are separated, etc.

BRYONIA
Slow onset of the flu with a severe, throbbing headache, body pains.
There is a dryness of mucus membranes and stitching, tearing pain that worsens from motion. Fluent coryza, watery or greenish discharge. Dry, hacking cough, worse from smoking and talking.
Thirst for large amounts infrequently, preferably cold.
Pains (headache, body pains) better by pressure.
Lies on the painful part.
Sleepy, heavy, lethargic, irritable, wants to be left alone .

EUPATORIUM PERFOLIATUM
Eupatorium is said to have been a principal remedy for intermittent fever with the Indians. It is known as "Bone-set", from the prompt manner in which it relieves pain in limbs and muscles that accompanies influenza.
Sudden onset of the flu with violent aching pains in the bones, as if bones are broken. High fever preceded by chills, especially from 7 till 9 am. Cills running up and down the spine, but still thirsty for ice cold water.

GELSEMIUM tends to be the number 1 flu remedy. The flu has a slow onset and is associated with chills, tiredness and paralytic weakness. The chills begin in the hands and feet, and run up and down the spine.
These patients feel as if run over by a truck. Aching pain is felt in the muscles and they experience trembing of the limbs with lack of mucular co-ordination. Want to lie down and be left alone.
The patient is generally worse in the early morning and last thing at night. They feel better after urination and in fresh air.

PHOSPHORUS
The flu quickly affects the lungs, especially the base of the right lung. Dry, tickling cough, with tightness aross the chest, worse evening and before midnight. Bleeding. Bloody sputum, which is bright red.
The patient craves cold drinks, which may be vomited when they become warm in the stomach.
Burning, pressure and constriction in the chest; worse lying on the left side; worse lying on the painful side (patient and the cough).
This remedy is also useful in nasal bleeds, which are bright red.
Cough, worse talking and laughing.

RHUS TOXICODENDRON is useful in flu where the cause is exposure to wet, damp weather or getting wet. There is stiffness and restlessness in the joints that is wors on first movement but become better with continued movement.
Intense fever. Thirsty. Great prostration. Severe aching in the bones.
Extreme restlessness with constant changing of position, great apprehension at night, can not remain in bed.

INFLUENZINUM, a nosode made from the flu virus, can be used as a prophylactic during epidemics. Baptisia has also been used for this purpose. The "remedy epidemicus" can be found by using the totality of symptoms in several cases of the the present epidemic.

The arrival of a pandemic influenza would trigger a reaction that would change the world overnight. Many experts agrees that the widespread and indiscriminate use of antibiotics has created a time bomb and that antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, in all likelihood will bring about a reemergence of those diseases and possibly epidemics. The World Health Organization and several countries have finalized or drafted useful but overly general plans to prepare for the next pandemic.A vaccine would not be available for a number of months after the pandemic started (it could take six months to manufacture adequate vaccine stocks and current stocks may be useless because the flu virus has mutated), and there are very limited stockpiles of antiviral drugs. We should also not forget that only a few privileged areas of the world will have access to vaccine-production facilities.

The World Health Organization states that ”an influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in several, simultaneous epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness. With the increase in global transport and communications, as well as urbanization and overcrowded conditions, epidemics due the new influenza virus are likely to quickly take hold around the world.“

Homeopathy has been very effective in treating many of the epidemics during the 19th. And early 20th. Centuries. Why the successes are not better known is a subject for conjecture. It could be that most would rather not see the ineffectiveness of the conventional therapeutics nor accept the efficacy of homeopathy.

Even some of the hardest critics of homeopathy has admitted, that yes, in times of such epidemics – when conventional medicine has nothing to offer – we might have to trust homeopathy to work and heal.

References:
1. Materia Medica (Boericke)
2. World Health Organization.
3. Homeopathy in 'Influenza – a chorus of fifty in harmony' by W.A. Dewey, M.D. Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy, May 1921.
4. The Faces of Homeopathy, an illustrated history of the first 200 years. by Julian Winston. Great Auk publishing, Tawa, New Zealand.
5. Pandemic preparedness by The World Health Organization
6. Some history of the treatment of epidemics with Homeopathy by Julian Winston
7. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 1989; 27:329
8. Preparing for the Next Pandemic By Michael T. Osterholm
From Foreign Affairs , July/August 2005

WEAKNESS DUE TO LACTOSE INTOLERANCE

A 16 year old boy had in the previous one and a half week fainted two times.

The circumstances around the fainting episodes were peculiar. Both times it happened as he was standing, stretching his arms above the head – and because of the fainting, he fell backward. Luckily he was not hurt from the falls. In addition to these episodes of fainting, his face was very pale. I asked him about his relationship with milk, as people not tolerating milk are prone to be pale. He loved milk, drank a lot of it every day. This is something which we often see at the clinic, people not tolerating milk either love it, or don’t drink it at all. Other symptoms included backache, headache and weak ankles.

The remedy which fitted his symptoms was Lac Defloratum, a homeopathic remedy made of cow’s milk. This is a remedy typically indicated in people intolerant to milk, although it was the patient’s peculiar way of fainting that led me to prescribe it.

He got a single dose of the remedy. The next day he experienced a bad headache, an aggravation of his symptoms which I had already prepared him for, knowing that he was sensitive to homeopathic remedies. The next days and weeks he was fine. He did not have any more faintings and his face regained its normal color. After 3 months I saw him again and he told me that he had no more headaches, and that he otherwise felt good.

Comment: This is a case treated on symptoms of lactose intolerance only, not from a medical diagnosis. When I realized which remedy this young man needed, it was at the same time a confirmation that his gastrointestinal system didn’t digest milk sufficiently. I asked him to reduce his milk consumption one week after starting the homeopathic treatment.

Lactose intolerance is an inability to break down lactose (the sugar found in milk) due to a lack of lactase enzymes in the body. Most humans do not produce these enzymes (with an exception in some northern countries), and are by nature lactose intolerant.

ANNABEL CROFT RELIES ON HOMEOPATHIC MEDICINE

As Wimbledon fortnight begins, player-turned-TV presenter Annabel Croft describes how her life has been transformed by homeopathy. By Frances Glover

Aconite, Gelsemium, Ignatia... just a few things you might want to have handy when Andy Murray steps out at Wimbledon this week. For these homeopathic remedies can be helpful if, in respective order, you're feeling anxious and fearful, suffering pre-match nerves in the stands at Centre Court or, worse still, concerned that you might be grief-stricken when the umpire calls game, set and match.

You won't be alone in relying on homeopathic help; in the commentary box, former England women's number one Annabel Croft, now a TV presenter and mother of three, will be reaching for a cocktail of remedies to see her through the tournament. (read more..)

LYME DISEASE; EMERGING FROM A TICK BITE

At the beginning of the 70’s an unusual number of cases of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis were reported from the region around Old Lyme, Conneticticut. From this town was derived the English name of the disease. Many of those affected said that they had noticed a skin outbreak before the joint pains set in, and a portion of these recalled tick bites in the past – in the very place where the skin lesions later made their appearance..

The bacterium infesting the ticks was named Borrelia burgdorferi after Dr. Willy Burgdorfer, the researcher who isolated the spirochete in 1981. Borrelia burgdorferi, the genospecies found in the USA, is associated chiefly with the arthritic form of the disease, termed “Lyme arthritis”.

In Germany, as well as in North America, peple ordinarily speak of “tick bites.” More accurately the tick actually stings its victim. Ticks have no teeth; but rather pierce the skin like a mosquito. As with most blood-sucking parasites, ticks inject an anti-coagulant enzyme into the puncture site, allowing them to suck for an extended period (if undisturbed, the tick’s feast can last for 1-2 days.).Since mosquitos in our latitudes are also known to carry other epidemic diseases.., the suspicion arises that they also have their part to play in spreading Lyme disease.

PREVENTION USING HOMEOPATHY.

For the prevention of Lyme disease following a tick bite we recommend the following provisions:

1. The tick should be immediately removed in its entirety. As an aid to hikers and dog-lovers there are tick-pliers readily available at the drug store or at the veterinarian's. These serve the purpose better than tweezers or one's fingernails, which can tear the head off and as a consequence do nothing to prevent the infection.

2. On the day of the bite and for two subsequent days the recommendation is to take one or two doses of just one globule of Ledum palustre C30. This can be obtained in the first-aid section of any good homeopathic pharmacy.

3. Just to be sure, we give just one globule of the Aurum arsenicosum C200 on the sixth and twelfth day following the bite.

A number of colleagues have told me that in past seven years they have cared for more than a dozen tick bite victims using this or a very similar method, and that no case has proceeded to a clinical manifestation of Lyme disease. Nor did it show up when a serum test was made.

The treatment of patients with Lyme disease is generally no different from the homeopathic treatment of other chronic conditions. As always in homeopathy, the law of similars is fundamental.

Excerpted from the book: "The homeopathic treatment of Lyme disease" by Peter Alex.

Relevant Link: Facts about Lyme Disease

HOMEOPATHIC TREATMENT OF JOINT PAINS

Many of the patients coming to Homeopathic treatment have problems with their joints. These problems can vary from a simple joint sprain to severe deformity due to rheumatoid arthritis. One of the most frequent worries of patients with joint pains is that they are getting arthritis. Arthritis is an inflammation of the joint, but there are many different forms of arthritis, and each has a different clinical course and prognosis.

OSTEOARTHRITIS (OA) OA is the most common form of arthritis. It is caused by the degeneration of the cartilage that covers the ends of the bones, where they “articulate” with other bones. Most elderly people suffer from OA, particularly if they are overweight. OA in the hip also occurs in athletes, especially gymnasts and dancers, who have over-stretched the joint. OA of the shoulders is a particular problem, as it is not so amenable to surgery, it is difficult to treat. It is very painful and so can cause big problems for those who have to do a lot of heavy lifting. The joints affected by OA become stiff and painful, often creaking or grinding when being moved. There may be some swelling, but the joint is not usually hot or inflamed.

RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS (RA) RA is a condition that definitely runs in families, and does have a progressive course, sufferers sometimes ending up with crippling disease of many joints. The onset of RA is sometimes very acute, accompanied by an acute febrile illness, involving redness and swelling of one or more joints. More frequently the onset is insidious, presenting with pain in the small joints of the fingers or toes. These joints swell and become deformed. This is the form of arthritis that everyone dreads, but fortunately there are now more effective early drug interventions that can prevent the crippling deformities. They can, however, cause major side-effects. The use of homeopathy can reduce the need for such drugs, or at least reduce the dosage needed.

GOUT Gout is caused by an excess of uric acid in the blood, which deposits itself in the joints. The uric acid crystals set up inflammatory reactions in the joints, causing extreme pain, tenderness, swelling, redness and heat. It usually affects the big toe, but can affect other joints.

HOMEOPATHIC TREATMENT Although it is absolutely necessary to make an accurate diagnosis of the type of arthritis for the general management of the patient, from a homeopathic point of view it is the symptoms that are important.

So, if a patient is suffering from joint pains, worse on waking in the morning with great stiffness; better on limbering up after a while; better for a hot bath or shower, generally better in the hot dry weather, and worse in the cold and damp; worse on over-activity, but stiffens quickly on resting – that patient will require Rhus toxicodendron whatever the pathology, especially if the patient is restless, and unable to stay in bed because of the pain. Ruta graveolens has identical modalities to Rhus toxicodendron, but has more a predilection to tendons and ligaments, rather than joints. However it can be useful for arthritis, particularly of the knees, where Rhus toxocodendron has been seemingly well indicated but has failed to act.

If, however, the sufferer prefers the cold weather, and the joints are so painful that they dare not move them, even splinting them to keep them still, they will require Bryonia. The symptoms of gout are often characterised by an exquisite sensitivity to touch, such that the patient cannot bear even the bedclothes on the affected limb. The joint is red, hot, shiny and swollen, and the pain is agony stinging in nature and much worse for the heat. This fits the remedy, Apis mellifica, but the modalities were identical with the exception of being worse for cold, Colchicum would be the remedy. Belladonna is appropriate when the onset is extremely sudden, the pain is throbbing or bursting in character, and the patient cannot bear being jarred in the slightest.

Rhododendron is suitable for those people who are “human barometers”. They are very sensitive to the approach of a storm, and will be able to tell from their joints that the weather is going to change. In particular they are worse from a change to cold, damp weather. Their joint pains tend to improve immediately on moving, and are better from warmth. They tend to shift about.

Ledum is good for chilly people, but who prefer cold applications on their painful joints. Their pains often start in the small joints of the feet, and then move upwards.

With Phytolacca, the pains are described as like electric shocks, shooting along the limbs. A strange symptom is that one foot is usually colder than the other.

Dulcamara is for a person who is extremely sensitive to the damp. It is said that even watercress makes their joints ache! They are better for walking, and are restless, with shooting, tearing pains, particularly or their hips.

Kalmia latifolia is very good for shoulders, when there are shooting, tearing pains, worse for movement, and worse at night. The odd characteristic of this remedy is that the pains move from central to the periphery, and from the upper to the lower part of the body, whereas Lac caninum has pains that move from side to side, and is particularly good for hips.

Guaiacum is a lesser-known medicine, but should not be forgotten for pain in the thumb joints, improved by cold applications.

Here, we have concentrated on the joint symptoms in guiding us to the right medicine, and this is called local prescribing. However, there are other approaches which can give more deep-seated results. It is important when prescribing homeopathically for any condition to consider the aetiology. Another approach is the constitutional approach, whereby the whole of the patient’s make-up is taken into consideration.

THE FUTURE More and more powerful drugs are being developed by pharmaceutical companies to modify the progress of arthritic disease, but rheumatologists constantly have to juggle the dangers of the disease with the dangers of the drugs used to treat it. Homeopathic doctors are lucky – our medicines are gentle, have no side-effects, and treat the whole person. Our homeopathic hospitals see a high proportion of musculo-skeletal problems, and a recent audit from the Bristol Homeopathic Hospital showed a 70% rate of improvement. We have a valuable complementary form of medicine that can certainly help to arrest the disease, or at least modify it so that lower doses or less powerful drugs can be used to treat it.

 

Abstract from the Article "Joint Pains" published in "Health and Homeopathy Magazine" (internet link is no longer available)